Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  In September, 1834, the writer of this had an interview with James G. Birney, Esq., who then resided at Kentucky, having removed with his family from Alabama the year before. A few hours before that interview, and on the morning of the same day, Mr. B. had spent a couple of hours with Hon. Henry Clay, at his residence, near Lexington. Mr. Birney remarked that Mr. Clay had just told him he had lately been led to mistrust certain estimates as to the increase of the slave population in the far South-west — estimates which he had presented, I think, in a speech before the Colonization Society. He now believed that the births among the slaves in that quarter were not equal to the deaths; and that, of course, the slave population, independent of immigration from the slave-selling States, was not sustaining itself.

  Among other facts stated by Mr. Clay was the following, which we copy verbatim from the original memorandum made at the time by Mr. Birney, with which he has kindly furnished us.

  “Sept. 16, 1834. — Hon. H. Clay, in a conversation at his own house on the subject of slavery, informed me that Hon. Outerbridge Horsey — formerly a senator in Congress from the State of Delaware, and the owner of a sugar plantation in Louisiana — declared to him that his overseer worked his hands so closely that one of the women brought forth a child whilst engaged in the labours of the field.

  “Also that, a few years since, he was at a brick-yard in the environs of New Orleans, in which a hundred hands were employed; among them were from twenty to thirty young women, in the prime of life. He was told by the proprietor that there had not been a child born among them for the last two or three years, although they all had husbands.”

  The late Mr. Samuel Blackwell, a highly respectable citizen of Jersey City, opposite the city of New York, and a member of the Presbyterian church, visited many of the sugar plantations in Louisiana a few years since; and having, for many years, been the owner of an extensive sugar refinery in England, and subsequently in this country, he had not only every facility afforded him by the planters for personal inspection of all parts of the process of sugar-making, but received from them the most unreserved communications as to their management of their slaves. Mr. B — , after his return, frequently made the following statement to gentlemen of his acquaintance:—”That the planters generally declared to him that they were obliged so to overwork their slaves, during the sugar-making season (from eight to ten weeks), as to use them up in seven or eight years. For, said they, after the process is commenced, it must be pushed, without cessation, night and day; and we cannot afford to keep a sufficient number of slaves to do the extra work at the time of sugar-making, as we could not profitably employ them the rest of the year.”

  Dr. Demming, a gentleman of high respectability, residing in Ashland, Richland County, Ohio, stated to Professor Wright, of New York city—”That, during a recent tour at the South, while ascending the Ohio river on the steam-boat `Fame,’ he had an opportunity of conversing with a Mr. Dickinson, a resident of Pittsburg, in company with a number of cotton-planters and slave-dealers from Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. Mr. Dickinson stated as a fact, that the sugar-planters upon the sugar-coast in Louisiana had ascertained that, as it was usually necessary to employ about twice the amount of labour during the boiling season that was required during the season of raising, they could, by excessive driving, day and night, during the boiling season, accomplish the whole labour with one set of hands. By pursuing this plan, they could afford to sacrifice a set of hands once in seven years! He further stated that this horrible system was now practised to a considerable extent! The correctness of this statement was substantially admitted by the slave-holders then on board.”

  The following testimony of the Rev. Dr. Channing, of Boston, who resided some time in Virginia, shows that the over-working of slaves, to such an extent as to abridge life, and cause a decrease of population, is not confined to the far South and South-west: —

  “I heard of an estate managed by an individual who was considered as singularly successful, and who was able to govern the slaves without the use of the whip. I was anxious to see him, and trusted that some discovery had been made favourable to humanity. I asked him how he was able to dispense with corporal punishment. He replied to me, with a very determined look, `The slaves know that the work must be done, and that it is better to do it without punishment than with it.’ In other words, the certainty and dread of chastisement were so impressed on them that they never incurred it.

  “I then found that the slaves on this well-managed estate decreased in number. I asked the cause. He replied, with perfect frankness and ease, `The gang is not large enough for the estate.’ In other words, they were not equal to the work of the plantation, and yet were made to do it, though with the certainty of abridging life.

  “On this plantation the huts were uncommonly convenient. There was an unusual air of neatness. A superficial observer would have called the slaves, happy. Yet they were living under a severe, subduing discipline, and were over-worked to a degree that shortened life.”

  — Channing on Slavery, , first edition.

  A friend of the writer — the Rev. Mr. Barrows, now officiating as teacher of Hebrew in Andover Theological Seminary — stated as following, in conversation with her: — That, while at New Orleans, some time since, he was invited by a planter to visit his estate, as he considered it to be a model one. He found good dwellings for the slaves, abundant provision distributed to them, all cruel punishments superseded by rational and reasonable ones, and half a day, every week, allowed to the negroes to cultivate their own grounds. Provision was also made for their moral and religious instruction. Mr. Barrows then asked the planter, “Do you consider your estate a fair specimen?” The gentleman replied, “There are two systems pursued among us. One is, to make all we can out of a negro in a few years, and then supply his place with another; and the other is, to treat him as I do. My neighbour on the next plantation pursues the opposite system. His boys are hard worked and scantily fed; and I have had them come to me, and get down on their knees to beg me to buy them.”

  Mr. Barrows says he subsequently passed by this plantation, and that the woe-struck, dejected aspect of its labourers fully confirmed the account. He also says that the gentleman who managed so benevolently told him, “I do not make much money out of my slaves.”

  It will be easy to show that such is the nature of slavery, and the temptations of masters, that such well-regulated plantations are, and must be, infinitely in the minority, and exceptional cases.

  The Rev. Charles C. Jones, a man of the finest feelings of humanity, and for many years an assiduous labourer for the benefit of the slave, himself the owner of a plantation, and qualified, therefore, to judge, both by experience and observation, says, after speaking of the great improvidence of the negroes, engendered by slavery: —

  And, indeed, once for all, I will here say that the wastes of the system are so great, as well as the fluctuation in prices of the staple articles for market, that it is difficult, nay, impossible, to indulge in large expenditures on plantations, and make them savingly profitable.

  — Religious Instruction, .

  If even the religious and benevolent master feels the difficulty of uniting any great consideration for the comfort of the slave with prudence and economy, how readily must the moral question be solved by minds of the coarse style of thought which we have supposed in Legree!

  “I used to, when I fust begun, have considerable trouble fussin’ with ‘em, and trying to make ’em hold out — doctorin’ on ’em up when they’s sick, and givin’ on ’em clothes, and blankets, and what not, trying to keep ’em all sort o’ decent and comfortable. Law, ‘t want no sort o’ use; I lost money on ‘em, and ‘t was heaps o’ trouble. Now, you see, I just put’m straight through, sick or well. When one nigger’s dead, I buy another; and I find it comes cheaper and easier every way.”

  Added to this, the peculiar mode of labour on the sugar plantation is such that the master, at a certain season of the year,
must over-work his slaves, unless he is willing to incur great pecuniary loss. In that very gracefully written apology for slavery, Professor Ingraham’s “Travels in the South-west,” the following description of sugar-making is given. We quote from him in preference to anyone else, because he speaks as an apologist, and describes the thing with the grace of a Mr. Skimpole.

  When the grinding has once commenced, there is no cessation of labour till it is completed. From beginning to end a busy and cheerful scene continues. The negroes,

  “ — Whose sore task

  Does not divide the Sunday from the week,”

  work from eighteen to twenty hours,

  “And make the night joint labourer with the day;”

  though, to lighten the burden as much as possible, the gang is divided into two watches, one taking the first and the other the last part of the night; and, notwithstanding this continued labour, the negroes improve in appearance, and appear fat and flourishing. They drink freely of cane-juice, and the sickly among them revive, and become robust and healthy.

  After the grinding is finished, the negroes have several holidays, when they are quite at liberty to dance and frolic as much as they please; and the cane-song — which is improvised by one of the gang, the rest all joining in a prolonged and unintelligible chorus — now breaks, night and day, upon the ear, in notes “most musical, most melancholy.”

  The above is inserted as a specimen of the facility with which the most horrible facts may be told in the genteelest phrase. In a work entitled “Travels in Louisiana in 1802” is the following extract (see Weld’s Slavery As It Is, ), from which it appears that this cheerful process of labouring night and day lasts three months!

  “At the rolling of sugars, an interval of from two to three months, they (the slaves in Louisiana) work both night and day. Abridged of their sleep, they scarcely retire to rest during the whole period.” — P. 81.

  Now, let any one learn the private history of seven hundred blacks — men and women — compelled to work day and night under the lash of a driver, for a period of three months!

  Possibly, if the gentleman who wrote the account were employed, with his wife and family, in this “cheerful scene” of labour — if he saw the woman that he loved, the daughter who was dear to him as his own soul, forced on in the general gang, in this toil which

  “Does not divide the Sabbath from the week,

  And makes the night joint labourer with the day,’

  — possibly, if he saw all this, he might have another opinion of its cheerfulness; and it might be an eminently salutary thing if every apologist for slavery were to enjoy some such privilege for a season, particularly as Mr. Ingraham is careful to tell us that its effect upon the general health is so excellent that the negroes improve in appearance, and appear fat and flourishing, and that the sickly among them revive, and become robust and healthy. One would think it a surprising fact, if working slaves night and day, and giving them cane-juice to drink, really produces such salutary results, that the practice should not be continued the whole year round; though, perhaps, in this case, the negroes would become so fat as to be unable to labour. Possibly, it is because this healthful process is not longer continued that the agricultural societies of Louisiana are obliged to set down an annual loss of slaves on sugar plantations to the amount of two and a half per cent. This ought to be looked into by philanthropists. Perhaps working them all night for six months, instead of three, might remedy the evil.

  But this periodical pressure is not confined to the making of sugar. There is also a press in the cotton season, as any one can observe by reading the Southern newspapers. At a certain season of the year, the whole interest of the community is engaged in gathering in the cotton crop. Concerning this Mr. Weld says (Slavery as It is, ): —

  In the cotton and sugar region there is a fearful amount of desperate gambling, in which, though money is the ostensible stake and forfeit, human life is the real one. The length to which this rivalry is carried at the South and South-west, the multitude of planters who engage in it, and the recklessness of human life exhibited in driving the murderous game to its issue, cannot well be imagined by one who has not lived in the midst of it. Desire of gain is only one of the motives that stimulates them; the éclat of having made the largest crop with a given number of hands is also a powerful stimulant; the Southern newspapers, at the crop season, chronicle carefully the “cotton brag,” and the “crack cotton- picking,” and unparalleled driving,&c. Even the editors of professedly religious papers cheer on the mélée, and sing the triumphs of the victor. Among these we recollect the celebrated Rev. J. N. Maffit, recently editor of a religious paper at Natchez, Mississippi, in which he took care to assign a prominent place and capitals to “THE COTTON BRAG.”

  As a specimen, of recent date, of this kind of affair, we subjoin the following from the Fairfield Herald, Winsboro, S. C., November 4, 1852: —

  COTTON-PICKING.

  We find in many of our southern and western exchanges notices of the amount of cotton picked by hands, and the quantity by each hand; and, as we have received a similar account, which we have not seen excelled, so far as regards the quantity picked by one hand, we with pleasure furnish the statement, with the remark that it is from a citizen of this district, overseeing for Major H. W. Parr.

  Broad River, October 12, 1852.

  “MESSRS. EDITORS, — By way of contributing something to your variety (provided it meets your approbation), I send you the return of a day’s picking of cotton, not by picked hands, but the fag-end of a set of hands on one plantation, the able-bodied hands having been drawn out for other purposes. Now for the result of a day’s picking, from sun-up until sun-down, by twenty-two hands — women, boys, and two men: — 4,880 lbs. of clean-picked cotton from the stalk.

  “The highest, 350 lbs., by several; the lowest, 115 lbs. One of the number has picked in the last seven and a-half days (Sunday excepted), eleven hours each day, 1,900 lbs. clean cotton. When any of my agricultural friends beat this, in the same time, and during sunshine, I will try again.

  “JAMES STEWARD.”

  It seems that this agriculturist professes to have accomplished all these extraordinary results with what he very elegantly terms the “fag-end” of a set of hands; and, the more to exalt his glory in the matter, he distinctly informs the public that there were no “able-bodied” hands employed; that this whole triumphant result was worked out of women and children, and two disabled men; in other words, he boasts that out of women and children, and the feeble and sickly, he has extracted 4,880 pounds of clean-picked cotton in a day; and that one of these same hands has been made to pick 1,900 pounds of clean cotton in a week! and adds, complacently, that, when any of his agricultural friends beat this, in the same time, and during sunshine, he “will try again.”

  Will any of our readers now consider the forcing up of the hands on Legree’s plantation an exaggeration? Yet see how complacently this account is quoted by the editor, as a most praiseworthy and laudable thing!

  “BEHOLD THE HIRE OF THE LABOURERS WHO HAVE REAPED YOUR FIELDS, WHICH IS OF YOU KEPT BACK BY FRAUD, CRIETH! AND THE CRIES OF THEM WHICH HAVE REAPED ARE ENTERED INTO THE EARS OF THE LORD OF SABOATH.”

  That the representations of the style of dwelling-house, modes of housekeeping, and, in short, the features of life generally, as described on Legree’s plantation, are not wild and fabulous drafts on the imagination, or exaggerated pictures of exceptional cases, there is the most abundant testimony before the world, and has been for a long number of years. Let the reader weigh the following testimony with regard to the dwellings of the negroes, which has been for some years before the world, in the work of Mr. Weld. It shows the state of things in this respect, at least up to the year 1838.

  Mr. Stephen E. Maltby, Inspector of Provisions, Skaneateles, New York, who has lived in Alabama.—”The huts where the slaves slept generally contained but one apartment, and that without floor.”

  Mr. George
A. Avery, elder of the 4th Presbyterian Church, Rochester, New York, who lived four years in Virginia.—”Amongst all the negro cabins which I saw in Virginia, I cannot call to mind one in which there was any other floor than the earth; anything that a Northern labourer, or mechanic, white or coloured, would call a bed, nor a solitary partition to separate the sexes.”

  William Ladd, Esq., Minot, Maine, President of the American Peace Society, formerly a slaveholder in Florida.—”The dwellings of the slaves were palmetto huts, built by themselves of stakes and poles, thatched with the palmetto-leaf. The door, when they had any, was generally of the same materials, sometimes boards found on the beach. They had no floors, no separate apartments; except the Guinea negroes had sometimes a small enclosure for their `god houses.’ These huts the slaves built themselves after task and on Sundays.”

  Rev. Joseph M. Sadd, Pastor of Presbyterian Church, Castile, Greene County, New York, who lived in Missouri five years previous to 1837.—”The slaves live generally in miserable huts, which are without floors; and have a single apartment only, where both sexes are herded promiscuously together.”

  Mr. George W. Westgate, member of the Congregational Church in Quincy, Illinois, who has spent a number of years in slave States.—”On old plantations the negro quarters are of frame and clapboards, seldom affording a comfortable shelter from wind or rain; their size varies from eight by ten, to ten by twelve feet, and six or eight feet high; sometimes there is a hole cut for a window, but I never saw a sash, or glass, in any. In the new country, and in the woods, the quarters are generally built of logs, of similar dimensions.”

  Mr. Cornelius Johnson, a member of a Christian Church in Farmington, Ohio. Mr. J. lived in Mississippi in 1837-38.—”Their houses were commonly built of logs; sometimes they were framed, often they had no floor; some of them have two apartments, commonly but one; each of those apartments contained a family. Sometimes these families consisted of a man and his wife and children, while in other instances persons of both sexes were thrown together, without any regard to family relationship.”