South Country Life

The newly-settled districts of the southern States are asunlike as possible to all this. They are extreme opposite cases.If human life presents its fairest aspects in the retiredtownships of New England,--some of its very worst, perhaps, areseen in the raw settlements of Alabama and Mississippi.

When we drew near to Columbus, Georgia, we were struck withamazement at the stories that were told, and the anecdotes thatwere dropped, in the stage, about recent attempts on human lifein the neighbourhood; and at the number of incidents of the samekind which were the news of the day along the road. Our driverfrom Macon had been shot at, in attempting to carry off a younglady. A gentleman, boarding in the hotel at Columbus, was shot inthe back, in the street, and laid by for months. No inquiry wasmade, or nothing came of it. The then present governor of thtState of Mississippi had recently stood over two combatants,pistol in hand, to see fair play. This was stated as aremarkable fact. The landlord of the house where we stopped tobreakfast on the day we were to reach Columbus, April 9th, 1830,was, besides keeping a house of entertainment, a captain ofmilitia, and a member of the legislature of Georgia. He wastalking over with his guests a late case of homicide in a feudbetween the Myers and Macklimore families. He declared that hewould have laws like those of the Medes and Persians againsthomicide; and, in the same breath, said that if he were a Myers,he would shoot Mr. Macklimore and all his sons.

We arrived at Columbus before sunset, and determined to stay aday to see how the place had got on since Captain Hall saw it cutout of the woods, ten years before. During the evening, I coulddo nothing but watch the Indians from my window. The placeswarmed with them; a few Choctaws, and the rest Creeks. A sadhavoc has taken place among them since; and this neighbourhoodhas been made the scene of a short but fierce war. But all lookedfair and friendly when we were there. Groups of Indians werecrouching about the entries of the stores, or looking in at thewindows. The squaws went by, walking one behind another, withtheir hair, growing low on the forehead, loose, or tied at theback of the head, forming a fine contrast with the young lady whohad presided at our breakfast-table at five that morning, withher long hair braided and adorned with brilliant combs, while herfingers shone in pearl and gold rings. These squaws carried largeIndian baskets on their backs, and shuffled along, bare-footed,while their lords paced before them, well mounted; or, ifwalking, gay with blue and red clothing and embroidered leggings,with tufts of hair at the knees, while pouches and white fringesdangled about them. They looked like grave merry-andrews; or,more still, like solemn fanatical harvest men going out forlargess. By eight o'clock they had all disappeared; but thestreets were full of them again the next morning.

Our hostess was civil, and made no difficulty about giving usa late breakfast by ourselves, in consideration of our fatigues.Before one o'clock we dined, in company with seventy-fivepersons, at one long table. The provisions were good, butill-cooked: and the knives so blunt that it was a mystery to mehow the rest of the company obtained so quick a succession ofmouthfuls as they did.

The Chattahoochee, on whose banks Columbus stands, is unlikeany river I saw in the United States, unless it be some parts ofthe Susquehanna. Its rapids, overhung by beech and pine woods,keep up a perpetual melody, grateful alike to the ear of thewhite and the red man. It is broad and full, whirling over andaround the rocks with which it is studded, and under the frailwooden foot-bridge which spans a portion of its width, betweenthe shore and a pile of rocks in the middle of the channel. Onthis foot-bridge I stood, and saw a fish caught in a net laidamong the eddies. A dark fisherman stood on each littlepromontory; and a group was assembled about some canoes in acreek on the opposite Alabama shore, where the steepness of thehills seemed scarcely to allow a foothold between the rushingwater and the ascent. The river is spanned by a long coveredbridge, which we crossed the same night on our way into Alabama.

There are three principal streets in Columbus, with manysmaller, branching out into the forest. Some pretty bits ofgreensward are left, here and there, with a church, or a detachedhouse upon each--village-like. There are some good houses, fivehotels, and a population of above 2,000,--as nearly as I couldmake out among the different accounts of the accession ofinhabitants since the census. The stores looked creditablystocked; and a great many gentlemanly men were to be seen in thestreets. It bears the appearance of being a thriving, spacious,handsome village, well worth stopping to see.

We left it, at seven in the evening, by the long bridge, atthe other end of which we stopped for the driver to hold aparley, about a parcel, with a woman, who spoke almost altogetherin oaths. A gentleman in the stage remarked, that we must havegot quite to the end of the world. The roads were as bad as roadscould be; and we rolled from side to side so incessantly, as toobviate all chance of sleeping. The passengers were very patientduring the hours of darkness; but, after daylight, they seemed tothink they had been long enough employed in shifting their weightto keep the coach on its four wheels. "I say,driver," cried one, "you won't upset us, now daylightis come?" "Driver," shouted another, "keepthis side up." "Gentlemen," replied the driver," I shall mind nothing you say till the ladies begin tocomplain." A reply equally politic and gallant.

At half-past five, we stopped to breakfast at a log dwelling,composed of two rooms, with an open passage between. We asked forwater and towel. There was neither basin nor towel; but a shallowtin dish of water was served up in the open passage where all ourfellow-travellers were standing. We asked leave to carry our dishinto the right-hand room. The family were not all dressed. Intothe left-hand room. A lady lodged there!

We travelled till sunset through the Creek Territory, theroads continuing to be extremely bad. The woods were superb intheir spring beauty. The thickets were in full leaf; and theground was gay with violets, may-apple, buck-eye, blue lupin,iris, and crow-poison. The last is like the white lily, growingclose to the ground. Its root, boiled, mixed with corn, andthrown out into the fields, poisons crows. If eaten by cattle, itinjures but does not destroy them. The sour-wood is a beautifulshrub. To-day it looked like a splendid white fuchsia, withtassels of black butterflies hanging from the extremities of thetwigs. But the grandest flower of all, perhaps the most exquisiteI ever beheld, is the honeysuckle of the southern woods. It bearslittle resemblance to the ragged flower which has the same nameelsewhere. It is a globe of blossoms, larger than my hand,growing firmly at the end of an upright stalk, with the richestand most harmonious colouring, the most delicate long anthers,and the flowers exquisitely grouped among the leaves. It is thequeen of flowers. I generally contrived, in my journeys throughthe southern States, to have a bunch of honeysuckles in the stagebefore my eyes; and they seemed to be visible wherever I turned,springing from the roots of the forest trees, or dangling fromtheir topmost boughs, or mixing in with the various greens of thethickets.

We saw to-day, the common sight of companies of slavestravelling westwards; and the very uncommon one of a partyreturning into South Carolina. When we overtook such a companyproceeding westwards, and asked where they were going, the answercommonly given by the slaves was, "IntoYellibama."--Sometimes these poor creatures were encamped,under the care of the slave-trader, on the banks of a clearstream, to spend a day in washing their clothes. Sometimes theywere loitering along the road; the old folks and infants mountedon the top of a wagon-load of luggage; the able-bodied, on foot,perhaps silent, perhaps laughing; the prettier of the girls,perhaps with a flower in the hair, and a lover's arm around hershoulder. There were wide differences in the air and gait ofthese people. It is usual to call the most depressed of thembrutish in appearance. In some sense they are so; but I never sawin any brute an expression of countenance so low, so lost, as inthemost degraded class of negroes. There is some life andintelligence in the countenance of every animal; even in that of"the silly sheep," nothing so dead as the vacant,unheeding look of the depressed slave is to be seen.

To-day, there was a spectacle by the roadside which showedthat this has nothing to do with negro nature; though no suchproof is needed by those who have seen negroes in favourablecircumstances, and know how pleasant an aspect those grotesquefeatures may wear. To-day we passed, in the Creek Territory, anestablishment of Indians who held slaves. Negroes are anxious tobe sold to Indians, who give them moderate work, andaccommodations as good as their own. Those seen today among theIndians, were sleek, intelligent, and cheerful-looking, like themost favoured house slaves, or free servants of colour, where theprejudice is least strong.

We were on the look-out for Indians, all the way through thisCreek Territory. Some on horseback gave us a grave glance as wepassed. Some individuals were to be seen in the shadow of theforest, leaning against a tree or a fence. One lay asleep by theroadside, overcome with "whiskey too much," as theystyle intoxication. They are so intent on having their fullbargain of whiskey, that they turn their bottle upside down, whenit has been filled to the cork, to have the hollow at the bottomfilled. The piazza at the post-office was full of solemn Indians.Miserable-looking squaws were about the dwellings, with theirnaked children, who were gobbling up their supper of hominy froma wooden bowl.

We left the Creek Territory just as the full moon rose, andhoped to reach Montgomery by two hours before midnight. Wepresently began to ascend a long hill; and the gentlemenpassengers got out, according to custom, to walk up the risingground. In two minutes, the driver stopped, and came to tell usladies that he was sorry to trouble us to get out; but that anemigrant's wagon had blocked up the ford of a creek which we hadto cross; and he feared we might be wetted if we remained in thestage while he took it through a deeper part. A gentleman waswaiting, he said, to hand us over the log which was to be ourbridge. This gentleman, I believe, was the emigrant himself. Imade for what seemed to me the end of the log; but was deceivedby the treacherous moonlight, which made wood, ground, and water,look all one colour. I plunged up to the waist into the creek;and, when I was out again, could hardly keep upon the log forlaughing. There was time, before we overtook the rest of theparty, to provide against my taking cold; and there remained onlythe ridiculous image of my deliberate walk into the water.

It must not be supposed a common circumstance that anemigrant's wagon was left in a creek. The "camping out"is usually done in a sheltered, dry spot in the woods, not farfrom some little stream, where the kettle may be filled, andwhere the dusty children may be washed. Sleepy as I might be, inour night journeys, I was ever awake to this picture, and nevertired of contemplating it. A dun haze would first appear throughthe darkness; and then gleams of light across the road. Then thewhole scene opened. If earlier than ten at night, the fire wouldbe blazing, the pot boiling, the shadowy horses behind, at rest,the groups fixed in their attitudes to gaze at us, whether theywere stretching their sailcloth on poles to windward, or drawingup the carts in line, or gathering sticks, or cooking. Whilewatching us, they little thought what a picture they themselvesmade. If after midnight, the huge fire was flickering andsmouldering; figures were seen crouching under the sailcloth, ora head or two was lifted up in the wagon. A solitary figure wasseen in relief against the fire; the watch, standing to keephimself awake; or, if greeted by our driver, thrusting a pineslip into the fire, and approaching with his blazing torch to askor to give information. In the morning, the places where suchencampments have been cannot be mistaken. There is a clear,trodden space, strewed with chips and refuse food, with the barepoles which had supported the sailcloth, standing in the midst,and a scorched spot where the fire had been kindled. Others,besides emigrants, camp out in the woods. Farmers, on their wayto a distant market, find it cheaper to bring food, and trustotherwise to the hospitality of dame Nature, than to put up athotels. Between the one and the other, we were amply treated withthe untiring spectacle.

We had bespoken accommodations for the night at the hotel atMontgomery, by a friend who had preceded us. On our arrival atpast eleven o'clock, we found we were expected; but no one wouldhave guessed it. In my chamber, there was neither water, norsheets, nor anything that afforded a prospect of my getting torest, wet as my clothes were. We were hungry, and tired, andcold; and there was no one to help us but a slave, who set abouther work as slaves do. We ate some biscuits that we had with us,and gave orders, and made requests with so much success as tohave the room in tolerable order by an hour after midnight. WhenI awoke in the morning, the first thing I saw was, that two micewere running after one another round my trunk, and that the floorof the room seemed to contain the dust of a twelvemonth. Thebreakfast was to atone for all. The hostess and another lady,three children, and an array of slaves, placed themselves so asto see us eat our breakfast; but it seemed to me that thecontents of the table were more wonderful to look at thanourselves. Besides the tea and coffee, there were corn bread,buns, buck-wheat cakes, broiled chicken, bacon, eggs, rice,hominy, fish, fresh and pickled, and beef-steak. The hostessstrove to make us feel at home, and recommended her plentifulmeal by her hearty welcome to it. She was anxious to explain thather house was soon to be in better order. Her husband was goingto Mobile to buy furniture; and, just now, all was in confusion,from her head slave having swallowed a fish bone, and beingunable to look after the affairs of the house. When our friendscame to carry us to their planation, she sent in refreshments,and made herself one of the party, in all heartiness.

It was Sunday, and we went to the Methodist church, hoping tohear the regular pastor, who is a highly- esteemed preacher. Buta stranger was in the pulpit, who gave us an extraordinary pieceof doctrine, propounded with all possible vehemence. His text wasthe passage about the tower of Siloam; and his doctrine was thatgreat sinners would somehow die a violent death. Perhaps thismight be thought a useful proposition in a town where life isheld so cheap as in Montgomery; but we could not exactlyunderstand howit was derived from the text. The place wasintensely light and hot, there being no blinds to the windows, oneach side of the pulpit: and the quietness of the children wasnot to be boasted of.

On the way to our friends' plantation, we passed a party ofnegroes, enjoying their Sunday drive. They never appear betterthan on such occasions, as they all ride and drive well, and arevery gallant to their ladies. We passed a small prairie, thefirst we had seen; and very serene and pretty it looked, afterthe forest. It was green and undulating, with a fringe of trees.

Our friends, now residing seven miles from Montgomery, werefrom South Carolina; and the lady, at least, does not relishliving in Alabama. It was deliglltful to me to be a guest in suthan abode as theirs. They were about to build a good house:meantime, they were in one which I liked exceedingly: alog-house, with the usual open passage in the middle. Roses andhoneysuckles, to which humming-birds resort, grew before thedoor. Abundance of books, and handsome furniture and plate, werewithin the house, while daylight was to be seen through itswalls. In my well-furnished chamber, I could see the starsthrough the chinks between the logs. During the summer, I shouldbe sorry to change this primitive kind of abode for a better.

It is not difficult to procure the necessaries and comforts oflife. Most articles of food are provided on the plantation. Wineand groceries are obtained from Mobile or New Orleans; andclothing and furniture from the north. Tea is twenty shilllingsEnglish per lb.; brown sugar, threepence-half-penny; white sugar,sixpence-halfpenny. A gentleman's family,where there are childrento be educated, cannot live for less than from seven hundredpounds to one thousand pounds per annum. The sons take land andbuy slaves very early; and the daughters marry almost inchildhood; so that education is less thought of, and soonerended, than in almost any part of the world. The pioneers ofcivilisation, as the settlers in these new districts may beregarded, care for other things more than for education; or theywould not come. They are, from whatever motive, money-getters;and few but money-getting qualifications are to be looked for inthem. It was partly amusing, and partly sad, to observe the youngpeople of these regions; some, fit for a better mode of life,discontented; some youths pedantic, some maidens romantic, to adegree which makes the stranger almost doubt the reality of thescenes and personages before his eyes. The few better educatedwho come to get money, see the absurdity, and feel thewearisomeness of this kind of literary cultivation; but the beingin such society is the tax they must pay for making haste to berich.

I heard in Montgomery of a wealthy old planter in theneighbourhood, who has amassed millions of dollars, while hischildren can scarcely write their names. Becoming aware of theirdeficiencies, as the place began to be peopled from the eastward,he sent a son of sixteen to school, and a younger one tocollege; but they proved "such gawks," that they wereunable to learn, or even to remain in the society of others whowere learning; and their old father has bought land in Missouri,whither he was about to take his children, to remove them fromthe contempt of their neighbours. They are doomed to the lowestoffice of social beings; to be the mechanical, unintelligentpioneers of man in the wilderness. Surely such a warning as thisshould strike awe into the whole region, lest they should alsoperish to all the best purposes of life, by getting to considermoney, not as a means, but an end.

I suppose there must be such pioneers; but the result is asociety which it is a punishment to its best members to live in.There is pedantry in those who read; prejudice in those who donot; coxcombry among the young gentlemen; bad manners among theyoung ladies; and an absence of all reference to the higher, thereal objects of life. When to all this is added that tremendouscurse, the possession of irresponsible power, (over slaves,) itis easy to see how character must become, in such regions, whatit was described to me on the spot, "composed of thechivalric elements, badly combined:" and the wise will feelthat, though a man may save his soul anywhere, it isbetter to live on bread and water where existence is mostidealized, than to grow suddenly rich in the gorgeous regionswhere mind is corrupted or starved amidst the Iuxuriance ofnature. The hard-working settler of the north-west, who hews hisway into independence with his own hands, is, or may be, exemptfrom the curse of this mental corruption or starvation; but itfalls inevitably and heavily upon those who fatten upon thebounty of Nature, in the society of money-getters likethemselves, and through the labours of degraded fellow-men, whomthey hold in their injurious power.

We saw several plantations while we were in thisneighbourhood. Nothing can be richer than the soil of one towhich we went, to take a lesson in cotton-growing. It will neverwant more than to have the cotton seed returned to it. We saw theplough, which is very shallow. Two throw up a ridge, which iswrought by hand into little mounds. After these are drilled, theseed is put in by hand. This planation consists of nine hundredand fifty acres, and is flourishing in every way. The air ishealthy, as the situation is high prairie land. The water isgenerally good; but, after rain, so impregnated with lime, as tobe disagreeable to the smell and taste.Another grievance is, aweed which grows on the prairie, which the cows like in summer,but which makes the milk so disagreeable, that cream,half-an-inch thick, is thrown to the pigs. They only can estimatethis evil who know what the refreshment of milk is in hotclimates. Another grievance is, that no trees can be allowed togrow near the house, for fear of the mosquitoes. Everything elseis done for coolness; there are wide piazzas on both sides of thehouse; the rooms are lofty, and amply provided with green blinds;but all this does not compensate to the eye for the want of theshade of trees. The bareness of the villages of the south is verystriking to the eye of a stranger, as he approaches them. Theylie scorching and glaring on the rising grounds, or on the plain,hazy with the heat, while the forest, with its myriads of trees,its depth of shade, is on the horizon. But the plague ofmosquitoes is a sufficient warrant for any sacrifice of thepleasures of the eye; for they allow but little enjoyment ofanything in their presence.

On this, and many other estates that we saw, the ladies makeit their business to cut out all the clothes for the negroes.Many a fair pair of hands have I seen dyed with blue, and bearingthe marks of the large scissars. The slave women cannot betaught, it is said, to cut out even their scanty and unshapelygarments economically. Nothing can be more hideous than theirworking costume. There would be nothing to lose on the score ofbeauty, and probably much gained, if they could be permitted toclothe themselves. But it is universally said that they cannotlearn. A few ladies keep a woman for this purpose, very naturallydisliking the coarse employment.

We visited the negro quarter; a part of the estate whichfilled me with disgust, wherever I went. It is something betweena haunt of monkeys and a dwelling-place of human beings. Tlhenatural good taste, so remarkable in free negroes, is hereextinguished. Their small, dingy, untidy houses, their cribs, thechildren crouching round the fire, the animal deportment of thegrown-up, the brutish chagrins and enjoyments of the old, wereall loathsome. There was some relief in seeing the childrenplaying in the sun, and sometimes fowls clucking and struttinground the houses; but otherwise, a walk through a lunatic asylumis far less painful than a visit to the slave quarter of anestate. The children are left, during working hours, in thecharge of a woman; and they are bright, and brisk, and merryenough, for the season, however slow and stupid they may bedestined to become.

My next visit was to a school--the Franklin Institute, inMontgomery, established by a gentleman who has bestowed unweariedpains on its organization, and to whose care it does greatcredit. On our approach, we saw five horses walking about theenclosure, and five saddles hung over the fence: a true sign thatsome of the pupils came from a distance. The school was hung withprints; there was a collection of shells; many books and maps;and some philosophical apparatus. The boys, and a few girls, weresteadily employed over their books and mapping; and nothing couldexceed the order and neatness of the place. If the eventcorresponds with the appearance, the proprietor must be one ofthe most useful citizens the place has yet been honoured with.

I spent some days at a plantation a few miles from Montgomery,and heard there of an old lady who treats her slaves in a wayvery unusual, but quite safe, as far as appears. She gives themknowledge, which is against the law; but the law leaves her inpeace and quiet. She also commits to them the entire managementof the estate, requiring only that they should make hercomfortable, and letting them take the rest. There is anobligation by law to keep an overseer; to obviate insurrection.How she manages about this, I omitted to inquire: but all goes onwell; the cultivation of the estate is creditable, and allparties are contented. This is only a temporary ease andcontentment. The old lady must die; and her slaves will either besold to a new owner, whose temper will be an accident; or, iffreed, must leave the State: but the story is satisfactory in asfar as it gives evidence of the trust-worthiness of the negroes.

Our drives about the plantation and neighbouring country weredelicious. The inundations from the rivers are remarkable; aperfect Eden appears when they subside. At the landing place ofthis plantation, I saw a board nailed near the top of a loftytree, and asked what it could be for. It was the high-water mark.The river, the Alabama, was now upwards of twenty feet higherthan usual; and logs, corn-stalks, and green boughs were beingcarried down its rapid current, as often as we went to the shore.There were evidences of its having laid even houses under water;but, on its subsiding, it would be found to have left a depositof two inches and a half of fine new soil on the fields on eitherside of its channel. I never stood on the banks of the southernrivers without being reminded of Daniell's Views in India andCeylon; the water level, shadowy and still, and the thicketsactually springing out of it, with dark-green recesses, with therelief of a slender white stem, or dangling creeper here andthere. Some creepers rise like a ladder, straight from the waterto a bough one hundred and twenty feet high. As for the softnessof the evening light on the water, it is indescribable. It is asif the atmosphere were purified from all mortal breathings, it isso bright, and yet not dazzling; there is such a profusion ofverdure.

There were black women ploughing in the field, with theirugly, scanty, dingy dresses, their walloping gait, and vacantcountenance. There were scarlet and blue birds flitting over thedark fallows. There was persimon sprouting in the woods, and theyoung corn-plants in the field, with a handful of cotton-seedlaid round each sprout. There was a view from a bluff which fullyequalled all my expectations of what the scenery of the southernStates would be; yet, tropical as it was in many respects, itreminded me strongly of the view from Richmond Hill. We werestanding on the verge of a precipice, of a height which I darenot specify. A deep fissure to our right was spanned by a logwhich it made one shudder to think of crossing. Behind us lay acotton-field of 7,000 acres within one fence. All this, and theyoung aloes, and wild vines, were little enough like Richmond;and so was the faint blue line of hills on the horizon; but itwas the intervening plain, through which the river ran, and onwhich an infinite variety of noble trees grew, as it appeared, toan interminable distance. Here their tops seemed woven intocompactness; there they were so sprinkled as to display themajesty and grace of their forms. I looked upon this as aglorification of the Richmond view.

It was now the middle of April. In the kitchen garden the peaswere ripening, and the strawberries turning red, though thespring of 1835 was very backward. We had salads, young asparagus,and radishes.

The following may be considered a pretty fair account of theprovision for a planter's table, at this season; and, except withregard to vegetables, I believe it does not vary much throughoutthe year. Breakfast at seven; hot wheat bread, generally sour;corn bread, biscuits, waffles, hominy, dozens of eggs, broiledham, beef-steak or broiled fowl, tea and coffee. Lunch at eleven;cake and wine, or liqueur. Dinner at two; now and then soup (notgood,) always roast turkey and ham; a boiled fowl here, a tonguethere; a small piece of nondescript meat, which generally turnsout to be pork disguised; hominy, rice, hot corn-bread, sweetpotatoes; potatoes mashed with spice, very hot; salad andradishes, and an extraordinary variety of pickles. Of these, youare asked to eat everything with everything else. If you haveturkey and ham on your plate, you are requested to add tongue,pork, hominy, and pickles. Then succeed pies of apple, squash,and pumpkin; custard, and a variety of preserves as extraordinaryas the preceding pickles: pine-apple, peach, limes, ginger, guavajelly, cocoa-nut, and every sort of plums. These are almost allfrom the West-Indies. Dispersed about the table are shellalmonds, raisins, hickory, and other nuts; and, to crown thewhole, large blocks of ice-cream. Champagne is abundant, andcider frequent. Ale and porter may now and then be seen; butclaret is the most common drink. During dinner a slave stands ata corner of the table, keeping off the flies by waving a largebunch of peacock's feathers fastened into a handle,--an amplerfan than those of our grandmothers.

Supper takes place at six, or seven. Sometimes the family sitsround the table; but more commonly the tray is handed round, withplates which must be held in the lap. Then follow tea and coffee,waffles, biscuits, sliced ham or hung-beef, and sweet cake. Lastof all, is the offer of cake and wine at nine or ten.

The profits of cotton-growing, when I was in Alabama, werethirty-five per cent. One planter whom I knew had bought fifteenthousand dollars' worth of land within two years, which he couldthen have sold for sixty-five thousand dollars. He expected tomake, that season, fifty or sixty thousand dollars of his growingcrop. It is certainly the place to become rich in; but the stateof society is fearful. One of my hosts, a man of greatgood-nature, as he shows in the treatment of his slaves, aud inhis family relations, had been stabbed in the back in thereading-room of the town, two years before, and no prosecutionwas instituted. Another of my hosts carried loaded pistols for afortnight, just before I arrived, knowing that he was lain inwait for by persons against whose illegal practices he had giveninformation to a magistrate, whose carriage was therefore brokenin pieces, and thrown into the river. A lawyer with whom we werein company one afternoon, was sent for to take the deposition ofa dying man who had been sitting with his family in the shade,when he received three balls in the back from three men who tookaim at him from behind trees. The tales of jail-breaking andrescue were numberless; and a lady of Montgomery told me that shehad lived there four years, during which time no day, shebelieved, had passed without some one's life having beenattempted, either by duelling or assassination. It will beunderstood that I describe this region as presenting an extremecase of the material advantages and moral evils of a newsettlement, under the institution of slavery. The most prominentrelief is the hospitality,--that virtue of young society. It isso remarkable, and to the stranger so grateful, that there isdanger of its blinding him to the real state of affairs. In thedrawing-room, the piazza, the barouche, all is so gay andfriendly, there is such a prevailing hilarity and kindness, thatit seems positively ungrateful and unjust to pronounce, even inone's own heart, that all this way of life is full of wrong andperil. Yet it is impossible to sit down to reflect, with everyorder of human beings filling an equal space before one's mentaleye, without being struck to the soul with the conviction thatthe state of society, and no less of individual families, isfalse and hollow, whether their members are aware of it or not;that they forget that they must be just before they can begenerous. The severity of this truth is much softened tosympathetic persons on the spot; but it returns with awful forcewhen they look back upon it from afar.

In the slave quarter of a plantation hereabouts I saw a poorwretch who had run away three times, and been re-captured. Thelast time he was found in the woods, with both legs frost-bittenabove the knees, so as to render amputation necessary. I passedby when he was sitting on the door-step of his hut, and longed tosee him breathe his last. But he is a young man, likely to dragout his helpless and hopeless existence for many a dreary year. Idread to tell the rest; but such things must be told sometimes,to show to what a pass of fiendish cruelty the human spirit maybe brought by merely witnessing the exercise of irresponsiblepower over the defenceless. I give the very words of the speaker,premising that she is not American by birth or education, nor yetEnglish.

The master and mistress of this poor slave, with theirchildren, had always treated him and his fellow-slaves verykindly. He made no complaint of them. It was not from theircruelty that he attempted to escape. His running away wastherefore a mystery to the person to whom I have alluded. Sherecapitulated all the clothes that had heen given to him; and allthe indulgences, and forgivenesses for his ingratitude in runningaway from such a master, with which he had been blessed. She toldme that she had advised his master and mistress to refuse himclothes, when he had torn his old ones with trying to make hisway through the woods; but his master had been too kind, and hadagain covered his nakedness. She turned round upon me, and askedwhat could make the ungrateful wretch run away a third time fromsuch a master ?

"He wanted to be free."

"Free! from such a master!"

"From any master."

"The villain! I went to him when he had had his legs cutoff, and I said to him, it serves you right . . . . ."

"What! when you knew he could not run away anymore?"

"Yes, that I did; I said to him, you wretch! but for yourmaster's sake I am glad it has happened to you. You deserve it,that you do. If I were your master I would let you die; I'd giveyou no help nor nursing. It serves you right; it is just what youdeserve. It's fit that it should happen to you . . . .!"

"You did not--you dared not so insult the miserablecreature!" I cried.

"Oh, who knows," replied she, "but that theLord may bless a word of grace in season!"

Some readers may conceive this to be a freak of idiotcy. Itwas not so. This person is shrewd and sensible in matters whererights and duties are not in question. Of these she is, asit appears, profoundly ignorant; in a state of superinduceddarkness; but her character is that of a clever, and, with some,a profoundly religious woman. Happily, she has no slaves of herown: at least, no black ones.

I saw this day, driving a wagon, a man who is a schoolmaster,lawyer, almanack-maker, speculator in old iron, and dealer ineggs, in addition to a few other occupations. His must be a vertactive existence.

This little history of a portion of my southern journey maygive an idea of what life is in the wilder districts of thesouth. I will offer but one more sketch, and that will exemplifylife in the wilder districts of the north. The picture of mytravels in and around Michigan will convey the real state ofthings there, at present.

From Harriet Martineau, Society in America, VolumeI, Part II, - Economy, (Section VI) - "South CountryLife." London: Saunders and Otley, 1837, pp. 285-312.

Forward to Society in America, Part II,- Economy, (Section VII) - "Picture of Michigan."

Back to Society in America, Part II, -Economy, (Section V) - "Township of Gloucester."

Back to Society in America - Table ofContents

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