 | XXVI. The South-west |  |
26. XXVI.
A northener's idea of the south-west—Natchez and health—
“Broadway” of Natchez—Street scenes—Private carriages—Auction
store—Sale of a slave—Manner in which slaves view slavery
—Shopping—Fashion—Southern gentlemen—Merchants—Planters—Whip-bearers—Planters'
families.
To the northerner, to whom every verdant hill is
a magazine of health, every mountain torrent and
limpid river are leaping and flowing with life, who
receives a new existence as the rays of the summer's
sun fall upon his brow, and whose lungs expand
more freely and whose pulse beats more
strongly under the influence of every breeze, Natchez
has been, till within a very short period, associated
with miasma and marshes over which the
yellow fever, like a demon king, held undisputed
sway. This idea is not without foundation. Like
young and ambitious adventurers. Pestilence has
here literally “walked at noonday.” The sun, the
source and preserver of life and health, in its path
over this devoted city, has “become black as sackcloth,”
and “the moon that walketh in brightness,”
shedding her calm and gentle light upon the earth,
has been “turned into blood,” poisoning the atmosphere
with exhalations of death, and converting the
green earth into a sepulchre. But this is a record
of the past. The angel of vengeance has gone by,
leaving health and peace to exercise their gentle dominion
over this late theatre of his terrible power.
No city in our happy country is more blessed with
health than is now, this so often depopulated
place. For several years past its catalogue of mortality
has been very much smaller than that of many
towns in Vermont and Maine, containing the same
number of inhabitants. Even that insatiable destroyer,
the Asiatic cholera, which has strewn both
hemispheres with the bones of its victims, has passed
over this city without leaving a trace of his progress,
except among the blacks and a few imprudent
strangers. Not a citizen fell a victim to it.
If any place demanded a dispensation of mercy it
was this—if past misfortunes can challenge an exemption
from farther infliction.
Main-street is the “Broadway” of Natchez. It
extends from the river to the eastern extremity of
the city, about half a mile in length, dividing the
town into nearly equal portions, north and south.
This street is to Natchez what Chartres-street is
Here are all the banks and most of the dry goods
and fancy stores. Here, consequently, is the centre
of business, and, to the ladies, that of attraction;
although the stores are not turned inside out every
morning, to adorn their fronts and create zigzags
on the side-walks, to the great edification of the
shopmen, who are the operators, and the little comfort
of gouty or hurrying pedestrians. In passing up
this street, which is compactly built with handsome
brick blocks, generally but two stories in height,
the stranger is struck with the extraordinary number
of private carriages, clustered before the doors
of the most fashionable stores, or millineries, rolling
through the street, or crossing and recrossing
it from those by which it is intersected, nearly every
moment, from eleven till two on each fair day. But
few of these equipages are of the city: they are
from the plantations in the neighbourhood, which
spread out from the town over richly cultivated
“hill and dale,”—a pleasant and fertile landscape—
far into the interior. Walk with me into this street
about noon on a pleasant day in December. It is
the only one nearly destitute of shade trees; but
the few it boasts are shedding their yellow leaves,
which sprinkle the broad, regular, and well-constructed
side-walks, and the warm sun shines down
cheerily and pleasantly upon the promenaders.—
Here, at the corner, surrounded by a crowd, is an
auction store. Upon a box by the door stands a
tall, fine-looking man. But he is black; ebony
beings there, he is the most unconcerned. Yet he
has a deeper interest in the transactions of the moment
than all the rest—for a brief space will determine
whom, among the multitude, he is to call
master! The auctioneer descants at large upon his
merits and capabilities.—“Acclimated, gentlemen!
a first-rate carriage-driver—raised by Col. —
Six hundred dollars is bid. Examine him, gentlemen—a
strong and athletic fellow—but twenty-seven
years of age.” He is knocked off at seven
hundred dollars; and with “There's your master,”
by the seller, who points to the purchaser, springs
from his elevation to follow his new owner; while
his place is supplied by another subject. These
scenes are every-day matters here, and attract no
attention after beholding them a few times; so
powerful is habit, even in subduing our strongest
prejudices. But the following dialogue, overheard
by me, between two well-dressed, smart-looking
blacks near by, one seated listlessly upon his
coach-box, the other holding the bridle of his master's
horse—though brief, contains a volume of meaning,
in illustrating the opinions and views of the
blacks upon the state of their degraded race.
“You know dat nigger, they gwine to sell,
George?”
“No, he field nigger; I nebber has no 'quaintance
wid dat class.”
“Well, nor no oder gentlemens would. But he's
a likely chap. How much you tink he go for?”—
“I a'n't much 'quainted wid de price of such kind o'
for me, when I come out from ole Wirginney—dat
nigger fetch five hun'red dollar I reckon.”
“You sell for only seben hun'red dollars!” exclaimed
the gentleman upon the coach-seat, drawing
himself up with pride, and casting a contemptuous
glance down upon his companion: “my
massa give eight hundred and fifty silver dollars for
me. Gom! I tink dat you was more 'spectable
nigger nor dat.” At this turn of the conversation
the negro was struck off at seven hundred, at which
the colloquist of the same price became highly chagrined;
but, stepping upon the stirrup, and raising
himself above the crowd, that he might see “the
fool massa what give so much for a miserable good-for-nothing
nigger, not wort' his corn,” consoled
himself with the reflection that the buyer was “a
man what made no more dan tirty bale cotton;
while my master make tree hun'red, and one of de
firs' gemmans too!”
Thus, though denied the privileges of his desired
“caste,” by the estimation of his personal value,
he aspired to it by a conclusive argument, in the
eye of a negro, viz. his master's wealth and rank in
society. Can individuals, who are thus affected at
the sale of their fellow-men, and who view their
state of bondage in this light, feel deeply their own
condition, or be very sensitive upon the subject of
equal rights? Yet thus do negroes view slavery.
Thus do they converse upon it; and are as tenacious
of the limited privileges, (yet to them unlimited,
because they know, and can therefore aspire
among the links of their moral bondage. There is
one, proud that his chain weighs down a few more
gold pieces than that of his fellow, while the latter
is in no less degree mortified at the deficiency in
weight of his own. Do such men “pine in bondage”
and “sigh for freedom?” Freedom, of which
they know nothing, and cannot, therefore, feel the
deprivation; a freedom of which they have heard
only, as the orientals of their fabled genii, but to
which generally they no more think of aspiring than
the subjects of the caliph to the immortality and
winged freedom of these imaginary beings. These
two negroes I have seen repeatedly since, and am
assured that they are as intelligent, well informed,
and “respectable,” as any of their class; none of
whom, allowing a very few exceptions, entertain
higher or different views of their state as slaves, or
of their rank in the scale of human beings. Do not
mistake me: I am no advocate for slavery; but
neither am I a believer in that wild Garrisonian
theory, which, like a magician's wand, is at once to
dissolve every link that binds the slave to his master,
and demolish at one blow a system that has
existed, still gaining in extent and stability, for
centuries. The familiar French proverb, “imagination
gallops while the judgment advances only
on a walk,” is most applicable to these visionary
theorists who would build Rome in a day.
Opposite to the auction store are a cluster of gay
carriages, to and from which fair beings, not quite
angels, are “ascending and descending,” to look
stores. Was there ever a fancy store that ladies
were not hovering near? “A new store”—“new
goods,”—“less than cost!” What magic words!
What visions of silks and satins, gros de Swiss and
gros de Naples, challys and shawls, Grecian laces
and Paris gloves, with a thousand other charming
etceteras, float before their delighted fancies, in
every form of grace and ornament that the imagination
can picture or a refined taste invent. Ladies
are ladies all the world over; and where is the place
in which they do not love “to shop?” In this far
corner of the south and west, you are prepared to
give fashion credit for but few devotees, and those
only partial and half-souled worshippers. But you
must not forget that these are southerners; and the
southerner is never found unfashionable or deficient
in taste. The moving galaxy of grace and beauty
that floats down Chesnut-street, cannot at any time
present more fashionable and elegantly-dressed
promenaders than now enliven the street, or than
that fair bevy of young ladies clustered round yonder
carriage door, all chattering together, with their
sweet pleasant voices, to a pale, beautiful, and interesting
girl within, apparently an invalid. So far
as I can judge, as much of “the ton,” in dress and
society, prevails here as in Philadelphia, where
many residents of the city and country spend a portion
of every summer—certainly more than at New-Orleans,
which is by far the most unfashionable
city in the United States. The gentlemen of Natchez
are less particular in their dress, though much
since, when there was not to be found what would
be termed a “fashionable man,” (according to the
acceptation of the term in New-York) among the
residents of this city. And where is the southern
gentleman that ever dressed fashionably? They
dress well and richly, but seldom fashionably.
Their garments hang upon them loosely, as though
made for larger men; and they wear them with a
sort of free and easy air, enviable but inimitable by
the stiffer and more formal northerner. The southerner,
particularly the planter, would wear with a
native and matchless grace the flowing toga of imperial
Rome. Though destitute of that fashionable
exterior which the tailor supplies, and for which,
in general, they have a most sovereign indifference
and contempt, they possess—I mean the genuine,
native-born, well-educated southerner—an “air distingué,”
and in the highest degree aristocratic,
which is every where the most striking feature of
their appearance.
That knot of gentlemen issuing from a plain
brick building—one of the banks—is composed of
bank directors. Their decisions have elevated or
depressed the mercury in many an anxious breast.
Two or three faces resemble those one often sees
in Wall-street, or on Change, in Boston. The resemblance
is so striking that one is quite sure at
the first glance that he has seen them there. But
no: they are merchants of this city—thorough-going
commercial men. The resemblance is only that of
a species. Merchants resemble each other everywhere.
characteristic. It has been said that a Boston merchant
may be known all the world over. It has
been proved that a sea-faring life, especially when
commenced in early years, has a tendency to produce
a physical change in the organ of vision.
That a mercantile life, long and intently pursued,
has a tendency to stamp a peculiar character upon
the features, is equally certain, in the opinion of
those whose habits of observation may have led
them to such physiognomical investigations. Among
the remainder, are two or three in white blanket
coats, broad-brimmed white hats, with slender riding-whips
in their hands, who will be readily designated
as planters. A circumstance that very soon arrests
the attention of the stranger, is the number of gentlemen
with riding-whips in their hands to be met
with in all parts of the city, particularly on days
when any public meeting is held. Every third or
fourth person is thus, to a northerner, singularly
armed. At the north few ride except in gigs. But
here all are horsemen; and it is unusual to see a
gentleman in a gig or carriage. If his wife rides
out, he attends her à cheval. Instead of gigs,
therefore, which would fill the streets of a northern
town, saddle-horses, usually with high pummelled
Spanish saddles, and numerous private carriages, in
which are the ladies of the family, drawn by long-tailed
horses, throng the streets and line the outside
of the pavé. At least a third of the persons who
fill the streets are planters and their families from
the country, which every day pours forth its hundreds
magnet attracts all within its influence.
There are several public buildings in this street
of which I shall make more particular mention
hereafter. My object now is merely to give you
some idea of things as, when presented to it in the
novel hues of “first impressions,” they strike the
eye of a stranger.
| XXVI. The South-west | |