THE COTTON" KINGDOM A TRAVELLERS OBSERVATIONS ON COTTON AND SLAVERY IN THE AMERICAN SLAVE STATER BlSBt tJPO THBZB TORMTB VOLCXH O JOCBmi AHD BT THX UXX AOTHOB. BT FEEDEEICK LAW OLMSTED. nr TWO VOLUMES. VOL. n. NEW TOBK: "~ PUBLISHED BY MASON BROTHERS, C tad T 1CRBCEB STREET. LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, SON * CO., 47 LUDGATH HILL 1861. Eatend, according to the Act of Congreaft, in the year 1891, by MASON BROTHERS, In the Clerk OOce at the District Court of the United State* for the Southern Dfctriet at New York. 3 A. ALTOEB, 5 VaiMlewat*r-t. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAOffi 3ouTii-\\'E3TK:;N LOHSIAXA .VXD EASTEIIX TEXAS . . CHAPTER II. A Tiiip IXTO xor.THEr.:; MISSISSIPPI . . . . .59.' CHAPTER III. THE IJfTEIlIOU COTTON^ MSTRICTS -- CEXTEAL MISSISSIPPI, ALA BAMA, ETC. . . . . . . . .81 CHAPTER IT. THE EXCEPTIONAL LAUfiE PLASTKflS ..... 143 CHAPTER V. SLAVERY I.V ITS PROrEHTT ASPECT. -- MOKAT. AXD BELIGIOCS ixsTp>rcTiox or THE SLAVFS, ETC. .... 184. CHAPTER. TT. uY AS A rooi: LAW SYSTEM ..... 23C IT CONTEXTS. CHAPTER VII. COTTOX SUPPLY AND WHITE LABOUR IS THE COTTOX CLIMATE 252 CHAPTER VIII. THE COXDITIOX AXD CHARACTER OF T1JE PRIVILEGED CLASSES OF THE SOUTH ....... 272 CHAPTER IX. THE DAXGER OF THE SOUTH ...... 338 APPENDIX (A.) THE COXDITIOX OF VIRGINIA.---- STATISTICS .... 364 APPENDIX (B.) THE 8LAVE TRADE IX VIRCIX1A . . . . . . 372 APPENDIX (C.) COST OF LABOUR IS THE BORDER STATES .... 380 APPENDIX (D.) STATISTICS OF THE GEORGIA SEABOARD .... 385 INDEX TO THE WORK .--.... 393 COTTON AND SLAVERY. CHAPTEE I. SOUTH-WESTERN LOUISIANA AOT) EASTERN TEXAS. NacogdocJws.--In this town of 500 inhabitants, we found there was no flour. At San Augustine we had inquired in vain at all the stores for refined sugar. Not satisfied with some blankets that were shown us, we were politely recom mended by the shopkeeper to try other stores. At each of the other stores we were told they had none: the only blankets in town we should find at --------'s, naming the one we had just quitted. The same thing occurred with several other articles. Houston, County.--This day's ride and the nest were through a very poor country, clay or sand soil, bearing short oaks and black-jack. We passed one small meadow, or prairie, covered with coarse grass. Deserted plantations ap peared again in greater numbers than the occupied. One farm, near which we stopped, was worked by eight field hands. The crop had been fifty bales ; small, owing to a dry season. The corn had been exceedingly poor. The hands, we noticed, came in from the fields after eight o'clock. The deserted houses, B. said, were built before the date of Texan Independence. After Annexation the owners had TOl. II. B 2 COTTON AXI> SLAVERY. moved oil to beiter^lands in the "West. One house he pointed out as having been the residence of one of a band of pirates who occupied the country thirty or forty years ago. They had all been gradually killed. During the day we met two men on horseback, one npon wheels, and passed one emigrant family. This was all the motion npon the principal road of the district. The second day's camp was a few miles beyond the town of Crockett, the shire-town of Houston County. Not being able to find corn for our horses, we returned to the village for it. We obtained what we wanted for a day's rest, which we proposed for Sunday, the following day, and loaded it into our emptied hampers. We then looked about the town for cur rent provisions for ourselves. We were rejoiced to find a Ger man baker, but damped by finding he had only molasses-cakes and candies for sals. There was no flour in the town, except the little of which he made his cakes. He was from Ham burgh, and though he found a tolerable sale, to emigrants prin cipally, he was very tired of Crockett, and intended to move to San Antonio among his countrymen. He offered us coffee, and said he had had beer, but on Christmas-day a mass of people called on him; he had " treated" them all, and they had finished his supply. 'We inquired at seven stores, and at the two inns for butter, flour, or wheat-bread, and fresh meat. There was none in town. One innkeeper offered us salt beef, the only meat, ex cept pork, in town. At the stores we found crackers, worth in New York 6 cents $. pound, sold here at 20 cents; poor raisins, 30 cents; Manilla rope, half-inch, 30 cents a pound. When butter was to be had it came in firkins from New York, although an excellent grazing country is near the town. Trinity Bottom.--On landing on the west side of the f. ROUTE ACROSS EASTEBS TEXAS. 3 Trinity, we entered a rich bottom, even in winter, of an almost tropical aspect. The road had been cut through a cane-brake, itself a sort of Brobdignag grass. Immense trees, of a great variety of kinds, interlaced their branches and reeled with their own rank growth. Many vines, especially huge grape-vines, ran hanging from tree to tree, adding to the luxuriant confusion. Spanish moss clung thick everywhere, supplying the shadows of a winter foliage. These bottom lands bordering the Trinity are among the richest of rich Texas. They are not considered equal, in degree of fetness, to some parts of the Brazos, Colorado, and Gnadaloupe bottoms, but are thought to have compensation in reliability for steady cropping. We made onr camp on the edge of the bottom, and for safety against our dirty persecutors, the hogs, pitched our tent wiihin a large hog-yard, putting up the bars to exclude them. The trees within had been sparingly cut, and we easily found tent-poles and fuel at hand. The plantation on which we were thus intruding had just been sold, we learned, at two dollars per acre. There were seven hundred acres, and the buildings, with a new gin-house, worth nearly one thousand dollars, were included in the price. With the land were sold eight prime field-hands. A quarter of the land was probably subject to overflow, and the limits extended over some unproductive upland. When field-hands are sold in this way with the land, the family servants, who have usually been selected from the fieldhands, must be detached to follow the fortunes of the seller. When, on the other liand, the land is sold simply, the whole body of slaves move away, leaving frequently wives and chil dren on neighbouring plantations. Such a cause of separation must be exceedingly common among the restless, almost nomadic, small proprietors of the South. B2 4 COTTOS A>T> BLAVEBY. But the very word "sale," applied to a slave, implies this crnelty, leaving, of course, the creature's whole happiness to hi3 owner's discretion and humanity. As if to give the lie to our reflections, however, the rascals here appeared to be particularly jolly, perhaps adopting Mark Tapley's good principles. They were astir half the night, talking, joking, and singing load and merrily. This plantation had made this year seven bales to the hand. The water for the house, we noticed, was brought upon heads a quarter of a mile, from a rain-pool, in which an old negresa was washing. At an old Settler's.-- The room was fourteen feet square, with battens of split boards tacked on between the broader openings of the logs. Above, it was open to the rafters, and in many places the sky could be seen between the shingles of the roof. A rough board box, three feet square, with a shelf in it, contained the crockery-ware of the es tablishment; another similar box held the store of meal, coffee, sugar, and salt; a log crib at the horse-pen held the corn, from which the meal was daily ground, and a log smoke or store-house contained the store of pork. A canopybed filled one quarter of the room; a cradle, four chairs seated with untanned deer-hide, a table, a skillet or bakekettle, a coffee-kettle, a frying -pan, and a rifle laid across two wooden pegs on the chimney, with a string of patches, powder-horn, pouch, and hunting-knife, completed the furni ture of the house. We all sat with hats and overcoats on, and the woman cooked in bonnet and shawl. As I sat in the chimney-corner I could put both my hands out, one laid on the other, between the stones of the fire-place and the logs of the wall. A pallet of quilts and blankets was spread for us in the BOTJTE ACROSS EASTERN TEXAS. 5 i lean-to, just between the two doors. "We slept in all our clothes, including overcoats, hats, and boots, and covered en tirely with blankets. At seven in the morning, when we threw them off, the mercury in the thermometer in our saddle-bags, which we had used for a pillow, stood at 25 Fahrenheit. We contrived to make cloaks and hoods from our blankets, and after going through with the- fry, coffee and pone again, and paying one dollar each for the entertainment of ourselves and horses, we continued our journey. CaldweTl.--Late in the same evening we reached a hamlet, the " seat of justice " of Burleson County. We were obliged to leave our horses in a stable, made up of a roof, in which was a loft for the storage of provender, set upon posts, without side-boarding, so that the norther met with no ob struction. It was filled with horses, and ours alone were blanketed for the night. The mangers-were very shallow and narrow, and as the corn was fed on the cob, a consider able proportion of it was thrown out by the horses in their efforts to detach the edible portion. With laudable economy, our landlord had twenty-five or thirty pigs running at large in the stable, to prevent this overflow from being wasted. The " hotel" was an unusually large and fine one; the principal room had glass windows. Several panes of these were, however, broken, and the outside door could not be closed from without; and when closed, was generally pried open with a pocket-knife by those who wished to go out. A great part of the time it was left open. Supper was served in another room, in which there was no fire, and the outside door was left open for the convenience of the servants in passing to and from the kitchen, which, as usual here at large bouses, was hi a detached building. Supper was, how- 6 COTTON AND SLAVERY. ever, eaten with such rapidity that nothing had time to freeze on the table. There were six Texans, planters and herdsmen, who had made harbour at the inn for the norther, two German shop keepers and a young lawyer, who were boarders, besides OUT party of three, who had to be seated before the fire. We "kept coats and hats on, and gained as much -warmth, from the friendly manner in which we drew together, as possible. After ascertaining, by a not at all impertinent or incon siderate method of inquiry, where we were from, which way we were going1, what we thought of the country, what we thought of the weather, and what were the capacities and the cost of our fire-arms, we were considered as initiated members of the crowd, and " the conversation became general." The matter of most interest came up in this wise: " The man made a white hoy, fourteen or fifteen years old, get up and go out in the norther for wood, when there was a great, strung nigger fellow lying on the floor doing nothing. God ! I liad an appetite to give him a hundred, right there." " TVhy, you wouldn't go out into the norther yourself, would you, if you were not obliged to ?" inquired one, hvnghingly. " I wouldn't hare a nigger in my house that I was afraid to set to work, at anything I wanted him to do, at any time. They'd hired him out to go to a new place next Thursday, and they were afraid if they didn't treat him well, he'd run away. If I couldn't break a nigger of running away, I woTddn't have him any how." " I can tell you how you can break a nigger of running away, certain," said another. " There was an old fellow I ased to know in Georgia, that always cured his so. If a nigger ran away, when he caught him, he would bind his knee over a lo.g, and fasten him so he couldn't stir; then BOUTE ACBOSS EASTERN TEXAS. 7 he'd take a pair of pincers and poll one of his toe-nails out by the roots; and tell him that if he ever run away again, he would pull out two of them, and if he run away again after that, he told them he'd pull out four of them, and so o, doubling each time. He never had to do it more than twice--it always cured them." One of the company then said that he was at the present time in pursuit of a negro. He had bought him of a rela tive in Mississippi, and had been told that he was a great runaway. He had, in fact, run away from his relative three times, and always when they caught him he -was trying to ffi-f back to Illinois;* that was the reason he sold him. " He offered him to me cheap," he continued, " and I bought him because he was a first-rate nigger, and I thought per haps I could break him of running away by bringing him down to this new country. I expect he's making for Mexico now. I am a-most sure I saw his tracks on the road alout twelve miles back, where he was a-coming on this way. Night before last I engaged with a man who's got some firstrate nigger dogs to meet me here to-night; but I suppose the cold keeps him back," He then a=ked us to look out for him as we went on west, and gave us a minute description of him that we might recognize him. He was " a real black nigger," and carried off a double-barrelled gun with him. Another man, who was going on by another road westward, ofiered to look for him that way, and to advertise him. Would he be likely to defend himself with the gun if he should try to secure him ? he asked. The owner said he had no doubt he would. He was as humble a nigger when he was at work as ever he had seen; but he was a mighty resolute nigger--there was no man had more resolution. " Couldn't I induce him to let me take the gun by pretend- * Maay freemen have been kilnnpped ia Illinois anO sold into 8 COTTON AND SLAVERY. ing I wanted to look at it, or something ? I'd talk to him simple; make as if I was a stranger, and ask him about the road, and so on, and finally ask him what he had got for a gun, and to let me look at it." The owner didn't believe he'd let go of the gtm; he was a " nigger of sense--as much sense as a white man; he was not one of your Mnkey-headed niggers." The chances of catching Tifrn were discussed. Some thought they were good, and some that the owner might almost as well give it up, he'd got such a start. It was three hundred miles to the Mexican frontier, and he'd have to make fires to cook the game he would kill, and could travel only at night; but then every nigger or Mexican he could find would help him, and if he had so much sense, he'd manage to find out his way pretty straight, and yet not have white folks see him. We slept in a large upper room, in a companj of five, with a broken window at the head of our bed, and another at our side, offering a short cut to the norther across our heads. We were greatly amused to see one of our bed-room com panions gravely spit in the candle before jumping into bed, explaining to some one who made a remark, that he always, did so, it gave him time to see what he was about before it went out. ~~ The next morning the ground was covered with sleet, and the gale still continued (a pretty steady close-reefing breeze) during the day. We wished to have a horse shod. The blacksmith, who was a white man, we found in his shop, cleaning a fowling- piece. It was too d----d cold to work, he said, and he was going to shoot some geese; he, at length, at our urgent request, consented to earn a dollar; but, after getting on his apron, he found that we had lost a shoe, and took it off again, refusing to make a shoe while this d----d norther lasted, ROUTE ACROSS EASTERN TEXAS. 9 for any man. As he had no shoes ready made, he~~~absolutely turned us out of the shop, and obliged us to go seventy-five milea further, a great part of the way over a pebbly road, by which the beast lost three shoes before he could be shod. This respect for the north wind is by no means singular here. The publication of the week's newspaper in Bastrop was interrupted by the norther, the editor mentioning, as a sufficient reason for the irregularity, the feet that his print ing-office was in the north part of the house. A usfin.--Before leaving Eastern Texas behind us, I must add a random note or two, the dates of which it would have been uncivil to indicate. We stopped one night at the house of a planter, now twenty years settled in Eastern Texas. He was a man of some education and natural intelligence, and had, he told us, an income, from the labour of his slaves, of some & 4,000. His residence was one of the largest houses we had seen in Texas. It had a second story, two wings and a long gallery. Its windows had been once glazed, but now, out of eighty panes that originally filled the lower windows, thirty only remained unbroken. Not a door hi the house had teen ever refurnished with a latch or even a string; when they were closed, it was necessary to claw or to ask some one inside to push open. (Yet we happened to hear a neighbour express ing serious admiration of the way these doors fitted.) The furniture was of the rudest description. One of the family had just had a haemorrhage of the lungs; while we were at supper, this person sat between the big fire place and an open outside door, having a window, too, at his side, in which only three panes remained. A norther was blowing, and ice forming upon the gallery outside. Next day 10 COTTON A>T> SLAVERY. at breakfast, the invalid was unable to appear on account of a " bad turn." On our supper-table was nothing else than the eternal fry", pone and coffee. Butter, of dreadful odour, was here added by exception. Wheat flour they never used. It was " too much trouble." We were waited upon by two negro girls, dressed in shorfwaisted, twilled-eotton gowns, once white, now looking as if they had been worn by chimney-sweeps. The water for the family was brought in tnbe npon the heads of these two girls, from a creek, a quarter of a mile distant, this occupation filling nearly all their time. This gentleman had thirty or forty negroes, and two legiti mate sons. One was an idle young man. The other was, at eight years old, a swearing, tobacco-chewing btdly and ruffian. We heard him whipping a puppy behind the house, and swearing between the blows, his father and mother being at hand. His language and tone was an evident imitation of his father's mode of dealing with his slaves. " I've got an account to settle with you; I've let you go about long enough; 111 teach you who's your master; there, go now, God damn you, but I havn't got through with you yet." " You stop that cursing," said his father, at length, " it isn't right for little boys to curse." " What do you do when you get mad ?" replied the boy; " reckon you cuss some; so now you'd better shut up." In the whole journey through Eastern Texas, we did not see one of the inhabitants look into a newspaper or a book, although we spent days in houses where men were lounging about the fire without occupation. One evening I took up a paper which had been lying unopened upon the table of the KOUTE ACEOSS EASTEBJT TEXAS. 11 inn where we were staying, and sniffed to see how painfully news items dribbled into the Texas country papers, the loss of the tug-boat " Ajax," -which occurred before we left Xew York, being here just given as the loss of the " splendid steamer Oeax." A man who sat near said-- " Reckon you've read a good deal, hain't you ?" "Oh, yes; why?" " Keckoh'd you had." "Why?" " You look as though you liked to read. Well, it's a good thing. S'pose you take a pleasure in reading, don't you ?" " That depends, of course, on what I hare to read. I suppose everybody likes to read when they find anything interesting to them, don't they ?" " No; it's damn tiresome to some folks, I reckon, anyhow, 'le.-s you've got the habit of it. Well, it's a good thing; you am pass away your time so." The sort of interest taken in foreign affairs is well enough illustrated by the views of a gentleman of property in Eastern Tfxas, who was sitting with us one night, " spitting in the fire," and talking about cotton. Bad luck he had had--only four bales to the hand; couldn't account for it--bad luck ; and next year he didn't reckon nothing else but that there would be a general war in Europe, and then he'd be in a pretty fix, with cotton down to four cents a pound. Corse those Turks ! If he thought there would be a general war, he would take every d----d nigger he'd got, right down to New Orleans, and sell them for what they'd bring. They'd never be so high again as they were now, and if there should come a general war they wouldn't be worth half as much next ear. There always were infernal rascals somewhere in the v> rl'l trying to prevent anjionest man from getting a living. 12 OOTTOS ASD 8LAVZBT. Oh, if they got to fighting, he hoped they'd eat each other up. They just ought to be, all of them--Turks, and Rus sians, and Prussians, and Dutchmen, and Frenchmen---just be put in a bag together, and slung into hell. That's what he'd do with them. Remarking, one day, at the house of a woman who was brought up at the North, that there was much more comfort at her house than, any we had previously stopped at, she told us that the only reason the people didn't have any comfort here was, that they wouldn't take any trouble to get any thing. Anything that their negroes could make they would eat; but they would take no pains to instruct them, or to get anything that didn't grow on the plantation. A neighbour of hers owned fifty cows, she supposed, but very rarely had any milk- and scarcely ever any butter, simply because his people were too lazy to milk or chum, and he wouldn't take the trouble to make them. This woman entirely sustained the assertion that Northern people, when they come to the South, have less feeling for the negroes than Southerners themselves usually have. We asked her (she lived in a village) whether she hired or owned her servants. They owned them all, she said. "When they first came to Texas they hired servants, but it was very troublesome; they would take no interest in anything; and she couldn't get along with them. Then very often their owners, on some pretext (ill-treatment, perhaps), would take them away. Then they bought negroes. It was very ex pensive: a good negro girl cost seven or eight hundred dollars, and that, we must know, was |i great deal of money to be kid out in a thing that might lie, right down the next day and die. They were not much better either than the hired servants. EOUTE ACB03S EASTEEN TEXAS. 13 Folks up North talked about how badly the negroes were treated ; she wished they could see how much work her girls did. She had four of them, and she knew they didn't do half so much work as one gcod Dutch girl such as she used to have at the Xorth. Oh ! the negroes were the laziest things in creation; there was no knowing how much trouble they gave to look after them. Up to the North, if a girl went out into the garden for anything, when she came back she would clean her feet, but these nigger girls will stump right in and track mud all over the house. What do they care ? They'd just as lief clean the mud after themselves as anything else-- their time isn't any value to themselves. What do they care for the trouble it gives you ? Not a bit. And you may scold 'em and whip 'em--you never can break 'em into better habits. I asked what were servants' wages when they were hired out to do housework ? They were paid seven or eight dollars a month ; sometimes ten. She didn't use to pay her girl at the North but four dollars, and she knew she would do more work than any six of the niggers, and not give half so much trouble as one. But you couldn't get any other help here but niggers. Northern folks talk about abolishing slavery, but there wouldn't be any use in that; that would be ridicu lous, unless you could some way get rid of the niggers. "Why, they'd murder us all in our beds--that's what they'd do. Why, over to Fannin, there was a negro woman that killed her mistress with an axe, and her two little ones. The people just flooked together, and hung her right up on the spot; they ought to have piled some wood round her, and burned her to death; that would have been a good lesson to the rest. We afterwards heard her scolding one of her girls, the girl made some exculpatory reply, and getting the best of the argument, the mistress angrily told her if she said 14 COTTOX A:ST> SLAVERY. another word she would have two hundred lashes given her. She came in and remarked that if she hadn't felt so nervous she would have given that girl a good whipping herself; these niggers are so saucy, it's very trying to one who has to take care of them. Servants are, it is true, " a trial," in all lands, ages, and nations. But note the fetal reason this woman frankly gives for the inevitable delinquencies of slave-servants, "Theii time isn't any value to themselves !" The women of Eastern Texas seemed to us, in general, far superior to their lords. They have, at least, the tender hearts and some of the gentle delicacy that your "true Texan " lacks, whether mistresses of slaves, or only of their own frying-pan. They are overworked, however, as soon as married, and care gives them thin faces, sallow complexions, and expressions either sad or sour. Another night we spent at the house of a man who came here, when a boy, from the North. His father was a mechanic, and had emigrated to Texas just hefore the war of Independence. He joined the army, and his son had been brought up--rather had grown up--Southern fashion, with no training to regular industry. He had learned no trade. What need ? His father received some thousand acres of land in payment of his services. The son earned some money by driving a team ; bought some cattle, took a wife, and a house, and now had been settled six years, with a young family. He had nothmg-fo So but look after his cattle, go to the nearest town and buy meal and coffee occasionally, and sell a few oxen when the bill was sent in. His house was more comfortless than nine-tenths of the stables of the North. There were several windows, some of which were boarded over, some had wooden shutters, and some were entirely open. There was not a pane of glass. The doors were closed with BOCTE ACKOSS EASTERN TEXAS. 15 difficulty. "We could see the stars, as -we lay in bed, through the openings of the roof; and on all sides, in the walls of the room, one's arm might be thrust out. Notwithstanding, that night the mercury fell below 25 of our Fahrenheit thermometer. There was the standard food and beverage, placed before us night and morning. We asked if there was much game near him ? There were a great many deer. He saw them every day. Did he shoot many ? He never shot any; 'twas too much trouble. When he wanted " fresh," 'twas easier to go out and stick a hog (the very words he used). He had just corn enough to give our horses one feed --there was none left for the morning. His own horses could get along through the winter on the prairie. He made pets of his children, but was cross and unjust to his wife, who might have been pretty, and was affectionate. He was with out care--thoughtless, content, with an unoccupied mind. He took no newspaper--he read nothing. There was, indeed, a pile of old books which his father had brought from the North, but they seemed to be all of the Tract Society sort, and the dust had been undisturbed upon them, it might have been, for many years. Manchac Spring.--We found a plantation that would have done no discredit to Virginia. The house was krge and well constructed, standing in a thick grove, separated from the prairie by a strong worm-fence. Adjacent, within, was the spring, which deserved its prominence of mention upon the maps. It had .been tastefully grottoed with heavy limestone rocks, now water-stained and mossy, and the pure stream came gurgling up, in impetuous gallons, to pour itself in a bright current out upon the prairie. The foun tains of Italy were what came to mind, and "Fontana de Manciocco " would have secured a more natural name. 16 COTTON AND SLAVERY. Everything about the house was orderly and neat. The proprietor came out to receive us, and issued orders about the horses, which we felt, from their quiet tone, would be obeyed without our supervision. When we were ushered into a snug supper-room and found a clean table set with wheatbread, ham, tea, and preserved fruits, waited on by tidy and ready girls, we could scarce think we had not got beyond the bounds of Texas. We were, in fact, quit, for some time to come, of the lazy poverty of Eastern Texas. Lower Gvadalotipe.--Not finding a suitable camping place, we stumbled, after dark, into a large plantation upon the river bottom. The irruption of our train within the plantation fences caused a furious commotion among the dogs and little ne groes, and it was with no little difficulty we could explain to the planter, who appeared with a candle, which was instantly blown out upon the porch, our peaceable intentions. Finally, after a general striking out of Fanny's heels and the master's boots, aided by the throwing of our loose lariats into the confused crowd, the growling and chattering circle about us was sufficiently enlarged and subdued for us to obtain a hear ing; and we were hospitably received. " Ho, Sam ! You Tom, here! Call your missus. Suke ! if you don't stop that infernal noise I'll have you drowned ! Here, Bill! Josh! some of you! why don't you help the gentleman ? Bring a lantern herte ! Packed, are you, sir. Hold on, yon there; leave the gun alone. Now, clear out with you, you little devils, every one of you! Is there no one in the house ? St! after 'em, Tiger! Can't any of you find a lantern ? Where's Bill, to take these horses ? What are you doing there ? I tell you to be off, now, every one of yon! Tom ! take a rail and keep 'em off there!" EOUTE ACROSS EASTERN TEXAS. 17 In the mickt of the noise we go through the familiar mo- *, and land our saddles and hampers upon the gallery, tlieu follow wliat appears to be the headmost negro to the stable, and give him a hint to look well out for the horses. This is our first reintroduction to negro servants after our German experiences, and the contrast is most striking and di.-sagreeable. Here were thirty or forty slaves, but not an order could be executed without more reiteration, and threats, and oaths, and greater trouble to the master and mistress, than would be needed to get a squadron under way. We heard the master threaten his negroes with flogging, at least six times, before we went to bed. In the night a heavy rain came up, and he rose, on hearing it, to arrange the cistern spout, cursing again his infernal niggers, who had turned it off for some convenience of their own. In the morning, we heard the mistress scolding her girls for having left articles outside which had been spoiled by the wet, after repeated orders to bring them in. On visiting the stables we found the door fastened by a board leaned against it. All the animals were loose, except the mule, which I had fastened myself. The rope attached to my saddle was stolen, and a shorter one substituted for it, when I mentioned the fact, by which I was deceived, until we were too far off to return. The master, seeing the horses had yet had no fodder, called to a boy to get some for them, then, countermanding his order, told the boy to call some one else, and go himself to drive the cows out of the garden. Then, to another boy, he said, " Go and pull two or three bundles of fodder out of the stack and give these horses." The boy soon came with .two small bundles. " You infernal rascal, couldn't you tote more fodder than that ? Go back and bring four or five bundles, and be quick about it, or I'll lick you." The boy walked slowly back, and returned with four bundles more. VOL. n. o 18 COTTON AND SLAVERY. Bat on entering at night we were struck with the air of comfort that met us. We were seated in rocking-chairs in a well-furnished room, before a blazing fire, offered water to wash, in a little lean-to bed-room, and, though we had two hours to wait for our supper, it was most excellent, and we pasf=ed an agreeable evening in intelligent conversation with onr host. After his cariosity about us was satisfied, we learned from him that, though a young man, he was an old settler, and had made a comfortable fortvjie by his plantation. His wife gave us a picturesque acco^ni. of their waggon journey here with their people, and described the hardships, danger^, and privations they had at first to endure. Now they were far more comfortable than they could have ever hoped to have been in the State from which they came. They thought their farm the best cotton land in the world. It extended across a mile of timbered bottom land from the river, then over a mile of bottom prairie, and included a large tract of the big prairie "for range." Their field would produce, in a favourable season, three bales to the acre; ordinarily a bale and a half: the "bale " 400 Ibs. Thev had always far more than their hands could pick. It was much more free from weeds than the States, so much so, that three hands would be needed there to cultivate the same area as two here ; that is, with the same liands the crop would be one-third greater. Brit so anxious is every one hi Texas to give all strangers a favourable impression, that all statements as to the extreme profit and healthfulness of lands must be taken with a grain of allowance. We fotrnl it very difficult, without impertinent persistence, to obtain any unfavourable facts. Persons not interested informed us, that from one-third to one-half the cotton crop on some of these rich plantations had l>een cut off BOtTE ACBOSS EASTEON TEXAS. 19 by the worm, on several occasions, and that negroes suffered much with dysentery and pneumonia. It cost them very little to haul their cotton to the coast or to get supplies. They had not been more sickly than they would have boen on the Mississippi. They considered that their steady sea-breeze was almost a sure preventive of such diseases as they had higher up the country. They always employed German mechanics, and spoke well of them. Mexicans were regarded in a somewhat unchristian tone, not as heretics or heathen, to be converted with flannel and tracts, but rather as vermin, to be exterminated. . The lady was particularly strong in her prejudices. White folks and Mexicans were never made to live together, anyhow, and the Mexicans had no business here. They were getting so impertinent, and were so well protected by the laws, that the Americans would just have to get together and drive them all out of the country. On the Chockolate.--" Which way did you come ?" asked some one of the old man. . From ------." " See anything of a runaway nigger over there, anywhar ?" " Xo, sir. What kind of a nigger was it ?" " A small, black, screwed-up-faced nigger." " How long has he been out ?" " Xigh two weeks." " Whose is he ?" ' " Judge ----'s, np here. And he cut the judge right bad. Like to have killed the judge. Cut his young master, too." " Beckon, if they caught him, 'twould go rather hard v;itli him." " .Reckon 'twould. We caught him once, but he got away c2 20 COTTOX AND SLAVEKY. from us again. We was just tying his feet together, and he give me a kick in the face, and broke. I had my six-shooter handy, and I tried to shoot him, but every barrel missed fire. Been loaded a week. We shot at him three times with rifles, bat he'd got too far off, and we didn't hit, but we most have shaved him close. We chased him, and my dog got close to him once. If he'd grip'd him, we shotdd have got him ; but he had a dog himself, and just as my dog got within about a yard of him, his dog turned and fit my dog, and he hurt him so bad we couldn't get him to run him again. We run him close, though, I tell you. Run him out of his coat, and his boots, and a pistol he'd got. __ But 'twas getting towards dark, and he got into them bayous, and kept swimming from one side to another." " How long ago was that ?" " Ten days." " If he's got across the river, he'd get to the Mexicans in two days, and there he'd be safe. The Mexicans'd take care of him." " What made him run ?" " The judge gave him a week at Christinas, and when tibe week was up, I s'pose he didn't want to go to work again. He got unrulv, and they was a goin' to' whip him." ""Xow, how much happier that fellow'd V been, if he'd just stayed and done his duty. He might have just worked and done his duty, and his master'd 'a' taken care of him, and given him another week when Christmas come again, and he'd V had nothing to do but enjoy himself again. These niggers, none of 'em, knows how much happier off they are than if they was free. Xow, very likely, hell starve to death, or get shot." " Oh, the judge treats his niggers too kind. If he was 1 BOITE ACBOSS EASTERN TEXAS. 21 stricter with them, they'd have more respect for him, and be more contented, too." " Never do to be too slack with niggers." We were riding in company, to-day, "with a California drover, named Bankin. He was in search of cattle to drive across the plains. He had taken a drove before from Illinois, and told us that people in .that State, of equal circumstances, lived ten times better than here, in all matters of comfort and refinement^ He had suffered more in travelling^ in Texas, than ever on the plains or the mountains. Not long before, in driving some mules with his partner, they came to a house which was the last on the road for fourteen miles. They had nothing in the world in the house but a few ears of com, they were going to grind in their steel mill for their own breakfast, and wouldn't sell on any terms. " We hadn't eaten anything since breakfast, but we actually could get nothing. The only other thing in the cabin, that could be eaten, was a pile of deer-skins, with the hair on. We had to stake our mules, and make a fire, and coil around it. About twelve o'clock there came a norther. We heard it coming, and it made us howl. We didn't sleep a wink for cold." Houston.--We were sitting on the gallery of the hotel. A tall, jet black negro came up, leading by a rope a downcast mulatto, whose hands were lashed by a cord to bis waist, and whose face was horribly cut, and dripping with blood. The wounded man crouched and leaned for support against one ofthe columns of the gallery--faint and sick. " What's the matter with that boy ?" asked a smoking lounger. " I run a fork into his face," answered the negro. " What are his hands tied for ?" 22 COTTON A>.T> SIAVEBY. " He's a runaway, sir." "Did yon catch him?" "Yes, sir. He was" hiding in the hay-loft, and when I went up to throw some hay to the horses, I pushed the fork down into the mow and it struck something hard. I didn't know what it was, and I pushed hard, and gave it a turn, and then he hollered, and I took it out." "What do you bring him here, for ?" " Come for the key of the jail, sir, to lock him up." " What!" said another, " one darkey catch another darkey ? Don't believe that story." " Oh yes, mass'r, I tell for true. He was down in our Lay-loft, and so you see when I stab him, I have to catch him." " Why, he's hurt bad, isn't he ?" " Yes, he says I pushed through the bones." " Whose nigger is he ?" . " He says he belong to Mass'r Frost, sir, on the Brazos." The key was soon brought, and the negro led the mulatto sway to jail. He walked away limping, crouching, and writh ing, as if he had received other injuries than those on his face. The bystanders remarked that the negro had not probably told the whole story. We afterwards happened to see a gentleman on horseback, and smoking, leading by a long rope through the deep mud, out into the country, the poor mulatto, still limping and crouching, his hands manacled, and his arms pinioned. There is a prominent slave-mart in town, which holds a large lot of likely-looking negroes, waiting purchasers. In the windows of shops, and on the doors and columns of the hotel, are many written advertisements, headed " A likely negro girl for sale." ' Two negroes for sale." " Twenty negro boys for sale." etc. BOCTE ACEOSS EASTERN TEXAS. 23 South-eastern Texas.--We were unable to procure at Hou ston any definite information with regard to our proposed route. The known roads thence are those that branch northjvard and westward from their levee, and so thoroughly within line? of business does local knowledge lie, that the eastern shore is completely terra incognita. The roads east were said to be bad after heavy rains, but the season had been dry, and we determined to follow the direct and the distinct road, laid down upon our map. Now that I am in a position to give preliminary information, however, there is no reason why the reader should enter this region as ignorant as we did. Our route took us by Harrisburg and San Jacinto to Liberty, upon the Trinity; thence by Beaumont to the Sabine at Tur ner's ferry; thence by the Big "Woods and Lake Charles to Opelousas, the old capital of St. Landry Parish, at the western head of the intricate navigation from New Orleans. This large district, extending from the Trinity Eiver to the bayous of the Mississippi, has, throughout, the same general characteristics, the principal of which are, lowness, flatness, and wetn&ss. The soil is variable, but is in greater part a loose, sandy loam, covered with coarse grasses, forming level prairies, which are everywhere broken by belts of pine forests, usually bordering creeks and bayous, but often standing in islands. The surface is but very slightly elevated above the sea ; I suppose, upon an average, less than ten feet. It is, consequently, imperfectly drained, and in a wet season a krge proportion is literally covered with- water, as in crossing it, even in a dry time, we were obliged to wade through many miles of marshy pools. The river-bottoms, still lower than the general level, are subject to constant overflow by tide water, and what with the fallen timber, the dense undergrowth, the mire-quags, the abrupt gullies, the patches of rotten or 24 COTTON AM) SLAVERY. floating corduroy, and three or four feet of dirty salt water, the roads through them are not such as one would choose for a morning ride. The country is sparsely settled, containing leas than one inhabitant to the square mile, one in four being a slave. The many pools, through which the usual track took us, were swarming with venemous water-snakes, four or five black moccasins often lifting at once their devilish heads above the dirty surface, and wriggling about our horses' heels. Beyond the Sabine, alligator holes are an additional excitement, the unsuspicious traveller suddenly sinking through the treacherous surface, and sometimes falling a victim, horse and all, to the hideous jaws of the reptile, while overwhelmed by the engulfing mire in which he lurks. Upon the whole, this is not the spot in which I should prefer to come to light, burn, and expire; in fact, if the nether regions, as was suggested by the dream-gentleman of Nachitochea, be " a boggy country," the avernal entrance might, I should thinly -with good probabilities, be looked for in this region. We passed, on both sides the Sabine, many abandoned farms, and the country is but thinly settled. We found it impossible to obtain any information about roads, and fre quently went astray upon cattle paths, once losing twenty miles in a day's journey. The people were chiefly herds men, cultivating a little cotton upon river-banks, but ordinarily only corn, with a patch of cane to furnish household sugar. We tried in vain to purchase corn for our horses, and were told that " folks didn't make corn enough to bread them, and if anybody had corn to give his horse, he carried it in his hat and went out behind somewhere." The herds were in poor condition, and must in winter be reduced to the verge of starvation. We saw a few hogs, converted, by hardship, to BOUTE ACEO6S EASTERN TEXAS. 25 figures so unnatural, that we at first took them for goats. Most of the people we met were old emigrants, from Southern Louisiana and Mississippi, and more disposed to gaiety and cheer than the Texan planters. The houses showed a ten dency to Louisiana forms, and the table to a French style of serving the jerked beef, which is the general dish of the country. The meat is dried in strips, over smoky fires, and, if untainted and well prepared, is a tolerably savoury food. I hardly know whether to chronicle it as a border barbarism, or a Creolism, that we were several times, in this neighbour hood, shown to a bed standing nest to that occupied by the host and his wife, sometimes with the screen of a shawl, sometimes without. We met with one specimen of the Virginia habit of " dip ping," or snuff-chewing, in the person of a woman who was otherwise neat and agreeable, and observed that a young lady, well-dressed, and apparently engaged, while we were present, in reading, went afterward to light her pipe at the kitchen fire, and -had a smoke behind the house. The condition of the young men appeared to incline de cidedly to barbarism. "We stopped a night at a house in which a drover, bringing mules from Mexico, was staying; and, 'with the neighbours who had come to look at -the drove, we were thirteen men at table. When speaking with us, all were polite and respectful, the women especially so ; but among one another, their coarseness was incredible. The master of the house, a well-known gentleman of the county, who had been absent when we arrived, and at supper-time, came afterwards upon the gallery and commenced cursing furiously, because some one had taken his pipe. Seeing us, he stopped abruptly, and after lighting the pipe, said, in a rather peremptory and formal, but not nncourteous tone: " Where are you from, gentlemen ?" 26 _ COTTOJT AM> ffLAVZBT. " From Beaumont, sir, last." " Been out West ?" "Yes, sir." " Travelling ?' "Yes, sir." After pausing a moment to make up his mind-- " Where do you live when you are at home, gentlemen, and what's your business in this country ?" " We live in New York, and are travelling to see the country." "How do yon like it?" " Jnst here we find it flat and wet." " What's your name ?" "Olmsted"." " And what's this gentleman's name ?' " Olmsted." " Is it a Spanish name ?" "Xo, sir." He then ahrnptly left us, and the young men entertained one another with stories of fights and horse-trades, and with vulgar obscenities. Shortly he returned, saying-- " Show you to bed now, gentlemen, if yon wish." " We are ready, sir, if you will be good enough to get a light." "Alight?" "Yes, sir." "AJiyTitf" "Yes, sir." "Get a light?" "Yes, sir." "Well" (after a moment's hesitation), " I'll get one." On reaching the bed-room, which was in a building adjoin* BOUTE ACBOSS EA8TZBX TEXAS. 27 ing, he stood awaiting onr pleasure. Thanking him, I turned to take the light, but his fingers were the candlestick. He continued to hold it, and six young men, who had followed us, stood grouped around while we undressed, placing our clothes upon the floor. Judy advanced to lie down by them. One of the young men started forward, and said-- " I've got a right good knife." " What ?" " I've got a right good knife, if you want it." " What do you mean ?" " Xothing, only I've got a right good knife, and if you'd like to kill that dog, I'll lend it to you." " Please to tell me what you mean ?" " Oh, nothing." " Keep your dog quiet, or I'll kill her," I suppose was the interpretation. When we had covered ourselves in bed, the host said-- " I suppose you don't want the light no more ?" " Xo, sir;" and all bade us good night; but leaving the door open, commenced feats of prolonged dancing, or stamp ing upon the gallery, which were uproariously applauded. Then came more obscenities and profanities, apropos to iandango frolics described by the drovers. As we had barely got to sleep, several came to occupy other beds in our room. They had been drinking freely, and continued smoking in bed. Upon the floor lay two boys of fourteen, who continued shouting and laughing after the others had at length become quiet. Some one soon said to one of them-- " You h'ad better stop your noise; Frank says hell be damn'd if he don't come in and give you a hiding." Frank was trying to sleep upon the gallery. " By ----," the boy cried, raising himself, and drawing a coat from under the pillow, " if he comes in here, 111 be damn'd 28 COTTON AKD SLAVERY. if I don't HI1 him. He dare not come in here. I would like to see him come in here," drawing from his coat pocket a revolver, and cocking it. " By ----, you may come in here now. Come in here, come in here I Do you here that ?" (revolving the pistol rapidly). " ----- dairm me, if I don't kill you, if yon come near the door." This continued without remonstrance for some time, when he lay down, asking his companion for a light for his pipe, aud continuing the noisy conversation until we fell asleep. The previous talk had heen much of knife and pistol fights which had taken place in the county. The same boy was obliging and amiable the next morning, assisting us to hring in and saddle the horses at our departure. One of the men here was a Yankee, who had lived so long in the Slave States that he had added to his original ruralisms a very complete collection of Southernisms, some of which were of the richest we met with. He had been in the Texas Bangers, and, speaking of the West, said he had teen up round the head of the Guadaloupe " heaps and cords of times," at-the same'time giving us a very picturesque account of the county. Speaking of wolves, he informed us that on the San Jacinto there were " any dimensions of them." Obsti nacy, in his vocabulary, was represented by " damnation cussedncss." He was unable to conceive of us in any other light than as two peddlers who had mistaken their ground in coming here. At another house where we stopped (in which, by theway, we ate our supper by the light of pine knots blazing in the chimney, with an apology for the absence of candles), we heard some conversation upon a negro of the neighbourhood, who had been sold to a free negro, and who refused to live with him, saying he wouldn't be a servant to a nigger. All agreed that he was right, although the man was well known LOUISIANA. 29 to be kind to bis negroes, and would always sell any of them \vho wished it. The slave had been sold because he wouldn't mind, " If I had a negro that wouldn't mind," said the woman of the house, " I'd break his head, or I'd sell him ; I wouldn't have one about me." Her own servant was stand ing behind her. " I do think it would be better if' there wasn't any niggers in the world, they .do behave so bad, some of 'ein. They steal just like hogs." South-western Louisiana.--Soon after crossing the Sabine, we entered a " hummock," or tract of more fertile, oak-bearing land, known as the Big Woods. The soil is not rich, bat produces cotton, in good seasons nearly a bale to the acre, and the limited area is fully occupied. Upon one plantation we found an intelligent emigrant from Mississippi, who had just bought the place, having stopped on his way into Texas, because the time drew near for the confinement of his wife. Many farms are bought by emigrants, he said, from such temporary considerations: a child is sick, or a horse exhausted; they stop for a few weeks; but summer comes, and they conclude to put in a crop, and'often never move again. It was before reaching the Big Woods, that alligator-holes were first pointed out to us, with a caution to avoid them. They extend from an aperture, obliquely, under ground, to a large cavern, the walls of which are puddled by the motions of the animal; and, being partly filled with water, form a comfortable amphibious residence. A horseman is liable, not only to breaking through npar the orifice, but to being preci; 'itatcd into the den itself, where he will find awaiting him, a disagreeable mixture of mire and angry jaws. In the deep water of the bottoms, we met with no snakes; but the pools were everywhere alive with them. We saw a great variety 30 COTTON AMD SLAVZBY. erf long-legged birds, apparently on friendly terms with all the reptiles. A day's journey took us through the Big "Woods, and across Calcasieu tu Lake Charles. We were not prepared to find , the Caleasieu a superb and solemn river, two hundred and thirty yard* across and forty-five feet deep. It is navigable for forty miles, but at its month has a bar, on which is some times only eighteen inches of water, ordinarily thirty inches. Schooners of light draft ascend it, bringing supplies, and taking out the cotton raised within its reach. Lake Charles is an insignificant village, npon the bank of a pleasant, clear lakelet, several miles in extent. From the Big Woods to Opelousas, there was no change in tne monotonous scenery. Everywhere extended the immense moist plain, being alternate tracts of grass and pine. Nearer Opelou.Mas, oak appears in groups with the pine, and the soil is darker and more fertile. Here the land was mostly taken up, partly by speculators, in view of the Opelousas Railway, then commenced. But, in all the western portion of the dis trict, the land is still government property, and many of the people squatters. Sales are seldom made, but the estimated price of the land is fifty cents an acre. Some of the timbered land, for a few years after clearing, yields good crops of corn and sweet potatoes. Cotton is seldom attempted, and sugar only for family use. Oats are sometimes grown, but the yield is small, and seldom thrushed from the straw. We notl one field of poor rye. So wet a region and so warm a climate suggested rice, and, were the land snfficientlv fertile, it would, doubtless, become a staple production. It is now only cultivated for home use, the bayou bottoms being rudely arranged for flowing thf> crop. But without manure no profitable return can be obtained from breaking the prairie, and the only system of manuring LOUISIANA. 31 in use is that of ploughing np occasionally the cow-pens of the herdsmen. The road was now distinctly marked enough, but had fre quent and embarrassing forks, \vhich occasioned us almost as much annoyance as the clouds of musquitoes which, east of the Sabine, hovered continually about our horses and our heads. Notions of distance vre found incredibly vague. At Lake Charles we were informed that the exact distance to Opelousas was ninety-six miles. After riding eight horn's, we were told by a respectable gentleman that the distance from hia house was one hundred and twenty miles. The next evening the distance was forty miles; and the following evening a gentleman who met us stated first that it was " a good long war;" next, that it was "thirty or forty miles, and damn'd long ones, too." About four miles beyond him, we reached the twentieth mile-post. Across the bayous of any size, bridges had been constructed, but su rudely built of logs that the traveller, where possible, left them for a ford. The people, after passing the frontier, changed in every prominent characteristic. French became the prevailing language, and French the prevailing manners. The gruff Texan bidding, " Sit up, stranger; take some fry !" became a matter of recollection, of which " Monsieur, la soupe est servie,'' was the smooth substitute. The good-nature of the people was an incessant astonishment. If we inquired the way, a contented old gentleman waddled out and showed us also his wile's house-pet, an immense white crane, his big crop of peaches, his old fig-tree, thirty feet in diameter of shade, and to his wish of " bon voyage " added for each a bouquet of the jessamines we were admiring. The homes were hoiiies, not settlements on speculation; the house, sometimes of logs, it, is true, but hereditary logs, and more often of smooth lumber. 32 COTTOy AND SLAVERY. with deep and spreading galleries on all sides for the coolest comfort. For form, all ran or tended to run to a peaked and many-chimneyed centre, with, here and there, a suggestion of a dormar window. Nr>t all were provided with figs and jes samines, but each had souie inclosnre betraying good intentions. The monotonous landscape did not invite to loitering, and we passed but thro-e nights in houses by the road. The first was that of an old Italian-French emigrant, known as " Old Man Corse." He had a name of his own, which he recalled for us, hnt in forty years it had been lost and superseded by this designation, derived from his birth-place, the island of Corsica. This mixture of nationalities in language must be breeding for future antiquaries a good deal of amusing labour. Next day we were recommended to stop at Jack Bacon's, and, although we would have preferred to avoid an Ameri can's, did so itithcr than go further, and found our Jack Bacon a Cn-..]^, named Jacques Btguin. This is equal to Tnckapaw and Xalatush, the general pronunciation of Attakapas and Xachitoches. The house of Old Man Corse stood in the shade of oaks, figs, and cypresses, upon the bank of a little bayou, looking out upon the l>road prairie. It was large and comfortable, with wide gulleries and dormar windows, supported by a negro-hut and a stable. Ornamental axe-work and rude decorative joinery were abundant. The roof was of large split shingles, much warped in the sun. As we entered and took seats by the fire, the room reminded us, with its big fire-place, and old smoke-stained nnd time-toned cypress beams and ceiling, and ita rude but comfortable aspect, of the Acadian fireside: "In doors, warm by tlie widc-monthed firc-phce, i'ily the farmer S*t ia hid i-lbow-cluiir, and watched how the flames and the smoke-wreaths Struggled together, like foes in a turning city. Behind him, Sodding: .im! m .<-ki-v4 alont remote districts. 38 COTTOK ASD SLAVERY. Southern doable-cabined style, the people speaking English, intelligent, lively, and polite, giving us good entertainment at the usual price. At a rade corn-mill belonging to Mr. B 'guin, we had noticed among the negroes an InJum boy, in negro clothing, and about the house were two other Indians --an old man and a young man ; the first poorly clad, the other gaily dressed in a showy printed calico frock, and worked buckskin leggings, with beads and tinsel ornaments, a great tnrban of Scotch shawl-stuff on his head. It appeared they were Choctaws, of whom a good many lived in the neighbourhood. The two were hired for farm labour at three bits (37J cents) a day. The old man had a, field of his own. in which stood handsome corn. Some of them were indus trious, but none were steady at work--often refusing to go on, or absenting themselves from freaks. I asked about the boy at the milL He lived there and did work, getting no wages, bat "living there with the niggers." They seldom consort; our host knew but one case in which a negro liad an Indian wile. At Lake Charles we had seen a troop of Alahamas, riding through the town with baskets and dressed deerskins for sale. They were decked with feathers, and dressed more showily than the Choctaws, but .in calico: and over their heads, on horse-back--enrions progress of manners-- all carried open, black cotton unibreflas. Our last night in this region was spent in a house which we reached at sundown of a Sunday afternoon. It proved to be a mere cottage, in a style which has grown to be common along onr road. The walls are low, of timber and mud ; the roof, high, and sloping from a short ridge in all directions : and the chimney of sticks nnrt mml. Tl:e space is divided into one long liv.n ;-r >.:.:. '.;;v'jig ;> kit^hoji at one end and a LOUISIANA. 39 at the other. As wo rode np, we found only a little boy, who answered us in French. His mother was milking, and his father ont hi the field. We rode on to the fence of the field, which enclosed twenty acres, planted in cotton, corn, and sweet potatoes, and waited until the proprietor reached us and the end of his furrow. He stopped before replying, to unhitch his horse, then gave consent to our staying in his house, and we followed his lep.d to the yard, where we unsaddled our horses. He was a tall, stalwart man in figure, with a large intellectual head, but as uninformed, we afterwards discovered, as any European pea sant ; though he wore, as it were, an ill-fitting dress of rude in dependence in manner, such as characterises the Western man. The field was well cultivated, and showed the best corn we had seen east of the Brazos. Three negro men and two women were at work, and continued hoeing until sunset. They were hired, it appeared, by the proprietor, at foul- bits (fifty cents) a day. He was in the habit of making use of the Sundays of the slave.? of the neighbourhood in this way, paying them sometimes seventy-five cents a day. On entering the house, we were met by two young boys, gentle and whining in manner, coming up of their own accord to offer us their hands. They were immediately set to work by their father at grinding corn, in the steel-mill, for supper. The tak seemed their usuaLone, yet very much too severe for their strength, as they were slightly built, and not over ten years old. Taking hold at opposite sides of the winch, they ground away, outside the door, for more than an hour, con stantly stopping to take breath, and spurred on by the yoice of the papa, if the delay were long. They spoke only French, though understanding questions in English. The man and his wife--an energetic but worn woman--spoke French or English indifferently, even to one 40 ' COTTOX A2JD SLAVERr. another, changing, often, in a single sentence. He could not tell us which was his mother tongue; he had always been as much accustomed to the one as to the other. He said he wa.? not a Frenchman, but a native, American-born; but afterwards called himself a "Dutch-American," a phrase he was unable to explain. He informed us that there were many " Dutch-French " here, that is, people who were Dutch, but who spoke French. The room into which we were ushered, was actually with out an article of furniture. The floor was of boards, while those of the other two rooms were of trodden clay. The mud-walls had no other relief than the mantel, on which stood a Connecticut clock, two small mirrors, three or four cheap cups and saucers, and a paste brooch in the form of ;i cross, pinn?d upon paper, as in a jeweDer's shop. Chairs were brought in from the kitchen, having deer-hide seat?, from which sprang forth an atrocious number of fresh fit-as. We had two or three hours to wait for our late supper, and thus more than ample time to converse with our host, who proceeded to twist and .light a shuck cigar. He made, he said, a little cotton, which he hauled ten miles to be ginned and baled. For this service he paid seventy-five cents a hundred weight, hi which the cost of bagging was not in cluded. The planter who baled it, also sold it for him, send ing it, with his own, to a factor in Xew Orleans, by steamboat from Xiggcrville, just beyond Opelousas. Beside cotton, he sold every year some beef cattle. He had a good many cows, but didn't exactly know how many. Corn, too, he sometimes sold, but only to neighbours, who had not raised enough for themselves. It would not pay to haul it to any market. The same applied to sweet potatoes, which were considered worth seventy-five cents a barrel. The " range" was much poorer than formerly. It was r IA)UI8TANA. 41 crowded, and people would have to take their stock somewhere else in fonr or fire years more, or they would starve. He didn't know what was going to become of poor folks, rich people were taking up the public land so fast, induced by the proposed railroad to New Orleans. More or less stock was always starved hi winter. The worst time for them was when a black gnat, called the " eyebreaker," comes out. This insect breeds hi the low wood lands, and when a freshet occurs in winter is driven out in swarms upon the prairies, attacking cattle terribly. They were worse than all manner of mnsquitoes, flies, or other in sects. Cattle would herd together then, and wander wildly about, not looking for the best feed, and many would get killed. But this did not often happen. Horses and cattle had degenerated much within his recol lection. No pains' were taken to improve breeds. People, now-a-days, had got proud, and when they had a fine colt would break him for a carriage or riding-horse, leaving only the common scurvy sort to run with the mares. This was confirmed by our observation, the horses about here being wretched in appearance, and the grass short and coarse. When we asked to wash before supper, a shallow cake-pan was brought and get upon the window-seat, and a mere rag offered us for towel. Upon the supper-table, we found two wash-bowls, one filled with milk, the other with molasses. We asked for water, which was given us in one battered tin cup. The dishes, besides the bacon and bread, were fried eggs and sweet potatoes. The bowl of molasses stood in the centre of the table, and we were pressed to partake of it, aa the family did, by dipping in it bits of bread. Bnt how it was expected to be used at breakiast, when we hud bacon and potatoes, with spoons, but no bread, I cannot imagine, the family not breakfasting with us. 42 COTTON AUD SLAVEBT. The night was warm, and musquitoes swarmed, but we carried with us a portable tent-shaped bar, which we hung over the feather bed, upon the floor, and rested soundly amid their mad singing. The distance to Opelonsas, our Frenchman told us, was fifteen miles by the road, though only ten miles in a direct line. We found it lined with farms, whose division-fences the road always followed, frequently changing its course in so doing at a right angle. The country was very wet and unat tractive. About five miles from the town, begin plantations on an extensive scale, upon better soil, and here were krge gangs of negroes at work upon cotton, with their hoe^. At the outskirts of the town, we waded the last pool, nnd entered, with a good deal of satisfaction, the peaceful shaded" streets. Beaching the hotel, we were not so instantly struck as perhaps we should have been, with the overwhelming ad vantages of civilization, which sat in the form of a landlord, slapping with an agate-headed, pliable cane, his patent lea ther boots, poised, at easy height, upon one of the columns of the gallery. We were suffered, to take off onr saddle-hairs, and to wait until waiting was no longer a pleasure, before civilization, wringing his cane against the floor, but not re moving his cigar, brought his patent leathers to our vicinity. After some conversation, intended as animated upon one side and ineffably indifferent on the other, our horses obtained notice from that exquisitely vague eye. but a further introduc tion was required before our persons became less than trans] arent, for the boots walked away, and became again a sub ject of contemplation upon the column, leaving us, with onr : adlle-bags, upon the steps. After inquiring of a bystander if this glossy individual were the actual landlord, we attached i.im in a tone likely to produce either a revolver-shot or a room, but whose effect was to obtain a removal of the ci^ar LOUISIANA. 43 and a gentle survey, ending in a call for a boy to show the gentlemen to number thirteen. After an hour's delay, we procured water, and were abont to enjoy very necessary ablutions,, when we observed that the door of our room was partly of uncurtained glass. A shirt was pinned to this, and ceremonies were about beginning, when a step came down the passage, and a gentleman put his hand through a broken pane, and lilted the obstruction, wishing " to see what was going on so damn'd secret in number thir teen." When I walked toward him hurriedly, in puris naturafibus, he drew hastily and entered the next room. On the gallery of the hotel, after dinner, a fine-looking man --who was on the best of terms with every one--familiar with the judge--and who had been particularly polite 'to me, at the dinner-table, said to another: " I hear you were very unlucky with that girl you bought of me, last year ?" " Yes, I was; very unlucky. She died with her first child, and the child died, too." " Well, that was right hard for you. She was a fine girl. I don't reckon you lost less than five thousand dollars, when she died." " Xo, sir, not a dollar less." " Well, it came right hard upon you--just beginning so." " Yes, I was foolish, I suppose, to risk so much on the life of a single woman; but I've got a good start again now, for all that. I've got two right likely girls ; one of them's got a fine boy, four months old, and the other's with child-- and old Pine Knot's as hearty as ever." " Is he ? Hasn't been sic-k ut all, eh ?" " Yes; he was sick very soon after I bought him of yon; but he got well soon." " That's right. I'd rather a nigger would be sick early, 44 COTTON' AND SLAVERY. 1 after he comes into this country; for he's bonnd to be accli mated,- sooner or later, and the longer it's put off, the harder it goes -with him." The man was a regular negro trader. He told me that he had a partner in Kentucky, and that they owned a farm there, and another one here. His partner bought negroes, as opportunity offered to get them advantageously, and kept them oh their Kentucky farm; and he went on occasionally, and brought the surplus to their Louisiana plantation--where he held them for sale. " So-and-so is very hard upon you," said another man, to him as he still" sat, smoking his cigar, on the gallery, after dinner. " "Why so ?" He's no business to complain ; I told him just exactly what the nigger was, before I sold him (laughing, as if there was a concealed joke). It was all right--all right. I heard that he sold him again for a thousand dollars; and the people that bought him, gave him two hundred dollars to let them off from the bargain. I'm sure he can't complain of me. It was a fair transaction. He knew just what he was buying." An intelligent man whom I met here, and who had been travelling most of the time during the last two years in Louisiana, having business with the planters, described the condition of the new slaveholders and the poorer planters as being very miserable. He had sometimes found it difficult to get food, even when he was in urgent need of it, at their houses. The lowest class live much from hand to mouth, and are often in extreme de.-titntion. This was more particularly the case with those who lived on the rivers ; those who resided on the prairies were seldom so much reduced. The former now live only on those parts of the river to which the back-swamp ap- ., LOUISIANA. 45 preaches nearest; that is, where there is but little valuable land, that can be appropriated for plantation-purposes. They almost all reside in communities, very closely housed in poor cabins. If there is any considerable number of them, there is to be always found, among the cluster of their cabins, a church, and a billiard and a gambling-room--and the latter ia always occupied, and play going on. They almost all appear excessively apathetic, sleepy, and stupid, if you see them at home; and they are always longing and waiting for some excitement. They live for' excitement, and will not labour, unless it is violently, for a short time, to gratify some passion. This was as much the case with the women as the men. The women were often handsome, stately, and graceful, and, ordinarily, exceedingly kind; but languid, and incredibly indolent, unless there was a ball, or some other excitement, to engage them. Under excitement, they were splendidly ani mated, impetuous^ and eccentric. One moment they seemed possessed by a devil,"ind the next by an angel The Creoles* are inveterate gamblers--rich and poor alike. The majority of wealthy Creoles, he said, do nothing to improve their estate; and are very apt to live beyond their income. They borrow and play, and keep borrowing to play, as long as they can; but they will not part with their land, and e;?pecially with their home, as long as they can help it, by any sacrifice. The men are generally dissolute. They have large families, and a great deal of family affection. He did not know that they had more than Anglo-Saxons ; but they certainly mani fested a great deal more, and, he thought, had more domestic * Creole means simply native of the region, but in Louisiana (a vast region purchased, by the United States, of France, for strategetic reasons, and now pro posed to be filibustered away from us), it generally indicates French blood. 46 COTTON &SD SLAVEBT happiness. If a Creole farmer's child marries, he will build a house for the new couple, adjoining his own; and when another marries, he build.^ another house--so, often his whole front on the river is at length occupied. Then he begins to build others, back of the first-- and so, there gradually forms a little village, wherever there is a large Creole family, owning any considerable piece of land. The children are poorly educated, and are not brought up to industry, at all. The planters living near them, as their needs increase, lend them money, and get mortgages on their land, or, in some way or other, if it is of any value, force them them to part with it Thus they are every year reduced, more and more, to the poorest lands; and the majority now are able to get but a very poor living, and would not b? able to live at all in a Northern climate. They are nevertheless--even the poorest of them--habitually gay and careless, as well as kind-hearted, hospitable, and dissolute--working little, and spending much of their time at church, or at balls, or the gaming-table. There are very many wealthy Creole planters, who are as cultivated and intelligent as the better class of American planters, and usually more refined. The Creoles, he said, did not work their slaves as hard as the Americans; but, on the other hand, they did not feed or clothe them nearly as well, and he had noticed universally, on the Creole plantation?, a large number of " used-up hands "--slaves, sore and crip] led, or invalided for some cause On all sugar plantations, he said, they work the negroes excessively, in the grinding season; often cruelly. Under the usual system, to keep the fires burning, and the works constantly supplied, eighteen hours' work was required of every negro, in twenty-four-- leaving but six for rest. The work of most of them, too, was very hard. They were generally, during the grinding season, liberally supplied with food and coffee, and were induced, as LOUISIANA. 47 - much as possible, to make a kind of frolic of it; yet, on the Creole plantations, he thought they did not, even in the grinding season, often get meat I remarked that the law, in Louisiana, required that meat should be regularly served to the negroes. " 0, those laws are very little regarded." " Indeed ?" "Certainly. Suppose you are my neighbour if you maltreat your negroes, and tell me of it, or I see it, am I going to prefer charges against you to the magistrates ? I might possibly get you punished according to law; but if I did, or did not, I should have you, and your family and friends, far and near, for my mortal enemies. There is a law of the State that negroes shall not be worked on Sundays ; but I have seen negroes"*at work almost every Sunday, -when I have been in the country, since I have lived in Louisiana.* I spent a Sunday once with a gentleman, who did not work his hands at all on Sunday, even in the grinding season ; and lie had got some of his neighbours ta help him build a school-honse, which was used as a chi|rch on Sunday. He said, there was not a plantation onveithfer side of him, as far as he could see, where the slaves were not generally -worked on Sunday; but that, after the church was started, several of them e following resolutions were proposed (I am not sure thnt they xveie adopted) in the Southern Commercial Convention, at New Orleans, in 180.1: "aolctd,--That this Convention strongly recommen.l the ChamWis nt Commerce and Commission Merchants of our Southern and South-western cities to adopt such a system of laws and regulations as will put a stop to the dangerou* practice, heretofore existing, of making advances to planters, in anticipation of their crops--i practice entirely at variance with evnythiog like safety in business transactions, and tending directly to establish the relations of master and stow between the merchant and planter, by bringing the latter into the most abject ami servile bondage. "Pesoleed,--That this Convention recommend, in the most urgent manner, fh.it the planters of the Southern and South-western States "patronize exclusivelj our home merchants, and that our Chambers of Commerce, and merchants gene- VOL. U. E 50 COTTOK SLAVERY. He had talked with many sugar-planters who were strong Caha war and annexation men, and had rarely found that any of these had given the first thought to the probable effect the annexation of Cuba -would have on their home interests. It was mainly a romantic excitement and enthusiasm, inflamed by senseless appeals to their patriotism and their combativeBess. They had got the idea, that patriotism was necessarily associated with hatred and contempt of any other country but their own, and the only foreigners to be regarded with favour were those who desired to surrender themselves to us. They did not reflect that the annexation of Cuba would necessarily be attended by the removal of the duty on sugar, and would bring them into competition with the sugar-planters of that island, where the advantages for growing cane were so much greater than in. Louisiana. To some of the very wealthy nlsnfars Wno favoured the movement, and who were understood to have taken some of the Junta* stock, he gave credit for greater sagacity. He thought it was the purpose of three men, if Cuba could be annexed, to get possession of large estates there : then, with the advantages of their greater skill in sugar-making, and better machinery than that which yet was in use in Cuba, and with much cheaper land and labour, and a far better climate for cane growing than that of Louisiana, it would be easy for them to^ accumulate large fortunes in a few years ; but he thought the sugar-planters who remained in Louisiana would be ruined by it. rallr, exert all their influence to exclude foreign agent* from the purchase and sale if produce in any of our Southern and South-western diin. " Frsolred, further,--That this Convention recommend to the legislatures of the Southern and ^ruth-western States to pass laws, making it a penitentiary offence for the planters to ask of the merchants to make such pecuniary advance!." * The-Junta-was a filibustering conspiracy against Cuba. LOUISIANA. 51 The principal subscribers to the Junta stock at the South, he thought, were laud speculators; persona who expected that, hy now favouring the movement, they would be able to obtain from the revolutionary government large grants of land in the island aa gratuities in reward of their services or at nomi nal prices, which after annexation would rise rapidly in value; or persons who now owned wild land in the States, and who thought that if Cuba were annexed the African slave-trade would be re-established, either openly or clandestinely, with the States, and their lands be increased in value, by the greater cheapness with which they could then be stocked with labourers. I find these views confirmed in a published letter from a Louisiana planter, to one of the members of Congress, from that State; and I insert an extract of that letter, as it is evi dently from -a sensible and far-thinking man, to show on how insecure a basis rests the prosperity of the slave-holding interest in Louisiana. The fact would seem to be, that, if it were not for the tariff on foreign sugars, sugar could not be produced at all by slave-labour; an'l that a discontinuance of sugar culture would almost desolate the State. " The question now naturally cornea up to yon and to me. Do we Lonisianians desire the possession of Cuba ? It is not what the provision dealers of the West, or the shipowners of the North may wish for, but what the State of Louisiana, as a State, may deem consistent with her best intcre*s. My own opinion on the subject is not a new one. It was long ago expressed to high officers of our Government, neither of whom ever hesitated to acknowledge that it was, in the main, correct. Tha; opinion was and is, tltat Vie acquisition of Cnba would prore file ruin of our State. I found this opinion on the following reasons : Cuba has alread ; land enough in cultivation to produce, when directed hy American skill, energy, and capital, twenty millions of tons of sugar. .In addition to this she has virgin soil, only needing roads to bring it, with a people of the least pretension to enterprise, into active working, sufficient nearly to double this: all of which would be soon brought into productiveness were it our own. with the whole American market free to it. If any man snppuge* that the culture of sujjor in our State can be su^amed in the fucc of E -2 L 52 CCTTOX J^0> SLA.VZBT. fiave only to say that lie can suppose anything-. Tv"e hare very nearly, if not quite, eiphty millions invested in the sugar culture. My idea is that three-fourth of thii tcnulil, K far at the State if concerned, be annihilated at a Wow. Tlie planter who is in debt, would find his negroes and machinery sold and despatched to Cuba fur him, and he who is inde pendent would go there in self-defence. What will become of the other portion of the capital? It consists of kind, on which I maintain there can be produced no other crop but sujrar, under present auspices, that will bear t!;e contest with cocoa.* and the expense and risk of Jevecs, as it reiSinU th> larger part of it, and the difficulty of transportation for the rvmainuer. Bat supposing that it will be token np by some other cultiva tion, that in any case must be a work of time, and in this case a very lonj time for unaeelimated men. It is not unreasonable, then, to suppose that .this whole capital will, for purposes of taxation, be withdrawn from Ijoii:si;m;i. From whence, then, is to come the revenue for the support of our State government, for the payment of the interest on OUT debt, and " tiie eventual tvdemptiou of the principal ? Perhaps repudiation may he recommended ; but yon and I, my dear sir, are too old-fashioned to roh iu that manner, or in any other. The only resort, then, is double taxation on the cotton planter, which will drive him, without much difficulty, to Texas, to Arkansas, and Mississippi." Washington.--The inn, here, when we arrived, was well filled with gnests, and mv friend and I were told that we must sleep together. In the room containing our bed there were three other beds; and although the outside of the house was pierced with windows, nowhere more than fonr feet apart, not one of them opened ont of .onr room. A door opened into the hall, another into the dining-room, and at thrside of our bed was a window into the dining-room, through which, betimes in the morning, we could, with our heads on our pillows, see the girls setting the break&st-tables. Both the doors were provided with glass windows, without curtains. Hither, about eleven o'clock, we " retired." Soon afterwards, * Cocoa is grass mu-h more pernicious, and more difficnlt of extirpation when it once gets footing upon a sugar pl.mtition, than the C. WASHINGTON. 53 hearing something moving under the bed, I asked, " Who's there ?" and was answered by a girl, who was burrowing for eggs; part of the stores of the establishment being kept in boxes, in this convenient locality. Later, I was awakened by a stranger attempting to enter my bed. I expostulated, and he replied that it was his bed, and nobody else had a right to his place in it. Who was I, he asked, angrily, and where was his partner? "Here I am," answered a voice from another bed; and without another word, he left us. I slept but little, and woke feverish, and with a headache, caused by the want of ventilation. While at the dinner-table, a man asked, as one might at the North, if the steamer had arrived, if there had been " any fights to-day ?" After dinner, while we were sitting on the gallery, loud cursing, and threatening voices were heard in the direction of the bar-room, which, as at Nachitoches, was detached, and at a little distance from the hotel. The company, except myself and the other New-Yorker, immediately ran towards it. After ten minutes, one returned, and said-- "I don't believe there'll be any fight; they are both cowards." " Are they preparing for a fight ?" " 0, yes; they are loading pistols in the coffee-room, and there's a man outside, in- the street, who has a revolver and a knife, and who is challenging another to come out. He swears hell wait there till he does come out; but in my opinion hell think better of it, when he finds that the other feller's got pistols, too." " What's the oc*?asion of the quarrel ?" " Why, the man in the street says the other one insulted him this morning, and that he had his hand on his knife, at the very moment he did so, so he couldn't reply. And now he says he's ready to talk with him, and he wants to have 54 COTTON AND SLATEBT. Mm come out, and as many of his friends as are a mind to, may come with him; he's got enough for all of 'em, he says. He's got two revolvers, I believe." We did not hear how it ended; hut, about an hour after wards, I saw three men, with pistols in their hands, coming from the bar-room. The next day, I saw, in the streets of the same town, two bop running from another, who was pursuing them with a large, open dirk-knife in his hand, and every appearance of ungovernable rage hi his foce. The boat, for which I was waiting, not arriving, I asked the landlady--who appeared to be a German Jewess--if I could not have a better sleeping-room. She showed me one, which she said I might use for a single night; but, if I remained another, I must not refuse to give it up. It had been occupied by another gentleman, and she thought he might return the next day, and would want it again; and, if I remained in it, he would be very angry that they had not reserved it for him, although they were under no obligation to him. " He is a dangerous man," she observed, " and my husband, he's a quick-tempered man, and, if they get to quarrelling about it, therll be knives about, sure. It always frighteas me to see knives drawn." A Texas drover, who stayed over night at the hotel, being asked, as he was about to leave in the morning, if he was not going to have his horse shod, replied: "So sir! it'll be a damn'd long spell 'fore I pay for having a horse shod. I reckon, if God Almighty had thought it right hosses should have iron on thar feet, he'd a put it thar himself. I don't pretend to be a pious man myself; but I a'nt a-goin' to run agin the will of God Almighty, though thar's some, that calls themselves ministers of Christ, that does it" 55 CHAPTEE IT. A TEIP INTO NORTHERN MISSISSIPPI. Viclaiburg, March 1S&.--I arrived at this place last night, about sunset, and was told that there was no hotel in the town except on the wharf-boat, the only house used for that purpose baring been closed a few days ago on account of a diflerence of opinion between its owner and his tenant. There are no wharves on the Mississippi, or any of the southern rivers. The wharf-boat is an old steamboat, with her paddle boxes and machinery removed and otherwise dis mantled, on which steamboats discharge passengers and freight. The main deck is used as a warehouse, and, in place of the furnace, has in this case a dram shop, a chandler's shop, a forwarding agency, and a telegraph office. Overhead, the saloon and state-rooms remain, and with the bar-room and clerk's office, kitchen and barber's shop, constitute a stationary though floating hostelry. Though there were fifty or more rooms, and not a dozen guests, I was obliged, about twelve o'clock, to admit a stranger who had been gambling all the evening in the saloon, to occupy the spare shelf of my closet. If a disposition to enjoy occasional privacy, or to exercise a choice in one's room-mates were a sure symptom of a monomania for incen diarism, it could not be more carefully thwarted than it is at all public-houses in this part of the world. Memphis, March 2W/i.--I reached this place to-day in forty-eight hours by steamboat from Vicksburg. Here, at the " Commercial Hotel," I am favoured with an unusually good-natured room-mate. He is smoking on the bed--our bed--now, and wants to know what my business is 56 COTTOS- AXD SLAVERY. here, and whether I carry a pistol about me; also whether I believe that it isn't lucky to pky cards on Sundays; which I do most strenuously, especially as this is a rainy Sunday, and his second cigar is nearly smoked out. This is a first-class hotel, and has, of course, printed bills of iare, which, in a dearth of other literature, are not to be dropped at the first glance. A copy of to-day's is presented on the opposite page. Being in a distant quarter of the establishment when a crash of the gong announced dinner, I did not get to the table as early as some others. The meal was served in a large, dreary room exactly like a hospital ward; and it is a striking illustration of the celerity with which everything is accomplished in our young country, that beginning with the soup, and going on by the fish to the roasts, the first five dishes I inquired for--when at last I succeeded in arresting one of the negro boys--were " all gone ;" and as the waiter had to go to the head of the dining-room, or to the kitchen, to a~h i-gg ssuce. Beef heart rfg sance. Lettf mutton caper sance. Barbecued rabits. Boiled tongue. ROAST. Vtal. R'MSt pig. M uicnvie ducks. Kentucky beef. Mutton. Barbecued ghost. Rufe* bear meat. Rufet pork. EKTBEES. Frlrasee pork. Calf feet moihroom eance. Bear sausagM. Harrtc me trip. Stew-U muttun. Browned rlc<. Calf fret maileira sance. Stewed turkey wine saoce. Glbkt> vollvoa. Mutton omelett. Beefs heart fricasecd. Chees*- nucaroni. -Chicken clwfa robert sauce. Bre^t ihicken majeira sauce. Beef kidney plcktv sauce. Cod fUb baked. Calf bead wine sauce. IBTTIT. Almonds. Ra>ins. 1'ecanj. VEGETABLES. Boiled cabbage. Turnips. CoW .Laugh. Hot slaugb. I'k-kled bceu. Creole hominy. Crout cabbage. Q>-9ler plant fried. Parsnepa gravied. Stewed paraneps. Fried cabbage. Sweet potatoes Bplced. Carrot. Snect potatoes baked. Cabbage Muffed. Onions, boiled. Irish potatoes creamed and mashed. Irish potatoes browned. Boiled ahellols. Scolloped carrota. Boiled turnips drawn batter. Wait* beans. PASTRY. Cornmt pies. Lemon costard. Rice podding. Cocoanat [H. Cranberry pies. Siced potato |>ie. Chess cake. Irish puddtoff. Orange custard. ~~ Cranberry Hhapea. Green peach tirta. Green praih puff paste. Grape tarts. Buckle berry plea. Ponnd cake. Rbeubarb tarta. Plum tarts. Calves feet jelly. Blamonge. Umnge jelly A stage-coach conveyed the railroad passengers from the hotel to the station, which was a mfle or two out of town. As we were entering the coach the driver observed with a 58 COTTON A>*D SLAVERY. Mephistophelean smile that we " needn't calkTate we were gwine to ride very for," and, as soon as we had got into the country he stopped and asked all the men to get out arc! walk, for, he condescended to explain, " it was as much as his hosses could do to draw the ladies and the baggage." "It was quite true; the horses were often obliged to stop, even with the diminished load, and as there was a contract between myself and the proprietors by which, for a stipulated sum of money by me to them in hand duly paid, they had under taken to conrey me over this ground, I thought it would have been no more than honest if they had looked out beforehand to hare either a stronger team, or a better road, provided. As is the custom of our country, however, we allowed our selves to be thus robbed with great good-nature, and waded along ankle-deep in the mud, joking with the driver arid ready to put our shoulders to the wheels if it should be necessary. Two portmanteaus were- jerked off in heavy lurches of the coach; the owners picked them up and carried them on their shoulders till the horses stopped to breathe again. The train of course had waited for us, and it con tinued to wait until another coach arrived, when it started twenty minntes behind time. After some forty miles of rail, nine of us were stowed away in another stage coach. The road was tad, the weather foul. We proceeded slowly, were often in imminent danger of being npset, and once were all obliged to get out and help the horses drag the coach out of a slough; but with smoking, and the occasional circulation of a small black bottle, and a gene ral disposition to be as comfortable as circumstances would allow, four hours of coaching proved less fatiguing than one of the 31-Tent3ated rail-cars. Among the passengers wes a "Judge," resident in the vicinity, portly, dignified, and well-informed; and a young A TRIP IKTO NORTHERN* MISSISSIPPI. 59 man, who was a personal friend of the member of Congress from the district, and who, as he informed me, had, through tLe influence of this friend, a promise from the President of honourable and lucrative employment trader Government. He was known to all the other passengers, and hailed by every one on the ncd-side, by the title of Colonel. The Judge was ready to converse about the country through which we were j assing. and while perfectly aware, as no one else seemed to be, that it lore anything but an appearance of prosperity or attractiveness to a stranger, he assured me that it was really improving in all respects quite rapidly. There were few large plantations, but many small planters or rather formers, for cotton, though the principal source of cash in come, was much less exclusively an object of attention than in the more southern parts of the State. A krger space was occupied by the maize and grain crops. There were not a few small fields of wheat. In the afternoon, when only the Colonel and myself were with him, the Judge talked about slavery in a candid and liberal spirit. At present prices, he said, nobody could afford to own slaves, unless he could engage them almost exclusively in cotton-growing. It was undoubtedly a great injury to a region like this, which was not altogether well adapted to cotton, to be in the midst of a slaveholding country, for it prevented efficient free labour. A good deal of cotton was nevertheless grown hereabouts by white labour--by poor men who planted an acre or two, and worked it themselves, getting the planters to gin and press it for them. It was not at all uncommon for men to begin in this way and soon purchase negroes on credit, and eventually become rich men. Most of the plantations in this vicinity, indeed, belonged to men who had come into the country with nothing within twenty years. Once a man get a good start with negroes, unless the luck was much against him, nothing 60 COTTO2T AXD SLATEBT. but his own folly could prevent his becoming rich. TLo increase of bis negro property by births, if he took good care of it, must, in a few years, make him independent. The worst thing, and the most difficult to remedy, was the deplor able ignorance which prevailed. Latterly, however, people were taking more pride in the education of their children. Some excellent schools had been established, the teachers generally from the North, and a great many children were sent to board in the villages--county-seats--to attend them. /This was especially true of girls, who liked to live in the villages \rather than on the plantations. There was more difficulty in making boys attend school, until, at least, they were too old to get much good from it. The " Colonel " was a rough, merry, good-hearted, simple- . minded man, and kept all the would-be sober-sides of our coach body in irrepressible laughter with queer observations on passing occurrences, anecdotes and comir songs. It must be confessed that there is no charge which the enemies of the theatre bring against the stage, that was not duly illustrated, and that with a broadness which the taste of a metropolitan audience would scarcely permit. Had Doctor ---- and Doctor ---- been with me they would thereafter for ever have denied themselves, and discountenanced in others^ the use of such a means of travel. The Colonel, notwithstand ing, was of a most obliging disposition, and having ascertained in what direction' I was going, enumerated at least a dozen families on the road, within some hundred miles, whom he invited me to visit, assuring me that I should find pretty girls in all of them, and a warm welcome, if I mentioned Ids name. He told the Judge that his bar-bill on the boat, coming up from Xew Orleans, was forty dollars--seventeen dollars the frst night But he had made money--had won forty dollars A TRIP IXTO NORTHERN MISSISSIPPI. Gl of one gentleman. He confessed, however, that he had lost fifteen by another, " but he saw how he did it. He did not want to accuse him publicly, but he saw it and he meant to write to him and tell him of it. He did not want to insult the gentleman, only he did" not want to hare him tfrinV that he was so green as not to know how he did it." While stopping for dinner at a village inn, a young man came into the room where we all were, and asked the coach man what was to tie paid for a trunk which had been brought for him. The coachman said the charge would be a dollar, which the young man thought excessive. The coachman denied that it was so, said that it was what he had often been paid; he should not take less. The young man finally agreed to wait for the decision of the proprietor of the line. There was a woman in the room; I noticed no loud words or angry tones, and had not supposed that there was the slight est excitement. I observed, however, that there was a pro found silence for a minute afterwards, which was interrupted by a jocose remark of the coachman about the delay of our dinner. Soon after we re-entered the coach, the Colonel referred to the trunk owner in a contemptuous manner. The Judge replied in a similar tone. " If I had been in the driver's place, I should have killed him sure/' said the Colonel. With great surprise, I ventured to ask for what reason. "Did not you see the fellow jrat hig hand to his breast when the driver denied that he had ever taken less than a dollar for bringing a trunk from Memphis ?" " Xo, I did not; but what of it ?" " Why, he meant to frighten the driver, of course." " You think he had a knife in his breast ?" " Of course he had, sir." " But you wouldn't kill him for that, I suppose ?" 62 COTTOX AST SLAVEEY. " When a man threatens to Mil me, you wouldn't hare me wait for him to do it, would yon, sir ?" The roads continued very heavy; some one remarked, "There's been a heap of rain lately," and rain still kept ialling. We passed a number of cotton waggons which had stopped in the road ; the cattle had been turned out and had strayed off into the woods, and the driTers lay under the tilts asleep on straw. The Colonel said this sight reminded him of his old campmeeting days. " I used to be very fond of going to campmeetings. I used to go first for fun, and, oh Lord! haint I had some fun at camp meetings ? But after a while I got a conviction--needn't laugh, gentlemen. I tell you it was sober business for me. Ill never make fun of that. The truth just is, I am a melancholy case; I thought I was a pious man once, I did--I'm damn'd if I didn't. Don't laughat what I say, now; I don't want fcn made of that; I give you my word I experienced religion, and I used to go to the meetings with as much sincerity and soberness as anybody could. That was the time I learned to eing--learned to pray too, I did; could pray right smart I did rtn'nV I was a con verted man, but of course I ain't, and I 'spose 'twamt the right sort, and I don't reckon I shall have another chance. A gentleman has a right to make the most of this life, when he can't calculate on anything better than roasting in the next. Aint that so, Judge? I reckon so. You mustn't think hard of me, if I do talk wicked some. Can't help it." I was forced by the stage arrangements to travel night and day. The Colonel told me that I should be able to get a good supper at a house where the coach was to stop about midnight --" good honest fried bacon,jand hot Christian corn-bread-- nothing like it, to fill a man up and make him feel righteous. You get a heap better living up in this country than you can A TRIP nrro KOKTHEHN MISSISSIPPI. 63 at the St. Charles, for all the fuss they make ahout it. It's lucky you'll have something better to travel on to-night than them French friterzeed Dutch flabbergasted hell-fixins: for you'll have the--------" (another most extraordinary series of imprecations on the road over \vhich I was to travel). Before dark all my companions left me, and in their place I had but one, a young gentleman with whom I soon became very intimately acquainted. He was seventeen years old, se he said; he looked older; and the son of a planter hi the " Yazoo bottoms." The last year he had " follered overseein'" on his father's plantation, but he was bound for Tennessee, now, to go to an academy, where he could learn geography. There was a school near home at which he had studied read ing and writing and ciphering, but he thought a gentleman ought to have some knowledge of geography. At ten o'clock the nest morning the stage-coach having progressed at the rate of exactly two miles and a half an hour, for the previous sixteen hours, during which time we had been fasting, the supper-house, which we should have reached before midnight, was still ten miles ahead, the driver sulky and refusing to stop until we reached it. We had been pounded till we ached in every muscle. I had had no sleep since I left Memphis. We were passing over a hill country which sometimes appeared to be quite"thickly inhabited, yet mainly still covered with a pine forest, through which the wind moaned lugubriously. I had been induced to torn this way * in my journey in no slight degree by reading the following description in a statis tical article of De Bow's Eeview: " Tlie settling of this region is one among the many remarkable events in the history of the rise of the Western States. Fiftten yenrs ago it was an Indian wilderness, anil now it lias reached and passed in its population, other portions of the Stato of ten times its age, and this population, too, one of the finest in all the West Great attention has been given to schools a-.id education, and here, [at Memphis,] has been located tho L 64 COTTOS ASK SLAVEBY. University of Mississippi; so amply endowed by the State, and now jnst going into operation under the auspices of some of the ablest profi-.-^ >ra from the eastern colleges. There is no overgrown wealth aiuoii il.i in, and vet no squalid poverty ; the people being generally comfortable, sub stantial, and independent fanners. Considering its climate, soil, wipc, and a boy and two girls sat in a bed which 70 COTTON AND SLAVERY. had been drawn up opposite to her, completing the fireside circle. They were talking and laughing cheerfully. The next morning when I turned out I found Tazoo look ing with the eye of a connoisseur at the seven prime fieldhands, who at half-past seven were just starting off with hoes and axes for their day's work As I approached him, he exclaimed with enthusiasm:-- " Aren't them a right keen lookin' lot of niggers ?" And our host soon after coming out, he immediately walked up to him, saying:-- " Why, friend, them yer niggers o' yourn would be good for seventy bales of cotton, if you'd move down into our country." Their owner was perfectly aware of their value, and said everything good of them. " There's something rather singlar, too, about my niggers ; I don't know as I ever see anything like it anywhere else." "How so, sir?" " Well, I reckon it's my way o' treatin' 'em, much as any thing. I never hev no difficulty with 'em. Hen't licked a nigger in five year, 'cept mayte sprouting some of the young ones sometimes. Fact, my niggers never want no lookin' arter; they jus tek ker o' themselves. Fact, they do tek a greater interest in the crops than I do myself. There's another thing--I 'spose 'twill surprise you--there ent one of my niggers hut what can read; read good, too--better 'n I can, at any rate." " How did they learn ?" " Taught themselves. I blieve there was one on 'em that I bought, that could read, and he taught all the rest. But niggers is mighrv apt at larnin', a heap more 'n white folks is."" I said that this was contrary to the generally received opinion. A TKDP INTO NOETHEKN MISSISSIPPI. 71 " Well, now, let me tell you," he continued; " I had a boy to work, when I was buildin', and my boys jus teachin' him night times and such, he wam't here more'n three months, and he lamed to read as well as any man I ever heerd, and I know he didn't know his letters when he come here. It didn't seem to me any white man could hare done that; does it to you, now ? "How old was he?" " Warn't more'n seventeen, I reckon." " How do they get books--do you get them for them ?" " Oh, no; get 'em for themselves." "How?" "Buy'em." " How do they get the money ?" "Earn it." "How?" "By their own work. I tell yon my niggers have got more money 'n I hev." " What kind of books do they get ?" " Religious kind a books ginerally--these stories; and some of them will buy novels, I believe. They won't let on to that, but I expect they do it." They bought them of peddlers. I inquired about the law to prevent negroes reading, and asked if it allowed books to be sold to negroes. He had never heard of any such law-- didn't believe there was any. The Yazoo man said there was such a law in his country. Negroes never had anything to read there. I asked our host if his negroes were religious, as their choice of works would have indicated. " Yes; all on 'em, I reckon. Don't s'pose you'll believe it, but I tell you it's a fact; I haint heerd a swear on this place for a twelvemonth. They keep the Lord's day, too, right tight, in gineral." 72 COTTOS ASD SLAVERY. " Oar niggers is mighty wicked down in Yallerbush county," said my companion; " they dance." " Dance on Sunday ?" I asked. "Oh, no, we don't allow that." " What do they do, then--go to meeting ?" " Why, Sundays they sleep mostly ; they've been at work hard all the week, yon know, and Sundays they stay in their cabins, and sleep and talk to each other. There's so many of 'em together, they don't want to go visiting off the place." " Are your negroes Baptists or Methodists ?" I inquired of our host "All Baptists; niggers allers want to be ducked, you know. They ain't content to be just ritch'd with water; they most be ducked in all over. There was two niggers jined the Methodists up here last summer, and they made the minister put 'em into the branch; they wouldn't jine less he'd duck 'em." " The Bible says baptize, too," observed Yazoo. "Well, they think they must be ducked all under, or 'tain't no good." " Do they go to meeting ?" " Yes, they hev a meeting among themselves." " And a preacher ?" " Yes; a nigger preacher." "Oar niggers is mighty wicked; they dance!" repeated Yazoo. " Do you consider dancing so very wicked, then ?" I asked. " Well, I don't account so myself, as I know on, but they do, you know--the pious people, all kinds, except the Tiscopers; some o' them, they do dance themselves, I believe. Do you dance in your country ?" "Yes." A TBIP INTO KOETHEBN JDB8I8SIPPL 73 " What sort of dances--cotillions and reels ?" "Yes; what do you?" " Well, we dance cotillions and reels too, and we dance on a plank; that's the kind of dancin' I like best" " How is it done ?" f* " Why, don't you know that ? Yoq, stand lace to face with your partner on a plank and keep a dancin'. Put the plank up on two barrel heads, so it'll kind o' spring. At some of our parties--that's among common kind o' people, you know --it's great fun. They dance as fast a^ they can, and the folks all stand round and holler, ' Keep it up, John !' ' Go it, Nance!3 ' Don't yive it up so!' ' Ul SLAVERY. 4 The Grot Vueg Apricot*. 5 The IVrfirm Aprievta. e IWtutil Apricts7 Aprkats muaaxroooa fran America, of a gold yelluw, of an enormous tat, and of the pint's apple taste. PXACH TUB. 1 Peach Gross* Xignonne. 2 -- Bello Beauty. 3 -- Godeaa. * -- Beauty of JVis, 4 -- From X-iples : said without >tooe, 6 Brnimori. muse last*. 7 Admiral le; BrLIe of Vitry. 8 The ( arze Rant. 9 Mmutranu* Pvie. 10 The Qird.nal, very fonrard. It Gond \V.,rkron. 12 Lentia Botuparte. 13 'IT*- Prince's Hearh, melting in the month. 14 The friMx'j Pemcn from Africa, with larRO white frait, weeing pound and h.df each ; hearty, new kind. SO others new kinds of Peach Trees. Pic* TRESS. 1 Plum lamorte. 2 Sirp*se MunsUT. 3 O-iina* with max taste. * 4 Bira> of Tours. 5 Urerti Gace. of a violet colour, 6 I.-irs~ Xiranelle, 7 Green gage, goMed. 8 Imperial, of a violet coloor, 9 Kropre^R. of a while colour. 10 Sie-Catherine, illuw, suger last* like. CHEIST TRIO. Gaurra Wntra. 1 Chaaselas of FontaiMbleao, with large gold grains. 2 Chimn-lM. blaek very good, 3 -- red, of mnac tcste. 4 Verdal, the sweetest and tinest fruit for desert & White lloscadine grape, or of Fronti- gnan. 6 Muscat of Alexandrie, muse tast. 7 Cornicboo, white, sweet sogar like, very good. 8 Toluy, red and while. 9 Verj" from Bordeaux, Urge yellow fruit 10 St. Peter large and fine (raic. 11 K.-d Muacadme Draper. 12 Kaislnut MaUgx 13 The Celeilal Wine Mr**, or the amphibiuus grain, weighing two OUIKVS, the grain of a red tod violet colour. JfEW SlKAWBERKV PtASta, 1 The Strawberry Cremont. 3 -- -- monster, new kii*L 4 -- -- from Cllili. 6 Caperon of a raspberry taste. 6 ScjrUt from Venose, very lurarJ p!..ut 7 Prince Albert. Iruit of very gmitx beaoty. 8 Grincbxi colalant, rerr larp?. 9 Rwse-Berry. big Iruit and of a loiij: form. 10 Bath clwrj-, very good. 11 'ibe Big Chinese Strawberry, ellv.ng 16 ro a pound, produce frcir all r<-ur roun>), ol tbe pine apple's taste. 12 Vilmoih fulL MEW FIG TREES OF A Moxsnu'ors Stzit1 THodetu white, of a Urge &izp. 2 lhicbesijf MHAK, green fruit. 3 I>unne-a-I>ieu, blue fruit 1 Cherryftnin the .Vorth. 2 -- R^yal, eive* from 13 to 20 cherries weihing one pound, 4 differentes 3 Cherry R>'ina Honense. 4 -- Montuvwncy. 5 -- with thort stalk (Grt*<3ubet), 6 -- U MerckT. 7 -- Four for a pound, 8 CVrry Beauty of Choky. 9 -- The KogUah. 10 Q*ny-l>ik.-k. 11 -- Creole vith boncjKrs. 12 -- Bigarrot or monster of new HexeL CUUAXT Tina. 4 IA Sanspareiiie, yellow IruiU The Ftrprtual V?fl/^6rrry Trtf, from Indies producing a fruit Lirp- as n egr. tacte delicious 3 kinds, red, violet and white. The Riptbrrry Tret from Fatt">f, rwl fmlt, viry ci-id of an extraordinary size, very hearty forward plant Worry CvTrattt Tree, with large hurtcbei it b-is a great production. It? nuni-roos and long bunches corer entirely the uld wood and looks like grapes; the fruit of a cherry pink colour is very Large and of the best quality. 1 CnrrautThnr with rel bnndies fgrapes). 2 -- -- with white boncbei. 3 Uooaeherrl-! of 1st cbnice ({Uspberries) . aix ktedtiofalef^ry. 4 Xew kind of currants.* f which the grapes are a* big a* the wine grape*. Aspamgut from Africa, new kinds, good to eat the &am* year of their planting (seeds of two yemX low rtnetit* of annnal Ami prrpptual flower's grains al of titcbf n garden g/ains A TRIP INTO NORTHERN KDSSISSlPPr. 77 PAULNOVIA IXPERIALIS. Magnificent hardy plant from 12 to IS yard* of bigtn: lt leave fine to the nize of 75 to ti centimeter and JIM fine and larg flowers of a line blue, gives when the spring comes, a soft and agreable perfunte. Baida Uia* ptaxtt Ox amateur trill Jine at M Rot sscr. jtora, a great Hunter qf oOur Platttt oci fruit Tree* of icAicA would t* to long to describe. NOTICE. Tbe admirable tnd strange plant culled Trvmptttc du Juffcment (Tbe JudgmentTrompette) of that name having nut yet lound It* cUuelfkatlon. This marvellous plant was t*ud to us from Cuina by the clener and courageous botanist c^fleclor M. Fortune, from {'Himalaya, near ummet ot the Cbamalarl Macon. This spkndld pLint deservi-** the first rank among all kinds of plant wlca the botanical Bdence na produce till now In spile of all the new discoveries. This bulbom plant glvi-s ^e> eral steins on tbe tame subject. It grows to the height of 6 feet. It I- fumi-Jred with flowers from bottom to top. llie bod looks by ha from like a big cannon hull of a heavenlr blue. The center i* of an anrora yellewish colour. Tbe vege tation of that ftant IH to loultlull that when it is near to blu*ni It gives a great heat when ta&ing It in hand and when the bud opens It produces a naile Similar to a pistole shot. Im mediately the vegetation ukes fire and bums like alcohol about an hour and a half. The flowera fucceeding one to the other gives the butisfactiun of having flowers during 7 or S month?. Tbe most intense cold can not hurt this plant and can be culvlvsted in pota, in appartmentf or gpeen house*. Wa call the public attention to this plant as a great rarioalry. Havre--Printed by F. HCF, me de Paria, 89. "But come," said the fanner, "go in; take a drink. Breakiast'll be ready right smart." " I don't want to drink before breakfast, thank you." " Why not ?" " I'm not accustomed to it, and I don't find it's wholesome." Not wholesome to drink before breakfast! That was " a new kink " to our jolly host, and troubled him as much as a new " ism " would an old fogy. Not wholesome ? He had always reckoned it warn't very wholesome not to drink before breakfast. He did not expect I had seen a great many healthier men than he was, had I ? and he always took a drink before breakfast. If a man just kept himself well strung up, without eyer stretching himself right tight, he didn't reckon damps or heat would ever do him much harm. He had never had a sick day since he came to thig place, and he reckoned that this was owin' considerable to die good rye whisky he took. It was a healthy trac' of land, though, he believed, a mighty healthy trac'; everything seemed to thrive here. We must see a nigger-gal that he was raisin'; she 78 COTTOS AOT> SLAVERY. was just coining five, and would pull up nigh upon a hundred weight. " Two year ago," he continued, after taking his dram, as we sat by the fire in the north room, " when I had a carpen ter here to finish off this house, I told one of my hoys he must come in and help him. I reckoned he would larn quick, if he was a mind to. So he come in, and a week arterwards he fitted the plank and laid this floor, and now you just look at it; I don't believe any man could do it better. That was two year ago, and now he's as good a carpenter as you ever see. I bought him some tools after the carpenter left, and he can do anvthinjr with 'em--make a table or a chest of drawers or anv- v O * thing. I think niggers is somehow nat'rally ingenious; more so 'n white folks. They is wonderful apt to any kind of slight." I took out my pocket-map, and while studying it, asked Yazoo some questions about the route East. Not having yet studied geography, as he observed, he could not answer. Our host inquired where I was gomg, that way. I sdd I should go on to Carolina. i* " Expect you're going to buy 1 rice-farm, in the Carolinies, aint you ? and I reckon" you're up here speckylating arter nig ger stock, aint you now ?" " "Well," said I, " I would n't moid getting that fat girl of yours, if we can made a trade. How much a pound will you sell her at ?" " We don't sell niggers by the pound in this country." " Well, how much by the lump ?" " Well, I don't know; reckon I don't keer about sellin' her just yet." After breakfast, I inquired about the management of the farm. He said that he purchased negroes, as he was able, from time to time. He grew rich by the improved saleable value of his land, arising ha part from their labour, and from their natural increase and improvement, for he bought only A TBtP INTO NOKTHERK .MISSISSrPPI. 79 such as would be likely to increase in value on his bauds. He had been obliged to spend but little money, being able to live and provide most of the food and clothing for his family and his people, by the production of his farm. He made a little cotton, which he had to send some distance to be ginned and baled, and then waggoned it seventy miles to a market; also raised some wheat, which he turned into flour at a neighbour ing mill, and sent to the same market. This transfer engaged much of the winter labour of his man-slaves. I said that I supposed the Memphis and Charleston railroad, as it progressed east, would shorten the distance to which it would be necessary to draw his cotton, and so be of much ser vice to him. He did not know that. He did not know as he should ever use it. He expected they would charge pretty high for cam-ing cotton, and his niggers hadn't any thing else to do. It did not really cost him anything now to send it to Memphis, because he had to board the niggers and the cattle anyhow, and they did not want much more on the road than they did at home. He made a large crop of corn, which, however, was mainly consumed by his own force, and he killed annually about one hundred and fifty hogs, the bacon of which was all consumed in his own family and by his people, or sold to passing travel lers. In the fall, a great many drovers and slave-dealers passed over the road with their stock, and they frequently camped against this house, so as to buy corn and bacon of him. This they cooked themselves. There were sometimes two hundred negroes brought along together, going South. He didn't always have bacon to spare for them, though he killed one hundred and fifty swine. They were generally bad characters, and had been sold for fan t by their owners. Sumo of the slave-tValcr.s were high-minded, honourable men, he thought; " high-toned gentlemen, as ever he saw, some of 'em, was." 80 COTTON ASD SLATEBT. Niggers were great eaters, and wanted more meat than white folks; anil be always gave his as much as they wanted, and more too. The negro coot always got dinner for them, and took what she liked for it; his wife didn't know much about it. She got as mnch as she liked, and he guessed she didn't spare it. When the field-hands were anywhere within a reasonable distance, they always came up to the house to get their dinner. If they were going to work a great way off, they wonld carry their dinner with them. They did as they liked about it. When they hadn't taken their dinner, the cook called them at twelve o'clock with a conch. They ate in the kitchen, and he had the same dinner that they did, right out of the same frying-pan; it was all the same, only they ete in the kitchen, and he ate in the room we were in, with the door open between them. I brought tip the subject of the cost of labour, North, and Sonth. He had no apprehension that there would ever he any want of labourers at the South, and could not understand that the ruling price indicated the state of the demand for them. He thought negroes would increase more rapidly than the need for their labour. " Xiggers," said he, " breed fester than white folks, a 'mazin5 sight, you know; they begin younger." " How young do they begin ?" " Sometimes at fourteen, sometimes at sixteen, and some times at eighteen." " Do you let them marry so young as that ?" I inquired. He laughed, and said, " They don't very often wait to be married." "When they marry, do they have a minister to marry them ?" " Yes, generally one of their own preachers." " Do they with you ?" I inquired bf Yazoo. " Yes, sometimes they hev a whi' z minister, and sometimes a black one, and if there arn't neither handy, they gei some of A TBIP nrro KOETHEEIT MISSISSIPPI. the pious ones to marry 'em. But then very often they only just come and ask our consent, and then go ahead, without any more ceremony. They just call themselves married. But most niggers likes a ceremony, you know, and they generally make out to hev one somehow. They don't very often get married for good, though, without trying each other, as they gay, for two or three weeks, to see how they are going to like each other." I afterwards asked how far it was to the post-office. It was six miles. " One of my hoys," paid our host, " always gets the paper every week. He goes to visit his wife, and passes hy the post-office every Sunday. Our paper hain't come" though, now, for three weeks. The mafl don't come very re gular." All of his negroes, who had wives off the place, left an hour before sunset on Saturday evening. One of them, who had a wife twenty miles away, left at twelve o'clock Satur day, and got hack at twelve o'clock Monday. " We had a nigger once," said Yazoo, " that had a wife fif teen miles away, and he used to do so; but he did some ras cality once, and he was afraid to go again. He told us his wife was so far off, 't was too much trouble to go there, and he believed he'd give her up. We was glad of it. He was a darned rascally nigger--allers getting into scrapes. One time we sent him to mill, and he went round into town and sold some of the meal. The storekeeper wouldn't pay him for't, 'cause he hadn't got an order. The next time we were in town, the storekeeper just showed us the bag of meal; said he reck oned 't was stole; so when we got home we just tied him up to the tree and licked him. lie's a right smart nigger; ras cally niggere allers is smart. I'd rather have a rascally nigger than any other--they's so smart allers. He is about the best nigger we've got." "I have heard," said I, " that religious negroes were gene- VOL. n. G L 82 COTTOS AKD 8LAYEBY. rally the most valuable. I have been told that a third more would be given for a man if he were religious." " "Well, I never heerd of it before," said he. Our host thought there was no difference in the market value of sinners and saints. " Only," observed Yazoo, " the rascalier a nigger is, the better hell work. Now that yer nigger I was tellin' you on, he's worth more'n any other nigger we've got? He's a yaller nigger." I asked their opinion as to the comparative value of black and yellow negroes, Ota1 host had two bright mulatto boys among his--didn't thiiJc there was much difference, "but allers reckoned yellow fellows was the best a little; they worked smarter. He would rather have them." Tazoo would not; he " didn't think but what they'd work as well; but he didn't fancy yellow negroes 'round him; would rather have real black ones." I asked our host if he had no foreman or driver for his ne groes, or if he gave his directions to one of them in particular for all the rest. He did not. They all did just as they plfsvvd, and arranged the work among themselves. They never needed driving. " If I ever notice one of 'em getting a h'ttle slack, I just talk to him; tell him we must get out of the grass, and I want to hev him stir himself a little more, and then, maybe, I slip a dollar into his hand, and when he gits into the field hell go ahead, and the rest seeing him, won't let themselves be distanced by him. My niggers never want no lookin' arter. They tek more interest in the crop than I do myself, every one of 'em." Beligious, instructed, and seeking further enlightenment; industrious, energetic, and self directing; well fed, respected, and trusted by their master, and this master an illiterate, in dolent, and careless man! A very different state of things, f A TRIP DTTO NOnTHERK MISSISSIPPI. 83 this, from what I saw on a certain great cotton planter's estate, where a profit of 8 100,000 was made in a single year, but where five hundred negroes wr re constantly kept under the whip, where religion was only a pow-wow or cloak for immorality, and where the negro was considered to be of an inferior race, especially designed by Providence to be kept in the position he there occupied! A very different thing; and strongly suggesting what a very different thing this negro servitude might be made in general, were the ruling disposi tion of the South more just and sensible. About half-past eleven, a stage coach, which had come earlier in the morning from the East, and had gone on as far as the brook, returned, having had our luggage transferred to it from the one we had left on the other side. In the transfer a portion of mine wa? omitted and never recovered. Up to this time our host had not paid the smallest attention to any work his men were doing, or even looked to see if they liad fed the cattle, but had lounged about, sitting npon a fence, chewing tobacco, and talkiug with us, evidently very glad to have somebody to con verse with. He went in once again, after a drink; showed us the bacon he had in his smoke-house, and told a good many stories of his experience in life, about a white man's " dying hard " in the neighbourhood, and of a tree falling on a team with which one of his negroes was ploughing cotton, " which was lucky "--that is, that it did not kill the negro--and a good deal about "hunting" when he was younger and lighter. Still absurdly influenced by an old idea which I had brought to the South with me, I waited, after the coach came in sight, for Yazoo to put the question, which he presently did, boldly enough. / " Well; reckon we're goin' now. What's the damage T " Well; reckon seventy-five cents 11 l>e right" a2 COTTON AMD SLA.YBBY. CHAPTER IH. DJTBBIOB COTTOX DISTRICTS--CESTRATi tOSSISSTPPl, ALABAMA, ETC. Central Mississippi, May 31s.--Yesterday-was a raw, cold day, wind north-east, like a dry north-east storm at Lome. Fortunately I came to the pleasantest house and household I had seen for some time. The proprietor was a native of Maryland, and had travelled in the North; a devout Metho dist, and somewhat educated. He first came South, as I un derstood, for the benefit of his health, his lungs being weak. His first dwelling, a rude log cabin, was still standing, and was occupied by some of his slaves. The new house, a cottage, consisting of four rooms and a hall, stood in a small grove of oaks; the iamily were quiet, kind, and sensible. When I arrived, the oldest boy was at work, holding a plough in the cotton-field, but he left it and came at once, with confident and afiable courtesy, to entertain me. My host had been in Texas, and after exploring it quite thoroughly, concluded that he much preferred to remain where he was. He found no part of that country where good land, timber, and a healthy climate were combined: in the West he did not like the vicinage of the Germans and Mexicans; more over, he didn't " foncy " a prairie county. Here, in favourable years, he got a bale of cotton to the acre. Kot BO much now as formerly. Still, he said, the soil would be good enough for T"'TM here, for many years to come. I went five times to the stable without being able to find 8 servant there. I was always told that "the boy" would feed my hors^, and take good care of him, when he came; THE 1KTERIOR COTTOH DISTRICTS. 85 and so at length I had to go to bed, trusting to this assurance. I went out just before breakfast next morning, and found the horse with only ten dry cobs in the manger. I searched for the boy; could not find him, but was told that my horse had been fed. I said, "I wish to hare him fed more--as much as he will eat." Very well, the boy should give him more. When I went out after breakfast the boy was leading out the horse. I asked if he had given him corn this morning. " Oh yes, sir." " How many ears did you give him ?" " Ten or fifteen--or sixteen, sir; he eata very hearty." I went into the stable and saw that he had not been fed; there were the same ten cobs (dry) in the manger. I doubted, indeed, from their appearance, if the boy had fed him at all the night before. I fed him with leaves myself, but could not get into the corn crib. The proprietor was, I do not doubt, perfectly honest, but the negro had1 probably stolen the corn for lus own hogs and fowls. The next day I rode more than thirty miles, having secured a good feed of corn for the horse at midday. At nightfall I was much fatigued, but had as yet failed to get lodging. It began to rain, and grew dark, and I kept the road with diffi culty. About nine o'clock I came to a large, comfortable house. An old lady sat in the verandah, of whom I asked if I could be accommodated for the night: " Beckon so," she replied : then after a few moments' reflection, without rising from her chair she shouted, " Gal!--gal!" Presently a girl came. " Missis ?' "Call Tom!" The girl went off, while I remained, waiting for a more definite answer. At length she returned: " Tom ain't there, missis." 86 COTTOH AND SLAVERY. "Who is there?" " Old Pete." " Well, tell him to come and take this gentleman's horse." Pete came, and I went with him to the gate where I had fastened my horse. Here he called for some younger slave to come and take him down to " the pen," while he took off the saddle. All this time it was raining, hut any rapidity of movement was ont of the question. Pete continued shouting. "Why not lead the horse to the pen yourself?" I asked. "I must take care of de saddle and tings, massa ; tote "em to de boose whar dey'll be safe. Dese niggers is so treacherous, can't leave nothin' roun' but deyll hook snthing off of it." Next morning, at dawn of day, I saw honest Pete come into the room where I was in bed and 0 stealthily to his yonng master's clothes, probably mistaking them for mine. I moved and he dropped them, and slnnk out to (he next room, where he went loudly to making a tire. I managed to see the horse well fad ui<*ht anJ morning. There were three pretty young women in this house, of good manners and well dressed, except for the abundance of rings and jewelry which they displayed at breakfast. One of them surprised me not a little at the table. I had been offered, in succession, fried ham and eggs, sweet potatoes, apple-pie, corn-bread, and molasses; this last article I de clined, and passed it to the young lady opposite, looking to see how it was to be used. She had, on a breakfast plate, fried ham and eggs and apple-pie, and poured molasses between them. June Lsf--I stopped last evening at the house of a man who was called " Doctor " by his family, but who was, tojudge from his language, very illiterate. His son, by whom I was THB UTTEBIOB COTTON DISTRICTS. 87 first received, followed me to the stable. He had ordered a negro child to lead my horse, but as I saw the little fellow could n't hold him I -went myself. He had no fodder (cornleaves), and proposed to give the horse some shucks (cornhusks) dipped in salt water, and, as it was now too late to go further, I assented. Belshazzar licked them greedily, but would not eat them, and they seemed to destroy his appetite for corn, for late in the evening, having groped my way into the stable, I found seven small ears of corn, almost untasted, in the manger. I got the young man to come out and give him more. The " Doctor " returned from " a hunt," as he said, with no game but a turtle, which he had taken from a " trot line "-- a line, with hooks at intervals, stretched across the river. The house was large, and in a good-sized parlour or com mon room stood a handsome centre table, on which were a few books and papers, mostly Baptist publications. I sat here alone in the evening, straining my eyes to read a wretchedly printed newspaper, till I was offered a bed. I was very tired and sleepy, having been ill two nights before. The bed was apparently clean, and I gladly embraced it. My host, holding a candle for me to undress by (there was no candlestick in the house), called to & boy on "the outside to festen the doors, which he did by setting articles of furniture against them. When I had got into bed he went himself into an inner room, the door of which he closed and fastened in the same manner. No sooner was the light with drawn than I was attacked by bugs. I was determined, if possible, not to be kept awake by them, but they soon con quered me. I never suffered such incessant and merciless persecution from them before. In half an hour I was nearly frantic, and leaped from lied. But what to do ? There was no use in making a disturbance about it; doubtless every 88 COTTON AND SLAVERY. other bed and resting place in the house was full of them. 1 shook out iny day clothes carefully and put them on, and then pushing away the barricade, opened the door and went into the parlour. .At first I thought that I would arrange the chairs in a row and sleep on them; but this I found impracticable, for the seats of the chairs were too narrow, and moreover of deerskin, which was sure to he full of fleas if not of bugs. Stiff and sore and weak, I groeningly lay down where the light of the moon came through a broken window, for bogs feed but little except in darkness, and with my saddle-bags for a pillow, again essayed to sleep. Fleas ! in stantly. There was nothing else to be done ; I was too tired to sit up, even if that would have effectually removed the annoyance. Finally t dozed--not long, I think, for I was suddenly awakened by a large insect dropping upon my eye. I struck it off, and at the moment it stung me. My eyelid swelled immediately, and grew painful, but at length I slept in spite of it. I was once more awakened by a large beetle which fell on me from the window ; once more I got asleep, ' till finally at four o'clock I awoke with that feverish dryness of the eyes which indicates a determination to sleep no more. It was daylight, and I was stiff and shivering ; the tion and pain of the sting in my eyelid had in a great degree subsided. I pushed back the bolt of the outside door-lock, and went to the stable. The negroes were already at work in the field. Belshazzar had had a bad night too : that was evident. The floor of the stall, being of earth, had been trodden into two hollows at each end, leaving a small rough hillock in the centre. Bad as it was, however, it was the best in the stable ; only one in four of the stalls having a manger that was not broken down. A wee little black girl and boy were cleaning their master's horses-- mine they were afraid o They had managed to put some fresh corn in his J, THE INTEBIOB COTTON W8TBICT8. . 89 manger, however, and as he refused to eat, I^took a carry-, comb and brush, and in the next two hours gave him the first thorough grooming he had enjoyed since I owned him. I could not detect the reason of his loss of appetite. I had been advi'sed by an old southern traveller to examine the corn when my horse refused to eat--if corn were high I might find that it had been* greased. From the actions of the horse, then and subsequently, I suspect some trick of this kind was here practised upon me. When I returned to the house and asked to wash, water was given me in a vessel which, though I doubted the right of my host to a medical diploma, certainly smelt strongly of the shop--it was such as is used by apotheca ries in mixing drugs. The title of Doctor is often popularly given at the South to druggists and venders of popular medi cines ; very probably he had been one, and had now retired to enjoy the respectability of a planter. June 2nd.--I met a ragged old negro, of whom I asked the way, and at what house within twelve miles I had better stop. 'He advised me to go to one more than twelve miles distant. "I suppose," said I, "I can stop at any house along the road here, can't I ? They'll all take in travellers ?" " Yes, sir, if you'll take rough fare, such as travellers- has to, sometimes. They're all damn'd rascals along dis road, for ten or twelve miles, and you'll get nothin' but rough fare. But I say, massa, rough fare 's good enough for dis world; ain't it, massa ? Dis world ain't nothin; dis is hell, dis is, I calls it; hell to what's a comin' arter, ha ! ha ! Ef you 'a prepared ? you says. I don't look much 's if I was prepared, does I ? nor talk like it, nuther. De Lord he cum to me in my cabin in de night time, in de year '45." "" What ?" " De Lord! massa, de bressed Lord! He cum to me in 90 COTTON AND SIAVERT. de night time, in de year '45, and he says to me, says he, ' 111 spare you yet five year longer, old boy!' So -when '50 com round I thought my time had cum, sure; hut as I didn't diej I reckon de Lord has 'cepted of me, and I 'specs I shall be saved, dough I don't look much like it, ha ! ha ! ho ! ho! de Lord am my rock, and he shall not perwail over me. I will lie down in green pastures and take up" my bed in hell, yet will not His mercy circumwent me. Got some baccy, master?" A little after sunset I came to an unusually promising plantation, the dwelling being within a large enclosure, in which there \vas a well-kept southern sward shaded by fine tree*. The house, of the usual form, was painted white, and the large number of neat out-buildings seemed to indicate opulence, and, I thought, unusual good taste in its owner. A lad of sixteen received me, and said I could stay; I might fasten my horse, and when the negroes came up he would have him taken care of. "When I had done so, and had brought the saddle to the verandah, he offered me a chair, and at once commenced a conversation in the character of entertainer. Nothing in his tone or manner would have indicated that he was not the father of the family, and pro prietor of the establishment. No prince royal could have had more assured and nonchalant dignity. Tet a northern stable-boy, or apprentice, of his age, would seldom be found as ignorant. "TVhere do you live, sir, when you are at home?" he asked. "At New York." " New York is" a big place, sir, I expect f "Yes, very big." " Big as New Orleans, is it, sir T " Yes, much bigger." THE ETTEBIOR COTTON DISTRICTS. 91 " Bigger 'n New Orleans ? It must be a bully city." " Yes; the largest in America." " Sickly there now, sir ?" " Xo, not now; it is sometimes." " Like New Orleans, I suppose ?" "Xo, never so bad as New Orleans sometimes is." " Bigtit healthy place, I expect, sir ?" " Yes, I believe so, for a place of its size." " What diseases do you have there, sir ?" " All sorts of diseases--not so much fever, however, as you have hereabouts." " Measles and hooping-cough, sometimes, I reckon ?" " Yes, 'most all the time, I dare say." " All the time ! People mtist die there right smart. Some is dyin' 'most even" day, I expect, sir ?" " More than a hundred every day, I suppose." " Go.sh ! a hundred every day! Almighty sickly place 't must !>e ?" " It is such a large place, you see--seven hundred thousand people." " Seven hundred thousand--expect that's a heap of people, ain't it ?" His father, a portly, well-dressed man, soon came in, and learning that I had been in Mexico, said, ' I suppose there's a heap of Americans nocking in and setth'ng up that country along on tlie line, ain't there, sir ?" " Xo, sir, very few. I saw none, in fact--only a few Irishmen and Frenchmen, who called themselves Americans. Those were the only foreigners I saw, except negroes." " Xiggers ! "Where were they from ?" " They were runaways from Texas." " But their masters go there and get them again, don't they?" 92 COTTON ASD SLAVEBY. "No, sir, they can't." "Why not?" " The Mexicans are friendly to the niggers, and protect them." " Bnt why not go to the Government ?" " The Government considers them as free, and will not let them be taken back." " Bnt that's stealing, sir. "Why don't onr Government make them deliver them up ? "What good is the Government to us if it don't preserve the rights of property, sir ? Niggers are property, ain't th5y ? and if a man steals my property, ain't the Government bound to get it for me ? Niggers are pro perty, sir, the same as horses and cattle, and nobody's any more right to help a nigger that's run away than he has to steal a horse." He spoke very angrily, and was excited. Perhaps he was indirectly addressing me, as a Northern man, on the general sul>ject of fugitive slaves. I said that it was necessary to have special treaty stipulations about such matters. The Mexicans lost their peons--bonnden servants ; they ran away to our side, but the United States Government never took any measures to restore them, nor did the Mexicans ask it. "But," he answered, in a tone of indignation, "those are not niggers, are they ? They are white people, sir, just as white as the Mexicans themselves, and just as much right to be free." My horse stood in the yard till (juite dark, the negroes not coming in from the' cotton-field. I twice proposed to take him to the stable, but he said, " No: the niggers would come up soon and attend to him." Just as we were called to supper, the negroes began to make their appearance, getting over a fence with their hoes, and the master called to one to put the horse in the stable, arid to " take good care of him." " I THE BfTKRIOB COTTON DISTRICTS. 93 want him to have all the corn hell eat," said I. " Yes, ar; feed him well; do you hear there ?" The house was meagrely furnished within, not nearly as well as the most common New England farm-house. I saw no books and no decorations. The interior wood-work was tLnpainted. At supper there were three negro girls in attendance--two children of twelve or fourteen years of age, and an older one, but in a few moments they all disappeared. The mistress called aloud several times, and at length the oldest came, bringing in hot biscuit. " Where's Suke and Bet ?" " In the kitchen, missns." " Tell them both to -come to me, right off." A few minutes afterwards, one of the girls slunk in and stood behind me, as far as possible from her mistress. Pre sently, however, she was discovered. " You Bet, you there ? Come here! come here to me J close to me! (Slap, slap, slap.) Now, why don't you stay in here ? (Slap, slap, slap, on the side of the head.) I know ! you want to be out in the kitchen with them Indians ! (Stop, slap, slap.) Now see if you can stay here." (Slap !) The other girl didn't come at all, and was forgotten. As soon as supper was over my hostess exclaimed, " Now, you Bet, stop crying there, and do yon go right straight home ; mind you run every step of the way, and if you stop one minute in the kitchen you'd better look out. Begone!" During the time I was in the house she was incessantly scold ing the servants, in a manner very disagreeable for me to hear, though they seemed to regard it rery little. The Indians, I learned, lived some miles away, and were hired to hoe cotton. I inquired their wages. "Well, it costs me about four bits (fifty cents) a day," (including food, 9i OOTTOK AND SLAVEBY. probably). They worked well for a few days at a time; were better at picking than at hoeing. " They don't pick so much in a day as niggers, but do it better." The women said they were good for nothing, and her husband had no bnsiness to plant so mnch cotton that he couldn't 'tend it with his own slave hands. TVhile at table a yonjjg man, very dirty and sweaty, with a ragged shirt and no coat on. came in to supper. He was surly and rnde in his actions, and did not speak a word; he left the table before I had finished, and lighting a pipe, laid himself at fall length on the floor of the room to smoke. This was the overseer. Immediately after supper the master told me that he was in the habit of going to bed early, and he would show me where I was to sleep. He did so, and left me without a candle. It was dark, and I did not know the way to the stables, so I soon went to bed. On a feather bed I did not enjoy much rest, and when I at last awoke and dressed, breakfast was just ready. I said I would go first to look after my horse, and did so, the planter following me. I found him standing in a miserable stall, in a sorry state ; he had not been cleaned, and there were no cobs or other indica tions of his having been fed at all since he had been there. I said to my host-- " He has not been fed, sir!" " I wonder ! hain't he ? " Well, I'll have him fed. I s'pose the overseer forgot him." But, instead of going to the crib and feeding him at once himself, he returned to the house and blew a horn for a negro; when after a long time one came in sight from the cottonfields, he called to him to go to the overseer for the key of the corn-crib and feed the gentleman's horse, and asked me now to come to breakfast. The overseer joined us as a ^ THE INTEBIOB COTTOH DISTRICTS. 95 supper; nothing was said to him about my horse, and he was perfectly silent, and conducted himself like an angry or sulky man in all his actions. As before, when he had finished his meal, without waiting for others to leave the table, he lighted a pipe and lay down to rest on the floor. I went to the stable and found my horse had been supplied with seven poor ears of corn only.. I came back to ask for more, but could find neither mister nor overseer. While I was packing my saddle-bags preparatory to leaving, I heard my host call a negro to " clean that gentleman's horse and bring him here." Ad it was late, I did not interpose. While I was putting on the bridlo, he took off the mosquito tent attached to the saddle and examined it. I explained why I carried it. " You wan't want it any more," said he; f course they will, if they are slaves. But lying and stealing iare not the worst of it. I've got a family of children, and :I don't like to have such degraded beings round my house frhile they are growing up. I know what the consequences are to children, of growing up among slaves:" I I here told him that I was a Northern man, and asked if he could safely utter sucn sentiments among the people of this district, who bore the, reputation of being among the most VOL. rt. 98 COTTON AND SLAVEBT. extreme and fanatical devotees of slavery. " I've been told a hondted times I should be killed if I were not more prudent in expressing my opinions, but, when it comes to killing, I'm as good as the nest man, and they know it I never came the worst ont of a fight yet since I was a boy. I never am afraid to speak what I think to anybody. I don't think I ever shall be." "Are there many persons here who have as bad an opinion of slavery as you have ?" "I reckon yon never saw a conscientious man who had been brought up among slaves who did not thinlr of it pretty much as I do--did you f " Yes, I think I have, a good many." "Ah, self-interest warps men's minds wonderfully, but I don't believe there are many who don't think so, sometimes-- it's impossible, I know, that they don't." Were there any others in this neighbourhood, I asked, who avowedly hated slavery ? He replied that there were a good many mechanics, all the mechanics he knew, who felt slavery to be a great curse to them, and who wanted to see it brought to an end in some way. The competition in which they were constantly made to feel themselves engaged with slave-labour was degrading to them, and they felt it to be so. He knew a poor, hard-working man who was lately offered the services of three negroes for six years each if he would let them learn his trade, but he refused the proposal with indignation, say ing he would starve before he helped a slave to become a me chanic.* There was a good deal of talk now among them * At Wilmington, North Carolina, on the night of the 27th of July (1857], the frame-work of a new building was destroyed bj a number of persons, and a placard attached to the disjointed lumber, stating that a similar course wo::!d be pursued in all cases, again.-* edifices that should be erected by negro contractors or carpenter?, by ou of whki da,-s ot men the house had been conrtructed. There was a public meeting called a few days afterwards, to take this outrage into coo- THE INTEKIOE COTTON DHTBICTS. 99 about getting laws passed to prevent the owners of slaves from having them taught trades, and to prohihit slave-me chanics from being hilled out. He could go ont to-morrow, he snpposed, and in tlie course of a day get two hundred sig natures to a paper alleging that slavery was a curse to the people of Mississippi,; and praying the Legislature to take measures to relieve thdm of it as soon as practicable. (The county contains three times as many slaves as whites.) He considered a coercive government of the negroes hy the whites, forcing them to labour systematically, and restraining them from a reckless destruction of life and property, at pre sent to he necessary. jOf course, he did not think it wrong to hold slaves, and the jjrofits of their labour were not more than enough to pay a iian for looking after them--not' if he did his duty to them, j What was wrong, was making slavery so much worse than w4s necessary. Negroes would improve very rapidly, if they) were allowed, in any considerable measure, the ordinary incitements to improvement He knew hosts of negroe^ who showed extraordinary talents, considering their opportunities: there wefe a great many in this part of the countr! who could read and write, and calcu late mentally as well athe general run of white men who had been to schools, There were Colonel ----"s negroes, some fifty of them; he did not suppose there were any sideration, which wits numerously attended. Resolutions were adopted, denounc ing the act, and the authorities were instructed to offer a suitable reward for Ihe detection and conviction of the rioter*. " The impression was conveyed at the meeting," says the n'Uin!ngt one said: " Hell be here to breakfast, at your house to dinner, and at Dr. ----'s to supper, leaving his family to live as best they can." They " reckoned " he got most of his living in that way, while hia family had to get theirs by stealing. He never did any work except hunting, and they "reckoned" he killed about as many shoats and yearlings as deer and turkeys. They said that this sort of people were not often in temperate ; they had no money to buy liquor with; now and then, when they'd sold some game or done a little work to raise money, they'd have a spree; but they were more apt to gamble it off or spend it for fine clothes and things to trick out their wives. June -- . To-day, I am passing through a valley of thin, sandy soil, thickly populated by poor farmers. Negroes are rare, but occasionally neat, new houses, with other im provements, show the increa'ring prosperity of the district. _ The majority of dwellings are small log cabins of one room, with another separate cabin for a kitchen; each house has a well, and a garden inclosed with palings. Cows, goats, mules and swine, fowls and doves are abundant The people are more social than those of the lower country, falling readily into friendly conversation with a traveller. They are very ignorant; the agriculture is wretched and the work hard. I have seen three white women hoeing field crops to-day. A spinning-wheel is heard in every house, and frequently a loon) 123 COTTON AUD SLAVERY. is clanging in the gallery, always worked by women ; every one wears homespun. The negroes have much more individual freedom than in the rich cotton country, and are not unfrequently heard singing or whistling at their work. Tennessee, June 2Mh.--At nightfall I entered a broader and more populous valley than I had seen before during the day, but for some tune there were only small single room log cabins, at which I was loath to apply for lodging. At length I reached a large and substantial log house with negro cabins. The master aat in the stoop. Tasked if hecould accommodate me. " "What do you want ?" " Something to eat for myself and horse, and room to sleep under your roof." " The wust on't is," he said, getting up and coming toward me, " we haven't got much for your horse." " You've got corn, I suppose." " No, hain't got no corn but a little that we want for our selves, only just enough to bread us till corn comes again." " Well, you have oats ?" "Hain't got an oat." " Haven't you hay T Xo." " Then I must go further, for my horse can't travel on fodder." " Hain't got nary fodder nuther." Fortunately I did not have to go much further before I came to the best house I had_seen during the day, a large, noat, white house, with negro shanties, and an open log cabin in the front yard. A stout, elderly, fine-looking woman, in a cool white muslin dress sat upon the gallery, fanning herself Two little negroes had just brought a pail of fresh water, and she was drinking of it with a gourd, as I came to r THE HiaHLANDEBS. 127 the gate. I asked if it would be convenient for her to accommodate me for the night, doubting!}', for I had learned to distrust the accommodations of the wealthy slaveholders. u Oh yes, get down; fasten your horse there, and the niggers will take care of hrm when they come from their work. Come up here and take a seat." I brought in my saddle-bags. "Bring them in here, into the parlour," she said, "where they'll be safe." The interior of the house was furnished with unusual comfort. " The parlour," however, had a bed hi it. As we came out, she locked the door. We had not sat long, talking about the weather (she -was suffering much from the heat), when her husband came. He was very hot also, though dressed coolly enough in merely a pair of short-legged, unbleached cotton trousers, and a shirt with the bosom spread open--no shoos nor stockings. He took his seat before speaking to me, and after telling his wife it was the hottest day he ever saw,' squared his chair toward toe, threw it back so as to recline against & post, and said gruffly, " Good evening, sir; you going to stay here to-night ?" I replied, and he looked at me a few moments without speaking. He was, in faet, so hot that he spoke with difficulty. At length he got breath and asked abruptly: "Yon a mechanic, sir, or a dentist, eh--or what ?" Supper was cooked by two young women, daughters of the master of the house, assisted by the two little negro boys. The cabin in front of the house was the kitchen, and when the bacon was dished up, one of the boys struck an iron triangle at the door. " Come to supper," said the host, and led the way to the kitchen, which was also the supper-room. One of the young ladies took the foot of the table, the other seated herself apart by the fire, and actually waited on the 128 COTTOS AND SLAVERY. table, though the two negro boys stood at the head and foot, nominally waiters, but always anticipated by the Cinderella, when anything was wanted. A big lout of a youth who came from the field with the negroes, looked in, but seeing me, retired. His father called, but his mother said, " 't wouldn't do no good--he was so bashful." Speaking of the climate of the country, I was informed that a majority of the folks went barefoot all winter, though they had snow much of the time four or five inches deep, and the man said he didn't think most of the men about here had more than one coat, and they never wore any in winter except on holidays. " That was the healthiest way," he reckoned, "just to toughen yourself and not wear no coat; no matter how cold it was, he didn't wear no coat." The master held a candle for me while I undressed, in a large room above stairs; and gave me my choice of the four beds in it. I found one straw bed (with, as usual, but one sheet), on which I slept comfortably. At midnight I was awakened by some one coming in. I rustled my straw, and a voice said, " Who is there in tfiia room ?" " A stranger passing the night; who are you ?" " All right; I belong here. I've been away and have just come home." He did not take his clothes off to sleep. He turned out to be an older son who had been fifty miles away, looking after a stray horse. "When I went down stairs in the morning, having been wakened early by flies, and the dawn of day through an open window, I saw the master lying on his bed in the " parlour," still asleep in the clothes he wore at supper. TTia -wife was washing her face on the gallery, being already dressed for the day; after using the family towel, she went into ihe kitchen, but soon returned, smoking a pipe, to her chair in the doorway. THE HIGHIAXDEKS. 129 \et everything betokened an opulent and prosperous man --rich land, extensive field crops, a number of negroes, and considerable herds of cattle and horses. He also had capital invested in mines and railroads, he told me. TTia elder son -spoke of him as " the squire." A negro woman assisted in preparing breakfast (she had probably been employed in the field labour the night before), and both the young ladies were at the table. The squire ob served to me that he supposed we could buy hands very cheap in New York. I said we could hire them there at moderate wages. He asked if we couldn't buy as many as we wanted, by sending to Ireland for them and paying their passage. He had supposed we could buy them and hold them as slaves for a term of years, by paying the freight on them. "When I had corrected him, he said, a little hesitatingly, " You don't have no black slaves in New York ?" " No, sir." " There's niggers there, ain't there, only they're all free T " Yes, sir." " Well, how do they get along so ?" " So iar as I know, the most of them live pretty comfortably." (I have changed my standard of comfort lately, and am inclined to believe that the majority of the negroes at the North live more comfortably than the majority of whites at the South.) " I wouldn't like that," said the old lady. "I wouldn't like to lire where niggers was free, they are bad enough when they are slaves: it's hard enough to get along with them here, they're so bad. I reckon that niggeis are the meanest critters on earth; they are so mean and nasty " (she expressed disgust and indigna tion very strongly in her face). " If they was to think them selves equal to we, I don't think white folks could abide it-- they're snch vile sancy things." A negro woman and two boys were in the room as she said this. North Carolina, July 12th.--I rode late last night, there VOL. n. K 130 COTTON AXD SU.VTBV. being no cabins for several miles in which I was willing to spend the night, until I came to one of larger size than usual, with a gallery on the side toward the road and a good stable opposite it, A man on the gallery was about to answer (as I judged from his countenatice), "I reckon you can," to my inquiry if I could stay, when the cracked voice of a worryM woman screeched out from within, " We don't foller taMn' in people." " So, sir," said the man, " we don't foller it." " How fer shall I have to go T " There's another house a little better than three quarters of a mfle further on." To this house I proceeded--a cabin of one room and a loft, with a kitchen in a separate cabin. The owner said he never turned anybody away, and I was welcome. He did not say that he had no corn, until after supper, when I asked for it to feed my horse. The iamily were good-natured, intelligent people, but very ignorant. The man and his wife and tie daughters slept below, the boy and I in the cock-loft. Supper and breakfast were eaten in the detached kitchen. Yet they were by no means poor people. The man told me that he had over a thousand acres of rich tillable land, besides a large extent- of mountain range, the most of which latter he had bought from time to time as he was able, to prevent the settlement of squatters near his valley-land. " There were people who would be bad neighbours, I knew," he said, " that would settle on most any kind of place, and everybody wants to keep such as far away from them as they can." (When I took my bridle off, I hung it up by the stable-door; he took ic down and said he'd hang it in a safer place. " He'd never Lad anything stolen from here, and he didn't mean to havp-- it wa? just as well not to put temptation tafore peoj.-lc," rJid hs took it into the house and put it under his bed.) THE HIGHLANDERS. 131 Besides this large tract of land here, he owned another tract of two hundred acres -with a house upon it, rented for one-third the produce, and another smaller farm, similarly rented; he also owned a grist mill, which he rented to a miller for half the tolls. He told me that ho had thought a good deal formerly of moving to new countries, but he had been doing pretty well and had stayed here now so long, he didn't much think he should ever budge. He reckoned he'd got enough to make him a living for the rest of his life, and he didn't know any use a man had for more'n that. I did not see a single look in the house, nor do I think that any of the family could read. He said that many people here were talking about Iowa and Indiana; "was Iowa (Hiaway) beyond the Teries ?" I opened my map to show him where it was, but he said he " wasn't scollar'd enough'' to understand it, and I could not induce him to look at it. I asked him if the people here preferred Iowa and Tndmnfl to Missouri at all because they were Free States. " I reckon," he replied, " they don't have no allusion to that. Slavery is a great cuss, though, I think, the greatest there is in these United States. There ain't no account of slaves up here in the west, but down in the east part of this State about Fayerteville there's as many as there is in South Carolina. That's the reason the West and the East don't agree in this State ; people out here hates the Eastern people." " Why is that ?" " Why you see they vote on the slave basis, and there's some of them nigger counties where there ain't more'n four or five hundred white folks, that has just as much power in the Legislature as any of our mountain counties where there'll be some thousand voters." He made further remarks against slavery and against slave holders. When I told hi") that I entirely agreed with him, K2 132 COTTO3T AKD SLAVEBY. and said farther, that poor white people were usually far Letter off in the Free than in the Slave States, he seemed a little surprised and said, " New York ain't a Free State, is it f labourers' wages here, he stated, were from fifty cents to one dollar a day, or eight dollars a month. " How much by the year ?" " They's never hired by the year." " Would it be g 75 a year?" . "Twouldn't be over that, anyhow, but 'tain't general for people to hire here only for harvest time ; fact is, a man couldn't earn his board, let alone his wages, for sis. months in the year." "But what do these men who hire out during harvest time do during the rest of the year; do they have to earn enough in those two or three months to live on for the other eight or " "Well, they gets jobs sometimes, and they goes from one place to another." "But in winter time, when you say there's not work enough to pay their board T " Well, they keeps a goin' round from one place to another, and gets their living somehow." " The feet on't is," he said at length, as I pressed the inquiry, " there ain't anybody that ever means to work any in this country, except just along in harvest--folks don't keep working here as they do in your country, I expect." " But they must put in their crops ?" " Yes, folks that have farms of their own, they do put m their craps and tend 'em, but these fellows that don't have farms, they won't work except in harvest, when they can get high wages [ g 8 a month]. I hired a fellow last spring for six months ; I wanted him to help me plant and tend my com. Yon see I had a short crap last year, and this spring I had to pay fifty cents a bushel for corn for bread, and I didn't J THE HIGHLANDERS. 133 want to get caught so again, not this year, so I gin this fellow g 6 a month for six months-- g 36 I gin him in hard silver." " Paid it to him in advance ?" "Yes, he wouldn't come 'less I'd pay him right then. Well, he worked one month, and maybe eight days--no, I don't fhinlr it was more than six days over a month, and then he went away, and I hain't seen a sight on him since. I expect I shall lose my money--reckon he don't ever intend to come back; he knows I'm right in harvest, and want him now, if ever I do." " What did he go away for ?" " Why, he said he was sick, but if he was, he got well mighty easy after he stopped working." " Do you know where he is now ?" " Oh, yes, he's going round here." "What is he doing?" " Well, he's just goin' round." " Is he at work for any one else 7" " Beckon not--no, he's just goin' round from one place to another." . At supper and breakfast surprise was expressed that I declined coffee, and more still that I drank water instead of milt. The woman observed, "'twas cheap boarding me." The man said he must get home a couple more cows; they ought to drink milV more, coffee was so high now, and he believed millr would be just as healthy. The woman asked the price of coffee in New York; I could not tell her, but said I believed it was uncommonly high; the crops had been short She asked how coffee grew. I told her as well as I was able, but concluded by saying I had never seen it grow ing. "Don't you raise coffee in New York?" she asked; " I thought that was where it came from." The butter was excellent. I said so, and asked if they 134 COTTON AOT> SLAVERY. never made any for sala The woman said she could make " as good butter as any ever was made in the yarth, but she couldn't get anything for it; there warn't many of the mer chants would buy it, and those that did, would only take it at eight cents a pound for goods." The man paid the only thing he could ever sell for ready money was cattle. Drovers bought them for the Xew York market, and lately they were very high--four cents a pound. He had driven cattle all the way to Charleston himself, to sell them, and only got four cents a pound there. He had sold corn here for twelve and a half cents a bushel. Although the man could not read, he had honoured letters by calling one of his children " Washington Irving;" another was known as Matterson (Madison ?). He had never tried manuring land for crops, bnt said, " I do believe it is a good plan, and if I live I mean to try it sometime." July 16$.--I stopped last night at the pleasantest house 1 have yet seen in the highlands; a framed house, painted white, with a log kitchen attached. The owner was a man of superior standing. I judged from the public documents and law books on his table, that he had either been in the Legislature of the State, or that he was a justice of the peace. There were also a good many other books and newspapers, chiefly of a religions character. He used, however, some singularly uncouth phrases common here. He had a store, and carried on farming and stock raising. After a conversa tion about his agriculture, I remarked that there were but few slaves in this part of the country. He wished that there were fewer. They were not profitable property here, I pre sumed. They were not, he said, except to raise for sale; but there were a good many people here who would not 1 ave them if they wero profitable, and yet who were abundantly J r TOE HIGHLANDERS. 135 able to buy them. They were horrid things, he thought; he would not take ono to keep it if it should be given to him. 'Twould be a great deal better for the country, he believed, if there was not a slave in it. He supposed it would not be right to take them away from those who had acquired pro perty in them, without any remuneration, but he wished they could all be sent out of the country--sent to Liberia. That was what ought to be done with them. I said it waa evident that where there were no slaves, other things being equal, there was greater prosperity than where slavery supplied the labour. He didn't care so much for that, he said; there waa a greater objection to slavery than that, in his mind. He was afraid that there was many a man who had gone to the bad world, who wouldn't have gone there if he hadn't had any slaves. He had been down in the nigger counties a good deal, and he had seen how it worked on the white people. It made the rich people, who owned the niggers, passionate and proud, and ugly, and it made the poor people mean. " People that own niggers are always mad with them about something; half their time is spent in swearing and yelling at them." "I see you have 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' here," said I; " have you read it ?" "Oh, yes." "And what do you think of it ?" " Think of it ? I think well of it." " Do most of the people here in the mountains think as you do about slavery ?" " Well, there's some thinks one way and some another, but there's hardly any one here that don't think slavery's a curse to our country, or who wouldn't be glad to get rid of it." I asked what tle people about here thought of the Nebraaka Bill. He cou'.dn t suy what the majority thought. 136 COTTOS HD SLAVERY. "Would people moving firom here to Nebraska now, be likely to vote for the admission of slavery there ? He thonght not ; " most people would much rather live in a Free State." He told me that he knew personally several persons who had gone to California, and taken slaves with them, who had not been able to bring them lack. f There were one or two cases where the negroes had been induced to return, and these instances had been made much of in the papers, as evidence that the slaves were contented. " That's a great lie," he said ; " they are not content, and nine-tenths of 'em would do 'most anything to be free. Its only now and then that slaves, who are treated unusual kind, and made a great deal of, will choose to remain in slavery if freedom is put in their way." He knew one man (giving his name) who tried to bring two slaves back from California, and had got started with them, when some white people sus pecting it, went on board the ship and told him it was against the law to hold negroes as slaves in California, and his ne groes shouldn't go back with him unless they were willing to. Then they went to the slaves and told them they need not return if they preferred to stay, and the slaves said they had wanted very much to go back to North Carolina, yet they would rather remain in California, if they could be free, and so they took them ashore. He had heard the slave owner himself relating this, and cursing the men who interfered. He had told him that they did no more than Christians were obliged to do. I overtook upon the road, to-day, three young men of the poorest class. Speaking of the price of land and the profit of farming, one of them said, believing me to be a southerner-- " We are all poor folks here; don't hardly make enough to keep ns in liquor. Anybody can raise as much com and hogs on the mountains as he'll want to live on, but there ain't DO r THE HIGHLANDERS. luV rich people here. Nobody's got any black ones--only three or four; no one's got fifty or a hundred, like as they have down in the East." "It would be better," interrupted another, somewhat fiercely, " there warn't any at all; that's my mind about it; they're no business here ; they ought to be in their own country and take care of themselves, that's what I believe, and I don't care who hears it.'' But let the reader not be deceived by these expressions; they indicate simply the weakness arid cowardice of the class represented by these men. It is not slavery they detest; it is simply the negro competition, and the monopoly of the opportunities to make money by negro owners, which they feel and but dimly comprehend. If you meet a man without stopping, the salutation here always is, " How d'ye do, sir ?" never " Good morning;" and on parting it is, " I wish you well, sir," more frequently than " Good-bye." You are always commanded to appear at the table, as elsewhere throughout the South, in a rough, peremptory tone, as if your host feared you would try to excuse yourself. " Come in to supper." "Take a seat." " Some of the fry ?" " Help yourself to anything you see that you can eat." They ask your name, but do not often call you by it, but hail you " Stranger," or " Friend." Texas is always spoken of in the plural--" the Texies." "Bean't the Texiea powerful sickly?" " HI" is used for " vicious." '' Is your horse ill ?" " Not that I am aware of. Does he appear so ?" " No; but eome horses will bite a stranger if he goes to handling on 'em." " Is your horse ill ?" " No, I believe not." " I see he kind o' drapt his ears when I came up, 'zif he was playful." Everybody Fvo met in the last three counties--after ascer- 138 COTTON AXD SLAVEBT. tailing what parts I came from, and which parts I'm going to, where I rot my horse, what he cost, and of what breed he is, what breed the dag is, and whethor slie's followed me all the way from the Texies, if her feet ain't worn out, and if I don't think I'll have to tote her if I go much farther, and if I don't want to give her away, how I like the Texies, etc.--has asked me whether I didn't see a man by the name of Baker in the Texies, who was sheriff of ------'-- county, and didn't behave exactly the gentleman, or another fellow by the name of --------, who ran away from the same county, and cut to the Teries. Fve been aked if they had done fighting yet in the Texies, referring to the war with Mexico, which was ended ten years ago. Indeed the ignorance with regard to everything transpiring in the world outside, and the absurd ideas and reports I hear, are quite incredible. It cannot be sup posed that having been at home in 3few York, there should be any one there whom I do not personally know, or that, having passed throngh Texas, I should he unable to speak from per sonal knowledge of the welfare of every one in that State North-eastern Tennessee, ----.--Xight before last I spent at the residence of a man who had six slaves ; last night, at the home of a farmer without slaves. Both houses were of the best class common in this region ; two-story framed buildings, large, and with many beds, to accommodate drovers and waggoners, who, at some seasons, fill the houses which are known to be prepared with stalling, corn, and beds for them. The slaveholder was much the wealthier of the two, and his house originally was the finer, but he lived in much less comfort than the other. His house was in great need of repair, and was much disordered ; it was dirty, and the bed given me to sleep in was disgusting. He and Iris wife made the signs of pious people, but were very morose r THE HIGHLANDEBS. 139 or sadly silent, when not scolding and re-ordering their servants. Their son, a boy of twelve, was alternately crying and bullying his mother all the evening till bed-time, because his father had refused to give him something that he wanted. He slept in the same room with me, but did not come to bed until after I had once been asleep, and then he brought another boy to sleep with him. He left the candle burning on the floor, and when, in five minutes after he had got into bed, a girl came after it, he cursed her with a shocking volu bility of filthy blackguardism, demanding why she had not come sooner. She replied gently and entreatingly, " I didn't think you 'd have more 'n got into bed yet, master John." The boys were talking and whispering obscenity till I fell asleep again. The white women of the house were very negligent and sluttish in their attire; the food at the table badly cooked, and badly served by negroes. The house of the farmer without slaves, though not in good repair, was much neater, and everything within was well-ordered and unusually comfortable. The women and girls were clean and neatly dressed; every one was cheerful and kind. There was no servant. The table was abundantly supplied with the most wholesome food--I might almost say the first wholesome food--I have had set before me since I was at the hotel at Natchez; loaf bread for the first time ; chickens, stewed instead of fried; potatoes without fat; two sorts of simple preserved fruit, and whortleberry and black berry tarts. (The first time I have had any of these articles at a private house since I was in Western Texas.) All the work, both within and without the house, was carried on regularly and easily, and it was well done, because done by parties interested in the result, not by sen-ants interested only to escape reproof or punishment Doubtless two extreme cases were thus brought together, 140 COTTOS AND SLAVERY. but simflar, if less striking, contrasts are found the general role, according to my experience. It is a common saying with the drovers and waggoners of this country, that if you wish to he well taken care of, yon must not stop at honses where they have slaves. The man of the last described house was intelligent and an ardent Methodist. The room in which I slept was papered with the " Christian Advocate and Journal," the Methodist paper of New York.* At the slaveholder's house, my bed room was partially papered with " Lottery Schemes." The free labouring farmer remarked, that, although there were few slaves in this part of the country, he had often said to his wife that he would rather be living where there were none. He thought slavery wrong in itself, and deplorable in its effects upon the white people. Of all the Methodists whom he knew in North-eastern Tennessee and South-western "Virginia^ he believed that fully three fourths would Le glad to join the Methodist Church North, if it were " convenient." They generally thought slavery wrong, and believed it the dnty of the church to favour measures to bring it to an eud. He was not an Abolitionist, he said; he didn't think slaves could be set free at once, but they ought to be sent back to their own country, and while they were here they ought to be educated. He had perceived that great injustice was done by the people both of the North and South, towards each other. At the South, people were very apt to believe that * RELIGIOX ix VIRGINIA.--A mass meeting of citizens of Taylor county, Virginia, was held at Cooth=>vit!e recently, at which the following, among other resolutions, wns posseH unanimously: "That the fire Cftristvm AJr^rt,-s. pvljlishwl in the cities of Xew York, Pitt^b'irj, Cincinnati, ?-t. Louix, and Chicago, having become Abolitiwi slwets rf the nuki-st character, we ask our it,ir>momvf>;tlth' attorneys and jost-masten to examine them, and, if found to be of an unlawful character, to deal with them and thr agents as the laws of oar State dire< t."-- fT-nMnyton Sepublic. THE HIGHLANDERS. 141 the Northerners were wanting not only to deprive them of their property, but also to incite the slaves to barbarity and murder. At the North, people thought that the negroes were all very inhumanely treated. That was not the case, at least hereabouts, it wasn't. If I would go with him to a camp meeting here, or to one of the common Sunday meetings, I would see that the negroes were generally better dressed than the whites. He believed that they were always well fed, and they were not punished severely. They did not work hard, not nearly as hard as many of the white folks; they were fat and cheerful. I said that I had perceived this, and it was so generally, to a great degree", throughout the country; yet I was sure that on the large plantations it was necessary to treat the slaves with great severity. He " ex pected " it was so, for he had heard people say, who had been on the great rice and cotton plantations in South Carolina, that the negroes were treated very hard, and he knew there was a man down here on the railroad, a contractor, who had some sixty hands which_ he had hired in Old Virginny (" that's what we call Eastern Virginia here "), and everybody who saw them at work, said he drove them till they could hardly stand, and did not give them half what they ought to hare to eat. He was opposed to the Nebraska Bill, he said, and to any further extension of slavery, on any pretext; the North would not do its Christian duty if it allowed slavery to be extended; he wished that it could be abolished in Ten nessee. He thought that many of the people who went hence to Kansas-would vote to exclude slavery, but he wasn't sure that they would do it generally, because they would consider themselves Southerners, and would not like to go against other Southerners. A large part of the emigration from this part of the country went to Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa : those States bring j.referreJ to Missouri, because they 142 COTTON AND SLAVEEY. were Free States. There were fewer slaves hereabouts now, than there were when he was a boy. The people all thought slavery wrong, except, he supposed, some slaveholders who, because they had property in slaves, would try to make out to themselves that it was right. He knew one rich man who had owned a great many slaves. He thought slavery was wrong, and he had a family of boys growing up, and he knew they wouldn't be good for anything as long as he brought them up with slaves; so he had told his slaves that if they wanetd to be free, he would free them, send them to Liberia, and give them a hundred dollars to start with, and they had all accepted the offer. He himself never owned a slave, and never would own one for his own benefit, if it were given to 'him, "first, because it was wrong; and secondly, because he didn't think they ever did a man much good." I noticed that the neighbours of this man on each side owned slaves; and that their houses and establishments were much poorer than his. VALLEY OF THK LOWER mSSISSITH. 143 CHAPTEB IY. THE EXCEPTIOXAL LAEQE PLANTERS. Feliciana.*--A deep notch of sadness marks in my me mory the morning of the May day on which I rode out of the chattering little town of Bayou Sara, and I recollect little of its immediate suburbs .but the sympathetic cloud-shadows slowly going before me over the hill of St Francis. At the top is an old French hamlet One from among the gloomy, staring loungers at the door of the tavern, as I pass, throws himself upon a horse, and over taking me, checks his pace to keep by my side. I turn towards him, and being full of aversion for the companionship of a stranger, nod, in such a manner as to say, " Tour eqnaility is acknowledged; go on." Not a nod; not the slightest de flection of a single line in the austere countenance; not a ripple of radiance in the sullen eyes, which wander slowly over, and, at distinct intervals, examine my horse, my saddlehags, my spurs, lariat, gloves, finally my face, with such stem deliberation that, at last, I should not be sorry if he would speak. But he does not; does not make the smallest response to the further turning of my head, which acknow- * " This latter received its beautiful and expressive name from its beautifully variegated surface of hills and valleys, and its rare combination of all the qualities that are most desired in a planting country. It is a region of almost fairy beanty and wealth. Here are some of the weiltliicst and most intelligent planters and the finest plantations in the Siate, the region of princely taste and more than patriarchaJ hospitality," etc.--XorinaiCs \nc Orleans. 144 COTTOX AND SLAVERY. ledges the reflex interest in my own mind; bin eyes rest as fixedly upon me as if they were a dead man's. I can, at length, no longer endure this in silence, so I ask, in a voice attuned to his apparent humour-- " How fer to Woodvffle T The only reply is a slight grunt, with an deration of the " You don't know?" . "No." " Never been there." "No." " I can ride there before night, I suppose ?" No reply. "ood walker, your horse ?" Not a nod. " I thought mine pretty good." Not a sneer, or a gleam of vanity, and Belsha7zar and I wanned up together. Scott's man of leather occurred to my mind, and I felt sure that I could guess my man's chord. Cotton! I touched it, and in a moment he became animated, civil; hospitable even. I was immediately informed that this was a famous cotton region: " when it was first settled np by 'Mericana, used to be reckoned the gardying of the world. The almightiest rich sile God Almighty ever shuck down. All on't owned by big-bugs." Finally he confided to me that he was an overseer for one of them, " one of the biggest sort." This greatest of the local hemipteras was not now on his plantation, but had "gone North to Paris or Saratogy, or some of them places." Wearing no waistcoat, the overseer carried a pistol, with out a thought of concealment, in the fob of his trousers. The distance to Woodville, which, after he had exhausted his subject of cotton. I tried again to ascertain, he did not know, and ^ r THE VALLZT Of THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI. would not attempt to guess. The ignorance ot the more bru talized slaves is oftci described by saying of them that they cannot count above twenty. 1 find many of the whites but little more intelligent. At all events, it is rarely that you meet, in the plantation districts, a man, whether white or black, who can give you any clear information about the roads, or the distances between places in his own vicinity. While in or near Bayou Sara and St. Francisville, I asked, at diffe rent times, ten men, black and white, the distance to Wood- ville (the next town to the northward on the map). None answered with any appearance of certainty, and those who ventured to give an opinion, differed in their estimates as much as ten miles. I found the actual distance to be, I think, about twenty-four miles. After riding by my side for a mile or two the overseer suddenly turned off at a fork in the road, with hardly more ceremony than he had used in joining me. For some miles about St. Francisville the landscape has an open, suburban character, with residences indicative of rapidly accumulating wealth, and advancement in luxury, or careless expenditure, among the proprietors. For twenty miles to the north of the town, there is on both sides a succession of large ' sugar and cotton plantations. Much land still remains un cultivated, however. The roadside fences are generally hedges of roses--Cherokee and sweet brier. These are planted first by the side of a common rail fence, which, while they are young, supports them in the manner of a trellis; as they grow older they fall each way, and mat together, finally form ing a confused, sprawling, slovenly thicket, often ten feet in breadth and four to six feet high. Trumpet creepers, grape vines, green-briers, and in very rich soil, cane, grow up through the mat of roses, and add to its strength. It is not as pretty as a more upright hedge, yet very agreeable, and, at one or two points, where the road was narrow, deep, and VOL. II. L J46 COTTON JtSD BLAYEBT. lane like, delightful memories of TlngfeTM! \vere brought to mind. There were frequent groves of magnolia grandiflora, large trees, and every one in the glory of full blossom. The mag nolia does not, however, mass well, and the road-side woods were much finer, where the beech, elm, and liquid amber formed the body, and the magnolias stood out against them, magnificent chandeliers of fragrance. The large-leaved mag nolia, very beautiful at this season, was more rarely seen. The soil seems generally rich, though much washed off the higher ground. The ploughing is directed with some care not to favour this process. Young pine trees, however, and other indications of rapid impoverishment, are seen on many plan tations. The soil is a sandy loam, so friable that the negroes always working in large gangs, superintended by a driver with a whip, continued their hoeing in the midst of quite smart showers, and when the road had become a poaching mud. Only once did I see a gang which had been allowed to dis continue its work en account of the rain. This was after a heavy thunder shower, and the appearance of the negroes whom I met crossing the road in returning to the field, from the gin-house to which they had retreated, was remarkable. First came, led by an old driver carrying a whip, forty of the largest and strongest women I ever saw together ; they were all in a simple uniform dress of a bluish check stuff, the skirts reaching little below the knee ; their legs and feet were bare ; they carried themselves loftily, each having a hoe over the shoulder, and walking with a free, powerful swing. Behind them came the cavalry, thirty strong, mostly men, bnt a frw of them womon, two of whom rode astride on the plough mules. A lean nnd vigilant white overseer, on a brisk pony, brought up the rear. The men wore small blue Scotch THE VALLET OF THE LOWEB MISSISSIPPI. 147 bonnets; many of the women, handkerchiefs, turban fashion, and a few nothing at all on their heads. They were evidently a picked lot. I thonght that every one would pass for a " prime " cotton hand. - The slaves generally of this district appear uncommonly well--doubtless, chiefly, because the large incomes of their owners enables them to select the best from the yearly exportations of Virginia and Kentucky, but also because they are systematically well fed. The plantation residences were of a cottage class, sometimes, but not usually, with extensive and tasteful grounds about them. An old gentleman, sensible, polite, and communicative, who rode a short distance with me, said that many of the proprietors were absentees--some of the plantations had dwellings only for the negroes and the overseer. He called my attention to a field of cotton which, he said, had been ruined by his over seer's neglect. The negroes had been allowed at a critical time to be careless in their hoeing, and it would now be im possible to recover the ground then lost. Grass grew so ram pantly in this black soil, that if it once got a good start ahead, you could never overtake it. That was the devil of a rainy season. Cotton could stand drouth better than it could grass.* * " KIXK PBOSPECT FOR HAY.--While tiding by a ficlJ the other day, which looked as rich and green as n Sew England nu-adow, we observed to a man sitting on the fence, * You have a fine prospect for hav, neighbour.* ' Hay ! that's cottonsir,' saH he, with an emotion that'betrayed an eicitcment which we cared to pro, vote no further; for we had as soon spoil with rattlesnake in the blind dajs of August as a farmer at this sea.-on of the year, badly in the grass. * * * " All jesting aside, we have never known so poor prospect for cotton in this teaon. In some instances the fields are clean and well worked, but the cotton is diminutive in size and sickly in appearance. We have seen some fields so foul that it was almost imr.ossible to tell what had been planted. "All this backwardness is attributable to the cold, wet weather that we have had almost consfcintlv since the pl.mting se.ison commenced. When there was a warm spell, it was raining so that ploughs could not run to any advantage; so* bettic the cold and the rain, the cotton c. up U very unpromising. " * * L2 H8 COTTOK AJ.-D 6LAVEKV. The. mclosureg are not often of less area than a hundred acres. Fewer than fifty negroes are seldom found on a plan tation ; many muster by the hundred. In general the fields are remarkably free from weeds and well tilled. I arrived shortly after dusk at Woodville, a well-built and pleasant court-town, with a small but pretentious hotel Court was in session, I fancy, for the house was filled with guests of somewhat remarkable character. The landlord was inattentive,and, when followed up, inclined to be uncivil At the ordinary supper and breakfast alike there were twelve men beside myself, all of them wearing black cloth coats black cravats, and satin or embroidered waistcoats ; all, too, sleek as if just from a hairdressers, and redolent of perfumes, which really had the best of it with the exhalations of the kitchen. Perhaps it was because I was not in the regulation dress that I found no one ready to converse with me, and could obtain not the slightest information about my load, even from the landlord. I might have left "Woodville with more respect for this de corum if I had not, when shown by a servant to my room, found two beds in it, each of which proved to be furnished with soflal sheets and greasy pillows, nor was it without reiterated demands and liberal cash in hand to the servant, that I succeeded in getting them changed on the one I selected. A gentleman of embroidered waistcoat took the other bed as it was, with no apparent reluctance, soon after I had effected my own arrangements. One wash-bowl, and " The low, flat lands this Tear hare suffered particularly. Thoroughly sarcmreJ all the time, and often orerrloweil, the crops on them are small and sicklv. while the weeJs and gra.-s are luiririorrs ai.il rank. "\ week or two of dry hot weather will mak a R-onHerful ohange in our agricultural prospect-, but we hnve no :1. J r THE VAIXEY OF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI. 149 a towel which had already been used, was expected to answer for both of us, and would have done so but that I carried a private towel in my saddle-bags. Another re quirement of a civilized household wag wanting, and its only substitute unavailable with decency. The- bill was excessive, and the black ostler, who had left the mud of yesterday hanging all along the inside of Belahazzar's legs, and who had put the saddle on so awkwardly that I resaddled him myself after he had brought him to the door, grumbled, in presence of the landlord, at the smallness of the gratuity which I saw fit to give him. The country, for some distance north of Woodville, is the most uneven, for a- non-mountainous region, I ever saw. The road seems well engineered, yet you are nearly all the time mounting or descending the sides of protuberances or basins, ribs or dykes. In one place it follows along the top of a crooked ridge, as steep-sided and regular for nearly a quarter of a mile, as a high railroad embankment. A man might jump off anywhere and land thirty feet below. The ground being too rough here for cultivation, the dense native forest remains intact. This ridge, a man told me, had been a famous place for robberies. It is not far from the Mississippi bottoms. " Thar couldn't be," said he, " a better location for a feller that wanted to foller that business. There was one chap there a spell ago, who built himself a cabin t'other side the river. He used to come over in a 'dug-out. He could paddle his dug-out up the swamp, you see, to within two mile of the ridge j; then, when he stopped a man, he'd run throngh the woods to his dug-out, and before the man could get help, he'd be t'other side the Mississippi, a sittin' in hia housen as honest as you be." 150 COTTON ASD SLATEET. The same man had another story of the ridge:-- " Mr. Alien up here caught a runaway once, and started to take him down to Woodville to the jail. He put him in irons and carried him along in his waggin. The nigger was peaceable and submissive till they got along onto that yer ridge place. When they got thar, all of a sudden he gin a whop like, and over he went twenty foot plum down he side of the ridge. 'Fore Alien could stop his hoss he'd tumbled and rolled himself 'way out of sight. He started right away arter him, but he never cotched a sight on him again." Not far north of the ridge, plantations are found again, though the character of the surface changes but little. The hill-sides are carefully ploughed so that each furrow forms a contour line. After the first ploughing the same lines are followed in subsequent cultivation, year in and year out, as long as enough soil remains to grow cotton upon with profit. On the hills recently brought into cultivation, broad, serpen tine ditches, having a fell of from two to four inches in a rod, have been frequently constructed : these are intended to pre,vent the .formation of gullies leading more directly down the hill during heavy rains. But all these precautions are not folly successful, the cultivated hills, in spite of them, losing soil every year in a melancholy manner. I passed during the day four or five large plantations, the hill-sides worn, cleft, and channelled like icebergs; stables and negro quarters all abandoned, and everything given up to nature and decay. In its natural state the virgin soil appears the richest I have ever seen, the growth upon it from weeds to trees being invariably rank and rich in colour. At first it is expected to bear a bale and a half of cotton to the acre, making eight or ten bales for each able field-hand. But from the cause de scribed its productiveness rapidly decreases. THB VALLEY OP THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI. 151 Originally, much of this country was covered by a natural growth of cane, and by various nutritious grasses. A good northern farmer would deem it a crying shame and siu to attempt to grow any crops upon such steep slopes, except grasses or shrubs which do not require tillage. The waste of soil which attends the practice is much greater than it would be at the North, and, notwithstanding the unappeasable demand of the world for cotton, its bad economy, considering the subject nationally, cannot be doubted. If these slopes were thrown into permanent terraces, with turfed or stone-faced escarpments, the fertility of the soil might be preserved, even with constant tillage. In this way the hills would continue for ages to produce annual crops of greater value than those which are at present obtained from them at such destructive expense--from ten to twenty crops of cotton rendering them absolute deserts. Bat with negroes at fourteen hundred dollars a head, and frc.3h land in Texas at half a dollar an acre, nothing of this sort can be thought of. The time will probably come when the soil now washing into the adjoining swamps will be brought back by our descend ants, perhaps on their heads, in pots and baskets, in the manner Hue describes in China,--and which may be seen also in the Rhenish vineyards,--to be relaid on these sunny slopes, to grow the luxurious cotton in. The plantations are all large, but, except in their size and rather unusually good tilkge, dispky few signs of wealthy proprietorship. The greater number have but small and mean residences upon them. Ko poor white people live upon the road, nor in all this country of rich soils are they seen5 except en voyage. In a distance of seventy-five miles I saw no houses without negro-cabins attached, and I calculated that there were fifty slaves, on an average, to every white femily resident in the country under my view. (There is a 152 COTTON ASD SLAVEBT. small sandy region about "Woodvflle, which I passed through after nightfall, and which, of course, my note does not include.) I called in the afternoon, at a house, almost the only one I had seen during the day which did not appear to be the residence of a planter or oyerseer, to obtain lodging. No one was at home but a negro woman and children. The woman said that her master never took in strangers; there was a man a few miles farther on who did; it was the only place she knew at which I was likely to " get in." I found the place : probably the proprietor was the pooiest white man whose house I had passed during the day, but he had several slaves; one of them, at least, a very superior man, worth fully g2,000. Just before me, another traveller, a Mr. S., from beyond Natchez, had arrived. Learning that I was from Texas, lie immediately addressed me with volubility. " Ah! then yon can tell us something about it, and I would be obliged to you if you would. Been out west about Antonio? Eanchering's a good business, eh, out west there? Isn't it ? Slake thirty per cent, by it, eh ? I hear so. Should think that would be a good business. How much capital ought a man to have to go into ranchering, good, eh ? So as to make it a good business ?" He was a middle-aged, well-dressed man, devouring tobacco prodigiously; nervous and wavering in his manner; asking questions, a dozen at a breath, and paying no heed to the answers. He owned a plantation in the bottoms, and another on the upland; the latter was getting worn out, it was too unhealthy for him to live in the bottoms, and so, as he said, he had had " a good notion to go into ranchering. Just for ease and pleasure." " Fact is, though, I've got a iamily, and this is no country THE VALLEY OF THE LOWEB MISSISSIPPI. 153 for children to be raised in. 'All the children get such foolish notions. I don't want my children to be brought up here. Ruins everybody. Does sir, sure. Spoils 'em. Too bad. 'Tis so. Too bad. Can't make anything of children here, sir. Can't sir. Fact." He had been nearly persuaded to purchase a large tract of land at a point upon a certain creek where, he had been told, was a large court-house, an excellent school, etc. The waters of the creek he. named are brackish, the neighbouring country is a desert, and the only inhabitants, savages. Some knavish speculator had nearly got a customer, but could not quite prevail on him to purchase until he examined the country personally, which it was his intention soon to do. He gave me no time to tell him how felse was the account he had had, but went on, after describing its beauties and ad vantages-- "Bat negro property isn't very secure there, Fm told. Eowis't? Know?" " Not at all secure, sir; if it is disposed to go, it will go': the only way you could keep it would be to make it always contented to remain. The road would always be open to Mexico ; it would go when it liked." " So I hear. Only way is, to have young ones there and keep their mothers here, eh ? Negroes have such attach ments, you know. Don't you think that would fix 'em, eh ? No ? No, I suppose not. If they got mad at anything, they'd forget their mothers, eh ? Yes, I suppose they would. Can't depend on niggers. But I reckon they'd come back. Only to be worse off in Mexico--eh ?" "'Nothing but----" " Being free, eh ? Get tired of that, I should think. Nobody to take care of them. No, I suppose not. Learn to take care of themselves." 154 COTTOX AXD SLATEBT. Then he turned to our host and began to ask him about his neighbours, many of whom he had known when he was a boy, and been at school with. A sorry account he got of most. Generally they had run through their property; their lands had passed into new hands; their negroes had been disposed of; two were now, he thought, " strikers " for gamblers in Natchez. "What is a striker?" I asked the landlord at the first opportunity. " Oh ! to rope in fat fellows for the gamblers; they don't do that themselves, but get somebody else. I don't know as it is so; aB I know is, they don't have no business, not till late at night; they never stir out till late at night, and no body knows how they live, and that's what I expect they do. Fellows that come into town flush, you know--sold out their cotton and are flash--they always think they must see every thing, and try their hands at everything--they get hold of 'em and bring 'em in to the gamblers, and get 'em tight for 'em, you know." "How's ------ got along since his father died ?" asked Mr. S. " "Well, ----'s been unfortunate. Got mad with his over seer; thought he was lazy and packed him off; then he undertook to oversee for himself, and he was unfortunate. Had two bad crops. Finally the sheriff took about half his niggers. He tried to work the plantation with the rest, but they was old, used-up hands, and he got mad that they would not work more, and tired o' seein' 'em, and 'fore the end of the year he sold 'em all." Another young man, whom he inquired about, had had his property managed for him by a relative till he came of age, and had been sent North to college. "When he returned and got into hia own bauds, the first year he ran it in debt J THE VALLEY OF THE LOWEB MISSISSIPPI. 155 g 16,000. The income from it being greatly reduced under his management, he had put it back in the care of his relative, but continued to live upon it. " I see," continued our host, " every time any of their teams pass from town they fetch a barrel or a demijohn. There is a parcel of fellows, .who, when they can't liquor anywhere else, always go to him." " But how did he manage to spend so much," I inquired, " the first year after his return, as you said,--in gambling ?' " Well, he gambled some, and run horses. He don't know anything about a horse, and, of course, he thinks he knows everything. Those fellows up at Natchez would sell him any kind of a tacky for four or five hundred dollars, and then after he'd had him a month, they'd ride out another and make a bet of five or sis hundred dollars they'd beat him. Then he'd run with 'em, and of course he'd lose it." " But sixteen thousand dollars is a large sum of money to be worked off even in that way in a year," I observed. " Oh, he had plenty of other ways. He'd go into a bar room, and get tight and commence to break things. They'd let him go on, and the next morning hand him a bill for a hundred dollars. He thinks that's a smart thing, and just laughs and pays it, and then treats all around again." By one and the other, many stories were then told of simi lar follies of young men. Among the rest, this:-- A certain man had, as was said to be the custom when running for office, given an order at a grocery for all to be " treated " who applied in his name. The grocer, after the election, which resulted in the defeat of the treater, presented what was thought an exorbitant bill. He refused to pay it, and a lawsuit ensued. A gentleman in the witness box being asked if he thought it possible for the whole number of people taking part in the election to have consumed the quantity of liquor alleged, answered-- 156 COTTON AXD SLAVEBT. "Hoy Goad ! Judge!" (reproachfully): " Tea, sir PWhy, I've been charged for a hundred and fifty drinks 'fore break fast, when I've stood treat, and I never thought 'o disputin' it." At supper, Mr. S., looting at the daughter of our host, said-- " What a pretty girl that is. My dear, do you find any schools to go to, out here--eh ? I reckon not. This isn't the country for schools. There'll not be a school in Mississippi .Yore long, I reckon. Nothing but Institutes, eh ? Ha! ha! ha I Institutes, humph! Don't believe there's a school between this and Natchez, is there ?' "Xo, sir." " Of course there isn't."* " What sort of a country is it, then, between here and Natehez ?" I asked. " I should suppose it would be well settled." " Big plantations, sir. Nothing else. Aristocrats. Swellheads, I call them, sir. Nothing but swell-heads, and you can't get a night's lodging, sir. Beyond the ferry, 111 be bound, a man might die on the road 'fore he'd get a lodging with one of them. Eh, Mr. N.? So, isn't it? 'Take a stranger in, and 111 clear you out!' That's the rule. That's * " Sectional excitement" had given a great impetus to educational projects in the South, and the Mississippi newspapers about this time contained numerous advert>i*ments of a similar character to the following : "C.itnot-x INSTITUTE--FOB Yorxo LAPIM; MACOS, XoxruEE Corxri-, MiS3:S51FPI.--W. Iv. PoiSDKCTEB, A.M., Principal and Proprietor.--The above tH;h.>o!, funne.-Iv known as the 'Macnn Kemale Institute," will be reopcuiil on the fi.st ot'October, I8o~, with an entirely new corps of trachea from Principal do-.TM. H.ir:n:r pnn-ha^eo1 the property at public ale, and thus become solt pnprict'jr, the Pi incipal has tl^termined to nse all means he can now command, as well as he may tealize for several years yet to come, in building, refitting and procuring such appurtenances as shall enable him to contribute his full quota, as a profes sional man, to the progress of the great cause of ' SOCTII tax EDUCATION.' " THE VAZLEI" OF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI. 157 what they tell their overseers, eh? Yes, sir; just so inhos pitable as that. Swell-heads.' Swell-heads, sir. Every plantation. Can't get a meal of victuals or a night's lodging from one of them, I don't suppose, not if your Me depended on it. Can you, Mr. N. ?" " "Well, I believe Mr. ----, his place is right on the road, and it's half way to the ferry, and I believe he tells his over seer if a rnpn comes and wants something to eat, he must give it to him, but he must not take any pay for it, because strangers must have something to eat. They start out of Katchez, thinking it's as 'tis in other countries; that there's houses along, where they can get a meal, and so they d9n't provide for thems$lss, and when they get along about there, they are sometimes desperate hungry. Had to he something done." "Do the planters not live themselves on their planta tions ?" " Why, a good many of them has two or three plantations, bat they don't often live on any of them." " Must have ice for their wine, you see," said Mr. S., " or they'd die. So they have to live in Natchez or New Orleans. A heap of them live in New Orleans." " And in summer they go up into Kentucky, do they not ? I've seen country houses there which were said to belong to cotton-planters from Mississippi" " No, sir. They go North. To New York, and Newport, and Saratoga, and Cape May, and Seneca Lake. Somewhere that they can display themselves mere than they do here. Kentucky is no place for that. That's the sort of people, sir, all the way from here to Natchez. And all round Natchez, too. And in all this section of country where there's good land. Good God ! I wouldn't have my children educated, sir, among them, not to have them as rich as Dr. ----, every one 158 COTTOJT ASD SLAVEET. of them. Yon can know tLeir children as far off as yon can see them. Yonng swell-heads ! You'll take note of 'em in Natchez. You can tell them by their walk. I noticed it yesterday at the Mansion House. They sort o' throw out their legs as if they hadn't got strength enough to lift 'em and put them down in any particular place. They do want so bad to look as if they weren't made of the same clay as the rest of God's creation." Some allowance is of course to be made for the splenetic temperament of this gentleman, but facts evidently afford some justification of his sarcasms. This is easily accounted for. The ferce of the vulgar-rich has its foundation in Mississippi, as in New York and in Manchester, in the rapidity with which certain values have advanced, especially that of cotton, and, simultaneously, that of cotton lands and negroes.* Of course, there are men of refinement and cultivation among the rich planters of Mississippi, and many highly estimable and intelligent persons outside of the wealthy class, but the number of such is smaller in proportion to that of the iinmoral, vulgar, and ignorant newly-rich, than in any other part of the "United States. And herein is a radical difference between the social condition of this region and that of the sea-board slave States, where there are fewer wealthy families, but where among the few people of wealth, refinement and education are more general I asked how rich the sort of men were of whom he spoke. * As "A SOL'TIICRX LATTER," writing for H-u-ptr's WceMy (February, 1839}, observes: " Th sudden acquisition of wealth in the cotton-growing region of the United States, in many instances by planters commencing with very limited means, is almost miraculous. Patient, indiu-trious, frugal, and self-denying, nearly the entire amount of their cotton-crops is devoted to the increase of their capital. The result is, in a few years large estates, as if by magic, are accnranJated. T!ie fortunate proprietors then build fine houses, and surround themselves with comforts and luxuries to wlach they were strangers in their earlier years c: care and toil." \ THE VALLEY OF THE IX>WEB MISSISSIPPI. 159 " Why, sir, from a hundred thousand to ten million." " Do you mean that between here and Xatchez there are none, worth less than a hundred thousand dollars ?" " No, sir, not beyond the ferry. _ Why, any sort of a plan tation is worth a hundred thousand dollars. The niggers would sell for that." "How many negroes are there on these plantations ?" " From fifty to a hundred." " Never over one hundred ?" " No; when they've increased to a hundred they always divide them; stock another plantation. There are sometimes three or four plantations adjoining one another, with an overseer for each, belonging to the same man. But that isn't general. In general, they have to strike off for new land." -' " How many acres will a hand tend here ?" " Abont fifteen--ten of cotton, and five of corn; some pre tend to make them tend twenty." " And what is the usual crop ?" " A bale and a half to the acre on fresh land and in the bottom. From four to eight hales to a hand they generally get: sometimes ten and better, when they are lucky." " A bale and a half on fresh land ? How much on old ?" " Well, you can't tell. Depends on how much it's worn and what the season is so much. Old land, after a while, isn't worth bothering with." "Do most of these large planters who live so freely, antici pate their crops as the sugar planters are said to--spend the money, I mean, before the crop is sold ?" " Yes, sir, and three and four crops ahead generally." " Are most of them the sons of rich men ? are they old estates?" " No, sir; lots of them v;ere overseers once." 160 COTTON ANT) SLAVEEY. "Have yon noticed whether it is a feet that these large properties seldom continue long in the same family? Do the grandsons of wealthy planters often become poor men ?" " Generally the sons do. Almost always their sons are fools, and soon go through with it." " If they don't Vill themselves before their fathers die," said the other. " Yes. They drink hard and gamble, and of coarse that brings them into fights." This was while they were smoking on the gallery after supper. I walked to the stable to see how my horse was provided for, and took my notes of the conversation. When I returned they were talking of negroes who had died of yellow fever while confined in the jail- at Natchez. Two of them were spoken of as having been thus " happily released," being under sentence of death, and unjustly so, in their opinion. . A man living in this vicinity having taken a runaway while the fever was raging in the jail at Xatchez, a physician ad vised him not to send him there. He did not, and the negro escaped; was some time afterward recaptured, and the owner having learned from him that he had been once before taken and not detained according to law, he made a journey to in quire into the matter, and was very angry. He said, " When ever you catch a nigger again, you send him to jail, no matter what's to be feared. If he dies in the jail, you are not re sponsible. You've done your duty, and you can leave the rest to Providence." " That was right, too," said ATr. P. " Yes, he ought to a' minded the law. Then if he'd died in jail, he'd know 'twasn't his fault." v - "Next morning, near the ferry house, I noticed a set of THE TAIXEr OF THE IXWEB MISSISSIPPI. 1C1 * The following is a characteristic newspaper item of this vicinity:-- From the West Fdiciani Whij.-- "On Saturday last, a runaway negro was tilled in the palish of East Baton Rouge, just below the line of this parish, under the following circumstances : Two citizens of Port Hudson, learning that a negro was at work on a flat boat, loading with sand, just below that place, who was suspected of being a runaway, went down in a skin*" for the purpose of arresting him. " Havin^ seized him and put him into the skiff they started back, but had not proceeded for wh<-n the negro, who had been at the oars, seizH a hatchet and assaulted oue of them, wounding him very seriously. A scuffle ensued, in which both parties fell overboard. They were both rescued by the citizen pulling to them with the skiff. Finding him so unmanageable, the negro was put ashore, and the parties returned to Port Hudson for arms and a pack of negro dog-, and started ai,-n'n with the intention to capture him. They soon got on his ttail, and when found a^.iin he was standing at bay upon the outer ed^e of a large laft of drift wnod, aniie