_ CHAPTER VII. PLANTATION DISCIPLINE
The "Ole Cabin" to which Jim had alluded as the scene of Sam's punishment by the overseer, was a one-story shanty in the vicinity of the stables. Though fast falling to decay, it had more the appearance of a human habitation than the other huts on the plantation. Its thick plank door was ornamented with a mouldy brass knocker, and its four windows contained sashes, to which here and there clung a broken pane, the surviving relic of its better days. It was built of large unhewn logs, notched at the ends and laid one upon the other, with the bark still on. The thick, rough coat which yet adhered in patches to the timber had opened in the sun, and let the rain and the worm burrow in its sides, till some parts had crumbled entirely away. At one corner the process of decay had gone on till roof, superstructure, and foundation had rotted down and left an opening large enough to admit a coach and four horses. The huge chimneys which had graced the gable ends of the building were fallen in, leaving only a mass of sticks and clay to tell of their existence, and two wide openings to show how great a figure they had once made in the world. A small space in front of the cabin would have been a lawn, had the grass been willing to grow upon it; and a few acres of cleared land in its rear might have passed for a garden, had it not been entirely overgrown with young pines and stubble. This primitive structure was once the "mansion" of that broad plantation, and, before the production of turpentine came into fashion in that region, its rude owner drew his support from its few surrounding acres, more truly independent than the present aristocratic proprietor, who, raising only one article, and buying all his provisions, was forced to draw his support from the Yankee or the Englishman.
Only one room, about forty feet square, occupied the interior of the cabin. It once contained several apartments, vestiges of which still remained, but the partitions had been torn away to fit it for its present uses. What those uses were, a moment's observation showed me.
In the middle of the floor, a space about fifteen feet square was covered with thick pine planking, strongly nailed to the beams. In the centre of this planking, an oaken block was firmly bolted, and to it was fastened a strong iron staple that held a log-chain, to which was attached a pair of shackles. Above this, was a queer frame-work of oak, somewhat resembling the contrivance for drying fruit I have seen in Yankee farmhouses. Attached to the rafters by stout pieces of timber, were two hickory poles, placed horizontally, and about four feet apart, the lower one rather more than eight feet from the floor. This was the whipping-rack, and hanging to it were several stout whips with short hickory handles, and long triple lashes. I took one down for closer inspection, and found burned into the wood, in large letters, the words "Moral Suasion." I questioned the appropriateness of the label, but the Colonel insisted with great gravity, that the whip is the only "moral suasion" a darky is capable of understanding.
When punishment is inflicted on one of the Colonel's negroes, his feet are confined in the shackles, his arms tied above his head, and drawn by a stout cord up to one of the horizontal poles; then, his back bared to the waist, and standing on tip-toe, with every muscle stretched to its utmost tension, he takes "de lashes."
A more severe but more unusual punishment is the "thumb-screw." In this a noose is passed around the negro's thumb and fore-finger, while the cord is thrown over the upper cross-pole, and the culprit is drawn up till his toes barely touch the ground. In this position the whole weight of the body rests on the thumb and fore-finger. The torture is excruciating, and strong, able-bodied men can endure it but a few moments. The Colonel naively told me that he had discontinued its practice, as several of his
women had nearly lost the use of their hands, and been incapacitated for field labor, by its too frequent repetition. "My ---- drivers,"[G] he added, "have no discretion, and no humanity; if they have a pique against a nigger, they show him no mercy."
The old shanty I have described was now the place of the overseer's confinement. Open as it was at top, bottom, and sides, it seemed an unsafe prison-house; but Jim had secured its present occupant by placing "de padlocks on him."
"Where did you catch him?" asked the Colonel, as, followed by every darky on the plantation, we took our way to the old building.
"In de swamp, massa. We got Sandy and de dogs arter him--dey treed him, but he fit like de debble."
"Any one hurt?"
"Yas, Cunnel; he knifed Yaller Jake, and ef I hadn't a gibin him a wiper, you'd a had anudder nigger short dis mornin'--shore."
"How was it? tell me," said his master, while we paused, and the darkies gathered around.
"Wal, yer see, massa, we got de ole debble's hat dat he drapped wen you had him down; den we went to Sandy's fur de dogs--dey scented him to onst, and off dey put for de swamp. 'Bout twenty on us follored 'em. He'd a right smart start on us, and run like a deer, but de hounds kotched up wid him 'bout whar he shot pore Sam. He fit 'em and cut up de Lady awful, but ole Caesar got a hole ob him, and sliced a breakfuss out ob his legs. Somehow, dough, he got 'way from de ole dog, and clum a tree. 'Twar more'n an hour afore we kotched up; but dar he war, and de houns baying 'way as ef dey know'd what an ole debble he am. I'd tuk one ob de guns--you warn't in de house, massa, so I cudn't ax you."
"Never mind that; go on," said the Colonel.
"Wal, I up wid de gun, and tole him ef he didn't cum down I'd gib him suffin' dat 'ud sot hard on de stummuk. It tuk him a long w'ile, but--he
cum down." Here the darky showed a row of ivory that would have been a fair capital for a metropolitan dentist.
"When he war down," he resumed, "Jake war gwine to tie him, but de ole 'gator, quicker dan a flash, put a knife enter him."
"Is Jake much hurt?" interrupted the Colonel.
"Not bad, massa; de knife went fru his arm, and enter his ribs, but de ma'am hab fix him, and she say he'll be 'round bery sudden."
"Well, what then?" inquired the Colonel.
"Wen de ole debble seed he hadn't finished Jake, he war gwine to gib him anudder dig, but jus den I drap de gun on his cocoanut, and he neber trubble us no more. 'Twar mons'rous hard work to git him out ob de swamp, 'cause he war jess like a dead man, and had to be toted de hull way; but he'm dar now, massa (pointing to the old cabin), and de bracelets am on him."
"Where is Jake?" asked the Colonel.
"Dunno, massa, but reckon he'm to hum."
"One of you boys go and bring him to the cabin," said the Colonel.
A negro man went off on the errand, while we and the darkies resumed our way to the overseer's quarters. Arrived there, I witnessed a scene that words cannot picture.
Stretched at full length on the floor, his clothes torn to shreds, his coarse carroty hair matted with blood, and his thin, ugly visage pale as death, lay the overseer. Bending over him, wiping away the blood from his face, and swathing a ghastly wound on his forehead, was the negress Sue; while at his shackled feet, binding up his still bleeding legs, knelt the octoroon woman!
"Is
she here?" I said, involuntarily, as I caught sight of the group.
"It's her nature," said the Colonel, with a pleasant smile; "if Moye were the devil himself, she'd do him good if she could; another such woman never lived."
And yet this woman, with all the instincts that make her sex angel-ministers to man, lived in daily violation of the most sacred of all laws--because she was a slave. Can Mr. Caleb Cushing or Charles O'Conor tell us why the Almighty invented a system which forces his creatures to break laws of His own making?
"Don't waste your time on him, Alice," said the Colonel, kindly; "he isn't worth the rope that'll hang him."
"He was bleeding to death; unless he has care he'll die," said the octoroon woman.
"Then let him die, d---- him," replied the Colonel, advancing to where the overseer lay, and bending down to satisfy himself of his condition.
Meanwhile more than two hundred dusky forms crowded around and filled every opening of the old building. Every conceivable emotion, except pity, was depicted on their dark faces. The same individuals whose cloudy visages a half hour before I had seen distended with a wild mirth and careless jollity, that made me think them really the docile, good-natured animals they are said to be, now glared on the prostrate overseer with the infuriated rage of aroused beasts when springing on their prey.
"You can't come the possum here. Get up, you ---- hound," said the Colonel, rising and striking the bleeding man with his foot.
The fellow raised himself on one elbow and gazed around with a stupid, vacant look. His eye wandered unsteadily for a moment from the Colonel to the throng of cloudy faces in the doorway; then, his recent experience flashing upon him, he shrieked out, clinging wildly to the skirts of the octoroon woman, who was standing near, "Keep off them cursed hounds--keep them off, I say--they'll kill me! they'll kill me!"
One glance satisfied me that his mind was wandering. The blow on the head had shattered his reason, and made the strong man less than a child.
"You wont be killed yet," said the Colonel. "You've a small account to settle with me before you reckon with the devil."
At this moment the dark crowd in the doorway parted, and Jake entered, his arm bound up and in a sling.
"Jake, come here," said the Colonel; "this man would have killed you. What shall we do with him?"
"'Taint for a darky to say dat, massa," said the negro, evidently unaccustomed to the rude administration of justice which the Colonel was about to inaugurate; "he did wuss dan dat to Sam, massa--he orter swing for shootin' him."
"That's
my affair; we'll settle your account first," replied the Colonel.
The darky looked undecidedly at his master, and then at the overseer, who, overcome by weakness, had sunk again to the floor. The little humanity in him was evidently struggling with his hatred of Moye and his desire for revenge, when the old nurse yelled out from among the crowd, "Gib him fifty lashes, Massa Davy, and den you wash him down.[H] Be a man, Jake, and say dat."
Jake still hesitated, and when at last he was about to speak, the eye of the octoroon caught his, and chained the words to his tongue, as if by magnetic power.
"Do you say that, boys;" said the Colonel, turning to the other negroes; "shall he have fifty lashes?"
"Yas, massa, fifty lashes--gib de ole debble fifty lashes," shouted about fifty voices.
"He shall have them," quietly said the master.
The mad shout that followed, which was more like the yell of demons than the cry of men, seemed to arouse Moye to a sense of his real position. Springing to his feet, he gazed wildly around; then, sinking on his knees before the octoroon, and clutching the folds of her dress, he shrieked, "Save me, good lady, save me! as you hope for mercy, save me!"
Not a muscle of her face moved, but, turning to the excited crowd, she mildly said, "Fifty lashes would kill him.
Jake does not say that--your master leaves it to him, and
he will not whip a dying man--will you, Jake?"
"No, ma'am--not--not ef you gwo agin it," replied the negro, with very evident reluctance.
"But he whipped Sam, ma'am, when Sam war nearer dead than
he am," said Jim, whose station as house-servant allowed him a certain freedom of speech.
"Because he was brutal to Sam, should you be brutal to him? Can you expect me to tend you when you are sick, if you beat a dying man? Does Pompey say you should do such things?"
"No, good ma'am," said the old preacher, stepping out, with the freedom of an old servant, from the black mass, and taking his stand beside me in the open space left for the "w'ite folks;" "de ole man dusn't say dat, ma'am; he tell 'em dat de Lord want 'em to forgib dar en'mies--to lub dem dat pursyskute 'em;" and, turning to the Colonel, he added, as he passed his hand meekly over his thin crop of white wool and threw his long heel back, "ef massa'll 'low me I'll talk to 'em."
"Fire away," said the Colonel, with evident chagrin. "This is a nigger trial; if you want to screen the d---- hound you can do it."
"I dusn't want to screed him, massa, but I'se bery ole and got soon to gwo, and I dusn't want de blessed Lord to ax me wen I gets dar why I 'lowed dese pore ig'nant brack folks to mudder a man 'fore my bery face. I toted you, massa, 'fore you cud gwo, I'se worked for you till I can't work no more; and I dusn't want to tell de Lord dat
my massa let a brudder man be killed in cole blood."
"He is no brother of mine, you old fool; preach to the nigs, don't preach to me," said the Colonel, stifling his displeasure, and striding off through the black crowd, without saying another word.
Here and there in the dark mass a face showed signs of relenting; but much the larger number of that strange jury, had the question been put, would have voted--DEATH.
The old preacher turned to them as the Colonel passed out, and said, "My chil'ren, would you hab dis man whipped, so weak, so dyin' as he am, ef he war brack?"
"No, not ef he war a darky--fer den he wouldn't be such an ole debble," replied Jim, and about a dozen of the other negroes.
"De w'ite aint no wuss dan de brack--we'm all 'like--pore sinners all on us. De Lord wudn't whip a w'ite man no sooner dan a brack one--He tinks de w'ite juss so good as de brack (good Southern doctrine, I thought). De porest w'ite trash wudn't strike a man wen he war down."
"We'se had 'nough of dis, ole man," said a large, powerful negro (one of the drivers), stepping forward, and, regardless of the presence of Madam P---- and myself, pressing close to where the overseer lay, now totally unconscious of what was passing around him. "You needn't preach no more; de Cunnel hab say we'm to whip ole Moye, and we'se gwine to do it, by ----."
I felt my fingers closing on the palm of my hand, and in a second more they might have cut the darky's profile, had not Madam P---- cried out, "Stand back, you impudent fellow: say another word, and I'll have you whipped on the spot."
"De Cunnel am my massa, ma'am--
he say ole Moye am to be whipped, and I'se gwine to do it--shore."
I have seen a storm at sea--I have seen the tempest tear up great trees--I have seen the lightning strike in a dark night--but I never saw any thing half so grand, half so terrible, as the glance and tone of that woman as she cried out, "Jim, take this man--give him fifty lashes this instant."
Quicker than thought, a dozen darkies were on him. His hands and feet were tied and he was under the whipping-rack in a second. Turning then to the other negroes, the brave woman said, "Some of you carry Moye to the house, and you, Jim, see to this man--if fifty lashes don't make him sorry, give him fifty more."
This summary change of programme was silently acquiesced in by the assembled negroes, but many a cloudy face scowled sulkily on the octoroon, as, leaning on my arm, she followed Junius and the other negroes, who bore Moye to the mansion. It was plain that under those dark faces a fire was burning that a breath would have fanned into a flame.
We entered the house by its rear door, and placed Moye in a small room on the ground floor. He was laid on a bed, and stimulants being given him, his senses and reason shortly returned. His eyes opened, and his real position seemed suddenly to flash upon him, for he turned to Madam P----, and in a weak voice, half choked with emotion, faltered out: "May God in heaven bless ye, ma'am; God
will bless ye for bein' so good to a wicked man like me. I doesn't desarve it, but ye woant leave me--ye woant leave me--they'll kill me ef ye do!"
"Don't fear," said the Madam; "you shall have a fair trial. No harm shall come to you here."
"Thank ye, thank ye," gasped the overseer, raising himself on one arm, and clutching at the lady's hand, which he tried to lift to his lips.
"Don't say any more now," said Madam P----, quietly; "you must rest and be quiet, or you wont get well."
"Shan't I get well? Oh, I can't die--I can't die
now!"
The lady made a soothing reply, and giving him an opiate, and arranging the bedding so that he might rest more easily, she left the room with me.
As we stepped into the hall, I saw through the front door, which was open, the horses harnessed in readiness for "meeting," and the Colonel pacing to and fro on the piazza, smoking a cigar. He perceived us, and halted in the doorway.
"So you've brought that d---- bloodthirsty villain into my house!" he said to Madam P---- in a tone of strong displeasure.
"How could I help it? The negroes are mad, and would kill him anywhere else," replied the lady, with a certain self-confidence that showed she knew her power over the Colonel.
"Why should
you interfere between them and him? Has he not insulted you enough to make you let him alone? Can you so easily forgive his taunting you with"--He did not finish the sentence, but what I had learned on the previous evening from the old nurse gave me a clue to its meaning. A red flame flushed the face and neck of the octoroon woman--her eyes literally flashed fire, and her very breath seemed to come with pain; in a moment, however, this emotion passed away, and she quietly said, "Let me settle that in my own way. He has served
you well--
you have nothing against him that the law will not punish."
"By ----, you are the most unaccountable woman I ever knew," exclaimed the Colonel, striding up and down the piazza, the angry feeling passing from his face, and giving way to a mingled expression of wonder and admiration. The conversation was here interrupted by Jim, who just then made his appearance, hat in hand.
"Well, Jim, what is it?" asked his master.
"We'se gib'n Sam twenty lashes, ma'am, but he beg so hard, and say he so sorry, dat I tole him I'd ax you 'fore we gabe him any more."
"Well, if he's sorry, that's enough; but tell him he'll get fifty another time," said the lady.
"What Sam is it?" asked the Colonel.
"Big Sam, the driver," said Jim.
"Why was he whipped?"
"He told me
you were his master, and insisted on whipping Moye," replied the lady.
"Did he dare to do that? Give him a hundred, Jim, not one less," roared the Colonel.
"Yas, massa," said Jim, turning to go.
The lady looked significantly at the negro and shook her head, but said nothing, and he left.
"Come, Alice, it is nearly time for meeting, and I want to stop and see Sandy on the way."
"I reckon I wont go," said Madam P----.
"You stay to take care of Moye, I suppose," said the Colonel, with a slight sneer.
"Yes," replied the lady, "he is badly hurt, and in danger of inflammation."
"Well, suit yourself. Mr. K----, come,
we'll go--you'll meet some of the
natives."
The lady retired to the house, and the Colonel and I were soon ready. The driver brought the horses to the door, and as we were about to enter the carriage, I noticed Jim taking his accustomed seat on the box.
"Who's looking after Sam?" asked the Colonel.
"Nobody, Cunnel; de ma'am leff him gwo."
"How dare you disobey me? Didn't I tell you to give him a hundred?"
"Yas, massa, but de ma'am tole me notter."
"Well, another time you mind what
I say--do you hear?" said his master.
"Yas, massa," said the negro, with a broad grin, "I allers do dat."
"You
never do it, you d---- nigger; I ought to have flogged you long ago."
Jim said nothing, but gave a quiet laugh, showing no sort of fear, and we entered the carriage. I afterward learned from him that he had never been whipped, and that all the negroes on the plantation obeyed the lady when, which was seldom, her orders came in conflict with their master's. They knew if they did not, the Colonel would whip them.
As we rode slowly along the Colonel said to me, "Well, you see that the best people have to flog niggers sometimes."
"Yes,
I should have given that fellow a hundred lashes, at least. I think the effect on the others would have been bad if Madam P---- had not had him flogged."
"But she generally goes against it. I don't remember of her having it done in ten years before. And yet, though I've the worst gang of niggers in the district, they obey her like so many children."
"Why is that?"
"Well, there's a kind of magnetism about her that makes everybody love her; and then she tends them in sickness, and is constantly doing little things for their comfort;
that attaches them to her. She is an extraordinary woman."
"Whose negroes are those, Colonel?" I asked, as, after a while, we passed a gang of about a dozen, at work near the roadside. Some were tending a tar-kiln, and some engaged in cutting into fire-wood the pines which a recent tornado had thrown to the ground.
"They are mine, but they are working now for themselves. I let such as will, work on Sunday. I furnish the "raw material," and pay them for what they do, as I would a white man."
"Wouldn't it be better to make them go to hear the old preacher; couldn't they learn something from him?"
"Not much; Old Pomp never read any thing but the Bible, and he doesn't understand that; besides, they can't be taught. You can't make 'a whistle out of a pig's tail;' you can't make a nigger into a white man."
Just here the carriage stopped suddenly, and we looked out to see the cause. The road by which we had come was a mere opening through the pines; no fences separated it from the wooded land, and being seldom travelled, the track was scarcely visible. In many places it widened to a hundred feet, but in others tall trees had grown up on its opposite sides, leaving scarcely width enough for a single carriage to pass along. In one of these narrow passages, just before us, a queer-looking vehicle had upset, and scattered its contents in the road. We had no alternative but to wait till it got out of the way; and we all alighted to reconnoitre.
The vehicle was a little larger than an ordinary handcart, and was mounted on wheels that had probably served their time on a Boston dray before commencing their travels in Secessiondom. Its box of pine boarding and its shafts of rough oak poles were evidently of Southern home manufacture. Attached to it by a rope harness, with a primitive bridle of decidedly original construction, was--not a horse, nor a mule, nor even an alligator, but a "three-year-old heifer."
The wooden linch-pin of the cart had given way, and the weight of a half-dozen barrels of turpentine had thrown the box off its balance, and rolled the contents about in all directions.
The appearance of the proprietor of this nondescript vehicle was in keeping with his establishment. His coat, which was much too short in the waist and much too long in the skirts, was of the common reddish gray linsey, and his nether garments, which stopped just below the knees, were of the same material. From there downwards, he wore only the covering that is said to have been the fashion in Paradise before Adam took to fig-leaves. His hat had a rim broader than a political platform, and his skin a color half way between tobacco-juice and a tallow candle.
"Wal, Cunnul, how dy'ge?" said the stranger, as we stepped from the carriage.
"Very well, Ned; how are you?"
"Purty wal, Cunnul; had the nagur lately, right smart, but'm gittin' 'roun'."
"You're in a bad fix here, I see. Can Jim help you?"
"Wal, p'raps he moight. Jim, how dy'ge?"
"Sort o' smart, ole feller. But come, stir yerseff; we want ter gwo 'long," replied Jim, with a lack of courtesy that showed he regarded the white man as altogether too "trashy" to be treated with much ceremony.
With the aid of Jim, a new linch-pin was soon whittled out, the turpentine rolled on to the cart, and the vehicle put in a moving condition.
"Where are you hauling your turpentine?" asked the Colonel.
"To Sam Bell's, at the 'Boro'."
"What will he pay you?"
"Wal, I've four barr'ls of 'dip,' and tu of 'hard.' For the hull, I reckon he'll give three dollar a barr'l."
"By tale?"
"No, for tu hun'red and eighty pound."
"Well,
I'll give you two dollars and a half, by weight."
"Can't take it, Cunnel; must get three dollar."
"What, will you go sixty miles with this team, and waste five or six days, for fifty cents on six barrels--three dollars!"
"Can't 'ford the time, Cunnel, but must git three dollar a barr'l."
"That fellow is a specimen of our 'natives,'" said the Colonel, as we resumed our seats in the carriage. "You'll see more of them before we get back to the plantation."
"He puts a young cow to a decidedly original use," I remarked.
"Oh no, not original here; the ox and the cow with us are both used for labor."
"You don't mean to say that cows are generally worked here?"
"Of course I do. Our breeds are good for nothing as milkers, and we put them to the next best use. I never have cow's milk on my plantation."
"You don't! I could have sworn it was in my coffee this morning."
"I wouldn't trust you to buy brandy for me, if your organs of taste are not keener than that. It was goat's milk."
"Then how do you get your butter?"
"From the North. I've had mine from my New York factors for over ten years."
We soon arrived at Sandy, the negro-hunter's, and halted to allow the Colonel to inquire as to the health of his family of children and dogs--the latter the less numerous, but, if I might judge by appearances, the more valued of the two.
[Footnote G: The negro-whippers and field overseers.]
[Footnote H: Referring to the common practice of bathing the raw and bleeding backs of the punished slaves with a strong solution of salt and water.] _