Twelve Years a Slave - Enhanced Edition

by Solomon Northup

  Reverend William Prince Ford presided at the installation of the board of the Campbellite Church. Because of this act and the act of serving communion to a Methodist at Spring Hills Baptist Church near his home on Hurricane Creek in the pine woods, William Prince Ford was expelled as a member of Beulah Baptist and from his position as pastor of the Hurricane Creek Baptist Church. The founder of the Campbellite Movement, Alexander Campbell from Kentucky, spoke at the new Campbellite Church in Cheneyville [See Ford letter to Wright; Eakin, A Source Book: Rapides Parish History, 33].

  Charles David Bennett, brother of Ezra, in 1894 wrote from Cayuga, New York, to his niece: “From a region almost destitute of religious meetings, it has become used to many of them—the whites and the blacks. Besides preaching and social meetings in Cheneyville, meetings were commonly held in the Ford and Eldred neighborhood or in the Tanner and Roberts on the other . . .” [See Bennett to Virginia].

  103. Peter Tanner became one of the deacons at Big Cane Baptist Church in St. Landry Parish after he moved to Evergreen in Avoyelles Parish [See Fisher].

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  104. The plantation “Big Houses” were usually built several decades after the plantations were in operation. They were usually built of lumber from woodlands in the back of the plantations—ordinarily with high ceilings to offer better circulation during the hot semi-tropical summers, usually one story but sometimes more. They were often made from cypress and were mostly “dog trot” houses with a central opening, later closed in to become a hall, with rooms on either side.

  105. There was no law against slaves swimming in the waters of many bayous, creeks, lakes, and rivers, though some slave owners may have forbidden it.

  106. Cocodrie (Pacoudrie in Twelve Years a Slave) Bayou marks the boundary of the alluvial soil in the area where Solomon Northup lived as a slave in the pine woods. On Bayou Boeuf, the term “across Cocodrie” became an epithet conveying the idea of a mysterious and fearsome place. There were areas of swamp in the forests “across Cocodrie,” but there were larger stretches of pine trees growing on low hills. There were tales of how folks protected the area from outsiders and made their own rules by which they lived, no matter what the outside world with its laws tried to force upon them. In the twentieth century, Prohibition bootlegging was said to be flourishing “across Cocodrie,” and the inhabitants did not allow blacks to go there.

  107. There were bears, wildcats, and reptiles, but the presence of tigers may have been a local rumor or myth.

  108. The Ford plantation faced a ridge known as the Texas Road that wound through the pine woods from Washington, Louisiana, to the northwest. The road was called “Texas Road” because it reached the Sabine River, the boundary between Louisiana and Texas. [For more information, see endnote 73].

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  109. Oranges do not grow along the Boeuf, so it’s possible that Solomon was referring to tangerines.

  110. John David Cheney, descendent of one of the founders of Cheneyville, William Fendon Cheney, owned eighteen slaves in 1855 [See Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Northwest Louisiana, 607; see endnote 96].

  111. John Dunwoody (“Dunwoodie” in Twelve Years a Slave) (1782-1862) owned a plantation in the pine woods southwest of Lecompte. He married Delia Pearce in 1807, and they had three children, including Mary L. Dunwoody, the mother of Mary Dunwoody McCoy mentioned later in the narrative. John Dunwoody was born in Georgia. The Dunwoody cemetery, restored by the town of Lecompte, lies at the site of his plantation in the pine woods near Lecompte [See Stafford, Three Pioneer Families . . ., 403].

  112. The strategy of William Prince Ford relating to the treatment of slaves by owners was not unique to the Reverend Ford. An unwritten Plantation Survival Code included rules that planters respected even above the law. Planters were the final authority in “the small colonies,” as the first plantations laid in Virginia in the seventeenth century were called. They were macho individualists accustomed to obedience from everybody residing on the plantation, including their wives and children. As patriarchs concerned with every aspect of the lives of the people on their plantations, they simultaneously bore the responsibility for all residents—food, shelter, health and medical care, and burials.

  Planters sometimes risked action against themselves by fellow planters in cases of extraordinary violence or cruelty against a slave or slaves. The Plantation Survival Code included combined planter action against a planter whose behavior toward his slaves threatened the working relationship between planters and their slaves. The reason for the Plantation Survival Code was practical. Without slaves working under the direction of a planter, no crops could be raised, which meant no income to pay off the borrowed money the planter owed. To protect their interests, planters attempted to tightly control every aspect of plantation life possible, especially since they worked under the sure knowledge that nothing could be done to protect the crops they were cultivating against other substantial risks, such as acts of nature—too much rain in the tropical climate, too much drought, winds, early freezes that made the sugar cane worthless—or the devastation caused by pests such as caterpillars and boll weevils. Crop failures happened often. In addition to the unwritten code, a Louisiana law passed in 1830 allowed courts to take control of slaves abused by a planter, sell them, and reimburse the owner from the proceeds of the sale [See Robert to Eakin].

  113. The Big Cane Brake consisted of a thick grove of what must have been exceptionally large, tall switch canes through which ran Little Bayou Rouge. Pioneer settlers reported that thick forests of switch canes grew densely along the bayous of the area. In these lowlands with a network of rivers and bayous switch canes seemed to cover the land. Reportedly, an early settler on horseback riding through the canes found them taller than his height on horseback [See Goins and Caldwell].

  114. Randal Eldred, Jr.(“Eldret” in the narrative) was born June 1, 1780, in Beaufort District, Carolina. He married Esther Susannah Robert in February, 1801. Shortly after their marriage, they moved to Woodville, Mississippi, and a few years later moved to a bend on Bayou Boeuf about six miles south of Cheneyville. This spot at the bend of the bayou became known as Eldred’s Bend. After the first wife of Randal Eldred, Jr. died in 1847, he married her sister, Mary. He died January 10, 1850 [See Stafford, Three Pioneer Families . . ., 208].

  115. Hugh M. Keary, William V. Keary, and Patrick F. Keary (referred to as Carey in the narrative) were three brothers migrating into the Cheneyville area around 1858 from Wilkinson County, Mississippi. Because of overwhelming indebtedness, they left Mississippi to establish themselves as planters of cotton and cane in Louisiana. The Keary brothers were sued in 1865 for $14,625 plus interest and court costs by William A. Gasquet of New Orleans in relation to the purchase of a plantation south of Cheneyville in November, 1858. The property is described in the legal papers:

  A certain tract of land belonging to the said Hugh M. Keary and known by the name of the North Bend Plantation in the Parish of Rapides . . . bordered above by lands of P. Tanner and below by those of John Dunwoody and containing 1600 acres more or less together with the buildings thereon, horses, mules, cattle, and implements of husbandry belonging to the said Keary brothers and attached to said plantation. [Gasquet vs. Keary]

  Hugh Keary was forty-nine years old and William V. Keary, forty-one. Patrick F. Keary was the youngest brother. They owned 140 slaves living in thirty-five dwellings. The value of their property is listed as $450,000. One thousand acres of their land was listed as improved and 3,375 as unimproved. The cash value of the farm was listed as $180,000 in 1860 [Menn, 134-135].

  Mostly young men and few white women lived in this frontier country. Both older Keary brothers lived with black women in lifelong relationships. On file in Avoyelles Parish courthouse is a document placed there by Hugh M. Keary declaring his first four of fourteen children by Mary Thompson, a mulatto, as his legitimate children. He sent his children to Philadelphia to obtain an education. He left all o
f his property to his children [See Keary Papers; Menn, 134; Conveyance records and other documents filed at the Office of the Clerk of Court, Avoyelles Parish]. Patrick Keary, the youngest brother, married the niece of Jefferson Davis, who Davis had taken as his own when her father died.

  116. There were no tigers in the Big Cane Brake, so this could have been a local rumor or myth. There were bears and alligators, however.

  117. Jim Burns was not an example of a planter who used only women in his labor force. According to the list provided by the 1850 United States Census, James Burns owned two mulatto females, ages fifteen and forty-five; two black females, ages fifty and seventeen; three black males, ages forty-five, twenty-seven, and two years, and one mulatto male, age sixteen. The planter was an early settler with his small plantation located at Holmesville, a small port on Bayou Boeuf about twenty miles south of Cheneyville. The name Holmesville changed over the century to Eola, named for a local merchant. Burns’ plantation lay across the Boeuf from that of Edwin Epps and is still standing and occupied by a descendant [See Morgan to Eakin].

  118. John Fogleman (Fogaman in the narrative), born in 1795, was the son of George and Sarah Hoozers Fogleman. He married Polly Sandefur, daughter of another pioneer family from Holmesville, on January 1, 1819, in the Opelousas courthouse. All of the plantations around Holmesville were small plantations of 200 or 300 acres [See Morgan to Eakin].

  119. Peter Baillio Compton was the son of John Compton and Amelia Baillio. His father was a pioneer planter with a big plantation located about three miles south of Lecompte. His mother was the daughter of a large planter whose plantation was located near Alexandria [See endnote 86; Stafford, Three Pioneer Families . . ., 153].

  120. Madam Tanner was Ann Martha Tanner, widow of Lodowick Tanner. Peter Baillio Compton was her son-in-law. Ann Martha Tanner was an extraordinary woman who took over the Tiger Bend plantation that had originally been owned by her husband, Lodowick, and his two brothers. The three brothers went bankrupt and would have lost the property but for Peter Baillio Compton, who had married Esther Eliza Tanner and redeemed the property of the Tanners. Ezra Bennett, a New York migrant who married Ann Martha Eldred’s sister, kept books for Ann Martha when she first operated the plantation. Information about the Tanners can be found in the Bennett Papers and the Sue Eakin Papers, both housed at the LSU Alexandria Library Archives [See Stafford, Three Pioneer Families . . ., 153].

  121. Bayou Huffpower (“Huff Power” in the narrative) is a small bayou that flows east about nine miles south of Cheneyville. The bayou flows through the town of Bunkie today.

  122. Edwin Epps was an overseer from Oakland Plantation, patented by Archibald P. Williams and located about ten miles south of Alexandria. Epps received eight slaves (1850 census) as settlement from Williams after his default on payment of salary to his overseer. Epps moved south to Avoyelles Parish and after a few years bought 300 acres at Holmesville.

  Thus, the slaves who were fellow workers with Solomon Northup also lived on Oakland Plantation. The sale of Northup (Platt) to Epps occurred on April 9, 1843, for $1,500. Epps paid cash for the slave [“Conveyance Record Q.” Document 5754, John M. Tibaut to Edwin Epps, Avoyelles Parish Courthouse, Marksville, Louisiana, May 3, 1843, 261-262].

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  123. Joseph B. Robert was the son of Joseph Robert, one in a group of Hugenot descendants migrating to the Boeuf area around 1817. Joseph B. Robert started a small store on a bend of the Bayou Boeuf called Eldred’s Bend, which belonged to his uncle and aunt, Randal and Susannah Robert Eldred. Young Joseph B. chose a highly desirable place where keelboats and flatboats in the Bayou Boeuf commerce could anchor alongside the store. At that time a lively commerce on Bayou Boeuf was critical to the settlement of the rich land alongside the bayou. Communication with New Orleans was essential to bring necessary farm and home supplies from New Orleans and to ship crops to “the city’s” markets. Funds to produce crops had to be borrowed through financial agents called factors in New Orleans, usually representing financiers in New York and Boston [See Eakin, Centennial Album . . .,154].

  The bayou was too narrow and not consistently deep enough for even small steamboats. Each boat in the Boeuf commerce rang a bell distinctive from all others so that the crews of other boats became aware of its location [See Lyles interview; Wells interview]. So narrow and shallow was Bayou Boeuf that often derricks were built over the flatboats so that teams of heavy oxen or horses could be harnessed on both sides to pull the boat along the bayou. Olmstead noted that, instead of slaves, Irishmen navigated the bayou under an experienced captain [See Olmstead, 273]. This bayou commerce operated between the northernmost port at Cheneyville and the destination about seventy miles southeast at the small inland port of Washington on Bayou Courtableau. Small landings along the numerous plantations on both sides of the bayou were stops for the boats. Bayou Boeuf and Cocodrie Bayou, which ran roughly parallel the same distance and direction as the Boeuf, flowed together a mile and a half below Washington to form a deep enough bayou to bring steamboats through a hazardous maze of streams from New Orleans.

  Joseph B. Robert moved to the Bayou Clear/Huffpower location after selling his store to Ezra Bennett, son-in-law of the Eldreds, in 1832. Robert’s small cottage on Bayou Huffpower where he moved after leaving Eldred Bend is preserved today as a core within the handsome frame house belonging to Mrs. Catherine Luke near Bunkie [Abstract of the Luke Place courtesy of J.B. Luke, Jr. and Mrs. Catherine Luke, Bunkie, LA].

  124. Solomon Northup/Platt was an intelligent observer of farming on Bayou Boeuf, and the ghost writer may have also used other sources of information about farming.

  The journal American Agriculturist “absorbed more than thirty agricultural journals, including Genesee Farmer, Alabama Farmer, American Farmer’s Magazine, Connecticut Homestead, Farm Journal and Progressive Farmer and others” [World Cat database, August 13, 2004]. Regular contributions from R.L. Allen, of New Orleans, to American Agriculturist, shed some light on the status of agriculture and farm migrants in the newly settled country:

  No country of equal extent on the face of the globe seems to possess such a prodigal affluence, such an unstinted measure of agricultural wealth as the alluvial portions of Louisiana . . . every acre of this State seem steeming with the elements of vegetation, the foundation of future wealth, and the sustenance of future millions. And every section of it is accessible within a convenient distance, by navigable waters, or admits of the easy construction of roads. Even the waters which pervade and border the State, would furnish sufficient food for a population larger than the population than now inhabits it . . . Actual want or suffering under such circumstances cannot exist, but that absence of individual prosperity is often to be found, that creates a morbid restlessness under present exigencies, and induces efforts for its alleviation in the removal to some fancied El Dorado in the yet unexplored wilderness . . . (Editor’s comment: This statement was probably registering dismay at the record number of migrants from the eastern states who traveled through Louisiana, perhaps stayed a year or two, and moved on to Texas. “GTT” was a popular slogan of those days: GONE TO TEXAS! Land to the west was offered free of charge).

  Cotton may be ranked next [to sugar cane] in the order of the staples of this state. But a few years since this was the leading product; but while it has been reclaiming new territory and advancing in quantity, in much of the old, the profit afforded by the cane has enabled the latter to usurp many of the plantations hitherto exclusively devoted to the former. In the cultivation of this leading export of America, much improvement has been witnessed within the few past years; and although excessive rain or drought, the army worm or caterpillar, blight, mildew, or rust, occasionally disappoints the hopes of the planter, yet a closer study of the habit sand diseases of the plant, a careful selection of seed, the introduction of new and improved varieties, and a nicer and more careful cultivation, are all aiding to swell the aggregate of the cotton-fields. [See Allen, 336
-338]

  Allen’s comments at the close of the article carry additional insight into cultivation in the Bayou Boeuf region:

  The false ambition for large plantations, and operations and achievements beyond the legitimate means of the owner, has been and still continues to be, the bane of citizens of our new States. This policy may result in giving to the few, large landed estates, yet really less pecuniary income, than would result to the shrewd manager where a denser population existed, and more aggregate and active wealth circulated among the mass, the necessary result of a greater and more intense production. In looking over some of the plantations of this region, where large bodies of land are either wholly or partially unsubdued, and the remainder admits of much higher cultivation, one cannot but be forcibly impressed with the consideration, that the old maxim, divide and conquer, if applied to southern plantations generally, would have a much more pregnant and salutary bearing on the welfare of the human race, than was ever assigned to it by the ambitious Roman. A little land well tilled, while vastly more beneficial to the State and the middle property-classes, is, perhaps, of equal or even greater advantage to the opulent, than the present system of over-grown and over-cultivated estates . . . [See Allen, 338]