QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. No. LVII. 
 
 THE PLANTATION NEGRO 
 AS A FREEMAN 
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON HIS CHARACTER, CONDITION, AND 
 PROSPECTS IN VIRGINIA 
 
 BY 
 
 PHILIP A. BRUCE 
 
 NEW YORK & LONDON 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM S SONS 
 
 1889 
 
i 
 COPYRIGHT BY 
 
 PHILIP A. BRUCE 
 
 1889 
 
 Press of 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM S SONS 
 New York 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION vii 
 
 I. PARENT AND CHILD i 
 
 II. HUSBAND AND WIFE .... 15 
 
 III. MASTER AND SERVANT .... 29 
 
 IV. BLACKS AND WHITES .... 44 
 
 \V. THE NEGRO AND THE COMMONWEALTH, 61 
 
 VI. THE NEGRO AND THE CRIMINAL LAW . 77 
 
 VII. RELIGION 93 
 
 VIII. SUPERSTITION in 
 
 IX. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS MORAL . 126 
 X. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS MENTAL . 143 
 XI. REMARKS ON PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM . 160 
 XII. THE NEGR& AS AN AGRICULTURAL LA 
 BORER . . . . . . 175 
 
 XIII. MATERIAL CONDITION OF THE LABORER . 193 
 
 XIV. RENTERS AND LAND-OWNERS. . . 211 
 
 XV. MECHANICS 228 
 
 XVI. FUTURE OF NEGRO 241 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE Southern negro, both as a man and as a citizen, 
 has been so often and so fully discussed, and from 
 such a variety of standpoints, that it would seem al 
 most impossible now for any new information to be 
 produced, or any opinion advanced that would be 
 likely to add much to the general knowledge of the 
 problem which his presence creates, or to dispel any of 
 the darkness that envelops his future. That his presence 
 in the South constitutes a problem of the gravest import 
 ance is obvious to any one who has had an opportunity 
 of examining closely the various tendencies of his nature 
 and conduct in those rural communities in which indi 
 viduals of his race form a large proportion or a great 
 majority of the inhabitants. 1 It is in such communities 
 as these that the observations embodied in this volume 
 were made, these observations extending over a long 
 series of years, but being entirely confined to the period 
 that has elapsed since the war. It is only as a freeman 
 that the negro has been presented to my view, for I have 
 no distinct recollection of slavery as an institution ; it is 
 only as he has been affected by the circumstances sur 
 rounding him since his emancipation that he is regarded 
 
 y* 1 The overwhelming majority of the Southern negroes are found 
 in the rural districts, the number inhabiting the towns and cities 
 being too small to exercise any material influence on the general 
 destiny of their race. 
 
VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 in the following pages. I have sought to describe him 
 in the light of that modification of his character which 
 subsequent conditions have worked, as well as in the 
 light of the resistance to these conditions which his 
 ancestral traits are still making. The picture drawn will, 
 no doubt, seem gloomy and repelling in its moral aspects. 
 In reference to this, I will only say that I have stated my 
 conclusions impartially and dispassionately, without any 
 intention of improperly reflecting upon a population 
 deserving of consideration in so many ways, and entitled 
 to forbearance in all. If I have fallen into any mistake, 
 it has been in applying to that population the common 
 ethical standard by which the members of white commu 
 nities are judged. I have been led to employ this stand 
 ard not only because I believe it to be the only proper 
 test, but also because I earnestly hope that a description 
 of the moral, social, and political bent of the negroes, 
 wherever they are found in a teeming mass, will quicken 
 the efforts of those who are engaged in the task of im 
 proving them. No one can dwell for any length of time 
 in those sections of the South where the members of that 
 race predominate, without being animated by a strong 
 desire that every means should be used to reform and 
 elevate them, if not on their own account, then on 
 account of the country which they inhabit. Patriotism 
 steps in to inspire the wish, whether it would otherwise 
 arise or not. I have been moved to write with unre 
 served freedom and candor, in order that there may be a 
 clearer conception of the evils springing from the pres 
 ence of the blacks, as well as a juster notion as to the 
 nature of the remedies that should be adopted to remove 
 these evils. There is much in the moral character of 
 this people that is partially ascribable to the influences of 
 
IN TROD UCTION. vi i 
 
 slavery ; I have not touched at any length on these influ 
 ences, because my aim has been to delineate the negro 
 as he is, without reverting to the possible causes of his 
 condition that are to be found in the past. Now that he 
 is a freeman and a citizen, he must stand like the mem 
 bers of every other class, on his own individual merits, 
 and according to these merits he must be estimated. An 
 apology for his shortcomings on the score of slavery has 
 no practical bearing now, except so far as it is calculated 
 to diminish the discouragement which his moral defi 
 ciencies are apt to inspire. Every decade withdraws 
 him still further from the transmitted spirit of the former 
 regime ; every decade only removes a still greater num 
 ber of the artificial props that have hitherto supported 
 him. The truest lover of his country, as well as the most 
 disinterested friend of the blacks, is he who will portray 
 their character and depict their society, without partiality 
 and without prejudice. It is difficult to understand how 
 any one can contemplate in a narrow and illiberal way 
 the questions involved in their numerical increase at the 
 South, for these questions in reality touch every citizen, 
 affect directly or remotely the interests of every commu 
 nity, and are as wide in their scope as the republic itself. 
 Such questions come very closely home to the Southern 
 people. Much as the subject of the negro has been dis 
 cussed, that subject continues to be profoundly interest 
 ing to them, because it is so intimately associated with 
 the welfare and prosperity of the section in which they 
 live. In the light of this interest, which they share with 
 the most thoughtful citizens in every other section of the 
 Union, a further contribution to that discussion will, 
 perhaps, be neither ill-timed nor useless. 
 
 The part of the South to which the observations re- 
 
Vlll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 corded in these pages especially relate is that portion of 
 the Old Dominion which lies between the James River 
 and the northern boundary line of North Carolina, a 
 broad area of country which is locally designated as 
 Southside Virginia. It has long been known as one of 
 the most important tobacco regions of the United States, 
 every variety of that staple, with few exceptions, being 
 cultivated there ; for that reason, it was, before the late 
 war, the principal seat of the slave-holding interest in the 
 State, tobacco requiring in its production more arduous 
 and protracted labor than cotton. By the census of 1860, 
 there were 207,668 negroes in this section, a number that 
 had increased in 1880, after an interval of twenty years, 
 to 252,475, which is not very far from being one half of 
 the whole colored population of the commonwealth. In 
 many counties of Southside Virginia the blacks consti 
 tute two thirds of the inhabitants, this being strikingly 
 the case in the group that form the famous "black belt," 
 which includes Amelia, Brunswick, Charlotte, Cumber 
 land, Greensville, Mecklenburg, Nottoway, Powhatan, 
 Prince Edward, Prince George, Surry, and Sussex. In 
 Buckingham the negroes exceed the whites numerically 
 by two thousand ; in Lunenburg, by the same ; in South 
 ampton, by three thousand ; in Dinwiddie, by four 
 thousand ; in Halifax by seven thousand. In Campbell 
 and Pittsylvania they have a majority in a combined pop 
 ulation of 90,000. In all of these counties, which con 
 sist of a varied country of great extent, there are com 
 paratively few school districts even, in which the whites 
 predominate over the blacks. The whole section is, in 
 fact, inhabited by large communities of negroes, in which 
 their characteristics are developed in entire freedom 
 from the pressure of any influences, except those that 
 
INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 emanate from themselves. Nowhere can the tenden 
 cies of the race as a mass be studied to more advantage ; 
 and it is only as a mass that I have sought to present the 
 individuals of that race in this volume. For this reason, 
 the observations are generalized, as a rule, and, except 
 in the instance of the chapters on the material condition 
 of colored laborers, without special local details. While 
 the scope of these observations is more or less locally 
 restricted, yet I believe that they will be found to be 
 applicable, so far as they bear on the moral and social 
 tendencies of the negro, to all parts of the South in which 
 the black population forms large communities, which 
 withdraws it from the influence of the whites, and ex 
 poses it only to the influences that arise in its own soci 
 ety. The members of that population have recently 
 emerged from the same state everywhere ; their homo 
 geneity as a people has always been remarkable at every 
 period of their history, and wherever they have been ob 
 served. The local circumstances surrounding them in 
 the southern counties of Virginia, do not differ from 
 those that hedge them about in the cotton region ; 
 Southside Virginia is, in fact, only the beginning of the 
 black belt that runs as far to the southwest as Texas. 
 What is true of the negroes in one division of this belt 
 is very likely to be true of them in every other, only that 
 in South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana, the condi 
 tion of the race is still more degraded, and the problem 
 which that condition creates more difficult of solution, 
 on account of the numerical disproportion between the 
 whites and blacks throughout the whole of these com 
 monwealths, and not, as in Virginia, in isolated parts 
 alone. PHILIP A. BRUCE. 
 
 RICHMOND, VA., Nov. i, 1888. 
 
THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A 
 FREEMAN. 
 
 I. 
 
 PARENT AND CHILD. 
 
 OF all the domestic influences at work among the planta 
 tion negroes of Virginia wherever they are gathered togeth 
 er in large communities of their own, the most important 
 in its scope, on the whole, is that which emanates from 
 the relation of parent and child. It is to this relation 
 that the attention of an observer of their society is first 
 directed, because, of the various elements that enter into 
 that society, it is likely to throw most light upon the 
 future of the race, even if it does not give the clearest in 
 dication of its present moral and social condition. How 
 far does the parental authority supply the discipline that 
 was enforced by the slaveholder ? And to what extent 
 does it foster a spirit of self-control in the masses of 
 those who, in time, will shape the public sentiment of 
 their people ? If the answer to these questions is unfa 
 vorable to this relation, to what can we look to cultivate 
 that spirit, without which neither the young nor the old 
 are capable of usefulness or worthy of esteem ? A 
 search in other directions is soon discovered to be vain. 
 
2 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 If the parental authority is powerless, then there is no 
 other form of authority to take its place. 
 
 Turning for a moment to the character of the negro 
 as a parent when a slave, 1 we find that the authority to 
 which he had to submit had a favorable effect on his 
 relation to his children. The mere fact that he was 
 under a vigilant and energetic guardianship himself in 
 clined him to restrain them far more than he would have 
 done if he himself had not been goverjoed at all. The 
 spirit that was imparted to him by his situation in life 
 he communicated to them, and he was further stimulated 
 to confine them within proper bounds by his anxiety not 
 to incur on their or his account the displeasure or cen 
 sure of their master. If he found that he was unable 
 to check them, then it was only necessary for him to ask 
 that master to interfere, and his request was promptly 
 complied with. As soon as they arrived at the age of 
 intelligence, they themselves saw that they were as much 
 and as constantly under the rigorous supervision of their 
 owner as of their parents, and, in many instances, more 
 so, and this double force of authority fully controlled 
 them in their daily life. Thus the spirit of obedience 
 and restraint was inculcated in them from their earliest 
 years, and whether supine or restive under restriction, 
 they knew that it was impossible to escape from it. 
 While the power of slavery thus manifested did much 
 to complement and strengthen the parental authority and 
 even to supply it when it was wanting, it did little to 
 animate the father and mother with a desire to improve 
 their children morally, because it did nothing to incite 
 them to improve themselves. Neither of the parents 
 
 1 All references to slavery are inferential and speculative, not 
 being based on my personal observation or experience. 
 
PARENT AND CHILD. 3 
 
 was capable of instructing their children in the simplest 
 moral principles ; they were either unenlightened them 
 selves, or if they did comprehend the ethical difference 
 between a virtue and a vice, they were generally unin 
 formed as to the proper manner of teaching it ; and 
 their cabin, in consequence, was an unwholesome atmos 
 phere for a youthful nature to draw its first breath in 
 after it had begun to observe its surroundings. In that 
 atmosphere the disposition of the child expanded in 
 harmony with the low instincts that had come down to 
 him through so many ages ; slavery stepped in to re 
 strain these instincts when uncontrollable otherwise, al 
 though it did nothing to eradicate them and to substitute 
 pure and honorable impulses for them. If that power 
 which the master s property in his slave child gave him 
 the right to exercise, with a view to governing him, 
 either directly or by sustaining the parental authority, 
 had not been brought to bear for that purpose, then 
 practically the child would have been left to follow his 
 worst inclinations, since his father and mother were them 
 selves too destitute of all proper knowledge or feeling to 
 teach him at the time that they punished him, if they 
 punished him at all when he did wrong. The discipline 
 of slavery was therefore advantageous in a repressive 
 way to the child, selfish and ruthless as it was too often. 
 In none of the domestic relations has the influence of 
 emancipation been more obvious in its working than in 
 that of parent and child, but the result might have been 
 predicted by any one who was familiar with this relation 
 under the former system, as well as with the general dis 
 position of the negro himself. The parental authority 
 is now much laxer than it used to be, inasmuch as it is 
 no longer supported by all the power of the slaveholder. 
 
4 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 Even if, in any instance, a father and mother were to de 
 sire to instil a spirit of self-restraint into their children, 
 they would not be led to seek, when necessary, the assist 
 ance of their former master, who is now their employer, 
 and who never assumes the right to intervene, unless the 
 heedlessness or depravity of the children is displayed in 
 injuring, destroying, or purloining his property. He has 
 no longer authority enough to insist upon order and dis 
 cipline in the family life, or to compel parents to prevent 
 their offspring from running wild, like so many young 
 animals. Even when he feels any interest in their moral 
 education, irrespective of their connection with the gov 
 ernment of his own estate, he finds it impossible to come 
 : near enough to them to win and hold their attention, for 
 child and parent alike shrink from association with him. 
 His advances are not cordially met. However keen his 
 sense of moral responsibility, therefore, and however 
 earnestly he may wish to prosecute a plan of moral edu 
 cation among the children of his laborers, he runs upon 
 an almost insurmountable obstacle in his path at the 
 very beginning, and he is generally discouraged from 
 going any further. As far, therefore, as he is concerned, 
 the children of the new generation receive no moral 
 instruction at all. Under the old system, the ladies of 
 his family often instituted Sunday-schools, to teach the 
 young slaves the leading principles of the Christian 
 faith, as well as general rules of good conduct ; but this 
 custom, which was the source of much benefit to the 
 pupils, has fallen into disuse ; and as there are now no 
 points of contact between the home life of the cabin and 
 that of the planter s residence, no social or moral influ 
 ence of any kind emanates from his domestic circle to 
 enlighten the minds of the children who live on his estate. 
 
PARENT AND CHILD. $ 
 
 I have already referred to the moral deficiencies of the 
 parents when slaves. On the whole the parents of the 
 present day are still more imperfect as ethical teachers 
 and exemplars, because greater unsteadiness and laxness 
 of conduct prevail among them under the freedom of the 
 new regime than was observed under the strictness of 
 the old. They are now at liberty to act upon all the im 
 pulses of their nature, these impulses being too often 
 censurable as violating the rules of propriety and moral 
 ity, or if not, then probably originating in an ignorance 
 and carelessness that are as injurious in their consequences 
 as depravity itself. It is too much to expect that pa 
 rents, trained as the negroes have been, will be deeply 
 interested in the moral condition of their children. 
 Apart from any apology that can be offered in their be 
 half, it is undeniable that they either do not feel any 
 solicitude about that condition at all, or do not feel it to 
 the necessary degree. The average father and mother 
 are morally obtuse and indifferent, and at times even 
 openly and unreservedly licentious. Their character is 
 such, by the force of nature or circumstances, that they 
 havei no just conception of the parental obligation or the 
 onerous duties that it should lay upon them in the 
 course of their daily lives. The children have come 
 into the world by the operation of an instinct, and the 
 burden which their rearing imposes is borne as thought 
 lessly as that instinct itself was indulged. It is one of 
 the most notable traits of the individual of the race that he 
 does not look forward when his own interests would seem 
 to require him to do so, and it is not to be supposed that 
 his mind would turn to the future more readily for sake 
 of his offspring, even if he were capable of appreciating 
 the effect of early training on the whole tenor of after- 
 
6 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 life. He is not likely to act in one way with the young 
 and in another with himself. In both cases his thoughts 
 do not wander beyond the present. For sake of per 
 sonal convenience merely, he is compelled to enforce a 
 certain measure of discipline in his household, but it is, 
 as a rule, done in a way that deprives it of an elevating 
 influence. In neither of the parents, indeed, when it 
 becomes necessary to rebuke or chastise their children, 
 in order to insure a mere temporary good, do we gener 
 ally find such deportment as will strike home a lesson 
 that will redound to the permanent welfare of mind and 
 heart by accustoming both to the pressure of steady but 
 reasonable restraint. In only too many instances the 
 tendency of the parents is to punish a slight indiscretion 
 and to overlook a serious offense altogether, the usual 
 consequence of which is, that the seeds of demoralization 
 are sown in the receptive intelligence of their offspring 
 at the hearth, where those lessons only should be taught 
 which bear in after-life that noble fruit that separates a 
 civilized human being from a grovelling beast. 
 
 As a rule, the negroes are not unkind in their general 
 bearing as parents, since they are to a certain extent a 
 genial and amiable people ; harshness and severity on 
 their part proceed as much from mere impulsiveness as 
 from a determination to be brutal and merciless. They 
 frequently speak in a loud and threatening way to their 
 children, and are often rough and cruel ; but observing 
 their behavior for a considerable length of time, they are 
 gentler, on the whole, than would have been anticipated 
 of the members of a race that has always shown so little 
 ability to use any form of power with wisdom and modera 
 tion. (The principal ground for criticism in their inter 
 course with their offspring is, that they are not discrimi- 
 
PARENT AND CHI 
 
 nating in their treatment, and not able to pursue any 
 course of conduct permanently, however necessary that 
 course may be ; an inability to follow out a single plan of 
 action for any length of time being one of the most striking 
 characteristics of their raoe^/ To keep a careful guard 
 over their children would be vexatious and tedious, as it 
 would require prolonged watchfulness and ceaseless atten 
 tion to the smallest details. All this is foreign to the temper 
 of the negro, however excellent his intentions as a parent 
 might be. His nature is careless and indifferent ; he is 
 too capricious to persist in the same line of deportment, 
 and too shifting and irresolute in his purposes to interest 
 himself continuously in any one thing. The children of 
 the most respectable parents suffer in consequence, being 
 allowed to grow up without steady instruction in lessons 
 of propriety and morality, and to that extent to mature 
 in a state of nature, their original characters expanding 
 in accord with their inherent bent, unmodified by any 
 form of continuous training. 
 
 In one respect, however, the parents do show a marked 
 interest in the condition of their children ; they are anx 
 ious that the latter shall attend school, and always require 
 them to do so, unless the children cannot be dispensed 
 with about the house. In this the parents are governed 
 by several motives, and the advantage of educating their 
 sons and daughters for their own individual welfare in 
 life has perhaps less weight in the premises than other 
 reasons. The negro attaches an almost superstitious 
 value to such instruction ; he exalts the idea as if it were 
 that of a fetich ; it calls up a vague conception to his 
 mind that is pregnant with manifold but ill-defined bene 
 fits. At heart he believes that illiteracy is the principal 
 cause of the negro s social inferiority to the white man, 
 
8 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 and he attributes to school instruction a marvellous 
 power of removing this inferiority. He looks upon edu 
 cation, therefore, as a means of bringing his offspring, 
 and through his offspring himself and his race, nearer to 
 the social position of white people ; and he is actuated 
 more by this sentiment on the whole than by a lively 
 concern in the development of the mind of the child 
 irrespective of the latter s relations with society at large. 1 
 Attendance upon school is perhaps beneficial to that 
 child in the physical restraint to which it forces him to 
 submit for the time being, but unfortunately the annual 
 session does not extend over many months, and, further 
 more, the scholars are withdrawn at an age when they 
 are most impatient of constraint, and, consequently, when 
 they stand peculiarly in need of the strictest discipline. 
 They probably do not remain long enough to receive any 
 general impression that will affect them throughout their 
 future. The elementary knowledge which they acquire 
 there is undoubtedly useful to them ; but the confine 
 ment of the school, so far from cultivating steadiness of 
 character, seems to make them more eager to shake off 
 all restriction as they grow older ; it certainly does not 
 cause them to be less restive under the reins of the 
 parental authority and less determined to escape from it 
 as soon as they can. 
 
 There is little in that general society in which the chil 
 dren move, and of which they must take the form and 
 pressure, to foster self-repression in their natures. 
 Even if the domestic life of the cabin was as pure and 
 elevating in its influence as it should be, then the spirit 
 
 1 The importance which the negro attaches to education is also 
 due, in some measure, to that imitative spirit which leads him to 
 adopt so many of the customs of the whites. 
 
PARENT AND CHILD. Q 
 
 of the community around them would do much to lessen 
 the beneficial effect of that influence. Few lessons are 
 to be learned in this atmosphere that inculcate propriety 
 of conduct and refinement in behavior ; on the contrary, 
 the child is too apt to learn there much that is calculated 
 to make him dishonest, much that encourages him to 
 give full rein to his various impulses and passions, and 
 thus to defy the restraining force of every right princi 
 ple. In short, that unwholesome atmosphere is likely to 
 give such a tone to the child s mind that it is impossible 
 for him to lead a strictly upright life when he arrives at 
 maturity. Each community is but an aggregation of 
 ignorant homes, and each home is but a circle of thought 
 less individuals. Far too many members of the older 
 generations set a demoralizing example, by showing little 
 appreciation in word and action alike for order, cleanli 
 ness, temperance, continence, veracity, and integrity. 
 The persons to whom the children should look up for 
 guidance and instruction, and in whose footsteps they 
 should be able to follow safely, too often inspire them 
 only with a more capricious and restless spirit. The 
 consequence is that those who should be the hope of 
 their race as the future representatives of its capacity, its 
 industry, and its virtue, promise to be less respectable 
 than their fathers, who were trained in the harsh school 
 of slavery. The_general freedom has fostered a growing 
 impatience of restraint in the young. As soon as a youth 
 reaches the age of seventeen or eighteen, he begins to 
 chafe even under the lax parental authority ; every kind 
 of discipline galls him beyond endurance ; a settled 
 occupation is especially obnoxious and distasteful to 
 him, as he shrinks from an uninterrupted employment of 
 his energies. He is assured that he can earn a liveli- 
 
1 6 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 hood without difficulty by casual and temporary contracts, 
 and, therefore, he is anxious to confine himself to inter 
 mittent and irregular labor. The planters are so well 
 aware of this inclination on his part that they are indis 
 posed to engage him by the year, since he is not the less 
 likely to slip away without warning, because he is still 
 under the guardianship of his parents. Whoever among 
 them gives him work places little reliance upon his prom 
 ise to adhere to the terms of the agreement into which 
 his father or mother may have entered, in his behalf, as 
 there are no secondary means of enforcing the stipula 
 tions. The promptings of self-interest, idleness, or 
 caprice will cause him to throw the hoe down in the 
 fields and depart without serving any notice on his em 
 ployer or without even informing his parents. As it is 
 necessary for the security of certain crops that there 
 should be a full force of laborers to work them at stated 
 seasons, or manipulate them after they have been gath 
 ered and stored away in the barns, this unsteadiness and 
 unreliability always do great harm if displayed at a crit 
 ical hour. They cast a dark shadow over the prospects 
 of the generation of negroes who have been brought up 
 wholly under the influence of the new order of things. 
 
 In justice to the parents it must be said that they are 
 very much opposed to the unsteady and roving disposi 
 tion of their sons, although it is largely ascribable to 
 their defective training ; but this opposition is not based 
 upon sentimental reasons alone. To them the wages of 
 their children properly belong until the latter come of 
 age or marry. As it is, the parents have to bear the ex 
 pense and incur the trouble of bringing up their sons 
 only to see them break away for unknown parts, just at 
 the time when they are old and strong enough to assist 
 
PARENT AND CHILD. II 
 
 in eking out the support of the family by the money 
 which they can earn by working in the fields. 
 
 The girls, on the other hand, are more easily managed, 
 after a certain age, than the boys, because more amena 
 ble to physical restraint. The character of their sex 
 puts a check upon their conduct in certain respects in 
 which their brothers are most ungovernable ; in other 
 words, they are less restive, because they are weaker and 
 more timid. Necessarily they are not so much at liberty 
 to shape their lives as they please as they approach 
 maturity, and even if they had that inclination to roam 
 which is shown by the boys, which they have not, it 
 would not be in their power to gratify it. The relation 
 between the girls and their fathers and mothers is gentler 
 and more intimate, and as they are very useful in the 
 household they are more highly valued and appreciated. 
 Whatever wages they can earn belong to their parents. 
 They can take no part in the roughest labor of the plan 
 tations, but at certain seasons, when the wheat harvest, 
 for instance, is in progress, or the corn is being planted, 
 or the tobacco stripped, many of them are regularly em 
 ployed, and are paid well for their work. These are 
 then found in the fields or barns at all hours of the day, 
 and, to the extent of their physical strength, are as good 
 hands as males of the same age. During the greater 
 portion of the year, however, all of the girls are entirely 
 disengaged, this long interval being spent in idleness or 
 in assisting in the ordinary domestic routine of the 
 cabin. Unfortunately, their mothers do not endeavor to 
 teach them, systematically, those moral lessons that they 
 peculiarly need as members of the female sex ; they 
 learn to sew in a rude way, to wash, to iron, and to cook, 
 but no principle is steadily instilled that makes them 
 

 12 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 solicitous and resolute to preserve their reputations un 
 tarnished. Chastity is a virtue which the parents do not 
 seem anxious to foster and guard in their daughter ; she 
 has no abiding sense of personal purity in consequence, 
 and the anticipation of the possible consequences of in 
 discretion does not appear to intervene to influence her 
 to be circumspect in her behavior. The truth is that the 
 only very serious consequence is physical, there being 
 unhappily no stem sentiment even in her immediate 
 family to condemn her. This looseness in the sexual 
 relations does not lower her general disposition as much 
 as might be supposed, for she is remarkable for a certain 
 cheerfulness of spirit and amiability of temper that par 
 tially redeem her from the charge of occasional inconti 
 nence. In those other essentials of character that are 
 the basis of esteem, and which should be enforced upon 
 the consideration of children, male and female alike, the 
 daughter is, as a rule, as undeveloped as the son ; and 
 not unnaturally, since the usual examples of her own sex 
 that come within the daily range of her observation, even 
 in the precincts of her father s dwelling, are not such as 
 to lead her to cultivate these traits to a considerable 
 degree. 
 
 The intercourse between parents and children, after 
 the latter have established homes and have families of 
 their own, is not, as a rule, very intimate and constant, 
 even when they live quite near together, but nevertheless 
 the relation is not ignored. The negro is often cruel 
 and generally callous, but still he has more warmth of 
 heart than is usually found in individuals of other races 
 equally ignorant, and while it is very improbable that he 
 will inconvenience himself or sacrifice his interests to 
 serve father or mother when the latter are embarrassed, 
 
PARENT AND CHILD. 13 
 
 yet he will show occasionally that he is not unmindful of 
 their existence. It must be recollected in his favor that 
 he has a heavy burden to carry in supporting his own 
 children ; all that he can earn is thus expended, and 
 therefore, even though he had the proper impulse, he 
 could give but little material assistance to his parents if 
 the latter were to seek it. The life which the members 
 of both sexes lead, whether idle or laborious, is not such 
 as to foster in their dispositions the growth of any kind 
 of sentimentality, and it is not surprising that it should 
 weaken and even destroy the filial tie altogether. If 
 they ever dwell upon the past, their memories of their 
 early years in the cabin would not, perhaps, arouse an 
 emotion of filial gratitude, but this does not color their 
 view of their relation to their parents in after-life at all. 
 Their thoughts rarely revert to what has gone before, of 
 their own accord ; even if the contrary were true, many 
 would probably recall a harsh parent with as much 
 honor as a kind and gentle one, for there is nothing that 
 the average negro seems to respect so much as force, 
 whether unscrupulous or not. The freedmen of the 
 present day do not disclose by their bearing toward a 
 former master who conducted himself with extreme 
 harshness and injustice to them when slaves that they 
 resent the rough and unprincipled usage to which they 
 were then compelled to submit. Among the white men 
 who are most popular with the negroes are those who 
 used to have this evil reputation as slaveholders ; and 
 so it is with a father and mother who were severe to their 
 children when young. If the children neglect their 
 parents, it is because they are oblivious of the filial 
 obligation, and not because they are moved by a sense 
 of injury ; and if their parents had heaped upon them 
 
14 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 every benefit, the children would probably be equally as 
 indifferent. They do not always think that natural duty 
 alone should prompt them to be attentive and useful to 
 their parents whenever they can be ; nor do the parents 
 on their side confidently expect to receive any help from 
 their offspring, and if pinched in old age by extreme poverty 
 they are less inclined on the whole to appeal to a son or 
 daughter, however prosperous and unhampered, than to 
 the planter who owned them before they were freed. It 
 is not until the last scene in the humble drama of their 
 lives is reached that their children are invariably inter 
 ested in their fate. The sensibilities of the former are 
 touched at once by the prospect of the early death of 
 father or mother, even if they had felt no special concern 
 about the temporary condition of either. Every super 
 stitious emotion in their breasts is aroused, and they dis 
 play a morbid solicitude that assumes the form of the most 
 violent grief when the parent finally dies. The intensity 
 of their sorrow is expressed in many ways, even if it had 
 happened that they had abandoned the dead parent alto 
 gether before his or her last illness ; but this is only one 
 of the numerous inconsistencies that distinguish the 
 negro in every relation of life ; for he flies from one ex 
 treme to another so fast that we condemn and praise 
 him, despise and pity him, like and dislike him, all at the 
 same instant of time. 
 
II. 
 
 HUSBAND AND WIFE. 
 
 PASSING to the relation of husband and wife, and inci 
 dentally to the more general relation of the sexes, I enter 
 upon the examination of that part of my subject in which 
 the plantation negro appears in the most unfavorable 
 light, and which, therefore, cannot be discussed with 
 freedom and accuracy without some appearance of harsh 
 ness and cruelty. When he has an opportunity of grati 
 fying his physical appetit&s, which are the more vigorous 
 and impetuous the more feeble his intellect, he generally 
 acts as if he had no conscience at all, and no fear, either 
 of the serious consequences which his thoughtlessness 
 may inevitably bring upon him ; his mind being so little 
 able to form any just notion of these consequences, how 
 ever grave, that he does not seem even to anticipate or 
 calculate them. He gives way to his lowest physical 
 propensities with as much mental serenity and self- 
 abandonment as if they were innocent, although he may 
 lay himself open thereby to very severe punishment. 
 J^/leed, the plantation negro is as much a child of nature 
 n-w, however civilizing the influences that surround 
 him, as if he had just been transported from the shores 
 
 his original continent. He apparently sees no immo- 
 n*Ay in doing what nature prompts him to do, whether 
 he thus encroaches upon the absolute rights of others or 
 not, for differences of title in those things which he 
 
 15 
 
 / 
 
1 6 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 believes were created for all are not generally accepted 
 by him as adjudicated facts ; as a rule, he bears himself 
 towards such kinds of property as if there were no differ 
 ences of ownership in them whatever. In the sexual 
 relations this insensibility and want of self-control are 
 exhibited to a very remarkable degree, for the procrea- 
 tive instinct being the most passionate that nature has 
 implanted in his body, it is unscrupulous in proportion. 
 Before it all the barriers which society has raised in the 
 instance of the white race, and with which it also en 
 deavors to restrain the negro, go down as if they had no 
 power of thwarting his determination to gratify it. 
 
 Slavery certainly transmitted no influence to the pres 
 ent day that is calculated to moderate this instinct. That 
 system debased both, man and woman by making true 
 marriage impossible, and in deing this it tempted both 
 sexes to revert to the natural relations of mere temporary 
 impulse and convenience. Continence and chastity could 
 not well be fostered and encouraged under it, as it was 
 opposed, in its first principles, to wholesome sentiment in 
 the family, and even to the existence of home itself, 
 which is the only fortification against promiscuous inter 
 course. [However faithfully both members of the couple 
 might observe the marital obligations, their union could 
 amount only to a passing arrangement as long as their 
 owner had the power to sell either at any moment that 
 his interests moved him to do so] The possibility of 
 such rupture, followed by a final separation, was(enough 
 in itself to weaken, or at least to embitter, the relation, 
 however firmly cemented apparently by affection and the 
 birth of childrenJ Marriage under the old regime was 
 very like unlawful cohabitation under the new, only that 
 the master, by the power he had, compelled the nominal 
 
HUSBAND AND WIFE. IJ 
 
 husband and wife to live together permanently. They 
 were not allowed to fly apart as they wished, and to 
 assume a similar relation with other persons ; an ordi 
 nary regard for public opinion, or the mere necessity of 
 maintaining order and discipline on his estate causing 
 the planter to prevent this as far as he could, whether 
 he was indifferent to it on the score of personal respon 
 sibility or not. 
 
 Although the institution of slavery did nothing to 
 raise the dignity of marriage or to improve the relation 
 of the sexes, it restricted illicit commerce among the 
 negroes in some measure, because it restrained their 
 general conduct. Before emancipation they had far less 
 liberty of action in every way, necessarily ; they were 
 not permitted then to associate in that unembarrassed 
 fashion which their social and cheerful dispositions pre 
 ferred, and which, now that they are free, they cultivate 
 so assiduously and with so much pleasure. On the con 
 trary, all their movements were then closely watched, 
 and whether innocent or not, were followed with more or 
 less suspicion. They were especially discouraged from 
 wandering about much at night or mingling in large con 
 gregations ; thus their opportunities of falling into lewd 
 habits were diminished, although the inclination to do so 
 remained unchanged. The personal independence of 
 the present day shows how powerful this inclination 
 really was, in spite of the check that was put upon it by 
 the systematic repression of slavery. It is not now reined 
 in by circumstances at all, and the consequence is that it 
 is gratified to such a degree that lasciviousness has done 
 more than all the other vices of the plantation negroes 
 united, to degrade the character of their social life 
 since they were invested with citizenship. It is in this 
 
1 8 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 direction that they seem to be tending most certainly 
 to a state of nature, and many influences are hasten 
 ing the event. In the first place, they show a dis 
 position to withdraw as far as possible from white 
 people, and to ignore the social laws of the latter, which 
 signifies their complete removal from the pressure of a 
 wholesome public sentiment ; in the second place, the 
 [^increasing restlessness of the individual negro causes 
 him to entertain a growing feeling of opposition to reg 
 ular marriage, since it compels him to settle in one spot, 
 and imposes on him the necessity of supporting wife and 
 children. As long as he can form an illicit connection 
 for whatever length of time he chooses, he is not anx 
 ious to purchase a license, for this will fix a permanent 
 obligation upon hirnj The very cost of it, small as it is, 
 is an obstacle in the way of a legal union. If an annual 
 poll tax of one dollar will disfranchise a great many 
 negroes in every community by their inability to pay it, 
 the expense of marriage licenses will virtually prevent 
 others, so improvident is the character of the race, from 
 entering into the bonds of lawful matrimony ; or it will 
 at least prompt them to dispense with the license alto 
 gether as practically unnecessary. 
 
 The general incontinence of the negroes is very much 
 increased, too, by the fact that intrigue is one of the few 
 amusements which they have to quicken their lives. It 
 gives a savor to a flat existence passed in the midst of 
 the most secluded surroundings which it would not other 
 wise have ; and it is on this account, as well as because 
 they are naturally genial, that they celebrate their vari 
 ous entertainments and reunions with so much spirit. 
 These are frequently distinguished for low debauchery, 
 which encourages a course of subsequent intercourse and 
 
HUSBAND AND WIFE. 19 
 
 association that breaks down the last barrier between the 
 sexes, the effect being peculiarly demoralizing to the 
 character of the women, who properly should be bul 
 warks of sobriety and conservatism to the society in 
 which they move, whereas they are in general the flood 
 gates of the corrupting sexual influences that are doing 
 so much to sap and destroy it. /The number of illegiti 
 mate children born to unmarried negresses is becoming 
 greater every year, but this, instead of being a lasting 
 stain on their reputations or a stumbling-block in the 
 path of their material thrift, is an advantage when re 
 garded from a practical point of view. If these children 
 have come to an age when they are old enough to work, 
 then they constitute a valuable dowry to whoever marry 
 their mothers, such women occupying somewhat the 
 position of widows with considerable property at their 
 command, which they confer absolutely upon their hus 
 bands at the hour of marriagj. In reality, a life of gal 
 lantry on the part of the females before that hour, 
 whether it has its consummation in natural children or 
 not, cannot be said to jar upon the sensibilities of the 
 men in general, for they have apparently no sense of 
 delicacy here. As a rule, they marry the most indis 
 creet of the other sex with as much unconscious satis 
 faction as the purest, and, on the whole, they are not as 
 scrupulous as they should be as to whether they them 
 selves or their intimate friends were parties to the ante 
 nuptial sexual irregularities of their wives. This state 
 of mind on the part of the men with respect to the con 
 duct of the women they marry, is very injurious to the 
 moral tone of the unmarried women, for it removes the 
 most powerful influence that could be brought to bear to 
 make them prudent, inasmuch as the thoughtless and 
 
20 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 wanton can secure husbands with the same ease as the 
 virtuous and circumspect. A plantation negress may 
 have sunk to a low point in the scale of sensual 
 indulgence, and yet her position does not seem to 
 be substantially affected even in the estimation of the 
 women of her own race, who, it would be supposed, if 
 we followed the analogy of women of all other races 
 wholly or partially civilized, would be even unjustly 
 severe on her contempt for decency. In those numerous 
 quarrels that agitate the intercourse of the plantation 
 women, one who is peculiarly open to reproach on ac 
 count of her lewdness, is more frequently reviled for the 
 color of her skin than made the target of the foulest epi 
 thet that can be launched at a woman. The truth is 
 that neither the women nor the men as a mass look upon 
 lasciviousness as impurity, and, therefore, it is not a 
 ground of rebuke or a subject for gibes or sneers, or a 
 justification for an assumption of superiority in those 
 who are comparatively chaste. This freedom of physical 
 commerce is regarded as a matter of course by the great 
 majority of the members of both sexes, unless, in some 
 special case, it results in a conflict of claims ; then it 
 frequently leads to crime in the first moments of violent 
 anger, but rarely if the object of that anger can escape 
 until the gust of passion has blown over. Far more 
 often, however, it is simply a cause of the most extrava 
 gant verbal engagements, that terminate peaceably when 
 the power of lung and tongue have been exhausted, 
 which only happens generally after an extraordinary 
 length of time has elapsed ; familiar and intimate rela 
 tions are then resumed, to be amicably maintained until 
 a new occasion for complaint has arisen. 
 
 Marriage, however solemnly contracted and however 
 
HUSBAND AND WIFE. 21 
 
 public the religious ceremony sanctioning it, does not 
 wholly hamper the sexual liberty of either of the parties. 
 The wife, as a rule, is as innocently unconscious as the 
 husband that both have entered into a mutual pledge to 
 be faithful to the vows that they have pronounced. To 
 them, the ceremony is a form which sentimentally means 
 little, and practically signifies only that the woman shall 
 attend to all household duties and the man shall 
 work and support the family. Very unfortunately, this 
 view is even held by those who are regarded as the 
 spiritual leaders and exemplars of their race. Many of 
 the plantation preachers frequently offend against the 
 sacredness of their own marriages and the marriages of 
 members of their flocks, and instead of following that 
 course of propriety which their position requires that they 
 shall follow, they too often employ their commanding 
 influence to corrupt and lead astray. So leniently are 
 violations of the marriage oaths regarded by the negroes, 
 that divorce is a remedy to which they rarely have re 
 course. 1 The process is so expensive that few could 
 bear the cost except by stinting themselves and hoard 
 ing their wages, but if their improvidence did not debar 
 them from turning to it, or if the advantages of the pro 
 cess could be obtained free, they would probably not 
 utilize it, for they are as a class quite insensible to that 
 principle of honor and self-respect which would lead a 
 sensitive husband or wife to discard a partner as person 
 ally offensive because indifferent to the marital obliga 
 tion of chastity. What is considered to be an imperative 
 ground for divorce even among the most uneducated 
 whites, rarely induces the plantation negro couple to 
 
 1 No instance of such a divorce in the rural districts has fallen 
 within the scope of my own personal knowledge. 
 
22 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 separate either for a short or a long time. However 
 gross the immoral act, it generally occasions only a flurry 
 of passionate anger against the third person who is a 
 party to it, with husband or wife. Against the husband 
 himself or the wife, as the case may be, no permanent 
 feeling of resentment seems to be felt. 
 
 The instance very frequently occurs of a negro who 
 has deserted his wife in one county, getting, by false 
 statements, a license to marry in another county, and 
 there establishing a new home with as much coolness as 
 if he had been single when he obtained the second 
 license ; but so accustomed are the whites to the sexual 
 freedom of their former slaves that when it comes to 
 their ears that a certain negro who resides in their vicin 
 ity has two wives to whom he is legally bound, living, 
 the rumor, however capable of substantial proof, is al 
 most always winked at or not considered worthy of 
 investigation. A criminal action for bigamy is far rarer 
 than a civil action of divorce in the contemporary his 
 tory of the race, although a legal basis for it can be so 
 often laid. Even when a marriage is hedged about 
 with all the required forms of law and religion, it is dif 
 ficult for the guardians of the peace to look upon its 
 illegal violation as a criminal offense, so lightly and 
 thoughtlessly do the blacks themselves regard the moral 
 obligations of the tie. 
 
 The marriages that take place are generally contracted 
 quite early in the lives of the parties to them, for the 
 young men having no capital but their physicat strength, 
 and not expecting to have any other, are in as good a 
 position to support a family when they reach the age of 
 twenty-one as they are when much older. There has not 
 been sufficient accumulation of property by the negrops 
 
HUSBAND AND WIFE. 2$ 
 
 who are somewhat advanced in years, to make many of 
 them more eligible in the point of means than those who 
 are younger. The teachers in the public schools are 
 thought to be, on the whole, the most desirable matches, 
 because they are in receipt of salaries that seem enor 
 mous as compared with the wages of an ordinary laborer 
 in the fields, or even a house servant, and then, too, 
 they are men of social eminence among the members of 
 their race. 
 
 The weddings are celebrated quite frequently with 
 boisterous gayety and homely pomp, the shouting and 
 dancing that distinguish them being prolonged until day 
 break, when the guests reluctantly disperse. The life 
 that follows marriage would seem to be far more satis 
 factory to the wife than to the husband, for entrance 
 upon it is the signal to her to leave off all serious work. 
 The home into which she is introduced is not more com- 
 fortabl& than the cabin of her parents from which she 
 was recently led to assume another relation, but from 
 this time forward her existence is freer and easier. Be 
 fore she was often compelled to take part in the opera 
 tions of the plantation at certain seasons, and the most 
 onerous tasks in the domestic management of the paternal 
 dwelling were put on her. Now she is no longer liable to 
 be thus employed. As a married woman she regards it as 
 a degradation to cultivate the fields, and her domestic 
 duties are so light, until her children arrive at an age 
 when they can relieve her altogether, that these duties 
 give no trouble. Practically, therefore, the larger part 
 of her married life, even in the beginning, is passed in 
 idleness. She is disposed to look upon this as conduct 
 that becomes her, both because it is very pleasant in 
 itself and because the female members of the prominent 
 
24 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 white families apparently do nothing but dawdle. She 
 is encouraged in this view by her husband, although he 
 thereby increases his own burdens ; for he considers it 
 A improper for his wife to abandon her fireside to work 
 with the plantation laborers. When the married women 
 are observed thus engaged it is an evidence that their 
 families are pinched by a degree of poverty that over 
 rides inclination as well as custom. This occurs with 
 comparative infrequency, however, since they are pro 
 vided with all that they need by their husbands alone, 
 who also do all the heavy or troublesome jobs about the 
 cabins, such as digging the gardens, chopping the wood, 
 and weeding the patches of corn which they are allowed 
 to till. Under circumstances so favorable to their physi 
 cal ease and mental tranquillity, the wives have little to 
 occupy their attention. They do not go abroad much 
 to vary their life ; indeed, the majority become so indo 
 lent that they rarely move beyond their own thresholds, 
 confining their visiting during the week to the different 
 houses of the immediate neighborhood in which they 
 dwell. On Sunday, however, many are more inclined to 
 call on friends and acquaintances who reside at a much 
 greater distance from them, and they make this the occa 
 sion for parading their finery. This feminine love of 
 dress is shared by them all, however ignorant or poor, 
 but they show, not unnaturally-, a keener appreciation of 
 gay splendor of hue than excellence of texture ; the 
 more pronounced and glaring the color, in fact, the 
 more elegant it seems to their uncultivated taste. When 
 thus arrayed, their satisfaction reaches the highest point 
 of self-contentment, which is exhibited in a complacency 
 of bearing as amusing as it is innocent. Under such trivial 
 circumstances as these the negro s mental incongruity and 
 
HUSBAND AND WIFE. 2$ 
 
 dull sense of the fitness of things are apparent. A gaudy 
 bonnet jauntily set upon the head of the wearer, though 
 the rest of her apparel may be unusually plain, titillates 
 her vanity as pleasurably, and causes her to walk with a"s 
 much stateliness, as if all her different articles of clothing 
 were in keeping with the one piece of ornament, and an 
 equally delighted state of feeling is raised by a still more 
 insignificant bit of personal decoration, she not being 
 aware that there is any thing out of harmony in her 
 appearance. 
 
 The average wife has no keen appreciation of cleanli 
 ness. This she discloses not only in her own person, but 
 also in the interior of her home, over which, as a wife and 
 mother, she has absolute control to arrange the numerous 
 objects and to preserve the whole in such condition as 
 she chooses. The great majority of cabins disclose few 
 evidences of refinement in the nature of her who should 
 be the genius of the best influences of the household. 
 The truth is, that the wife is inferior to the husband in 
 many of the qualities of her character, and this is ob 
 served not only in the domestic but also in the general 
 relations of life. She is more unbridled, for instance, in 
 consequence of the more independent existence she 
 leads as an individual who is not expected to do any thing 
 that demands much exertion and self-denial. She is 
 really under the pressure of very little, if any, restraint. 
 Her husband, as an employee who must conciliate the 
 good-will of the planter for whom he works and submit 
 to all that is required of him, is far from being at liberty 
 to act as he pleases ; his poverty puts a check upon his 
 natural inclinations to a very important degree. But 
 this is not the position of the wife, who is supported not 
 by her own energy but by the energy of her husband, to 
 
26 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 whom she looks alone for a livelihood, and it is only 
 rarely that she comes in contact with the landholder 
 from whom the bread that sustains the lives of her family 
 is indirectly gotten. She is altogether removed, there 
 fore, from any repressive influence which the whites 
 might exercise over her on close association. 
 /__ While in many instances the husband roughly domi 
 neers over the wife, yet, as a rule, the latter holds the 
 reins of domestic power, and is fully able to defend her 
 self, or even commit an assault when his bearing seems 
 to justify Jk/ The shrewish temper and licentious tongue 
 for which she is unfortunately too often distinguished, 
 make her a formidable verbal antagonist, especially in a 
 controversy with a member of her own sex, and if the oc 
 casion prompts it, it is probable that she can successfully 
 support the fluent expression of her anger and resent 
 ment with very vigorous arms. 
 
 All those qualities that signify a concentration of sin 
 ister feeling are found more fully developed in the wives 
 than in the husbands, and their manner of giving ex 
 pression to these, whether in word or deed, is much 
 more forcible and reckless of consequences, but at the 
 same time they are more dissimulative and secretive 
 when it is necessary to be so to attain some object which 
 they have in view. Their moral influence over their hus 
 bands is often pernicious ; much of the crime which the 
 latter commit is secretly or openly instigated by the 
 wives, who frequently go so far as to be active accom 
 plices themselves, in gross as well as petty violations of 
 law. Unhappily, many are inclined, too, to stimulate 
 their husbands to be insolent to the whites, and to rebel 
 against the authority which employers have the right to 
 exercise under contract. Their bearing when thrown 
 
HUSBAND AND WIFE. 2/ 
 
 with members of the white race is often presumptuous, 
 when there is no reason why it should be, apart from the 
 spirit of antagonism which seems to have been engen 
 dered in their own hearts ; and the consequence is 
 that the whites avoid all intercourse with them, unless 
 domestic servants, all communication being generally 
 held indirectly. Although shrewder and more intelli 
 gent than their husbands, yet they are, on the whole, 
 more superstitious, and for this reason they are the 
 principal supporters of the notorious trick doctors, their 
 faith in the occult powers of these rank impostors being 
 implicit. As their controversies among themselves are 
 carried on with so much violence and bitterness, when 
 their animosity is thoroughly aroused, they are eager 
 to turn to whatever will ensure gratification for their 
 vehement spite and resentment, and they are sunk low 
 enough in credulity to believe that supernatural agencies 
 can be compelled to intervene in their behalf. 
 
 With all her faults, and these are numerous and in 
 some instances forbidding, the wife is generally kind in 
 sickness. However cruel she may be ordinarily, and 
 however indifferent to many forms of suffering, she is 
 apt to be attentive at the bedside of extreme illness. 
 This seems to be due more to the morbidity that colors 
 all her thoughts of death, than to tenderness of heart ; 
 for her solicitude is characterized by an increasing 
 superstitiousness as the life in the dying person declines, 
 and it reaches its climax at the end of the last scene 
 when the body is buried. The interest which she feels 
 in all the ghastly details is the source of pleasure to her, 
 without any tincture of pain because they are sombre 
 and mournful. Her sensibilities are touched in an 
 agreeable and not in a harsh and discordant way. The 
 
28 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 fact that it is a final parting, and therefore calculated to 
 lacerate her feelings, seems to enter less into her state of 
 mind under the circumstances than the awful mystery of 
 dissolution and the life beyond the grave ; and the result 
 is that the sickness of a comparative stranger concerns 
 her as much, and his death makes her as sad as if he 
 were a close and familiar relative or bound to her by 
 still stronger and more intimate ties. Whatever is the 
 cause of her agitation, it has the same effect upon her 
 conduct as if she were actuated by unalloyed anxiety 
 about the condition of the patient, and by genuine sor 
 row, however short the time which it may last, if he 
 dies. 
 
 Such is the general temper of the wives. It is they 
 who really mould the institution of marriage among the 
 plantation negroes ; to them its present degradation is 
 chiefly ascribable, for they are less sensible of its differ 
 ent obligations and more ignorant of its true objects than 
 their husbands even. Until a fundamental change takes 
 place in their character, there can be no hope of improve 
 ment in the observance by either sex of this relation, 
 which is just as vital as that of parent and child. If 
 there is any influence now to originate and complete this 
 change, it is difficult to discover it, and it seems highly 
 improbable that there will be any in the near future, 
 since the women are being further and further withdrawn 
 every year from the means that now exist of softening 
 and elevating their dispositions. 
 
III. 
 
 MASTER AND SERVANT. 
 
 THE lavish hospitality of the planters in the age of 
 slavery was due not only to the pleasure that they found 
 in entertaining guests, but also to the great number of 
 servants which that institution itself permitted ; a much 
 larger retinue of these was attached to each residence 
 than the ordinary tasks of the household demanded, for 
 the cost of supporting domestics was so small that the 
 luxury of having many, even when a few were sufficient 
 to perform all that was required to be done, could be in 
 dulged in without any extravagance. The reception of 
 as many guests as the capacity of each house allowed 
 entailed, in reality, but little pecuniary outlay, as the 
 plantation furnished an abundance of provisions, and 
 but little trouble, as there were servants enough to see 
 to the wants of the visitors, however numerous or exact 
 ing. The result of the war checked this spirit of hospi 
 tality at once, not only because it diminished the general 
 prosperity of the planters, and thus compelled an abridg 
 ment of all unnecessary expenses, but also because it 
 put the whole system of household attendance on a 
 different footing. To have to pay the servants in money 
 instead of merely supplying them with food, clothing, 
 and shelter, as formerly, was a new and important addition 
 to the domestic burdens ; in consequence the number of 
 servants who are hired under the present regime for any 
 
 29 
 
30 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 length of time has been curtailed very much, but, never 
 theless, the number still employed would be out of pro 
 portion to the means of the planters, if the amount of 
 wages paid to them was not comparatively trivial. The 
 deficiency, however, is covered by furnishing cabins and 
 rations to them free. 
 
 The spirit of the social life of the principal planters is 
 essentially the same as it used to be ; the old love of 
 hospitality has not changed ; it is only gratified in a sim 
 pler way than formerly. A great store of provisions is 
 still drawn from the resources of the plantation ; the 
 families of the laborers still offer a latitude of choice in 
 the selection of permanent and casual servants, who are 
 ready to perform all the duties of the household at low 
 rates of compensation. These show the same desire 
 now as when they were slaves to act in this capacity, for 
 the life they lead as such is gentler than that of the 
 laborers, although more confining ; the tasks are lighter 
 and easier ; the wages paid are higher, and there are 
 many perquisites that amount to a considerable profit in 
 the course of a year. They are not insensible, either, to 
 the sentimental distinction of the position as compared 
 with that of a hand in the fields or an artisan in the 
 workshop. If the planters were to advance in prosperity, 
 the habits of hospitality that distinguished them before 
 the war would be fully revived, and as a result there 
 would be as great a demand for the domestic service of 
 the negroes as ever ; the number that would then be 
 found in the principal residences would be as large as it 
 once was. This is already observed in the homes of the 
 wealthiest planters, who, in the spirit of former times, 
 look upon a retinue of servants as the mam convenience 
 secured by fortune. As they have been accustomed to 
 
MASTER AND SERVANT. 31 
 
 the negro from childhood, and understand his character, 
 they prefer to employ him alone as a servant, although 
 they are keenly aware of his deficiencies, and although 
 the influences of freedom have worked an important 
 change in his disposition. They dislike white domestics 
 in comparison, for these demand a greater share of con 
 sideration, and are more exacting in their requirements. 
 Such servants are unknown among them, both because the 
 negroes can be engaged more cheaply, and because they 
 have degraded household service to such an extent that 
 not even individuals of the plainest and poorest class of 
 native whites are willing to occupy such a position, and 
 the white servants brought from abroad would be so 
 isolated that they would soon become discontented and 
 abandon their employment. 
 
 As slaves the negroes played, on the whole, a more im 
 portant because a much more confidential part than they 
 do now in the sacred associations of the family circle of 
 their master and the principal events of his family his 
 tory. Their fidelity and docility and the gentleness and 
 indulgence with which they were generally treated, soft 
 ened the aspect of that extreme power which he had of 
 moulding their destinies according to his own interest or 
 caprice. Their fundamental relation to him was such 
 that they had little identity apart from his, and few 
 memories other than those which had been impressed 
 upon their minds in his household. All that occurred in 
 their lives without the boundary of those familiar pre 
 cincts was of far less significance to them than what hap 
 pened within it. There the chief portion of the twenty- 
 four hours of each day was spent ; there they passed 
 from youth to old age, and when they grew too infirm to 
 perform their usual duties, they were supported until 
 
32 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 they died, but in the interval they frequently revisited 
 the house to which they had been so long accustomed, or 
 they themselves were visited by its inmates. 
 
 This spirit of loyal affection, which had its growth in 
 the peculiar influences of slavery alone, animates a few 
 of this older class, who still retain their situations in the 
 households of the planters. Their disposition towards the 
 latter has not changed now that they are paid monthly 
 wages instead of receiving as formerly the mere neces 
 saries of life for their work. Their conduct towards 
 their masters is marked by a cheerful submission, 
 mingled with an emotion of strong attachment that leads 
 them to unite their fortunes with those of the white 
 families with whom they live, as completely and uncon 
 sciously as if the tie was permanent and obligatory and 
 not, as it is, temporary and optional. This number, how 
 ever, is small, and is diminishing every year in the 
 course of nature. The individuals who take their places 
 are more responsive to the influences of the present age, 
 either because they belong to the generation that has 
 grown up since the war, or because they have broken 
 away from the authority of that past which has already 
 sunk into a tradition. Even where there would seem to 
 be many local influences resembling those that prevailed 
 in the age of slavery to draw master and servant into the 
 same social relations that they then held to each other, 
 there is plainly observable a great difference of spirit 
 under the kindness of the one and the subserviency of the 
 other. All the numerous and perplexing responsibilities 
 of proprietorship in the body of the servant as a slave 
 were destroyed at a stroke when that servant was eman 
 cipated. With the extinction of these responsibilities 
 there passed away as a part of the ancient system much 
 
MASTER AND SERVANT. 33 
 
 of that personal interest which the master had felt in the 
 servant as an individual who was dependent on him and 
 who must be directed in the most intimate affairs of his 
 private life. When the negro became a citizen, the 
 identity of his fortunes with those of his master was 
 broken ; with the divergence of their destinies a new re 
 lation arose, which, while it was like the old in some 
 things, was very unlike it in many things. It is now a 
 business connection merely, formed at will, and inter 
 rupted at will on either side, and rarely elevated above 
 this commonplace character by any ardent feeling of de 
 votion on the part of the servant, or by unreserved con 
 fidence or warm attachment on the part of the master. 
 
 The general life of the servants in the household is 
 necessarily the same as it was in the age of slavery. 
 They still receive the new-born infant into their arms ; 
 they nurse the young child with maternal fondness ; they 
 gather in a beaming throng behind the assembly of guests 
 at the family weddings ; at gay entertainments they look 
 on unrebuked at the dancers in the drawing-room ; they 
 watch through the night with patient solicitude at the 
 bedside of the sick ; they shroud the dead for that breath 
 less slumber which shall never be broken ; and crowd 
 about the grave when the body is committed to the earth. 
 But in spite of the closeness of their connection with 
 these cheerful and mournful scenes, we discover, from 
 the conduct of their master and his family towards them, 
 that the reciprocity of feeling that unites them is only 
 superficial after all. As long as the servants were slaves, 
 for instance, there was frequent communication between 
 their dwellings and the residence of their owner. The 
 inmates of the latter were informed of all the incidents 
 that joined to make up the humble history of the firesides 
 
34 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 of the cabins. They attended the different marriages of 
 their domestics there, presented each couple with sub 
 stantial bridal gifts, and furnished forth the tables for 
 the bridal feast ; they stood and observed the throng 
 when a party was given there, and their presence did not 
 dash the gayety of the occasion ; they visited those who 
 were sick and supplied them with medicines, clothing, 
 and proper nourishment ; and if the illness ended fatally 
 in any instance, they showed respect or affection for the 
 dead by going to the funeral and raising a stone above the 
 grave. In short, they testified in many ways the interest 
 which they felt in the households of their servants ; 
 and it was an interest which these looked upon as their 
 right, but which they did not value the less for that rea 
 son. All of this has now, in great measure, passed away, 
 in consequence of the more formal character which the 
 relation of master and servant has assumed ; the latter 
 neither expects nor wishes his master to be concerned 
 about his private affairs, and the master in turn neither 
 feels nor shows any disposition to be so. He is content 
 to allow the social barrier which freedom has raised to 
 stand as it is. Even if he sought to break it down, his 
 overtures would not be met in a hearty way. If the 
 servant or any member of his family falls sick, then the 
 master is generally kind and helpful, but he is influenced 
 rather by an impulse of common humanity than by per 
 sonal affection. He rarely attends the weddings, enter 
 tainments, or religious meetings of his domestics. His 
 example in this is imitated by his family ; and the result 
 is as complete a separation between the home-life of the 
 master and that of the servant as if there was no social 
 tie whatever between the two. 
 
 With the decline of the master s social influence over 
 
MASTER AND SERVANT. $$ 
 
 the servant many important changes have taken place in 
 the character of the servant himself. As a slave he was 
 instinctively docile and tractable, whether the master was 
 lax in his discipline or not, for the nature of the relation 
 was such that the domestic never lost sight for a moment 
 of the subordination and helplessness of his position. 
 We do not observe this now. Under the new system it 
 depends upon the bearing of his master whether he is 
 useful or not, for of all men who are compelled by their 
 situation in life to earn their support in a menial capacity, 
 and under orders, no one responds more quickly or fully 
 than he to the spirit that animates his superior in their 
 association. If the latter, for instance, is destitute of an 
 executive turn, or is careless in his management, or de 
 scends to personal familiarity, then the servant is sloth 
 ful, perverse, and even impertinent, for he has a very 
 shrewd insight into moral weakness, and is too much a 
 creature of impulse not to govern his deportment by the 
 conclusions of his observation, whether hostile to his 
 real interests or not. But if, on the other hand, the 
 master is exacting and resolute, and at the same time, 
 considerate, just, and discriminating, the servant is alert, 
 industrious, and expeditious, unless he is peculiarly 
 worthless by nature or has been demoralized by unusual 
 circumstances. To bring him to the greatest use 
 fulness it is necessary that he should be required to 
 conform to certain fixed standards of conduct* to which 
 he will not rise of his own voluntary motion, or if he 
 should do so, he will not adhere to them long. .He 
 rarely discharges his duties to the best of his ability, 
 unless he is under the strictest supervision, his inclina 
 tion being to allow his energies to relax as soon as the 
 pressure that has controlled him has been removed. 
 
36 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 When driven, so to speak, he can be confidently relied 
 upon as a servant, if he is not exposed to too much 
 temptation ; if the terms of commands given him are 
 not so complex as to lead to mental confusion, into 
 which he easily falls ; if too long a time is not to elapse 
 before he must obey them ; or if not too much time is 
 to be taken up in executing them, for although his ordi 
 nary disposition is to comply, yet his memory is treach 
 erous, not retaining impressions of any kind long, even 
 when he may wish to remember. For this reason, as well 
 as because he is heedless and indolent naturally, the ne 
 gro is generally untrustworthy as a domestic, if he is not 
 superintended without intermission, or if his memory 
 is not frequently refreshed ; and he will display this 
 relaxation of effort and forgetfulness of mind whether he 
 is acting as a superior through others, or is the immedi 
 ate instrument himself. Few duties requiring intelli 
 gent, constant, and close attention are imposed upon him 
 if the result of carelessness or thoughtlessness would be 
 either dangerous or ruinous ; and the same may be said 
 of him in connection with any employment that demands 
 unusual patience, firmness, and self-possession. This 
 inability to be watchful, prudent, and self-controlled for 
 any length of time without alteration is displayed even 
 when he knows that by allowing his mind to wander he 
 is putting his life in jeopardy or injuring his material 
 interests irretrievably. It is a trait which he seems to be 
 incapable of either eradicating or repressing. His phi 
 losophy of life appears too often to be that the smaller 
 the trouble and precaution taken the more easily and 
 smoothly the world moves, and that order and precision 
 are to be deprecated because they make necessary more 
 or less activity, mental as well as physical. But as 
 
MASTER AND SER 
 
 the spirit of docility enters more deeply into his disposi 
 tion than even the spirit of indolence, he does not draw 
 back or rebel when he is coerced. The pressure of 
 legitimate authority brings a force to bear upon him that 
 overcomes the strength of the fundamental qualities of 
 his character that are running in powerful opposition. 
 When he is under steady discipline, he cannot be extolled 
 too highly for the readiness with which he assumes and 
 the alacrity with which he pushes to a conclusion tasks 
 that may be very different from the work which he is en 
 gaged to do, or foreign .to his experience ; and he will 
 show the same promptness, however late the hour of the 
 night at which he is aroused, or however unexpected the 
 occasion. This is to be attributed just now far more to 
 that instinct of obedience which has been transmitted to 
 him from his immediate forefathers, and to those lessons 
 which have been inculcated by the meanness of his for 
 tunes, than to the general character of his race. The 
 traditions and influences of slavery have made the dispo 
 sition of the freedmen at least more compliant and 
 obliging than it would otherwise have been. While this 
 submissiveness, which the negro now shows when the 
 reins of authority over him are held with a firm hand, 
 will decline as time progresses, his native cheerfulness 
 and good humor will remain unaffected by his condition, 
 whatever it may be. It is these qualities that largely in 
 fluence the master of the present day to value him highly 
 as a servant, for if he were sullen of mind as well as 
 short of memory, and surly of aspect in addition to being; 
 frequently careless and negligent in conduct, he would 
 be unendurable as a personal attendant. His thought 
 less disposition may produce much disorder and suffer 
 much uncleanliness around him, but its very easiness 
 
38 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 excites a lurking partiality, however exasperating its 
 consequences occasionally. It is the disposition of an 
 undisciplined child in its indifference to the relation of 
 cause and effect ; and like the disposition of a child, 
 too, it prompts the master to overlook deficiencies that 
 he would not excuse if the servant were white and not 
 black. He goes even further than this : he does not 
 apply to the servant the same moral standard that he 
 applies to individuals of his own race. His inclination is 
 rather to pity than to condemn the domestic, should the 
 latter trespass against decorum or even honesty, experi 
 ence or prejudice causing the master to believe that his 
 servant is so undisciplined by the turn of his native 
 qualities that he cannot properly be held responsible for 
 his conduct ; or if he can be and should be, then the 
 general character of his race is so defective that the per 
 son who would be employed to fill the position vacated 
 by his summary dismissal would not be found to be less 
 infirm in his disposition or more circumspect in his be 
 havior. The master argues whether justly or not that 
 he would merely put himself to much unnecessary in 
 convenience to enter into a contract with a new domestic 
 when it is not probable that he will be better than the 
 old, and not improbable that he will be worse. 
 
 If the servant is merely a pilferer in a small way, an 
 effort is made to remove him from temptation ; and if his 
 duties are such that it is impossible to do this, a close 
 supervision is exercised over him as a temporary correc 
 tive beyond which no remedy is sought ; and this super 
 vision has to be unremitting, in consequence of which it 
 becomes in time very irksome. But should it be omitted 
 on a single occasion, though the servant may have been 
 thwarted during the course of many months, yet he will 
 
MASTER AND SERVANT. 39 
 
 gratify himself at the first opportunity he has of doing 
 so, in proportion to the length of his previous depriva 
 tion. 
 
 Occasionally the servant who is favored most highly in 
 the household is the one upon whom the least depend 
 ence can be put when tempted to do wrong. The gen 
 eral bearing of his master towards him is not affected by 
 a clear recognition of his weaknesses. The amiability of 
 the servant ; his ready and obedient spirit under firm 
 management ; above all, and it sounds like a strange 
 paradox, the innocence of his immorality, conciliate the 
 good-will and soften the spirit of condemnation in the 
 master, when the wrongful acts themselves if contem 
 plated abstractly would alienate all feelings of kindness 
 or forgiveness. The master s confidence in the disposi 
 tion of his servant is by the discovery of certain infirmi 
 ties destroyed only to the extent of those infirmities ; 
 it does not follow at all that the latter s whole char 
 acter is corrupt because it is totally unworthy of respect 
 in certain phases. He may be an incorrigible rogue, for 
 instance, and yet he will stop at no self-sacrifice to 
 preserve the general property, or even the life, of his mas 
 ter when either is in sudden danger of destruction ; he 
 may be indefatigable in stirring up political hatred 
 against the master, either directly or indirectly, and yet 
 will serve him with a promptness, cheerfulness, and in 
 dustry that go far to soothe the feeling of distrust, which 
 his course has aroused. The master vents his passing 
 emotion of indignation and repugnance in pungent lan 
 guage, but he always ends by accepting his servant just 
 as he is with a mingled spirit of helplessness, resignatipn, 
 and philosophy, tempered by real liking and even affec 
 tion. He will persist in conferring many benefits upon 
 
40 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 that servant at the very time that he expresses his inabil 
 ity to esteem him, and will even impair his own interests 
 to assist the servant, as a substantial acknowledgment of 
 his good qualities as a domestic, however detestable his 
 characteristics as a man. Underlying all these superfi 
 cial evidences of good will, however, on the part of the 
 master, there is found a deep distrust of the servant s 
 character, however excellent apparently, if it should be 
 put to a prolonged test. He places no confidence in the 
 domestic s affection, no reliance upon his fidelity, no 
 trust in his honesty, if circumstances should arise calcu 
 lated to subject the strength of these qualities to a pro 
 tracted trial ; and this premonition of the master tinc 
 tures his strictures with cynicism and breathes the spirit 
 of contempt into his very praises. 
 
 It is remarkable how little the habits of the average 
 negro are changed by long and intimate association as a 
 servant with the most refined and educated white people. 
 For instance, he has no native appreciation of order and no 
 innate love of cleanliness and it is almost impossible even 
 by the most persistent instruction to inculcate in him a 
 taste for either ; on the contrary, it is not unjust to say that 
 disorder and untidiness are positively agreeable to him 
 and continue so. As long as he is carefully overlooked 
 and directed, his conduct is not open to censure in this 
 respect, for he responds to command cheerfully and obeys 
 readily, but as soon as a rigorous superintendence is 
 withdrawn, he shows an indifference to the condition of 
 his surroundings that soon makes a very visible impres 
 sion. The necessity of having to contend with this trait 
 of the servant is very troublesome, and the struggle is 
 prolonged and uninterrupted. However well-trained he 
 may be in the performance of his household duties, or 
 
MASTER AND SERVANT. 4! 
 
 however obedient in conforming to the slightest wish of 
 his master, he does not always show in the character of 
 his own cabin that he has taken to heart the spirit of 
 those admonitions to which he may listen attentively at 
 the moment, and act upon generally while he is in the pre 
 cincts of the planter s residence. No great difference in 
 the point of comfort or neatness is observed between his 
 home and that of the ordinary laborer, although he en 
 joys many perquisites out of the reach of the latter and is 
 paid higher wages. It is true that various articles, use 
 ful as well as ornamental, are found in his dwelling that 
 are rarely seen in the houses of the common hands, such, 
 for instance, as pictures fly-specked and embrowned by 
 smoke or dust, or an old-fashioned clock or rocking-chair 
 or a worn rug or carpet, or a plate and bowl ; or there 
 hangs in the wardrobe, perhaps, a shabby suit cut after a 
 recent fashion, or a soiled bonnet, or a torn pair of 
 gloves, or other finery that has passed through its best 
 days. These have been presented by the different mem 
 bers of the family upon which he attends, but leaving 
 them out of view, there are as a rule no other very con 
 spicuous evidences that the head of the cabin passes the 
 greater part of his life amidst the improving influences 
 of superior refinement. His children appear in soiled 
 and shabby clothing that could be mended and cleansed 
 without expense ; the furniture is often allowed to remain 
 broken when the work of a few minutes would set it in a 
 proper condition again ; the floor to continue foul when 
 a few sweeps of the broom would brush it clean ; the 
 weeds to choke the vicinity of the dwelling when a dozen 
 swathes of the scythe would cut them down. He gener 
 ally erects his sty so near at hand that the air is tainted 
 with offensive and unwholesome odors ; he frequently 
 
42 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 chooses sites for his out-houses where they will become 
 unsightly objects ; and does many things besides to im 
 pair the healthfulness or injure the aspect of his environ 
 ment which prudence or the possession of ordinary taste 
 would have prohibited. 
 
 Even after a service of many years in the household of 
 his employer, the principal characteristics of his race as 
 developed in him, remain substantially as they are in 
 individuals of his own color who have not been brought 
 in the range of the same elevating social influences. Logi 
 cally enough the constitutional differences of disposition 
 between the master and servant as the representatives 
 of two races, stand out in the most marked juxtaposition 
 in their domestic connection, but contact leaves their 
 original qualities essentially as they were. Master and 
 servant indeed affect each other only to an insignificant 
 degree and in unimportant things. It is remarkable that 
 this should be so in the case of the negro, for he is the 
 weaker, the more impressionable, and the dependent 
 party. All the subtle power of the family life of his 
 employer is brought to bear upon him directly, and it 
 merely breaks through the surface of his character. He 
 is of an imitative turn to a certain extent, and easily 
 catches distinctions of deportment or peculiarities of 
 dress, but on the whole, he is not responsive to that un 
 derlying and far-reaching sentiment that shapes the con 
 duct of an upright master, near whose person his time is 
 spent and to whose authority he submits without reserve. 
 Such association unquestionably makes him more gentle 
 in his bearing, but it does not deeply color his judgment 
 in relation to his duties as a husband, a father, or a citi 
 zen ; it does not, as a rule, improve his moral tone so far 
 as to cause him to condemn severely every form of im- 
 
MASTER AND SERVANT. 43 
 
 morality or even criminality. He is just as emotional and 
 ignorant in his religious opinions as the most uncouth 
 and illiterate laborer, just as superstitious in his general 
 creed and as credulous of the supernatural. Among the 
 negroes who have the most unshaken faith in " tricking," 
 are house servants who have lived under conditions that 
 seem very hostile to the entertainment of such ridiculous 
 and puerile beliefs. However long, too, they may have 
 been connected with their master s residence, there is no 
 conspicuous sign of their shrinking from intimate associ 
 ation with the rudest persons of their race, in accordance 
 with the promptings of acquired refinement. They share 
 their sympathies and emotions with the field hands, and 
 apparently no influence emanating from the positions 
 they fill to modify their tastes and ideas, raises any 
 social barrier of consequence between them ; they 
 intermarry with these freely and meet them in the most 
 familiar social intercourse. But this is perhaps natural 
 after all, for it is only in a few points that they are distin 
 guishable from each other, these few being of no marked 
 importance in their bearing on character, as they are 
 superficial and not fundamental. 
 
 
IV. 
 
 BLACKS AND WHITES. 
 
 THE diminished intimacy of the relation of master and 
 servant is reflected with exaggeration in that growing so 
 cial spirit which is moving the negro and white man 
 with equal force to withdraw still further from each other. 
 This disposition is more energetic than seems to be war 
 ranted by the mere fact that the institution of slavery has 
 been abolished and every influence that emanated from 
 it dissipated, or directed in the way of an early disap 
 pearance. Emancipation destroyed at one stroke the 
 original bond of union, but the social divorce of the two 
 races is much more marked than would have been 
 thought possible, in the past, in the light of their local 
 proximity and their partial dependence upon each other 
 in an economic sense. The causes that have promoted 
 their political opposition are soon discovered and are 
 easily understood, but the reasons that are widening the 
 social breach between them, are subtler and, therefore, 
 more obscure. That the white people entertain a deep- 
 seated social antipathy to the negro is manifest to the 
 most careless observer; but whether this is due to the 
 contempt and disdain which were bred in them by his 
 former degraded condition, when his social inferiority was 
 legalized ; or whether it is to be laid at the door of his 
 intellectual ignorance, personal uncleanliness, and moral 
 infirmities, now that he is free ; or whether it should be 
 
 44 
 
BLACKS AND WHITES. 45 
 
 attributed after all to a narrow and unthinking prejudice 
 that originates in a mere difference of color, is open to 
 discussion. The strong probability is that this state of 
 feeling is the result of all these powerful influences com 
 bined ; but to whatever it should be ascribed, it has had 
 a very vigorous and far-reaching effect in confirming an 
 independent tendency of the negro to live apart to him 
 self. No one is more conscious than he of this underly 
 ing sentiment in the hearts of the white people ; he knows 
 very well that beneath the surface of their kindness to him, 
 even when it takes the form of the most open and sincere 
 affection, there lurks an active and resolute sensitiveness 
 that would rise in alarm the instant he sought, unwit 
 tingly or intentionally, to cross the social dead-line. How 
 ever genial, therefore, or however friendly their demeanor 
 to him, he is fully aware that one forward act or ven 
 turous word on his part would, at once, enkindle that 
 emotion of repugnance which is always smouldering in 
 their breasts, and which only requires the application of 
 the proper match to set it aflame. The social attitude of 
 the white people towards him is remarkable. Their con 
 duct, capricious, irregular, and inconsistent as it seems, is 
 yet governed by an unwritten law, that is never changed 
 and never relaxed. In the midst of the most familiar in 
 tercourse, apparently, there is an unconscious mental 
 reservation, an instinctive assumption of superiority by 
 them, that gives the association a peculiar character, 
 which the negro, heedless and impulsive as he is, appre 
 ciates by intuition. Even now, when the white people 
 are so much more guarded in their demeanor than they 
 were in the era of slavery, they often bear themselves 
 towards him in a way that would be an admission of so 
 cial equality, but for this subtle difference of spirit. As 
 
46 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 soon, however, as the bare idea of such equality is sug 
 gested to their minds by his manner of accepting such 
 advances, they shrink back with unconcealed disgust and 
 resentment, or show their indignation in a still more un 
 mistakable way. The very fear of being misunderstood 
 causes them to be much more circumspect in their social 
 relations with him than they would otherwise be. All 
 those social condescensions on their part that did so 
 much to alleviate the hardships of slavery are, in conse 
 quence, neglected almost entirely in their present 
 association with his race. 
 
 There can be no doubt, however, that the reluctance 
 of the whites to enter into the general social life of the 
 negroes is due, in some measure, to the attitude of the 
 negroes themselves. The former rarely attend now 
 the social celebrations of the blacks, not only because 
 they shrink from such intimate contact, but also because 
 their presence arouses a spirit of uneasiness and discom 
 fort in the colored participants, who desire to follow out 
 their own impulses, however extravagant, unobserved by 
 persons who, they know instinctively, would be critical, 
 amused, or shocked. So far, therefore, as their more 
 conspicuous social occasions are concerned, they are left 
 to do honor to them after the manner they prefer. The 
 nature of these occasions would be changed, and the 
 spirit which they would exhibit dissipated, if white per 
 sons were to venture to take part in them. If, for in 
 stance, a white man, whether a clergyman by profession or 
 a respectable citizen, who felt a lively interest in the moral 
 welfare of his negro neighbors, were to seek to substitute 
 himself permanently for their local preacher, and to deliver 
 sermons in his stead every Sunday, the probability is that 
 he would not be able to gather together a congregation, 
 
BLACKS AND WHITES. 47 
 
 since its possible members would feel compelled, while 
 sitting under him, to behave with self-restraint, which 
 would mean the repression of that frantic religious ex 
 citement into which they fall so easily, and which they 
 enjoy so much. This being the accompanying condition 
 of his ministration, it would breathe a chill upon the 
 enthusiasm of the negroes who might attend, and it 
 would not be long before they would absent themselves 
 altogether rather than forego, when they did meet de- 
 votionally, the ability to act just as the spirit of their 
 religion moved them. 
 
 If the leading white citizens were to inform the labor 
 ers of a neighborhood of their intention to be present at 
 one of those plantation entertainments which are occa 
 sionally given at the end of autumn, when the different 
 crops have been harvested and stored away securely, the 
 announcement would not be received by the negroes as 
 a proof of friendly interest, but would be looked upon as 
 throwing a cloud on the jollity of the future event ; and 
 they would feel thus, not so much because the attend 
 ance of the citizens, as persons occupying the most 
 prominent position in the community, would embarrass 
 and disturb them, but principally because these are white 
 men, and as such, therefore, not in sympathy with the 
 manner in which they would abandon themselves to the 
 intoxication of the hour. This sensitiveness on the part 
 of the negroes is still more conspicuously displayed at 
 the funerals, on which occasions, it would be thought, 
 the mere solemnity of the ceremony, as well as the 
 mournful spectacle of mortality, would stifle this emotion 
 by making them unconscious of every thing beside. But 
 it does not. The burial is as distinct a custom of the 
 blacks as the religious assembly, and as vividly reflective 
 
48 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 of their social peculiarities. They are opposed, therefore, 
 to the introduction of any influence or any innovation 
 that would be apt to hamper them in celebrating it just 
 as they wished. The white people are so well aware of 
 this that they are rarely prompted to go to such funerals, 
 however excellent a reason they may have for being 
 grateful to the dead, or however desirous of showing 
 respect to their memories. 
 
 This divergence between the social life of the one race 
 and that of the other in those scenes where it would be 
 supposed a common humanity and similar material inter 
 ests would bring the members of both together, leaves a 
 strong impression upon the observer. Omit the domestic 
 servants from consideration, who constitute only a few in 
 the general multitude, and it is found that the sphere in 
 which the negroes move socially is as wide apart from 
 that in which the social existence of the whites is passed, 
 as if the two races inhabited different countries, and 
 were, therefore, locally cut off from each other. Indi 
 viduals representing both are constantly thrown with 
 each other, it is true ; negroes and white men meet as 
 employers and employes, or as common laborers ; but 
 their association stops there, and it is of a formal char 
 acter as far as it goes. The two distinct societies do not 
 join, when they come together at all, in such a way as to 
 result in a complete blending, however brief, of their 
 separate systems. The remotest anticipation of such 
 union, without reserve, even in the most insignificant and 
 superficial social affairs, touches the sensibilities of the 
 white people with as lively repugnance and abhorrence 
 as if it signified a descent into an unmeasurable depth of 
 degradation. To acknowledge social equality in small 
 things is to give up the general principle which is appli- 
 
BLACKS AND WHITES. 49 
 
 cable equally to small and great ; and to do so in either 
 is to relinquish their grasp upon every thing that they 
 value and every thing that they love. It is to strike a 
 blow at the integrity of their social life ; it is to revo 
 lutionize their natures, and to enfeeble their appre 
 ciation of existence itself. Until all the traditions 
 and emotions which their superiority of mental and 
 moral character, and differences of race and condition, 
 have created have been destroyed, they will continue 
 to feel as they do now. Until then, even to discuss the 
 probability of a change of sentiment, will be accounted as 
 an insult ; to justify such a change will be considered as 
 heinous as defending incest and rape ; and to predict it 
 with confidence, will be taken as a proof that the speaker, 
 if white, is an enemy of his people, who should, there 
 fore, be condemned and avoided. The present strength 
 of this sentiment in the breasts of the white people, is 
 largely ascribable, and upon the most reasonable and 
 natural grounds, to the ignorance and licentiousness of 
 the typical negro of the present age that would make 
 him highly objectionable to refined sensibilities and cul 
 tivated minds, even if his skin were that of a Caucasian. 
 Intellectual blindness, moral obtuseness, and a thought 
 less indulgence of every appetite have never been judged 
 to be lovely and attractive traits in social intercourse. 
 If the negro were modest and unobtrusive in his deport 
 ment, upright and honorable in his conduct, sober and 
 self-respecting in his disposition, intelligent and elevated 
 in mind, he would receive without stint that personal 
 respect to which his demeanor and character would 
 entitle him. In short, if he were in full possession of all 
 the noble qualities that adorn human nature, the white 
 people would be as little prompted to pass him by 
 
50 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN 
 
 with indifference and contempt, socially, as if he be 
 longed to their own race, and was distinguished as a 
 member of it, for the same moral and mental excellence. 
 It is true that they would not admit him to all the privi 
 leges of their firesides, but they would cheerfully allow 
 him every social right to which he could properly lay 
 claim. So far from imitating such an ideal example 
 as this, the negroes frequently disclose in their inter 
 course with white people, an eagerness to attain to social 
 equality for the time being, without having any just 
 ground in themselves for such pretension. When thrown 
 with the older children of their employers, they are 
 pointed in addressing them by their Christian names 
 more often than occasion calls for, and this disposition 
 to gratify their desire for social recognition by an offi 
 cious and presumptuous bearing, is only repressed in its 
 most insolent manifestations, under other circumstances, 
 by the resolute resentment of it on the part of its vic 
 tims. In a capricious, unsteady, and impulsive way, no 
 man is more aspiring than the negro, and if this trait 
 were supported by a proportionate vigor of character 
 and tenacity of purpose, he would soon thrust himself, 
 in spite of the firmest opposition, into the greatest promi 
 nence as an individual, but he is incapable of stern and 
 indefatigable persistence. Admit him in his present 
 state of development to that social position which he 
 seems to value so much, and the mere consciousness of 
 having attained an end which he had desired so keenly, 
 instead of strengthening him for a further advance, 
 would probably turn his head beyond recovery. He 
 would become extremely giddy and vain, and would be 
 inflated with a pompous sense of his own social conse 
 quence. The inclination of the negro, when he is puffed 
 
BLACKS AND WHITES. 5 I 
 
 up in his self-love by any kind of success, however 
 trivial, is to pass the bounds of propriety and even de 
 cency ; on the other hand, when discouraged, as he is by 
 the smallest obstacle, he is apt to sink to the lowest 
 point of servility. This tendency is very plainly illus 
 trated in his association with white people. Thus the 
 employe who is humblest and most deprecating, under 
 exacting authority, is often one of the first to bear him 
 self rudely and impertinently towards white persons 
 when he can do so safely ; and in this he is influenced 
 not so much by sinister feeling as by a childish rashness 
 that unsettles his brain like the penetrating fumes of 
 strong liquor. Few members of his race have that ele 
 ment of self-respect in their characters that would lead 
 them to be true to an elevated conception of their own 
 individuality, however tested, and which would move 
 them to show anger and hatred, when under the influ 
 ence of those passions, in a bold and manly way. They 
 too frequently display the greatest cruelty when they can 
 inflict injury, and an equal abjectness when they are 
 overawed by force. 
 
 The white people are clearly aware of this aspiring 
 and aggressive disposition of the negroes in a personal 
 way, and that spirit of antagonism which it nourishes in 
 their breasts has brought about a complete separation 
 between the two under many circumstances where there 
 was the most familiar contact formerly. Two notable 
 instances of this may be referred to. Thus, before the 
 slaves were set free, the white and black children mingled 
 at all hours of the day in a common enjoyment of the 
 various sports and amusements of their age, whether 
 pursued in the house or in the field ; and this constant 
 companionship gave birth to a kindness and affection for 
 
52 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN, 
 
 each other that were often deep and lasting. Such inter 
 course between the children of the two races is rarely 
 observed now, because the white people are, as a rule, 
 strict in forbidding theirs to turn to such society for 
 diversion. They are induced to do this, primarily, by 
 antipathy of race that makes them careful to preserve 
 the barriers between the negroes and themselves in their 
 present strength and firmness, which, they believe, can 
 only be done by keeping the two races as far apart 
 socially as possible. The children can only associate 
 together, now, on a footing of equality ; the relation which 
 they formerly bore to each other, even in comparative in 
 fancy, can no longer be maintained. An admitted superi 
 ority on one side and an accepted inferiority on the other, 
 as soon as their intelligence could recognize that there 
 was a distinction, was not only a necessary characteristic 
 but also the real basis of that relation under the old sys 
 tem. But this is not so now that the emancipation of the 
 slave has brought about so many social changes. That 
 difference in the nature of the terms of association on 
 which the children of the two races would now meet, 
 would seem to be unimportant in the light of their youth, 
 but such equal association, however completely it may 
 terminate as time advances, jars upon the sensitive pre 
 judices of the white people and makes them anxious to 
 forbid it altogether. A subordinate, but powerful con 
 sideration, too, is their very reasonable objection to the 
 moral effect of such companionship, for the young ne 
 groes unfortunately are so ignorant of those lessons that 
 enforce propriety of speech and deportment that it is 
 not surprising that prudent and watchful parents should 
 not regard them as fit associates for their offspring, espe 
 cially when the latter are still at an impressionable age. 
 
BLACKS AND WHITES. 53 
 
 It is not to be supposed that they would overlook in such 
 children what they would undoubtedly censure severely 
 if those children were not black, but white, who set an 
 equally unhappy example and exerted an influence as 
 dangerous. Even before emancipation, such companion 
 ship, hedged in as it was then by so many restrictions, 
 was not beneficial morally, but was unavoidable, owing 
 to the relation that bound the slave to the master. 
 
 A far more remarkable evidence of the social antipathy 
 of the white people to the negro is the fact that illicit sex 
 ual commerce between the two races has diminished so 
 far as to have almost ceased, outside the cities and towns, 
 where the association being more casual, is more fre 
 quent. This is due to the attitude of the whites, for 
 the negresses are less modest as a class at the present 
 day than they were before the abolition of slavery, since 
 they are now under no restriction at all. In consequence 
 of this reserve on the part of white men, the mulattoes 
 are rapidly decreasing in numbers with the progress of 
 time, and the negroes as a mass are gradually but surely 
 reverting to the original African type. Before many de 
 cades elapse, this influence, working in the domestic life 
 of the race, must impress itself profoundly upon the moral 
 and intellectual disposition of its members, and thus shape 
 and govern their social and political destinies ; but its 
 force will be most direct and powerful in its social bear 
 ing, for the only possibility of the social amalgamation of 
 the two peoples must turn upon the half-breed as the pri 
 mary medium of transfusion. As his skin darkens in its 
 return to the tint which distinguished that of his remote 
 ancestors, the prospects of blacks and whites lawfully 
 mixing their blood fades to the thinnest shadow of prob 
 ability. There was little improper intercourse between 
 
54 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 white men and negresses of the original type in the 
 period before emancipation, 1 so repulsive were the gen 
 eral characteristics of the negresses to the tastes of the 
 former ; and it seems grossly improbable that this repug 
 nance, which resisted the temptation of forming passing 
 connections, will be so far overcome as to allow the ad 
 mission of such women to the honorable relation of 
 wifehood, even in a few instances. Into this class, all 
 the females of the race are slowly merging, which fact, 
 when fully accomplished, will produce an unpleasing ap 
 pearance and temper that will be universal. Even the 
 former habit of cohabiting with mulattoes for a time is 
 very rarely observed, now that the social relation between 
 the negroes and the whites has been placed upon a differ 
 ent footing. The white man who indulges in such illicit 
 pleasures understands that he puts himself on a plane of 
 equality with the object of his secret passion. All social 
 differences are for the time being destroyed, inasmuch as 
 slavery no longer exists to raise its barrier of social divi 
 sion between the parties to the act in spite of its famil 
 iarity. As long as the woman was a slave, it was im 
 probable that she would presume upon the intimacy 
 of that act; her position wa.s such that she could not, 
 even if she were ready to do so, but now that she is free, 
 that aspiring disposition for which the female negroes 
 are still more remarkable than the male, leads her to 
 be peculiarly bold and forward in her social encroach 
 ments, on the least encouragement. The prospect too of 
 having to support their illegitimate offspring causes many 
 white men, who would not shrink from the disgrace of 
 exposure, to be cautious in their advances to such 
 women. In consequence of these facts, a very whole- 
 1 After the creation of the mulatto class. 
 
BLACKS AND WHITES. 55 
 
 some sentiment prevails among all classes of the domi 
 nant race as to the impropriety of such association. They 
 are very much opposed to any intercourse with the negro 
 that acknowledges his social equality even temporarily ; 
 whoever among them, therefore is guilty of sexual com 
 merce with a negress, disregards to that extent those 
 principles which they consider essential to the permanent 
 health and stability of their social life, and he falls in 
 the general esteem in proportion. The few white women 
 who have given birth to mulattoes have always been re~ 
 garded as monsters ; and without exception, they have 
 belonged to the most impoverished and degraded caste 
 of whites, by whom they are scrupulously avoided as 
 creatures who have sunk to the level of the beasts of 
 the field. 
 
 The ignorant and indigent white people are even 
 more intolerant than the affluent, in their opposition to 
 social equality with the negro, inasmuch as their extreme 
 poverty leaves them no claim to higher consideration 
 than he enjoys, except what is based upon that superi 
 ority of race which is disclosed in their greater firmness 
 and honesty of character. Moved by such a powerful 
 instinct as this, their social independence of the former 
 slave becomes a matter of serious importance, because 
 constantly in jeopardy, since they cannot, like the class 
 of wealthy white people, escape from association with 
 him altogether, being themselves compelled to earn their 
 daily bread by the labor of their hands. Such associa 
 tion always develops much bitterness and exasperation 
 of feeling. It is one of the most notable peculiarities 
 of the negro, that he respects only those individuals 
 who are in possession of what his narrow conception 
 reckons as wealth, which he does not esteem for the 
 
56 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 mere physical luxuries which it is able to purchase, but 
 rather as a surviving exponent of that power by which 
 he was coerced during the period of his slavery. He 
 honors the strength of a vigorous frame only as long as 
 he is in danger of being soundly cudgelled, but for those 
 high qualities of mind and spirit that constitute the 
 essential and fundamental differences between man and 
 man, such as justness, probity, dignity, and purity, he has 
 no esteem, unless they are supported by fortune. As the 
 lowest class of the white people have no riches to im 
 press his imagination, and as he does not value difference 
 of character, he is disposed to hold them in lively con 
 tempt, and very often is only prevented from giving 
 expression to his scorn in rude language, by his fear 
 of corporal retaliation at their hands. They are well 
 aware of this impulse, and as they return it with an 
 acrimony keener in proportion to their greater capacity 
 for steady and intense feeling, the social antagonism 
 between the two is ardent and uncompromising. Now, 
 this class of the white people have always been very 
 much under the personal influence of those of their 
 race who enjoy the highest social prominence, among 
 whom, the hostility to social equality with the negro 
 is tinctured with the contempt of a caste that is founded 
 not only upon refinement, education, and wealth, but 
 also upon distinctions of race. As long as they con 
 tinue to exercise the same influence upon the classes 
 below them, the association of the latter with the negro 
 in a social way, will retain its present bent of uncon 
 cealed aversion, even though time dissipates many of 
 those prejudices of race that now divide them. There 
 is no evidence that this influence has diminished in 
 consequence of the pecuniary disasters entailed upon 
 
BLACKS AND WHITES. 57 
 
 the highest rank of citizens by the failure of the 
 Southern cause in the late war, and in no direction has 
 it been exerted with more earnestness than towards 
 sustaining that social repugnance which keeps the lowest 
 class aloof from the negroes, and which alone obstructs 
 their social union. 
 
 This feeling on the part of the leading white people is 
 not inconsistent with kindness and good-will to the 
 negro. They like the individual because he is generally 
 amiable and obliging. Then, too, he is associated with 
 all the principal scenes in the course of their lives, 
 and is thus invested with that personal interest which 
 is created by intimate and uninterrupted intercourse. 
 As long as his bearing is unobtrusive and self-respecting, 
 he cannot complain of their manner of receiving 
 him, or the character of their disposition towards him. 
 On the other hand, they never vary in disliking and 
 condemning his race not only on account of its im 
 providence, unreliability, and moral deficiencies, but 
 also because its mere presence in their midst is a direct 
 menace to the tranquillity of their social life, the stabil 
 ity of their political institutions, and the prosperity of 
 their material affairs. The freedman has, on the whole, 
 proved himself to be a faithful laborer under supervision, 
 but his children, born and educated under the influences 
 of the new system, are not so amenable to authority 
 and are much less inclined to work. This has increased 
 those industrial obstacles which the white people are 
 anxious to surmount, and their sentiment towards the 
 race has been less favorable in proportion. Futher- 
 more, they entertain the belief that the low standard 
 of living which distinguishes the negroes as a mass, 
 renders it impossible for any class of immigrant laborers 
 
58 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 to compete with them, which has resulted in a serious 
 injury to the sections of the State where the blacks pre 
 dominate, inasmuch as families who would have removed 
 thither, have been discouraged from doing so. The 
 great political power of such a horde of ignorant voters 
 is still more calculated to disturb the equanimity of the 
 white people, and inspire them with a fear that is incon 
 sistent with any confidence in the negroes as a body ; 
 who constitute such an instrument for evil in the hands 
 of ingenious, selfish, and worthless adventurers, that the 
 constant danger of their being turned to such unscru 
 pulous account has hitherto invested their political 
 existence with a sinister significance that has had the 
 natural effect of repelling their former owners, who alone 
 are likely to suffer "any injury by it. 
 
 Beneath all this antipathy of the whites to the negroes 
 as a race, we detect a clear recognition of the wisdom of 
 accepting their presence in the community, in that utili 
 tarian spirit which will strive to turn it to advantage, by 
 improving their intellectual and moral condition, as far 
 as it is possible to do so, as a preparation for a sober and 
 honorable career in the future. The white people argue 
 that the blacks are among them apparently to remain, 
 and unless they can be made useful to society, they will 
 probably jeopardize its existence, and undoubtedly de 
 stroy its prosperity ; all proper means should, therefore, 
 be employed to convert them into energetic and conserva 
 tive citizens. With that view, the members of the dom 
 inant class have supported the public-school system with 
 a liberality that is barely justified by their private means, 
 as it seems to be the only feasible agency by which the 
 desired object can be accomplished, owing to the social 
 separation and antagonism between the two races. 
 
BLACKS AND WHITES. $9 
 
 It is difficult to detect the exact character of the gen 
 eral opinion which the negro entertains of his white 
 neighbors. It is obvious, however, that the authority 
 which the white people once exercised over him from the 
 mere fact that they were white, is fast declining, which 
 shows that his respect for a white skin has diminished. 
 He is still easily repressed by any show of force by 
 white men, because he knows them to be determined and 
 courageous, while he is conscious of his own timidity ; 
 but that undefined notion which he formerly had of the 
 superiority of the other race, and which he still has to a 
 considerable degree even now, is no longer powerful in 
 controlling his conduct by checking his natural impul 
 siveness. There is at present no purely sentimental in 
 fluence to overawe him in his general relations with that 
 race, even under circumstances where formerly he would 
 have shrunk back in humility or terror ; and it is this 
 state of mind towards the great mass of the whites, which 
 arises out of thoughtlessness rather than deliberation, 
 that makes it of the gravest importance that all which 
 has a tendency to inflame the social antagonism of the 
 two peoples should be earnestly deprecated. As the 
 negro drifts, with the passage of time, further away from 
 the white man, this aggressive social independence will 
 be offensively manifested very frequently, and if he were 
 as firm and intrepid as he is irresolute and timorous, its 
 consequences would be fatal to the tranquillity of any 
 community of which he formed a part. Very unfortunate 
 is the situation of that community in which there are 
 such distinct and vigorous social forces as these repre 
 sented by the two races, respectively moving forward in 
 the same direction, but conflicting quite often enough 
 to create and diffuse a general feeling of uneasiness and 
 
60 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 disquietude. And this occasional friction cannot be 
 ignored, however eager the inclination to do so, so ob 
 vious and so pernicious is the impression which it leaves 
 upon the general destinies of the common country. 
 
V. 
 THE NEGRO AND THE COMMONWEALTH. 
 
 THE presence of the negro even as a slave put the 
 safety of every community in which he lived in jeopardy, 
 but that presence at once assumed a far more alarming 
 significance when the fetters were suddenly struck from 
 his limbs and all the rights of citizenship were conferred 
 upon him. To endow him with privileges so important 
 in themselves, and so momentous in their possible con 
 sequences, was only justifiable as a measure that was 
 necessary for the protection of the liberty of the bene 
 ficiary. As to whether it was really necessary or not, it 
 would now be idle to discuss. There can be no differ 
 ence of opinion, however, as to the total insufficiency of 
 the preparation which he had received for exercise of 
 responsibilities so grave and far-reaching as those that 
 are incident to suffrage. Illiterate, credulous, feeble in 
 judgment, weak in discrimination, a child in his habits 
 of dependence and self-indulgence, accessible to every 
 temptation and with little ability to resist, without a hope 
 or aspiration above his physical pleasures, he was raised 
 on the instant from the level of a beast of burden to the 
 full enjoyment of the noblest prerogative of freedom 
 the right to vote. It was virtually the admission to the 
 franchise of a man who, from the degradation of his 
 previous condition, was as incapable as a savage out of 
 the bush of understanding the duties of that new situa- 
 
 6 1 
 
62 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 tion in which the force of circumstances, which he had 
 neither directed nor anticipated, had placed him. The 
 moral and mental disposition of each individual, as well 
 as the great numerical strength of his race, might have 
 been expected with absolute confidence to invest its 
 members as a body with such a sinister political power as 
 had never been paralleled before. To confer the right of 
 suffrage upon them, even for the purpose of educating 
 and sobering them, was an experiment that was certain to 
 inflict the most serious injury on every social and politi 
 cal institution before the process of instruction and 
 improvement could be finished satisfactorily. .Con 
 summated in the period of indescribable anarchy and 
 bewilderment that succeeded the close of the war, its 
 inevitable tendency was to prolong, if not to perpetuate, 
 the state of general confusion that then prevailed. 
 Under its operation it seemed to be impossible that any 
 thing that remained of the social and political polity that 
 had been valued and revered in the past could survive 
 even for a decade or generation, and it would not have 
 done so but for the impotence of the negro and the firm 
 ness of the Anglo-Saxon. The momentousness of the 
 issue raised rather than lowered the courage of the 
 whites, and the stress of that struggle to retain what 
 was very dear to them as men and citizens, which 
 followed, touched the sensibilities and strengthened the 
 resolution of the lowest and highest among them alike, 
 consolidating them by the influence of a common sym 
 pathy, and stimulating them by the force of a common 
 motive. In casting their ballots the political principle 
 sank out of sight in the supreme importance of the social 
 principle to be sustained ; in short, it was a social rather 
 than a political question that was to be decided on the 
 
THE NEGRO AND THE COMMONWEALTH, 63 
 
 occasion of every election. The ballot was in reality an 
 instrument of self-defense, according to his particular 
 view, in the hands of the white man ; he deposited his 
 vote for the purpose of preserving his social life as un 
 changed as possible, and to accomplish this it was essen 
 tial that he should maintain his political ascendency. 
 His triumph at the polls secured further the dignity and 
 stability of public affairs, a general respect for law and 
 order, economy of administration, and fairness of taxa 
 tion ; all these things bore directly upon his material 
 interests and appealed to his selfishness as keenly as the 
 preservation of his social institutions in their original 
 integrity appealed to his sentiment. 
 
 On the other hand, the negro, too, looked upon the bal 
 lot as his most effective weapon of self-defense. If the 
 right of suffrage was bestowed upon him for that reason, 
 then he accepted it emphatically in a responsive spirit ; 
 he clung to it with a tenacity and anxiety that were only 
 explicable in the light of his dense ignorance and extreme 
 credulity, which placed him under the dominion of white 
 leaders, who made use of both, at the expense of truth 
 and honor, to promote their own selfish designs. These 
 fostered, in every way, those groundless apprehensions 
 as to the security of his newly acquired rights that lurked 
 in his heart after he was set free ; and by the force of 
 their ingenious and unscrupulous representations, he 
 came to regard the ballot-box as the only barrier between 
 him and his virtual re-enslavement. They obtained such 
 an influence over him by crafty and unconscionable ap 
 peals to his fears, that they inspired him with but one 
 political principle, namely, to vote always in opposition 
 to the whites. That was his permanent policy, and he 
 followed it out with a wonderful singleness of purpose. 
 
64 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 No just and accurate insight into his real political dispo 
 sition in the past can be gotten unless this fact is taken 
 into consideration, for, up to a certain date, it was the 
 principal motive of his political conduct, being more 
 powerful even than natural antipathy of race. Very un 
 fortunately, however, in using the ballot as a means of 
 self-protection, he unconsciously employed it as a power 
 ful instrument of attack ; and the consequence has been 
 that he has shown himself to be a most dangerous enemy 
 to stable and conservative government. His influence 
 upon that political life into which he was introduced so 
 unexpectedly, and which he was not at all prepared to 
 enter, has been demoralizing in all its bearings. To en 
 dow with citizenship an individual as ignorant and de 
 based as he necessarily was, on account of his previous 
 condition of servitude, was to lower the dignity of the 
 suffrage to a level where it could only be regarded with 
 mingled contempt and alarm. It was besmirching the 
 character of the highest privilege of enlightened freedom. 
 In making, as it did, the issues of the ballot-box as im 
 portant and almost as desperate as those of the battle 
 field, it was subjecting the franchise to a strain that it 
 could not bear without debauching, in some measure, the 
 spirit of political methods, and, thereby, the general tone 
 of the community. In the contest for the preservation 
 of certain vital social and political principles, a subtle 
 callousness and insensibility were spread abroad like an 
 insidious and corrupting contagion. 
 
 Though the cause of this disturbance and the fountain- 
 head of these pernicious influences, it is hard to condemn 
 the negro, except for lack of political judgment and sa 
 gacity. Owing to his unscrupulous advisers, he consid-" 
 ered himself to be contending at the polling booth for a 
 
THE NEGRO AND THE COMMONWEALTH. 65 
 
 principle more fundamental even than that which his 
 former master was seeking to maintain, a principle that 
 involved the various rights of freedom, if not freedom 
 itself, and if to secure that principle the community itself 
 had to be destroyed and every institution that raised it 
 above barbarism completely extinguished, it would not 
 have been unnatural for him to hail the catastrophe with 
 satisfaction, if it prevented him from being relegated to 
 his former condition. Happily, circumstances have 
 arisen which have done much to prove to the negro 
 that his rights are not at all endangered by the triumph 
 in a national election of that party which he had been 
 taught was ready to deprive him of all his privileges 
 of citizenship, if not remand him to the servile position 
 which he once occupied. There had been observed for 
 many years prior to 1884 some inclination on his part to 
 vote with the white people when petty local offices were 
 to be filled, an evidence that he was learning to discrimi 
 nate between elections that were and those that were not 
 vital in their relation to what he deemed to be the danger 
 of his position. It is a proof also that he was not ani 
 mated altogether by hostility to the whites in his deter 
 mination to cast his ballot in opposition to them when 
 ever the issues of the contest were of the broadest 
 significance, as, for instance, in presidential, gubernatorial, 
 and legislative elections ; there was a well-defined prin 
 ciple in his conduct, upon which he acted with not the 
 less steadiness because it was founded upon an erroneous 
 idea. A considerable change of sentiment was produced 
 even among the most ignorant members of his race by 
 the event of the national election of 1884. They 
 observed that no curtailment of their personal rights re 
 sulted from that event in conformity with the predic- 
 
66 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 tion of their designing leaders ; they were not only 
 not re-enslaved, but no restriction whatever was put 
 upon their freedom of movement ; they were as much 
 at liberty as they ever were to form their own plans 
 and to follow out the dictates of their own judgment 
 and caprices. This was a revelation of much importance 
 to them ; and it has not been without effect on sub 
 sequent elections, even when issues were involved in 
 these that would have influenced the negroes formerly 
 to adhere most strictly to the color line. It is true 
 that even in these elections the great majority have con 
 tinued to vote for the candidates of their original party, 1 
 but many have done so by the mere force of a habit grow 
 ing out of long affiliation with it ; a sufficient number cast 
 their ballots in sympathy with the opposite party to dis 
 close that their ranks were not wholly intact. There is 
 some disposition on their part now not to vote at all. A 
 political apathy, born of an assured sense of security, has 
 fallen upon many of the race, and it is extending to a 
 wider circle. A spirit of indifference has sprung up that 
 appears to be contagious ; now that their anxiety has 
 been allayed, they value the right of suffrage less than 
 they formerly did. Gratitude is a quality that enters 
 very little into their character, and therefore they are 
 not led to support persistently and actively the party 
 that set them free, simply because it emancipated them 
 from slavery. Few impressions linger long enough in 
 their minds to govern their conduct, and a recollection 
 of benefits that have been conferred upon them is not to 
 be included in the number. They voted with that party, 
 not because it loosed their bonds, but because they 
 believed that their rights were only preserved by its 
 1 The Republican party. 
 
THE NEGRO AND THE COMMONWEALTH. 6? 
 
 watchfulness and constant intervention. As soon as 
 circumstances banished this delusion, then that adhesive 
 principle which had united them to that party began at 
 once to relax, because no emotion as lively as fear was 
 left to sustain it in the same vigor, and none is likely to 
 be called into existence hereafter that will have the 
 power to do so. A new and rapidly growing danger has 
 arisen in consequence of this increasing latitude of politi 
 cal feeling and action among them. It would be impos 
 sible to find in any country so many voters whose par- 
 tisanry conforms with more immediate sympathy to the 
 seductions of bribery, as among the negroes under the 
 pressure of that change of sentiment which is observed 
 in them now ; and this venality is not confined to the 
 rank and file, who can be bought up for a mere song, but 
 it has corrupted even the most alert and intelligent 
 leaders of their own color, who, instead of setting their 
 fellows a good example, are most forward in receiving 
 the price that is offered for their influence. 
 
 There can be no ground for doubt that if the negroes 
 had consulted their true interests they would have voted 
 in accord with the white people from the day that the 
 right of suffrage was conferred on them, since all that 
 served to antagonize the two races reacted very much to 
 the injury of the weaker, and retarded its progress. As 
 a great body of land-owners, and as the chief dispensers 
 of employment, the white citizens were in a situation to 
 benefit and assist their former slaves ; but as the latter 
 elected to combine with an unscrupulous and unpatriotic 
 white faction, and to cast their ballots inimically to the 
 permanent welfare of the community, it is not surprising 
 that some acrimony of feeling was engendered among 
 those who suffered most in consequence, or that there 
 
68 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 should have been some disinclination on their part to aid 
 men who used the power they possessed so mischievously. 
 The substantial kindness of the whites to the individual 
 negro, even from the close of the war, however, is illus 
 trated by the fact that the latter, when in trouble, has 
 always turned to them as constituting his best friends 
 after all, a correct and just view, for the white people 
 have been disposed, on the whole, to excuse even his 
 most turbulent conduct as the result of ignorance. He 
 may be such a partisan as to assault persons of his own 
 color for voting for his employer, and yet before the sun 
 has set on the day of election, he will perhaps ask an im 
 portant favor of that employer, and feel, if his request is 
 complied with, that it is only what he has a right to 
 expect. If he were to repress that unreasoning and 
 factious spirit of political opposition which he has dis 
 played at the very moment that he has shown his confi 
 dence in the personal kindness of the whites, then the 
 latter would be much more inclined than they are now 
 to help him in every way. The numerical strength of 
 the blacks has always been a source of much anxiety to 
 their former masters, because it put so much that vitally 
 concerned them in jeopardy. If this fear were to be en 
 tirely removed by the action of the blacks themselves, 
 one of the most powerful influences that perpetuates the 
 antipathy of the white people to that race would be 
 destroyed, leaving the most ample room for the play of 
 generous emotions. The material interests of the two 
 races are so identical, that any exasperating cause of 
 disagreement between them can only terminate detri 
 mentally to the prosperity of the community in which 
 both dwell. Division upon the color line merely ren 
 ders the antagonism already existing more intense, and 
 
THE NEGRO AND THE COMMONWEALTH. 69 
 
 to inflame that antagonism periodically is to create a 
 tendency to disorder and decay. It is not as if two 
 parties, separated by a divergence of opinion as to the 
 propriety of ordinary principles, were set over against 
 each other ; the principles here go down to the root of 
 all the personal relations of daily life, and their continual 
 agitation is certain to excite the most embittered preju 
 dice and hatred in those who adhere to either side. If 
 this agitation were to cease, and all forms of bribery 
 were repressed, citizens of both races would, under the 
 pressure of a common impulse, move forward together to 
 vote for the same candidate and the same measures. An 
 emotion of gratitude would be aroused in the hearts of 
 the white people in consequence of the dissipation of 
 that solicitude which they had naturally felt with respect 
 to the stability of their public affairs. It would then be 
 their instinctive inclination as well as their selfish inter 
 est to foster the confidence of their allies, the surest way 
 to which would be to confer many personal kindnesses 
 upon them, and to extend to them every opportunity of 
 material advancement. With their attention diverted 
 from politics, the negroes themselves would probably 
 direct their energies more strenuously to the improve 
 ment of their general condition ; and in any event, would 
 become a much less dangerous element in society. 
 
 The political reconciliation of the races would lead to 
 a more cheerful and willing spirit among the white citi 
 zens in allowing the negro that share of civil rewards to 
 which he has a legal right to aspire. As long as the lat 
 ter stands apart in a distinct political organization of his 
 own, the white voters will be as little disposed to honor 
 him as they are to honor any political opponent. But 
 they have even now no desire to deprive him of the 
 
7O THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 right to hold such public positions as he is competent 
 to fill without injury to the general prosperity. They 
 are, however, warmly opposed to elevating him to offices, 
 the duties of which require for their proper perform 
 ance the exercise of knowledge, discretion, and firmness, 
 for it is in these qualities that the negro is peculiarly de 
 ficient. Such offices, for instance, are those of supervi 
 sors, who have the administration of the county finances ; 
 of treasurers, who have the custody of the county funds ; 
 of assessors, who estimate the value of personal and real 
 property ; and of justices of the peace, who are the 
 local conservators of the law. These demand not only 
 special fitness in the point of capacity, but also fidelity 
 and honesty of character, and are of more local import 
 ance than the charge of a delegate to the State Legisla 
 ture even. There would be a much more decided incli 
 nation among the whites to overlook even the infirmities 
 of the negro, in distributing political rewards, if he were 
 to lay them under a heavy obligation for party services. 
 They are electing him now to subordinate positions in 
 which he is exposed to no temptation, or his ignorance 
 can do little harm : and if he proves himself competent 
 and trustworthy, he will undoubtedly be advanced to 
 positions of considerable dignity and responsibility. 
 This already occurs sometimes in instances where he 
 will be only one of a large committee, the other members 
 being left to put such check upon his conduct as may be 
 necessary. At present he is without political experience, 
 without moral or intellectual strength, and without that 
 property stake in the community that would make him 
 careful and conservative. Even as it is, the mere force of 
 race prejudice, however violently it might influence the 
 dominant class, could not keep him down in the obscurity 
 of private life, if he had sufficient ability to rise. 
 
THE NEGRO AND THE COMMONWEALTH. 71 
 
 The negroes have produced no leaders of uncommon 
 ability among themselves ; indeed, no individual of their 
 race has appeared who has shown any talent for organi 
 zation, or any capacity for grasping the most enlightened 
 ideas of policy, or disinterestedness enough to be in 
 spired by the highest motives of patriotism. The typi 
 cal black politician has been as destructive in his ambi 
 tions, and as unscrupulous in his methods, as the worst 
 of his white associates, and far more venal. As a public 
 speaker, he has developed great power of verbal expres 
 sion, which very frequently rises to a phenomenal ver 
 bosity. If he is ever at a loss for one word, he quickly sub 
 stitutes for it the first that enters his mind, whether it is 
 apt or not ; the longer it is, and the more difficult to 
 pronounce, the more appropriate it seems to himself and 
 his audience. As a rule, his harangues are without any 
 relevancy or coherence ; mere sound without sense and 
 violence without force ; strange imitations of the model 
 which he is aiming to copy ; a gross travesty, indeed, 
 that would be ludicrous but for the number of voters 
 whom the speaker represents. We find occasionally 
 among his fellow orators one who uses very perspicu 
 ous language, not always grammatical, it is true, but not 
 faulty enough to weaken the strength of a fairly logical 
 argument. There is a sophomoric ring to most of their 
 speeches, however correct, that discloses the imaginative 
 turn or the childish immaturity of their faculties. They 
 never lose their self-possession on the rostrum, however 
 awkward the situation apparently ; all interruptions, 
 though hostile and calculated to confuse being re 
 ceived with entire serenity of mind and blandness of 
 demeanor. During the course of an active canvass, they 
 deliver many speeches on the Court green at every meet 
 ing of the County Court, but they are seen in their proud- 
 
72 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 est role in the local conventions, that meet to nominate 
 candidates. The negro shows here a very amusing re 
 spect for parliamentary terms and usages, since he is to 
 the extent of his knowledge an uncompromising stick 
 ler for parliamentary etiquette in its different forms. No 
 where else is that curious pomposity of manner and lan 
 guage, which he falls into at once, when struck with a 
 sense of his own importance, so fully displayed. His 
 imitative turn becomes most conspicuous under the ex 
 treme dignity and solemnity of his deportment, because 
 these are lacking in the essential element of simplicity. 
 As members of political committees although they 
 may nominally occupy the leading position, the blacks, 
 as a rule, appear to great disadvantage, for they have 
 no executive ability, which is a logical result of the 
 fact that they are without power of concentrated thought 
 and attention, and are indifferent to the means, however 
 eager to reach the end. Those who have obtained seats 
 in the Legislature, have won no special reputation for 
 practical capacity by an intelligent devotion to business 
 and as they are generally silent members, or wandering 
 and irrelevant when they have risen to their feet, they 
 have exercised no marked influence on the enactment of 
 laws, except by the votes they cast. Indeed, the majority 
 have not been at all superior to the mass of their race in 
 force of character or intellect ; many, in fact, have been 
 inferior, and their election to a position of so much re. 
 sponsibility can only be explained on the ground of acci 
 dent. The prominence of the office they occupy only 
 brings out into the broadest contrast their incompetence 
 to represent the interests of their own people, much less 
 advance the general prosperity of a commonwealth. 
 The preachers of the negroes are their most active 
 
THE NEGRO AND THE COMMONWEALTH. 73 
 
 politicians, as a rule, but even when they are not they 
 have much political influence, for they constitute, indi 
 vidually, the natural leaders of their race, being elevated 
 to their clerical position not because they are men of 
 greater holiness of life or eloquence of tongue than the 
 rest of their fellows, but because they have more energy 
 and decision of character. Each one brings these quali 
 ties to bear on all occasions of public agitation from that 
 conspicuous coigne of vantage, his pulpit, which thus 
 becomes a rostrum, the religious doctrines enunciated 
 from thence, taking the color of his political principles, 
 just as, on the other hand, his political harangues have a 
 religious echo. The two parts of minister and orator are 
 played so skilfully at one and the same time that it is 
 impossible to distinguish them ; and the affairs of the 
 Hereafter and a contemporary political canvass are 
 mixed in inextricable confusion. His church is thus 
 converted into a political organization that is consoli 
 dated by the religious fervor that pervades it, and pro 
 pelled towards a single political end by a religious 
 enthusiasm that expects to be rewarded spiritually for 
 the performance of partisan duties. The preacher play 
 ing alternately upon the political passions and religious 
 fears of his congregation, or upon both at once, excites 
 an emotional responsiveness that is prepared to obey his 
 slightest injunctions ; and he does not hesitate to turn 
 this exalted state of feeling to the most useful account. 
 
 The political mass-meeting of the negroes is held after 
 nightfall, for it is only at that late hour that the laborers 
 can attend. The spot selected is illuminated by the 
 glare of torches ; and what with the waving lights, the 
 darkness of the background of forest, the gleaming of 
 the foliage overhead, the dimly outlined forms of men 
 
74 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 huddled together, the strident voices of the speakers, 
 and the low murmurs of assent rising from their audi 
 tors, the scene is strangely picturesque in its physical 
 aspects and impressive in its political suggestions. It is 
 a strong proof of the timidity of the negroes that they 
 have not often been impelled by these occasions, the in 
 fluences of which are always violent and incendiary, to 
 inflict the grossest injury upon the white people, but ex 
 cepting a certain moroseness and sullenness of demeanor, 
 their employers observe no evidence even on the follow 
 ing day of the emotions of anger and hatred that had 
 inflamed their minds so recently. 
 
 Through such men and means as these, supplemented 
 by the white leaders, to whom reference has already been 
 made, the negroes have obtained the whole of their po 
 litical knowledge ; and that knowledge, if such scanty 
 and defective information as they have, with respect to 
 political principles, can be spoken of properly as knowl 
 edge at all, has been distorted by the medium through 
 which it has been transmitted. Few are even aware that 
 there is such an institution as the press. That powerful 
 engine for shaping public opinion does not reach them 
 at all ; it does not even reflect such political opinions as 
 they may entertain. Its force of reason and passion is 
 lost on the black voters who toil in the fields or loll 
 about the stores ; to whom the newspaper is only a 
 species of material in which the groceries they purchase 
 at the stores are wrapt- for security and protection. The 
 great mass of these voters are dumb until the day of 
 election. While the political fervor of the whites is 
 breaking forth in so many audible and visible ways, 
 from the hustings, in processions, and through the party 
 organs, expressing itself from dawn until midnight in the 
 
THE NEGRO AND THE COMMONWEALTH. ?$ 
 
 thousand reverberating sounds that roll from hill to hill 
 and valley to valley, the comparative silence and secre- 
 tiveness of the political sentiment of the negroes inspire 
 both awe and fear, so ominous do they seem, and so in 
 dicative of a strength that is to be dreaded all the more 
 because it is wholly numerical. Messengers, with the 
 proper instructions, have flitted from settlement to settle 
 ment, as if they were passing the watchword to an army 
 of soldiers off duty, with the injunction that it shall be 
 preserved from disclosure until the hour for action 
 arrives. And when the polls are thrown open the 
 colored voters run together by a common impulse from 
 field and forest, and cast their ballots with the regularity 
 and precision of a military organization. It is too much, 
 perhaps, to expect that men so recently emancipated, 
 and as credulous and illiterate as they are, would show 
 on such an occasion the influence of the most enlightened 
 principles. Studying their political spirit as then dis 
 played, and without considering the alleviating circum 
 stances, it is palpable that they do not ; such an expres 
 sion as the public good, the commonwealth, is without 
 force of meaning to their minds. A people who lack, as 
 they do, the pride of race are incapable of the most dis 
 interested emotions of patriotism ; a people as heedless, 
 thoughtless, and restless as they are can never exalt the 
 interests of the community above their own. They seem 
 to have some local attachment, but the fireside, the home, 
 the family are not invested in their minds with the pro 
 found meaning which is the secret of that love which all 
 the nationalities of mankind feel for their respective 
 lands, and without which this love of country cannot 
 exist in its highest perfection ; the consequence is that 
 the negroes entertain no sentimental devotion whatever 
 
76 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 for their native soil. Education, to the extent to which 
 it has been carried, has not cultivated or even produced 
 this spirit of patriotism by expanding the range of their 
 thoughts and feelings ; instead of broadening their ideas, 
 it appears to have only increased their egotism and their 
 contempt for their race. So far they have made no real 
 progress in identifying themselves in a temperate way 
 with the duties and privileges of citizenship. Those 
 who have sought to play a political part of prominence 
 have resembled only overgrown children making a pre 
 tense at statesmanship, while the great majority have 
 acted blindly upon the impulses of hatred and fear or, at 
 best, of personal gain. All classes of the race are much 
 less in accord with the true spirit of our government 
 than foreigners from despotic countries who have been 
 naturalized. There is no true affinity between them and 
 the institutions under which they live ; and whether they 
 will ever grow into harmony with these institutions, is a 
 question upon which the future alone can throw any de 
 cisive light. 
 
VI. 
 
 THE NEGRO AND THE CRIMINAL LAW. 
 
 WHEN we observe the negroes as a mass, we find that 
 they violate the principal clauses of the Criminal Code 
 less often than we would be led to expect at first ; but it 
 is not a ground of surprise when we have obtained an 
 insight into the general character of the individuals of 
 the race. It is true that they are very impulsive, this 
 being perhaps the most prominent trait of their disposi 
 tion ; but they rarely become desperate and turbulent by 
 the force of the most vehement passion, except when 
 under the dominion of an ardent physical appetite. One 
 of the most remarkable of their peculiarities is, that 
 they have little capacity for receiving a profound im 
 pression, although the circumstances surrounding them 
 may seem to be such as to create it inevitably. If such 
 an impression is ever made, it is soon obliterated. Their 
 ideas change as rapidly and unaccountably as their 
 emotions. They do not continue long enough in one 
 state of mind, however intense at the moment, for it to 
 color their behavior for any length of time. Unless, 
 therefore, they act at once when under the influence of the 
 passing anger which sometimes sways them so violently 
 when they happen to have cause for the warmest resent 
 ment, they are not apt to act at all, so quickly is their exas 
 peration of feeling dissipated ; but while it lasts, they do 
 not shrink from perpetrating any crime, however heinous, 
 
 77 
 
78 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 or however easily detected. It is in this humor and 
 under such pressure as this, that nearly all the gross 
 violations of law that are brought home to them are 
 committed. Their power of mental concentration is not 
 sufficient to ensure the steadiness and constancy that 
 are necessary to the success of a malicious purpose that 
 has to be executed with deliberation ; in other words, 
 they lack the ability to carry out a criminal design with 
 skill and foresight, simply because they are wanting in 
 the qualities of subtlety, prudence and steadfastness. 
 Oddly as it may sound, the absence of a resolute 
 and scheming vindictiveness in the character of the 
 negro is one of the most convincing indications of his 
 moral feebleness, since that absence, in his instance, is 
 not due to generosity and magnanimity, but to fickleness 
 and instability. It should not be forgotten, too, that 
 his usual temper is mild and easy, reflecting in its 
 brightness and cheerfulness the sunny climate of his 
 primitive continent. The courage of his race, if that 
 race had been great, would have sunk into a sinister 
 moodiness beneath the burden of sorrow and humiliation 
 that weighed it down for centuries, without any prospect 
 of relief. How swiftly under those cruel strokes of for 
 tune a people less pliant or less servile would have 
 disappeared from the family of mankind ! There is no 
 chapter in history more pathetic than that which records 
 the rapid extinction of the West Indian aborigines under 
 the harsh and exacting tyranny of their Spanish task 
 masters. The negroes, on the contrary, emerged from 
 the darkness of an institution that deprived them of the 
 chief privileges of life, with the original sprightliness 
 and joyousness of their nature undiminished. They are 
 to-day in full possession of all those social qualities that 
 
THE NEGRO AND THE CRIMINAL LAW. ?g 
 
 distinguished their remote ancestors, and which have 
 remained unmodified in the race at every subsequent 
 period in spite of the vicissitudes through which it has 
 passed. Among these qualities the most conspicuous 
 still, is a careless and thoughtless good-humor, which, 
 however, can harden into a barbarous cruelty occa 
 sionally. 
 
 There is another quality which is still more influential 
 in preventing the negro from giving extreme expression 
 to his malicious emotions, namely, his timidity ; as a 
 rule, he is destitute of that manly force of mind which 
 would stimulate him to press forward in a hazardous 
 enterprise without a confusing apprehension of contem 
 porary peril, or that would cause him to meet the shock 
 of that peril, when it comes, with rational firmness. As 
 long as he knows that it is not an immediate accompani 
 ment of an adventure, he is not reluctant to engage in 
 it, for his understanding has little prospective scope. 
 It is a present and not a future risk and jeopardy that he 
 fears. His sensitiveness to danger in one form, as in 
 the commission of a burglary, for example, must, how 
 ever, be carefully discriminated from his indifference to 
 it in another, as, for instance, in riding an unbroken 
 colt ; his nervous organization seems to be such that all 
 of his sensations of physical pain are dull, and his imagi 
 nation shows a corresponding heaviness and stolidity, 
 when he is placed in ordinary situations that are likely 
 to result in suffering to himself. It is not the probability 
 of being maimed or killed that disheartens him so much 
 even in a burglarious attempt ; it is rather the uncer 
 tainty as to the exact character of the peril which he is 
 confronting, and the moment it may work him harm. 
 Here, too, he has human intelligence and not brute in- 
 
80 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 stinct to contend with ; and the darkness surrounding 
 him shakes his resolution by magnifying his terrors. 
 
 If the presumption of the negro, when he is disposed 
 to be aggressive in his bearing, is met in a spirit that is 
 prepared, on the instant, to retaliate, he shrinks back 
 with the greatest anxiety for his own safety. And yet 
 the same negro would not hesitate to mount an untamed 
 horse that would dash him to the ground if it could 
 weaken his seat on its back ; and he displays like insen 
 sibility when he ascends the scaffold and beholds the 
 awful instruments that are to consummate his impending 
 doom. His eyes are as clear, his hands as steady, and 
 his voice as free from tremor as if he belonged to the 
 mass of disinterested spectators present, instead of being 
 the central figure of the occasion, and, as such, standing 
 upon the edge of the yawning abyss of eternity. There 
 would be an element of sublimity in his patience and 
 serenity here, if these did not have their origin in apathy. 
 He discloses the same obtuseness everywhere else, unless 
 the danger to which he is exposed proceeds directly 
 from the inimical acts of persons. It is largely this fear 
 of a personal conflict that restrains the plantation negro 
 from perpetrating more atrocious crimes than he does, 
 for, amiable as he is, there is a latent ferocity in his 
 nature. That indifference to the suffering of others, 
 which so often causes him, even when unprovoked, to 
 lash his oxen without pity, to kick and maim his faithful 
 dog, and to reprove or strike his children with improper 
 roughness, would be shown still more plainly if he could 
 act under all circumstances with the license of absolute 
 despotism. As he has generally few scruples and little 
 power of self-control, it would be difficult to predict 
 what would be the limit of his excesses when his anger 
 
THE NEGRO AND THE CRIMINAL LAW. 8 1 
 
 was thoroughly aroused. This is foreshadowed in the 
 character of the requests which he makes of the trick 
 doctors when he seeks the aid of the latter in carrying 
 out his schemes of vengeance ; death is one of the many 
 forms of injury which he desires to inflict through the 
 secret agency of the fatal charms and potions of these 
 trusted and influential impostors. 
 
 Entering into a more particularized examination of 
 the criminal record of the blacks, we find that the greater 
 number of the brawls in which individuals of their race 
 are involved among themselves have their incentive in 
 the vehement passions aroused by heated disputes as to 
 proprietorship in women. This is the point of conten 
 tion which is most frequently raised, and at times it is 
 only settled by a resort to violence as desperate as it is 
 impetuous ; in the struggle no quarter is expected or al 
 lowed, and it is only terminated by the hasty retirement 
 or the complete disablement of one of the parties. The 
 final scenes of drunken frolics, too, are often stained 
 with blood, but excepting instances of this kind, in which 
 the negroes are spurred on by their appetites, their quar 
 rels are rarely sanguinary, however licentious the verbal 
 expression given to them. The weapon employed in 
 these frantic assaults is occasionally the razor, 1 which 
 they can wield with a skill and precision as fatal to its 
 victim as it is appalling in the mere physical aspect of 
 the slashing done. They sometimes carry this instru 
 ment about their persons unobserved, whipping it out on 
 the most unexpected occasions ; it being an admirable 
 means of attack or defence, because it combines the 
 
 1 The razor is used as a weapon by the negroes far oftener in the 
 towns and villages, or along lines of railway, than in the secluded 
 rural districts. 
 
82 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 highest effectiveness with the greatest convenience, since 
 it is readily hidden in a small space in the clothing. A 
 sheath-knife is too large to conceal thus, and too awkward 
 to stick in the belt ; above all, its appearance is so 
 dangerous that it throws its owner himself into a fright. 
 The aspect of a pistol is still more formidable ; it is 
 prudently eschewed for that reason, and properly so, for 
 the negroes, being thoughtless and heedless, are in far 
 more danger of shooting themselves accidentally when 
 they carry such firearms than of implanting a bullet in 
 their adversary. The razor is terrible in execution, but, 
 nevertheless, excites no instinctive apprehension for 
 their lives in the persons handling it. 
 
 The negro is not disposed to have affrays with mem 
 bers of the other race, his natural peaceableness being in 
 creased in his association with white men by that restrain 
 ing spirit of subserviency to them which still lingers in 
 his heart. This is disclosed in the fact that it is very 
 rare that he seeks to kill a white man by an open and 
 direct assault. When such a man is murdered, it is, as a 
 rule, the result of a sudden scheme on the part of two or 
 three negroes for the purpose of securing money which 
 they know to be secreted about his person, and the deed 
 is always committed with a degree of atrocity that is un 
 surpassed in the criminal annals of any country. Even 
 here the negligent character of the race is curiously ap 
 parent. The guilty companions do not attempt to 
 remove the various traces of their crime ; the act is com 
 mitted with awkward but relentless coolness and ferocity, 
 the booty is collected, and then the spot is deserted, 
 being left with every evidence of the fatal struggle, includ 
 ing the corpse itself, to bear silent testimony to the awful 
 details of the tragedy of which it has recently been the 
 
THE NEGRO AND THE CRIMINAL LA W. 83 
 
 scene. They do not even endeavor to escape from the 
 neighborhood afterwards, or to take any precaution that 
 will avert suspicion from themselves as the perpetrators of 
 the crime ; on the contrary, they often boldly display arti 
 cles which they acquired by it, which inevitably implicate 
 them. The final detection of the parties to such crime is 
 always assured, not only because there are so many clues 
 that set the officers upon the proper track, but also because 
 the parties generally confess, in their terror, the moment 
 that they are accused. The total amount of money ob 
 tained by most of these murderers for pecuniary gain, is 
 so small a sum that it is surprising that they should run 
 even the risks of ordinary robbery to get possession of it. 
 Rape is the most frightful crime which the negroes 
 commit against the white people, and their disposition to 
 perpetrate it has increased in spite of the quick and 
 summary punishment that always follows ; and it will be 
 seen that this disposition will grow in proportion as that 
 vague respect which the blacks still entertain for a white 
 skin declines. There is something strangely alluring and 
 seductive to them in the appearance of a white woman ; 
 they are aroused and stimulated by its foreignness to their 
 experience of sexual pleasures, and it moves them to 
 gratify their lust at any cost and in spite of every ob 
 stacle. This proneness of the negro is so well under 
 stood that the white women of every class, from the 
 highest to the lowest, are afraid to venture to any dis 
 tance alone, or even to wander unprotected in the imme 
 diate vicinity of their homes ; their appreciation of the 
 danger being as keen, and their apprehension of corporal 
 injury as vivid, as if the country were in arms. If it 
 were not for this prudence and caution on their part, as 
 well as the capital punishment that ensues so swiftly, this 
 
84 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 crime would be far more frequent than it is. It occurs 
 often enough, however, to inflame the aversion of the 
 white people to the race to a heat that leaves a per 
 manent impression upon their general relations with its 
 members ; and not unnaturally, for rape, indescribably 
 beastly and loathsome always, is marked, in the instance 
 of its perpetration by a negro, by a diabolical persistence 
 and a malignant atrocity of detail that have no reflection 
 in the whole extent of the natural history of the most 
 bestial and ferocious animals. He is not content merely 
 with the consummation of his purpose, but takes that 
 fiendish delight in the degradation of his victim which 
 he always shows when he can reek his vengeance upon 
 one whom he has hitherto been compelled to fear ; and, 
 here, the white woman in his power is, for the time being, 
 the representative of that race which has always over 
 awed him. That this feeling enters largely into the 
 motive of this crime is proven by the fact that he is 
 guilty of it as often against women who are very much 
 advanced in years as against those who have not passed 
 the period of their youth. His invariable impulse after 
 the accomplishment of his purpose is to murder his vic 
 tim, that being the only means suggested to his mind of 
 escaping the consequence of the act, and this impulse is 
 carried into effect with the utmost barbarity, unless he is 
 accidently interrupted and frightened off. 
 
 The average plantation negro does not consider rape 
 to be a very heinous crime. He is so accustomed to the 
 wantonness of the women of his own race that it is not 
 strange that his intellect, having no perception of per 
 sonal dignity or the pangs of outraged feeling, should be 
 unable to gauge the terrible character of this offense 
 against the integrity of virtuous womanhood, even apart 
 
THE NEGRO AND THE CRIMINAL LAW. 85 
 
 from the cruel wrong of associating it in such a way 
 with manhood that is most vile, brutal, and depraved. 
 The rape of a negress by a male of her own color is al 
 most unheard of, a fact that is a strong proof of the sex 
 ual laxness of the plantation women as a class ; for if 
 they attached any importance to sexual purity, and strenu 
 ously resisted all improper encroachment upon it, the 
 criminal records of the negro men would contain details 
 of many such assaults. As it is, their careers are com 
 paratively unblemished in this respect. 
 
 The poisoning of persons is not a common crime among 
 the blacks, perhaps because it is difficult to obtain the 
 proper substance, there being no noxious herbs in the 
 local botany from which they can distil what they need, 
 and at the country stores only the coarsest articles for 
 the purpose can be purchased. In the instances of poi 
 soning that occur a female domestic servant is often the 
 principal party implicated, because she frequently has 
 access to medicines that are deadly if administered in 
 large quantities, however harmless when the doses are 
 small, and she would not hesitate to use these against 
 master or mistress, or their children, or against indi 
 viduals of her own race, if she had a fierce impulse of 
 revenge or resentment to gratify. The plantation laborers, 
 on the other hand, generally make use of the torch if 
 they wish to vent the force of their anger to the detri 
 ment of their employer for having offended them. It is 
 rare that they go so far as to set fire to the dwelling in 
 which he lives, but in the privacy of darkness the skulk 
 ing incendiaries will enkindle a flame beneath his barns 
 and cribs, in which the crops of a whole year may be 
 stowed away, which soon reduces them and their valuable 
 contents to ashes. So much fear has the planter of this 
 
86 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 outrage being committed, and so apprehensive is he of 
 the resulting pecuniary loss, that he discharges his em 
 ploye s with reluctance, although his reasons for doing 
 so may be imperative, and he seeks as far as he can to 
 allay the exasperation which they may feel when dis 
 missed. He is very much influenced, for the same reason, 
 to avoid all vehement contention with them that would 
 be likely to arouse permanent irritation. 
 
 It is remarkable how slow the negroes are to enter, 
 with burglarious intent, the premises occupied by the 
 planter and his family as a residence. They are gov 
 erned here by various feelings. In the first place, they 
 still have that traditional fear of a white man, to which 
 allusion has already been made ; in the second, they lack 
 not only the fortitude, but also the ingenuity that is 
 necessary to carry out a complicated and perilous enter 
 prise. Even if they were to stiffen their courage to the 
 point of making the venture, they could be easily fright 
 ened off. A small but loud barking dog would throw 
 their best-laid plan into such confusion that they would 
 probably find it impossible to rally to its accomplish 
 ment. The planter, therefore, is not inclined to antici 
 pate that his laborers, or those of his neighbors, will 
 break into his house at night, if he has taken the ordi 
 nary precautions against such an intrusion. It must not 
 be forgotten that his own employes look upon the 
 precincts of his dwelling as sacred ; even if they entered 
 it on a legitimate errand during the day, they would be 
 very ill at ease there, and so whimsical is the temper of 
 the race, that their courage would be dashed merely by 
 the certainty of feeling equally as uncomfortable if they 
 broke in for a criminal purpose after darkness had fallen. 
 They recognize, too, that it would be difficult for them 
 to dispose of any valuable article found there, for to 
 
THE NEGRO AND THE CRIMINAL LAW. 8/ 
 
 offer such an article for sale in the isolated country-sides 
 would be to expose themselves to suspicion and, in the 
 end, to detection. They have no confederates in town 
 to whom they can forward their booty, and if they were 
 bold enough to use or enjoy it in their daily life, the eye 
 of their employer would discover at once their connec 
 tion with the crime from which he had suffered, 
 
 The most confirmed criminal habit of the plantation 
 negro is petit larceny ; this infirmity is so common that 
 there are comparatively few individuals of his race and 
 condition who will not yield to the temptation to take 
 what does not belong to them. An opportunity to filch 
 is generally turned to profitable account, unless the risk 
 of detection is imminent, and even then this risk is 
 usually ignored if the object that excites the thievish 
 itch is something that will satisfy a physical craving. 
 This disposition to pilfer is confined, as a rule, to those 
 articles that gratify the appetites, for the aesthetic sense 
 of the negro is so rude that it does not occur to him to 
 purloin property simply because it is beautiful. This is 
 illustrated in the instance of the house servant : he can 
 be trusted to go alone into those parts of the dwelling 
 where the most expensive articles of adornment and 
 ornamentation are preserved, but to admit him without 
 supervision into the room where the groceries are stored, 
 is to put him in a situation in which he can rarely resist 
 abstracting as much as he can conceal about his person. 
 Such costly articles as china or silver can be left to 
 him with much more safety than the keys to the house 
 keeper s department. 1 The same trait is detected in the 
 
 1 In the first place, because the abstraction of china and sil 
 ver would be at once detected, and be more severely punished. 
 In the second place, such valuable articles cannot be disposed of in 
 the rural districts. Their beauty, however, constitutes no element 
 of temptation. 
 
88 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 laborer : he is not inclined to break into the precincts of 
 his employer s residence, or even into the various divi 
 sions of the plantation store, although it contains much 
 that he desires to possess ; it is the watermelon patch, 
 the kitchen-garden, the orchard, the corn pile, the meat 
 house, that are in most danger of his obtrusive fingers. 
 The prospect of these being rifled is constant enough to 
 require a permanent guard for their protection. 
 
 So well is this propensity known, that the negroes are 
 not permitted by the planter for whom they may be 
 working to fatten more than two hogs apiece each 
 season. Even two are allowed them with reluctance, 
 because they are provoked to supply these animals with 
 food from the fields of growing corn, the ears being 
 pulled under the cover of darkness, and the deficiency 
 being left to disclose itself in the late autumn when the 
 grain is harvested. As it is, the laborers are tempted, at 
 the proper season for penning pigs, to rob the range of 
 shoats to avoid incurring the expense of purchasing 
 them. When that season arrives, the number of pigs 
 running at large is always very seriously diminished ; and 
 in their capture the rogues must display considerable skill 
 and ingenuity, for they are rarely discovered in the act. 
 
 The planters are very much opposed to the owners of 
 the country stores receiving corn in liquidation of debts, 
 as their laborers are stimulated to break into the cribs 
 and barns in order to obtain the grain, with a view to 
 turning it over to the storekeepers, and thus getting a 
 new lease of credit for themselves ; and so strong and 
 emphatic is public sentiment in this respect, that the 
 country merchant who would defy it, would be looked 
 upon as a public enemy, and his custom would fall off in 
 consequence. 
 
THE NEGRO AND THE CRIMINAL LA IV. 89 
 
 The improvidence, as well as the thievishness of the 
 negro is shown in his disposition to steal the rails of the 
 fences that are situated conveniently to his cabin, the 
 seasoned wood, when ignited, affording him that warmth 
 and brilliant light in which he likes to bask. He will 
 not scruple to cut up the most valuable plank for this 
 purpose, or even to tear the dry weather-boarding from 
 his own dwelling, the mere waste which he thus creates 
 being passed over without a thought. 
 
 A few of the planters, considering it impossible to re 
 strain the thievishness of their laborers, seek to break its 
 force by entering into a formal agreement with them, 
 that all shall be responsible in pecuniary damages for 
 whatever loss may result from the larcenies of any one ; 
 but the negroes naturally regard this as a harsh and ex 
 acting condition, as it involves the innocent with the 
 guilty. Occasionally a planter is found who is stoical 
 and philosophical enough to ignore the thievish acts of 
 his employes, the pecuniary damage entailed being 
 accepted by him as an inevitable part of his debit ac 
 count, for which he makes the proper pecuniary allow 
 ance when he is reckoning his expenses, his irritation 
 venting itself only in a shrug of the shoulder or a mut 
 tered imprecation. Many of these petty rogues when 
 discovered slink off the plantation, not because their 
 personal relations with their fellow-laborers become 
 strained and uncomfortable in consequence of the ex 
 posure of their guilt, but because they are ashamed to 
 confront their employer, a proof that they are conscious 
 of the impropriety of their behavior. So well aware is 
 that employer and his overseer of this, that they will 
 sometimes pretend to be blind to a theft that is being 
 perpetrated directly under their eyes, if the rogue is a 
 
go THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 vigorous and industrious hand. To accuse him on the 
 spot is to frighten him into a hasty departure for un 
 known parts ; to arrest him would occasion a degree of 
 trouble and annoyance that would be out of proportion 
 to the character of the offense ; and to dismiss him 
 would be to create the necessity of hiring another labor 
 er, who would be as easily seduced when tempted to 
 pilfer. Moreover, it would be to expose the inflammable 
 property of the plantation to the torch of a revengeful 
 incendiary. 
 
 The public sentiment prevailing among the blacks 
 with respect to the criminal acts of a member of their 
 own race is generally healthy, if the injury inflicted by 
 him falls on one of themselves. Thus they are, as a 
 rule, very much aroused if one negro is slain by an 
 other, under aggravated circumstances, and they con 
 demn the murderer with as much severity as the white 
 people ; but as they retain no mental impressions for any 
 length of time, their anger and hostility soon subside 
 into comparative obliviousness of the deed. This is 
 also true of their feeling with respect to crimes that are 
 much less heinous and atrocious. There is no public 
 opinion among them, however, that uncompromisingly 
 reprobates an individual of their own color who is guilty 
 of a violation of the law, however gross, from which 
 white people alone suffer. Even a capital offense like 
 murder or rape, of which a white man or woman has 
 been the victim, awakens no overwhelming horror in their 
 breasts, by the mere force of a common humanity. The 
 shock which information of such a crime produces is 
 not one of spontaneous indignation ; and if such a 
 shock is experienced at all, it soon declines into a disin 
 terested curiosity. So far from always wishing to assist 
 
THE NEGRO AND THE CRIMINAL LAW. g\ 
 
 in the arrest of any one of their fellows, who has made 
 himself liable to punishment by an act of incendiarism or 
 burglary, which has resulted in a very serious pecuniary 
 damage to a white proprietor, they often seek by every 
 secret means to aid him to escape. Instead of showing 
 disapproval of his crime, by an attitude of eagerness to 
 prevent him from getting away, they frequently become 
 active accessories to it, after the fact, by their anxiety to 
 forward his deliverance from danger. A curious free 
 masonry obtains among them, under these circumstances, 
 which is voluntarily and passionately sustained by a 
 whole community of plantation negroes, uniting them, old 
 and young alike, in a conspiracy to protect the criminal, 
 by throwing his pursuers off the scent. The great 
 mass is never so plainly observed to be influenced 
 by a common impulse as in such a juncture as 
 this. No political felon in a conquered country, whose 
 boldness has endeared him to the hearts of his peo 
 ple, but exposed him to imprisonment at the hands of 
 the alien authorities, was ever silently and surreptitiously 
 befriended with more ardor than such a burglar or 
 incendiary thus out of the pale of the law, who throws 
 himself upon the good offices of his race. In the in 
 stance of an offense like petit larceny, the negroes occa 
 sionally show openly the sympathy that they feel for any 
 one of their companions whose guilty part in it has been 
 proven. They certainly do not always avoid him as a 
 man who has sunk to a low point of shame and degrada 
 tion ; on the contrary, they sometimes conduct them 
 selves towards him as if they thought that he had been 
 dealt with harshly, and was therefore entitled to their 
 pity, his only fault, apparently, being that he was so un 
 fortunate or so awkward as to be discovered. There can 
 
92 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 be no hope of any improvement in their public senti 
 ment with respect to this, their most common violation of 
 the law, until there has been an accumulation of property 
 among them. As they acquire valuable articles of various 
 kinds, they will be more solicitous that the rights of own 
 ership shall be strictly respected, and such a wholesome 
 opinion as this, brought into play among the members of 
 the best class by the mere force of utility and selfishness, 
 may permeate in time to those of the worst, and thus in 
 fluence the general body to look upon larceny as inex 
 cusable. As to the sentiment relative to such crimes as 
 murder, rape, and arson, there can be no prospect of an 
 advance until the moral tone of the whole race has been 
 elevated, if time shall show that it is capable of being 
 elevated. 
 
VII. 
 
 RELIGION. 
 
 THE negro is remarkable for a very devout spirit, so 
 far as this signifies a passionate religious feeling in con 
 tradistinction to sober and godly conduct ; as an abstract 
 hope and a naked aspiration, it colors his whole nature 
 as much as his most impetuous appetites do. There is a 
 touch of pathos even in its most ordinary disclosure, 
 however inconsistent with the practice of his life, because 
 it has all the simplicity and directness of sincerity. It 
 seems to be common to individuals of his race belonging 
 to every period of life. The child left alone in the cabin, 
 or sent off to a distance on an errand, is heard singing 
 hymns with almost as much fervor and devotion as a 
 recent convert at a revival ; and a girl who has not 
 reached the marriageable age will fall into as much ex 
 travagance during the progress of the services at church 
 as the most vigorous and susceptible of the elderly 
 women. In the hearts of the young and old alike, reli 
 gion strikes a chord that responds with equal promptness 
 and fulness in all. 
 
 It is not confined to sex ; the man is as devout as the 
 woman, being as much open to religious impressions and 
 as much dominated by his religious emotions, although 
 their influence does not cause him to act as wildly and 
 hysterically as she does, for, on the whole, he is more 
 able to control himself, and yet his deportment, when he 
 
 93 
 
94 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 is full of the transport and ecstasy of religious happiness, 
 is much more apt to transfix the attention of the ob 
 server, because his frame is larger and more robust. To 
 see it shaking with childish agitation seems to be so 
 strangely out of keeping with its maturity and strength 
 as to amount almost to a phenomenon. 
 
 This religious feeling of the negroes is not restricted 
 to any particular time or special locality. They carry it 
 into every situation and every employment. The greater 
 number of their songs, and these run over the whole 
 gamut of their aspirations and emotions, are hymns that 
 embody their spiritual hopes in monotonous rhythm, 
 rude language, and disconnected sentences. The liveli 
 est of the plantation ditties, even, have a religious echo. 
 Those melodies that roll over the harvest fields as the 
 long line of gleaners gather the severed wheat into 
 shocks, or that are borne far and wide on the frosty air 
 when the corn is being shucked by the light of the No 
 vember moon, have a subtle tone, even when the words 
 are lewd or jovial, that is expressive of that profound 
 sadness that trembles in the refrains of the hymns. The 
 plowman as he urges on his team in the act of breaking 
 up the sod, the carter perched upon the top of his loaded 
 wagon on the way to the granary, the hand at work 
 among the plants in the tobacco lot, the scytheman in 
 the clover, the herdsman in the pasture, the woodman in 
 the forest, the boatman standing at the helm as his craft 
 drops down the stream, wherever and whenever, in short, 
 the occupation of the negro secludes him either for a 
 short or a long time, from the companionship of his race, 
 he will often relieve his loneliness by singing with a devout 
 and melancholy intonation. And this is peculiar to no 
 hour and to no season. As he goes forth in all the 
 
RELIGION. 95 
 
 beauty, freshness, and joy of a vernal morning, the same 
 long-drawn but mournful sounds will frequently issue 
 from his lips that are heard from them as he plods to 
 wards his cabin through the chill and dreary December 
 dusk ; he will sing the same sorrowful notes at midday 
 when the world is flooded with cheerful light, that he 
 pours forth upon the bosom of the darkness as he passes 
 through the fields and woods on his way from one set 
 tlement of his people to another. Whether, indeed, he 
 is returning from a wedding or a funeral, a political 
 mass-meeting or a revival, his voice is apt to break out 
 in that dismal chant, to which the hymns of the race 
 have been sung immemorially, and which is not without 
 a touch of grandeur in its solemnity. 
 
 It is one of the most marked peculiarities of the negro 
 that although he is very cheerful in his social instincts 
 and bright in his temper, his religious spirit, neverthe 
 less, is more lugubrious than that of the most austere and 
 embittered Puritanism. The sunniness of his general 
 disposition is reflected in his view of every thing that in 
 terests him, and in the whole tenor of his conduct, ex 
 cept in his system of belief (whether religious or super 
 stitious) and manner of worship. As soon as his 
 thoughts revert to religion, an ominous cloud seems to 
 rise and darken his mind ; he gropes in shadows that 
 are constantly assuming different shapes to increase his 
 disturbance. A heavy burden now rests upon his heart, 
 under all other circumstances so animated and so blithe, 
 which he cannot ease or remove ; his soul is penetrated 
 with sadness ; his whole being seems to be transfused 
 into one overwhelming emotion of sorrow. Few rays of 
 brightness, indeed, reach him from that heaven which 
 is pictured upon his imagination with such minute and 
 
g6 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 vivid perfection of detail. For although his religion is a 
 hope, it has little of the joy of hope except at the height 
 of a spiritual paroxysm ; in his ordinary life it is full of 
 an agitating fear, but this fear is not based on any con 
 sciousness of depravity that forces upon his mind a 
 doubt as to the certainty of election. " I am going to 
 heaven when I die," is a song of confidence and triumph 
 which has its echo in the breasts of every negro upon 
 whose ears its familiar words of happiness fall. No indi 
 vidual is apprehensive of the contrary in his own in 
 stance. His gaze does not waver in the clearness of its 
 perception of the material aspects of the hereafter, and 
 no cloud of skepticism ever rises in his soul, and wholly 
 shuts that fair vision of the city of eternal life from 
 sight. It is merely the mystery of physical death, to 
 him the most interesting and fascinating of all natural 
 phenomena, that causes him to pause, and from that he 
 shrinks not so much with cowardice as with morbid awe. 
 It repels him, and yet it attracts him. Strongly inclined 
 as the members of his race are to confine their attention 
 to the present, and especially indisposed as they are to 
 look forward to the future, the thought of death is not 
 absent for a great length of time from their mindi They 
 linger around a dying companion far more curious in 
 their observation of the stages of dissolution than keenly 
 aware of the great loss that is so soon to fall on them in 
 the passing away of a friend ; they fix their eyes upon 
 his countenance with breathless emotion, and sway from 
 side to side, and moan as he passes into the last article^ 
 Of all the various individuals in the precincts of the 
 cabin, the dying person is perhaps the only one unmoved ; 
 now that the end of his life is close upon him, the fear 
 that he had felt is probably dispelled, and he sinks 
 
RELIGION. 97 
 
 into unconsciousness with pious ejaculations or with 
 profound indifference and stolidity. 
 
 There is rarely an element of sublimity, however, in 
 the deportment of the negro under these solemn cir 
 cumstances ; he does not often exhibit here a clear un 
 derstanding and a firm spirit that, recognizing the whole 
 character of the situation, with all in it that tends to ex 
 cite the greatest alarm, yet rises superior to it by the 
 force of an intrepidity that cannot be made to tremble 
 or to falter. The negro yields to the inevitable, not with 
 a philosophy that leans upon its own strength alone for 
 support, nor with that spirit which discovers in every 
 juncture the aptness and justness of the theory that 
 "whatever is, is right," or the revelation that a all things 
 work for good," but rather with a resignation that ban 
 ishes intelligence, and an apathy that does not allow one 
 ray of light to enter the soul, fft is in this mood that 
 he generally submits himself to the certain issue of the 
 last contest with death ; and he shows the same state of 
 mind whether he is struck down by a sudden accident 
 when in full health, or is to gradually decline to his last 
 sigh, under the insidious attacks of old age or disease. 
 Religion may smooth the gradations of that decline, but 
 only occasionally illuminates the last scene with the se 
 rene glow of a steady and discriminating faith. 
 
 The religious emotions that sway the blacks at their 
 funerals and revivals and in their churches, are merely a 
 physical drunkenness ; a species of excitement, indeed, 
 that resembles the effect of over-indulgence in liquor, the 
 fumes of which, rising to the brain, produce an exalta 
 tion of feeling that is expressed in vehement movements 
 of the body, ecstatic laughter, and boisterous singing. 
 It is long, however, before this agitation exhausts the 
 
98 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 physical powers. At its height, it seems to increase the 
 bodily vigor tenfold, inflaming it with the passionate en 
 ergy of madness. A negress in a religious paroxysm 
 acts as though she were endowed with superhuman 
 strength, however frail or emaciated she may be. Sev 
 eral men are required to prevent her from laying violent 
 hands on herself, and in the struggle that ensues, she will 
 toss them about very roughly. 
 
 When we seek the cause of this transport, which is ex 
 hibited in different degrees by all, we find it to be most 
 elusive. It is not grief, since those who create the great 
 est disturbance at the open grave are rarely the nearest 
 relatives or the closest friends of the deceased ; it is not 
 consciousness of depravity, for this transport is not al 
 ways attended by a confession of personal wickedness, 
 even at a revival. It does not spring from an acknowl 
 edgment of the omnipotence of God, nor from a recog 
 nition of the uncertainty of life, nor even from a vivid 
 apprehension of death. It originates in none of these 
 things wholly, and yet all, perhaps, enter into their state 
 of mind in the beginning, whether they are aware of it 
 or not ; ifter the emotion has once gained possession, it 
 carries them to such an extreme that they lose all defi 
 nite idea of the character of their own feelingsj Their 
 excitement when it reaches this point has sunk into an 
 ordinary fit of mania. Whatever its origin, it is obvious 
 that the excitement itself is opposed to true religious 
 feeling, being, in some measure, only sensual gratifica 
 tion. Their eager and susceptible natures, overcome by 
 a desire for change and amusement, have recourse to this 
 morbid and unwholesome means of arousing the emo 
 tions, which, however sombre, titillate their unrefined 
 sensibilities agreeably. The negro has an incorrect idea 
 
RELIGION. 99 
 
 of religion, not because he has been instructed wrongly, 
 when he has been instructed at all, but because no kind 
 of information that relates to his conduct makes a per 
 manent impression on his mind in opposition to his pas 
 sions and appetites. He undoubtedly grasps what may 
 be termed the picturesque parts of religion, such, for in 
 stance, as the existence, beyond the grave, of a material 
 abode for those who shall be saved, as well as for those 
 who shall be damned. In other words, he comprehends 
 clearly the hereafter as a mere prolongation of this life. 
 Few races, indeed, even if we include those as ignorant 
 and uncivilized, have such an abiding conception of a 
 spiritual future as the African, wherever found ; but, on 
 the other hand, none disconnect that future so distinctly 
 and so absolutely from all that is done on earth as its mem 
 bers do, even when they have been educated under influ 
 ences more or less refining. The religion of the planta 
 tion negro is a code of belief, and not a code of morals, 
 having no real connection with the practical side of his 
 existence, and slight bearing on the common motives of 
 his conduct. The sermons delivered in the churches of his 
 race have little reference to self-government in fundamen 
 tal moral details, both because the congregations would 
 resent any pointed reflection upon their special failings, 
 and because the average preacher himself does not com 
 prehend that there is any close relation between religion 
 and practical morality. Breathe a practical spirit into 
 the services, and these become dull and prosaic to their 
 minds at once. Within the precincts of their sacred 
 edifices they wish to hear of heaven ; they are impatient 
 of homilies which, if obeyed, would cut them off from 
 the enjoyment of all the loose pleasures that vary their 
 daily existence. As they gather under the humble roofs 
 
100 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 of their churches, they are like men and women who, 
 aware that it will not be long before they will have to set 
 out on a journey to a distant country which they have 
 never visited, but from which they will never return, are 
 anxious to be informed of its character, but without 
 clearly recognizing that there are any ties between that 
 country and their own, or that any thing that they now 
 do can prevent them from arriving in it at last. So little 
 stress, on the whole, do they lay upon practical morality, 
 that they are generally indifferent as to whether the 
 preachers, elders, and deacons of the various congrega 
 tions to which they belong are circumspect in their 
 lives or not. Of all the representative men to be found 
 among the negroes, the least estimable, in some respects, 
 are those who fill these clerical and official positions ; the 
 explanation of this being that the occupants of such 
 positions are selected not because justness of temper, 
 purity of spirit, and propriety of conduct point them out 
 as fitted to be the best exemplars of their people, but 
 because they are men of more firmness and decision of 
 character. The fact that they have these traits, instead 
 of always signifying that they are more upright and 
 honorable, frequently means that they are more unscrupu 
 lous, because less under the domination of fear, and 
 more dangerous, because more resolute in enforcing 
 their will. Unfortunately, too many are inclined to use 
 their influence and power simply to carry out their selfish 
 purposes, or to administer to their physical appetites. 
 However far or openly these may transgress every law of 
 pure conduct, it does not invariably follow that a protest 
 is raised by the members of their congregations ; no act 
 on their part, however open to condemnation, leading 
 inevitably to their deposition amid a storm of contempt, 
 
RELIGION. 10 1 
 
 disgust, or indignation. Even detection in a theft, a 
 partnership in a felony, exposure in a lewd escapade, 
 public drunkenness, are unhappily too frequently passed 
 over as leaving no ineffaceable stain upon their official 
 and personal reputations. 
 
 Entertaining an opinion as lenient as this of the bad 
 conduct of their highest spiritual officers, it may well be 
 supposed that the members of the church are not as 
 strict as they should be in judging themselves, when 
 they too fall into gross irregularities of behavior. The 
 most pious among them are too often those who are the 
 laxest in their daily lives, and the most unrestrained in 
 their ordinary deportment ; a strong religious feeling 
 being apparently consistent with the lowest instincts and 
 the most unbridled passions. The sublimest faith, be 
 cause simple and unquestioning, like the faith of a little 
 child, is found in them, associated with a profound 
 insensibility to every principle upon which religion rests, 
 and without the observance of which it is the hollowest 
 of mockeries ; indeed the religious, as distinguished 
 from the moral, sense is frequently seen to be as fully 
 developed in a negro imprisoned for murder, or arson, 
 or burglary, or even rape, as in those who are compara 
 tively blameless. A colored felon is very apt when 
 standing on the scaffold to display the intensity and 
 vividness of the religious sentiment in his heart, although 
 the dark stains of a demoniacal crime may yet linger 
 upon his hands. Not a doubt crosses his mind as to his 
 spiritual destination. Heaven, with all its transcendent 
 pleasures and glories, opens on his sight even before he 
 closes his eyes to the spectacle of that earth which would 
 be but a scene of godless anarchy if abandoned to men 
 as unrestrained and wicked as himself. And this spirit is 
 
102 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 not begotten by the enthusiasm of a sudden repentance 
 as vehement as his position is fatal ; it has always 
 lurked in the central recesses of his being, and has, no 
 doubt, been exhibited with equal violence at many 
 previous times, when his sensibilities were deeply touched 
 by wild appeals to his religious nature. 
 
 We find the same inconsistent spirit running through 
 the whole mass of the race ; a skeptic or scoffer among 
 its members would be branded as an outlaw, who would 
 be summarily dealt with if he ventured to obtrude his 
 opinions on a prominent occasion. Not even a difference 
 of political sentiment would separate a negro so quickly 
 and so far from his friends and companions as infidelity. 
 Such a state of mind, however, is wholly foreign to the 
 intellectual leaning of his people, for their turn of 
 thought is never speculative. 
 
 That the negro can be so full of religious faith at the 
 very time that his conduct is so palpably opposed to true 
 piety, is largely due to the fact that he has that extreme 
 inability to appreciate and measure the practical rela 
 tions of things that we observe in children, as well as 
 their lack of logical power. And then, too, he acts pre 
 cisely as his religion impels him, without stopping a 
 moment to inquire why he does so. It has all the force 
 of an appetite which he cannot control whether he de 
 sires to do so or not. He follows unquestionably wher 
 ever it leads, and it never relaxes its hold upon him, 
 being associated with a free indulgence of instincts that 
 are apparently in conflict with it, because it is as 
 much an instinct as these are. He does not recognize 
 that there is any relation between his various physical 
 appetites ; and his religious instinct is as disconnected 
 from his physical appetites as one of the latter is from 
 
RELIGION. IO3 
 
 the rest. It goes hand in hand with them, but rarely 
 runs counter to them ; there being no more incongruity 
 to his mind between his religious impulse and his lewd- 
 ness, for instance, than between his lewdness and his 
 hunger and thirst. Each one colors and shapes his con 
 duct according to circumstances. The result is, that his 
 conversion, as a rule, does not mean regeneration in the 
 Christian sense that is, such an alteration of character 
 as will lead him at least to try to repress his bad inclina 
 tions and passions. That is not the condition usually 
 superinduced in him ; it is only a burst of enthusiasm, 
 a temporary state of intellectual drunkenness that has 
 no practical bearing on the general spirit of his life. 
 This fact in the history of one person is illustrated on a 
 still greater scale in the history of a community, which 
 is a mere aggregation of similar individuals. A wave of 
 emotional excitement sweeps over a whole neighborhood, 
 arousing the negroes to frenzy ; there is a universal 
 wail of unhappiness, followed by a shout, as a trium 
 phant expression of eternal security through faith, and 
 yet no special change is observed in the course of the 
 community afterwards, not even in a short period imme 
 diately succeeding these revivals. 
 
 The divorce between religion and morality in the life 
 of the negro fills the observer at first with astonishment, 
 for it seems impossible that he can be both devout and 
 depraved at the same moment, but if he is suspected in 
 the beginning, of hypocrisy, that suspicion is dispelled 
 after a brief association with him. It is true that he is 
 not lacking in capacity for dissimulation, as is frequently 
 disclosed in his personal relations with the whites ; nev 
 ertheless, it is doubtful whether he could play a hypo 
 critical part for any length of time, for the reason that it 
 
104 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 is not practicable for him to carry out, with unswerving 
 steadiness of will, any purpose that requires an unremit 
 ting watch over his natural impulses and a resolute re 
 pression of them when they rise. He finds it hard, too, 
 to remain long enough in one state of mind to continue 
 to desire to realize even the wishes that can be accom 
 plished at one stroke, much less those that are de 
 pendent for success upon an extended and intricate 
 course of action. For these reasons, as well as because 
 his temperament is innately devotional, he cannot be 
 charged with religious cant and pretense, however im 
 moral or criminal he may be. 
 
 At the very time that he overlooks the union of immo 
 rality of conduct with holiness of thought in himself, it 
 is- probable that his conscience would condemn him 
 severely, if he were to take part in any kind of amuse 
 ment. Some devout individuals of his race, for instance, 
 regard mere secular pleasures, such as singing and 
 dancing, as far more serious offenses against the Chris 
 tian spirit than larceny or unchastity. They would pre 
 fer, as members of the Church, to be caught in the act of 
 pilfering rather than in a performance on the fiddle or in 
 a breakdown ; and would rather be exposed as guilty of 
 adultery, than to have their allegiance to mere religious 
 canons questioned. This is simply the outgrowth of the 
 fact, to which allusion has already been made, that the 
 essential and fundamental principles of religion amount 
 only, with the plantation negroes, to a system of belief. 
 As long as they shall adhere to that system as firmly and 
 honestly as they now do, it will be impossible to charge 
 them with hypocrisy. This stickling for the hollow 
 rules of religion seems strange, when all its practical 
 lessons are ignored ; but the mere anxiety which they dis- 
 
RELIGION. 105 
 
 play, in sustaining these rules, is a proof at once of their 
 sincerity and their obtuseness. 
 
 Owing to the passionate and emotional bent of their 
 natures, the negroes have never been in sympathy with 
 the Episcopal church, even when their moral and mental 
 characters have been more or less refined. The restric 
 tion of its services to a certain set form, and its steady 
 discouragement of all vehement expression of the feel 
 ings, strip religion, according to their view, of every 
 thing that makes it vital and realistic ; its essence 
 evaporating because that spirit which exalts the wor 
 shippers with ecstasy, and fills them with uncontrollable 
 enthusiasm, has no room for display. It is this desire 
 to give full rein to all the promptings of their religious 
 fervor that causes the system of government that dis 
 tinguishes the Baptist denomination to be considered 
 with so much favor by the individuals of the race ; and 
 with this church, in consequence, the great majority are 
 connected. Its ceremony of immersion particularly is 
 full of meaning to their minds ; the vast crowd, swaying, 
 shouting, and gesticulating, the strange and picturesque 
 local details of the vicinity, the canopy of sky and cloud 
 overhead, the late hour, the emotional rites, all tending 
 to impress the occasion upon which they are received 
 into the bosom of that church most deeply on their 
 minds. The moment from which their souls are made 
 safe from damnation is thus distinctly marked in time, 
 their admission to the fold being celebrated with a 
 tumultuous display, worthy of such a supreme event in 
 their lives. To whatever religious denomination the 
 blacks may claim to belong, however, they always breathe 
 their peculiar emotional temper into its sacred observ 
 ances. Most frequently they are only nominally mem- 
 
IC>6 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 bers of a church organization, so inclined are they to act 
 upon their own devotional impulses in defiance of definite 
 customs and conventionalities of every kind. It is largely 
 owing to this dislike of restraint that they show such an 
 unmistakable desire and determination to worship alone 
 to themselves. In all of the churches of the white peo 
 ple before the late war there were galleries set apart 
 exclusively for such of the slaves as wished to attend the 
 services, and these galleries used to be well filled every 
 Sunday, but that is not the case now. A stranger enter 
 ing one of these churches as they are to-day perceives at 
 once that the room allowed for the accommodation of 
 the worshippers is too great for the number of people 
 present. The explanation of this is that the section of 
 the floor which is reserved for the negroes is always 
 vacant. Why do they stay away ? It is not on account 
 of the attitude of the white people toward them, for both 
 clergymen and congregations would be pleased for them 
 to come, and would put themselves to much trouble to 
 induce them to do so, if any step that could be taken 
 with that view would avail. The reason is to be found 
 elsewhere. In the first place, the blacks absent them 
 selves because their confinement to special benches re 
 minds them of their social inferiority and subordination. 
 It recalls too the days of slavery, and they are impatient 
 of every thing that does so. In addition to this, the 
 average white clergyman speaks above the level of their 
 intelligence, or deals with the sacred themes in a way 
 not congenial to their temperaments. Above all, and 
 this is explanation enough in itself, they do not feel 
 at ease there, and cannot conduct themselves as their 
 emotions impel them. These churches are a part of the 
 social organization of the whites, and are almost as 
 
RELIGlOti. 107 
 
 closely associated with their lives as their nurseries, 
 chambers, and drawing-rooms. The negroes know that 
 they are as much shut out of this social circle as if they 
 were still slaves, and they shrink away from it instinct 
 ively in consequence. In their own churches they can 
 act as their feelings prompt them to act, conscious all 
 the while that they are not scrutinized by critical or laugh 
 ing eyes. There they can allow both bodies and souls to 
 run riot. Does the power of the religious spirit cause 
 them to spring involuntarily to their feet and shout in an 
 ecstasy ? Then, they are sure of the pity, sympathy, 
 and admiration of all in earshot. The old hymns that 
 console or elate them so much are sung by the white 
 people to various and difficult tunes. The negroes, on 
 the other hand, roll these hymns from their breasts to 
 one simple metre which is full of the emphatic fervor of 
 their ardent emotions. It is this portion of the services 
 that touches their sensibilities most keenly. They look 
 upon themselves as having so little part in the churches 
 of their employers, and they feel so little interest in the 
 services there, that even when it is their duty to drive the 
 families of the planters thither on Sunday, they rarely 
 enter, preferring to remain outside instead, and gossip 
 until the congregations reappear. The overtures which 
 the white clergymen make to the blacks are met coldly 
 and reluctantly, if these overtures are with the view to 
 the formation of any continuous and permanent religious 
 association with them. 1 They are not unwilling, how 
 ever, to hear sermons from such clergymen occasionally, 
 if the latter are careful to preach at an hour when they 
 will not interfere with the services of the colored pastors, 
 who are very jealous of their prerogative. Perfect de- 
 1 That is, as their pastors. 
 
108 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 corum distinguishes an audience gathered together under 
 these circumstances. Only a few hours before, it is 
 probable that its members had been in a state of tumul 
 tuous religious excitement, but now they listen quietly 
 and attentively. Each man and woman feel that they 
 must bear themselves in the presence of a white person 
 of consideration with proper reserve, if they wish to 
 retain his respect, and they are as anxious to do so as so 
 many children put upon their good behavior by the 
 promise of a reward. The clergyman, however, avoids 
 playing too long upon their emotions, and he knows at 
 once that he is doing so if the old men in the congrega 
 tion begin faintly to groan and the women to sway from 
 side to side on the benches. 
 
 In consequence of the disposition of the negroes to 
 withdraw to themselves in their religious worship, we 
 find that their church organizations reflect their social as 
 well as their religious spirit. With them, indeed, the 
 church is as much a social as a religious institution. It 
 is especially remarkable as being the only form of 
 organization that the blacks have been able to sustain 
 with a steady and unchanging concurrence of mind, for 
 it is in the one matter of co-operation that they have 
 always shown in their general affairs the greatest element 
 of weakness, being unable, usually, to work soberly and 
 persistently together for a common object. This same 
 weakness would, no doubt, be displayed in the church 
 organization if its purposes were wholly practical but 
 these purposes are mixed, such as are practical being 
 subordinate to pleasure and religion. As a mere institu 
 tion, however, it undoubtedly gives head to the various 
 inclinations of the negroes, infusing all the vigor of a co 
 operative body, large in numbers and united by the 
 
RELIGION. 109 
 
 closest sympathies, into their ordinary social and political 
 tendencies. 
 
 The church, as an organization, is growing in strength 
 and popularity with the members of the race. One evi 
 dence of this is the fact that even the congregations in 
 the most remote and barren regions are being more and 
 more supplied with preachers who are supported wholly 
 by the contributions of their charges, thus relieving them 
 of the necessity of manual labor. The educated minister 
 is thrusting the uneducated from his pulpit, but his in 
 fluence, on the whole, has not been more beneficial than 
 that of the old-fashioned plantation preacher, who, how 
 ever far he may depart from the path of a pure and up 
 right life, is, at least, a firm and fervent believer in the 
 truth of religion. Nor is he contemptible as a mere 
 orator. Gifted with remarkable fluency, he can often 
 run with true oratorical skill over the whole gamut of 
 emotions. He speaks very frequently with such genuine 
 power that the ungrammatical language in which his 
 sermons are couched is forgotten. There is at times, 
 too, a striking aptness and picturesqueness of illustra 
 tion in his speech, a use of racy similes and metaphors 
 drawn from his observation of the fields and forests, and 
 its manifold and ever changing forms of life, or from his 
 personal experience in those lowly walks of existence in 
 which all of his days have run. 
 
 The educated preacher, on the other hand, is fre 
 quently so ambitious and artificial in his style that he is 
 unintelligible both to himself and his audience. Having 
 a smattering of theology, he -is disposed to be learned, 
 dogmatic, and pompous in his discourse, confining him 
 self to knotty and abstruse doctrines that do not relate 
 to practical life ; and in consequence he communicates to 
 
IIO THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 the members of his congregation little of that enthusiasm 
 which, under the old ministrations, would spread like a 
 rapid contagion among them, throwing them into a state 
 of uncontrollable excitement on the smallest provocation. 
 The influence of the average preacher of the new school 
 is not as useful in personal intercourse as it might be. 
 The little knowledge that he has acquired has probably 
 puffed him up very much in his bearing without 
 strengthening his principles, and the inflation of his 
 egotism has perhaps only deepened his selfishness. The 
 cultivation of his mind, in making him more keen-witted, 
 has not necessarily made him more scrupulous and con 
 scientious. His power over the individuals of his race 
 is supreme, and it is too often exercised to his own per 
 sonal advantage, both in a social and political way. In 
 him, too, we discover the first trace of religious hypocrisy 
 in the negro. 
 
 With such men as these at the head of their churches, 
 men remarkable, at the best, for comparative ignorance 
 and, at the worst, for the grossest corruption of spirit, 
 it is impossible for the religious associations of the 
 blacks, as constituted at present, to subserve with much 
 success the purpose of improving their moral tendencies. 
 The character of such men is just now but a reflection of 
 the character of the associations themselves. Even the 
 good that the latter accomplish is so largely mixed with 
 evil that there can be little doubt that the negroes of most 
 communities would be in a better condition if they had 
 no separate churches of their own at all. 
 
VIII. 
 
 SUPERSTITION. 
 
 THERE is no peculiarity of the negro that is more 
 marked in its influence on his conduct than his supersti- 
 tiousness, and in the individual of no other race is the 
 same trait more fully developed. It has its origin in the 
 obtuseness and narrowness of his intellect and the alert 
 ness and gloominess .of his imagination. Like a child, 
 he dwells as much in a visionary world as in the material 
 world ; he is constantly passing in thought the debatable 
 ground that divides the natural from the supernatural, 
 and he is unconscious of the stage of transition, for his 
 spirit moves with as much freedom in the domain of the 
 one as in that of the other. His perceptions seem to be 
 as much unobstructed there as here, and his foothold as 
 sure and unhesitating. There is, however, no touch of 
 poetry, or element of tenderness or benignity in the gen 
 eral character of this superstitiousness ; the forces which 
 it calls into play are callous and sinister ; all cheerful 
 ness is banished from the atmosphere in which it flour 
 ishes, and only malice, hatred, mischief, and calamity 
 remain. As in the instance of his religion, the native 
 sunniness of his disposition does not irradiate this atmos 
 phere with its own light ; his mind, as soon as it enters 
 it, becomes at once dejected, or is darkened by the 
 gravest apprehensions. The vivid gayety of his ordinary 
 temper causes the reaction from joy to terror to be the 
 
112 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 more extreme, his susceptibility to the one emotion being 
 attended by an equal susceptibility to the other, although 
 at the opposite pole. Every aspect of that world, which 
 is material only in his morbid fancy, is calculated to awe, 
 frighten, and repel him ; and, in consequence, he lives at 
 a greater tension in this insubstantial sphere of existence 
 than he does in the substantial even ; indeed, the con 
 ception which he has of this unreal world is much more 
 distinct than that which he has of the real, because it 
 only appeals to him through emotions which make the 
 deepest impression on his mind. His superstition, in 
 fact, is so dense that it would be more correct to say that 
 he does not distinguish this incorporeal sphere at all 
 from that in which he breathes and moves. His thoughts 
 revert to it so frequently that it is surprising that it does 
 not destroy his happiness completely ; and it would cer 
 tainly do so but for the characteristic inability of the 
 negro to retain any one notion or feeling continuously 
 enough to influence his conduct permanently. 
 
 Spirits enter more largely into the superstition of the 
 negro than any other figment of the imagination ; he has 
 comparatively few of those isolated fancies that consti 
 tute a disconnected system of belief with many less 
 credulous peoples. His superstition, on the contrary, 
 has an overshadowing personal element in it, and of an 
 evil bent" ; perhaps because on his native continent it was 
 man whom he had most reason to fear, and therefore it 
 was man of whom he stood in most dread. He came 
 finally to regard the spirit dislodged from the body with 
 the same emotions. His conviction as to the existence 
 of this spirit after death cannot be shaken, and to his 
 disordered view it is constantly assuming a visible shape, 
 but rarely, if ever, that form of flesh and blood which it 
 
SUPERS TITION. 1 1 3 
 
 once inhabited. This shape is shadowy and grisly, and 
 always aggressive. The ghosts of his nearest and most 
 amiable friends seem to raise as much alarm in his breast 
 as the spectres of his most violent and resolute enemies. 
 When animals reappear in these visions, they are pre 
 sented, as a rule, as they were in life, for he has not the 
 same vivid conception of the spirit of a horse, dog, or ox 
 that he has of the spirit of one of his own species. It is 
 remarkable that, although he believes so firmly in ghosts, 
 and associates them with the most prominent spots in his 
 vicinity, yet this does not always prevent him from wan 
 dering even at the darkest hour, amid scenes that he has 
 often asserted to be haunted. It is probable that he will 
 avoid a graveyard after sunset, but he will, perhaps, do 
 so for the reason that might influence a white man, 
 namely, the thoughts which it suggests are dismal or un 
 canny ; and yet he will often enter a deep wood or cross 
 a lonely field in the midst of the forest, while hardly a 
 ray from the dim stars in a moonless sky penetrates an 
 occasional opening in the black clouds overhead. He 
 will frequently walk many miles after nightfall to idle 
 away a few hours at the plantation store ; and after re 
 lating many tales of his own encounters with spectres at 
 various periods in his life, will return to his distant cabin 
 along a path that runs over hill and down valley, with a 
 dense growth of trees and shrubs on either side, in appar 
 ent indifference to the dangers that are supposed to beset 
 his way. And if he has an amorous tryst to keep with 
 some local Venus, he will defy a legion of the ghosts of 
 his deceased acquaintances in order to be punctual to 
 the hour appointed. 
 
 It is the spirit that he cannot see rather than the one 
 that he can see that impresses itself most deeply on his 
 
114 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAtf. 
 
 imagination. He can roughly measure the ability of 
 ghost to harm him, as well as anticipate with more or 
 less exactness the manner in which it will strike, and the 
 moment at which it will, but both the presence and the 
 intentions of a spirit that never makes itself visible are 
 all the more terrible because not precisely known or 
 knowable. As a modification of this, the negro dreads 
 the malevolence of persons whom he believes to be 
 endowed with supernatural power, and who, therefore, 
 stand upon the footing of a spirit, whether visible or 
 invisible. Here, again, the personal element in his 
 superstition is apparent. That original fear which he 
 had of man, as having the physical strength as well as 
 the desire to inflict injury, which also entered into his 
 view of the spirit after death, he still entertains of cer 
 tain men as gifted not with physical vigor, for that is 
 now unimportant, but with a subtle and occult skill that 
 has no reflection in nature. In other words, he is con 
 vinced that there are individuals who can carry out by 
 supernatural means various schemes of mischief or ruin 
 without the possibility of being thwarted. He has an 
 unquestioning faith in the art of witchcraft, a form of 
 superstition that prevails universally among his fellows, 
 overshadowing every other, and differing very little in 
 character and exhibition from the variety of superstition 
 that flourishes on the west coast of Africa to-day among 
 the descendants of ancestors who are common to the 
 American negro also. His retention of this superstition 
 after the lapse of such a great length of time, passed in 
 the midst of different local surroundings and amid the 
 most modifying influences, is one of the strongest proofs 
 of the inherent tenacity of the fundamental qualities of 
 his race. Plantation negroes, in a convenient distance 
 
SUPERSTITION. 1 1 5 
 
 of churches, schools, and railroads, are found to have as 
 firm a belief in witchcraft as those savages of the African 
 bush who file their teeth, perforate the cartilage of their 
 noses, and expose their bodies without a strip of clothing. 
 They do not offer up bloody sacrifices as they do in 
 Hayti ; they have not adopted any ceremonial like that 
 of the Voodoo, but the spirit of their superstition is 
 nevertheless the same as that of the West Indian and 
 Congo blacks, and from its vigor and intensity it is not 
 improbable that if they were abandoned to themselves it 
 would in time be displayed in rites similar to those ob 
 served in Guinea and the Haytian Republic. There are 
 communities of negroes in the tobacco belt of Virginia 
 to-day that so far resemble an African tribe as to have a 
 professional trick doctor, a man whose only employment, 
 and therefore whose only means of earning his living, lies 
 in the practice of the art of witchcraft, but it is probable 
 that he is an unconscious empiric as a rule. 1 Like all 
 the influential men of his race, he is apt to be an indi 
 vidual of unusual force of will and decision of purpose, 
 and enjoying as such a certain power irrespective of his 
 representative character ; clothed with the additional 
 dignity of such a character, his authority meets with no 
 opposition except from those who are playing the same 
 part. 
 
 A trick doctor is invested with even more importance 
 than a preacher, since he is regarded with the respect 
 that fear excites, and not unnaturally, for while he is as 
 impartial as an ordinary physician, his art is often em 
 ployed to inflict injury. This imparts a terrific aspect 
 
 1 The trick doctor does not generally remain long in any one 
 community, but passes from neighborhood to neighborhood in the 
 pursuit of his profession. 
 
Il6 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 to his character, a fact of which he is keenly aware, for 
 he is observed to be eager to turn the position which he 
 occupies to his own advantage and profit. It is doubtful, 
 indeed, whether a negro could follow a more lucrative 
 pursuit. The members of his race, being very extrava 
 gant, are ready to lavish all that they have to attain an 
 end, especially if it relates to the gratification of their 
 evil passions. It is frequently in connection with these 
 that they seek the aid of such a pretender ; and he does 
 not respond to their requests unless he is remunerated 
 for his services. The profession is not broken down by 
 competition, because it is rare that a negro has the bold 
 ness to adopt it, so much in awe of witchcraft do the 
 blacks stand, and so anxiously do they shrink from med 
 dling with what is so occult and dangerous. The daily 
 conduct of a trick doctor, even when not engaged in the 
 work of his profession, is more or less secretive and re 
 tiring ; he does not associate as unreservedly with his 
 fellows as he would do if he made no claim to such mys 
 terious skill ; on the contrary, he is inclined to withdraw 
 from the crowd, and in doing so, to surround himself 
 with every thing that is likely to impress the imagination 
 of his dupes. His intercourse with mere individuals is 
 constant, but it is almost wholly in a professional way. 
 The fact that he is indisposed to enter into that free 
 intercourse which prevails among the individuals of his 
 race is due not only to his wish to sustain his prestige, 
 but very probably also to his consciousness that the part 
 he is playing is one of such dignity that he should be 
 careful not to lower it by too much familiarity. 
 
 The trick doctor is simply a man who employs the arts 
 of the Obeah practitioners together with the arts of the 
 Myal. In the West Indies, as well as in Africa, these 
 
SUPERSTITION. 1 1/ 
 
 two sects are broadly distinguished from each other, one 
 aim of the Myal being to combat the designs of the fol 
 lowers of Obeah, whose usual purpose is to inflict and 
 revenge injuries. The priests of Myalism also hold them 
 selves out as medicine men. A plantation trick doctor 
 pretends to these various powers, and in his ordinary 
 practice, acts as if he possessed them all. Thus, for 
 instance, he is sought by negroes who wish a spell to be 
 cast upon those who have aroused their vindictive feel 
 ings ; and he complies with the request by transferring 
 an article of a trivial nature either inside or to the im 
 mediate vicinity of the cabins of the victims, who recog 
 nize the medium of the art at once, from their intimate 
 knowledge of the sort of material that is always used. 
 
 Again, when a negro is convinced that he has been 
 tricked, but not by a plantation doctor, his impulse is 
 to obtain the assistance of the latter if at hand, and his 
 fear is only removed when a counteracting influence has 
 been brought to bear. And still more often too, when 
 individuals of his race are sick, believing that their ill 
 ness is due to a similar cause, although that illness is 
 exhibited in a perfectly natural way, and its origin is 
 obvious and palpable, they will call in a trick doctor, in 
 preference to the regular practitioner of the neighbor 
 hood, and in consequence, they often die under his care, 
 as no proper means are adopted to arrest the progress of 
 the disease. On the other hand, there are cases of sick 
 ness among them, that are more readily treated by a 
 trick doctor than by a licensed physician, for what is 
 needed is a soothing stimulant for the mind and not the 
 administration of a dose to the body. The cures that 
 he will effect in instances of this kind seem almost 
 miraculous, the process of recuperation being so rapid 
 
Il8 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 as to be inexplicable but for the fact that the disease is 
 not physical but mental. The influence of the trick 
 doctor is sustained without any loss of prestige, owing 
 to the susceptibility of the mind of the individual negro 
 to these strange impressions as well as its responsiveness 
 to the remedy. Let the latter be convinced that he is 
 bewitched, and he will sink at once into despondency ; 
 his figure droops, his face becomes clouded and sad, 
 while his general health declines ; from the condition of 
 a vigorous man, animated by the liveliest and most 
 buoyant spirits, he passes into an unwholesome melan 
 choly, which, preying upon his vitality soon reduces him 
 to a state of prostration. Occasionally, however, this 
 despair inflames rather than saps his physical energies ; 
 he is like one attacked by madness, acting as wildly as if 
 he had not only been deprived of his wits but was pos 
 sessed of a devil. He falls into paroxysms of anger al 
 ternating with fits of fear ; even in intervals of compara 
 tive peace of mind, he cannot remain quiet owing to the 
 disturbing character of his thoughts. 
 
 The phenomenon of his restoration to health is almost 
 as remarkable. His first anticipation that he can be 
 cured, causes a sudden revulsion of joy as soon as it is 
 realized, and as the stages of recuperation advance to 
 wards a complete recovery, confidence takes the place 
 of doubt and anxiety ; the expression of his countenance 
 changes from sorrow to happiness ; his form becomes 
 erect once more ; his old manner is resumed ; he min 
 gles freely and cordially with his friends and acquain 
 tances ; and the whole of the severe episode through 
 which he has recently passed, is apparently forgotten. 
 
 A neighborhood in which a trick doctor may happen 
 to be, is sometimes thrown into a state of general turmoil 
 
SUPERSTITION. 1 19 
 
 by his presence ; it then resembles a community of per 
 sonal enemies whose hands strike at each other either 
 directly, or through the medium of his supposed power. 
 He acts as a secret agent for gratifying all the animosi 
 ties that find lodgment in their breasts, thus allowing 
 them to reek their ill-feelings with absolute immunity. 
 It is one of the most remarkable traits of the negroes 
 that they have no compunction about inflicting injury 
 when they can do so slyly, and safely ; the presence of a 
 trick doctor affords them an ample opportunity for the 
 display of this characteristic, for witchcraft is as furtive 
 a means of doing harm as poison or the torch. All their 
 evil passions seem to be aroused in these periods of 
 occasional excitement. There is a notable increase of 
 quarrelling and wrangling among them ; emotions of 
 hatred and revenge are stimulated ; ominous threats and 
 deep imprecations fill the air ; the whole atmosphere is 
 alive with anger and terror. Many individuals of both 
 sexes are either bent upon damaging or destroying, or 
 they are on the alert to detect evidences that they 
 themselves are falling victims to those sinister influences 
 that they are ready to employ against others without 
 hesitation, but which they dread so much when directed 
 against themselves. They discover signs on every side 
 that portend extreme calamity to them ; the smallest 
 and most insignificant objects are invested with a pro 
 found meaning ; things weak and trivial in themselves 
 are symbols of a power as diffusive as the universe and 
 as unscrupulous as hell ; the world that moves so orderly 
 in its grooves has apparently fallen into the hands of 
 malignant forces ; the very sky itself is* darkened with 
 a cloud of evil ; all nature has succumbed to malicious 
 spirits. 
 
120 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 There have been occasions when so much agitation 
 has been thus aroused in large communities of negroes 
 in southern Virginia, that it has been necessary for the 
 owners of the land to compel the trick doctor to leave, 
 for the tendency of this agitation is to disorder labor, as 
 well as to disorganize the society of the race. There is 
 no better proof of how high this excitement runs, and 
 how supreme its influence over the mind and conduct of 
 the individual is, than the fact that it is openly revealed 
 to the whites. Of all their peculiarities of which they 
 are aware, the negroes are most ashamed of their super 
 stition, and yet it is so deeply implanted in their natures, 
 and it has been so much fostered by their lives as freed- 
 men, and their withdrawal from close contact with white 
 people, that when it is inflamed by circumstances they 
 cannot resist its promptings. They yield to these 
 promptings with as much self-abandonment as to their 
 religious emotions, and while in the power of the spell 
 they will disclose their terror to white persons, to whom 
 in moments of ordinary calmness they would be slow to 
 acknowledge even that they believed in witchcraft, or, if 
 they did so, would premise the confession with the state 
 ment that black people were subject to different natural 
 laws from white, and that they should not be judged by 
 the same rules. This superstition is generally kept pro 
 foundly secret from all save individuals of their own race. 
 Having its origin in darkness it continues to lurk in 
 darkness until one of those periods of agitation occurs, 
 when every restraint is thrown off, owing to the force of" 
 the prevailing consternation ; each negro will then dis 
 close with the ingenuousness of a passion the fear and 
 anxiety that burden his heart and mind. There is 
 something very strange and weird in the character of 
 
SUPERSTITION. 121 
 
 the negro s excitement under these circumstances. The 
 unquestionable strength of his feeling, the sincerity, 
 directness, and absoluteness of his faith, the vehement 
 and tumultuous emotion that rocks his breast, the un 
 fathomable ignorance, the impenetrable darkness that 
 envelops his intellect, all serve to sink what is merely 
 ludicrous and laughable in his condition wholly out of 
 sight and thought. 
 
 The negroes, however, do not believe that the power 
 of casting a spell is confined to a trick doctor ; on the 
 contrary they attribute this power to many individuals 
 who are supposed to use the arts of witchcraft not for the 
 purpose of earning a livelihood, but simply as a means of 
 gratifying feelings of enmity. It is doubtful whether a 
 violent contention ever arises between members of the 
 race, that the party or parties on one side or the other are 
 not convinced in the sequel that an evil charm has been 
 laid on him or them, either through the intervention of 
 a trick doctor, or directly by the malevolence of the 
 person or persons engaged on the opposite side in the 
 wrangle. This is very notable in the squabbles of the 
 women, who are peculiarly bitter and rancorous when 
 aroused. Overflowing with acrimony themselves, and 
 conscious that they would not hesitate to employ any 
 physical means of inflicting injury in their reach, they 
 are always suspicious that their enemies have turned the 
 black art against them in the same spirit that they them 
 selves have sought to turn that art against their enemies. 
 No sudden death ever occurs in a community of blacks 
 that is not ascribed by many, and in some instances by 
 all, to witchcraft that has been brought to bear by some 
 secret foe. A young girl in sound health is unaccount 
 ably attacked by a violent disease, and quickly dies ; the 
 
122 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 awed whisper passes around that she was tricked by an 
 unfavored lover. A man in his hearty prime is stricken 
 down, and passes swiftly away ; if he has recently been 
 engaged in a quarrel, it will be said under the breath 
 that this was the work of his adversary. The panic 
 which such an incident will often create among them is 
 indescribable ; a far deeper feeling being thus called into 
 existence than a suspicion of poisoning would excite 
 among the whites in any similar instance of a mysterious 
 death among themselves. The art of witchcraft, the 
 negroes argue, may be directed at any moment against 
 them, and from what quarter it will strike, in what man 
 ner, and at what time, they do not know, but this very 
 uncertainty increases the terrors of their position by 
 veiling its dangers. 
 
 It is strange that the sensitiveness of the race to anxi 
 ety and alarm on this score does not have the effect of 
 discouraging altercations among its members. The fact 
 that it does not shows how far they are swayed by tran 
 sient emotions and passions, which they never check at 
 the moment because then oblivious of every thing beside. 
 They do not look forward to the possible consequences 
 of yielding to such emotions and passions ; not seeming 
 to anticipate at the instant that, in arousing anger in the 
 breasts of the persons with whom they are contending, 
 or even fighting, they may be laying up for themselves a 
 store of future unhappiness through the application to 
 themselves of those evil arts which their enemies can ex 
 ercise directly, or through the agency of a trick doctor. 
 Under certain circumstances, this fear of being tricked 
 does exert a powerful influence on the conduct, of many, 
 whose real feeling would otherwise lead them in another 
 direction ; as, for instance, in the case of a crime com- 
 
SUPERS TITION. 1 2$ 
 
 mitted by one of the blacks against the whites. The 
 unwillingness of the great majority of the negroes who 
 are directly cognizant of such a crime, to aid zealously 
 and actively in the arrest of the felon, if left to their 
 own promptings, is due undoubtedly to the spirit of race, 
 which causes their sympathies to be fully enlisted on his 
 side ; but then there are many disposed to act differently, 
 who are prevented from doing so by apprehension lest 
 they may become the victims of witchcraft should they 
 dare to take a position in opposition to the mass of their 
 friends, companions, and acquaintances. Their lips in 
 many other situations are sealed where otherwise they 
 would speak out promptly and boldly, and their bearing 
 constrained where if they were removed from such in 
 fluences their action would be wholly unreserved. As 
 it is, they are like men and women who have been placed 
 under a ban of secrecy and silence by an authority that 
 they can neither question nor resist. 
 
 There does not seem to be any form of superstition 
 among the blacks that resembles Myalism, except to the 
 extent of that peculiarity which has been mentioned as 
 belonging to it, namely, the association of witchcraft 
 with the healing art. But Myalism, in its broadest mani 
 festations, is never exhibited. Although there are times 
 when a large circle of negroes believe that the spirit of 
 evil is abroad, let loose by the machination of those who 
 are full of hatred and vindictiveness towards their fellows, 
 yet no impulse is ever shown to exorcise this spirit by 
 resorting to a counteracting power. This was the 
 benigner element of the West Indian superstition. A 
 Myalist outbreak meant the repression of the malignant 
 influences of Obeah through the operation of a variety 
 of witchcraft inimical to it ; the atmosphere was temper- 
 
124 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 arily cleared by the destruction of all the work of the 
 Obimen, and peace and good-will substituted for malice 
 and confusion. A community of plantation negroes, on 
 the other hand, seem to be ignorant of any means, on a 
 great scale, of opposing the pervasive spirit of malevolent 
 witchcraft. They stand in terror of each other, and 
 though keenly frightened by the thought that they are 
 surrounded by evil, yet have no scheme for removing it 
 by a force commensurate with that which created it. 
 
 The faith of the negroes in witchcraft has increased 
 since emancipation, as they have been entirely at liberty 
 to follow their natural inclinations. Whenever they are 
 free to follow such inclinations, the tendency of these is 
 always to grow in vigor and intensity. Even when 
 slaves, the blacks had their witch doctors, but the latter 
 were careful to conceal their true character. At the 
 present day a trick doctor openly pursues his profession, 
 relying upon it for a livelihood ; he is only interfered 
 with, and that comparatively rarely, by planters, who, 
 impatient of the confusion that he creates among the 
 negroes in their employment, threaten the law, or order 
 him to depart from their estates. The general upshot of 
 this is that he restricts his practice to the hours of dark 
 ness, at which time, if it is necessary, he can safely visit 
 any plantation in his vicinity. The most probable dan 
 ger now to be expected in connection with a trick doc 
 tor is that he will use drugs to consummate his predic 
 tions as to his influence over a selected victim. The 
 poisoning of animals is growing to be a more common 
 crime among the blacks as a means of revenge against 
 such of their employers as have given them offense ; the 
 poisoning of individuals, also, occurs for the same reason. 
 To a certain extent, however, the faith which they have 
 

 in witchcraft discourages the commission of this crime 
 among themselves, for they consider a trick doctor fully 
 competent to act as their agent in gratifying their vin 
 dictive feelings. 
 
 The increased importance of witchcraft has raised the 
 dignity of the trick doctor, and he is not disposed to be 
 over scrupulous either in impressing his dupes with his 
 power or in satisfying their demands. Cases of poison 
 ing have already been traced to this source, and there is 
 ground for believing that the future will annually aug 
 ment the number. How many really occur now, it is 
 difficult to say, as the deaths of the negroes, however 
 sudden or suspicious, rarely lead to investigation ; many 
 die without the attendance of a physician, who might 
 make a report, and thus the cause of their decease is 
 only a matter of rumor. An impostor of this kind would 
 not hesitate to commit any crime, if it could be done 
 silently and furtively. In this, he resembles only too many 
 of his race, who shrink from inflicting injuries openly and 
 boldly, but are not loth to harm in an underhand way, as 
 they are less likely thus to put their safety in jeopardy. 1 
 
 1 To show that the trick doctors are not confined to the remote 
 rural districts, it may be mentioned that the number of Voodoo im 
 postors practising their profession among the negroes of New 
 Orleans the tenth city in size in the Union and the second in the 
 South was found to be so great in the month of July, 1886, as to 
 compel the Board of Health to interfere with a view to their sup 
 pression. 
 
IX. 
 
 GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS MORAL. 
 
 THE most remarkable feature of the general moral 
 disposition of the blacks is the almost phenomenal de 
 velopment of the characteristics of the type as compared 
 with the development of the characteristics of the mere 
 individual; in other words, as members of one of the 
 great families of mankind, they have the most pronounced 
 traits as a race to distinguish them from all other races, 
 but few peculiarities of their own as men to distinguish 
 them sharply from each other. We can say this of them 
 with far more truth than of any other people who have 
 been brought under influences as varied and stringent 
 as those to which they have been subjected. Their 
 original spirit as a race has not been radically modified 
 by transplantation to the American continent, the vigor 
 and tenacity of their fundamental qualities having only 
 grown more clearly perceptible with the progress of 
 time, these fundamental qualities appearing to be in 
 capable of alteration, however favorable circumstances 
 may be to it. There are certain infirmities which 
 characterize the race which, in this age at least, are as 
 fully shared by the negro who has had every advan 
 tage of discipline and instruction as by one who has 
 received no such training at all. Both are unable to 
 resist the solicitations of their physical instincts, both 
 are more or less superstitious, both live wholly in the 
 
 126 
 
MORAL CHARACTERISTICS. I2/ 
 
 present, both show the same turbulent spirit when their 
 vanity is inflated, the same lack of fortitude in danger, 
 the same want of the power of concentrating their facul 
 ties in the form of continuous attention or resolution, 
 the same respect for unscrupulous force, the same abject 
 submissiveness when overawed, the same indifference to 
 suffering in animals, the same callousness associated 
 with amiability, the same harshness and tyranny when 
 in the possession of power, the same insensibility to 
 whatever is elevated in life and beautiful in the universe. 
 In short, we find precisely the same weaknesses in the 
 delegate who sits in the legislature, the teacher who 
 has been graduated from college, the preacher who has 
 studied the Bible, the house-servant who passes most 
 of his time in the society of respectable white people, 
 the land-owner who superintends his own hands, the 
 artisan who works in his own shop, the foreman who 
 holds the position of highest authority in the fields, the 
 common laborer who toils from morning until night 
 with his hoe or spade, the inhabitant of the pine 
 barrens who goes about in rags and can with diffi 
 culty keep from starving, in all these, the qualities 
 of their race are so strongly and equally developed, 
 that the difference between the mechanic and the 
 teacher, the laborer and the legislator, is one of phys 
 ical stature or shade in the color of their respective 
 skins rather than of natural temperament ; there is prac 
 tically little if any difference in their moral dispositions. 
 The ditcher only lacks an equal amount of knowledge 
 to be as good an instructor as the teacher ; the plowman 
 would be just as competent a representative as the legis 
 lator. Artisan and field-hand, land-owner and preacher 
 disclose similar characteristics as soon as they are 
 
128 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 brought under the same influences ; and this is true of 
 the blacks in every business and profession which they 
 follow ; the force of identical circumstances develops in 
 all the same traits which probably up to that time had 
 been lying dormant. So equally, indeed, do they share 
 the fundamental characteristics of their race, and so 
 powerful are these characteristics, that it is not making 
 too broad a statement to say that all negroes, with very 
 few exceptions in proportion to the great mass, will act 
 exactly in the same way in the same situation, and will 
 display precisely the same qualities. If their situations 
 are identical, then they are all as one person ; but if their 
 situations differ, then they are unlike, too, to the extent 
 of the difference in the influences of their respective 
 situations. Indeed, whatever diversity of spirit is ob 
 served among the blacks is not so much in kind as in de 
 gree ; for instance, one is more genial than another, or 
 more impulsive or more improvident, or more thought 
 less, or more timid, or more sensual, but it is quite rare 
 that a negro is distinguished for the opposite of any one 
 of these qualities, even in a moderate state of develop 
 ment. They have the same underlying characteristics, 
 but not to the same extent ; the root, if not the full 
 flower of the same traits, however, is found in all. These 
 traits are so vigorous and deep-seated, and, on the whole, 
 so little receptive to influences that seem calculated to 
 modify them, that the general disposition of the indi 
 vidual and the race can be studied with as much latitude 
 and with as much thoroughness in a small as in a large 
 community, or in one locality as in a whole common 
 wealth, or extensive region unconfmed by State lines. 
 
 Slavery, by reducing the negroes to the same social 
 condition, undoubtedly did much to dwarf the growth 
 
MORAL CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 of distinctive individualities among them, but it did lit 
 tle to repress those moral qualities that belong to them 
 as a people, if we except restlessness, for this it subdued 
 with a firm and resolute hand. It is very plain that these 
 peculiar qualities have been fostered much more under the 
 new system than they were under the old, because every 
 check that was put upon them then has been removed. 
 The blacks are now at liberty to act just as they prefer 
 to act, wholly unhampered by authority or uncurbed by 
 public sentiment ; the unrestricted indulgence of their 
 instincts in consequence, however injurious to them 
 selves or destructive to society, has served only to fix 
 these instincts more deeply in their natures. Then, too, 
 emancipation enlarged the scope of these instincts, by 
 increasing the opportunities for their gratification. When 
 we compare the negroes who have come of age since the 
 war with those who grew to maturity under the discipline 
 of slavery, we find that the former are more impatient of 
 every kind of restraint than the latter, and more eager 
 and determined to escape from it. Their character ap 
 proximates in other respects equally as important, more 
 closely to the original African type than the character of 
 their fathers who were once slaves. This is due par 
 tially to the fact that the whole race is fast reverting to 
 the original physical type, and therefore to the original 
 moral ; this is sufficient in itself to strengthen and in 
 tensify those qualities of the race that have always given 
 it such a unique position among the various peoples who 
 constitute mankind. The further development of these 
 traits means the further departure of the negroes from 
 the standards of the Anglo-Saxon. The new generation, 
 in being less accustomed to restraint than the old, are 
 therefore more inclined to act upon their natural im- 
 
130 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 pulses. They are more headstrong than their immediate 
 ancestors, and to that degree, have a more decided ten 
 dency to retrograde. They seem to have inherited the 
 unfortunate qualities of the slaves without having ac 
 quired any of the superior qualities of the whites ; the influ 
 ences of freedom apparently failing to cultivate in them 
 that respect for themselves which is the foundation of all 
 that is excellent and admirable in character, and without 
 which it is impossible for them to improve. They inter 
 pret liberty as signifying license only ; in consequence, 
 they are not more correct in their conduct than the gen 
 eration passing off the stage. Neither are they firmer 
 and steadier ; they are rather more fickle and unstable. 
 Nor are they more determined in maintaining their rights 
 when these are infringed upon ; they are as easily over 
 awed and intimidated. In short, we look in vain in the 
 character of the new generation for those nascent quali 
 ties of a great people which the declining generation 
 lack ; we find in them only too many of those qualities 
 that have kept the African upon the lowest plane of hu 
 manity since the dawn of civilization. 
 
 When we analyze this general disposition of the blacks 
 as a race, we find that it is especially remarkable for its 
 inconsistencies. A few disconnected illustrations of this 
 fact may he given. For instance, they show, under firm 
 discipline, a degree of energy and a power of endurance 
 that are unequalled by their sturdiest competitors drawn 
 from the most resolute and industrious nationalities, and 
 yet, as soon as this temporary supervision is relaxed, 
 they will sink into habits of indifference and sloth that 
 are only observed in the most enervated and effeminate 
 peoples. They have the highest capacity for strenuous 
 and continuous work, associated with the greatest prone- 
 
MORAL CHARACTERISTICS. 13! 
 
 ness to indolence. When either of these opposing traits 
 of the negro s individuality is exhibited, it seems im 
 possible that the other can exist in such intimate con 
 nection with it that it is ready to disclose itself at any 
 instant of time. Circumstances alone are required to 
 repress the one for the moment and develop the other. 
 Thus, laborers who will bustle forward in the sweltering 
 harvest fields in cheerful unconsciousness of the heat to 
 which they are completely exposed will be seen in the 
 intervals of holiday strolling about with umbrellas care 
 fully extended over their heads or lolling in the shadow 
 of the eaves of the store. In the same spirit they will 
 enter into engagements and perform, during the course 
 of several months, the most exacting tasks with stoutness 
 and alacrity, and then dissipate the rest of the year in 
 puerile amusements. 
 
 Again, the negro may be anxious to acquire property, 
 and yet it will not occur t?o him to repress those qualities 
 in himself that obstruct the fulfilment of his wishes. He 
 runs headlong into debt or wastes his wages in extrava 
 gant self-indulgence at the time that he is solicitous to 
 purchase a tract of land or a horse, mule, or cow, or 
 other form of property that will add to his permanent 
 convenience and comfort. This disposition to neglect 
 the means as adapted to the end in view is shown by him 
 in all of his affairs and in every situation in which he is 
 placed ; his indifference to the means, indeed, seems to 
 be in proportion to his eagerness to secure an object, for 
 this eagerness only makes him more heedless and impul 
 sive. He would display the same carelessness whether 
 acting for himself or merely as the agent of others in 
 whose employment he may happen to be. The explana 
 tion of this lies in the fact that, however fully a wish or 
 
132 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 aspiration may appear to take possession of him, it is 
 never vigorous enough to resist the force of some passing 
 fancy or appetite, which may render its final attainment 
 impossible. 
 
 A still more remarkable proof of the inconsistency of the 
 general disposition of the negroes is that characteristic to 
 which I have already alluded, namely, the intimate union of 
 devoutness and immorality in their conduct. Those who 
 are distinguished for the most sincere, fervent, and en 
 thusiastic piety are often those who are most notable for 
 violating precepts upon which the spirit of divine and 
 human laws alike lays the strongest emphasis. They 
 either do not recognize the relation of religion to their 
 daily lives or they cannot but succumb to their impulses, 
 however opposed to the lessons that they have received. 
 To whatever level of vice or crime they may fall, they 
 still retain and disclose the same religious aspirations, 
 untouched by the least taint of hypocrisy and unobscured 
 by the smallest shadow of doubt. These aspirations 
 are entirely disconnected from their own careers ; being 
 common to the murderers, ravishers, and thieves, as well 
 as to those who, on the whole, are respectable men and 
 reputable citizens, not resting upon any consciousness of 
 depravity, but arising altogether unprompted and apart, 
 being found as frequently associated with the grossest 
 and most ruthless propensities as with mild and winning 
 qualities. 
 
 Again, however amiable the negro may be, he is in 
 different to suffering in the lower forms of animal life. 
 There is nothing in mere helplessness that softens his 
 sensibilities ; on the contrary, it is only sufficient for any 
 living thing to be at his mercy for him to bear himself 
 harshly or brutally towards it ; in this he shows a strong 
 
MORAL CHARACTERISTICS. 133 
 
 resemblance to children, although unlike children he is 
 cruel, rather for the pleasure which the infliction of pain 
 affords him than out of mere thoughtlessness. His 
 cruelty, however, is generally free from vindictiveness. 
 Even as a slave, when he was easily governed, he could 
 not be prevented from maltreating the animals under his 
 charge, and now that he is free he is more callous in this 
 respect, as he does not fear his employer as much as he 
 did his owner. His horses, and oxen are commonly 
 found maimed in a short time after coming under his 
 control, the eyes of the oxen suffering especially on 
 account of the heavy and sharp thong of the whip which 
 he uses. He is often seen lashing his team without 
 reason or provocation, while he sings with a cheerfulness 
 and gayety that are not at all disturbed by the writhing 
 of the unfortunate beasts. In the same spirit he takes 
 delight in butchering beeves or mutton, although a mere 
 apprentice, or in shooting curs that have been ordered 
 to be killed. He will also cuff his children or speak to 
 them more roughly than the occasion requires or his 
 anger itself impels. The possession of power makes him 
 tyrannical to its full extent, however jovial or light- 
 hearted he may be, for beneath the surface of his 
 character there is a certain bluntness and insensibility 
 that circumstances can develop into reckless ferocity. 
 
 Again, although the negro is docile under strict and 
 direct personal discipline, he is averse to restraint i^his 
 heart. As long, however, as he feels the pressure of a 
 stern and exacting watchfulness, he yields to it with 
 resignation and cheerfulness. He does not grow openly 
 restive and turbulent even occasionally, but at the same 
 time the desire to escape is not the less fixed and eager, 
 as will be shown at the first opportunity. 
 
134 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 In the same way, his submissiveness to personal au 
 thority is not accompanied by respect for the require 
 ments of the general law when these conflict with his 
 impulses, passions, or interests. The spirit of obedience 
 which he displays when he is closely superintended 
 causes him to do many things which he has no wish to 
 do, or to refrain from doing many things he is anxious to 
 do, whereas the fear of that legal punishment which he is 
 assured will follow his acts does not prevent him from 
 carrying out the intention of the moment, however 
 improper or however criminal. The moral influence 
 brought to bear upon him must be direct, resolute, and 
 personal to control his conduct. No race responds more 
 quickly or fully to such influences, or shows such insensi 
 bility to those that are impersonal and remote in a moral 
 sense. 
 
 Another element of contradiction in the character of 
 the negro is an alert imitativeness associated with the 
 most wonderful persistency in conforming to the real 
 bent of his nature. He is eager to ape the habits and 
 customs of the whites, and yet reveals in his own infir 
 mities that he is incapable of adopting any thing but the 
 form. His disposition is constantly warping him from 
 standards which he wishes to follow, and so far that as 
 pirations that would otherwise make him more estimable 
 only serve to disclose his weakness the more clearly, as 
 these aspirations are so entirely out of sympathy and 
 accord with his conduct. 
 
 These and similar inconsistencies that distinguish the 
 race are not displayed by fits and starts like the contra 
 dictory qualities of mercurial temperaments that shift 
 from one mood to another without any motive. How 
 ever wide apart, and however unlike the points between 
 
MORAL CHARACTERISTICS. 13$ 
 
 which the pendulum of his individuality oscillates, the 
 negro always acts in harmony with some feeling that 
 overmasters him for the moment, and that feeling is the 
 inevitable consequence of the fleeting circumstances that 
 surround him. He is changeable only as these circum 
 stances are changeable ; as long as they remain the same, 
 he himself does not vary, but he responds at once to any 
 alteration in them. He seems to be altogether incapable 
 of bending circumstances to his own will, or rising supe 
 rior to them by firmness of spirit. No one has more 
 antagonistic qualities than he, but nevertheless of no 
 one can it be predicted with more confidence and pre 
 cision what he will do under the pressure of the same 
 influences. He is hasty, thoughtless, and impulsive, and 
 yet these characteristics do not force him to run counter 
 to inclinations that his situation has raised. He obeys 
 the natural voice within him wholly unconscious of those 
 cross currents of feeling that so often perplex the wills 
 of white men, or that spirit of self-repression that so 
 often controls their conduct even when profoundly 
 stirred ; the consequence is that all that is best in him, 
 as well as all that is worst, finds outward expression in 
 the most emphatic and energetic way, because in the 
 most direct and untrammelled. One emotion succeeds 
 another so rapidly in his breast when the circumstances 
 brought to bear upon him are changing that it is difficult 
 to recognize that he is the same person, so impossible 
 does it seem that emotions so radically inimical, and dis 
 closing themselves so diversely, can exist in the same 
 person. These emotions are not superficial, but go to 
 the very foundation of his character, and they deserve the 
 warmest praise or the most severe reprobation as they 
 touch either extreme ; and they are touching both so 
 
I3 6 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 often that we praise and berate him almost in the same 
 breath. He will expose himself to contempt one mo- * 
 ment by yielding unreservedly to some depraved instinct, 
 and secure respect the next by proving himself to be the 
 most amiable of men, the most active of laborers, or the 
 most obliging and cheerful of attendants. Here, for in 
 stance, is a domestic servant who happens to be inclined 
 to petty thievishness. This subjects him to repeated 
 rebukes, but if he is carefully watched and firmly man 
 aged, he does so well the work which he is ordered to do, 
 he is so ready in performing any task which is given him 
 outside of the province of his special duties, and is so 
 faithful, on the whole, if he is not tempted, that his 
 master will warmly declare that he is invaluable, nay 
 indispensable, when perhaps the day before he was seri 
 ously turning over in his own mind whether he should 
 not dismiss him. It is highly probable that the very 
 man who would not shrink from filching his employer s 
 property would rise with anxious alacrity at any hour of 
 the night, however threatening the weather, if that em 
 ployer were suddenly taken ill, would ride twenty miles 
 if necessary through darkness and over rough country 
 roads to summon a physician, would nurse the patient 
 during his illness, and would hail his recovery with 
 unaffected joy. Even more than that, the negro whq, 
 under the influence of a passing emotion of resentment 
 for some trifling offense, would be the first to apply the 
 torch to his employer s barn, or even to poison that em 
 ployer himself, would perhaps be the very one who had 
 during a long course of time served him with peculiar 
 zeal and devotion. 
 
 It is one of the most notable peculiarities of the negro s 
 character that it is not necessarily debased because it is 
 
MORAL CHARACTERISTICS. 1 37 
 
 remarkable for criminal traits ; in other words, the fact 
 that he is wholly corrupt in some respects does not signify 
 that his general nature is demoralized. We often ob 
 serve among the whites men who are worthy of esteem, 
 although addicted to certain vices, but never men en 
 titled to it who are criminally depraved. When they 
 sink to the lowest point in one direction their entire 
 nature becomes degraded, because they recognize that 
 they have fallen irretrievably in the regard of their own 
 race, which reacts upon the opinion that they entertain 
 of themselves whether they are inclined to be shameless 
 or not. They see the public sentiment as to their con 
 duct reflected in the glances of contempt, disgust, or 
 horror of their former friends and companions who 
 shrink away from them as branded with eternal disgrace. 
 Their own consciences convict them. They harden in 
 their wickedness under these influences, or their lives are 
 irrevocably blighted. 
 
 Qn the other hand, when a plantation negro is guilty 
 of crime, he is not made to feel the indignation and 
 scorn of his race ; he is received, on the contrary, as 
 cordially as if he had not committed an offense that 
 should properly fix an ineffaceable stigma upon his repu 
 tation. The faces of his associates are not turned away 
 from him, and there is no severity in their gaze. Then, 
 too, the sentiment of the white people with respect to 
 his act, however keen and bitter, does not affect him, 
 owing to the breadth and depth of the social gulf be 
 tween them. The consequence is that no pressure of 
 importance is brought to bear to lower him in his own 
 opinion by degrading him in the opinion of others. In 
 the instance of some vices and crimes his character can 
 not be said to be demoralized, even to the extent of the 
 
138 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 scandalous and profligate acts committed, because there 
 are some courses of conduct which the white people 
 consider to be abandoned and flagitious which the 
 negroes do not look upon as even immoral. When, 
 therefore, he falls into these, he does not experience a 
 sensation of impropriety or depravity. The corruption 
 usually attending them is not spread abroad through his 
 whole nature like a morbid contagion. Many of the 
 individuals of his race are eminently respectable as long 
 as they are not exposed to some form of temptation that 
 appeals directly to a special infirmity ; as soon as that 
 infirmity is touched, however, they show themselves to 
 be as corrupt to that degree as one who is unscrupulous 
 in all things. Those great weaknesses that we observe 
 in the characters of many white persons, associated with 
 the noblest and loftiest qualities, find their counterpart 
 in the individuality of the negro in vicious or criminal 
 traits, united to much that is worthy of affection and 
 esteem. In consequence of this singular inequality of 
 nature, there is, in some respects, less difference than 
 would have been expected between the disposition of 
 the average negro convict who is serving a term and the 
 average individual of the race at large. The divergence 
 between the dispositions of the two is rather in the com 
 parative vigor of certain moral qualities, such as boldness, 
 resolution, and firmness, than in the groundwork of their 
 respective characters. The ordinary types of negroes 
 who are found inside of the prisons are not, as a rule, at 
 all unlike those outside, in the mere aspect of their 
 physiognomies ; occasionally a face is marked by deep 
 lines of brutality, or there is a sinister look in the eyes ; 
 usually, however, we discover in the countenances of the 
 chain-gang the same vacancy or amiability of expression 
 
MORAL CHARACTERISTICS. 139 
 
 that we detect in the countenances of the members of 
 their race whom we meet on the highways. When these 
 prisoners are released and return to the neighborhoods 
 where they formerly lived, they mingle as freely with their 
 people as they ever did, and are not to be distinguished in 
 any way from the mass. 
 
 Whoever seeks to judge the moral character of the 
 negro without having any knowledge of him from per 
 sonal contact, is very apt to be misled by the notion that 
 he is merely a white man in disposition whom the Cre 
 ator has endowed with a black skin. Plainly as his 
 complexion distinguishes him from the whites, to the 
 eye, it will be discovered, after association with him for a 
 great length of time, to be one of the smallest points of 
 difference between him and the Anglo-Saxon. Remove 
 all trace of that color with which Nature has painted his 
 rugged countenance, wash away every stain that darkens 
 it, and the moral traits that seem to be peculiar to his 
 race would cause him still to occupy an original and 
 unique position. How far these traits will be modified 
 in the future by the transmitted influences of a more 
 refined and elevated condition remains to be seen. It 
 may be true, as some ethnologists believe, that the 
 highest personal type of civilization is far more a result 
 of inherited instincts and knowledge than of innate 
 superiority of race ; the future alone can verify the cor 
 rectness of this theory in the instance of the negro. At 
 his present stage of growth he resembles his former 
 owner as little morally as he does physically. The two 
 races undoubtedly share many qualities, because they 
 have the same appetites which, working upon their char 
 acters in the same way, have left a similar impression. 
 They are like each other to the extent that they belong 
 
140 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 to the same animal kingdom, but there the likeness 
 ends. 
 
 The nearest approach which the blacks make to the 
 character of the whites, in traits not due to the influence 
 of their bodies, is to be found in their general resem 
 blance to white children. They have many of the 
 peculiarities of the latter owing to a common immaturity 
 of nature rather than to any substantial and permanent 
 similarity between the two races. As a result of this 
 immaturity of nature, there are few essential differences 
 between a colored parent and his child except those that 
 belong to mere physical strength apart from the moral 
 disposition. Father and mother, son and daughter, 
 however old the former and however young the latter^ 
 are remarkable for the same inability to control them 
 selves owing to common peculiarities of temper, for the 
 same dulness of the power of retrospection, and the 
 same lack of foresight. Age seems to bring to the negro 
 no keener sense of the solemn mystery of life. It gives 
 no breadth or depth to his character. It breathes into 
 him little of that spirit which excites reverence and 
 veneration. It invests him with little of that dignity 
 which ennobles gray hairs, feeble limbs, and wrinkled 
 faces. The decrepitude of a frame that was once erect 
 and vigorous must always be impressive, but it is rather 
 as a general example of natural decay that he, bowed 
 down under the burden of many years, appeals to the 
 observer. The fading of his various faculties is for 
 gotten ; his dotage is pathetic only as a decline of his 
 physical powers. The negro who has reached a mature 
 period of life bears himself with as much careless vacancy 
 of mind as if he had not passed his second decade ; the 
 same amusements afford him pleasure, and the same joys 
 
MORAL CHARACTERISTICS. \^\ 
 
 enliven the passage of his hours that delighted him in 
 his jovial adolescence. Time in its flight from day to 
 day, season to season, and year to year, does not seem 
 to touch him at all with that magical wand which works 
 a far more wonderful change in the soul and heart of 
 the white man than chemical forces do in material 
 substances. As long as life itself lasts he retains the 
 spirit of childhood. Youth does not altogether desert 
 him ; its freshness, its inconsequence, its contentment 
 with the present, its inability to look back on the past 
 with regret or anticipate the future with fear, lurk in the 
 recesses of his soul when his form has shrunk, when his 
 hands tremble, and his feet totter as they walk. 
 
 The general impression after long and intimate con 
 tact with negroes is that, as a race, they -bear the same 
 moral relation to the Caucasian as a child does to an 
 adult. It is just as if the race itself was an individual 
 who had not passed that stage of growth which we 
 designate as infancy. This immaturity, nevertheless, 
 does not strike one as being such as the race, following 
 a law as natural and inevitable as that which we observe 
 in personal development, will necessarily outgrow. This 
 may be due, however, to the mere effect upon the mind 
 of discovering the same traits in the old and the young 
 alike. When we compare the man of advanced years 
 with the youth, we detect such slight differences, other 
 than those which are wholly physical, that to anticipate 
 that the race will mature, in the light of that example, is 
 apparently the same as expecting that a white man of 
 powerful frame, but morally and intellectually blasted 
 by disease very soon after his birth, will in time lose his 
 deep-seated infirmities by the force of various influences. 
 The immaturity of the negro seems at this period to be 
 
142 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 permanent, whether it is so or not. The impression which 
 it leaves is both strange and startling, because we find it 
 associated with so much corporal vigor. His moral 
 deficiencies, therefore, instead of arousing our pity, 
 excite a sensation of suspicion and fear. So much 
 physical strength united to so much moral weakness 
 is a combination of evil significance, although that 
 weakness itself would be as unworthy of notice as the 
 weakness of a child if he were as feeble in body as a 
 child. He would hold a far more respectable position 
 in the community in which he lives than he does now, if 
 his infirmities were intellectual rather than moral ; he is 
 stronger in mind than in character, and, in consequence, 
 the part he plays is much more important than it is 
 reputable. It is essential, therefore, that he should be 
 educated more in an ethical than in a literary way, as a 
 possible check upon those grave faults of character 
 which the cultivation of his mental capacity would foster 
 rather than remove. Before discussing the effect of the 
 instruction which he has so far received in the public 
 schools, it is proper that I should first dwell at some 
 length on his intellectual, as sharply distinguished from 
 his moral, disposition. 
 
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS MENTAL. 
 
 A CAREFUL observation of the intellectual character of 
 negroes, creates the impression that their is a remark 
 able equality in their mental capacity, if we except a 
 very few individuals. It is comparatively rare to find 
 one who either rises above or sinks below the general 
 level of the degree of intelligence with which the race is 
 endowed. A transfusion of Caucasian blood, however, 
 seems to quicken the African mind, and as the volume 
 of that transfusion is increased, there is a nearer ap 
 proach in many important particulars, to the intellectual 
 traits of the white people. The mass of the mulattoes, 
 however, although brighter and livelier in understanding 
 than the blacks, are not, on the whole, distinguished for 
 a notable superiority in mental grasp and comprehen 
 sion. While the average mulatto pupil in the public 
 schools, learns more readily and rapidly than his darker 
 companions, and while too, a much larger number of 
 scholars of his color may show proficiency as compared 
 with the same number of young negroes of unmixed 
 blood, yet the most intelligent representatives of the two 
 respective shades, stand on the same footing, substantial 
 ly, the pure black reaching this position of equality by 
 greater toil and steadier plodding. 
 
 I shall omit the mulattoes from view, as a class that is 
 likely in a few generations to revert almost wholly to the 
 
 143 
 
144 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 original type in all rural districts where even now, they 
 are not numerous and influential enough to constitute 
 a circle of their own, which they can continue indefinitely 
 by intermarriage, and where, in fact, their rapid decline 
 in numbers, is due not only to the growing reserve of 
 the white men, but also to the marked preference which 
 the blacks themselves have for women of the lightest 
 complexion. 
 
 It is surprising to find that the negroes proper, rise 
 more frequently above the common level of intelligence 
 than fall below it. The exceptions to the general rule 
 are numerically greater in the former than in the latter 
 direction. In some respects, this common level is higher 
 than would have been thought probable ; it is question 
 able, indeed, whether there are any people who occupy so 
 low a position in the family of races, as observed in their 
 original habitations, and who have passed through so 
 much elsewhere that has been such as to continue them 
 in a degraded state, are superior within a certain range of 
 thought to the blacks, although that range is very nar 
 row. Their mean condition, wherever found, is to be 
 attributed, in large measure, to their general poverty of 
 intellect, but it is due still more to the moral weakness of 
 their character, or rather, to certain mental weaknesses 
 that hover so closely on the borders of moral infirmities 
 that it is difficult to say whether they are mental or 
 moral. If their mental qualities were supported by cer 
 tain moral qualities that have entered into the disposition 
 of every race that has attained to distinction in history 
 (and which has been considered a superior race prin 
 cipally because it had these moral qualities), then a nota 
 ble difference would be detected in the vigor of their 
 intellectual powers, for these would not be dissipated or 
 
MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS. 145 
 
 hampered as they now are. One moral quality of this 
 kind, which they lack, may be mentioned by way of 
 example. This is what may be called, in the absence of a 
 single term, continued or sustained force of will, in which 
 the character of the negro is singularly defective, both 
 because he is at the mercy of every transient emotion and 
 passion, and because he has little capacity for concentra 
 ting his mental faculties, even apart from such influences. 
 If the race were remarkable for unusual acuteness, the 
 absence of this sustained force of will would obstruct for 
 all useful purposes, the intellectual activity of its mem 
 bers. The general impression of intellectual weakness 
 which association with them leaves upon the mind of any 
 one who studies their peculiarities, is due more to the 
 want of this faculty and faculties similiar to it, than to 
 the inherent infirmities of their intellects, numerous and 
 obvious as these infirmities are. The chief difficulty 
 with which the negro has to contend in the practical 
 affairs of life is not so much obtuseness, by which I 
 mean confused perceptions that blind him to his true 
 interests, as an inability, on account of certain moral 
 qualities, to pursue uninterruptedly and without swer 
 ving, a course of conduct that is necessary to the accom 
 plishment of his objects, at the very time that he clearly 
 understands that such a course is necessary. It is owing 
 to the absence of this sustained power of will, rather than 
 to intellectual stupidity, that the negro stands so much in 
 need of mental discipline to brace and strengthen his 
 fluctuating and languishing intellectual energies. The 
 advance that he has undoubtedly made, which is plain 
 enough when we compare him as he is now, with his 
 remote African ancestors, or with his contemporary 
 kinsmen in the forests of the dark Continent, is due, in 
 
146 THE PLANTA TION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 large measure, to that rigid supervision to which he 
 had to submit as a slave, which enforced habits of 
 application that were only another form of concen 
 trated attention or fixed resolution. There can be 
 no hope of the improvement of his race until this mental 
 instability has been removed, and if this is impossible, 
 then the race can never make any real progress beyond 
 its present position. There is much danger, now, that 
 the general laxness which enjoyment of freedom has fos 
 tered in its members, will destroy whatever impression 
 the discipline of servitude left in this respect. Their 
 present tendency is to revert to their ancestral condition 
 in this direction, and this tendency will grow more pro 
 nounced, unless some substitute can be found for the 
 discipline referred to. A purely literary education will 
 not supply it. It is questionable whether any institution 
 of learning could accomplish much for the overwhelm 
 ing majority of the blacks, unless industrial or military 
 training of a severe and exacting character was associ 
 ated with the ordinary literary courses. That common- 
 sense in which the negro is by no means lacking will 
 not supply it. The fact that it does not, is palpa 
 ble. He may comprehend very .clearly what he ought 
 to do for his own good, and yet his moral qualities 
 are so overmastering that it amounts, in fact, to the 
 same thing as if he were insensible to his own inter 
 ests. This is very noticeable in the men and women 
 who have grown up since the war, as compared with 
 those in whom a spirit of self-restraint was more or less 
 inculcated by slavery ; the consequence has been, that 
 the former have not accumulated property in the same 
 proportion to their number as the latter have done. The 
 same trait, however, is found in both the older and 
 
MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS. 147 
 
 younger generations, although in a different degree, sim 
 ply because it is characteristic of the race. As a rule, 
 the blacks are singularly aspiring, and yet how hollow 
 and impotent this disposition appears, in most instances, 
 not because it is unworthy and ignoble in itself, but be 
 cause it is linked to moral qualities that make success 
 practically impossible. It is rare even that it is invested 
 with the dignity of an honest and strenuous effort to 
 overcome the strength of these moral infirmities ; if it 
 were, we would be moved at once to overlook every 
 shortcoming. The negro is undoubtedly anxious to 
 receive an education, and cheerfully undergoes many 
 hardships to realize his wishes in this respect, but edu 
 cation represents a definite idea which his mind readily 
 grasps. Here is the spelling-book, there is the slate ; 
 the course is all laid out, the path is clear ; above all, he 
 is under the constraining influence of his teacher, which 
 is a direct and appreciable form of discipline. But if 
 the object which he wishes to secure, is less tangible ; if 
 to secure it, requires a constant and prolonged watch 
 over his passions and inclinations ; and if he is supported 
 by no strength except that which may lie in his own na 
 ture, then it is rare indeed that his recognition of what 
 his true interests are, ever aids him to realize his aspi 
 rations. In short, he is as powerless for the want of 
 sustained force of will, as a drifting ship without a rud 
 der, because there is no quality in his character to take 
 its place. 
 
 If the intellect of the negro is examined apart from 
 the influence of his moral qualities, it will be seen to 
 have a fund of mother wit and natural shrewdness ; in 
 the larger sense, it is neither penetrative nor comprehen 
 sive, and yet within a limited field of activity, it has both 
 
148 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 keenness and grasp. His powers of apprehension are 
 just and accurate in direct contact, although his conclu 
 sions are rather those of general intuition than a series 
 of observations of even moderate exactness. No one, 
 for instance, is more astute than he, in distinguishing the 
 broader outlines of character of any person with whom he 
 maybe thrown in an inferior capacity ; he adapts himself 
 with the ease and quickness of a lively discernment to 
 all the leading peculiarities of such a person ; this facil 
 ity and insight being partially due, no doubt, to the neces 
 sities of his position as a subordinate, which compel him 
 to make a careful study of all the idiosyncrasies of his 
 master or employer as involving his selfish interests so 
 largely. So far as the general disposition of that master 
 or employer is concerned, he is rarely mistaken in his 
 opinion, his conduct in relation to such a superior, being 
 but a reflection of the general qualities of the latter, 
 although a mere inability to manage the servant or 
 laborer is frequently to be attributed to previous in 
 experience of the character of the negro, or the ap 
 plication to him of the same standard by which white 
 employes are judged. 
 
 The proverbs of the negro disclose a similar shrewd 
 ness, their range of observation being narrow and 
 confined, but the observation itself, often acute. 
 Above all, these proverbs are remarkable for their sly 
 ness and incisiveness of humor and force of good 
 humored sarcasm. On the other hand, we discover in 
 them no evidence of spiritual insight or elevation of 
 thought and view ; and yet they are not lacking in 
 poetic sensibility, especially when illustrated by meta 
 phors suggested by the various forms of life to be found 
 in the fields and forests. These metaphors, however, 
 
MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS. 149 
 
 reveal only a superficial, casual, and transient glance. 
 The truth is, that the perceptive faculty of the negro is 
 very imperfect, but this is ascribable rather to his gen 
 eral carelessness, than to any real defect in this faculty 
 itself which is incapable of a remedy. It is very inexact 
 because he is deficient in his manner of contemplation, 
 this being shown more particularly in his connection 
 with the material world around him, both in its visible 
 and invisible aspects. To a certain extent, he has an 
 eye for the petty details of external nature, but he ap 
 pears to be wholly obtuse to its larger and more subtle 
 manifestations. Who lives nearer to Nature than he 
 does ? He has an opportunity of seeing every side of it 
 as the seasons revolve, and as the months, days, and 
 hours, succeed each other, in calm and storm, in sun 
 shine and darkness, and yet he is scantily informed of 
 its countless species of animal, insect, and vegetable 
 life, and is strangely ignorant of its laws and the general 
 spirit of its government. He shows like dulness, even 
 when it exposes its beauties to his gaze in the most 
 obtrusive way, as, for instance, in the glories of the 
 morning and evening skies or the vernal and autumnal 
 landscapes. 
 
 The best criterion of the perceptive powers of the 
 negroes, with respect to what is visible in an ocular 
 sense only, is their testimony in court. The most in 
 telligent and conscientious white witnesses, to the same 
 circumstances, often differ very much, as we know, in 
 important items in their statements, but the blacks when 
 put upon the stand very frequently diverge so much in 
 their declarations as to the same incident, although they 
 may have been witnesses from exactly the same point of 
 view, that it assumes an opposite character as each one 
 
150 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 unfolds his story. This is due to no conscious design 
 or even unconscious inclination to affirm what is not 
 true ; their inaccuracy is a form of self-deception, not 
 an intentional falsehood, unless their self-interests are 
 involved. 
 
 It is a notable characteristic of the testimony of 
 negroes that it always includes a great number of trivial 
 and irrelevant details that they suppose to have been 
 contemporary with the main incident in issue, their 
 recollection of that incident being associated with many 
 smaller incidents that have no real connection with it. 
 In such testimony, too, one of their most conspicuous 
 traits is very often displayed, namely, a certain mental 
 exuberance that finds expression in an unmeaning ver 
 bosity. Their narratives, as a rule, are discursive, 
 circuitous, and incoherent ; however simple and easy 
 it is, apparently, to describe what they are called upon 
 to do, their ideas, as they state them, are almost lost in 
 the confusion of words. It seems to be impossible for 
 them to be circumspect and even moderately concise ; 
 interruption only deepens still further the maze in which 
 they are toiling. It is not uncommon, however, to find 
 among them an individual who is a fair reciter of tales, 
 for in relating them he has ample room for the working 
 of his power of imagination. 
 
 Within certain well-defined boundaries the negro is 
 both prompt and adroit in putting forward such mental 
 resources as he has. He shows this not only when he is 
 suddenly placed in a situation of general danger from 
 which he can only extricate himself by his wits, but also 
 when he is charged unexpectedly with theft or other 
 misdemeanor. The ease and gravity with which he will 
 offer a plausible defense, or explain why it is impossible 
 
MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS. Igl 
 
 that he could have been guilty of the act, although in 
 reality he was, are often inimitable. Even when con 
 fronted with incontestable proof of his offense, he will 
 not infrequently shift his position and proffer a new plea 
 without disclosing any trace of discomposure. While he 
 displays this constructive power in a narrow sphere of 
 thought, it never assumes the highest form of ingenuity ; 
 he not only seems to be incapable of originating new 
 ideas himself, but also of utilizing the ideas of others for 
 new purposes. A notable characteristic in the same 
 line is the little use which he makes both of his individual 
 and the common recollections. While his memory is 
 retentive of details to a certain extent, yet it never 
 produces that general intellectual effect which is termed 
 experience ; in other words, he does not seem to have 
 any faculty that, seizing upon the mass of facts which his 
 memory has stored up, either as belonging to his own 
 past or derived from observation of men, the earth, and 
 life in general, sifts and compares them, and thus obtains 
 a countless number of deductions to regulate his course 
 of conduct in the future. Experience with him is only 
 a superficial mental impression which has no influence at 
 all in governing his action. In fact, he dwells altogether 
 on the present, except when he is occupied with religious 
 meditations. Not looking behind or forward, he is un 
 conscious both of the receding and the approaching 
 shadows. Neither the past nor the future is taken into 
 account by him. The consequence is that his insight 
 into what comes immediately under his view, which 
 alone interests him, is not clearer for what he has 
 observed in the course of preceding years. It is im 
 possible, too, for that insight to be just and accurate as 
 long as he does not seek to anticipate the probable 
 
I $2 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 relation of to-morrow to to-day. This mental character 
 istic was, no doubt, very much fostered by the influence 
 of slavery, which made it unnecessary for him to feel any 
 anxiety about his immediate future, as he was provided 
 for by his owner, but it does not wholly explain his 
 inability to utilize the past in the way of experience. 
 The want of this power is perhaps a corollary of one of 
 his most conspicuous mental deficiencies, namely, an 
 absence of logical force. He has no turn for ratiocina 
 tion, the temper of his mind being repelled by whatever 
 is intricate and complex. His reasoning faculty is 
 subordinate to his imagination, which is the most in 
 fluential of all the faculties of his mind, operating with 
 an ease and freedom that are not disclosed in the play of 
 the rest. It is true that it does not take a lofty range, 
 even in exceptional flights, but this is due to his general 
 character. It is exhibited, in its lowest phase, in the 
 whole bent of his superstition, in which it assumes the 
 grossest and most abject form of credulity. On the 
 other hand, it is observed in the highest in a few poetical 
 proverbs, and in the mass of his folk-lore, which is 
 voluminous and detailed, reflecting both his humor and 
 pathos. In this folk-lore the supreme importance of the 
 personal to the negro is again obvious ; his imagination 
 here does not impute original qualities to things, or 
 build up a separate system of its own, but merely 
 ascribes ordinary traits, aspirations, and motives in the 
 spirit of ancient fable. There is some ingenuity but 
 little delicacy of fancy in its workings. It deals with its 
 various subjects in a homely way, showing at every step 
 that peculiar tendency to moralize, that quickness in 
 detecting analogies, that element of rude common-sense 
 and shrewdness, to which allusion has already been made 
 as distinctive of the race. 
 
MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS. 153 
 
 When we pass out of this special domain we find that 
 the imaginativeness of the negro is only that of mental 
 immaturity. It is the exuberant and ill-regulated fancy 
 of extreme youth ; it is but a singular intellectual fer 
 mentation that is uncontrolled because his powers of 
 reason and discrimination are as weak as they are in 
 children of a tender age. The man of ripe years has all 
 the mental floridness of a boy whose faculties have not 
 yet reached that stage of development when the imagina 
 tion is submissive to the judgment, simply because the 
 judgment, as yet, is lacking. As this imaginativeness is 
 merely a characteristic of race immaturity, just as the 
 imaginativeness of a child is but the characteristic of in 
 fancy (although this quality, as observed in the negro, is 
 probably due somewhat to his tropical origin), it will 
 pass away if he shall show that he is capable of moral 
 and mental improvement under the pressure of the new 
 influences. It has been predicted, in the light of this 
 imaginativeness, that the negro is more likely to become 
 distinguished in the future as a painter, poet, or orator 
 than as a man of ability in practical affairs, but the 
 probability is that, if it is possible to bring the race to 
 maturity a very doubtful hypothesis, it will produce 
 as many men of practical as of artistic talent, because 
 the elevation of the negro will destroy his imaginative 
 ness by removing his immaturity. His only chance of 
 mental as well as moral elevation lies in the possibility 
 that a race is able, by the force of favorable circum 
 stances, to follow the same law of growth that an indi 
 vidual of a superior nature does. If this is so, his 
 imaginativeness will be the first of his unfortunate 
 qualities to disappear ; at present it is like a cloud, 
 enveloping, confusing, and distorting the functions of 
 his mind. 
 
154 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 One of the most conspicuous results of this immaturity 
 is that the negro has no grasp upon abstract ideas ; such 
 ideas, however broad and generalized, find no lodgment 
 in his brain. Whenever a subject is presented to him 
 that has an abstract element, the latter is unconsciously 
 ignored as being unintelligible. This is peculiarly the 
 case in his religion. All terms that represent certain 
 conditions of heart and spirit convey no meaning what 
 ever to his mind ; and similarly with precepts that 
 embody general rules of conduct, or brief expressions 
 that sum up leading articles of faith. It is for this 
 reason that the negro, while clearly understanding the 
 mission of Christ, has no appreciation at all of those 
 formulas of belief and behavior which He enunciated and 
 upon which He acted. 
 
 On the other hand, the mind of the negro grasps with 
 ease whatever is presented to it in a picturesque way. 
 Many expressions in the harangues of his preachers and 
 political orators have the same effect upon his mental 
 sensibilities as a highly stimulating dram. There are 
 certain ideas that throw him into a state of uncontrolla 
 ble excitement. The sensuousness of his nature, in fact, 
 is reflected as fully in the character of his intellect as in 
 the temper of his body. There is, for instance, a very 
 close sympathy between his mind and mere sound. It 
 is observed that he is very much disposed to sing when 
 ever he is engaged in performing an arduous task, as if 
 he finds a subtle pleasure in the echo of his own voice, 
 which sustains and invigorates his energies, however 
 exacting the strain upon his physical strength and en 
 durance. Any continuous sound, from whatever it may 
 proceed, seems to exert the same influence ; thus, the 
 hand shelling corn cannot refrain from joining in with 
 
MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS. 15$ 
 
 the harsh roll of the instrument that he is manipulating, 
 and the louder grows the noise which it makes the more 
 fervent and resonant are the tones of his chant ; and so 
 with the laborers who are standing near a wheat-thresher, 
 the revolving wheel of which is filling the air with its 
 murmur. In the same way the notes of a musical instru 
 ment, however rude, cause all of the negroes in earshot 
 to strike their feet against the floor or ground, or to 
 beat their hands together. 
 
 This sensuousness of intellect, united to great mental 
 excitability, is revealed under a variety of circumstances, 
 and of the general characteristics of the race it is in this 
 connection one of the most peculiar and distinctive. It 
 cannot be ascribed to that immaturity which causes the 
 blacks to resemble children in so m^ny of their moral 
 and mental traits. It is rather a turn of disposition that 
 is indigenous to a tropical people, being as much a funda 
 mental part of the race as the pigments of its skin. It 
 is largely due to this sensuousness and excitability that 
 the negro is still an alien, although so many generations 
 have passed away since he was transplanted to the 
 American continent and brought under influences that 
 were calculated to modify his original nature. These 
 two qualities have done much to prevent him from 
 taking a respectable position in history, and they are so 
 deeply ingrained that it is doubtful whether there are 
 any means in reach that would be likely to remove or 
 even repress them. His mental excitability especially 
 has been a stumbling-block in the path of his progress, 
 for it is principally from this trait that his impulsiveness 
 springs, which so often leads him to overlook what is 
 plainly to his own interest. Above all, it is the source 
 of his vanity which, upon the slightest provocation, 
 
156 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 assumes so many absurd or dangerous forms ; this vanity 
 being a species of intemperance that permeates his whole 
 nature, suppressing in him, when at its height, all 
 thought except with respect to his own importance. It 
 is peculiarly conspicuous in individuals of the race who 
 have reached positions of comparative prominence, 
 either in a political or educational way ; authority, re 
 sponsibility, supposed intellectual attainments, so far 
 from sobering them, seem to turn their heads, although 
 they generally maintain a grave and dignified bearing. 
 The possession of power makes them harsh, cruel, and 
 intolerant, not continuously and systematically, but ca 
 priciously, abruptly, and impulsively, while their con 
 sciousness of mental culture, so far from acting as an 
 incentive, rather increases the vigor and intensity of their 
 egotism. 
 
 The deficiency of the negro in original capacity is 
 revealed in his total lack of any turn for speculation. 
 His mind is never quickened and invigorated by scepti 
 cism ; he seems to have no desire to penetrate beyond 
 what is merely visible ; the outer surface obstructs his 
 mental as well as his ocular vision. His intellect falls at 
 once into confusion as soon as it reaches a certain point, 
 or perhaps it would be more correct to say that it seems 
 to meet with a barrier in its effort to advance, which it 
 cannot scale. It is owing to this restriction of thought, 
 accompanied by certain grovelling instincts, that the 
 system of faith that distinguishes the race wherever it 
 has not been brought under the influence of Christianity 
 is essentially bald, having no element of poetry in any of 
 its various phases. This inability to break through the 
 wall that encloses him seems to increase as the negro 
 grows older. The precocity of the child is remarkable. 
 
MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS. 157 
 
 Its mind is quick, alert, and bright, but these qualities 
 are very much modified at the age of puberty. That 
 period at which the intellect of individuals belonging to 
 other races grows stronger, firmer, and more compre 
 hensive, is distinguished in the instance of such a child 
 by a comparative arrest of intellectual progress. The 
 advance after that is not at all in proportion to what had 
 been observed to take place previous to it. The mind 
 now becomes sluggish, narrow, and obtuse in many 
 respects, just as if the development of the physical frame 
 absorbed what should go to the support and enlarge 
 ment of the brain. It is possible that this characteristic 
 of the negro is due to the fact that he belongs to one of 
 the tropical races, the individuals of which always ripen 
 both mentally and physically much earlier than the 
 inhabitants of temperate zones. The original law of 
 growth peculiar to the race has not, perhaps, been modi 
 fied in the American descendants of African ancestors, 
 although these descendants have become accustomed to 
 a different climate and condition. This cloudiness, 
 which sets in at the age of puberty, is not removed by 
 the force of experience in after life ; although the negro 
 of advanced years has passed through vicissitudes that 
 have in turn inspired him with grief, sorrow, pain, and 
 anger, yet the perceptions of his mind remain essentially 
 as they were before. His vision is not more unerring on 
 account of his age, nor is his glance more penetrative. 
 Indeed, however old he may grow, experience rarely 
 irradiates his past with its light, or dispels even for a 
 little way the shadows that darken his future. 
 
 Lunatics constitute a very small proportion of the 
 whole population of the negroes. The causes of their 
 mental aberration are generally wholly physical, the 
 
158 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 number of blacks who lose their wits for purely moral 
 reasons being very insignificant, as might have been 
 expected, both because the great mass are laborers who 
 are kept very closely occupied, and because they are 
 incapable of experiencing a great mental strain, except 
 in the form of fear ; and it is only under the influence of 
 superstition that they can be said to suffer from fear 
 even for a sufficient length of time for it to have a 
 weakening effect upon their minds. That severe stress, 
 arising from settled grief or prolonged anxiety, which so 
 often disturbs the intellects of the whites is unknown to 
 them. They are naturally light hearted and easy tem 
 pered, and, therefore, even when they become agitated, 
 the emotion is soon thrown off, however violent while it 
 lasts. Idiocy, however, is as often observed among them 
 as among the whites. 
 
 As a corollary of their comparative immunity from 
 insanity for moral reasons, it is found that the blacks 
 rarely commit suicide, a fact that is easy of explanation 
 when a full knowledge of the character of the race has 
 been obtained. In the first place, no cause of anxiety 
 presses long enough upon the mind of the individual 
 negro to foster a desire to put an end to life, this being 
 another form of his inability to retain any one thought 
 long enough to influence his conduct permanently ; 
 then, too, he lacks the coolness and fortitude to destroy 
 himself ; above all, he has a peculiar horror of death, 
 owing to his morbid imagination, and not improbably to 
 his tendency to live wholly in the present. His nature 
 is impulsive and changeable. All his mental excite 
 ments, however extreme or uncontrolled, love, hatred, 
 despair, sweep through the caverns of his brain like 
 gusts of wind, and almost in a moment are gone ; hope 
 
MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS. 159 
 
 happiness, and serenity soon return, and he thinks and 
 acts as if such transient experiences had never been felt 
 by him, much less had left a lasting impression. 
 
 In all these general phases of his mental disposition, 
 we discover again that likeness to a child that confronts 
 us at every stage of our inquiry, and at every point of 
 our examination. It becomes a question of extreme 
 interest to find out how far education has modified the 
 characteristics of the race, and what are the prospects, 
 through its agency, of elevating its individuals to a higher 
 position than they have hitherto occupied. 
 
XI. 
 
 REMARKS ON PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. 
 
 PERHAPS it is too early to form a just notion of the 
 part that the public school system will play in the future 
 history of the negro. That system, however, has been 
 established long enough to enable us to draw more or 
 less accurate conclusions as to the work that it is doing 
 for his benefit, and upon this basis some idea may prob 
 ably be obtained of the relation which that system will 
 bear to the general destinies of the race. There can be 
 no doubt that the operation of the colored schools is 
 attended with a considerable number of practical advan 
 tages, whether any impression is made on the moral 
 disposition of the pupils or not. These advantages are 
 palpable and common-place. To have been taught to/ 
 read and write with respectable skill does not signify a\ 
 corresponding enlightenment of conscience, but it does 
 mean an increased capacity for self-protection, and to 
 that extent is unquestionably valuable. While the ele 
 mentary knowledge imparted to the young negro in these 
 schools is imperfect and defective as a rule not enab 
 ling him to read the text of an ordinary book at a glance, 
 or to write a series of grammatical and correctly spelled 
 sentences still it is thorough enough to be useful to him 
 on the whole. An ability to read certainly assists him in 
 getting a more exact idea of the agreements into which 
 he enters, and an ability to sign his own name as one of 
 
 1 60 
 
REMARKS ON PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. l6l 
 
 the contracting parties would seem likely to invest these 
 agreements with some sacredness in his eyes. This has 
 been found to be the case in some instances, but it is 
 generally admitted that the individuals who have been 
 trained in the public schools are not more reliable in 
 adhering to their engagements than those who belong to 
 preceding generations. Unfortunately much of the rudi 
 mentary scholarship thus acquired whether compara 
 tively thorough in the beginning or not is lost by the 
 former pupil in the years that follow his withdrawal. He 
 becomes a laborer or mechanic at once, and therefore has 
 little time for reading after the work of the day is over, 
 even if he feels the inclination which he does not and 
 has books at his disposal. But he has no books ; there 
 is not even a Bible in his cabin, and he never has an 
 opportunity of perusing a newspaper. Year by year 
 elapses without his refreshing his learning, and in time 
 the principal part of it is obliterated from his memory 
 just as a fair acquaintance with the ancient languages is 
 finally lost even by educated men after they become 
 absorbed in the affairs of active life, although they may 
 remember the meaning of many words or be able to 
 translate a few sentences. His ability to write, however, 
 serves, in some measure, to prolong his knowledge of 
 reading, for the young negro is inclined to address an 
 occasional letter to his absent friends. The information 
 that he obtains of simple arithmetical calculation in the 
 school-house perhaps lingers with him permanently, be 
 cause it is brought into more use, being frequently of 
 benefit to his interests. Thus it may prevent him from 
 being cheated by his debtors and creditors alike. In 
 assisting him to understand the casting of his accounts 
 by others with clearness, it removes the suspicion on his 
 
1 62 THE PLANTATION NEGRO ASA FREEMAN. 
 
 part of unfair dealing ; and it also helps him to keep his 
 own affairs in proper condition probably cultivating, 
 to some degree, a spirit of ordinary caution and pru 
 dence in all of his pecuniary transactions. The only 
 other distinct study included in the elementary course of 
 the schools is of no value to him in the management of 
 his private business. The limitation of that course to 
 primary branches is eminently wise, and care should be 
 taken that this course should not extend beyond such 
 branches. All endeavor in connection with it should be 
 directed towards making the knowledge imparted as 
 thorough and accurate as it is possible to be made. 
 
 Even if the elementary knowledge which the negroes 
 acquire in the public schools were useless to them in 
 after life, either because they are imperfectly grounded 
 or because what they learned there escapes from their 
 memories, yet there is one aspect of their education that 
 may partially justify the expense which it entails upon 
 the state, namely, the physical restraint which it enforces 
 for the time being, which would seem likely to be bene 
 ficial to all of the pupils. They might in a few years 
 become oblivious of every thing that they were taught, 
 and yet a profitable influence resulting from this tempo 
 rary restraint may remain. In other words, if education j 
 is not advantageous to them in a literary sense, it may be\ 
 useful to them as a series of tasks, both at the time that j 
 it is given and afterwards. They are inherently a rest- \ 
 less and impulsive people. Now that the strict supervi- | 
 sion of slavery has been withdrawn they are left to act 
 upon their natural instincts, which tend to marked re 
 laxation and to general license. The true object of their 
 education should be to curb these instincts by the em 
 ployment of every practicable means. The mere fact 
 
REMARKS ON PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. 163 
 
 that the student is compelled, under the fear of punish 
 ment, to perform certain duties, whether he comprehends 
 their purpose or not, is perhaps promotive of this end. 
 Forcing him to concentrate his faculties for a special 
 intellectual attainment is in itself a form of discipline. 
 It is the spirit of the training that is desirable, rather 
 than the nature or amount of what is learned. In this 
 light the work of the school system in its relation to the 
 young negro is probably valuable as far as it goes ; but 
 it would be equally as valuable in this sense if that sys 
 tem only required him to come to the school-house at a 
 stated hour every day and afterwards attend to certain 
 tasks of a miscellaneous character, or if it forced him to 
 chop so much wood or cultivate so much land. 
 
 Unfortunately, the young negroes who have enjoyed 
 the advantages of the public schools are not remarkable 
 for moral steadiness and sobriety ; the restrictions to which 
 they have to submit in the school-house, seeming rather 
 to increase their licentiousness as soon as they secure th< 
 right to govern their own conduct, as if the reactioi 
 carried them further than they would otherwise hav< 
 gone. They are unusually restless as laborers and unre- 
 liable as individuals. In consequence of their lack of 
 self-control and their unsettled habits, they have not 
 accumulated property in the same proportion to their 
 numbers as the freedmen have done ; and above all, 
 they show a disposition to adopt the lightest employ 
 ments and to shirk all forms of exertion that compel them 
 to put forth the highest energy, f While these tendencies of 
 the younger generation seem to~disprove that the public 
 schools foster a better spirit, the difficulty lies more in the 
 character of the personal material upon which these 
 schools have to work than in the character of the schools 
 
164 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 themselves. They have to contend with the same obsta 
 cle that confronts every large institution in which only 
 literary instruction is sought to be imparted to the negro ; 
 the training of such institutions having been shown in 
 every instance, to be worthless in improving the material 
 prospects of their graduates, unless they become teach 
 ers, because the effect upon them, of a considerable 
 degree of literary culture is to put them out of conceit 
 with their sphere in life without .strengthening their 
 faculties enough to enable them to rise to a sphere that 
 is higher. The course of the public school of the, 
 country district, is extended enough to raise the ambition/ 
 of the pupils, but at the same time, it is barely probable I 
 that it can ever leave such a general impression of morals 
 discipline as to make them careful and prudent in all the? 
 practical affairs of life. In fact, there is no substantial 
 ground for believing that the public school system will / 
 have an important influence upon the material condition 
 of the negroes until it has been assimilated, as closely as 
 possible, to that type of normal school in which there is 
 a union of manual with intellectual training, the object 
 of the industrial education being rather to supplement 
 and enforce the mental, than to teach a special calling. 
 It would not, in fact, be well to overstock the various 
 trades. There is but a limited room for mechanics and 
 artisans in rural districts at present ; the great body of 
 the pupils in attendance on the public schools can only 
 find employment as tillers of the soil, and therefore, skill 
 in handiwork will be of no real value to them. An in 
 dustrial element in their education, however, would not 
 only assist in cultivating a spirit of steadiness, but it 
 would probably have the effect of raising the dignity of 
 manual labor in their eyes. It has been found that the 
 
REMARKS ON PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. 165 
 
 primary education which they receive in the public 
 schools has a tendency to cause very many to look down 
 on all forms of such labor with contempt ; an industrial! 
 training would counteract to a considerable degree, this? 
 unfortunate disposition, if stress were laid on it as of) 
 equal importance with mental training, or if it were* 
 brought forward as even of higher importance. Several 
 objections can be urged against the introduction of such 
 an element into the public school system ; thus for 
 instance, it may be said, and with sound reason, that to 
 maintain that system even in its present condition, and 
 with its present purposes, demands a heavy rate of taxa 
 tion. The first aim should be to perfect it upon the same 
 line of operation, before its working is sought to be com 
 plicated in a way that will lead to greater expense. 
 Admitting this, and admitting also, that an elementary 
 education will to some degree, be useful to the negro, 
 apart from the benefit of the moral and mental training 
 which may attend the acquisition of a small amount of 
 knowledge, it does not follow the less that the great . 
 object of the public schools should be to cultivate so 
 briety and industry in the pupils, and it is of no funda 
 mental importance how this spirit is raised, provided that 
 it is made permanent. ^ Industrial training is entirely in 
 accord with the only career open to the mass of the 
 blacks. /Such an education has been found almost 
 essential even in the higher schools for the preparation of 
 colored teachers, because it has brought the most power 
 ful influence to bear to foster in them the spirit of 
 discipline. I believe that the future will show that no 
 training short of that which is considered to be necessary 
 in the normal institute that educates its students with a 
 special literary and industrial object in view, will be of 
 
1 66 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 lasting benefit to the negroes in the public schools, as far 
 as these schools are supposed to equip their pupils for 
 making their way in life. It will be further shown by the 
 future that the public schools will advance in usefulness 
 in proportion as they approximate to the system of a 
 normal and industrial institute, and their failure to 
 improve the material condition of the blacks, will be 
 measured by their departure from this standard, or by 
 their inability to approach it. What the young negro 
 should learn, are lessons that inculcate repression of self 
 as well as submissiveness to legitimate authority, and 
 steady physical application ; it is impossible to teach him 
 these lessons by word of mouth, because he is, by nature, 
 a creature of impulse, and therefore, a victim of his own 
 restless, changeable, and thoughtless disposition. These 
 lessons can only be imparted to him even temporarily by 
 the exercise of an authority great enough to control and 
 shape his actions. Unless the public schools can in 
 some practical way cultivate this spirit of sobriety and 
 these habits of labor, they will accomplish nothing 
 towards the material elevation of the negro. If they 
 do not fit him, either by direct training, or by general 
 influence, for the battles of life, then their practical 
 usefulness will not be appreciable. 
 
 As organized at present, and it is difficult to see how 
 it is possible to organize it differently under the special 
 circumstances, the public school system will not, in my 
 judgment, work a substantial improvement in the moral 
 condition of the negroes, by which I mean an improve 
 ment in their sentiment and conduct as men and citizens 
 in all of the relations of life. In other words, it will not 
 elevate the general tone of their society. Education has \ 
 never had so many moral obstacles to surmount as in 
 
REMARKS ON PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. l6/ 
 
 a teeming community of blacks ; it may succeed in im 
 parting to them knowledge, and not succeed in teaching 
 them morality, owing to that spirit which prevails among 
 the masses of the race in opposition to moral reformation. 
 This spirit is singularly hard to combat. The negroes* 
 are receptive, sympathetic, and plastic, but these quali-l 
 ties are much more responsive to influences that emanate 
 from their own society than to influences that emanate 
 from any other source. That impression which negroes, 
 when crowded together, make on each other, which does 
 so much to destroy the force of ordinary religious 
 instruction, has a tendency to keep them in the same low 
 and degraded state, because it is powerful enough to 
 exclude or obliterate all other impressions. In a large 
 community of the race the principal influences are at 
 work to encourage what is evil and to repress what is 
 good. How indifferent the tone of such a community is 
 to what is wholesome and ennobling, is seen in the fact 
 that it is not at all modified by the best public sentiment 
 prevailing among the white people ; the character and 
 the scope of this public sentiment may be clearly recog 
 nized, and yet the negroes will either ignore it in their 
 personal intercourse, or they will openly deny its 
 applicability to their own society. No people have more 
 strongly-marked qualities than they have, even when 
 brought under a pressure that seems calculated to change 
 these qualities in the most fundamental way. As-4 
 sociation with each other only tends to strengthen these 
 qualities, and in consequence of this fact, every) . / % 
 considerable community of negroes stands apart to itself, *" 
 being controlled by influences that arise in it, and being 
 little affected by influences that spring from without. 
 These internal influences unfortunately are not such as to 
 
1 68 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 support the public school in the effort to elevate the gen 
 eral condition of the blacks ; on the contrary, the society 
 of such a community is only too often distinguished for 
 all those characteristics that have made it impossible for 
 missionaries elsewhere to work any reform in the race, 
 these characteristics, however vicious, being disclosed 
 with all the freedom and unconsciousness of nature. 
 
 When we pass from the community to the individual 
 child we find equal ground for discouragement, if for no 
 other reason, because it is in the midst of such influences 
 as these that the first impressions are made on his dawn 
 ing and expanding intelligence, so soon to be the soil in 
 which the teacher is to sow the seed of elementary 
 knowledge. In that susceptible period when the germs 
 of future goodness and excellence should be planted in 
 the mind of the child, when his mother should teach him, 
 at her knee lessons of veracity, honesty, and self 
 control ; when his father should instil into him, the 
 spirit of courage, manliness and strength, how is he being 
 prepared morally for the literary instruction of the 
 school ? It may be said of him, as with too much truth 
 of the older members of his family, unfortunately for 
 them all, that his self indulgence is only restricted by his 
 physical capacity and his opportunities. The discipline 
 that his parents seek to maintain over him is alternately 
 loose and severe, fluctuating without just cause from the 
 one extreme to the other, and often lax when it should be 
 harsh, and harsh when it should be lax. That discipline 
 when it is carried to the point of punishment, is not 
 attended by those gentle exhortations that alone make 
 chastisement reasonable and just. It too often assumes 
 the worse form, of unscrupulous power and brutal tyran 
 ny, being exercised rather for the temporary convenience 
 
REMARKS ON PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. l6g 
 
 of the parents than the permanent good of their 
 offspring. In reality, no one instructs the child in those 
 moral principles that he ought to learn before he enters 
 school ; the darkness of his moral ignorance is not les 
 sened, in anticipation of the literary training that he is to 
 receive ; practically, the child, in that period which 
 precedes his instruction by the public teacher, is entirely 
 abandoned to the influence of his own instincts, unmodi 
 fied by the simplest moral training. 
 
 Even apart from the working of all these hostile in 
 fluences, whether they emanate from the community at 
 large, the immediate circle in which he moves, or his 
 home, his native temper would present many obstacles 
 to a teacher. He has those characteristics of youth that 
 are common to the children of all races, in addition to 
 certain traits that belong to the individuals of his race 
 alone. His mind is perhaps quicker and brighter than 
 is common, but these qualities are associated with less 
 frankness and ingenuousness than are usual in the dis 
 position of the young ; he is inclined to be secretive and 
 sly, and to that extent his nature is less open to the in 
 fluences of education ; he has the restlessness of ordinary 
 childhood united to an unusually rash turn of mind ; he 
 is more intoxicated by the fresh emotions of youth than 
 the white child ; he is more inconsequent and careless ; 
 impressions on his mind and heart are obliterated more 
 rapidly ; he rebounds from the pressure of authority 
 with a larger degree of reaction, and is more impulsive, 
 changeable, and capricious. Water itself is not more 
 instable. In a thousand and one ways he discloses his 
 tropical origin ; as for instance, in his excitability, the 
 suddenness of his transformations, the sunniness and 
 gayety of his temper. The peculiar idiosyncrasies of his 
 
I/O THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 race are constantly revealed in his conduct, child as he 
 is, and closely as he resembles other children in those 
 traits that belong to his period of life, irrespective of 
 blood, color, or locality. 
 
 Such is his character when he presents himself for the 
 first time at the threshold of the public school that has 
 been erected for the country-side in which he lives. For 
 that school to have any influence upon his moral devel 
 opment, it must take the place of his parents ; but the 
 task thus assumed would be one of the most difficult to 
 accomplish that could be imagined, even if the only ob 
 ject of the school was to give an ethical and not a liter 
 ary training. Here is a child, remarkable in the first 
 instance, for certain vigorous traits and instincts that he 
 has inherited from a long line of ancestors, who approach 
 nearer to barbarism as the line ascends, until finally they 
 are savages as wretched and debased as have ever existed 
 savages who were, in fact, as nearly allied to the beasts 
 of the field as to any human type, and to a certain extent 
 sunk even below animals, by their superstitious and canni 
 balistic customs. Here is a child born of a race, the in 
 dividuals of which have been under the heel of stronger 
 races from the earliest date in recorded history, and who 
 in all the centuries that have elapsed since the first annals 
 were written, have not essentially changed in those quali 
 ties that placed them at the mercy of the resolute and 
 unscrupulous. Here is a child who has spent the most 
 susceptive years of his life amid surroundings that are 
 calculated to implant the spirit of evil in his nature, 
 whether it was there before or not by inheritance ; a 
 child who has not received a single ethical lesson from 
 parent or friend to prepare his mind and heart for other 
 forms of culture. The first thing that such a child re- 
 
REMARKS ON PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. I /I 
 
 quires is obvious ; he should be taught the plainest andt 
 simplest lessons in the fundamental laws of common) 
 morality. At the very time that this need is greatest, 
 because the formative period of his life is fast passing 
 away, he obtains only lessons in elements of knowledge 
 that cultivate his mental without cultivating his moral 
 disposition. To instruct him in ethics merely, might 
 well tax the energies of the most maternal, benevolent, 
 and sagacious woman, or. the wisest, most patient, and 
 most persevering man. In only too many instances he 
 is so irreclaimable in spite of docility, so unalterable in 
 spite of gentleness, as to render all efforts useless, how 
 ever wisely directed or however earnestly and continu 
 ously sustained. Even if the public school was only bent 
 upon his moral improvement, there would be the same 
 influence to contend with that did so much, as has been 
 stated, to mould his character in the years that preceded 
 the hour when he was placed under the instruction of the 
 teacher, namely, the injurious influence which the society 
 in which he daily moves would exercise after school hours 
 in opposition to the nourishing influence of his teacher. 
 The colored pupil returns to a household that is far from 
 being careful in the observance of the ordinary proprie 
 ties and decencies of life ; it is, in fact, only too often 
 wholly oblivious of all that is upright and beautiful in 
 any of the personal relations, as well as blind to every 
 obligation and indifferent to every responsibility. This 
 household is composed of his own flesh and blood- 
 father, mother, brother, and sister, who naturally would 
 have much more control over him than the teacher, with 
 whom he is thrown only during a brief part of the day. 
 Even if the members of his family were very respectable, 
 he would probably be led astray by the example of the 
 
1/2 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 young companions with whom most of his time would be 
 spent, or by the spirit of the community in which he 
 lives. 
 
 Now, the public school system does not seek to instructs 
 the young negro in morals, its aim being to teach him the) 
 elements of literary knowledge only. The evils which 
 an ethical education of the pupil would have to overcome, 
 namely, those arising from his associations outside of the 
 school-room, are present also in the instance of a mere 
 secular training ; in fact, the influence of this intercourse 
 is more powerful when literary instruction alone is given, 
 because no effort is made in the school -room to combat 
 it specially. As the scholar advances in the rudiments 
 of knowledge he does not acquire the rudiments of moral 
 ity, and, therefore, the process of learning is attended 
 with serious danger to the pupil if carried beyond a cer 
 tain point, where the cultivation of his intellectual facul 
 ties will only enlarge the scope of his uncultivated moral 
 faculties. It has been observed in the higher institutions 
 for negroes, that as they have made progress in mental 
 culture, they have been inclined to think that the ordi 
 nary rules of propriety were not applicable to them. In 
 their satisfaction with their attainments, they have been 
 disposed to consider morality as of no importance. Their 
 growth in character has not been in proportion to their 
 growth in mind, and this too when they have been com 
 pelled to submit to the severest discipline, tempered by 
 the most earnest regard for their welfare. In the public 
 schools, in general, there can be no such discipline as 
 this exercised, except in the hours of recitation, and then 
 the attention of the pupil is absorbed in his ordinary 
 studies. That moral improvement which many negroes 
 show under close supervision, and which they rarely 
 
REMARKS ON PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM. 173 
 
 show under other circumstances, is not observed here, 
 because the supervision is interrupted during the greater 
 part of the day, when the pupil is brought under evil in 
 fluences, that are more likely to impress him than such ex 
 cellent influences as may emanate from the school itself. 
 Not until the public school for the blacks becomes as 
 much a religious as a literary institution ; not until it is 
 directed more to the ethical than to the mental training 
 of the pupil ; not until it is bent rather upon the educa 
 tion of his instincts than the cultivation of his mental 
 powers, is it likely to create in him the slightest inclina- 
 tion to resist the force of the evil conditions that sur 
 round him. It cannot be reiterated too often that the 
 negro of the new generation should be trained, if possible, 
 to be steady and sober, not only for his own sake, but 
 for the sake of the community in which he lives. The 
 object of the public school should be to teach him to 
 control himself, and every possible means should be em 
 ployed for that purpose. It is not enough that he should 
 learn how to read and write ; it is far more important 
 that he should be taught to be honest, temperate, and self- 
 restrained. It is probable that these qualities will not be 
 imparted to him to a considerable degree by any general 
 system of education, but certainly not unless the reli 
 gious element in his instruction predominates over all 
 others. If there is no such element, then the true basis 
 upon which every form of educational discipline should 
 rest will be lacking. The first step necessary to be taken 
 with a view to the introduction of this religious element 
 is to supply them, without exception, with teachers who 
 have passed the ordeal of normal institutes, in which 
 more attention is paid to ethical than to intellectual train 
 ing ; in which, in fact, the mental and manual education 
 
1/4 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 received is given with a view to the moral effect alone ; 
 men, in short, who have been selected for their fitness 
 for a special moral rather than a special intellectual task ; 
 men who have been trained to be missionaries. To raise 
 this spirit even in the most respectable negro is a grave 
 and arduous undertaking, but if it is ever possible to do 
 so in the highest degree, it must be in normal and indus 
 trial schools in which the character of the pupil is sub 
 jected to the most rigid discipline. If this spirit can be 
 imparted to him he will go forth with a well-defined pur 
 pose to Christianize not only the children whom he 
 instructs, but also their parents, crossing weapons with 
 the preachers and politicians who use their powerful influ 
 ence to increase that low sentiment among their people, 
 on which they thrive. Probably the task is too great for 
 the capacity of the negro, for it is a task demanding the 
 most delicate tact and judgment. If, however, the in 
 creasing army of teachers were all graduates of normal 
 institutes that first seek to nourish a true religious feeling 
 in their students, there can be little doubt that the evils 
 that now threaten every community in which the negroes 
 predominate would be diminished. The obstacle in the 
 way of the establishment of a large number of institu 
 tions of this kind is their great cost, but the tendency of 
 any improvement in the public school system is towards 
 their erection, for, as experience makes the system more 
 useful by perfecting its methods, as public sentiment with 
 respect to its objects grows more enlightened, the neces 
 sity of having such institutions will become more obvious 
 as bearing directly on the moral and industrial future of 
 the negroes, and through the negroes, upon the prosperity 
 of the community in general. 
 
XII. 
 
 THE NEGRO AS AN AGRICULTURAL LABORER. 
 
 IN considering the negro as an agricultural laborer, we 
 view him in that phase of his general life in which he 
 appears in the most familiar light. The vast majority of 
 those who till the soil and prepare the crops for market 
 belong to his race ; and their number alone would invest 
 them with remarkable interest, whether we regarded the 
 character of their work or not. The great amount and 
 inestimable value of that work raise them in the present 
 age to a position of the highest economic importance. 
 In every community in which they constitute even the 
 smaller proportion of the inhabitants, they form the prin 
 cipal part of the laboring population, for the reason that 
 all negroes, with very few exceptions, are included in this 
 general class ; those individuals among them who follow 
 a profession or mechanical trade sinking into insignifi 
 cance amid the swarm of their people who earn their 
 bread by various manual tasks. 
 
 There is no record of any agricultural laborer who ex 
 celled the negro as such when he was a slave. Docile, 
 obedient, cheerful, unresentful, of remarkable strength 
 and unusual powers of endurance, he lacked no quality 
 which a tiller of the soil should have, except that it was 
 more or less necessary that he should always be carefully 
 overlooked ; but under such supervision, which com 
 pelled him within proper limits to put forth his highest 
 
 i75 
 
THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 physical capacity, he had few, if any, deficiencies. Apart 
 from this supervision, he was inclined to allow both his 
 attention and energy to relax ; but this might have been 
 expected, as he was without any real incentive to work. 
 This discipline to which he was rigidly subjected, left a 
 deep and abiding impression on his character ; it culti 
 vated in him a spirit of industry, which he disclosed at 
 once as soon as he was properly directed ; and it less 
 ened his native tendency to indolence, even when he was 
 aware that he could be idle without risk of rebuke or 
 punishment. Emancipation was followed by far less dis 
 organization of labor than would have been anticipated, 
 simply because those habits of industry which slavery 
 had created came to the aid of the freedmen when they 
 found that they had to work or starve. It is improbable, 
 however, that these general habits would have stimulated 
 them to exertion at all, if they could have secured a live 
 lihood as easily as their fellows in the tropical islands of 
 Hayti and Jamaica secured it ; but being forced by local 
 circumstances to earn, by the sweat of their brows, the 
 bread with which they supported life a fate that was 
 most fortunate for themselves as well as for the commu 
 nity in which they dwelt, these habits of industry, which 
 had been formed under conditions that had passed away 
 forever, arose in good stead, to assist them in adjusting 
 themselves to the new economic relations which they 
 bore to their former masters, as well as to the land itself, 
 which they had been cultivating for so many years as 
 slaves. 
 
 The first effect of emancipation upon many individu 
 als of the race was to inspire them with a desire to aban 
 don the scenes that had been familiar to them as slaves, 
 and they promptly acted upon this impulse ; separated 
 
THE NEGRO AS AN A GRICUL TURAL LABORER. I // 
 
 from their former homes by their own determination, 
 they obtained employment elsewhere in many instances 
 in distant parts, of which they had no previous knowl 
 edge. Some even doubted whether they had been really 
 liberated until they had tested their ability to leave the 
 old localities without opposition from their former own 
 ers. Even if they were confident that they could do so 
 just then, they anticipated that their present liberty would 
 be curtailed so much in the future that they would prac 
 tically be reduced to their original condition again. An 
 emotion of fear, therefore, urged them to depart. Fidel 
 ity, timidity, or sound judgment induced a few to remain 
 permanently where they had always lived, but the vast 
 majority of negroes changed their habitations either im 
 mediately or in the course of the first years after they 
 were set free. Many of the largest plantations were 
 almost depopulated of their former laborers, the places 
 they vacated being filled by those who had immigrated 
 from other sections or had come in from the same coun 
 try-side. 
 
 At present, the laborers are not inclined to emigrate to 
 a great distance by the mere force of a migratory 
 instinct ; a few do so under the terms of temporary con 
 tracts into which they have been tempted to enter by the 
 solicitations of agents, but a large number are rarely 
 influenced to remove in a body to far off States in the 
 mere hope of improving their condition. Within the 
 circle of an extensive division of country, however, they 
 are constantly shifting ; they will rent land for one year 
 and set up on their own account as mechanics the next, 
 or they will work for one planter a month and labor in 
 the employment of another for twelve months, or attach 
 themselves to the same plantation for many years, and 
 
THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 then suddenly announce their intention to leave. The 
 fact that the laborers of each community are changing so 
 often, introduces an element of instability into their 
 social life, which encourages immorality and a disregard 
 of obligations among them, for when they desert one 
 community for another, their connection with the first 
 ceases in every way ; they are disposed to ignore their 
 debts and not infrequently their marriages, too, if they 
 leave their wives behind ; in other words, they start anew 
 as if they were untrammeled, and their ability to do so, is a 
 strong inducement to them to rid themselves of their bur 
 dens in one locality by settling in another at a distance. 
 
 This restlessness is the only ungovernable fault of most 
 of the laborers who were trained under the strict and 
 regular discipline of slavery. Apart from this unfortu 
 nate trait, which can be somewhat restrained by skilful 
 management, the majority of the freedmen constitute a 
 force of working men that cannot be surpassed in effi 
 ciency. Their submissiveness to authority still survives, 
 and they still retain their habits of industry. On the 
 whole, they are steady, docile and active ; but the display 
 of these excellent qualities is, to a very great extent, 
 dependent upon various conditions. In the first place, 
 they appear to most advantage on extensive plantations, 
 for there, they are happier and more contented, on 
 account of the continual gratification which the society 
 of so many individuals of their race affords them. Some 
 of these plantations include several thousand acres in one 
 body, and it requires many laborers to cultivate their 
 soil. These with their families occupy the quarters in 
 which the former slaves dwelt. Although they can 
 obtain the permission of their employers to visit any part 
 of the country, although they can rove as much and as 
 
THE NEGRO AS AN A GRlCUL tVRA L LABORER. 1 79 
 
 far as they like, after the work of the day is over, or on 
 the occasion of a holiday, the principal portion of their 
 lives during the period of their connection with a planta 
 tion, is spent there. Each of these large plantations is 
 almost as distinct a community under the new system as 
 it was under the old, in spite of its being in much more 
 direct communication with the surrounding country than 
 it formerly was, and in spite of the frequent mutations in 
 its population. Its inhabitants, in an extreme emergency, 
 could supply themselves by their own skill and ingenuity, 
 with every thing that they now purchase from abroad, 
 and if withdrawn from all other society, the company of 
 each other would satisfy their love of companionship. 
 
 Such local influences as these unite to diminish the 
 restlessness of the freedmen by attaching them more 
 firmly to the soil ; and to that extent, these influences 
 lead them to be steady and industrious, as their minds 
 are not diverted or their energies relaxed by the constant 
 prospect of a change. They are also incited to exert 
 themselves by having many associates as they perform 
 their tasks in the fields or manipulate the crops in the 
 barns ; an ability to converse and make merry as they 
 work, operating as a spur. 
 
 An uninterrupted superintendence, however, is neces 
 sary to their activity. A gang of men who will labor 
 with the most cheerful and unremitting industry under 
 the eye of a firm and watchful overseer, without requir 
 ing a word from him to urge them on, will, if he with 
 draws, begin at once to lag, and it is not improbable that 
 in a half hour they will be leaning on their hoes while 
 they engage in lively conversation ; or, if they continue 
 to work, the effort will be irregular and languishing. 1 It 
 1 This is true of the laborers irrespective of age. 
 
180 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 is one of the most remarkable of traits of the field hand, 
 as of the house servant, that he does not openly rebel 
 against the strictest supervision, although it is opposed 
 to every instinct of his nature ; on the contrary, he re 
 sponds to it as readily, apparently, as if he admitted its 
 necessity, and was glad to be sustained against the im 
 pulses of his own weakness. It is absolutely essential, 
 however, that the spirit of this supervision should not 
 only be constant and resolute, but also just and thought 
 ful. If the employer or his overseer is harsh and indis- 
 criminating in his discipline, taxing the energies of the 
 freedman to a point that shows a lack of proper regard 
 for him, the latter is disposed to resent it by leaving. The 
 recognition of the quality of honesty in the character of 
 the employer, the certainty that he will act with fairness 
 in all the various transactions that may arise between 
 them, a consistent adherence to his promises, prompt 
 payment of whatever can be claimed as due, all these 
 things unite to make the negro, whether trained under 
 the old or new system, more industrious and less unre 
 liable as a laborer. And what is equally promotive of 
 this end is an inclination on the part of the employer to 
 favor his laborer whenever circumstances allow him to 
 do so without affecting the proper management of the 
 estate. Thus granting all reasonable privileges that will 
 increase the comfort of the laborer, such as permitting 
 him to fatten several hogs, to cultivate patches of ground, 
 not only in vegetables but in corn, keeping him supplied 
 with wood, advancing small amounts of money occasion 
 ally during the course of a holiday, or perhaps giving 
 provisions when he celebrates an important entertain 
 ment. In short, there are many acts of kindness which 
 the planter can do, within restricted limits, without injury 
 
THE NEGRO AS AN A GRICUL TURAL LABORER. 1 8 1 
 
 to himself, that will go far to make his employes, 
 whether old or young, contented, and thus increase their 
 usefulness as laborers by repressing their love of change. 
 
 It is characteristic, however, even of the most respecta 
 ble negroes, who were trained under the regime of 
 slavery, that they will disregard a contract if it conflicts 
 with their interest or caprice. They seem to be entirely 
 oblivious of the binding force of an agreement, as if it 
 had no well-defined meaning to their minds, not even 
 when it is considered in the light of an ordinary promise 
 that passes in conversation. In consequence of this 
 indifference to a contract, there is no way whatever of 
 retaining them if the plantation with which they are tem 
 porarily connected is situated near a convenient means 
 of transportation, such as a railroad. Under these cir 
 cumstances they often suddenly move to a distance, 
 being led by mere impulse or the prospect of higher 
 wages to abandon their present employer, without even 
 informing him of their intention 
 
 The laborer who has grown up amid the influences 
 that have prevailed in the society of the negroes since 
 the late war, is inferior in steadiness, even under super 
 vision, to the laborer who was once habituated to the 
 restraints of slavery. This is not surprising when it is 
 recalled that he has practically been his own master from 
 the time of his childhood, not having been subjected to 
 any rules of conduct that were likely to make an impres 
 sion on his character. As he has never been systemati 
 cally taught to submit to discipline, he is very much 
 disposed to chafe against the authority of his employer, 
 not in a rebellious spirit while it lasts, but with a desire 
 to bring it to an end as restricting his independence ; 
 and therefore he cannot be confidently relied upon to 
 
1 82 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 remain for any length of time in the service of any one 
 person. He shows a hearty dislike of being bound down 
 to one spot, even when he is aware that it is advantage 
 ous to his interests that he should be ; his feeling in this 
 respect being so well known that the planter for whom 
 he may be working, at any season of the year, is careful, 
 as a rule, to refuse him credit unless he has a family, 
 which hampers his general freedom of movement. His 
 natural impulse is to earn his livelihood by light jobs 
 that do not encroach much upon his time or tax his 
 strength too heavily. If the exacting character of his 
 situation only permitted it, he would not exert himself at 
 all ; but it is absolutely essential that he should, to ob 
 tain the ordinary necessaries of life. He shirks the task 
 which nature imposes just as far as nature itself will al 
 low. He strives to ease the burden which it places on 
 his shoulders, not only by following the least arduous 
 employments, but also by wandering in a restless spirit 
 from neighborhood to neighborhood and county to 
 county, passing a month or two in one locality, perhaps, 
 and moving quite rapidly, from point to point, during 
 the remainder of the year. The planters complain that 
 he is disposed to stay with them as long as the weather 
 is cold and the country closed by frost, but that he will 
 leave as soon as spring has fairly opened, when his ser 
 vices are indispensable. 
 
 As laborers, the members of the new generation are 
 very inexpert in many important respects, because their 
 employers cannot enforce the degree of discipline neces 
 sary to instruct them ; but even if their employers could 
 do so, these young men rarely remain long enough under 
 the supervision of any one planter to allow him sufficient 
 time to teach them to the required extent. Thus, in all 
 
THE NEGRO AS AN AGRICULTURAL LABORER. 183 
 
 those counties of the tobacco region of Virginia, in which 
 the crop is cultivated and prepared for market entirely 
 by negroes, there has been a notable decline in the qual 
 ity of the staple as well as in the character of its manipu 
 lation, now that the majority of the hands who were 
 trained for many years under the eye of their master or 
 his overseer, are fast dying off. This is a crop that de 
 mands unusually careful management to put it in the 
 proper condition for sale, and any lack of skill or knowl 
 edge in those who have charge of it is plainly revealed in 
 its final state, when it is exposed to the purchaser in the 
 warehouse or on exchange. The deficiencies of the la 
 borer in connection with this staple cannot be supplied 
 by the prudence and watchfulness of the employer, as it 
 is possible for him to do in the instance of the cultivation 
 of such cereals as corn and wheat. Here much depends 
 upon the preparation of the soil and its cleansing after 
 the seed has sprung up above ground ; but the grain, 
 when it has matured, needs no extended manipulation, 
 Tobacco, on the other hand, requires the most thorough 
 information and the most discriminating skill from the 
 hour that the plant expands in the patch to the moment 
 that the leaf is prized in the hogshead. Under the old 
 system each plantation had its circle of slaves who were 
 carefully educated from childhood to do general or spe 
 cial work, and the individuals of that circle attained to 
 much expertness in the various tasks of the barns and 
 fields ; but under the present system this is impossible, 
 and the result is that the labor of the new regime is gen 
 erally inferior in character. 
 
 This decline in the expertness of the negro as a la 
 borer will undoubtedly affect his condition profoundly. 
 It has already been injurious to his interests. Many in- 
 
1 84 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 stances can be mentioned of the greatness of the obstacle 
 which his lack of care, foresight, and discernment places 
 in the path of his material progress. One may be cited 
 as a fair example of the rest. In certain parts of South 
 ern Virginia, where the celebrated variety of tobacco 
 known as yellow tobacco is produced, a plan for curing 
 it in the barn has been adopted, which requires incessant 
 alertness and watchfulness to prevent the dry leaf from 
 being exposed to conditions of the atmosphere that 
 would either injure or destroy it in a short time. To 
 conduct the process of curing properly, demands not 
 only experience, but also close attention and excellent 
 judgment. It has been generally found that the negroes 
 cannot be safely trusted with the exclusive supervision 
 of the barns under these critical circumstances. Their 
 minds are too apt to wander from the duty in hand ; 
 they unwittingly forget to observe the thermometer with 
 a view to keeping the temperature at the proper rate ; 
 above all, they have a marked disposition to doze and 
 sleep, and during the time of their drowsiness or slum 
 ber the fires in the barn either decline or grow into too 
 fierce a flame. In fact, it may be said of all the laborers 
 with much more truth than of the house servants, that 
 they cannot be relied upon to perform any task, which 
 would be either dangerous or fatal to themselves or to 
 the interests of their employer, if they showed that they 
 were lacking in vigilance, prudence, or self-possession. 
 It is due, in some measure, to the increasing defects of 
 the field hands, as well as to the difficulty of enforcing a 
 strict authority over them, that there is a growing ten 
 dency towards the division of the great plantations into 
 small plantations, that can be cultivated by the owners 
 with the assistance of a few men who will be compelled 
 
THE NEGRO AS AN A GRICUL TURA L LABORER. 1 8 5 
 
 to work under their immediate direction. Much more 
 powerful influences than this are operating to break up 
 the original system with its single estates, including 
 many thousand acres, and its large gangs of laborers. 
 The cc nplete disruption of this system will have a very 
 injurious, if not fatal, effect on the interests of the mass 
 of negroes, as it will throw the tillage of the soil for the 
 most part into the hands of white men, who are members 
 of the proprietors families. At the best, it will deprive 
 the blacks of many opportunities of accumulating sums 
 with which to purchase small tracts of land for them 
 selves ; in most instances those who have laid by money 
 enough to buy such tracts have been able to do so by 
 their connection with the owners of large estates. The 
 disruption of the system of great plantations will force 
 the negroes back upon the barren, inaccessible, and 
 sparsely-settled ridges. 1 Those who inhabit these ridges 
 have always lived in a meaner way than the laborers who 
 are employed in the low lands, because their ability to 
 earn a livelihood is much more precarious. In conse 
 quence of their extreme narrowness of fortune the rate of 
 mortality is much higher among them, their food being 
 scantier and less nutritious, and the medical attendance 
 which they receive when sick, if they receive any at all, 
 being of an unskilled character. On the whole, however, 
 the breaking up of the old plantation system has not yet 
 reached such a point as to produce much alteration in the 
 life of the laborers. The country is still held in tracts of 
 considerable extent, not so much from any desire on the 
 part of the proprietors to retain their land in this form, 
 
 1 In the end the disruption of the system of large plantations will 
 probably have the effect of excluding the masses of the negroes from 
 the soil altogether. 
 
1 86 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 as from their inability to sell it. As renting has been 
 found to be unprofitable, the inclination of the planters 
 in general is to cultivate their own soil, and to do so they 
 are compelled to rely upon the mass of negroes for labor, 
 the negroes in turn being forced by the spur of poverty 
 to work, whether naturally disposed to do so or not. 
 They may shift uneasily from one locality to another, 
 and change their employers every year, or even every 
 month, according to interest or caprice, but the con 
 straint that they are under to earn a subsistence remains 
 wherever they may be, and this necessity is advan 
 tageous to the country in which they dwell. If they 
 could live without toil, and yet continue to increase, they 
 would soon destroy the prospects of every community of 
 which they formed the principal part. 
 
 The large planters prefer to make up their comple 
 ment of hands by employing negroes alone. Long inter 
 course with the blacks in this character have accustomed 
 their former owners to consider them only in the light 
 of a population that is adapted by their physical quali 
 ties to the tasks of the fields. Tradition also has a 
 powerful influence in producing this state of mind in 
 the leading planters ; then, too, association has thor 
 oughly familiarized them with the African temperament, 
 which enables them to manage their colored laborers 
 with comparative facility. But their preference in this 
 respect is chiefly ascribable to the perfect contentment 
 of the negroes under circumstances that excite in white 
 laborers the profoundest dissatisfaction. The difference 
 between the white and the black employes on the same 
 plantation is very much in favor of the latter in the point 
 of cheerfulness. While the negro will go to bed con 
 tentedly when he can see the sky through a hole in the 
 
THE NEGRO AS AN A GRICUL TURAL LABORER. 1 8/ 
 
 roof, and eat his dinner from a tin bucket when sitting 
 on a clod, the white laborer is captious and resentful, 
 complains of his wages, his quarters, and indeed of every 
 condition under which he lives. Nearly all of the lat- 
 ter s serious faults as a laborer proceed from pride and 
 a desire for a better position, and all the merits of the 
 negro from a total absence of either. 
 
 It is observed that the white men who are employed on 
 plantations that are thickly inhabited by negroes are 
 always restless and uneasy if their duties bring them into 
 contact with the other race ; necessity may force them to 
 work side by side with the blacks in the fields, but in the 
 majority of instances, they will only do so as long as they 
 cannot avoid it. The degradation of the association as 
 well as the meanness of their condition are not forgotten 
 for a moment, and it is highly probable that they will 
 break through their contracts before these have expired. 
 They do not show this disquietude if they are carpenters 
 or mechanics, or if their tasks do not compelled them to 
 be thrown with the blacks on a footing of equality. It is 
 due to this feeling that white labor is slow to compete 
 directly, and in the same field, with negro labor. In a 
 certain sense, the abolition of slavery emancipated the 
 lower white classes as much as it did the black, for there 
 can be no doubt that it raised the dignity of manual 
 work but prejudices of race still survive. We see as 
 strong an inclination in the two peoples to separate in 
 the tobacco lot as in the various walks of society ; a 
 common poverty and a common necessity to win bread, 
 it would be supposed, would break down the barriers of 
 sentiment in the fields and barns, but it does not. This 
 sentiment is not observed where the land is held in small 
 tracts that are cultivated by their white owners with the 
 
1 88 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 assistance of a few negroes ; whites and blacks here toil 
 together in the closest contact, but their relation is not 
 one of equality, as they do not meet as the laborers of 
 one proprietor, but as employers and employe s. 
 
 It is plain that in the general conflict between whites 
 and blacks as laborers, the negro enjoys the chief advan 
 tages. He is physically as vigorous and stanch as the 
 white man ; and is more cheerful and more easily man 
 aged ; he lives in happiness under material conditions 
 that would be intolerable to the humblest white laborer : 
 and has no sentiment or pride that will prevent him from 
 seeking any kind of employment, however disagreeable 
 that employment may be to ordinary sensibilities, or in 
 what degraded situations, it may place him. 
 
 Not only can the negro successfully compete with the 
 native white man, and drive him from the field, but he 
 is also able to expel the immigrant competitor who does 
 not shrink at all from working in his company and at 
 the same tasks. The immigrant laborer does not strive 
 long to rival him, because no such laborer is content to 
 live on the same humble plane of existence ; in this, the 
 latter resembles the native white laborer, only that he is 
 far more irritable and complaining. He is dissatisfied 
 even when he occupies a position in which a native white 
 man is entirely contented ; and when he is ordered to 
 do the lowest kinds of duties his objection is so strong, 
 that he soon brings his service to an end. The same 
 amount of wages on which the negro can subsist with 
 ease would not procure for the immigrant workingman 
 what he considers to be the barest necessaries of life ; his 
 dwelling would be a log cabin, or perhaps a shanty ; his 
 food would be of the plainest and coarsest nature and his 
 clothing of the rudest texture. These conditions combine 
 
THE NEGRO A S AN A GRICUL TURAL LABORER. I 89 
 
 to discourage him from competing with the negro, and to 
 that extent, the latter exercises a most injurious influence 
 on the fortunes of the country in which he lives, even in 
 that character, in which he is entitled to respect, 
 namely, the character of a laborer, for in obstructing the 
 immigration of foreign workingmen, and in throwing a 
 shadow over the prospects of the native white, he really 
 excludes foreign capitalists from the community to a 
 very considerable degree. It has been observed that the 
 immigrant land-owners, having never been brought into 
 contact with negroes before, find it impossible to 
 harmonize with them. Accustomed to white laborers, 
 who require no continued supervision to compel them to 
 perform the tasks that they have agreed to perform, these 
 proprietors are harassed by the uninterrupted necessity 
 of having to look after their colored employes even in 
 the smallest details, and under circumstances, in which 
 it would be supposed, habit, experience, and observation, 
 extending over many years, would have trained the 
 employes to the highest efficiency, without personal 
 direction. The immigrant proprietors find themselves 
 contending without intermission, with the natural in 
 difference, carelessness, and supineness of the black 
 laborer. Their tempers, in consequence, become exas 
 perated, and they are apt to be strict and uncompromis 
 ing, without any leaven of kindness. Against this, the 
 nature of the negro rebels, his indifference and 
 carelessness increase, his energies decline, he is ill at 
 ease, and wholly out of accord with his situation. 
 
 The native proprietor, on the other hand, who has 
 
 a ln the terms "foreign workingmen" and "foreign capitalists," 
 I include workingmen and capitalists from the States that were 
 known as the Free States before the emancipation of the slaves. 
 
I QO THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 been accustomed to colored laborers alone, has been 
 taught by long experience that they can only be con 
 trolled by a judicious mixture of sternness and leniency ; 
 that many weaknesses and deficiencies in their character 
 have to be overlooked as incapable of a remedy, and 
 that a proper allowance should be made for these faults 
 and their ill effect removed by constant watchfulness and 
 care. There can be no doubt, too, that these weaknesses 
 in the negro laborer foster, in some measure, the same 
 weaknesses in the native proprietor himself. He becomes 
 infected by the spirit of that easy philosophy which dis 
 tinguishes the race. Worn out by the struggle to break 
 the force of the carelessness and destructiveness of his 
 employe, he gradually reaches the conclusion that it is 
 impossible. His eye at last is not affronted by the gen 
 eral confusion and lack of neatness in his immediate 
 surroundings ; he is now disposed to suffer things to 
 remain as they are, as the burden of altering them, by 
 putting them in a condition of order, will necessitate 
 afterwards a protracted contest that will entail a degree 
 of annoyance and vigilance that seem wholly out of 
 proportion to the result to be attained. When he has 
 been reduced to this state of mind, he and his laborers 
 are in such sympathy that their relations are of the 
 friendliest character. 
 
 There is one quality yi the negro laborer which is now 
 regarded with increasing favor by his employer, and that 
 is his natural and unconscious conservatism. Owing to 
 this trait, as long as he is left to direct his own conduct 
 there is little danger of labor being thrown into disorder 
 in the communities of which the members of his race 
 form the larger proportion of inhabitants. 1 Strikes are 
 
 1 The only danger lies in the possibility of his becoming the igno 
 rant tool of white-labor organizations. 
 
THE NEGRO A S AN A GRICUL TURAL LABORER. 19 1 
 
 unknown among them, because they are happy and con 
 tented if they can secure the bare necessaries of life, and 
 also because they have no disposition to organize and 
 co-operate of their own motion, even to attain an ob 
 ject that will redound to the advantage of all. Their 
 inclination is not to rebel for the purpose of extorting 
 higher wages for their services, but rather to earn those 
 wages with as little physical exertion as possible. In 
 some measure this conservative spirit is due to their 
 long subordination to the whites, which has fostered a 
 subservient temper in them, but to whatever ascribable 
 it is likely to strengthen their position in the community, 
 and, therefore, have a beneficial influence on their mate 
 rial condition. In consequence of this spirit they have 
 a strong hold upon the good-will of the large planter, 
 who, although he may express an unfavorable opinion of 
 them in many of the relations of life, yet readily acknowl 
 edges their value to him as laborers. As such, they 
 appeal to his selfishness, and however open to censure 
 and criticism in many respects, their importance in this 
 character gives them a claim upon his consideration 
 which is not very much lessened by their deficiencies as 
 men and citizens. For this reason such an employer, 
 although he will animadvert severely on the general 
 weaknesses of the race, and express his fear as to the 
 harm that such an enormous mass of alien people, who 
 are distinguished for none of those qualities that sustain 
 civilization, except mere physical strength, will do to the 
 section of country in which they are found, will yet 
 earnestly deprecate any movement that looks to their 
 emigration in great numbers. The economic tie between 
 the negro laborer and the large planter is the only one 
 that unites the two ; but this makes them dependent 
 upon each other to an important extent, in the present age 
 
IQ2 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 at least, in spite of those influences of mere race that 
 lead them to separate socially and politically ; and this 
 is an assurance that the negro is treated with substantial 
 justice. It is only as a workingman that he adds to the 
 wealth and augments the general prosperity of the com 
 munity. If he were to lose his efficiency as such, or 
 were to show any desire to disorganize labor, then his 
 only element of usefulness to the land-owners and to 
 society would be destroyed. The bond that now attaches 
 him to them would be broken ; he would become wholly 
 isolated and defenseless, and would have no recognized 
 position ; in consequence of which his presence would 
 be regarded as an unmitigated evil. The final result 
 could only be disastrous to himself, for as soon as his 
 rapid decline as a laborer sets in his decadence as a man 
 begins. That decline is already observable, but it is to 
 the interest of the large land-owners at least that he shall 
 not become entirely worthless in this character, this in 
 terest being abetted by the necessity that he is under to 
 work ; and this necessity will only be more inexorable as 
 the horde of his race increases. In this interest of the 
 principal land-owners, as well as in this compulsion, lies 
 the salvation of the negro, for several generations, un 
 doubtedly, not only as a workingman, but as an individ 
 ual and a citizen. His standing in the community, while 
 he remains in it, will be secure as long as he is docile, 
 industrious, and conservative ; his decay will be in pro 
 portion to his gradual loss of these qualities. 
 
XIII. 
 
 MATERIAL CONDITION OF THE LABORER. 
 
 WHAT is the material condition of the laborer ? An 
 answer to this question involves an examination of the 
 practical character of the negro, as well as of the oppor 
 tunities that he has of securing the ordinary comforts of 
 life. A brief study of the masses of the race reveals 
 that they have many qualities that stand directly in the 
 way of their material improvement even in the narrowest 
 sense of the term ; it may even be said that they have 
 many qualities that render such improvement apparently 
 impossible. Whether these qualities are wholly indige 
 nous, or whether they are partially due to the institu 
 tion of slavery that both provided for the slave and 
 removed all incentive to prudence by taking away its re 
 ward, is open to discussion. The probability is that 
 slavery merely fostered certain qualities that were al 
 ready highly developed in the negro ; for when we come 
 to inquire into his condition wherever he has always 
 been free, there we find him remarkable, substantially, 
 for the same traits, traits that have either directly pre 
 vented him from rising above barbarism, or which at 
 least have not assisted him to do so. The most unfor 
 tunate of these traits are carelessness, improvidence, and 
 destructiveness. To a certain extent his transportation 
 to America (although he was brought hither only as a 
 slave) elevated him at once, economically speaking, be- 
 
 193 
 
194 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 cause it raked his standard of physical comfort. The 
 material aspirations of the American negro of to-day, as 
 differentiated Irom his material condition, are certainly 
 higher than those of his African kinsmen, since he 
 has passed /us whole life in close contact with white 
 people, and has adopted their ideas very largely. His 
 material condition, however, is not strikingly superior to 
 that of the African blacks. Like the latter he lives con 
 tentedly amid surroundings that would be revolting to 
 sensibilities of the least refinement. Even where an 
 individual is found who chafes against such environ 
 ment, it is observed that he is kept in the position which 
 he dislikes by those ungovernable qualities to which I 
 have already referred. The exception is when the negro 
 is not distinguished for these qualities, and it is doubt 
 ful as to which of the three obstructs his improvement 
 most. By carelessness I mean not merely heedlessness 
 and lack of attention, but also that spirit of indifference 
 which accepts a mean lot with an acquiescence that is 
 not disturbed by any desire to rise to a higher condition, 
 or that is not led to repine against the narrowness of 
 destiny. Many negroes have a fluctuating ambition to 
 advance their fortunes, but this ambition rarely causes 
 them to repress the characteristics that thwart their 
 wishes, and it still more rarely makes them dissatisfied 
 with their present situation. The individuals of the race 
 take life with an unconscious and spontaneous philosophy, 
 happy if they can get food enough to supply the wants of 
 the body, and contented as long as they have the roof of 
 a cabin to protect them from the weather, wood with 
 which to kindle a fire, on the hearth, and clothes with 
 which to conceal their nakedness. In the midst of the 
 lowest circumstances they live in a state of complacency 
 
MATERIAL CONDITIO* OF THE LABORER. 195 
 
 that is little shaken either by the ordinary cares peculiar 
 to human life, or by those which, it would be supposed, 
 would be incidental to their humble condition. As long 
 as they can earn sufficient to enable them to obtain the 
 few articles that they need, they do not think that they 
 have any ground for complaint. Fortunately for them, 
 their credit is generally restricted to the amount of their 
 wages, and when the limit of that credit is reached, they 
 are compelled to shift as they can, which they do without 
 any apparent loss of cheerfulness. 
 
 A much more lamentable quality is their improvidence, 
 a quality which has its origin in that carelessness of 
 nature to which allusion has been made. This quality 
 was very much fostered by slavery, and it has also been 
 nourished by the influences that slavery transmitted to 
 this age ; but it is probably indigenous, being an out 
 growth of that childishness which crops out in every 
 phase of the general character of the negro. It is one of 
 the most conspicuous traits of his mind, that it dwells on 
 the present alone ; he does not learn by experience from 
 the past to make provision for the future, and the conse 
 quence is, that in his desire to accomplish his immediate 
 purpose he overlooks the injury that he may be doing 
 himself in the light of a time that has not yet arrived. In 
 many respects he resembles the common sailor, being 
 ready to throw away in brief self-indulgence the fruits of 
 his patient toil and long endurance of harsh conditions, 
 and when these fruits are spent he is not racked by the 
 pangs of regret. It may be asserted, without overstate 
 ment, that his inclination to gratify his tastes in those 
 ways that money allows is only circumscribed by the 
 limitation put upon his freedom of purchase by the per 
 son who seeks to make the most of his improvidence in 
 
196 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 selling him the various articles he wishes to buy. The 
 number that he will take on account is only restricted by 
 the prudence of his creditor. If he were permitted, he 
 would thus bind himself on a single occasion to an 
 amount that would not only absorb his annual wages, 
 but plunge him so deeply in debt that it would be im 
 possible for him to extricate himself afterwards ; and he 
 would do this, not from any lurking hope that he can elude 
 his creditor when pressed to pay, but in a spirit of general 
 extravagance. There is no article that he will not pur 
 chase, however absurd in itself or however useless to 
 him. Let it but strike his fancy, and the more gaudy and 
 showy it is, the more forcibly does it appeal to his imagi 
 nation. If he has no cash to give in return for it, he will 
 be anxious to have it set down to his credit, and will ear 
 nestly deprecate a refusal to do so on the part of its 
 owner. Even if the income of the negro increases for 
 any reason, his expenses not only keep step with the 
 sum that he is paid, but the improvement in his fortunes 
 is apt to make him, if possible, still more improvident ; 
 and it is not improbable that he will be more pinched 
 as a man of fair pecuniary resources than he was as a 
 common laborer working for slender wages. 
 
 The spirit of wastefulness in his general affairs takes in 
 the course of his daily life the form of destructiveness. 
 This characteristic of his nature is a great drawback to the 
 use of improved machinery in the ordinary operations of 
 the farm or plantation. He is disposed to run the reaper 
 against a stump if it is situated conveniently, or to drive 
 the mower against a stone ; he is not inapt to allow a stick 
 to crash through the drum of the steam thresher ; and if 
 he has been trained to act as the engineer in charge of 
 the boiler, there is much danger of his suffering the 
 
MA TERIAL CONDITION OF THE LABORER. 197 
 
 pressure to rise so high as to result in a fatal explosion. 
 It is found to be quite impossible to keep glass in the 
 windows of any cabin which he inhabits. It would furnish 
 a glazier almost uninterrupted occupation to renew the 
 panes of the windows of many such cabins whenever 
 they were broken. Not long after these panes are first 
 put in, each window-frame will be observed to present a 
 very motley aspect, patches of quilting, torn linen, pieces 
 of old clothing, and faded newspapers being discovered 
 in the spaces where glass formerly was. The same de 
 structive instinct is exhibited in the facility with which 
 the negroes will burn up the dry rails of all the fences in 
 their vicinity ; they will often transport very valuable 
 plank from a long distance to convert it into fuel, or 
 they will tear from their cabins, for the same purpose, all 
 the boards that can be thus used without exposing them 
 selves to the seventy of the weather. 
 
 With these unhappy qualities, which are found in all 
 the individuals of the race, with few exceptions, it would 
 be impossible for the laborers to improve their condition, 
 even if the opportunities of earning money were numer 
 ous. The means of securing a livelihood at least is 
 within the reach of all ; and if they could only acquire 
 habits of prudence and economy, there is no reaso n wn*y 
 they should not be in the possession of every substantial 
 comfort, but unfortunately these virtues are rarely ob 
 served in them, however industrious. The rates of 
 wages range from eighty to a hundred dollars a year 
 with rations, or eight to ten dollars a month, or forty 
 to fifty cents a day. Cradlemen, ditchers, assorters of 
 tobacco are paid higher for the same length of time, 
 while women, girls, and boys receive from twenty-five 
 to forty cents, whether they work in the fields or barns. 
 
198 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 There is no difficulty in getting employment, either per 
 manently or from month to month, or even from day to 
 day at certain times of the year when there are special 
 tasks to be performed on the farms and plantations. 
 This is notably the case at the season when the wheat is 
 being reaped or the tobacco crop is fast approaching the 
 stage when it becomes necessary to cut it. Previous to 
 that the plants have to be constantly examined very 
 closely for the purpose of destroying the worms that 
 commit such ravage. Tobacco is a crop that requires a 
 large force of laborers throughout the year, since its 
 manipulation, even after it has been cured and stored 
 away in the barn, is as tedious and critical as its cultiva 
 tion in the lots. It remains on the hands of the planter 
 from ten to fourteen months, including the period be 
 tween the sowing of the seed in the bed to the sale of 
 the leaves by the hundred-weight in the market. During 
 this prolonged interval it is essential that it should have 
 the most assiduous and varied attention. On the ex 
 tensive plantations, the operations of which are compli 
 cated and continuous, the laborers are engaged by the year, 
 the agreement being entered into by employer and em 
 ploye on the first of January, a written contract being 
 drawn of that date. If this contract is broken by the 
 laborer, which so often happens when interest or caprice 
 prompt him to move to some other locality, there is 
 really no remedy, as suit upon the obligation would not 
 result in any pecuniary advantage, the negro having no 
 property of value to be levied on, even if he can be found 
 in the jurisdiction of the original Court. Entrance into 
 this written agreement is therefore a mere form, on the 
 whole, and it is very frequently dispensed with as only 
 amounting to such. If the laborer is paid in money, an 
 
MATERIAL CONDITION OF THE LABORER. 199 
 
 order is given him each month on the merchant who has 
 a store in the immediate neighborhood, and who acts, to 
 a certain degree, as the disbursing agent of the property- 
 owners of the community. This order, as a rule, is ac 
 cepted by him in liquidation of the debts that the laborer 
 has made there during the previous four weeks, for the 
 latter practically lives upon credit, the compensation for 
 his work being usually exhausted even before it is earned. 
 If he has been careful, however, not to become indebted 
 at the store, the order is either cashed or received in 
 payment of such articles as he wishes to buy. While the 
 merchant is apt to get possession of the wages of the la 
 borer sooner or later, the display of articles in his estab 
 lishment often tempting the hand to purchase what he 
 would not otherwise think of buying, still indirectly the 
 merchant represses the extravagant disposition of his 
 customer; he, at least, generally compels him to live 
 within his income, although occasionally the cause of 
 that income being spent in a manner that does not result 
 to the advantage of the customer. The storekeeper who 
 credits the negro beyond the sum of his monthly or an 
 nual wages, is aware that he does so at the greatest risk. 
 To allow the laborer to contract a large debt, is to tempt 
 him to decamp without giving any notice of his intention 
 to depart. So well is this inclination understood, that 
 the merchant is reluctant to trust him, even to the amount 
 of his monthly wages, if he is unmarried, and therefore 
 without any local ties. 
 
 The storekeeper who is lax in granting credit to the 
 negroes, is not only considered by the planters to be 
 ignorant of the requirements of his business, but is also 
 regarded as more or less an undesirable member of the 
 community, since his conduct is likely to increase the 
 
200 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 restlessness of the laborers by creating a definite reason 
 why they should wish to leave the neighborhood. 
 
 The total advantages, in various forms, that the ordi 
 nary laborer in steady employment enjoys, are consider 
 able, independently of his wages. In the first place, he 
 is supplied without charge with rations in a sufficient 
 quantity to satisfy the wants of his family and himself. 
 As a rule, he chooses the plainest fare, perhaps because 
 the work he does, calls for food of the strongest and most 
 nourishing sort ; he, therefore, prefers bacon and the 
 meal of the Indian corn to beef and flour ; and this is 
 fortunate for himself, as the price of the former is much 
 less, in proportion to quantity, than that of the latter. 
 The regular allowance to an ordinary hand is 12 pounds 
 of bacon and 5 pecks of meal by the month, or 144 pounds 
 of bacon and 60 pecks of meal by the year, which, if he 
 had to purchase them, would cost him twenty-three 
 dollars in the course of twelve months. In addition to his 
 rations, which are furnished to him as an important part 
 of what he earns in compensation for his services, he is 
 granted certain valuable privileges. Thus, he is always 
 permitted to fatten two hogs at least, which generally 
 reach a great size, as they are fed on the refuse of his 
 cabin, and on the nutritious weeds that he cuts down 
 along the banks of the streams. An acre of land, in the 
 immediate vicinity of his dwelling, is assigned to him as a 
 garden ; and here, by the labor of a few hours, he can 
 produce many kinds of vegetables in profusion, such as 
 beets, peas, potatoes, melons, cabbage, and tomatoes, 
 which he eats as they ripen, or stores away for winter 
 consumption according to variety. Furthermore, he is 
 frequently allowed to cultivate little patches of corn, 
 either in plats of ground near his house, or on parts of the 
 
MATERIAL CONDITION OF THE LABORER. 2OI 
 
 plantation or farm to which he is attached that are not 
 in tillage. The wages that he is paid in money is 
 increased by the amount which he receives for the eggs 
 and the fowls that he sells, a purchaser being found in 
 the country merchant or the planter or farmer himself ; 
 or these articles of food can be used to supply his own 
 table. 
 
 These various comforts are within the reach of every 
 industrious negro if he manages his general affairs with 
 economy ; if he fails to secure them, it is because he 
 dislikes to work steadily for any one employer, or is 
 indifferent to his own prosperity. By a proper disposal 
 of his narrow income, he can even obtain what would 
 be considered by laborers of other countries to be the 
 greatest luxuries. All the articles that he desires, 
 whether to gratify his actual wants or his idle tastes, can 
 be purchased at the nearest store, for the stock of goods 
 on hand there was bought with a view to his needs and 
 fancies alone. The variety of this stock is quite bewil 
 dering, representing, as it does to a limited extent in each 
 direction, the goods to be found in a general combination 
 of city shops. The country store, in fact, is an estab 
 lishment in which few articles of merchandise are 
 wanting ; there are groceries and sweet meats, liquors 
 and medicines, trinkets, clothing and calicoes, pictures 
 and toys, leather and tin in every form, wooden-ware, 
 earthen-ware and hardware. While the prices at which 
 these different kinds of goods are retailed realize a hand 
 some percentage on the sums paid for them at wholesale, 
 still the amounts for which they are sold do not draw 
 too largely upon the resources of the negroes, otherwise 
 the custom of the merchant would soon fall off so much 
 as to lead to his bankruptcy. An excellent suit of 
 
202 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 clothing can be bought for six dollars, and the negro 
 only needs two suits a year ; a pair of shoes can be pur 
 chased for two dollars, and a pair of stout boots for 
 three. A hat entails an expense of fifty cents, and its 
 owner will consider it fit to be worn for an indefinite 
 time. Calico sells for seven cents a yard, and other 
 articles in feminine use can be secured at proportionate 
 figures ; coffee is rated at thirteen cents a pound, sugar at 
 eight cents, flour at four. All other groceries can be 
 obtained according to the same scale of prices. Articles 
 of furniture and household utensils are sold quite cheaply, 
 and are within the limits of the laborer s purse, provided 
 that he has not exhausted its contents already in an im 
 proper way. An examination of his monthly account 
 discloses that the greater part of his wages has been 
 spent in small luxuries with which he could dispense, or 
 in mere trifles. The most important items of this kind, 
 are whiskey and ginger cakes. It is not going too far to 
 say that the majority of laborers waste in these two 
 forms of physical indulgence money enough in the 
 course of ten years to have purchased for each one the 
 historic imaginary apportionment of forty acres and a 
 mule. The sums expended in whiskey are especially 
 large, and yet it is rare to find among the negroes a 
 confirmed drunkard, perhaps because their pecuniary 
 resources are so narrow that they cannot gratify the 
 appetite for liquor as uninterruptedly as they would like, 
 and also because they are compelled by their situation to 
 work for a livelihood ; nevertheless, the amount that they 
 spend in dram-drinking is out of proportion to their 
 means as well as their necessary expenses. The adoption 
 of a general prohibitory law would, no doubt, lessen if it 
 would not put an end to this kind of extravagance, but 
 
c 
 
 w 
 
 MA TERIAL CONDITION OF THE LABOKE 
 
 the negroes would be little aided pecuniarily by such a 
 law, as their money would be squandered in some other 
 way. 
 
 Independently of the country store, the laborer rarely 
 becomes indebted to any one except his employer ; there 
 is generally a running account between the two, but this 
 account does not extend beyond the ordinary necessaries 
 of life. Occasionally the laborer purchases flour or 
 small supplies of beef and mutton from the planter, but 
 the latter does not, on the whole, find it either profitable 
 or convenient, although the body of men under contract 
 to him may be very large, to furnish them systematically 
 with those simple luxuries, or those articles that appeal 
 to their fancy only, which they are so ready to buy. It 
 is rare that an estate is inhabited by a sufficient number 
 of blacks to justify the erection of a store by its owner, 
 for the purpose of enjoying the benefit of their trade 
 alone. 
 
 The negro, however, runs little risk of being improp 
 erly treated as a customer by the country merchants, for 
 they all thrive upon his earnings ; indeed there is much 
 competition among them to obtain his patronage, special 
 advantages being offered as an inducement to secure his 
 good-will. So numerous are the stores in a populous 
 country side, that he has always a choice of trading at 
 any one of two or three, and he selects the one that 
 allows him the easiest terms. He would prefer to make 
 his purchases at a store to dealing with his employer 
 directly, not only because such an establishment presents 
 a tempting variety of goods, but also because it serves 
 very largely as a club, where many of his fellows gather 
 after nightfall, both to buy what they need, and to ex 
 change the freshest items of gossip and to tell the latest 
 
2O4 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 joke. They rarely, under these or any other circum 
 stances, enter into bargains of sale with individuals of 
 their own race, for they distrust one another s word too 
 much to be contented with a promise as the only basis 
 of exchange. It is only infrequently that they sell any 
 thing to each other for cash even, as they have little 
 ready money ; and then, too, the articles that they 
 would thus buy can be easily gotten on credit at the 
 neighboring store. 
 
 If we visit the homes of the laborers on all the planta 
 tions in the same section, we find that their material con 
 dition is similar everywhere, as a rule, although occasion 
 ally a marked difference is observed both in the character 
 and the surroundings of their cabins. On many of the 
 large plantations, that remain very much as they were in 
 the age of slavery, these cabins are arranged in the form 
 of a street, a considerable number of such structures 
 being erected either in the immediate vicinity of each 
 other, with the space of but a few feet between them, or 
 they stand apart at intervals of forty or fifty yards. 
 These are the quarters of slavery times, which still exist 
 as a lingering reminder of a regime that has passed away. 
 Many of the cabins of these quarters were built origi 
 nally of the best material, and in the most thorough 
 manner, and will last in excellent condition for many 
 decades still. Some were even built of brick, and as 
 such will endure practically for an indefinite time, but the 
 use of brick for this purpose was quite rare. Generally 
 they are of wood, either in the form of hewn logs or of 
 common plank. The cabins on many of the farms and 
 plantations are not all found in the vicinity of each 
 other, but are separated into distinct groups of two or 
 more, that have a long distance intervening between 
 
MATERIAL CONDITION OF THE LABORER. 2O$ 
 
 them. A cabin is sometimes discovered in the midst of 
 the forest, with no other house within a mile of its site. As 
 a rule, however, the dwellings of the laborers are erected 
 where they will be situated conveniently to the barns and 
 stables. 
 
 Throughout the whole of the tobacco region of Vir 
 ginia, the eye of the traveller lights upon the domiciles 
 of the negroes at every opening in the. woods or turn of 
 the road ; and they range in character from the meanest 
 hovel to the plain but substantial cabin. A more dreary 
 and uncomfortable habitation than the former could 
 hardly be conceived by the imagination. Such a hut is 
 always constructed of pine logs from which the bark has 
 not been stripped, the open space between them being 
 filled in with the tenacious red clay of the country. The 
 chimneys are made of sticks, sustained and protected by 
 the same natural plastering ; the original earth constitutes 
 the flooring ; rough stones take the place of iron dogs on 
 the hearth. An iron pot, a frying-pan, a few plates of 
 the coarsest manufacture, a few knives with horn handles, 
 are the only utensils and ware ; while a bed, a table, and 
 a couple of chairs or stools, all more or less shattered, 
 are the only furniture. The plank ceiling, which has a 
 tendency to sway towards the middle, can be touched 
 with the fingers without difficulty. In one corner the 
 meal box is -generally placed, while in the other the 
 family tub stands on its bench. A pair of rickety steps 
 leads up to a dark garret, in which a variety of articles 
 are stored away, such as ragged clothing, broken chairs, 
 tools, the corn that has been gathered from the field near 
 the house, and the winter vegetables. However poor 
 the household may be, there are three things which it 
 never lacks namely, wood for the fire, fresh water, and 
 
206 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 pure air. The window and door are always open, and 
 the cracks between the logs in the mud plastering are 
 often large enough to admit the hand ; hickory, oak, and 
 pine grow close by, and from the spring in the neighbor 
 ing ravine there wells up perennially water as cool as the 
 soil of the earth through which it flows. 
 
 Occasionally a cabin that is quite substantial in ap 
 pearance is observed, being built of large hewn logs, 
 properly plastered, the chimneys of stone, the roofs 
 closely shingled, the flooring of smooth planks, the fire 
 places open and commodious, the furniture excellent 
 and well preserved. Around the walls are tacked 
 pictures from illustrated papers or books ; here and 
 there, too, a bunch of dried pepper or other seed plant 
 is hung, or a hare or opossum skin. In the immediate 
 neighborhood of such a cabin there is usually a garden 
 full of every kind of vegetable ; also a few apple, peach, 
 and cherry trees. Not infrequently, too, there are 
 flowers, the favorite being the flaring sun-flower, that is 
 supposed to keep off the floating germs of malaria that 
 rise from the marshy watercourses. The clothes-line 
 displays the abundant wearing apparel of the household. 
 At a short distance off the pig-sty is erected, not always 
 far enough away, however, for the wind to intercept its 
 pungent odors. Here the family hogs are fattened on 
 the succulent weeds of the country, such as wild parsley 
 and the buffalo cane, or the refuse of the table boiled in 
 a mess in the pot. Chickens, ducks, and turkeys run 
 about in search of food, and here and there lounges a 
 cur or hound that springs up with loud and fierce barks 
 as the stranger approaches. 
 
 The families of the negroes, as a rule, live upon the 
 coarsest fare, served in the plainest way, and there is 
 
MA TERIAL CONDITION OF THE LABORER. 2O? 
 
 
 
 little difference in the character of their daily meals ; 
 bacon and corn bread constitute the staple of their food 
 in the morning and evening alike, and the meat is eaten 
 from the utensil in which it is cooked, quite frequently 
 without the assistance of any thing less primitive than the 
 fingers and a common knife. There is observed, how 
 ever, among many, especially among those who have 
 grown up since the close of the war, a marked desire to 
 improve and vary the character of their fare ; much of 
 their earnings in consequence is wasted in victuals and 
 luxuries which they cannot afford. Instead of increasing 
 their comforts directly by raising poultry, enlarging their 
 gardens, and by general good management, they devote 
 such money as they can acquire to the purchase of ex 
 pensive groceries which they could do without, or which 
 they should not buy, unless their wages were higher or 
 these wages were augmented by other pecuniary re 
 sources. In some of the cabins every table convenience 
 is found, such as plates, dishes, knives, and forks, and the 
 meals are neatly and substantially served. This superior 
 style of living is noticed most often on the largest plan 
 tations, where the laborers enjoy many valuable privileges 
 that are out of the reach of individuals who are employed 
 in less favorable situations. If the traveller should grow 
 hungry when the nearest tavern is still many miles away 
 and no planter s home is in sight, he can probably obtain 
 in the most prosperous of their dwellings what he will 
 consider a fair meal, if his palate is not very fastidious. 
 As soon as he states his wish, a table is drawn forward 
 and a cloth spread over it ; on this a plate, knife, and 
 fork are placed, and he is bidden to take a seat, with an 
 apology for the necessary delay in preparation. In a few 
 minutes the negro housewife has sifted the meal from the 
 
208 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 
 
 brand and kneaded a large cake, which she deposits near 
 the centre of the fire after raking away the embers, and 
 then covers it up with the hot ashes and live coals. 
 Freshly laid eggs are brought from the hen-house, and 
 set to frying with several slips of bacon in the frying-pan ; 
 a young chicken is cast into the pot, or broiled on the 
 gridiron ; potatoes, tomatoes, corn, peas, as the guest 
 may prefer, are cooked ; and when all are ready, meat, 
 eggs, and vegetables are dished and set on the board ; a 
 glass of buttermilk is placed on one side of the plate, and 
 the ash-cake, smoking hot and washed clean, on the 
 other ; and the traveller is bidden to eat, while one of the 
 children fans the flies away with a green bough. The 
 rural feast is crowned with fruit, if the old-fashioned 
 peach trees, that are usually planted around each cabin, 
 are in bearing, and the fruit has ripened ; or, if not, then 
 a cup of store coffee, that has been carefully put away for 
 Sunday or a holiday, is substituted for it. The character 
 of the meal would harmonize somewhat with the time of 
 the year : if it were winter, a hare or opossum might be 
 served up instead of the chicken, or some part of the pig 
 that has only been lately slaughtered, or even a piece of 
 beef or mutton, which the householder has recently 
 bought from his employer. 
 
 There are few laborers who have as many opportunities 
 to surround themselves in their homes with every rea 
 sonable comfort as the negroes of the tobacco region of 
 Virginia, and if they fail to do so, it is owing to their 
 improvidence, wastefulness, and indifference. Employ 
 ment is easily obtained, and at such wages as to place 
 even the luxuries of life in their reach, if they will only 
 husband their resources ; there is so much untilled soil 
 that every large planter allows his hands to cultivate 
 
MATERIAL CONDITION OF THE LABORER. 209 
 
 considerable surfaces for their private use ; fowls of 
 every variety can be raised ; the woods and fields are full 
 of many kinds of game that can be trapped ; the forests 
 supply an abundance of fuel ; and there are stores 
 wherever two public roads cross. In addition to these 
 advantages, the blacks have their schools and churches, 
 and they are so numerous as a people that they never 
 lack social amusements. If they grow weary of one 
 locality they can find work and a home elsewhere ; if 
 they tire of one form of occupation, they can adopt 
 another without any delay ; they can labor for wages or 
 on shares as they prefer ; they can rent land on their 
 own account ; or they can seek the railroads, or settle 
 in the towns and become house servants. 
 
 The condition of the few among them who show pru 
 dence and judgment is certainly superior to the condition 
 of the lowest class of whites who, in our principal cities, toil 
 in the unwholesome atmosphere of factories and pine with 
 disease and poverty in small and filthy tenements. Let 
 any one go into those parts of these great cities where 
 this class lives. Let him mark their sallow and haggard 
 faces, their sunken eyes and unclean persons let him 
 breathe the stifling air and smell the foul odors, and then 
 suddenly let him be dropped down into the midst of a clus 
 ter of cabins on a prosperous plantation. Good-humored 
 faces there surround him on all sides, and he sees content 
 ed dispositions reflected in every feature. His eye takes in 
 at a glance the different signs of comfort about the home 
 steads, shabby and humble though they may be, the pig 
 fattening in the sty, the little patch of corn or tobacco, 
 the peach and apple trees, the kitchen-garden, the pile 
 of seasoned fuel, the umbrageous oak that shades the 
 well trodden yard, the rustic spring with its connecting 
 
210 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 path, the poultry running in various directions, the chil 
 dren rolling in the dirt, the wife and mother cooking or 
 sewing ; all being enveloped in the healthy air of the 
 country that is laden with the fresh, odors of the fields 
 and forests. Does he doubt for a moment which of the 
 two has most reason to be satisfied, the indigent workman 
 of the town or the laborer who tills the green fields ? 
 
 The material improvement of the laborer is obstructed, 
 as I have already remarked, by the fact that he is con 
 tented whether he is environed by all these comforts 
 or not. His condition may be the reverse of that which 
 I have described, and in the great majority of instances it 
 is. His cabin may be a decayed shanty with a dirt floor, 
 and with a hole in one side for a window, a hovel as 
 primitive as the hut of a Dinka or a Zulu ; its surround 
 ings may show no evidence of the least thrift ; it may be 
 without a garden, or corn patch, or pig-pen ; and yet it 
 would be impossible to find a man who regarded exis 
 tence with more placid happiness or more boisterous 
 cheerfulness than its tenant does. No desire to rise 
 troubles his brain, and no envy of those who are rich 
 gnaws at his heart. The past has vanished ; the future 
 has no existence ; it is the present alone that knocks at 
 the door of his mind, and he is fully satisfied as long 
 as he has enough bread and meat to keep him from star 
 vation, a dilapidated coat to his back, an occasional 
 dram, and the companionship of his friends. His phi 
 losophy is profound, but it is the unconscious philosophy 
 of a man who is in the lowest state of nature. 
 
XIV. 
 
 RENTERS AND LAND-OWNERS. 
 
 THE negro has an inclination towards agriculture, even 
 apart from any liking for it which his life as a laborer 
 has created and fostered ; this may, to some extent, be 
 an inherited taste that had its origin in the special train 
 ing of the individuals of many preceding generations. It 
 has always been observed in the blacks throughout Africa. 
 It was also noticed in the American slaves long before 
 they were emancipated. To be allowed to have a garden, 
 or to plant a few acres in corn, was regarded by them as 
 a valuable privilege, irrespective of the addition thus 
 made to their comforts ; and the same view is held by 
 them, now that they are free, and are paid in wages, or 
 have a share in the crop that they produce. This incli 
 nation is detected not only in the ordinary field hand, 
 but also in the mechanic, and the house servant, whose 
 duties have removed them from the influences that might 
 have been thought to be the cause of it in the common 
 laborer. 
 
 Like the peasant of every country, who earns his bread 
 by tilling the soil, the negro has a desire to possess land. 
 If unable to purchase it, he is anxious to rent as much as 
 any proprietor is willing to lease to him. Indeed, he is 
 never more contented than when he has acquired tempo 
 rary control over a few acres ; it can be even said that 
 he is happier situated thus than when he owns land, for 
 
 211 
 
212 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 ownership lays upon his shoulders the burden of pro 
 viding against taxation, besides leaving him without the 
 advice and support of a stronger and more experienced 
 person. His great satisfaction as a tenant is due to 
 various reasons. In the first place, he lives in entire 
 freedom from the pressure of any form of immediate 
 supervision ; he is not required to make his appearance 
 in the field at a stated hour, or to perform any task that 
 may be set him at a moment s notice ; on the contrary, 
 he can go to his work long after the sun has risen, and 
 no one will have the power to discharge him for his indo 
 lence. He can labor for as short a time as he likes, and 
 leave the field whenever he chooses ; he may hoe one 
 day and lounge the next ; or he may plough during two or 
 three days of the seven then mount his horse and visit a 
 neighboring community, where he can spend the remain 
 der of the week. He can take part in excursions, attend 
 court, hunt, fish, or call at the store, as his passing mood 
 suggests. This ability to govern his own conduct, with 
 out being answerable to another s authority, is highly 
 valued by him, and he makes the most of it in so many 
 ways that he pays little heed to the condition of his 
 business. In his love of pleasure or in his laziness he 
 delays as long as possible to prepare the land for the 
 reception of the seed, and when he does put it in order 
 it is generally after an imperfect fashion. He often allows 
 the grass to spring up more rapidly than he cuts it down 
 with the hoe, and every successive phase in the growth 
 of his tobacco illustrates the same procrastinating spirit. 
 He shows, in the manipulation of his crop, after it has 
 been stored away in the barn, not only want of proper 
 attention, but of ordinary care and skill ; and the result 
 is that the grade which he places upon the market is 
 
RENTERS AND LAND-OWNERS. 21$ 
 
 very inferior. In every county where much tobacco 
 is produced by his fellow-tenants there has been 
 a conspicuous decline in the quality of the staple. 
 Whether his crop, however, is mean or excellent, or 
 whether it pays the expenses of cultivation or not, he is 
 so much pleased with the independence of his life that 
 he is contented if he has been able to pass through the 
 year with a fair degree of credit at his store. He is 
 always eager to renew his lease if the owner of the land 
 is willing to allow him to do so, for he is not in the least 
 discouraged by the result of his agricultural operations 
 during the previous twelve months. 
 
 At one time the planters were disposed to rent much 
 of their land to negroes on shares, the general terms 
 being that, if the proprietor furnished teams, forage, and 
 implements, and cabin and fuel for tenant and his family, 
 he was to receive one half to three fourths of what was 
 made, the proportion varying with the fertility of the 
 soil, the character of the crops, and other similar condi 
 tions. On the other hand, if the tenant supplied the 
 teams and implements, which he was rarely able to do 
 on account of his poverty, the proprietor was paid from 
 one fourth to one third of the products. If the former 
 only leased as many acres as he could cultivate himself, 
 without the need of assistance in any form, the land 
 owner was satisfied if he secured an amount that would 
 cover the rental of the cabin. So far has the system 
 of leasing to the negroes failed in consequence of their 
 carelessness, indolence, and unreliability, that there has 
 been a great decline in its popularity. A proprietor rents 
 to them now only as a last resort. This is one of the many 
 instances of how much their unhappy qualities stand in 
 the way of their material improvement, and how unequal 
 
214 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 they are to taking advantage of the most favorable oppor 
 tunities. If they were distinguished for prudence, judg 
 ment, and energy ; if they would devote their whole time 
 and attention to the business in which they are engaged ; 
 if they had, when left to themselves, any capacity for ac 
 quiring skill in that business, by the closest study of its 
 requirements they could place themselves in a few years 
 in an independent position by renting land and cultivat 
 ing tobacco. Land indeed is so abundant that its owners 
 would be glad to add to their incomes by leasing many 
 acres, that would otherwise lie idle, to colored tenants 
 who could be relied upon to use the soil well and pay 
 rent with some degree of certainty ; but whoever leases 
 to a negro understands that it signifies the further im 
 poverishment of the soil, and at the same time it is doubt 
 ful whether there will be obtained in return a sum equal 
 to its annual depreciation in quality. The proprietor is 
 hampered by the presence of a lessee whom he cannot 
 directly supervise and control, and whose lax habits are 
 calculated to exercise a bad influence over the laborers 
 who are in the proprietor s employment. These laborers 
 observe that the tenant has much time at his disposal, in 
 which he can do precisely what his inclinations lead him 
 to do ; they see him directing his own hands, for he has 
 to hire a couple or more, or they notice him riding lei 
 surely about on his own horse. The enjoyment of so 
 much independence, as well as of so much importance, by 
 one of their own race, who, they are aware, is no better 
 off in the point of capital than they are, has the effect of 
 raising their envy and, in a certain measure, of demoral 
 izing them. 
 
 The greatest injury which a planter can inflict upon 
 the interests of the community in which he lives, is to 
 
CENTERS AND LAND-OWNERS. 21$ 
 
 rent the whole of his estate in small lots to colored ten 
 ants, especially if he abandons his home permanently to 
 dwell elsewhere, leaving his property entirely in their 
 hands. The quality of the soil begins at once to depre 
 ciate from improper usage and careless cultivation ; the 
 buildings and fences soon fall out of order from natural 
 decay or the depredations of pilferers ; the teams de 
 cline to the poorest condition ; the crops produced are 
 of an inferior quality. But this is not all : such an 
 estate soon becomes the safe harbor of all the depraved 
 negroes in the vicinity ; the vicious habits of the women 
 and men alike increase owing to their removal from the 
 control of the proprietor ; thievish and superstitious 
 practices are more common and open, and brawls and 
 quarrels arise more often than elsewhere. The relations 
 of the inhabitants with the whites in the surrounding 
 country grow strained and hostile, and their bearing in 
 solent. In short, within the narrow confines of one 
 plantation, we observe all the unfortunate effects which 
 the isolation of the negroes to themselves invariably has 
 upon their disposition and conduct in every locality. 
 
 Many of the negroes who have acquired land of their 
 own in fee simple appear to more advantage than those 
 who simply rent it from white proprietors. One explana 
 tion of this is, that the latter act is very frequently a 
 mere device of indolence, the chief object of the lessee 
 being to escape from that protracted drudgery and un 
 broken routine to which a common laborer on a planta 
 tion has to submit. He wishes to shape his own con 
 duct untrammelled by that authority to which he would 
 be subjected as a mere employe ; in other words, he de 
 sires to be in a position in which he can work or idle 
 away his time just as he may prefer. As a renter he is 
 
2l6 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 at liberty to follow the promptings of his moods as they 
 rise, and hence it is a condition that his easy disposition 
 holds in high appreciation. On the other hand, the fact 
 that a negro is a land-owner is a proof, as a rule, that he 
 is superior in certain qualities of his character to the 
 great mass of his race. He may not be stricter in 
 morals or brighter in mind, but he is likely to be 
 sounder in judgment, and to have more power of self- 
 control. To hoard sufficient money to buy even a few 
 acres, however cheaply they can be purchased, is fair 
 evidence that he is comparatively steady and economical 
 in his habits, prudent and careful in his views, and, 
 above all, not only animated by ambition to improve his 
 fortunes, an ambition shared by many of his people in a 
 fluctuating way, but also (and this is far more important, 
 and it is rarely remarked among his fellows) that he has 
 self-restraint enough to realize that ambition. A man 
 who has such aspirations, associated with sufficient 
 strength of purpose to carry them into effect, is apt to dis 
 play, when he comes into possession of an estate of his 
 own, the same practical qualities that enabled him to 
 secure it, qualities that may lead to successful manage 
 ment. The flower of the race is to be found among 
 these small land-owners, men who alone in the vast swarm 
 of negroes who darken the country like an ominous 
 cloud, give us the least confidence in its capacity. 
 
 When we examine the best type of these colored pro 
 prietors, we find them, almost without exception, to be 
 freedmen of simple tastes, who were trained to be in 
 dustrious, regular, and vigilant by the discipline that 
 prevailed on the plantations under the regime of slavery. 
 In many instances they were foremen, and were thus 
 accustomed not only to command and superintend, 
 
RENTERS AND LAND-OWNERS. 21? 
 
 but to bear the weight of responsibility, a still 
 more useful form of education. This experience was 
 of inestimable service to them when emancipation threw 
 them on their own resources. Having been habituated 
 to the plain style of life that had been enforced among 
 them before they were freed, they had no desire to throw, 
 their earnings away in luxuries which they could not 
 afford to purchase with their narrow wages. By laying 
 aside a few dollars each month, they soon accumulated 
 enough to buy small areas of land on the ridges that 
 extend back from the watercourses ; this land they were 
 able to acquire at very low rates, as it was quite worth 
 less for the production of any crop except tobacco, which, 
 also, could only be cultivated there with the assistance of 
 fertilizers. On soil that is apparently too thin to sustain 
 much growth of any kind, a fine quality of this staple 
 can be raised with the aid of artificial manure. It was 
 due to this fact alone that the various purchases of these 
 freedmen were not wholly without value. The ground 
 along the rivers and smaller streams was held at such a 
 high price an acre, that not one among them was able 
 to buy it, however careful and industrious, and, in con 
 sequence, they were compelled to settle on the high 
 lands. This is the character of the tracts that even the 
 most thrifty own. These tracts range from five to a hun 
 dred acres, some of them being in a fair state of culti 
 vation in spite of their inferior quality ; the proprietors, 
 in consequence of the training they received as slaves, 
 comparing quite favorably in their methods and manage 
 ment with the class of small white planters. The estates 
 of the freedmen who are most alert, thoughtful, and dili 
 gent are occasionally found to be as well appointed in 
 the way of barns, cribs, and stables as the estates of their 
 
218 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 white neighbors, their teams in as high order, their fences 
 in as good repair, and their tobacco crops as flourishing. 
 The houses in which they live are plainly but substan 
 tially built ; an effort at some adornment is often de 
 tected both within and without them, the aspect of the 
 surroundings being generally indicative of a consider 
 able degree of comfort and prosperity. 
 
 An interest in land has, in a measure, had a beneficial 
 effect on the more intelligent of the negro proprietors. 
 In the first place, they have been forced to take the 
 future into account, which has tended to inculcate habits 
 of prudence. They also know that idleness signifies 
 that it is only a question of time for them to be sold 
 out by the public auctioneer for delinquent taxes ; and 
 this has been calculated to make them both industrious 
 and assiduous, apart from the mere necessity of earning 
 a livelihood for themselves and their families. The re 
 sponsibility which the exclusive care of their property 
 places on their shoulders has given them little time to 
 plume themselves on their superiority to the rest of their 
 people. That flighty vanity observed in their fellows, 
 with few exceptions, when elevated into importance, has 
 not been so noticeable in them, for their position is more 
 or less a precarious one, as it is dependent upon their 
 own diligence and judgment whether they can sustain 
 themselves. And if they have these sober qualities they 
 are not apt to fall into a foolish conceit. 
 
 The more successful the colored land-owner is, the 
 keener his appreciation of the stake that he has in the 
 condition of the community is apt to be. The most re 
 spectable of these proprietors are, in fact, the only men 
 among the negroes who seem to realize what citizen 
 ship means. The masses of the race are as alien to 
 
RENTERS AND LAND-OWNERS. 2IQ 
 
 the soil as if they had just arrived from some foreign 
 shore, with all their peculiarities as a foreign people still 
 distinct, and feeling no concern about the prosperity of 
 their adopted country, on account of their ignorance of 
 its needs. They pay no taxes of any importance ; ap 
 parently to them the administration of the government 
 does not touch them at all, because it does not sensibly 
 affect their selfish interests. But with the owner of a large 
 number of acres, the case is likely to be different ; his un 
 derstanding must be strangely obtuse if he does not see 
 very clearly how intimately his own financial condition is 
 associated with the general welfare of his community ; 
 and there can be little doubt that the most intelligent 
 of these colored proprietors perceive this, and are, in 
 consequence, more thoughtful as citizens than they would 
 otherwise be. Those among them who are skilful and 
 successful, as well as sober and conservative, are regarded 
 with respect by the whites, and are treated in personal 
 intercourse as entitled to it. There is no prejudice 
 against such men on account of their good-fortune ; on 
 the contrary, there is an earnest desire among the most 
 influential members of the ruling class that the same 
 qualities shall be exhibited by others, leading to the same 
 acquisition of land and to a similar success in its manage 
 ment, for not until the negro becomes a property holder, 
 not until he has an interest in the soil, do the whites ex 
 pect to see him an estimable citizen, as much concerned 
 as they are in a just and economical administration of 
 public affairs, both State and local. While it is recog 
 nized that it is comparatively rare that individuals of the 
 race have the capacity or the character to accumulate 
 such property, yet it is hoped that those who succeed in 
 doing so will form in time a body of men who will not 
 
220 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 only exert much influence by the example they set, but 
 will also have power to restrain those elements among 
 their own people from which so much is to be feared. 
 
 Although a few colored land-owners are found who are 
 as successful as the majority of the smaller planters 
 among the whites, yet only too many fail in their annual 
 operations, not so much from indifference to their own 
 interests, which is infrequently remarked, as it is neces 
 sary that they shall work to retain the property that they 
 have, but rather from ignorance of correct methods of 
 tillage, and from a lack of means with which to purchase 
 ( the required manures. A more striking example of 
 meanness of fortune is rarely observed than that pre 
 sented by many of this class of negroes who have in 
 vested their little savings in a few acres that lie on the 
 backbone of a vast ridge, far removed from every stream 
 and apparently from all trace of civilization. Here, in 
 the midst of the stunted forest, or at the edge of fields 
 that have been abandoned as too impoverished to pro 
 duce any kind of crop, and almost too poor to nourish a 
 growth of briars or broomstraw, these indigent house 
 holders have erected primitive shanties and stables of 
 logs and sticks. Their rude carts are of their own manu 
 facture, with the exception of the wheels ; their teams 
 consist of brindled oxen from the pine barrens and 
 spavined mules which they have bought for a few dollars 
 from the planters or at public auction ; their plows are 
 old and broken ; their harness partly leather and partly 
 rope ; their forage, the shucks and tops of such corn as 
 they have been able to raise. Their land, to produce 
 even a scanty subsistence, must have the aid of fer 
 tilizers. As they are unable to buy the artificial manures, 
 it is often difficult to understand how they and their 
 
RENTERS AND LAND-OWNERS. 221 
 
 families eke out an existence. Maize will not spring up 
 with any vigor in such soil as they own, and even in the 
 most favorable season will form only the smallest nub 
 bins. Their only hope lies in tobacco, and they culti 
 vate this without being discouraged by the most meagre 
 returns. They, their wives, and children, tattered, un 
 wholesome, and forlorn in appearance, will be seen tilling 
 their little patches, the plants of which do not hide the 
 surface of the ground from view. By the crops which 
 they thus secure, with the addition of the few vegetables 
 which they obtain from their gardens, and of the animals 
 that they trap or shoot in the neighboring woods, they 
 keep their families alive, but the struggle to do so is 
 harsh and continuous, and barely successful. And yet, 
 precarious as their means and wretched as their sur 
 roundings are, they would not change their situation. 
 They prefer to live as they do, striving for a scanty sup 
 port on their own land, where they are at liberty to act 
 as they choose, to working on the most extensive and 
 prosperous of the adjacent plantations, although they 
 know that there they will be promptly paid fair wages, 
 that they will have comfortable cabins, large gardens, an 
 abundance of fuel and nutritious food, and the society 
 of several hundred people of their own color. They 
 share this feeling with all the individuals of their race in 
 whom the agricultural instinct is developed to an unusual 
 degree, and who, with few exceptions, would settle in 
 the most inaccessible spots, on narrow and impoverished 
 tracts of land, rather than enjoy the most liberal com 
 pensation for their toil, as well as valuable privileges as 
 laborers in the employment of the planters and under 
 the supervision of overseers. They are influenced in this 
 preference by the independence of the life which they 
 
222 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 would lead on their own estates, and also by that irregu 
 larity of effort which it permits. 
 
 The negroes of the tobacco region of Virginia have, 
 since their emancipation, been afforded the most favor 
 able opportunities of improving their condition by pur 
 chasing land. Its cheapness has put it in the power of 
 every laborer to secure a small homestead, that could be 
 made sufficiently productive to enable him to support 
 his family, and even to accumulate some capital. It 
 is the planter who owns a few hundred acres rather 
 than a thousand or more, who has found the culture 
 of tobacco most profitable, because he can till his soil 
 and manipulate his crop more economically, as his 
 working force is principally furnished by the members 
 of his own family, and he can give every detail of his 
 business his personal supervision. Up to the present 
 day the negro laborers have, perhaps, been in receipt of 
 more money l than any other class of the community ; 
 and if they had saved even a portion of their earnings, 
 it could have been invested to the greatest advantage 
 in the land, which the revolution in the general eco 
 nomic system, produced by the civil war, threw upon 
 the market. If there had been any demand for such 
 land on their part, they could have readily bought it at 
 the lowest prices. There were few owners of estates off 
 the watercourses who would not have consented to sell 
 many acres, in order to contract the size of properties 
 that had always been too large, as well as to obtain cash ; 
 and yet such opportunities of improving their condition 
 at the very time that these opportunities have been 
 fairest, have not been utilized by the masses of the 
 blacks, not because they have failed to observe them, but 
 1 In the form of wages. 
 
RENTERS AND LAND-OWNERS. 22$ 
 
 because they have not had the qualities to provide the 
 purchase money that was necessary. When we consider 
 the extravagance and carelessness of the race, it is easy to 
 understand why its members continue poor in the midst 
 of those excellent openings for establishing themselves in 
 permanent comfort that exist even now. The monthly 
 account of each one with his merchant discloses how far 
 such sums as he has earned have been thoughtlessly 
 expended, which, if they had only been carefully laid by, 
 would in time have enabled him to buy many acres in 
 the neighborhood of the cabin in which he lived. The 
 golden period of the negro, with respect to his ability to 
 secure valuable tracts, has been the last twenty years 
 when the depression in real estate has been greatest, in 
 consequence of the transmitted influences of the war. 
 An advance in this interest has now begun, 1 and this ad 
 vance has been most noticeable in land that fifteen years 
 ago was regarded as worthless, on account of the thinness 
 of the soil ; this being due to the fact that such soil has 
 been found to be suitable for the production of the most 
 profitable varieties of tobacco. An acre that formerly 
 sold for two dollars, has, in some counties, risen in value 
 to fifteen. Many estates can still be bought at the 
 former rate, but for the most part they barely yield a 
 subsistence. They are not adapted to the finer kinds of 
 tobacco, for if they were, they would be held at the 
 highest price ; they are not fertile enough for wheat and 
 corn, no manure being used in producing these crops. 
 
 An increase in the number of small white planters 
 will diminish the ability of the negro to buy estates, be 
 cause such increase implies an advance in the price of 
 
 1 The general advance is due to the demand for land among small 
 white planters who have accumulated ready money. 
 
224 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 land, upon which the prosperity of the white people must 
 always rest. This will only render it more difficult than 
 ever for the blacks to acquire it. If few were able to 
 make purchases in the period of the greatest depression 
 of prices, that is, in the course of the last two decades, 
 the probability is that still fewer will be able to do so in 
 the future, on account of the general rise in valuations 
 that will attend an improvement in the condition of the 
 whites. So far as can be observed, the race is not more 
 economical after twenty years of freedom than it was 
 after five, or even ten ; and its habits are not likely 
 to change with the progress of time. There is also 
 another fact that points to the improbability of its mem 
 bers obtaining possession of much real property in the 
 future, namely, the remarkable disparity at the present 
 day between the number of land-owners among the 
 freedmen, and the number of land-owners among the 
 members of the generation that has reached maturity 
 since the close of the war. The largest proportion of 
 the inhabitants of every community of the race belong 
 distinctively to the period of freedom ; negroes who 
 were ten years old when emancipated, and who, there 
 fore, could not have been very much affected by the 
 influences of slavery, have now arrived at middle age ; 
 children have sprung up to manhood who have no recol 
 lection whatever of that institution ; indeed the majority 
 of all the active men, who are either laborers, mechanics, 
 or teachers, at the present time, can be said to have no 
 knowledge of any other system except that which has 
 prevailed during the course of the last twenty years. 
 Their characters have been moulded, and their habits 
 formed under the pressure of the new era alone. And 
 yet the number of those, of whom this is true who are 
 
RENTERS AND LAND-OWNERS. 22$ 
 
 owners of small tracts even, is remarkably insignificant 
 as compared with the number of proprietors who were 
 trained in early life under the old regime. 1 In wide 
 sections of country, where, in the aggregate, a consider 
 able extent of soil is held by the blacks, there are few 
 land-owners to be found who have not passed their 
 fiftieth year, unless they have inherited their little farms 
 or plantations from their fathers, who were once slaves. 
 The members of the race who have hoarded enough to 
 buy small estates, have been able to do so in most 
 instances, because they have occupied positions of re 
 sponsibility on the larger plantations, to which higher 
 wages than usual are attached. Such positions have 
 been open to men who have grown up since 1865, as 
 well as to the freedmen, but even when the former have 
 risen to these positions, they have not been distinguished, 
 on the whole, for the same degree of prudence and 
 economy as the latter. 
 
 The disproportion in the number of land-owners of 
 the older and younger generations respectively is due 
 to various causes. It is due, in the first place, to the 
 fact that emancipation itself has exercised a powerful 
 stimulating influence over the general conduct of the 
 former slave. His mere recollection of his condition 
 before he was set at liberty must have inspired him with 
 a strong desire to improve his fortunes even beyond 
 those advantages which freedom in itself alone conferred. 
 On the other hand, the individual of the new era has no 
 remembrance of slavery as an institution. As he has 
 been free from childhood, no other condition is known 
 to him. There has been no great revolution in his life, 
 
 1 The number of younger proprietors is very insignificant, even 
 when regarded separately. 
 
226 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 for he cannot recall a time when he was aware that he 
 was the absolute chattel of another man. From the 
 hour he came of age he has been working under contract 
 for various employers, and he is content to continue to 
 do so. 
 
 A still more obvious explanation of the success of the 
 freedman is that fact to which I have already referred at 
 various times namely, that he was subjected at the most 
 plastic and responsive period of his existence to the strict 
 discipline of slavery, which cultivated in him industrious 
 habits, regularity of life, and simple tastes ; above all, it 
 repressed in him that fickle spirit which is so marked in 
 his race, when its individuals are allowed the greatest 
 latitude of action. It is the restlessness of the later 
 generations that stand so much in the way of their im 
 provement, for it increases their natural tendency to 
 extravagance and improvidence, besides leading to an 
 augmentation of their necessary expenses. To lay aside 
 any part of their wages after paying all that they are 
 forced to spend, demands of them the most careful 
 watch over their conduct, the most vigilant repression of 
 their appetites, the highest prudence and economy in the 
 management of their affairs ; and this circumspection 
 and discretion must be exercised daily and hourly. To 
 accumulate even a fair amount, situated as they are, and 
 with their narrow resources, might well tax men of the 
 most parsimonious habits and the greatest practical 
 sagacity. How much more difficult for themselves, who 
 have small knowledge of any form of self-restraint, and 
 little appreciation of the possible consequences of their 
 acts ! Unhappy characteristics are far more logical in 
 their operation than those that are happy. As the most 
 unfortunate qualities of the race are found more fully 
 
RENTERS AND LAND-OWNERS. 22? 
 
 developed in individuals of the new generation than in 
 their fathers, because these individuals have never been 
 brought under careful discipline, their worst traits having 
 thus had full room for growth, the result has been that 
 they own little property of any kind, although they live 
 in a country and at a period when land is still selling at 
 rates at which it can be easily purchased by them if they 
 show any self-denial. Prolonged effort and sober habits 
 are absolutely essential to their success ; they are largely 
 lacking in these traits now, and there is little to foster 
 these traits in the future. In the meanwhile, any rise in 
 the prosperity of the community only obstructs still 
 further the improvement of their condition by means of 
 the cheapness of the soil, since any increase in that 
 prosperity must be based, as I have stated, upon an 
 advance in real estate. 
 
XV. 
 
 V 
 
 MECHANICS. 
 
 BEFORE slavery was abolished, every plantation that 
 extended over a large area, and the agricultural opera 
 tions of which were conducted on an important scale, 
 was supplied with mechanics from the ranks of the 
 negroes attached to it. Each blacksmith, carpenter, 
 wheelwright, and mason belonged, as a rule, to the 
 planter for whom they were engaged in working. It was 
 the custom to select those young men, who, from their 
 intelligence, appeared to be most likely to become skilful 
 in such trades, and to apprentice them to the various 
 handicraftsmen who were employed in the plantation 
 workshops, by whom they were trained, and under whose 
 supervision they continued until death or old age re 
 moved the instructors, whose place they then took, 
 teaching in their turn young men of promise. The field 
 of these mechanics, however, was not one in which they 
 could acquire the highest dexterity and ingenuity in 
 their respective pursuits, admitting that they were care 
 ful and exact enough in character to do so under favor 
 able circumstances. Their attention was confined 
 entirely to the common requirements of the plantation : 
 the duty of the smith, for instance, being to shoe the 
 mules and horses, to make and mend tires, and to rivet 
 bolts ; the mason having to lay and cement the founda 
 tions of barns and stables, and to raise stone walls ; the 
 
 228 
 
MECHANICS. 229 
 
 carpenters to build cabins and sheds, shingle roofs, and 
 construct hogsheads. They rarely passed to more diffi 
 cult forms of work in their special lines, as they had not 
 the necessary experience. When complicated machinery 
 got out of order, or parts of manufactured farm imple 
 ments were broken or destroyed, and had to be replaced, 
 or when houses were to be erected after ambitious 
 architectural designs, it was generally necessary to secure 
 the services of white men who followed their trades in 
 the neighboring towns. And yet within the limits of 
 their capacity, no slaves played a more useful part in the 
 economy of the plantation than the black mechanics ; 
 they were really indispensable, as a serious emergency 
 might arise at any moment when their skill and knowl 
 edge would have to be applied with the greatest prompt 
 ness to prevent delay in the progress of the agricultural 
 operations. The larger estates were so isolated locally, 
 and their respective communities were so distinct, that 
 it would have been inconvenient for the planters to have 
 hired their mechanics to each other by the job, even if 
 each planter had not always needed those he owned. 
 Under the old system, however, many negroes were 
 trained in handicraft with a view to hiring them out per 
 manently, as the compensation for their services returned 
 a very fair percentage on their value as slaves. These 
 men were obtained under the terms of regular contracts, 
 being provided for, however, as if they belonged to the 
 persons who engaged them. Many of them were taken 
 to the cities, where they were often employed in doing 
 much more important work than would have been 
 assigned to them on a plantation. In general, however, 
 they were found in the country villages and towns, or on 
 the smaller estates whose proprietors had comparatively 
 
230 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 few slaves. A majority of the negroes who were manu 
 mitted, either by will or in the lives of their owners, 
 adopted the trades as a means of earning a subsistence, 
 but in many respects their position, even when they were 
 skilful and energetic, was very unfortunate. They could 
 not secure employment on the extensive plantations 
 since these were supplied with their own mechanics ; it 
 was difficult for them to compete with the individuals of 
 their race who were hired out permanently or by the 
 job, and in the towns and cities they had to contend not 
 only with prejudice, but also with the rivalry of white 
 men. In the midst of all these obstacles it is not sur 
 prising that they did not thrive. 
 
 Emancipation had the same general effect on the 
 mechanics as upon every distinct class of the negroes ; 
 they, too, showed at once that restless spirit which took 
 possession of the other individuals of the race. Their 
 desertion of the localities where they had always dwelt 
 virtually meant, in most instances, the abandonment of 
 the trades to which they had been trained by so many 
 years of experience. Those who desired to continue in 
 these trades were not always able to obtain employment 
 after they had removed elsewhere, and in the necessity of 
 earning a support they were forced to turn their hands 
 to the first job of any kind that presented itself. Those 
 who remained where they had always lived, found that 
 there was not the same demand for their skill under the 
 new order of things as there had been under the old, 
 since few planters could afford the cost of permanently 
 employing negroes whose only duty was to act as com 
 mon mechanics. In the general curtailment of expenses 
 their services were the first to be dispensed with, as the 
 mechanical work of each plantation could be done as it 
 
MECHANICS. 231 
 
 arose by men who had opened shops in the neighbor 
 hood. 
 
 Many of the freedmen decided to abandon their 
 trades, because they objected to leading a life of con 
 finement ; the labor was arduous as well as continuous, 
 and they shrank from pursuits that occupied their time 
 so much as well as taxed their energies so heavily. In 
 many instances, too, they had adopted these pursuits, 
 not from a natural bent in that direction, but simply at 
 the command of their masters ; in dropping them, there 
 fore, they were merely conforming to a long-repressed 
 wish. The negroes who now attend to the mechanical 
 needs of the different plantations are men who have es 
 tablished themselves near the country stores, or at the 
 crossing of two public roads, or wherever there is a site 
 that is convenient to travellers, or to the people of sev 
 eral large communities. Their shops are generally prim 
 itive shanties, and supplied only with the old-fashioned 
 tools and appliances of their trade. Smithies are those 
 most frequently observed. The principal customers of 
 the blacksmiths are the planters in their vicinity whose 
 horses and mules they shoe, or the iron of whose wagon 
 bodies and wheels they mend, but they are also patron 
 ized by the strange teamsters who pass along the public 
 roads or stop to rest at the country stores. 
 
 The shops of the carpenters and wheelwrights (which 
 are always similarly situated) are usually occupied by 
 white men, unless negroes who have been educated in 
 industrial schools, have selected these localities as the 
 places where they decide to set up in their trades, but 
 it is rare that we find there freedmen who were trained 
 under the old system, because at the present day the 
 rural carpenters and wheelwrights do all the work in 
 
232 THE PLANTATION NEGRO ASA FREEMAN. 
 
 their respective lines in a wide section of country, and, 
 therefore, must have a higher skill and a more thorough 
 knowledge than is possessed by the men who, as slaves, 
 were only taught to meet the most ordinary plantation 
 requirements. 
 
 Colored masons are not very numerous outside of the 
 towns and cities, since their trade is one that does not 
 offer very much employment in rural communities ; such 
 stonework as has to be done in the erection of houses 
 being performed by. the men who put the frames together. 
 
 While the number of mechanics who were instructed 
 as slaves has been curtailed, not only by the withdrawal 
 to other pursuits, of many who were thus educated, but 
 by the operation of natural causes during the course of 
 twenty years, nevertheless the places which they vacated 
 have not been filled to any great extent by members of 
 the generation that has been accustomed only to the 
 influences of freedom. Indeed, one of the most dis 
 couraging features of the character of the negroes who 
 have grown up since the war is their extreme aversion 
 to the mechanical trades. Very few of the younger men 
 become carpenters, blacksmiths, or masons of their own 
 accord, those who adopt these trades being, as a rule, 
 the sons of fathers who were brought up as mechanics 
 by slave-holders. These sons were compelled in their 
 early youth, by the paternal authority, to assist at the 
 tasks of the workshop or the smithy, and have remained 
 in the same line by the force of habit. Many who might 
 have been carefully instructed, relinquished the oppor 
 tunity opened to them as soon as they were old enough 
 to support themselves, at which time they emigrated to a 
 distance, and entered employments that were congenial 
 to their tastes. The explanation of this antipathy on 
 
MECHANICS. 233 
 
 their part to mechanical pursuits is easily found ; such 
 pursuits constrain them to conform more closely than 
 they like to a steady routine of work which is most ardu 
 ous and trying, on the whole. The duties of a hand on 
 a plantation are neither easy nor light, it is true, but these 
 duties are constantly changing with the progress of the 
 seasons ; they may necessitate the greatest toil during 
 one month, and be attended with comparative relaxation 
 of effort during another. Above all, the laborer is 
 not tied down to one spot ; if he grows weary of one 
 locality, he can find occupation elsewhere. But this is 
 not the position of the young mechanic ; his success is 
 largely dependent upon his remaining in one place ; he 
 secures patronage by winning a reputation for skill and 
 assiduity in his trade, and it is not in his power to earn 
 such a reputation as long as he yields to his inclination 
 to wander. When he moves from one neighborhood, he 
 is not at all assured that he will obtain employment in his 
 line in another, as the only stand there may have been 
 taken, and, at best, he will be unknown and friendless. 
 
 Even when a young negro has been trained by his 
 father, who was formerly a slave, he finds it difficult to 
 compete with white men, because his mechanical educa 
 tion has been of the rudest character, and limited to the 
 simplest branches of his trade. It is in smithcraft alone 
 that he would have a wide and favorable field, since this 
 occupation is generally left to the individuals of his race, 
 but it is the very one from which the average young 
 negro shrinks with the greatest aversion, as it is the 
 most exacting and confining of all the mechanical pur 
 suits. Wielding the heavy hammer hour after hour 
 would put his strength to a test as searching as that 
 which tries the endurance of a convict who is compelled 
 
234 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 to crack stones on the highway. In the mere arduous- 
 ness of the labor which it requires, the life of a smith 
 who is attentive enough to his business to earn a living 
 by it, is more severe than that of a slave ; and, in addition 
 to this, his hours of work are much more protracted than 
 they are in the instance of negroes who follow other 
 employments. His smithy is most frequently located 
 near a store, the principal customers of which are only 
 able to visit it in the late afternoon, or after night has 
 fallen. His patronage is largely obtained from these 
 customers, and he has to be careful to accommodate 
 himself to the hours that are most convenient for them 
 to utilize his skill ; he is thus often detained in his shop 
 long after the laborers, who have been engaged in the 
 fields, have dropped their hoes or abandoned their plows 
 and returned to their cabins. 
 
 The places of a few of the mechanics who were trained 
 under the old regime, have been taken by young 
 negroes who were educated in industrial schools, and 
 who afterwards decided to settle in the secluded rural 
 districts. These young men perform their work with a 
 fair measure of skill, and are not deficient in assiduity ; 
 when attentive to their business, and animated by a 
 desire to advance in it, they find no difficulty in securing 
 an extensive and valuable patronage. Quite frequently, 
 however, they show that restlessness of spirit, that long 
 ing for a change which is observed in the individuals of 
 their own age and race at large, and this has the effect of 
 diminishing their usefulness and injuring their prosperity. 
 Having been taught in a school, and having, to a certain 
 extent, been brought into contact with the world, they 
 are not as contented in the comparative retirement of the 
 country as they would be if they had been instructed in 
 
MECHANICS. 235 
 
 their trades by the plantation mechanics, but at the same 
 time they are better fitted to meet all the mechanical 
 needs of the localities in which they may be. Their 
 usual ambition is to live in the most populous communi 
 ties, as, for instance, in towns and villages, not so much 
 because they have a wider field there, which they really 
 have not, owing to the competition of white men, but 
 rather because the society of such communities is more 
 agreeable to their tastes. 
 
 Negroes who have been educated in industrial schools 
 are, however, very rare. In consequence of this, as well 
 as of the fact that the individuals of the race are not in 
 clined to adopt mechanical pursuits, these pursuits, as 
 the mechanics among the freedmen die, are in the rural 
 districts gradually falling into the hands of the whites. 
 This is more especially the case now with the trades of 
 the carpenter, wheelwright, and mason. The blacks who 
 are employed in these trades are, as a rule, mere assist 
 ants of white men, and do only the humblest parts of the 
 labor required, such as raising the logs and stones into 
 position, or sawing and planing the plank. Their rela 
 tion to their superiors is such, that they are not likely to 
 learn on their own account how to take absolute charge 
 of any important work, and conduct it to a successful 
 conclusion. They are not apprentices in the true sense 
 of the word, being simply selected for their physical 
 strength, without regard to their having capacity enough 
 to assume control of any special task without advice, and 
 on their own responsibility. Throughout the tobacco 
 region the buildings most commonly observed are barns, 
 which demand no special architectural skill in their con 
 struction. Of all the innumerable buildings of this kind, 
 scattered throughout a wide section of country, that have 
 
236 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 been put up in the last ten years, perhaps twenty in 
 every five hundred have been raised by colored 
 men who have had exclusive management. Not one 
 of the various dwelling-houses, inhabited by the 
 white planters of many counties, was designed by a 
 black mechanic, and erected under his supervision. 
 Here, as elsewhere, the weakness of the negro when 
 thrown upon his own resources is notable, however 
 far his skill in handiwork may have been developed ; he 
 may have sufficient knowledge of his business to make 
 an excellent assistant, but he cannot, as a rule, be relied 
 upon in exacting circumstances to direct without close 
 superintendence. Even in the mechanical trades he 
 shows that lack of the power of intellectual combination, 
 that want of the capacity for originating, which is de 
 tected in the members of his race in every situation in 
 which they are placed. The only trait of those who 
 have been specially trained, which is at all encouraging 
 in its bearing on their capacity to attain to the highest 
 skill, is that they frequently show pride in their work, a 
 pride which, it must be admitted, is not always associated 
 with unusual excellence, but this pride might be made 
 the basis of the acquirement of greater dexterity. In the 
 mechanical pursuits, that peculiar heedlessness which 
 distinguishes the negro, that inexactness which is so 
 patent in all that proceeds from his hands as well as 
 from his mind, has been found to be the principal draw 
 back to his improvement ; and this obstacle has been 
 more conspicuous here, as the opposites of these qualities 
 are so essential. These qualities, however, are more apt 
 to be repressed by him now than they were formerly, 
 because, in the present age, he has to rely so largely on 
 his own merits. He must be both skilful and attentive 
 
MECHANICS. 237 
 
 to obtain work, for if he is ignorant and negligent, he is 
 likely to suffer so much in consequence that it will only 
 be a question of time for him to be forced to abandon 
 his trade. So far, however, the negro has shown no dis 
 position to provide against future misfortunes to himself 
 by removing, through an effort of will and closer atten 
 tion to the details of his business, those deficiencies that 
 do so much to jeopardize his welfare. He resigns him 
 self as cheerfully to the inevitable results of his own 
 injudicious acts or general weaknesses of character as if 
 he were unable to prevent them ; and he is as likely to 
 display this trait in a mechanical pursuit as in any other 
 that he may follow. It would be difficult for him, therefore, 
 to hold his own in such a pursuit in the point of skill, if 
 he were compelled to compete with resolute and careful 
 white men. This is not only true of him in the trades, 
 but also in every position of life. The negro has a ten 
 dency now to become either a laborer or a house servant, 
 because in these capacities he is removed from all serious 
 rivalry on account of certain qualities of character that 
 distinguish him, such as docility, amiability, and per 
 fect contentment in the humblest situations. If he were 
 dissatisfied and ungovernable, he would begin at once to 
 lose ground even in those pursuits which he now virtually 
 monopolizes, for this would bring him into competition 
 with the whites. As a mechanic his position is much 
 more precarious, because he is not naturally adapted to 
 it by the turn of his mind and nature. There is only one 
 means of multiplying the number of negro mechanics, 
 as well as of preparing them in the way of expertness 
 and trustworthiness for the more stringent conditions 
 that now confront them, and that is the technical school. 
 Undoubtedly many individuals of the race will continue 
 
238 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 to be educated by local apprenticeships, but without the 
 assistance of such schools fewer will be trained every 
 year, until finally those who are trained will bear the 
 most insignificant proportion to those who are employed 
 merely as laborers. An increase in the prosperity of the 
 country would have the same effect in contracting the 
 circle of colored mechanics as it would have in diminish 
 ing the class of colored land-owners ; there would be a 
 demand for greater aptitude, a demand that would aug 
 ment the number of white mechanics, who could, without 
 any difficulty, compete successfully with unskilled blacks 
 in the same business. The technical school would place 
 the latter in a much better position to meet this compe 
 tition, and would thus give their race a fair proportion of 
 those who follow these trades. In such an institution 
 the individual negro could be instructed as far as his 
 natural capacity might allow him to be. If he had any 
 native bent towards such pursuits, it could there be stren 
 uously encouraged. Not only would its course be better 
 adapted to prepare him for the work that he has to do than 
 a mere apprenticeship under a local carpenter or mason 
 who was trained as a slave, or as the son of a former 
 slave, but the discipline prevailing in such an institution 
 would be apt to counteract those weaknesses of his 
 nature which would prevent him from being proficient if 
 he was accustomed only to the lax methods of a rural 
 workshop. Habits of industry would be fostered in him 
 by an unbroken routine of industrial duties. The idea 
 would be inculcated that his career in life was to be confined 
 to mechanical tasks, and he would be so carefully and 
 closely drilled that this idea would become fixed in his 
 own mind. There would be nothing to divert his atten 
 tion during the time of his instruction. He would neither 
 
MECHANICS. 239 
 
 have an opportunity of shirking his duties nor throwing 
 them up altogether by a sudden withdrawal. And if 
 the school were to consummate the training thus given 
 by securing the graduate a stand in some prosperous 
 locality, the good that it would accomplish would be of 
 lasting advantage. 
 
 It would not be well to overstock the various trades 
 by thus educating too many negroes to follow them ; but 
 a long time would be required for the supply to reach 
 the limit of the demand. The establishment of technical 
 schools for the blacks by the act of the State would 
 mean the establishment of similar schools for the whites, 
 but many years must elapse before the field in which 
 their respective graduates would work would become so 
 contracted as to bring them into direct conflict. In a 
 contest between white and black mechanics of equal 
 skill, the latter might compete successfully with the for 
 mer, in consequence of the fact that they would be con 
 tented with a meaner style of life, which would enable 
 them to charge at the lowest rates ; but if they could not 
 hold their own in such a contest they would have to 
 submit to that great economic law that drives the weakest 
 to the wall, which can neither be resisted nor questioned. 
 This is a law that touches individual, class, and race 
 alike ; a law that has no mercy or sentiment, either in 
 nature or society, and yet producing in its operation all 
 that is most valuable and permanent in civilization. 
 
 The best field for the negro mechanic in the future 
 will be, as it has been in the past, in that great section 
 of country where the plantation system still prevails. It 
 has been urged in favor of the establishment of technical 
 schools for the black population, that they would tend to 
 shift that population more evenly throughout the Union, 
 
240 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 as the graduates of such schools would seek those local 
 ities where there was room for their services, irrespective 
 of State lines. It is doubtful whether colored mechanics 
 could, in considerable numbers, attain to a secure posi 
 tion outside of the South. Elsewhere they would be 
 brought into conflict with white workingmen, who are slow 
 to admit them to their own circle, even when they have 
 skill and assiduity to recommend them. Wherever white 
 people largely predominate the negroes can only sustain 
 themselves by becoming house servants or by performing 
 the lowest kinds of labor. In every other occupation 
 they have many obstacles to surmount in such communi 
 ties, which they are not adapted by their natural capacity 
 or past history or present position as a race to overcome. 
 If they are to rise as handicraftsmen to respectability in 
 the general order of society, it must be in that section 
 of the republic where the blacks are so numerous that the 
 greater portion of all manual tasks is left to them by the 
 mere force of necessity, and where these mechanics 
 would be able to establish themselves without being 
 confronted at once by any rivalry of fatal importance. 
 Here they would always have a large share of the patron 
 age of certain trades, and would, for some reasons, have 
 as fair a chance as white men of maintaining themselves 
 in all. 
 
XVI. 
 
 FUTURE OF THE NEGRO. 
 
 IN the course of my previous discussion of the differ 
 ent branches of my general subject, I have stated briefly 
 and incidentally what I anticipated the future of the 
 plantation negro in Virginia would be, whether consid 
 ered from a moral, social, or political point of view. In 
 the first section of my final chapter I shall endeavor to 
 arrange these disconnected opinions in a systematic form 
 with due regard to their natural relation, as far as they 
 bear any relation .to each other at all. To describe the 
 condition of the blacks, even as it is found to be to-day, 
 is a task attended with many difficulties and perplexities ; 
 but when we come to speculate upon their destiny as a 
 people we soon perceive that we have entered a wide 
 field of conjecture. If we restrict the scope of our vision 
 somewhat, the ground does not seem so uncertain in the 
 light of definite tendencies of the negro at this time that 
 are likely to be followed hereafter by their logical con 
 sequences. After all, the principal element of doubt in 
 our contemplation of his future is not so much whether 
 these tendencies will be modified by any alteration in 
 his fundamental character, as whether they will be held 
 in check by circumstances, or whether they will override 
 circumstances, however strong the opposition offered. 
 
 241 
 
242 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 The most conspicuous, and in its bearing on their 
 future, the most significant influence at work among the 
 plantation negroes of Virginia is that which is withdraw 
 ing the two races further and further from each other ; 
 and their disposition to move apart will be stronger still 
 when the freedmen now living have vanished from the 
 stage. Indeed, their social separation will be so wide in 
 the future that every community inhabited by them both 
 will be as distinctly divided into two social bodies as if 
 they had no local connection. The two streams will 
 flow side by side, but without intermingling. As the 
 extent of this separation increases, the sympathies that 
 have held the whites and blacks together will weaken, the 
 elements of difference between them only growing more 
 radical, thus revealing very clearly how alien to each 
 other the two peoples are, although dwelling in the same 
 sections of country. The unmistakable tendency is tow 
 ards a still further diminution of the number of points of 
 general contact between the races ; the only relation of 
 importance between them now is that of employer and 
 employe, but this relation itself implies social isolation, 
 as it is the relation of authority and subordination. 
 The further alienation of the blacks and whites will 
 cause the social customs of the former to approximate 
 still nearer to their special qualities as a people, which 
 signifies a further departure from the spirit of white 
 society. The increase of their population alone will 
 give greater vigor to their distinctive social habits. 
 Even at present, when the whites retain much of their 
 influence over the negroes in a social way, it is obvious 
 that the social life of the latter is animated by very dif 
 ferent impulses from that of the former. Being with 
 drawn more and more to themselves, the social life of the 
 
FUTURE OF THE NEGRO. 243 
 
 blacks will continue to develop more fully on lines that 
 are peculiar to itself. There are now few elements that 
 are common to the respective societies of the two races 
 the divergence will be more distinct and rapid in the 
 future, as the longer the period of freedom that has 
 elapsed, the more unique the negroes will become as a 
 people and as a part of the community. 
 
 One of the most important results so far of the aliena 
 tion of the races, is the fact that illicit sexual com 
 merce between them has virtually ceased outside of the 
 towns ; and no circumstances are likely to arise in the 
 future to encourage a renewal of improper intercourse. 
 The only prospect of amalgamation has been through 
 the medium of the female mulattoes, but they are now 
 being rapidly displaced by that class of women who, on 
 account of their temper and appearance, have always 
 been more or less repulsive to the sensibilities of white 
 men. The negroes in the rural communities are fast 
 merging in the original type, which signifies a decline in 
 the number of mulattoes, for the latter show no disposi 
 tion to create an exclusive circle of their own by inter 
 marriage ; on the contrary, they cohabit as readily with 
 the darkest individuals as with men and women of their 
 own shade of color. The tendency of the race to re 
 vert, therefore, is increased not only by the reserve of 
 the whites, but by the lack of objection on the part of 
 the mulattoes themselves to sexual intimacy with the 
 blacks. The result of this will be that, in a few genera 
 tions, the negro of Virginia, wherever he is found in 
 large communities of his own people, will be an exact 
 physical image of his African ancestors. 
 
 The return of the race to the original physical type, 
 involves its intellectual reversion also. The alteration 
 
244 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 in its mental character will be disclosed in the develop 
 ment of simpler and more distinct intellectual traits ; 
 with the elimination of the mulattoes, the points of men 
 tal difference between the blacks and whites will grow 
 more apparent. So far, the only persons of unusual capa 
 city whom the former race has produced have been men 
 who were sprung, either directly or remotely, from white 
 ancestry. The mental resemblance of negroes to each 
 other will be more notable in the future than it has been 
 in the past, because all are approximating the same type 
 in which they will in time be fully merged, irrespective 
 of difference of origin or of local situation. 
 
 The reversion to the original type is apt to make the 
 negro a more dangerous political factor, because it will 
 increase his inability to grasp enlightened ideas of pub 
 lic policy. He will probably sink to a lower plane of 
 political ignorance, and grow still more out of sympathy 
 with the institutions under which he lives. As the social 
 and intellectual gulf between himself and the white peo 
 ple widens, he is likely to fall more completely under the 
 influence of his antipathy to the dominant class ; and 
 this, in general, will shape his political action.* Bribery, 
 perhaps, will be the only effective means of inducing a 
 large number of his fellows to cast their votes with the 
 whites on important issues, and, in consequence, bribery 
 in one form or another will play a very conspicuous part 
 in all communities where many members of his race are 
 found. The social aspect of negro suffrage is certain 
 to grow more threatening as the blacks increase, inas 
 much as this implies their more thorough subjection to 
 those evil influences that emanate from themselves when 
 dwelling together in a mass. The motives that have led 
 the great body of whites to vote together in this age, 
 
FUTURE OP THE NEGRO. 245 
 
 must augment in force in the age to follow. As a peo 
 ple, there is strong reason to believe that they will not 
 consent to be governed by a horde of ignorant black 
 voters, and in this they will be influenced not so much 
 by sentimental feeling, as by a determination to main 
 tain a stable administration that will fulfil all the needs 
 of society. A reunion will be the final result of every 
 important division in the ranks of the white voters, 
 because the fact that the ballots of the negroes are cast 
 in favor of one side or another, will in the end produce 
 a revulsion of sentiment throughout white society. 
 While many of the whites will always seek to use negro 
 suffrage for the attainment of their own purposes, the 
 triumph of any faction composed of a small minority of 
 white voters and a large majority of the blacks cannot 
 be lasting, inasmuch as that triumph, if prolonged for a 
 considerable length of time, will introduce such disas 
 trous elements of confusion, and foster such embittered 
 antagonism of race, as to be destructive of the coalition. 
 The special bearing of public questions is certain to sink 
 into insignificance as compared with the general bearing 
 of the continued success of the negroes at the polls. 
 The acknowledged issues of all the most important elec 
 tions will be overshadowed to a great extent by the silent 
 issues raised by the direct conflict of the masses of blacks 
 and whites. It is not improbable that such occasions will 
 be attended with much disorder, arising less from heated 
 political opposition than from passions inflamed by 
 antipathies of race. 
 
 Every circumstance surrounding the negro in the 
 present age seems to point directly to his further moral 
 decadence. The numerical expansion of his race will 
 deepen its unfortunate peculiarities, if for no other 
 
246 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 reason, because that expansion will lead to the complete 
 separation of the blacks and whites, even when dwelling 
 together in the same communities. The decline of the 
 negro in morality will be exactly in proportion to the 
 gradations of his withdrawal from contact with the white 
 people. When the last tradition of slavery has been 
 lost, and the relations between the two races have been 
 readjusted in thorough accord with the conditions of free 
 citizenship, unmodified by any surviving influence of the 
 past, the gulf between them will be far more obvious 
 than it is now. The influences that are shaping the 
 character of the younger generations appear to be such 
 as must bring the blacks in time to a state of nature, so 
 far as a people inhabiting a country where a system of 
 law and government prevails can fall into that state. 
 Situated as they are in communities where the criminal 
 code is enforced, and where all public power is directed 
 by the whites to the support of the continued organiza 
 tion of society, their return to a condition of nature 
 would be observed only in their domestic relations. 
 The drift now is towards a further debasement of all 
 these relations, which is not only indicative of general 
 demoralization, but also promotive of its increase. The 
 probability is that, in a few generations, formal and legal 
 marriages will be much less frequent than they are now, 
 and the promiscuous intercourse between the sexes will 
 grow more open and unreserved. This unrestrained 
 licentiousness would exercise a powerful influence upon 
 the disposition of the children, an influence altogether 
 pernicious and dangerous, which in time would show 
 itself in the further decay of the society of the race. 
 
 All search for some means of completely arresting the 
 moral decline of the negro seems to be in vain. There 
 
FUTURE OF THE NEGRO. 247 
 
 are only two general plans that appear to be in the least 
 likely even to retard it. I have already referred to one 
 of these plans in my remarks on the character of the 
 school system namely, the erection of normal schools, 
 in which a stringent discipline shall be enforced in the 
 education of students who have stood the severest moral 
 test of selection that the race can endure. The public 
 schools should, if possible, be entirely supplied with men 
 of this stamp, who have been chosen as competent to 
 carry out a special moral rather than a special intellectual 
 mission. Whether a body of negroes, remarkable for 
 their general fitness for a task so delicate and intricate 
 as that which they will have to perform, can be gathered 
 together, is open to considerable doubt, but there can be 
 no question that men thus selected are far better 
 adapted for the work than negroes who have been 
 appointed indiscriminately. 
 
 The second plan resembles the first in principle. It 
 is for the white sectarian denominations to establish 
 seminaries in which the best personal material furnished 
 by the race, obtained by as rigid a test as that which 
 should prevail in the normal school, can be prepared to 
 serve as religious missionaries to their people. The 
 graduates of such seminaries should be despatched to the 
 rural communites to labor under the supervision of the 
 organizations that have educated them ; they should be 
 carefully superintended, and their general lives subjected 
 to uninterrupted scrutiny. There is substantial ground 
 for asserting that the missionary efforts of white persons, 
 with a view to the religious improvement of the negroes, 
 will not prove very fruitful in the future, on account of 
 the social separation of the races. All money thus ex 
 pended, and all energy put forth, will probably be wasted. 
 
248 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 The general decline of the blacks in morals can only be 
 arrested even partially by the intervention of the negro 
 himself ; the endeavors of the whites, therefore, should 
 be directed to the proper education of the colored 
 teacher and preacher for the work which circumstances 
 impose upon them alone. If they shall prove themselves 
 to be inefficient or impotent, the last hope of improving 
 the condition of the masses of the race will have been 
 dispelled ; but it is the duty of the State and the Church 
 that such teachers and preachers shall have the most 
 favorable opportunities of testing their competence. 
 
 It is a notable fact that the negro appears to most ad 
 vantage in cities, not only because he is there brought 
 into the closest and most constant contact with white 
 people, but also because he is under the immediate 
 supervision of the police. The moral decline of the race 
 in the rural districts would perhaps be somewhat re 
 tarded by the rigid enforcement of the law, even in 
 its smallest details ; every form of crime among them 
 should, for their own welfare, if not for the safety of the 
 community, be severely and swiftly punished, as a general 
 warning. That their lesser offenses are not now pun 
 ished to the degree that they should be, is due, in some 
 measure, to the fear which the property holder has 
 of exciting their enmity. The planter who would arrest 
 every pilferer among his laborers would undoubtedly run 
 the risk of having his buildings and crops destroyed by 
 incendiary fires, or his cattle secretly poisoned. Appre 
 hension of a similar danger would lurk in his mind with 
 respect to his domestic servants, if he were to bring them 
 to justice for every violation of law, however petty, 
 of which they were guilty. 
 
 The increase of crime by the blacks among themselves 
 
FUTURE OF THE NEGRO. 249 
 
 is apt to be proportionate only to the growth of their 
 population, with the exception of offenses that spring 
 from superstition, which will be ranker in their commu 
 nities in the future than it is even now, both because the 
 negroes will be more numerous and because they will be 
 much more withdrawn to themselves. The infractions 
 of law arising in this connection will probably multiply, 
 partially from the fact that the blacks will be inclined to 
 connive at such crimes or will be terrorized into secrecy. 
 All offenses which they can commit against the whites 
 will occur more frequently, as that spirit of subservience 
 which they still feel in their association with the ruling 
 class, in consequence of the recollection or the tradition 
 of slavery, declines with the lapse of years. This is not 
 apt to be observed in the instance of murder or burglary, 
 from which the worst individuals of the race shrink, on 
 account of the personal boldness, coolness, and fortitude 
 which the perpetration of such crimes requires ; it will 
 be much more notable in the case of all criminal acts 
 that can be carried out in a secret and furtive way, with 
 out personal danger at the moment to the felon, such as 
 arson, incendiarism, and poisoning. For the same rea 
 son, it is highly probable that rape will be committed 
 more often in the future than it has been in the past, in 
 spite of the summary punishment which is meted out to 
 it. While the heinous offenses perpetrated by the ne 
 groes will be fewer on the whole than would be expected 
 of a population so little trained in morality and occupy 
 ing such a low position in the social scale, yet they are 
 always likely to demoralize, to a great extent, the regular 
 and legal administration of the law, for the natural hor 
 ror which their worst crimes against the white people will 
 excite in the breasts of the latter will be aggravated by 
 
250 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 antipathies of race, finding vent under the impulse of the 
 moment in deeds of determined violence. 
 
 So far as the material condition of the negroes is con 
 cerned, they will continue, for several generations, at 
 least, to constitute the principal part of the laboring 
 population of every community in which they dwell ; in 
 . fact, it will only be as tillers of the soil that the great 
 body will be employed in the plantation districts, for the 
 mechanical trades are likely, in time, to fall altogether 
 into the hands of white men. Owing to their local situa 
 tion and their extreme poverty, the blacks will be con 
 strained to work, the force of necessity rather than any 
 desire to improve their condition making them as a peo 
 ple more or less industrious ; but as their only wish will 
 be to supply their immediate wants, they are apt to relax 
 for the time being when this object is temporarily accom 
 plished. They are not likely to cease to be restless, and 
 also unreliable in adhering to their engagements ; but 
 the probability is, that they will not be disposed to dis 
 order labor by turbulent interference unless acting un 
 der the influence of white labor organizations. This will 
 be due to the fact that they have no turn for coopera 
 tion ; and then, too, they will always be more in the 
 power of the land-owners than the artisans and mechan 
 ics of the large cities are in the power of manufacturers. 
 It is true that they also can combine and strike, but their 
 position will be much more precarious, because they can 
 be expelled from their homes as well as discharged a 
 serious matter if all the planters of the same section are 
 organized. 
 
 There is only one contingency that is calculated to 
 destroy the prosperity of the Virginian negro as a laborer 
 in the future, namely, the complete disruption of that 
 system of large farms and plantations which now pre- 
 
FUTURE OF THE NEGRO. 2$ I 
 
 vails, especially in the tobacco region, where the black 
 population of the State is principally concentrated. 
 There is apparent in the latter section a tendency tow 
 ards the breaking up of this system, because agricultural 
 operations there are not profitable, as a rule, when con 
 ducted on a considerable scale, on account of the low 
 prices of products, the amount paid in wages to laborers, 
 and also the general unreliability of the laborers them 
 selves. The small farmers and planters are rapidly in 
 creasing in number and influence. The drift is towards 
 a still greater division of land and a more general distri 
 bution of such property among the white people ; this 
 drift being the source of benefit to a few negroes, who 
 are prudent and economical enough to save their earn 
 ings, but to the mass of the race it is an obstacle in the 
 way of their obtaining a subsistence. The existence of 
 a general system of small estates would imply the culti 
 vation of the soil, for the most part, by the families of 
 white proprietors ; in consequence of which there would 
 not be the same demand for the services of the blacks, 
 and any decline in that demand is detrimental to their 
 interests. This will be peculiarly the case in the future, 
 when they have increased very much ; the competition 
 among themselves will then be more active, even if their 
 present advantageous position as laborers were to remain 
 unaffected by an alteration in the system of land-holding. 
 Any change that diminishes the calls upon their manual 
 strength will react injuriously to their fortunes in a pe 
 cuniary sense. 
 
 So far as the accumulation of property is involved, 
 especially property in the form of land, the progress of 
 the negroes will probably be less marked in the future 
 than it has been in the past. The period of twenty 
 years that has elapsed since the war has offered the fair- 
 
252 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 est opportunities that are ever likely to arise of purchasing 
 estates, and yet the proprietors, even among men who 
 are old enough to to have been trained in the strict and 
 regular school of slavery, are very few as compared with 
 the masses of their people. The numerical disproportion 
 between the proprietors who belong respectively to the 
 older and younger generations is still more significant. 
 The number of colored land-owners will perhaps decrease 
 relatively to the growth of the black population, but the 
 rapidity of this decrease is dependent upon the condition 
 of the various sections of the State. There has already 
 been an advance in the value of the soil in many parts of 
 the tobacco region on account of the demand for land 
 among the members of the class of small planters and 
 farmers. This means that the ability of the negro to buy 
 even a few acres in those parts has been diminished, 
 which has had a tendency to encourage further the 
 extravagance and wastefulness of the race. The growth 
 of prosperity has a blighting influence on their fortunes 
 everywhere, because such prosperity implies, to a certain 
 extent, the greater stringency of the conditions of exist 
 ence, and any stringency at all has always affected them 
 very injuriously in every way, as they find it impossible, 
 with all their undoubted power of adaptation, to acquire 
 such habits of economy, prudence,and foresight as to learn 
 to adjust themselves to harsh situations. Statistics dis 
 close that they do not expand numerically in the cities for 
 this reason, and they would not multiply in the country at 
 the present rate if it were not so easy to earn a livelihood. 
 
 ii. 
 
 What is to be the final destiny of the negro, not only in 
 Virginia, but in the tier of great States that lie to the south 
 
FUTURE OF THE NEGRO. 2$$ 
 
 and southwest, a vast extent of country where the indi 
 viduals of his race are remarkable for the same unfortu 
 nate qualities and for equally dangerous tendencies. If 
 there is any happy solution of the problem which the 
 numerical strength as well as the general disposition of 
 the blacks creates throughout the Southern division of 
 the republic, it must be the result of influences now 
 at work there. The only influences that are likely to 
 lead to such a solution are those that are breaking up the 
 system of large farms and plantations which prevailed in 
 the age of slavery and which has survived to the present 
 era. The gradual disruption of this system is observed 
 in every part of the Southern States where the climate is 
 agreeable to the health of white people ; the only ques 
 tion is as to the degree of progress which it is making 
 and how far it will proceed, for there can be no doubt 
 that its inevitable effect, if it shall reach its extreme limit, 
 will be to check the further expansion of the black popu 
 lation. In the general distribution of land that is now 
 going on, the negroes, especially those who belong to the 
 generation that has come of age since the war, are 
 obtaining only a trivial share, a share that sinks into 
 peculiar insignificance when the numerical proportion of 
 the races is recalled. The overwhelming majority of the 
 Southern blacks must continue to be laborers without 
 any interest in the soil that they till. It is not improba 
 ble, however, that the day will arrive when the salubrious 
 portion of the South will have been divided into such 
 small holdings that their white owners will be able to 
 cultivate them without the need of much assistance; 
 This would be wholly destructive of the material pros 
 perity of the great body of negroes even as ordinary 
 working men. But long before this point in the disrup- 
 
254 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 tion of the old agricultural system of the South would be 
 reached, a strong pressure would be brought to bear to 
 force the masses of the race back upon the poorest lands, 
 where it would be so difficult to earn a subsistence that 
 the growth of the black population would not only cease, 
 but a decline in its numerical strength would even set in. 
 The inclination of that population from Virginia to 
 Texas under these circumstances, if they should arise in 
 the course of time, would be to drift towards the malari 
 ous regions of the Gulf and the lower Mississippi Valley, 
 where it will always be difficult for the whites to live on 
 account of the pestilential nature of the climate. Here 
 the blacks would form large communities, which would 
 become such dangerous elements in the States to which 
 they would belong, that it would be to the interest of the 
 white people to allow the negroes to erect a common 
 wealth of their own over which they could exercise an 
 absolute control. 
 
 The tendency towards the division of the soil in the 
 upland parts of the South will probably be hastened by 
 many influences. In the first place, the members of the 
 white population are not now emigrating to the extent 
 that they formerly did. In the second place, the South 
 ern cities are increasing in size and wealth, which, in 
 time, will have the effect of improving the condition of 
 the rural communities by enhancing the value of land. 
 In the third place, there is a disposition everywhere now 
 to construct railroads by county subscriptions, which 
 always create a number of new industries. And finally, 
 when the West is fully occupied, there will be an incli 
 nation on the part of immigrants, Northern as well as 
 foreign, to settle in the South first in border States like 
 Virginia and Tennessee, and afterwards on the lines of 
 
FUTURE OF THE NEGRO. 2$ 5 
 
 lower sections of country. The fierce competition in 
 the older communities which they abandon will perhaps 
 make them indifferent to the obstacles with which they 
 will have to contend when brought into contact with 
 negroes. 1 
 
 Admitting as true that there is a tendency towards 
 the distribution of land among the whites throughout 
 the greater portion of the South ; admitting further that 
 this tendency must culminate in a system of small es 
 tates resembling those observed at the North, which are 
 cultivated by the families of the white proprietors, with 
 some assistance from hired laborers ; admitting all this 
 as substantially correct, or, at least, within the range of 
 probability, we are at once confronted with the various 
 evils that will flow from the growth of the black popu 
 lation in that interval that must elapse before the gradual 
 disruption of the old agricultural system can exercise 
 a marked influence, either in checking the propaga 
 tion of the negroes, or in forcing them to emigrate to 
 the malarious regions of the Gulf and the Mississippi 
 Valley. For half a century, at least, the blacks of the 
 South will continue to expand numerically at an alarm 
 ing rate, because, during that period of time, the soil 
 must remain comparatively cheap and abundant, and the 
 negro be in sufficient demand as a laborer to supply 
 him with all that is necessary to his existence. The 
 social and political evils that will accompany this ex 
 pansion will be as great as if there were no influence in 
 operation to obstruct it in the end ; the temporary posi- 
 
 1 All these influences will affect the interests of the negro very 
 unfavorably, for the reason that I have mentioned, namely, they 
 will make the conditions of existence far more stringent than they 
 are now for the race. 
 
256 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 tion of the Southern States will be as trying in conse 
 quence as if there were no prospect of final relief. 
 However fortunate may be the result of this influence 
 in the distant future, these States must for many decades 
 be surrounded with an increasing number of causes for 
 immediate apprehension. 
 
 If time shall show that the tendency towards the divi 
 sion of land among the Southern whites is insignificant 
 in its scope after all, and without an element of perma 
 nence, and if the numerical expansion of the blacks shall 
 exclude all those foreign influences that would improve 
 the condition of the South, then it is impossible to re 
 gard its future without a feeling of profound misgiving. 
 As long as there are vast spaces unoccupied by the whites 
 and the means of earning a subsistence are so easy, the 
 increase of the black population will be practically irh- 
 limited. The unlimited increase of that population is 
 pregnant with innumerable calamities. It virtually 
 means that a period will come when there will be a 
 sharp contest between blacks and whites for the posses 
 sion of a large part of the Southern States ; and in this 
 contest the whites will not peacefully yield a foot of 
 ground unless they are slowly excluded by the irresisti 
 ble pressure that will result from an enormous numerical 
 disproportion between the two races. The South cannot 
 remain permanently half black and half white. That 
 section is as radically divided against itself to-day as the 
 Union was when composed of free and slave States ; 
 and the words which Abraham Lincoln quoted then can 
 be quoted with equal aptness now : " No house divided 
 against itself can stand. Either the whites or the ne 
 groes must withdraw or be extinguished by the stress of 
 natural influences. The white people are favored by the 
 
FUTURE OF THE NEGRO. 
 
 fact that they belong to a race that has always been re 
 markable for intelligence, courage, and an invincible 
 determination to maintain its supremacy. Furthermore, 
 they hold possession of the soil. On the other hand, 
 although the blacks are intellectually and morally defi 
 cient, yet they have the strength of numbers that are 
 multiplying with startling rapidity. All schemes that 
 contemplate a forcible solution of the problem to the 
 advantage of the whites are visionary and impracticable. 
 The deportation to a separate territory of their own, of 
 the mere annual increase of the negroes, would throw the 
 whole South into bankruptcy. The acquisition of a 
 settled country like San Domingo, with a view to the 
 encouragement of immigration thither by national subsi 
 dies, although perfectly feasible, would hardly be accep 
 table to the national judgment. There does not seem to 
 be any substantial ground for anticipating that the public 
 schools will solve the problem by imparting to the masses 
 of the blacks a just conception of the duties and respon 
 sibilities of citizenship, thus finally assimilating them as 
 a people to the spirit of our institutions. This opinion 
 is based upon a close observation of the operation 
 of the school system in one State only, but the negroes 
 are so homogeneous everywhere, the general influences 
 throughout the South are so similar, that what is true of 
 the race in one commonwealth is apt to be true of its 
 members in a great division of country and as one dis 
 tinct people. Even admitting that the public schools 
 can meet and remove all the dangers of the situation, 
 there is every prospect that the growth of the black popu 
 lation will be so rapid and enormous that the resources 
 of the Union would in a century be unable to satisfy 
 its educational needs. The first conspicuous influence 
 
258 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 of instruction will be to cause the negroes to be 
 restive under the deprivation of power proportionate to 
 their numbers. In making the blacks more clearly aware 
 of their numerical strength, it will inspire them with 
 a desire to use it with a view to their own aggrandize 
 ment ; but no instance that history furnishes of the 
 domination of the race leads us to believe that its mem 
 bers are competent to direct an enlightened system of 
 administration. Wherever on the face of the globe 
 negroes have established commonwealths of their own, 
 they have shown themselves to be wholly incapable of 
 self-government. In Hayti, where they have had the 
 fairest field for the experiment, for it is an island that 
 combines every variety of soil and climate, disorder and 
 revolution have prevailed without intermission since they 
 declared their independence. There they are rapidly re 
 verting to the African tribal relations. Human bodies are 
 secretly sold in the markets of the capital city for meat, 
 and the highest officers of the State are involved in the 
 cannabalistic practices of the Voudoo sect, which are 
 encouraged and participated in by the great body of the 
 people. The queen of the Antilles, the most beautiful 
 island in the world, has virtually become a savage jungle. 1 
 Jamaica has sunk to an equally hopeless condition. 
 One of the fairest parts of the globe, a part upon which 
 nature has lavished without stint her greatest treasures 
 and beauties, has declined to a tropical wilderness far 
 more wretched, with its evidences of a former prosperity, 
 than when the foot of Columbus first touched the shores 
 of San Salvador. Africa, the most fertile of all the con- 
 
 1 See the temperate, able, and interesting work of Sir Spencer St. 
 John, late British Consul to Hayti, entitled : " Hayti, or the Black 
 Republic," and published as recently as 1884. 
 
FUTURE OF THE NEGRO. 
 
 tinents, and upon its central plateaus one of the most 
 salubrious, with magnificent lakes and streams that offer 
 a network of highways to internal commerce, is observed 
 to-day, when the arts have been carried to the highest 
 pitch of development elsewhere, to be the scene of the 
 lowest forms of barbarism and the home of the most de 
 graded types of humanity. But the strongest proof that 
 can be furnished of the unfortunate qualities of the 
 negro is to be found in the history of the South during the 
 period of reconstruction, when he reduced many illustri 
 ous commonwealths to political chaos and brought soci 
 ety itself to the verge of ruin. That a race which has 
 occupied such a large portion of the globe should in all 
 ages and under the most favorable circumstances have 
 shown itself to be so incapable not only of creating civi 
 lization, but also of preserving its fruits when introduced 
 to a civilization not their own, must be due to the want 
 of those virtues and vigorous elements of character that 
 have distinguished every people who have played an 
 important part in the affairs of the world. 
 
 The same deficiencies that render the negro unable to 
 govern cause his influence to be highly dangerous, even 
 when he is a subordinate political factor. For this rea 
 son the expression, the solid South, has no sectional sig 
 nificance ; it merely embodies the determination of the 
 whites to ward off political ruin and to save society from 
 destruction. There are no fundamental differences in 
 popular feeling, because such differences are radically 
 inconsistent not only with the welfare of the community, 
 but even with its permanent existence. The discussion 
 and agitation of questions of national concern have al 
 ready ceased in the Southern States, inasmuch as all di 
 vergence of political opinion involves social anarchy in 
 
260 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN 
 I 
 
 the conclusion. Not until the negro is eliminated as a 
 political factor will the equilibrium of the Union be re 
 stored, for not until then will the Southern whites sepa 
 rate into parties. They were bound together before the 
 war by a common interest in the maintenance of the in 
 stitution of slavery ; they are united in sentiment now by 
 the evils incident to negro suffrage, and they will remain 
 united as long as the blacks enjoy as a mass the right to 
 vote. If that right were curtailed, the Southern people 
 would be more evenly divided between parties than the 
 citizens of the North are to-day. As it is, the future, so 
 far from extending any promise that the solidarity of the 
 Southern States will be broken, offers still weightier 
 reasons why that solidarity shall be preserved reasons 
 springing from the numerical expansion of the black 
 population, which will certainly continue to grow dur 
 ing the course of several generations, if not for a practi 
 cally indefinite time. Negro suffrage has compelled the 
 South to assume an eminently conservative attitude with 
 respect to her own affairs, and this conservatism will 
 deepen with her increasing difficulties and dangers. To 
 withdraw from her present policy is to relegate her insti 
 tutions, social as well as political, to anarchy and barbar 
 ism ; but to pursue that policy for a great length of time 
 would seem to be impossible. It is doubtful whether any 
 country can thrive that must permanently remain in the 
 condition of an armed camp. The partial disfranchise- 
 ment of the negro in the future would appear to be in 
 evitable as essential, if not to the existence of the South, 
 then to the prosperity of the Union. 
 
 The questions raised by the presence of the negro 
 have always been the most perplexing in our nationa- 
 life, and from the beginning the American people have 
 
FUTURE OF THE NEGRO. 261 
 
 deferred the settlement of these questions until they 
 became too pressing to be evaded. First, there was the 
 acrimonious wrangle as to the extension of slavery, which 
 finally culminated in one of the most sanguinary and 
 fratricidal of wars. This was followed by the bestowal 
 of the franchise on the freedman, which shook all the 
 institutions of the Southern States to their lowest foun 
 dations ; and to-day the rapid increase of the black 
 population constitutes a graver danger to the stability of 
 our government than any that is sapping the vitality of the 
 European monarchies. During all of the later periods 
 of our national history the majestic and radiant figure of 
 the Republic has been dogged by the ominous shadow of 
 the negro now as a slave, stripped of every privilege, 
 and now as a citizen, holding aloft the ballot in his hand. 
 In the course of the next ten decades American institu 
 tions will be subjected to a severer strain than they have 
 yet endured, and one of the most important causes of 
 this strain will be the evil influence which the Southern 
 blacks will indirectly exercise on the national destiny, an 
 influence that time will only make more pernicious if 
 nothing shall intervene to check their numerical growth. 
 The negro is only useful to the Southern States, and 
 through those States to the Union, as a laborer, but it 
 would be far better for the whole country if he were 
 withdrawn, even though withdrawn so suddenly as to 
 wholly blight, for a time, the material interests of the 
 South. It would be better, indeed, for that entire sec 
 tion to be relegated to its primeval condition with a view 
 to its being settled again exclusively by a white popula 
 tion, just as if it were a virgin territory, than for it to 
 maintain its present position partially through the manual 
 exertions of the blacks, but with the individuals of that 
 
262 THE PLANTATION NEGRO AS A FREEMAN. 
 
 race increasing so rapidly as to threaten the extinction 
 in the end of every element of prosperity, with no hope 
 of subsequent revival. 
 
 The position of the South with respect to the negro 
 problem should not be misunderstood. Its proper solu 
 tion is a matter of profound solicitude to her from 
 whatever standpoint it may be viewed. Thousands of 
 her -citizens, whose patriotism is coextensive with the 
 republic, are deeply and constantly meditating on the 
 dangers of her situation and speculating as to how these 
 dangers can be removed. The questions involved have 
 risen above the plane of antipathies of race. They have 
 passed from the sphere of individuals and parties. They 
 now bear alone upon the final destinies of a great section 
 of country, endowed by the Creator with every advantage 
 of climate and soil, a section capable of supporting a 
 teeming population and suited to become the scene of 
 the highest development of American civilization. Fer 
 vent should be the prayer that the course of future events 
 will solve this momentous problem at last in a way that 
 will redound to the prosperity of the South and the 
 glory of the Union. In the meanwhile the Southern 
 people are using every means in their reach to bring 
 about this consummation, and upon the efforts that they 
 have made and are still making with that view they 
 may well invoke, in the language of the Emancipation 
 Proclamation that precipitated the special evils that now 
 environ them, " the considerate judgment of mankind 
 and the gracious favor of Almighty God." 
 
 
 
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