The Western Medical Reformer, in an article on the Cachexia Africana, by a Kentucky physician, thus speaks of the huts of the slaves: “They are crowded together in a small hut, and sometimes having an imperfect, and sometimes no floor, and seldom raised from the ground, ill-ventilated, and surrounded with filth.”
Mr. William Leftwich, a native of Virginia, but has resided most of his life in Madison County, Alabama.—”The dwellings of the slaves are log huts, from ten to twelve feet square, often without windows, doors, or floors; they have neither chairs, table, nor bedstead.”
Reuben L. Macy, of Hudson, New York, a member of the Religious Society of Friends. He lived in South Carolina in 1818-19.—”The houses for the field-slaves were about fourteen feet square, built in the coarsest manner, with one room, without any chimney or flooring, with a hole in the roof to let the smoke out.”
Mr. Lemuel Sapington, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a native of Maryland, formerly a slave-holder.—”The descriptions generally given of negro quarters are correct; the quarters are without floors, and not sufficient to keep off the inclemency of the weather; they are uncomfortable both in summer and winter.”
Rev. John Rankin, a native of Tennessee.—”When they return to their miserable huts at night, they find not there the means of comfortable rest; but on the cold ground they must lie without covering, and shiver while they slumber.”
Philemon Bliss, Esq., Elyria, Ohio, who lived in Florida in 1835.—”The dwellings of the slaves are usually small open log huts, with but one apartment, and very generally without floors.”
— Slavery as It is, .
The Rev. C. C. Jones, to whom we have already alluded, when taking a survey of the condition of the negroes considered as a field for missionary effort, takes into account all the conditions of their external life. He speaks of a part of Georgia where as much attention had been paid to the comfort of the negro as in any part of the United States. He gives the following picture: —
Their general mode of living is coarse and vulgar. Many negro-houses are small, low to the ground, blackened with smoke, often with dirt floors, and the furniture of the plainest kind. On some estates the houses are framed, weather-boarded, neatly whitewashed, and made sufficiently large and comfortable in every respect. The improvement in the size, material, and finish of negro-houses is extending. Occasionally they may be found constructed of tabby or brick.
— Religious Instruction of the Negroes, .
Now, admitting what Mr. Jones says, to wit, that improvements with regard to the accommodation of the negroes are continually making among enlightened and Christian people, still, if we take into account how many people there are who are neither enlightened nor Christian, how unproductive of any benefit to the master all these improvements are, and how entirely, therefore, they must be the result either of native generosity or of Christian sentiment, the reader may fairly conclude that such improvements are the exception, rather than the rule.
A friend of the writer, travelling in Georgia during the last month, thus writes: —
Upon the long line of rice and cotton plantations extending along the railroad from Savannah to this city, the negro quarters contain scarcely a single hut which a Northern farmer would deem fit shelter for his cattle. They are all built of poles, with the ends so slightly notched that they are almost as open as children’s cob-houses (which they very much resemble), without a single glazed window, and with only one mud chimney to each cluster of from four to eight cabins. And yet our fellow-travellers were quietly expatiating upon the negro’s strange inability to endure cold weather.
Let this modern picture be compared with the account given by the Rev. Horace Moulton, who spent five years in Georgia between 1817 and 1824, and it will be seen, in that State at least, there is some resemblance between the more remote and more recent practice: —
The huts of the slaves are mostly of the poorest kind. They are not as good as those temporary shanties which are thrown up beside railroads. They are erected with posts and crotchets, with but little or no frame-work about them. They have no stoves or chimneys; some of them have something like a fire-place at one end, and a board or two off at that side, or on the roof, to let off the smoke. Others have nothing like a fire-place in them; in these the fire is sometimes made in the middle of the hut. These buildings have but one apartment in them; the places where they pass in and out serve both for doors and windows; the sides and roofs are covered with coarse, and in many instances with refuse, boards. In warm weather, especially in the spring, the slaves keep up a smoke, or fire and smoke, all night, to drive away the gnats and mosquitoes, which are very troublesome in all the low country of the South; so much so, that the whites sleep under frames with nets over them, knit so fine that the mosquitoes cannot fly through them.
— Slavery As It Is, .
The same Mr. Moulton gives the following account of the food of the slaves, and the mode of procedure on the plantation on which he was engaged. It may be here mentioned that at the time he was at the South he was engaged in certain business relations which caused him frequently to visit different plantations, and to have under his control many of the slaves. His opportunities for observation, therefore, were quite intimate. There is a homely matter-of-fact distinctness in the style that forbids the idea of its being a fancy sketch: —
It was a general custom, wherever I have been, for the master to give each of his slaves, male and female, one peck of corn per week for their food. This, at fifty cents per bushel, which was all that it was worth when I was there, would amount to twelve and a half cents per week for board per head.
It cost me, upon an average, when at the South, one dollar per day for board — the price of fourteen bushels of corn per week. This would make my board equal in amount to the board of forty-six slaves! This is all that good or bad masters allow their slaves, round about Savannah, on the plantations. One peck of gourd-seed corn is to be measured out to each slave once every week. One man with whom I laboured, however, being desirous to get all the work out of his hands he could, before I left (about fifty in number), bought for them every week, or twice a week, a beef’s head from market. With this they made a soup in a large iron kettle, around which the hands came at meal-time, and dipping out the soup, would mix it with their hominy, and eat it as though it were a feast. This man permitted his slaves to eat twice a day while I was doing a job for him. He promised me a beaver hat, and as good a suit of clothes as could be bought in the city, if I would accomplish so much for him before I returned to the North; giving me the entire control over his slaves. Thus you may see the temptations overseers sometimes have, to get all the work they can out of the poor slaves. The above is an exception to the general rule of feeding. For, in all other places where I worked and visited, the slaves had nothing from the masters but the corn, or its equivalent in potatoes or rice; and to this they were not permitted to come but once a day. The custom was to blow the horn early in the morning, as a signal for the hands to rise and go to work. When commenced, they continue work until about eleven o’clock A.M., when, at the signal, all hands left off, and went into their huts, made their fires, made their corn-meal into hominy or cake, ate it, and went to work again at the signal of the horn, and worked until night, or until their tasks were done. Some cooked their breakfast in the field while at work. Each slave must grind his own corn in a hand-mill after he has done his work at night. There is generally one hand-mill on every plantation for the use of the slaves.
Some of the planters have no corn; others often get out. The substitute for it is the equivalent of one peck of corn, either in rice or sweet potatoes, neither of which is as good for the slaves as corn. They complain more of being faint when fed on rice or potatoes than when fed on corn. I was with one man a few weeks who gave me his hands to do a job of work, and, to save time, one cooked for all the rest. The following course was taken: — Two crotched sticks were driven down at one end of the yard, and a small pole being laid on the
crotches, they swung a large iron kettle on the middle of the pole; then made up a fire under the kettle, and boiled the hominy; when ready, the hands were called around this kettle with their wooden plates and spoons. They dipped out and ate, standing around the kettle, or sitting upon the ground, as best suited their convenience. When they had potatoes, they took them out with their hands, and ate them.
— Slavery As It Is, .
Thomas Clay, Esq., a slaveholder of Georgia, and a most benevolent man, and who interested himself very successfully in endeavouring to promote the improvement of the negroes, in his address before the Georgia Presbytery, 1833, says of their food, “The quantity allowed by custom is a peck of corn a week.”
The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser, May 30, 1788, says, “A single peck of corn, or the same measure of rice, is the ordinary provision for a hard-working slave, to which a small quantity of meat is occasionally though rarely added.”
Captain William Ladd, of Minot, Maine, formerly a slave- holder in Florida, says, “The usual allowance of food was a quart of corn a day to a full-task hand, with a modicum of salt. Kind masters allowed a peck of corn a week.”
The law of North Carolina provides that the master shall give his slave a quart of corn a day, which is less than a peck a week by one quart. — Haywood’s Manual, 525; Slavery as It is, . The master, therefore, who gave a peck a week would feel that he was going beyond the law, and giving a quart for generosity.
This condition of things will appear far more probable in the section of country where the scene of the story is laid. It is in the South-western States, where no provision is raised on the plantations, but the supply for the slaves is all purchased from the more Northern States.
Let the reader now imagine the various temptations which might occur to retrench the allowance of the slaves, under these circumstances; scarcity of money, financial embarrassment, high price of provisions, and various causes of the kind, bring a great influence upon the master or overseer.
At the time when it was discussed whether the State of Missouri should be admitted as a slave State, the measure, like all measures for the advancement of this horrible system, was advocated on the good old plea of humanity to the negroes. Thus Mr. Alexander Smyth, in his speech on the slavery question, January 21, 1820, says —
By confining the slaves to the Southern States, where crops are raised for exportation, and bread and meat are purchased, you doom them to scarcity and hunger. It is proposed to hem in the blacks where they are ILL FED.
— Slavery as It is, .
This is a simple recognition of the state of things we have adverted to. To the same purport, Mr. Asa A. Stone, a theological student, who resided near Natchez, Mississippi, in 1834-5, says —
On almost every plantation, the hands suffer more or less from hunger at some seasons of almost every year. There is always a good deal of suffering from hunger. On many plantations, and particularly in Louisiana, the slaves are in a condition of almost utter famishment during a great portion of the year.
— Ibid.
Mr. Tobias Baudinot, St. Albans, Ohio, a member of the Methodist Church, who for some years was a navigator on the Mississippi, says: —
The slaves down the Mississippi are half-starved. The boats, when they stop at night, are constantly boarded by slaves, begging for something to eat.
— Ibid.
On the whole, while it is freely and cheerfully admitted that many individuals have made most commendable advances in regard to the provision for the physical comfort of the slave, still it is to be feared that the picture of the accommodations on Legree’s plantation has yet too many counterparts. Lest, however, the author should be suspected of keeping back anything which might serve to throw light on the subject, she will insert in full the following incidents on the other side, from the pen of the accomplished Professor Ingraham. How far these may be regarded as exceptional cases, or as pictures of the general mode of providing for slaves, may safely be left to the good sense of the reader. The professor’s anecdotes are as follows: —
“What can you do with so much tobacco?” said a gentleman — who related the circumstance to me — on hearing a planter, whom he was visiting, give an order to his teamster to bring two hogsheads of tobacco out to the estate from the “Landing.”
“I purchase it for my negroes; it is a harmless indulgence, which it gives me pleasure to afford them.”
“Why are you at the trouble and expense of having high-post bedsteads for your negroes?” said a gentleman from the North, while walking through the handsome “quarters,” or village, for the slaves, then in progress on a plantation near Natchez — addressing the proprietor.
“To suspend their ‘bars’ from, that they may not be troubled with mosquitoes.”
“Master, me would like, if you please, a little bit gallery front my house.”
“For what, Peter?”
“‘Cause, master, the sun too hot (an odd reason for a negro to give) that side, and when he rain, we no able to keep de door open.”
“Well, well, when a carpenter gets a little leisure, you shall have one.”
A few weeks after, I was at the plantation, and riding past the quarters one Sabbath morning, beheld Peter, his wife and children, with his old father, all sunning themselves in the new gallery.
“Missus, you promise me a Chrismus gif’.”
“Well, Jane, there is a new calico frock for you.”
“It werry pretty, missus,” said Jane, eyeing it at a distance without touching it, “but me prefer muslin, if you please: muslin de fashion dis Chrismus.”
“Very well, Jane, call to-morrow, and you shall have a muslin.”
The writer would not think of controverting the truth of these anecdotes. Any probable amount of high-post bedsteads and mosquito “bars,” of tobacco distributed as gratuity, and verandahs constructed by leisurely carpenters for the sunning of fastidious negroes, may be conceded, and they do in no whit impair the truth of the other facts. When the reader remembers that the “gang” of some opulent owners amounts to from 500 to 700 working hands, besides children, he can judge how extensively these accommodations are likely to be provided. Let them be safely thrown into the account for what they are worth.
At all events, it is pleasing to end off so disagreeable a chapter with some more agreeable images. (See Appendix.)
CHAPTER XI.
SELECT INCIDENTS OF LAWFUL TRADE.
IN this chapter of Uncle Tom’s Cabin were recorded some of the most highly-wrought and touching incidents of the slave- trade. It will be well to authenticate a few of them.
One of the first sketches presented to view is an account of the separation of a very old decrepit negro woman from her young son, by a sheriff’s sale. The writer is sorry to say that not the slightest credit for invention is due to her in this incident. She found it, almost exactly as it stands, in the published journal of a young Southerner, related as a scene to which he was eye-witness. The only circumstance which she has omitted in the narrative was one of additional inhumanity and painfulness which he had delineated. He represents the boy as being bought by a planter, who fettered his hands, and tied a rope round his neck which he attached to the neck of his horse, thus compelling the child to trot by his side. This incident alone was suppressed by the author.
Another scene of fraud and cruelty, in the same chapter, is described as perpetrated by a Kentucky slave-master, who sells a woman to a trader, and induces her to go with him by the deceitful assertion that she is to be taken down the river a short distance, to work at the same hotel with her husband. This was an instance which occurred under the writer’s own observation, some years since, when she was going down the Ohio river. The woman was very respectable, both in appearance and dress. The writer recalls her image now with distinctness, attired with great neatness in a white wrapper, her clothing and hair all arranged with evident care, and having with her a prettily-dressed boy about seven years of age. She had als
o a hair-trunk of clothing, which showed that she had been carefully and respectably brought up. It will be seen, in perusing the account, that the incident is somewhat altered to suit the purpose of the story, the woman being there represented as carrying with her a young infant.
The custom of unceremoniously separating the infant from its mother, when the latter is about to be taken from a Northern to a Southern market, is a matter of every-day notoriety in the trade. It is not done occasionally and sometimes, but always, whenever there is occasion for it; and the mother’s agonies are no more regarded than those of a cow when her calf is separated from her.
The reason of this is, that the care and raising of children is no part of the intention or provision of a Southern plantation. They are a trouble; they detract from the value of the mother as a field-hand, and it is more expensive to raise them than to buy them ready raised; they are therefore left behind in making up of a coffle. Not longer ago than last summer, the writer was conversing with Thomas Strother, a slave minister of the gospel in St. Louis, for whose emancipation she was making some effort. He incidentally mentioned to her a scene which he had witnessed but a short time before, in which a young woman of his acquaintance came to him almost in a state of distraction, telling him that she had been sold to go South with a trader, and leave behind her a nursing infant.
In Lewis Clark’s narrative he mentions that a master in his neighbourhood sold a woman and child to a trader, with the charge that he should not sell the child from its mother. The man, however, traded off the child in the very next town, in payment of his tavern-bill.
The following testimony is from a gentleman who writes from New Orleans to the National Era.
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 669
