USA > Georgia > Ten years on a Georgia plantation since the war > Part 2
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The next morning I and my little German maid, who fortunately takes everything very cheerily, went to work, and together we made things quite comfortable ; unpacked our tables and chairs, put up some curtains (made out of some white muslin I had brought down for petticoats) edged with pink calico, covered the tables with two bright-coloured covers I found in the trunk of house linen, had the windows mended, hung up my picture of General Lee (which had been sent to me the day before I left Philadelphia) over the mantelpiece, and put my writing things and nicknacks on the table, so that when my father and Mr. J- came in they looked round in perfect astonishment, and quite re- warded me by their praise.
Our kitchen arrangements would amuse you. I have one large pot, one frying-pan, one tin saucepan, and this is all ; and yet you would be astonished to see how much our cook accomplishes with these three utensils, and the things don't taste very much alike.
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Yesterday one of the negroes shot and gave me a magnificent wild turkey, which we roasted on one stick set up between two others before the fire, and capital it was. The broiling is done on two old pieces of iron laid over the ashes. Our food consists of corn and rice bread, rice, and fish caught fresh every morning out of the river, oysters, turtle soup, and occasionally a wild turkey or duck. Other meat, as yet, it is impossible to get.
Is it not all strange and funny ? I feel like Robinson Crusoe with three hundred men Fridays. Then my desert really blooms like the rose. On the acre of ground enclosed about the house are a superb magnolia tree, covered with its queenly flowers, roses run- ning wild in every direction ; orange, fig, and peach trees now in blossom, give promise of fruit later on, while every tree and bush is alive with red-birds, mocking-birds, black- birds, and jays, so as I sit on the piazza the air comes to me laden with sweet smells and sweet sounds of all descriptions.
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There are some drawbacks; fleas, sand- flies, and mosquitoes remind us that we are not quite in Heaven, and I agree with my laundry woman, Phillis, who upon my maid's remon- strating with her for taking all day to wash a few towels, replied, ' Dat's true, Miss Louisa, but de fleas jist have no principle, and dey bites me so all de time, I jist have to stop to scratch.'
The negroes seem perfectly happy at getting back to the old place and having us there, and I have been deeply touched by many instances of devotion on their part. On Sunday morning, after their church, having nothing to do, they all came to see me, and I must have shaken hands with nearly four hundred. They were full of their troubles and sufferings up the country during the war, and the invariable winding up was, 'Tank the Lord, missus, we's back, and sees you and massa again.' I said to about twenty strong men, 'Well, you know you are free and your own masters now,' when they broke out
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with, ' No, missus, we belong to you ; we be yours as long as we lib.'
Nearly all who have lived through the terrible suffering of these past four years have come back, as well as many of those who were sold seven years ago. Their good character was so well known throughout the State that people were very anxious to hire them and induce them to remain in the 'up country,' and told them all sorts of stories to keep them, among others that my father was dead, but all in vain. One old man said, ' If massa be dead den, I'll go back to the old place and mourn for him.' So they not only refused good wages, but in many cases spent all they had to get back, a fact that speaks louder than words as to their feeling for their old master and former treatment.
Our overseer, who was responsible for all our property, has little or nothing to give us back, while everything that was left in charge of the negroes has been taken care of and given back to us without the hope or wish of
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reward. One old man has guarded the stock so well from both Southern and Northern marauders, that he has now ninety odd sheep and thirty cows under his care. Unfortunately they are on a pine tract some twelve miles away up the river, and as we have no means of transporting them we cannot get them until next year.
One old couple came up yesterday from St. Simon's, Uncle John and Mum Peggy, with five dollars in silver half-dollars tied up in a bag, which they said a Yankee captain had given them the second year of the war for some chickens, and this money these two old people had kept through all their want and suffering for three years because it had been paid for fowls belonging to us. I wonder whether white servants would be so faithful or honest! My father was much moved at this act of faithfulness, and intends to have something made out of the silver to commemorate the event, having returned them the same amount in other money.
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One of the great difficulties of this new state of things is, what is to be done with the old people who are too old, and the children who are too young, to work ? One Northern General said to a planter, in answer to this question, 'Well, I suppose they must die,' which, indeed, seems the only thing for them to do. To-day Mr. J- tells me my father has agreed to support the children for three years, and the old people till they die, that is, feed and clothe them. Fortunately, as we have some property at the North we are able to do this, but most of the planters are utterly ruined and have no money to buy food for their own families, so on their plantations I do not see what else is to become of the negroes who cannot work except to die.
Yours affectionately, F
The prospect of getting in the crop did not grow more promising as time went on. The negroes talked a great deal about their
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desire and intention to work for us, but their idea of work, unaided by the stern law of necessity, is very vague, some of them work- V ing only half a day and some even less. I don't think one does a really honest full day's work, and so of course not half the necessary amount is done and I am afraid never will be again, and so our properties will soon be utterly worthless, for no crop can be raised by such labour as this, and no negro will work if he can help it, and is quite satisfied just to scrape along doing an odd job here and there to earn money enough to buy a little food.1 They are affectionate and often trustworthy and honest, but so hopelessly lazy as to be almost worthless as labourers.
My father was quite encouraged at first, the people seemed so willing to work and said so much about their intention of doing so ; but not many days after they started he came in quite disheartened, saying that half
1 N.B. I was mistaken. In the years 1877 and 1880 up- wards of thirty thousand bushels of rice was raised on the place by these same negroes.
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the hands had left the fields at one o'clock and the rest by three o'clock, and this just at our busiest time. Half a day's work will keep them from starving, but won't raise a crop. Qur contract with them is for half the crop ; that is, one half to be divided among them, according to each man's rate of work, we letting them have in the meantime v necessary food, clothing, and money for their present wants (as they have not a penny) which is to be deducted from whatever is due to them at the end of the year.
This we found the best arrangement to make with them, for if we paid them wages, the first five dollars they made would have seemed like so large a sum to them, that they would have imagined their fortunes made and refused to work any more. But even this arrangement had its objections, for they told us, when they missed working two or three days a week, that they were losers by it as well as ourselves, half the crop being theirs. But they could not see that this sort of work
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would not raise any crop at all, and that such should be the result was quite beyond their comprehension. They were quite convinced that if six days' work would raise a whole crop, three days' work would raise half a one, with which they as partners were satisfied, and so it seemed as if we should have to be too.
The rice plantation becoming unhealthy early in May, we removed to St. Simon's, a sea island on the coast, about fifteen miles from Butler's Island, where the famous Sea Island cotton had formerly been raised. This place had been twice in possession of the Northern troops during the war, and the negroes had consequently been brought under the influence of Northerners, some of whom had filled the poor people's minds with all sorts of vain hopes and ideas, among others that their former masters would not be allowed to return, and the land was theirs, a thing many of them believed, and they had planted both corn and cotton to a consider-
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able extent. To disabuse their minds of this notion my father determined to put in a few acres of cotton, although the lateness of the season and work at Butler's Island pre- vented planting of any extent being done this season.
Our departure from one place and arrival at another was very characteristic. The house on St. Simon's being entirely stripped of furniture, we had to take our scanty provision of household goods down with us from Butler's Island by raft, our only means of transportation. Having learned from the negroes that the tide turned at six A.M., and to reach St. Simon's that day it would be necessary to start on the first of the ebb, we went to bed the night before, all agreeing to get up at four the next morning, so as to have our beds &c. on board and ready to start by six. By five, Mr. J_, my maid, and I were ready and our things on board, but nothing would induce my father to get up until eight o'clock, when he appeared on
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the wharf in his dressing-gown, clapped his hands to his head, exclaiming, ' My gracious ! that flat should be off; just look at the tide,' which indeed had then been running down two good hours. Without a word I had his bedroom furniture put on, and ordered the men to push off, which they did just as my father reappeared, calling out that half his things had been left behind, a remark which was fortunately useless as far as the flat was concerned, as it was rapidly disappearing on the swift current down the river.
At three o'clock we started in a large six- oared boat, with all the things forgotten in the morning piled in. The day was cloudless, the air soft and balmy ; the wild semi-tropical vegetation that edged the river on both sides beautiful beyond description ; the tender new spring green of the deciduous trees and shrubs, mingling with the dark green of the evergreen cypress, magnolia, and bay, all wreathed and bound together with the yellow jessamine and fringed with the soft delicate
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grey moss which floated from every branch and twig. Not a sound broke the stillness but the dip of our oars in the water, accompanied by the wild minor chant of the negro boat- men, who sang nearly the whole way down, keeping time with the stroke of the oar.
Half-way down we passed the unfortunate raft stuck in the mud, caught by the turning tide. Unable to help it, we left it to wait the return of the ebb, not however without painful reflections, as we had had no dinner before starting, and our cook with his frying- pan and saucepan, was perched on a bag of rice on the raft.
Shortly after five o'clock we reached St. Simon's, and found the house a fair-sized comfortable building, with a wide piazza running all round it, but without so much as a' stool or bench in it. So, hungry and tired, we sat down on the floor, to await the arrival of the things. Night came on, but we had no candles, and so sat on in darkness till after ten o'clock, when the raft arrived with almost
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everything soaked through, the result of a heavy thunder shower which had come on while it was stuck fast. This I confess was more than I could bear, and I burst out crying. A little cold meat and some bread consoled me somewhat, and finding the blankets had fortunately escaped the wetting, we spread these on the floor over the wet mattresses, and, all dressed, slowly and sadly laid us down to sleep.
The next morning the sun was shining as it only can shine in a southern sky, and the birds were singing as they only can sing in such sunlight. The soft sea air blew in at the window, mingled with the aromatic fragrance of the pines, and I forgot all my miseries, and was enchanted and happy. After breakfast, which was a repetition of last night's supper, with the addition of milk- less tea, I set about seeing how the house could be made comfortable. There were four good-sized rooms down and two upstairs, with a hall ten feet wide running through the
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house, and a wide verandah shut in from the sun by Venetian shades running round it ; the kitchen, with the servants' quarters, was as usual detached. A nice enough house, capable of being made both pretty and com- fortable, which in time I hope to do.
My father spent the time in talking to the negroes, of whom there were about fifty on the place, making arrangements with them for work, more to establish his right to the place than from any real good we expect to do this year. We found them in a very different frame of mind from the negroes on Butler's Island, who having been removed the first year of the war, had never been brought into contact with either army, and remained the same demonstrative and noisy childish people they had always been. The negroes on St. Simon's had always been the most intelligent, having belonged to an older estate, and a picked lot, but besides, they had tasted of the tree of knowledge. They were perfectly respectful, but quiet, and
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evidently disappointed to find they were not the masters of the soil and that their new friends the Yankees had deceived them. Many of them had planted a considerable quantity of corn and cotton, and this my father told them they might have, but that they must put in twenty acres for him, for which he would give them food and clothing, and another year, when he hoped to put in several hundred acres, they should share the crop. They consented without any show of either pleasure or the reverse, and went to work almost immediately under the old negro foreman or driver, who had managed the place before the war.
They still showed that they had confi- dence in my father, for when a miserable creature, an agent of the Freedmen's Bureau, who was our ruler then, and regulated all our contracts with our negroes, told them that they would be fools to believe that my father would really let them have all the crops they had planted before he came, and
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they would see that he would claim at least half, they replied, ' No, sir, our master is a just man ; he has never lied to us, and we believe him.' Rather taken aback by this, he turned to an old driver who was the principal person present, and said, 'Why, Bram, how can you care so much for your master-he sold you a few years ago ?' ' Yes, sir,' replied the old man, 'he sold me and I was very unhappy, but he came to me and said," Bram, I am in great trouble ; I have no money and I have to sell some of the people, but I know where you are all going to, and will buy you back again as soon as I can." And, sir, he told me, Juba, my old wife, must go with me, for though she was not strong, and the gentleman who bought me would not buy her, master said he could not let man and wife be separated ; and so, sir, I said, " Master, if you will keep me I will work for you as long as I live, but if you in trouble and it help you to sell me, sell me, master, I am willing." And now that we free, I come
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back to my old home and my old master, and stay here till I die."' This story the agent told a Northern friend of ours in utter astonishment.
To show what perfect confidence my father had on his side in his old slaves, the day after starting the work here, he returned to Butler's Island, leaving me and my maid entirely alone, with no white person within eight miles of us, and in a house on no door of which was there more than a latch, and neither then nor afterwards, when I was alone on the plantation with the negroes for weeks at a time, had I the slightest feeling of fear, except one night, when I had a fright which made me quite ill for two days, although it turned out to be a most absurd cause of terror. The quiet and solitude of the planta- tion was absolute, and at night there was not a movement, the negro settlement being two miles away from the house.
I was awaked one night about two o'clock by a noise at the river landing, which was not
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the eighth of a mile from the house, and on listening, heard talking, shouting, and appar- ently struggling. I got up and called my little German maid, who after listening a moment said, ' It is a fight, and I think the men are drunk.' Knowing that it could not be our own men, I made up my mind that a party of strange and drunken negroes were trying to land, and that my people were trying to prevent them. Knowing how few my people were, I felt for one moment utterly terrified and helpless, as indeed I was. Then I took two small pistols my father had left with me, and putting them full cock, and followed by my maid, who I must say was wonderfully brave, I proceeded out of the house to the nearest hut, where my man servant lived. I was a little reassured to hear his voice in answer when I called, and I sent him down to the river to see what was the matter. It turned out to be a raft full of mules from Butler's Island, which I had not expected, and who objected to being landed, hence the
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struggling and shouting. I had been too terrified to laugh, and suddenly becoming aware of the two pistols at full cock in my hands, was then seized with my natural terror of firearms. So I laid them, full cocked as they were, in a drawer, where they remained for several days, until my father came and uncocked them. This was my only real fright, although for the next two or three years we were constantly hearing wild rumours of intended negro insurrections, which however, as I never quite believed, did not frighten me.
I had a pretty hard time of it that first year, owing to my wretched servants, and to the scarcity of provisions of all sorts. The country was absolutely swept ; not a chicken, not an egg was left, and for weeks I lived on hominy, rice, and fish, with an occasional bit of venison. The negroes said the Yankees had eaten up everything, and one old woman told me they had refused to pay her for the eggs, but after they had eaten them said
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they were addled; but I think the people generally had not much to complain of. The only two good servants we had re- mained with my father at Butler's Island, and mine were all raw field hands, to whom everything was new and strange, and who were really savages. My white maid, watch- ing my sable housemaid one morning through the door, saw her dip my tooth- brush in the tub in which I had just bathed, and with my small hand-glass in the other hand, in which she was attentively regarding the operation, proceed to scrub her teeth with the brush. It is needless to say I pre- sented her with that one, and locked my new one up as soon as I had finished using it.
My cook made all the flour and sugar I gave him (my own allowance of which was very small) into sweet cakes,.most of which he ate himself, and when I scolded him, cried. The young man who was with us, dying of consumption, was my chief anxiety, for he was terribly ill, and could not eat the
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fare I did, and to get anything else was an impossibility. I scoured the island one day in search of chickens, but only succeeded in getting one old cock, of which my wretched cook made such a mess that Mr. J- could not touch it after it was done. I tried my own hand at cooking, but without much success, not knowing really how to cook a potato, besides which the roof of the kitchen leaked badly, and as we had frequent showers, I often had to cook, holding up an umbrella in one hand and stirring with the other.
I remained on St. Simon's Island until the end of July, my father coming down from Butler's Island from Saturday till Monday every week for rest, which he sorely needed, for although he had got the negroes into something like working order, they re- quired constant personal supervision, which on the rice fields in midsummer was fright- fully trying, particularly as, after the day's work was over, he had to row a mile across
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the river, and then drive out six miles to the hut in the pine woods where he slept. The salt air, quiet, and peace of St. Simon's was therefore a delightful rest and change, and he refused to give an order when he came down, referring all the negroes to me. One man whom he had put off in this way several times, revenged himself one day when my father told him to get a mule cart ready, by saying, ' Does missus say so ?' which, however, was more fun than impu- dence.
I will finish my account of this year by copying a letter written on the spot at the time.
Hampton Point : July 9, 1866.
Dearest S -- , I did not expect to write to you again from my desert island. Aber ich bin als noch hier, rapidly approaching the pulpy gelatinous state. Three times have I settled upon a day for leaving, and three times have I put it off ; the truth is, I am very busy, very useful, and very happy.
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Then I am anxious about leaving my father, for fear the unusual exposure to this Southern sun may make him ill ; and with no doctor, no nurse, no medicine, and no proper food nearer than Savannah, it would be a serious thing to be ill here.
I am just learning to be an experienced cook and doctress, for the negroes come to me with every sort of complaint to be treated, and I prescribe for all, pills and poultices being my favourite remedies. I was rather nervous about it at first, but have grown bolder since I find what good results always follow my doses. Faith certainly has a great deal to do with it, and that is unbounded on the part of my patients, who would swallow a red-hot poker if I ordered it.
The other day an old woman of over eighty came for a dose, so I prescribed a small one of castor oil, which pleased her so much she returned the next day to have it repeated, and again a third time, on which I remonstrated and said, ' No, Mum Charlotte,
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you are too old to be dosing yourself so.' To which she replied, 'Den, dear missus, do give me some for put on outside, for ain't you me mudder ? '
We are living directly on the Point, in the house formerly occupied by the overseer, a much pleasanter and prettier situation, I think, than the Hill House, in which you lived when you were here. Of course it is all very rough and overgrown now, but with the pretty water view across which you look to the wide stretch of broad green salt marsh, which at sunset turns the most wonderful gold bronze colour, and the magnolia, orange, and superb live oak trees around and near the house, it might, by a little judicious clearing and pruning, be made quite lovely, and if I am here next winter, as I suppose I shall be, I shall try my hand at a little landscape- gardening.
The fishing is grand, and we have fresh fish for breakfast, dinner, and tea. Our fisher- man, one of our old slaves, is a great character,
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and quite as enthusiastic about fishing as I am. I have been out once or twice with him, but not for deep-sea fishing yet, which however I hope to do soon, as he brings in the most magnificent bass, and blue fish weighing twenty and thirty pounds. The other day when we were out it began to thunder, and he said, ' Dere missus, go home. No use to fish more. De fish mind de voice of de Lord better dan we poor mortals, and when it tunders dey go right down to de bottom of de sea.'
I have two little pet bears, the funniest, jolliest little beasts imaginable. They have no teeth, being only six weeks old, and have to be fed on milk, which they will drink out of a dish if I hold it very quietly, but if I make the least noise they rush off, get up on their hind legs, and hiss and spit at me like cats. One spends his time turning summersets, and the other lies flat on his back, with his two little paws over his nose. They are too delightful.
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I have been very fortunate in my weather, for although the days are terribly hot, there is always a pleasant sea-breeze, and the evenings and nights are delightfully cool. In fact I have suffered much less from the heat here than I usually do near Phila- delphia in summer. The great trouble is that I cannot walk at all on account of the snakes, of which I live in terror. The day- time is too hot for them, and they take their walks abroad in the cool of the even- iug.
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