Ellen is coming at
last. I felt sure no one could stop her. Mr. McKim is also to come as
Philadelphia agent, and I am free.
We have been for
three days going to various plantations, once to Mr. Zacha's at Paris Island,
once to Mrs. Mary Jenkins', Mr. Wells' and to Edgar Fripp's, or to Frogmore,
Mr. Saulis'; also to Edding's Point and one other place. At the three places of
Mr. Jenkins, Mr. Fripp, and Edding, the wretched hovels with their wooden
chimneys and the general squalor showed the former misery. One woman said the
differences in the times were as great as if God had sent another Moses and a
great deliverance — that it was heaven upon earth and earth in heaven now. They
all seemed to love Mr. Wells. We saw there one woman whose two children had
been whipped to death, and Mr. Wells said there was not one who was not marked
up with welts. He had the old whip which had a ball at the end, and he had seen
the healed marks of this ball on their flesh — the square welts showed where it
had taken the flesh clean out. Loretta of this place showed me her back and
arms to-day. In many places there were ridges as high and long as my little
finger, and she said she had had four babies killed within her by whipping, one
of which had its eye cut out, another its arm broken, and the others with marks
of the lash. She says it was because even while "heaviest" she was
required to do as much as usual for a field hand, and not being able, and being
also rather apt to resist, and rather smart in speaking her mind, poor thing,
she has suffered; and no wonder Grace, her child, is of the lowest type; no
wonder she is more indifferent about her clothes and house than any one here.
She says this was the cruelest place she was ever in.
The happiest family
I know here is old Aunt Bess's Minda and Jerry and herself. They are always
joking and jolly but very gentle. When I go there at night to dress Bess's foot
I find her lying upon her heap of rags with the roaches running all over her
and little Leah or some small child asleep beside her.' Jerry got me some of
the pine sticks they use for candles. They hold one for me while I dress the
foot.
It is- very
interesting to observe how the negroes watch us for fear we shall go away. They
are in constant dread of it and we cannot be absent a single day without
anxiety on their part. It is very touching to hear their entreaties to us to
stay, and their anxious questions. They have a horrible dread of their masters'
return, especially here where Massa Dan'l's name is a terror.
They appreciate the
cheapness of our goods and especially of the sugar at the Overseer house, and
are beginning to distrust the cotton agents who have charged them so wickedly.
The scenes in the
cotton-house used to be very funny. Miss W. would say to some discontented
purchaser who was demurring at the price of some article, “Well, now, I don't
want to sell this. I believe I won't sell it to-day. But if you want to take it
very much at a dollar and a half, you may have it. Oh, you don't? Well, then, I
can't sell you anything. No, you can't have anything. We are doing the best we
can for you and you are not satisfied; you won't be contented. Just go — go
now, please. We want all the room and air we can get. You don't want to buy and
why do you stay? No, I shall not let you have anything but that. I don't want
to sell it, but you may have it for a dollar and a half,” etc., etc. This is
one of many real scenes. The people are eager, crazy to buy, for they
are afraid of their money, it being paper, and besides, they need clothes and
see finer things than ever in their lives before. Except when they are excited
they are very polite, always saying "Missus" to us, and
"Sir" to one another. The children say, "Good-mornin',
ma'am," whenever they see us first in the day, and once I overheard two
girls talking just after they had greeted me. One said, "I say
good-mornin' to my young missus [Miss Pope] and she say, ‘I slap your mouth for
your impudence, you nigger.’” I have heard other stories that tell tales.
The white folks
used to have no cooking-utensils of their own here. They came and required
certain things. The cooks hunted among the huts and borrowed what they needed
till the family went away, of course straining every nerve to get such cooking
as should please. "I would do anything for my massa," Susannah says,
"if he wouldn't whip me."
On May 7, as Mr.
Pierce stepped off the boat at Hilton Head and walked up the pier, a Mr.
Nobles, chief of the cotton agents here, came forward saying that he had a
letter for him. Then he struck him upon the head, felled him, and beat him,
saying that Mr. P. had reported him to the Secretary of the Treasury and had
got a saddle and bridle of his. Mr. Pierce got up with difficulty and took only
a defensive part. Some soldiers took Mr. Nobles off. Mr. Pierce had really
mentioned this man and his agents, which was his duty as guardian of these
people, for they were imposing upon the negroes shamefully. They, of course,
hate this whole Society of Superintendents, etc., who will not see the negroes
wronged. So Mr. P. has had his touch of martyrdom.
The Philadelphia
consignment of goods — in all $2000 worth — would have done immense good if it
had come in season. The people of these islands, whom Government does not
ration (because there is corn here) had nothing but hominy to eat, were naked,
were put to work at cotton, which they hated, as being nothing in their own
pockets and all profit to the superintendent, who they could not be sure were
not only another set of cotton agents or cotton planters; and so discontent and
trouble arose. Mr. Pierce said to them that they should be fed, clothed, and
paid, but they waited and waited in vain, trusting at first to promises and
then beginning to distrust such men as were least friendly to them.
The first rations
of pork — "splendid bacon," everybody says — was dealt out the other
day and there has been great joy ever since, or great content. If this had only
come when first ordered there would have been this goodwill and trust from the
first. They even allow the removal of the corn from one plantation to another
now without murmuring, and that they were very much opposed to before.
SOURCE: Rupert Sargent Holland, Editor, Letters and
Diary of Laura M. Towne: Written from the Sea Islands of South Carolina
1862-1864, p. 57-61
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