CHAPTER XLVI. THE QUARTER HAVING despatched these important
matters at the stable, we left our horses in charge of the servants,
and walked towards the cabins, which were not more than a few hundred
paces distant. These hovels, with their appurtenances, formed an
exceedingly picturesque landscape. They were scattered, without order,
over the slope of a gentle hill; and many of them were embowered under
old and majestic trees. The rudeness of their construction rather
enhanced the attractiveness of the scene. Some few were built after
the fashion of the better sort of cottages; but age had stamped its
heavy traces upon their exterior: the green moss had gathered upon the
roofs, and the course weatherboarding had broken, here and there, into
chinks. But the more lowly of these structures, and the most numerous,
were nothing more than plain log-cabins, compacted pretty much on the
model by which boys build partridge-traps; being composed of the
trunks of trees, still clothed with their bark, and knit together at
the corners with so little regard to neatness that the timbers, being
of unequal lengths, jutted beyond each other, sometimes to the length
of a foot. Perhaps, none of these latter sort were more than twelve
feet square, and not above seven in height. A door swung upon wooden
hinges, and a small window of two narrow panes of glass were,
in general, the only openings in the front. The intervals between the logs were filled with clay; and the roof, which was constructed of smaller timbers, laid lengthwise along it and projecting two or three feet beyond the side or gable walls, heightened, in a very marked degree, the rustic effect. The chimneys communicated even a droll expression to these habitations. They were, oddly enough, built of billets of wood, having a broad foundation of stone, and growing narrower as they rose, each receding gradually from the house to which it was attached, until it reached the height of the roof. These combustible materials were saved from the access of the fire by a thick coating of mud; and the whole structure, from its tapering form, might be said to bear some resemblance to the spout of a tea kettle; indeed, this domestic implement would furnish no unapt type of the complete cabin. From this description, which may serve to illustrate a whole species of habitations very common in Virginia, it will be seen, that on the score of accommodation, the inmates of these dwellings were furnished according to a very primitive notion of comfort. Still, however, there were little garden-patches attached to each, where cymblings, cucumbers; sweet potatoes, water-melons and cabbages flourished in unrestrained luxuriance. Add to this, that there were abundance of poultry domesticated about the premises, and it may be perceived that, whatever might be the inconveniences of shelter, there was no want of what, in all countries, would be considered a reasonable supply of luxuries. Nothing more attracted my observation than the swarms of little
negroes that basked on the sunny sides of these cabins, and
congregated to gaze at us as we surveyed their haunts. They were
nearly all in that costume of the golden age which I have heretofore
described; and showed their slim shanks and long heels in all
varieties of their grotesque natures. Their predominant love of
sunshine, and their lazy, listless postures, and ap-
parent content to be silently looking abroad, might well afford a comparison to a set of terrapins luxuriating in the genial warmth of summer, on the logs of a mill-pond. And there, too, were the prolific mothers of this redundant brood,—a number of stout negro-women who thronged the doors of the huts, full of idle curiosity to see us. And, when to these are added a few reverend, wrinkled, decrepit old men, with faces shortened as if with drawing-strings, noses that seemed to have run all to nostril, and with feet of the configuration of a mattock, my reader will have a tolerably correct idea of this negro-quarter, its population, buildings, external appearance, situation and extent. Meriwether, I have said before, is a kind and considerate master.
It is his custom frequently to visit his slaves, in order to inspect
their condition, and, where it may be necessary, to add to their
comforts or relieve their wants. His coming amongst them, therefore,
is always hailed with pleasure. He has constituted himself into a high
court of appeal, and makes it a rule to give all their petitions a
patient hearing, and to do justice in the premises. This, he tells me,
he considers as indispensably necessary;—he says, that no overseer is
entirely to be trusted: that there are few men who have the temper to
administer wholesome laws to any population, however small, without
some omissions or irregularities; and that this is more emphatically
true of those who administer them entirely at their own will. On the
present occasion, in almost every house where Frank entered, there was
some boon to be asked; and I observed, that in every case, the
petitioner was either gratified or refused in such a tone as left no
occasion or disposition to murmur. Most of the women had some bargains
to offer, of fowls or eggs or other commodities of household use, and
Meriwether generally referred them to his wife, who, I found, relied
almost entirely on this resource, for the
supply of such commodities; the negroes being regularly paid for whatever was offered in this way. One old fellow had a special favour to ask,—a little money to get a new padding for his saddle, which, he said, "galled his cretur's back." Frank, after a few jocular passages with the veteran, gave him what he desired, and sent him off rejoicing. "That, sir," said Meriwether, "is no less a personage than Jupiter. He is an old bachelor, and has his cabin here on the hill. He is now near seventy, and is a kind of King of the Quarter. He has a horse, which he extorted from me last Christmas; and I seldom come here without finding myself involved in some new demand, as a consequence of my donation. Now he wants a pair of spurs which, I suppose, I must give him. He is a preposterous coxcomb, and Ned has administered to his vanity by a present of a chapeau de bras—a relic of my military era, which he wears on Sundays with a conceit that has brought upon him as much envy as admiration—the usual condition of greatness." The air of contentment and good humor and kind family attachment,
which was apparent throughout this little community, and the familiar
relations existing between them and the proprietor struck me very
pleasantly. I came here a stranger, in great degree, to the negro
character, knowing but little of the domestic history of these people,
their duties, habits or temper, and somewhat disposed, indeed, from
prepossessions, to look upon them as severely dealt with, and
expecting to have my sympathies excited towards them as objects of
commiseration. I have had, therefore, rather a special interest in
observing them. The contrast between my preconceptions of their
condition and the reality which I have witnessed, has brought me a
most agreeable surprise. I will not say that, in a high state of
cultivation and of such self-dependence as they might possibly attain
in a separate national existence, they might not become a more
respectable people; but I am quite
sure they never could become a happier people than I find them here. Perhaps they are destined, ultimately, to that national existence, in the clime from which they derive their origin—that this is a transition state in which we see them in Virginia. If it be so, no tribe of people have ever passed from barbarism to civilization whose middle stage of progress has been more secure from harm, more genial to their character, or better supplied with mild and beneficent guardianship, adapted to the actual state of their intellectual feebleness, than the negroes of Swallow Barn. And, from what I can gather, it is pretty much the same on the other estates in this region. I hear of an unpleasant exception to this remark now and then; but under such conditions as warrant the opinion that the unfavorable case is not more common than that which may be found in a survey of any other department of society. The oppression of apprentices, of seamen, of soldiers, of subordinates, indeed, in every relation, may furnish elements for a bead-roll of social grievances quite as striking, if they were diligently noted and brought to view. What the negro is finally capable of, in the way of civilization,
I am not philosopher enough to determine. In the present stage of his
existence, he presents himself to my mind as essentially parasitical
in his nature. I mean that he is, in his moral constitution, a
dependant upon the white race; dependant for guidance and direction
even to the procurement of his most indispensable necessaries. Apart
from this protection he has the helplessness of a child—without
foresight, without faculty of contrivance, without thrift of any kind.
We have instances, in the neighborhood of this estate, of individuals
of the tribe falling into the most deplorable destitution from the
want of that constant supervision which the race seems to require.
This helplessness may be the due and natural impression which two
centuries of servitude have stamped upon the tribe. But it is not the
less a present and in-
surmountable impediment to that most cruel of all projects—the direct, broad emancipation of these people;—an act of legislation in comparison with which the revocation of the edict of Nantes would be entitled to be ranked among political benefactions. Taking instruction from history, all organized slavery is inevitably but a temporary phase of human condition. Interest, necessity and instinct, all work to give progression to the relations of mankind, and finally to elevate each tribe or race to its maximum of refinement and power. We have no reason to suppose that the negro will be an exception to this law. At present, I have said, he is parasitical. He grows upward, only
as the vine to which nature has supplied the sturdy tree as a support.
He is extravagantly imitative. The older negroes here have—with some
spice of comic mixture in it—that formal, grave and ostentatious
style of manners, which belonged to the gentlemen of former days; they
are profuse of bows and compliments, and very aristocratic in their
way. The younger ones are equally to be remarked for aping the style
of the present time, and especially for such tags of dandyism in dress
as come within their reach. Their fondness for music and dancing is a
predominant passion. I never meet a negro man—unless he is quite
old—that he is not whistling; and the women sing from morning till
night. And as to dancing, the hardest day's work does not restrain
their desire to indulge in such pastime. During the harvest, when
their toil is pushed to its utmost—the time being one of recognized
privileges—they dance almost the whole night. They are great
sportsmen, too. They angle and haul the seine, and hunt and tend their
traps, with a zest that never grows weary. Their gayety of heart is
constitutional and perennial, and when they are together they are as
voluble and noisy as so many blackbirds. In short, I think them the
most good-natured, careless, light-hearted, and happily-constructed
human beings I have ever
seen. Having but few and simple wants, they seem to me to be provided with every comfort which falls within the ordinary compass of their wishes; and, I might say, that they find even more enjoyment,—as that word may be applied to express positive pleasures scattered through the course of daily occupation—than any other laboring people I am acquainted with. I took occasion to express these opinions to Meriwether, and to tell him how much I was struck by the mild and kindly aspect of this society at the Quarter. This, as I expected, brought him into a discourse. "The world," said he, "has begun very seriously to discuss the
evils of slavery, and the debate has sometimes, unfortunately, been
levelled to the comprehension of our negroes, and pains have even been
taken that it should reach them. I believe there are but few men who
may not be persuaded that they suffer some wrong in the organization
of society—for society has many wrongs, both accidental and
contrived, in its structure. Extreme poverty is, perhaps, always a
wrong done to the individual upon whom it is cast. Society can have no
honest excuse for starving a human being. I dare say you can follow
out that train of thought and find numerous evils to complain of.
Ingenious men, some of them not very honest, have found in these
topics themes for agitation and popular appeal in all ages. How likely
are they to find, in this question of slavery, a theme for the highest
excitement; and, especially, how easy is it to inflame the passions of
these untutored and unreckoning people, our black population, with
this subject! For slavery, as an original question, is wholly without
justification or defence. It is theoretically and morally wrong— and
fanatical and one-sided thinkers will call its continuance. even for a
day, a wrong, under any modification of it. But, surely, if these
people are consigned to our care by the accident, or, what is worse,
the premeditated policy which has put them upon our com-
monwealth, the great duty that is left to us is, to shape our conduct, in reference to them, by a wise and beneficent consideration of the case as it exists, and to administer wholesome laws for their government, making their servitude as tolerable to them as we can consistently with our own safety and their ultimate good. We should not be justified in taking the hazard of internal convulsions to get rid of them; nor have we a right, in the desire to free ourselves, to whelm them in greater evils than their present bondage. A violent removal of them, or a general emancipation, would assuredly produce one or the other of these calamities. Has any sensible man, who takes a different view of this subject, ever reflected upon the consequences of committing two or three millions of persons, born and bred in a state so completely dependent as that of slavery—so unfurnished, so unintellectual, so utterly helpless, I may say—to all the responsibilities, cares and labors of a state of freedom? Must he not acknowledge, that the utmost we could give them would be but a nominal freedom, in doing which we should be guilty of a cruel desertion of our trust—inevitably leading them to progressive debasement penury, oppression, and finally to extermination? I would not argue with that man whose bigotry to a sentiment was so blind and so fatal as to insist on this expedient. When the time comes, as I apprehend it will come,—and all the sooner, if it be not delayed by these efforts to arouse something like a vindictive feeling between the disputants on both sides—in which the roots of slavery will begin to lose their hold in our soil; and when we shall have the means for providing these people a proper asylum, I shall be glad to see the State devote her thoughts to that enterprise, and, if I am alive, will cheerfully and gratefully assist in it. In the mean time, we owe it to justice and humanity to treat these people with the most considerate kindness. As to what are ordinarily imagined to be the evils or sufferings of their condition, I do not be- lieve in them. The evil is generally felt on the side of the master. Less work is exacted of them than voluntary laborers choose to perform: they have as many privileges as are compatible with the nature of their occupations: they are subsisted, in general, as comfortably—nay, in their estimation of comforts, more comfortably, than the rural population of other countries. And as to the severities that are alleged to be practised upon them, there is much more malice or invention than truth in the accusation. The slaveholders in this region are, in the main, men of kind and humane tempers—as pliant to the touch of compassion, and as sensible of its duties, as the best men in any community, and as little disposed to inflict injury upon their dependents. Indeed, the owner of slaves is less apt to be harsh in his requisitions of labor than those who toil much themselves. I suspect it is invariably characteristic of those who are in the habit of severely tasking themselves, that they are inclined to regulate their demands upon others by their own standard. Our slaves are punished for misdemeanors, pretty much as disorderly persons are punished in all societies; and I am quite of opinion that our statistics of crime and punishment will compare favorably with those of any other population. But the punishment, on our side, is remarked as the personal act of the master; whilst, elsewhere, it goes free of ill-natured comment, because it is set down to the course of justice. We, therefore, suffer a reproach which other polities escape, and the conclusion is made an item of complaint against slavery. "It has not escaped the attention of our legislation to provide against the ill-treatment of our negro population. I heartily concur in all effective laws to punish cruelty in masters. Public opinion on that subject, however, is even stronger than law, and no man can hold up his head in this community who is chargeable with mal-treatment of his slaves. "One thing I desire you specially to note: the question
of emancipation is exclusively our own, and every intermeddling with it from abroad will but mar its chance of success. We cannot but regard such interference as an unwarrantable and mischievous design to do us injury, and, therefore, we resent it—sometimes, I am sorry to say, even to the point of involving the innocent negro in the rigor which it provokes. We think, and, indeed, we know, that we alone are able to deal properly with the subject; all others are misled by the feeling which the natural sentiment against slavery, in the abstract, excites. They act under imperfect knowledge and impulsive prejudices which are totally incompatible with wise action on any subject. We, on the contrary, have every motive to calm and prudent counsel. Our lives, fortunes, families—our commonwealth itself, are put at the hazard of this resolve. You gentlemen of the North greatly misapprehend us, if you suppose that we are in love with this slave institution—or that, for the most part, we even deem it profitable to us. There are amongst us, it is true, some persons who are inclined to be fanatical on this side of the question, and who bring themselves to adopt some bold dogmas tending to these extreme views—and it is not out of the course of events that the violence of the agitations against us may lead ultimately to a wide adoption of these dogmas amongst the slaveholding States. It is in the nature of men to recalcitrate against continual assault, and, through the zeal of such opposition, to run into ultraisms which cannot be defended. But at present, I am sure the Southern sentiment on this question is temperate and wise, and that we neither regard slavery as a good, nor account it, except in some favorable conditions, as profitable. The most we can say of it is that, as matters stand, it is the best auxiliary within our reach. "Without troubling you with further reflections upon a dull
subject, my conclusion is that the real friends of humanity should
conspire to allay the ferments on this question, and, even
at some cost, to endeavor to encourage the natural contentment of the slave himself, by arguments to reconcile him to a present destiny, which is, in fact, more free from sorrow and want than that of almost any other class of men occupying the same field of labor." Meriwether was about to finish his discourse at this point, when a new vein of thought struck him: "It has sometimes occurred to me," he continued, "that we might elevate our slave population, very advantageously to them and to us, by some reforms in our code. I think we are justly liable to reproach, for the neglect or omission of our laws to recognize and regulate marriages, and the relation of family amongst the negroes. We owe it to humanity and to the sacred obligation of Christian ordinances, to respect and secure the bonds of husband and wife, and parent and child. I am ashamed to acknowledge that I have no answer to make in the way of justification of this neglect. We have no right to put man and wife asunder. The law should declare this, and forbid the separation under any contingency, except of crime. It should be equally peremptory in forbidding the coercive separation of children from the mother— at least during that period when the one requires the care of the other. A disregard of these attachments has brought more odium upon the conditions of servitude than all the rest of its imputed hardships; and a suitable provision for them would tend greatly to gratify the feelings of benevolent and conscientious slaveholders, whilst it would disarm all considerate and fair- minded men, of what they deem the strongest objection to the existing relations of master and slave. "I have also another reform to propose," said Meriwether, smiling.
"It is, to establish by law, an upper or privileged class of
slaves—selecting them from the most deserving, above the age of
forty-five years. These I would endue with something of a
feudal character. They should be entitled to hold small tracts of land under their masters, rendering for it a certain rent, payable either in personal service or money. They should be elevated into this class through some order of court, founded on certificates of good conduct, and showing the assent of the master. And I think I would create legal jurisdictions, giving the masters or stewards civil and criminal judicial authority. I have some dream of a project of this kind in my head," he continued, "which I have not fully matured as yet. You will think, Mr. Littleton, that I am a man of schemes, if I go on much longer—but there is something in this notion which may be improved to advantage, and I should like, myself, to begin the experiment. Jupiter, here, shall be my first feudatory—my tenant in socage—my old villain!" "I suspect," said I, "Jupiter considers that his dignity is not to be enhanced by any enlargement of privilege, as long as he is allowed to walk about in his military hat as King of the Quarter." "Perhaps not," replied Meriwether, laughing; "then I shall be forced to make my commencement upon Carey." "Carey," interrupted Hazard, "would think it small promotion to be allowed to hold land under you!" "Faith! I shall be without a feudatory to begin with," said Meriwether. "But come with me; I have a visit to make to the cabin of old Lucy." |