University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XXXIV.

June 5th.—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 Orleens;" 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
manœuvring 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 famly. 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
backwood 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."

June 6th.—My chattel Joe, "adscriptus mihi domino,"
awoke me to a bath of Mississippi water with huge lumps of
ice in it, to which he recommended a mint-julep as an adjunct.
It was not here that I was first exposed to an ordeal
of mint-julep, for in the early morning a stranger in a Southern
planter's house may expect the offer of a glassful of
brandy, sugar, and peppermint beneath an island of ice—an
obligatory panacea for all the evils of climate. After it has
been disposed of, Pompey may come up again with glass
number two: "Massa say fever very bad this morning—
much dew." It is possible that the degenerate Anglo-Saxon
stomach has not the fine tone and temper of that of an Hibernian
friend of mine, who considered the finest thing to counteract
the effects of a little excess was a tumbler of hot whiskey
and water the moment the sufferer opened his eyes in the
morning. Therefore, the kindly offering may be rejected.
But on one occasion before breakfast the negro brought up
mint-julep number three, the acceptance of which he enforced
by the emphatic declaration, "Massa says, sir, you had better
take this, because it'll be the last he make before breakfast."

Breakfast is served: there is on the table a profusion of
dishes—grilled fowl, prawns, eggs and ham, fish from New
Orleans, potted salmon from England, preserved meats from
France, claret, iced water, coffee and tea, varieties of hominy,
mush, and African vegetable preparations. Then come the

newspapers, which are perused eagerly with ejaculations, "Do
you hear what they are doing now—infernal villains! that
Lincoln must be mad!" and the like. At one o'clock, in
spite of the sun, I rode out with Mr. Lee, along the road by
the Mississippi, to Mr. Burnside's plantation, called Orange
Grove, from a few trees which still remain in front of the
overseer's house. We visited an old negro, called "Boatswain,"
who lives with his old wife in a wooden hut close by
the margin of the Mississippi. His business is to go to Donaldsonville
for letters, or meat, or ice for the house—a tough
row for the withered old man. He is an African born, and
he just remembers being carried on board ship and taken to
some big city before he came upon the plantation.

"Do you remember nothing of the country you came from,
Boatswain?" "Yes, sir. Jist remember trees and sweet
things my mother gave me, and much hot sand I put my
feet in, and big leaves that we play with—all us little children
—and plenty to eat, and big birds and shells." "Would
you like to go back, Boatswain?" "What for, sir? no one
know old Boatswain there. My old missus Sally inside."
"Are you quite happy, Boatswain?" "I'm getting very old,
massa. Massa Burnside very good to Boatswain, but who
care for such dam old nigger? Golla Mighty gave me fourteen
children, but he took them all away again from Sally
and me. No budy care much for dam old nigger like me."

Further on Mr. Seal salutes us from the veranda of his
house, but we are bound for overseer Gibbs, who meets us,
mounted, by the roadside—a man grim in beard and eye,
and silent withal, with a big whip in his hand and a large
knife stuck in his belt. He leads us through a magnificent
area of cane and maize, the latter towering far above our
heads; but I was most anxious to see the forest primeval
which borders the clear land at the back of the estate, and
spreads away over alligator-haunted swamps into distant
bayous. It was not, however, possible to gratify one's curiosity
very extensively beyond the borders of the cleared
land, for rising round the roots of the cypress, swamp-pine,
and live-oak, there was a barrier of undergrowth and bush
twined round the cane-brake which stands some sixteen feet
high, so stiff that the united force of man and horse could
not make way against the rigid fibres; and indeed, as Mr.
Gibbs told us, "When the niggers take to the cane-brake they
can beat man or dog, and nothing beats them but snakes and
starvation."

He pointed out some sheds around which were broken bottles
where the last Irish gang had been working, under one
"John Loghlin," of Donaldsonville, a great contractor, who,
he says, made plenty of money out of his countrymen, whose
bones are lying up and down the Mississippi. "They due
work like fire," he said. "Loghlin does not give them half
the rations we give our negroes, but he can always manage
them with whiskey; and when he wants them to do a job he
gives them plenty of 'forty-rod,' and they have their fight
out—reglar free fight, I can tell you, while it lasts. Next
morning they will sign anything and go anywhere with him."

On the Orange Grove Plantation, although the crops were
so fine, the negroes unquestionably seemed less comfortable
than those in the quarters of Houmas, separated from them
by a mere nominal division. Then, again, there were more
children with fair complexions to be seen peeping out of the
huts; some of these were attributed to the former overseer,
one Johnson by name, but Mr. Gibbs, as if to vindicate his
memory, told me confidentially he had paid a large sum of
money to the former proprietor of the estate for one of his
children, and had carried it away with him when he left.
"You could not expect him, you know," said Gibbs, "to buy
them all at the prices that were then going in '56. All the
children on the estate," added he, "are healthy, and I can
show my lot against Seal's over there, though I hear tell he
had a great show of them out to you yesterday."

The bank of the river below the large plantation was occupied
by a set of small creole planters, whose poor houses were
close together, indicating very limited farms, which had been
subdivided from time to time, according to the French fashion;
so that the owners have at last approached pauperism; but
they are tenacious of their rights, and will not yield to the
tempting price offered by the large planters. They cling to
the soil without enterprise and without care. The Spanish
settlers along the river are open to the same reproach, and
prefer their own ease to the extension of their race in other
lands, or to the aggrandizement of their posterity; and an
Epicurean would aver, they were truer philosophers than the
restless creatures who wear out their lives in toil and labor to
found empires for the future.

It is among these men that, at times, slavery assumes its
harshest aspect, and that the negroes are exposed to the
severest labor; but it is also true that the slaves have closer

relations with the families of their owners, and live in more
intimate connection with them than they do under the strict
police of the large plantations. These people sometimes get
forty bushels of corn to the acre, and a hogshead and a half
of sugar. We saw their children going to school, whilst the
heads of the houses sat in the veranda smoking, and their
mothers were busy with household duties; and the signs of
life, the voices of women and children, and the activity visible
on the little farms, contrasted not unpleasantly with the
desert-like stillness of the larger settlements. Rode back in
a thunder-storm.

At dinner in the evening Mr. Burnside entertained a number
of planters in the neighborhood,—M. Bringier, M.
Coulon (French creoles), Mr. Duncan Kenner, a medical
gentleman named Cotmann, and others; the last-named
gentleman is an Unionist, and does not hesitate to defend his
opinions; but he has, during a visit to Russia, formed high
ideas of the necessity and virtues of an absolute and centralized
government.