The smart negro who waited on me this morning spoke English,
I asked him if he knew how to read and write. — “We must not do that, sir.” “Where
were you born?” — “I were raised on the plantation, Massa, but I have been to
New Orleans;” and then he added, with an air of pride, “I s'pose, sir, Massa
Burnside not take less than 1500 dollars for me.” Down-stairs to breakfast, the
luxuries of which are fish, prawns, and red meat which has been sent for to
Donaldsonville by boat rowed by an old negro. Breakfast over, I walked down to
the yard, where the horses were waiting, and proceeded to visit the saccharine
principality. Mr. Seal, the overseer of this portion of the estate, was my
guide, if not philosopher and friend. Our road lay through a lane formed by a
cart track, between fields of Indian corn just beginning to flower — as it is
called technically, to “tassel” —
and sugar-cane. There were stalks of the former twelve or fifteen feet in
height, with three or four ears each, round which the pea twined in leafy
masses. The maize affords food to the negro, and the husks are eaten by the
horses and mules, which also fatten on the peas in rolling time.
The wealth of the land is inexhaustible: all the soil
requires is an alternation of maize and cane; and the latter, when cut in the
stalk, called “ratoons,” at the end of the year, produces a fresh crop,
yielding excellent sugar. The cane is grown from stalks which are laid in pits
during the winter till the ground has been ploughed, when 'each piece of cane
is laid longitudinally on the ridge and covered with earth, and from each joint
of the stalk springs forth a separate sprout when the crop begins to grow. At
present the sugar-cane is waiting for its full development, but the negro labor
around its' stem has ceased. It is planted in long continuous furrows, and
although the palm-like tops have not yet united in a uniform arch over the six
feet which separates row from row, the stalks are higher than a man. The
plantation is pierced with wagon roads, for the purpose of conveying the cane
to the sugar-mills, and these again are intersected by and run parallel with
drains and ditches, portions of the great system of irrigation and drainage, in
connection with a canal to carry off the surplus water to a bayou. The extent
of these works may be estimated by the fact that there are thirty miles of road
and twenty miles of open deep drainage through the estate, and that the main
canal is fifteen feet wide, and at present four feet deep; but in the midst of
this waste of plenty and wealth, where are the human beings who produce both?
One must go far to discover them; they are buried in sugar and in maize, or
hidden in negro quarters. In truth, there is no trace of them, over all this
expanse of land, unless one knows where to seek; no “ploughboy whistles o'er
the lea;” no rustic stands to do his own work; but the gang is moved off in
silence from point to point, like a corps d’armée of some despotic
emperor manoeuvring in the battle-field.
Admitting everything that can be said, I am the more
persuaded from what I see, that the real foundation of slavery in the Southern
States lies in the power of obtaining labor at will at a rate which cannot be
controlled by any combination of the laborers. Granting the heat and the
malaria, it is not for a moment to be argued that planters could not find white
men to do their work if they would pay them for the risk. A negro, it is true,
bears heat well, and can toil under the blazing sun of Louisiana, in the
stifling air between the thick-set sugar-canes; but the Irishman who is
employed in the stokehole of a steamer is exposed to a higher temperature and
physical exertion even more arduous. The Irish laborer can, however, set a
value on his work; the African slave can only determine the amount of work to
be got from him by the exhaustion of his powers. Again, the indigo planter in
India, out from morn till night amidst his ryots, or the sportsman toiling
under the midday sun through swamp and jungle, proves that the white man can
endure the utmost power of the hottest sun in the world as well as the native.
More than that, the white man seems to be exempt from the inflammatory disease,
pneumonia, and attacks of the mucous membrane and respiratory organs to which
the blacks are subject; and if the statistics of negro mortality were rigidly
examined, I doubt that they would exhibit as large a proportion of mortality
and sickness as would be found amongst gangs of white men under similar
circumstances. But the slave is subjected to rigid control; he is deprived of
stimulating drinks in which the free white laborer would indulge; and he is
obliged to support life upon an antiphlogistic diet, which gives him, however,
sufficient strength to execute his daily task.
It is in the supposed cheapness of slave labor and its
profitable adaptation in the production of Southern crops, that the whole gist
and essence of the question really lie. The planter can get from the labor of a
slave for whom he has paid £200, a sum of money which will enable him to use up
that slave in comparatively a few years of his life, whilst he would have to
pay to the white laborer a sum that would be a great apparent diminution of his
profits, for the same amount of work. It is calculated that each field-hand, as
an able-bodied negro is called, yields seven hogsheads of sugar a year, which,
at the rate of fourpence a pound, at an average of a hogshead an acre, would
produce to the planter £140 for every slave. This is wonderful interest on the
planter's money; but he sometimes gets two hogsheads an acre, and even as many
as three hogsheads have been produced in good years on the best lands; in other
words, two and a quarter tons of sugar and refuse stuff, called “bagasse,” have
been obtained from an acre of cane. Not one planter of the many I have asked
has ever given an estimate of the annual cost of a slave's maintenance; the
idea of calculating it never comes into their heads.
Much depends upon the period at which frost sets in; and if
the planters can escape till January without any cold to nip the juices and the
cane, their crop is increased in value each day; but it is not till October
they can begin to send cane to the mill, in average seasons; and if the frost
does not come till December, they may count upon the fair average of a hogshead
of 1200 pounds of sugar to every acre.
The labor of ditching, trenching, cleaning the waste lands,
and hewing down the forests, is generally done by Irish laborers, who travel
about the country under contractors, or are engaged by resident gangsmen for
the task. Mr. Seal lamented the high prices of this work; but then, as he said,
“It was much better to have
Irish to do it, who cost nothing to the planter, if they died, than to use up
good field-hands in such severe employment.” There is a wonderful mine of truth
in this observation. Heaven knows how many poor Hibernians have been consumed
and buried in these Louisianian swamps, leaving their earnings to the
dramshop-keeper and the contractor, and the results of their toil to the
planter. This estate derives its name from an Indian tribe called Houmas; and
when Mr. Burnside purchased it for £300,000, he received in the first year
£63,000 as the clear value of the crops on his investment.
The first place I visited with the overseer was a new
sugarhouse, which negro carpenters and masons were engaged in erecting. It
would have been amusing, had not the subject been so grave, to hear the
overseer's praises of the intelligence and skill of these workmen, and his
boast that they did all the work of skilled laborers on the estate, and then to
listen to him, in a few minutes, expatiating on the utter helplessness and
ignorance of the black race, their incapacity to do any good, or even to take
care of themselves.
There are four sugar-houses on this portion of Mr.
Burnside's estate, consisting of grinding-mills, boiling-houses, and
crystallizing sheds.
The sugar-house is the capital of the negro quarters, and to
each of them is attached an enclosure, in which there is a double row of
single-storied wooden cottages, divided into two or four rooms. An avenue of
trees runs down the centre of the negro street, and behind each hut are rude
poultry-hutches, which, with geese and turkeys, and a few pigs, form the
perquisites of the slaves, and the sole source from which they derive their
acquaintance with currency. Their terms are strictly cash. An old negro brought
up some ducks to Mr. Burnside last night, and offered the lot of six for three
dollars. “Very well, Louis; if you come to-morrow, I'll pay you.” “No, massa;
me want de money now.” “But won't you give me credit, Louis? Don't you think
I'll pay the three dollars?” “Oh, pay some day, massa, sure enough. Massa good
to pay de tree dollar; but this nigger want money now to buy food and things
for him leetle family. They will trust massa at Donaldsville, but they won't
trust this nigger.” I was told that a thrifty negro will sometimes make ten or
twelve pounds a year from his corn and poultry; but he can have no inducement
to hoard; for whatever is his, as well as himself, belongs to his master.
Mr. Seal conducted me to a kind of forcing-house, where the
young negroes are kept in charge of certain old crones too old for work, whilst
their parents are away in the cane and Indian corn. A host of children of both
sexes were seated in the veranda of a large wooden shed, or playing around it,
very happily and noisily. I was glad to see the boys and girls of nine, ten,
and eleven years of age were at this season, at all events, exempted from the
cruel fate which befalls poor children of their age in the mining and
manufacturing districts of England. At the sight of the overseer, the little
ones came forward in tumultuous glee, babbling out, “Massa Seal,” and evidently
pleased to see him.
As a jolly agriculturist looks at his yearlings or young
beeves, the kindly overseer, lolling in his saddle, pointed with his whip to
the glistening fat ribs and corpulent paunches of his woolly-headed flock. “There's
not a plantation in the State,” quoth he, “can show such a lot of young
niggers. The way to get them right is not to work the mothers too hard when
they are near their time; to give them plenty to eat, and not to send them to
the fields too soon.” He told me the increase was about five per cent, per
annum. The children were quite sufficiently clad, ran about round us, patted
the horses, felt our legs, tried to climb up on the stirrup, and twinkled their
black and ochrey eyes at Massa Seal. Some were exceedingly fair; and Mr. Seal,
observing that my eye followed these, murmured something about the overseers
before Mr. Burnside's time being rather a bad lot. He talked about their color
and complexion quite openly; nor did it seem to strike him that there was any
particular turpitude in the white man who had left his offspring as slaves on
the plantation.
A tall, well-built lad of some nine or ten years stood by
me, looking curiously into my face, “What is your name?” said I. “George,” he
replied. “Do you know how to read or write?” He evidently did not understand
the question. “Do you go to church or chapel?” A dubious shake of the head. “Did
you ever hear of our Saviour?” At this point Mr. Seal interposed, and said, “I
think we had better go on, as the sun is getting hot,” and so we rode gently
through the little ones; and when we had got some distance he said, rather
apologetically, “We don't think it right to put these things into their heads
so young, it only disturbs their minds, and leads them astray.”
Now, in this one quarter there were no less than eighty
children, some twelve and some even fourteen years of age. No education — no
God — their whole life — food and play, to strengthen their muscles and fit
them for the work of a slave. “And when they die?” “Well,” said Mr. Seal, “they
are buried in that field there by their own people, and some of them have a
sort of prayers over them, I believe.” The overseer, it is certain, had no
fastidious notions about slavery; it was to him the right thing in the right
place, and his summum bonum was a high price for sugar, a good crop, and
a healthy plantation. Nay, I am sure I would not wrong him if I said he could
see no impropriety in running a good cargo of regular black slaves, who might
clear the great back wood and swampy undergrowth, which was now exhausting the
energies of his field-hands, in the absence of Irish navvies.
Each negro gets five pounds of pork a week, and as
much Indian corn bread as he can eat, with a portion of molasses, and
occasionally they have fish for breakfast. All the carpenters’ and smiths’
work, the erection of sheds, repairing of carts and ploughs, and the baking of
bricks for the farm buildings, are done on the estate by the slaves. The
machinery comes from the manufacturing cities of the North; but great efforts
are made to procure it from New Orleans, where factories have been already
established. On the borders of the forest the negroes are allowed to plant corn
for their own use, and sometimes they have an overplus, which they sell to
their masters. Except when there is any harvest pressure on their hands, they
have from noon on Saturday till dawn on Monday morning to do as they please,
but they must not stir off the plantation on the road, unless with special
permit, which is rarely granted.
There is an hospital on the estate, and even shrewd Mr. Seal
did not perceive the conclusion that was to be drawn from his testimony to its
excellent arrangements. “Once a nigger gets in there, he'd like to live there
for the rest of his life.” But are they not the happiest, most contented people
in the world — at any rate, when they are in hospital? I declare that to me the
more orderly, methodical, and perfect the arrangements for economizing slave
labor — regulating slaves — are, the more hateful and odious does slavery
become. I would much rather be the animated human chattel of a Turk, Egyptian,
Spaniard, or French Creole, than the laboring beast of a Yankee or of a New
England capitalist.
When I returned back to the house I found my friends
enjoying a quiet siesta, and the rest of the afternoon was devoted to
idleness, not at all disagreeable with a thermometer worthy of Agra. Even the
mocking-birds were roasted into silence, and the bird which answers to our rook
or crow sat on the under branches of the trees, gaping for air with his
bill wide open. It must be hot indeed when the mocking-bird loses his activity.
There, is one, with its nest in a rose-bush trailed along the veranda under my
window, which now sits over its young ones with outspread wings, as if to protect
them from being baked; and it is so courageous and affectionate, that when I
approach quite close, it merely turns round its head, dilates its beautiful
dark eye, and opens its beak, within which the tiny sharp tongue is saying, I
am sure, “Don't for goodness' sake disturb me, for if you force me to leave,
the children will be burned to death.”
SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and
South, p. 270-6
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