Funding from the Library of Congress/Ameritech National Digital
Library Competition
supported the electronic publication of this title.
Text scanned (OCR) by
Krista Eberl
Text encoded by
Don Sechler and Natalia Smith
First edition, 1997.
ca. 400K
Academic Affairs Library, UNC-CH
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
1997.
The electronic edition is a part of the UNC-CH digitization project, Documenting the American South.
Any hyphens occurring
in line breaks have been removed, and the trailing part of a word has been joined to the preceding line.
All quotation marks and ampersand have been transcribed as
entity references.
All double right and left quotation marks are encoded as " and "
respectively.
All single right and left
quotation marks are encoded as ' and ' respectively.
Indentation in lines has
not been preserved.
Running titles have not
been preserved.
Spell-check and verification made against printed text using Author/Editor (SoftQuad) and Microsoft Word spell check programs.
Library of Congress Subject Headings, 21st edition,
1998
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1895, by
H. C. BRUCE,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
The author offers to the public this little book, containing his personal recollections of slavery, with the modest hope that it will be found to present an impartial and unprejudiced view of that system. His experience taught him that all masters were not cruel, and that all slaves were not maltreated. There were brutal masters and there were mean, trifling lazy slaves. While some masters cruelly whipped, half fed and overworked their slaves, there were many others who provided for their slaves with fatherly care, saw that they were well fed and clothed, and would neither whip them themselves, nor permit others to do so.
Having reached the age of twenty-nine before he could call himself a free man, and having been peculiarly fortunate in all his surroundings during the period of his slavery, the author considers himself competent to deal with all concerned, fairly and without prejudice, and he will feel more than repaid for his labor, if he can throw even some little new light upon this much mooted question. He believes that we are too far removed now from the heart burnings and cruelties of that system of slavery, horrible as it was, and too far removed from that bloody strife that destroyed the system, root and branch, to let our accounts of it now be colored by its memories. Freedom has been sweet indeed to the ex-bondman. It has been one glorious harvest of good things, and he fervently prays for grace to forget the past and for strength to go forward to resolutely meet the future.
The author early became impressed with the belief, which has since settled into deep conviction, that just as the whites were divided into two great classes, so the slaves were divided. There are certain characteristics of good blood, that manifest themselves in the honor and ability and other virtues of their possessors, and these virtues could be seen as often exemplified beneath black skins as beneath white ones. There were those slaves who would have suffered death rather than submit to dishonor;
who, though they knew they suffered a great wrong in their enslavement, gave their best services to their masters, realizing, philosophically, that the wisest course was to make the best of their unfortunate situation. They would not submit to punishment, but would fight or run away rather than be whipped.
On the other hand there was a class of Negroes among the slaves who were lazy and mean. They were as untrue to their fellows as to themselves. Like the poor whites to whom they were analagous in point of blood, they had little or no honor, no high sense of duty, little or no appreciation of the domestic virtues, and since their emancipation, both of these inferior blooded classes have been content to grovel in the mire of degradation.
The "poor white" class was held in slavery, just as real as the blacks, and their degradation was all the more condemnable, because being white, all the world was open to them, yet they from choice, remained in the South, in this position of quasi slavery.
During the slave days these poor whites seemed to live for no higher purpose than to spy on the slaves, and to lie on them. Their ambitions were gratified if they could be overseers, or slave drivers, or "padrollers" as the slaves called them. This class was conceived and born of a poor blood, whose inferiority I linked its members for all time to things mean and low. They were the natural enemies of the slaves, and to this day they have sought to belittle and humiliate the ambitious freeman, by the long catalogue of laws framed with the avowed intention of robbing him of his manhood rights. It is they who cry out about "social equality," knowing full well, that the high-toned Negro would not associate with him if he could.
If there had been no superior blooded class of blacks in the South, during the dark and uncertain days of the war, there would not have been the history of that band of noble selfsacrificing heroes, who guarded with untiring and unquestioned faith, the homes and honor of the families of the very men who were fighting to tighten their chains. No brighter pages of history will ever be written, than those which record the services of the
slaves, who were left in charge of their masters' homes. These men will be found in every case to have been those, who as slaves would not be whipped, nor suffer punishment; who would protect the honor of their own women at any cost; but who would work with honesty and fidelity at any task imposed upon them.
The author's recollections begin with the year 1842, and he will endeavor to show how slaves were reared and treated as he saw it. His recollections will include something of the industrial conditions amidst which he was reared. He will discuss from the standpoint of the slave, the conditions which led to the war, his status during the war, and will record his experiences and observations regarding the progress of the Negro since emancipation.
It is his belief, that one of the most stupendous of the wrongs which the Negro has suffered, was in turning the whole army of slaves loose in a hostile country, without money, without friends, without experience in home getting or even self-support. Their two hundred and fifty years of unrequited labor counted for naught. They were free but penniless in the land which they had made rich.
But though they were robbed of the reward of their labor, though they have been denied their common rights, though they have been discriminated against in every walk of life and in favor of every breed of foreign anarchist and socialist, though they have been made to feel the measured hate of the poor white man's venom, yet through it all they have been true; true to the country they owe (?) so little, true to the flag that denies them protection, true to the government that practically disowns them, true to their honor, fidelity and loyalty, the birthrights of superior blood.
H. C. BRUCE,
WASHINGTON, D. C.
What Railroads Have Done for that Country and the South . . . . . . . .43
to get Assignments. - Rev. W.A. Moore and J.W. Wilson, Ex-Slaves Occupying good Charges . . . . . . . . 76
Master and His Friends. - Laclede Reached in Safety and Pursuers Fooled. - Full History of Flight, Escape, Marriage by Rev. John Turner of Leavenworth, Kansas. - Visit to Old Master in January, 1865. - Found him Dejected. - Farm Rifled by Thieves Dressed as Soldiers, but They Left Him the Land . . . . . . . . . 107
Not Treated Fairly by the Press. - Injustice of Mine Owners and Manufacturers. - All the Colored People Ask of the Americans is Fair Play in the Race of Life, With its Other Adopted Citizens . . . . . . . . 128
My mother often told me that I was born, March
3rd, of the year that Martin Van Buren was elected
President of the United States, and I have therefore
always regarded March 3rd, 1836, as the date of my
birth. Those who are familiar with the customs that
obtained at the South in the days of slavery, will readily
understand why so few of the ex-slaves can give the correct date
of their birth, for, being uneducated, they were unable to keep
records themselves, and their masters, having no special interest in
the matter, saw no necessity for such records. So that the slave
parents, in order to approximate the birth of a child, usually
associated it with the occurrence of some important event, such,
for instance, as "the year the stars fell," (1833), the death of some
prominent man, the marriage of one of the master's children, or
some notable historical event. Thus by recalling any one of these
occurrences, the age of their own children was determined. Not
being able to read and write, they were compelled to resort to the
next best thing within reach, memory, the only diary in which the
records of their marriages, births and deaths were registered, and
which was also the means by which their mathematical problems
were solved, their accounts kept, when they had any to keep.
Of course there were thousands of such cases as E. M.
Dillard's, the one which I shall mention, but as his case will
represent theirs, I will speak of his only. He was an intimate
acquaintance of mine, a man born a slave, freed by the
emancipation proclamation when over thirty years old, without
even a knowledge of the alphabet, but he had a practical
knowledge of men and business matters, which enabled him to
acquire a comfortable living, a nice home, to educate his children
and conduct a small business of his own. But the greatest
wonder about this man was the exactness and correct business
way in which he conducted it in buying and selling, and
especially in casting up accounts, seemingly with care, accuracy,
and rapidity as any educated man could have done. But it was
the result of a good memory and a full share of brain.
The memories of slaves were simply wonderful. They were
not unmindful, nor indifferent as to occurrences of interest
transpiring around them, but as the principal medium through
which we obtain information was entirely closed to them, of
course their knowledge of matters and things must necessarily
have been confined within a very narrow limit; but when anything
of importance transpired within their knowledge, they knowing
the date thereof, could, by reference to it as a basis,
approximate the date of some other event in question. Then
there were a great many old men among them that might be
called sages, men who knew the number of days in each month,
in each year, could
tell the exact date when Easter and Whit Sunday would come,
because most masters gave Monday following each of these
Sundays as a holiday to slaves.
These old sages determined dates by means of straight
marks and notches, made on a long stick with a knife, and were
quite accurate in arriving at correct dates. I have often seen the
sticks upon which they kept their records, but failed to
understand the system upon which they based their calculations,
yet I found them eminently correct. It was too intricate for me.
My parents belonged to Lemuel Bruce, who died about the
year 1836, leaving two children, William Bruce and Rebecca
Bruce, who went to live with their aunt, Mrs. Prudence
Perkinson; he also left two families of slaves, and they were
divided between his two children; my mother's family fell to Miss
Rebecca, and the other family, the head of which was known as
Bristo, was left to William B. Bruce. Then it was that family ties
were broken, the slaves were all hired out, my mother to one
man and my father to another. I was too young then to know
anything about it, and have to rely entirely on what I have heard
my mother and others older than myself say.
My personal recollections go back to the year 1841, when
my mother was hired to a lady, Mrs. Ludy Waddel by name.
Miss Rebecca Bruce married Mr. Pettis Perkinson, and soon
after her slaves were taken to their new home, then known as
the Rowlett Place, at which point we began a new life. It is but
simple
justice to Mr. Perkinson to say, that though springing from a
family known in that part of the country as hard task-masters, he
was himself a kind and considerate man. His father had given
him some ten or twelve slaves, among whom were two boys
about my own age. As we were quite young, we were tenderly
treated.
To state that slave children under thirteen years of age
were tenderly treated probably requires further explanation.
During the crop season in Virginia, slave men and women
worked in the fields daily, and such females as had sucklings
were allowed to come to them three times a day between sun
rise and sun set, for the purpose of nursing their babes, who
were left in the care of an old woman, who was assigned to the
care of these children because she was too old or too feeble for
field work. Such old women usually had to care for, and
prepare the meals of all children under working age. They were
furnished with plenty of good, wholesome food by the master,
who took special care to see that it was properly cooked and
served to them as often as they desired it
On very large plantations there were many such old
women, who spent the remainder of their lives caring for children
of younger women. Masters took great pride in their gangs of
young slaves, especially when they looked "fat and sassy," and
would often have them come to the great house yard to play,
particularly when they had visitors. Freed from books and
mental worry of all kinds, and having all the outdoor
exercise they wanted, the slave children had nothing to do
but eat, play and grow, and physically speaking, attain to good
size and height, which was the special wish and aim of their
masters, because a tall, well-proportioned slave man or woman,
in case of a sale, would always command the highest price paid.
So then it is quite plain, that it was not only the master's pride,
but his financial interest as well, to have these children enjoy
every comfort possible, which would aid in their physical make
up, and to see to it that they were tenderly treated.
But Mr. Perkinson's wife lived but a short time, dying in
1842. She left one child, William E. Perkinson, known in his later
life as Judge W. E. Perkinson, of Brunswick, Missouri. Mr.
Perkinson built a new house for himself, "The great house," and
quarters for his slaves on his own land, near what is now known
as Green Bay, Prince Edward County, Virginia. But I don't think
that Mrs. Perkinson lived to occupy the new house. My mother
was assigned to a cabin at the new place during the spring of
1842. But after the death of his young wife, Mr. Perkinson
became greatly dissatisfied with his home and its surroundings,
showing that all that was dear to him was gone, and that he
longed for a change, and being persuaded by his brother-in-law,
W. B. Bruce, who was preparing to go to the western country,
as Missouri and Kentucky were then called, he dicided to break
up his Virginia home, and take his slaves to Missouri, in
company with Mr. W. B. Bruce.
The time to start was agreed upon, and those old
enough to work were given a long holiday from January
to April, 1844, when we left our old Virginia home,
bound for Chariton County, Missouri. In this event
there were no separations of husbands and wives,
because of the fact that my father and Bristo were both
dead, and they were the only married men in the Bruce
family.
Among the slaves that were given to Mr. Perkinson
by his father was only one married man, uncle Watt,
as we called him, and he and his wife and children
were carried along with the rest of us.
I shall never forget the great preparations made
for our start to the West. There were three large
wagons in the outfit, one for the whites and two for the
slaves. The whites in the party were Messrs. Perkinson,
Bruce, Samuel Wooten, and James Dorsell. The line of
march was struck early in April, 1844. I remember that
I was delighted with the beautiful sceneries, towns,
rivers, people in their different styles of costumes, and
so many strange things that I saw on that trip from
our old home to Louisville. But the most wonderful
experience to me was, when we took a steamer at
Louisville for St. Louis. The idea of a house floating
on the water was a new one to me, at least, and I doubt
very much whether any of the white men of the party
had ever seen a steamboat before.
I am unable to recall the route, and the many sights, and
incidents of that long trip of nearly fifteen hundred miles, and
shall not attempt to describe it. But finally we reached our
destination, which was the home of Jack Perkinson, brother of
Mr. Pettis Perkinson, about June or July, 1844. His place was
located about seven or eight miles from Keytesville, Missouri.
At that time this country was sparsely settled; a farm house
could be only seen in every eight or ten miles. I was greatly
pleased with the country, for there was plenty of everything to
live on, game, fish, wild fruits, and berries. The only drawback
to our pleasure was Jack Perkinson, who was the meanest man
I had ever seen. He had about thirty-five slaves on his large farm
and could and did raise more noise, do more thrashing of men,
women and children, than any other man in that county.
Our folks were soon hired out to work in the tobacco
factories at Keytesville, except the old women, and such children
as were too small to be put to work. I was left at this place with
my mother and her younger children and was happy. I was too
young to be put to work, and there being on the farm four or five
boys about my age, spent my time with them hunting and fishing.
There was a creek near by in which we caught plenty of fish. We
made lines of hemp grown on the farm and hooks of bent pins.
When we got a bite, up went the pole and quite often the fish,
eight or ten feet in the air. We never waited for what is called a
good bite, for if we did the fish would get the bait and escape
capture, or get off when hooked if not thrown quickly upon the
land. But fish then were very plentiful and not as scary as now.
The hardest
job with us was digging bait. We often brought home as much
as five pounds of fish in a day.
There was game in abundance, but our hunting was
always for young rabbits and squirrels, and we hunted them
with hounds brought with us from Virginia. I had never before
seen so many squirrels. The trees there were usually small and
too far apart for them to jump from tree to tree, and when we
saw one "treed" by the dogs, one of us climbed up and
forced it to jump, and when it did, in nine cases out of ten
the dogs would catch it. We often got six or eight in a day's hunting.
Another sport which we enjoyed was gathering the eggs of
prairie chickens. On account of the danger of snake bites, we
were somewhat restricted in the pursuit of this pleasure, being
forbidden to go far away from the cabins. Their eggs were not
quite as large as the domestic hen's, but are of a very fine flavor.
North of Jack Perkinson's farm was a great expanse of
prairie four or five miles wide and probably twenty or thirty
long - indeed it might have been fifty miles long. There were a
great many snakes of various sizes and kinds, but the most
dangerous and the one most dreaded was the rattlesnake,
whose bite was almost certain death in those days, but for which
now the doctors have found so many cures that we seldom hear
of a death from that cause. When allowed to go or when we
could steal away, which we very often did, we usually took a
good sized basket and found eggs enough to fill it before
returning. We saw a great many snakes, killing some and passing
others by, especially the large ones. There were thousands of
prairie chickens scattered over this plain, and eggs
were easily found. One thing was in our favor; these wild
chickens never selected very tall grass for nests. But it almost
makes me shudder now, when I think of it, and remember that we
were barefooted at the time, with reptiles on every side, some of
which would crawl away or into their holes while others would
show fight. But none of us were bitten by them. On these prairies
large herds of deer could be seen in almost any direction. I have
seen as many as one hundred together. Jack Perkinson was not a
hunter, kept no gun, and of course we had none, so we could not
get any deer. There were a great many wolves around that place
and I stood in mortal fear of them, but never had any encounter
with one. They usually prowled about at night, and kept the young
slave men from going to balls or parties.
The most vicious wild animal I met or encountered was the
hog. There were a great many of them around the farm, especially
in the timber south of it. In that timber were some very large
hickory nuts - the finest I ever saw. I remember one occasion
when we were out gathering nuts, having our dogs with us. They
went a short distance from us, but very soon we heard them
barking and saw them running toward us followed by a drove of
wild hogs in close proximity. We hardly had time to climb trees for
safety. I was so closely pressed that an old boar caught my foot,
pulling off the shoe, but I held on to the limb of the tree and
climbed out of danger, although minus my shoe. One minute later
and I would not have been here to pen these lines, for those hogs
would have torn and eaten me in short order. From my safe
position in the tree I looked down on those vicious wild animals
tearing up my shoe. We had escaped immediate death, but were
greatly frightened because the hogs lay down under the trees and
night was coming on. We had shouted for help but could not
make ourselves heard. Every time our dogs came near, some big
boar would chase them away and come back to the drove. We
reasoned together, and came to conclusion that if we would
drive the dogs farther away the hogs would leave. Being up trees
we could see our dogs for some distance away and we drove
them back. After a while the hogs seemed to have forgotten us.
A few large ones got up, commenced rooting and grunting, and
soon the drove moved on. When they had gotten a hundred
yards away we slid down, and then such a race for the fence
and home. It was a close call. But we kept that little fun mum,
for if Jack Perkinson had learned of his narrow escape from the
loss of two or three Negro boys worth five or six hundred
dollars each, he would have given us a severe whipping.
About January 1, 1845, my mother and her children,
including myself and those younger, were hired to one James
Means, a brickmaker, living near Huntsville, Randolph County,
Missouri. I remember the day, when he came after us with a
two-horse team. He had several children, the eldest being a boy.
Although Cyrus was a year older than I, he could not lick me.
He and I had to feed the stock and haul trees to be cut into
wood for fire, which his father had felled in the timber. Mr.
Means also owned a girl about fourteen years old called Cat,
and as soon as spring came he commenced work on the brick
yard with Cat and me as offbearers. This, being my first real
work, was fun
for a while, but soon became very hard and I got whipped
nearly every day, not because I did not work, but because I
could not stand it. Having to carry a double mold all day long in
the hot sun I broke down. Finally Mr. Means made for my
special benefit two single molds, and after that I received no
more punishment from him.
Mr. Perkinson soon became disgusted with Missouri, and
leaving his slaves in the care of W. B. Bruce to be hired out
yearly, went back to Virginia. Some said it was a widow, Mrs.
Wooten, who took him back, while others believed that it was
because he could not stand the cursing and whipping of slaves
carried on by his brother Jack whom he could not control. This
man, Jack Perkinson, died about the year 1846, and left a wife and
three children. Although he had borne the reputation of being the
hardest master in that county, his wife was quite different. When
she took charge of the estate, she hired out the slaves, most of
them to the tobacco factory owners, and really received more
money yearly for them than when they worked upon the farm.
After her death the estate passed to her children and was
managed by the eldest son, Pettis, who was very kind to his
slaves until they became free by the Emancipation Proclamation.
I am informed that the very best of friendship still exists between
the whites and blacks of that family.
In January, 1846, with my older brothers I was hired to
Judge Applegate, who conducted a tobacco factory at
Keytesville, Missouri. I was then about ten years old, and
although I had worked at Mr. Mean's place, I had done no
steady work, because I was allowed many liberties, but at
Judge Applegate's I was
kept busy every minute from sunrise to sunset, without being
allowed to speak a word to anyone. I was too young then to
be kept in such close confinement. It was so prison-like to be
compelled to sit during the entire year under a large bench or
table filled with tobacco, and tie lugs all day long except during
the thirty minutes allowed for breakfast and the same time
allowed for dinner. I often fell asleep. I could not keep awake
even by putting tobacco in my eyes. I was punished by the
overseer, a Mr. Blankenship, every time he caught me napping,
which was quite often during the first few months. But I soon
became used to that kind of work and got along very well the
balance of that year.
Orders had been sent to W. B. Bruce by Mr. Perkinson to
bring his slaves back to Virginia, and about March, 1847, he
started with us contrary to our will. But what could we do?
Nothing at all. We finally got started by steamboat from
Brunswick to St. Louis, Missouri, and thence to Cincinnati,
Ohio. Right here I must tell a little incident that happened, which
explains why we were not landed at Cincinnati, but taken to the
Kentucky side of the river, where we remained until the
steamboat finished her business there and crossed over and
took us on board again. Deck passage on the steamer had been
secured for us by W. B. Bruce, and there were on the same
deck some poor white people. Just before reaching Cincinnati,
Ohio, some of these whites told my mother and other older
ones, that when the boat landed at Cincinnati the abolitionists
would come aboard and even against their will take them away.
Of course our people did not know what the word abolitionist
meant; they evidently
thought it meant some wild beast or Negro-trader, for they
feared both and were greatly frightened - so much so that they
went to W. B. Bruce and informed him of what they had been
told. He was greatly excited and went to the captain of the
boat. I am unable to state what passed between them, but my
mother says he paid the captain a sum of money to have us
landed on the Kentucky side of the river. At any rate I know
we were put ashore opposite Cincinnati, and remained there
until the streamer transacted its business at Cincinnati and then
crossed over and picked us up. The story told us by the white
deck passengers had a great deal of truth in it. I have since
learned that a slave could not remain a slave one minute after
touching the free soil of that state, and that its jurisdiction
extended to low water mark of the Ohio River. Slaves in transit
had been taken from steamers and given their freedom in just
such cases as the one named above. A case of this kind had
been taken upon appeal to the Supreme Court of the state of
Ohio, and a decision handed down in favor of the freedom of
the slave. The ignorance of these women caused me to work as
a slave for seventeen years afterwards.
Early in the spring of 1847, we reached the Perkinson farm
in Virginia, where we found our master, whom we had not seen
for nearly three years, and his son Willie, as he was then called,
with hired slaves cultivating the old farm. My older brothers,
James and Calvin, were at once hired to Mr. Hawkins, a
brickmaker, at Farmville, Prince Edward County, Virginia.
In as much as it was not
the custom in that state to put
slaves at work in the field before they had reached thirteen years
of age, I, being less, was allowed to eat play and grow, and I
think the happiest doys of my boyhood were spent
here. There
were seven or eight boys about my age belonging to Mrs.
Perkinson, living less than a mile distant on adjoining farms, who
also enjoyed the same privileges, and there were four or five
hounds which we could take out rabbit hunting when we wished
to do so. It was grand sport to see five or six hounds in line on a
trail and to hear the sweet music of these trained fox hounds. To
us, at least, it was sweet music. We roamed over the
neighboring lands hunting and often catching rabbits, which we
brought home. During the fishing season we often went angling in
the creeks that meandered through these lands to the millpond
which furnished the water for the mill near by, which was run by
Uncle Radford, an old trustworthy slave belonging to Mrs.
Prudence Perkinson. He was the lone
miller, and ground wheat and corn for the entire neighborhood.
There were several orchards of very fine fruit on these
farms. We were allowed to enjoy the apples, peaches, cherries
and plums, to our heart's content. Besides, there were large
quantities of wild berries and nuts, especially chinquapins. When
we had nothing else to do in the way of enjoyment we played
the game of "shinney" - a game that gave great pleasure to us
all. I was playmate and guardian for Willie Perkinson, and in
addition to this I had a standing duty to perform, which was to
drive up three cows every afternoon. At this time Willie was old
enough to attend the school which was about two miles away,
and I had to go with him in the forenoon and return for him in
the afternoon. He usually went with me after the cows.
I had been taught the alphabet while in Missouri and could
spell "baker," "lady," "shady," and such words of two
syllables, and Willie took great pride in teaching me his lessons of
each day from his books, as I had none and my mother had no
money to buy any for me. This continued for about a year
before the boy's aunt, Mrs. Prudence Perkinson, who had
cared for Willie while we were in Missouri, found it out, and I
assure you, dear reader, she raised a great row with our master
about it. She insisted that it was a crime to teach a Negro to
read, and that it would spoil him, but our owner seemed not to
care anything about it and did nothing to stop it, for afterward I
frequently had him correct my spelling. In after years I learned
that he was glad that his Negroes
could read, especially the Bible, but he was opposed to their
being taught writing.
But my good time ended when I was put to the plow in the
Spring of 1848. The land was hilly and rocky. I, being of light
weight, could not hold the plow steadily in the ground, however
hard I tried. My master was my trainer and slapped my jaws
several times for that which I could not prevent. I knew then as
well as I know now, that this was unjust punishment. But after the
breaking season and planting the crop of corn and tobacco was
over, I was given a lighter single horse plow and enjoyed the
change and the work. Compared with some of his neighbors,
our master was not a hard man on his slaves, because we
enjoyed many privileges that other slaves did not have. Some
slave owners did not feed well, causing their slaves to steal
chickens, hogs and sheep from them or from other owners.
Bacon and bread with an occassional meal of beef
was the feed
through the entire year; but our master gave us all we could eat,
together with such vegetables as were raised on the farm. My
mother was the cook for the families, white and black, and of
course I fared well as to food.
Willie Perkinson had become as one of us and regarded
my mother as his mother. He played with the colored boys from
the time he got home from school till bedtime, and again in the
morning till time to go to school, and every Saturday and
Sunday. Having learned to spell I kept it up, and took lessons
from Willie as often as I could. My younger brother, B. K.
Bruce (now Ex-Senator) had succeeded me as playmate and
guardian of Willie, and being also anxious to learn, soon caught
up with me, and by Willie's
aid went ahead of me and has held his place during all the years
since.
Mrs. Prudence Perkinson and her son Lemuel, lived about
one mile from our place, and they owned about fifty field hands,
as they were called. They also had an overseer or negro-driver
whose pay consisted of a certain percentage of the crop.
The larger the crop the larger his share would be, and
having no money interest in the slaves he drove them night and
day without mercy. This overseer was a mean and cruel man and
would, if not checked by her, whip some one every day. Lemuel
Perkinson, was a man who spent his time in pleasure
seeking, such as fox-hunting, fishing, horse racing and other
sports, and was away from home a great deal, so much so that
he paid little attention to the management of the farm. It was left
to the care of his mother and the overseer. Mrs. Sarah Perkinson,
wife of Lemuel Perkinson, was a dear good woman and was
beloved by all her slaves as long as I knew her, and I am
informed that she is living now and is still beloved by her ex-slaves
Mrs. Prudence Perkinson would not allow her overseer to
whip a grown slave without her consent, because I have known
of cases where the overseer was about to whip a slave when he
would break loose and run to his old mistress. If it was a bad
case she would punish the slave by taking off her slipper and
slapping his jaws with it. They were quite willing to take that
rather than be punished by the overseer who would often have
them take off the shirt to be whipped on their bare backs.
Mrs. Prudence Perkinson was a kind hearted woman, but
when angry and under the excitement of
the moment would order a servant whipped, but before the
overseer could carry it out would change her mind. I
recall a case where her cook, Annica, had sauced her
and refused to stop talking when told to do so. She
sent for the overseer to come to the Great House to
whip her (Annica). He came and pulled her out; she
refused to obey. He then pulled her outside and
struck her two licks with his whip, when her "old mistress"
promptly stopped him and abused him, and drove
him out of the Great House yard for his brutality. She
went to Annica, spoke kindly to her and asked her
if she was hurt.
I write of this as I saw it. I can recall only one or
two instances where our master whipped a grown
person, but when he had it do or felt that it should
be done, he did it well.
Our owner had one serious weakness which was
very objectionable to us, and one in which he was
the exception and not the rule of the master class.
It was this: He would associate with "poor white trash,"
would often invite them to dine with him, and the habit
remained with him during his entire life.
There lived near our farm two poor white men,
better know at the South as "poor white trash," named
John Flippen and Sam Hawkins. These men were
too lazy to do steady work and made their living by
doing chores for the rich and killing hawks and
crows at so much a piece, for the owner of the land
on which they were destroyed. These men would
watch us and report to our master everything they
saw us do that was a violation of rules. I recall one
instance in which I was whipped on account of a lie
told by Sam Hawkins. The facts in the case are as
follows: I was
sent one Saturday afternoon to Major Price's place
after some garden seed and was cautioned not to
ride the mare hard, and I did not therefore take her
out of a walk or a very slow trot as it was not to my
interest to do otherwise, for the distance was but two
miles and if I came back before sundown I would have
to go into the field to work again. I got back
about sundown, but had met Sam Hawkins on the
road as I went, and he was out our house when I
returned. He was invited to supper, and while at
the table told my master that I had the mare in a
gallop when he met me. Coffee was very costly at
that time, too high for the "poor white trash;" none
but the rich could afford it, and the only chance these
poor whites had to get a cup of coffee was when
so invited. It was always a Godsend to them, not
only the good meal, but the honor of dining with the
"BIG BUGS." Being illiterate their conversation
could not exceed what they had seen and heard, and
to please their masters, for such they were to
these poor whites almost as much as to their slaves, they
told everything they had seen the slaves do, and oftener more.
After supper that evening my master sent for me.
When I came, he had a switch in his hand and proceeded
to explain why he was going to whip me. I pleaded innocence
and positively disputed the charge. At this he then became
angry and whipped me. When he stopped he said it was
not so much for the fast riding that he had punished me as it
was for disputing a white man's word. Fool that I was then,
for I would not have received any more whipping at that
time, but knowing that I was not guilty I said so again and
he immediately flogged me again. When he stopped he
asked me in a loud tone of voice, "Will you have the
impudence to dispute a white man's word again?" My
answer was "No sir." That was the last whipping he
ever gave me, and that on account of the lie told by a
poor white man. But I lived not only to dispute the
word of these poor whites in their presence, but in after
years abused and threatened to punish them for
trespassing upon his lands.
Other ex-slaves can relate many such cases as the
Hawkins' case and such instances, in my opinion,
have been the cause of the intense hatred of slaves against
the poor whites of the South, and I believe that from
such troubles originate the term "poor white trash". In
many ways this unfortunate class of Southern people had
but a few more privileges than the slaves. True, they
were free, could go where they pleased without a "pass,"
but they could not, with impunity, dispute the word of
the rich in anything, and obeyed their masters as did
the slaves. It has been stated by many writers, and I
accept it as true, that the Emancipation Proclamation
issued by President Lincoln, not only freed the slaves,
but the poor whites of the South as well, for they occupied
a condition nearly approaching that of slavery.
They were nominally free, but that freedom was
greatly restricted on account of the prejudice against
them as a class. They were often employed by the
ruling class to do small jobs of work and while
so engaged were not allowed, even to eat with them at
the same table, neither could they in any way associate
or intermarry with the upper classes. Of course this
unfortunate class of people had a vote, but it was
always cast just as the master class directed, and not
as the voter desired, if he had a desire. I recall very
clearly the fact, that at each Country, State or National
election the poor white people were hauled to the voting
places in wagons belonging to the aristocratic class. They
also furnished a prepared ballot for each man and woe unto
that poor white man who failed to vote that ticket or come
when sent for. Each one of the master class kept a strict
lookout for every poor white man in his neighborhood
and on election days sent his wagons and brought each
one of these voters to the polls.
When the war of the
Rebellion broke out this
class of men constituted the rank and file of the Confederate
army and rendered good service to their masters, who
had only to speak a kind word to them when the would
take the oath and obediently march to the front, officered
by the aristocratic class. These poor people contributed their
full share to the death roll of the Southern Army.
True to his low instinct, the poor white man is
represented at the South as the enemy of the Colored
people to-day, just as he was before the war, and is still
as illiterate as he was then. He is not far enough up
the scale to see the advantage of education, and will not
send his children to school, nor allow the Colored child
to go, if it is in his power to prevent it. It is this class
who burn the school houses in the Southland to-day.
The aristocracy and the Colored people of the South
would get along splendidly, were it not for these poor
whites, who are the leaders in all the disorders, lynchings
and the like. The South will be the garden spot, the
cradle of liberty, the haven of America, when the typical
poor whites of that section shall have died off,
removed, or become educated, and not till then.
During the summer, in Virginia and other southern
states, slaves when threatened or after punishment would
escape to the woods or some other hiding place. They were
then called runaways, or runaway Negroes, and when not
caught would stay away from home until driven back by cold
weather. Usually they would go to some other part of the state,
where they were not so well known, and a few who had the
moral courage would make their way to the North, and thus gain
their freedom. But such cases were rare. Some, if captured and
not wishing to go back to their masters, would neither give their
correct name nor that of their owner; and in such cases, if the
master had not seen the notice of sale posted by the officers of
the county wherein they were captured, and which usually gave
the runaway's personal description, they were sold to the highest
bidders, and their masters lost them and the county in which the
capture was effected got the proceeds, less the expense of
capture. A runaway often chose that course in order to get out
of the hands of a hard master, thinking that he could not do
worse in any event, while he might fall into the hands of a better
master. Often they were bought by Negro traders for the cotton
fields of the South.
The white children had great fear of runaway Negroes, so
much so that their mothers would use the term "runaway nigger"
to scare their babies or to quiet them. I was greatly afraid of them,
too, because
I had heard so many horrible stories told of their brutality, but I
have no personal recollections of any such case. I recall two
instances where I had dealings with them. The first was as
follows: - One of our cows had a calf two or three days old hid
in the timber land, and I was sent to find it, and in doing so went
into the woods where the underbrush was quite thick, and
suddenly came upon a rough-looking, half-clad black man. I
was too close or too much frightened to run from him and stood
speechless. He spoke pleasantly, telling me where I could find
the calf, and stated that if I told the white people about him he
would come back and kill me. He had a piece of roasted pork
and "ashcake," and offered me some which I was afraid to
refuse Of course I did not inform on him.
The other occasion was when I was sent to the mill about
three miles distant with an ox-team and two or three bags of
corn and wheat. I did not get away from the mill until near
sundown, and when near home, while passing through a body
of timber land, a black man stepped out in front of my oxen and
stopped them. He looked vicious but said nothing. He got into
the cart and cut one bag in half, taking about one bushel of
meal, jumped out and let me go without further trouble. I told
my master about this but nothing was done, it being Saturday
night, and the only man near by who kept Negro hounds was Thomas
Rudd, who would not go Negro hunting on Sunday.
These runaways lived upon stolen pigs and sheep, and the
hardest thing for them to get was salt and bread. It was really
dangerous for any person to betray one of these fellows, for
when caught and carried home to their masters, they were
usually whipped.
But they would run away again, come back, lie in wait for their
betrayer, and punish him severely. Those who hired slaves
belonging to estates, which under the law had to be hired out
every year, often suffered in this respect, for it sometimes
happened the slaves would run away in the spring and remain
away until Christmas, when they would report to the guardian of
the estate, ready to be hired out for another year, while the
employer was compelled to pay for the last year's service. I
have known of several such cases.
I hope from what I have said about "runaways," that my
readers will not form the opinion that all slave men who
imagined themselves treated harshly ran away, or that they were
all too lazy to work in the hot weather and took to the woods,
or that all masters were so brutal that their slaves were
compelled to run away to save life. There were masters of
different dispositions and temperaments. Many owners
treated their slaves so humanely that they never ran
away, although they were sometimes punished; others
really felt grieved for it to be known, that one of their slaves
had been compelled to run away; others allowed the overseer
to treat their slaves with such brutality that they were forced
to run away, and when they did, the condition of those
remaining was bettered, because the master's attention would
be called to the fact, and he would limit the power of the
overseer to punish at will; others never whipped grown slaves
and would not allow any one else to do so. I recall an instance
showing the viciousness of these runaway Negroes, which I
think illustrates the point as to their hard character.
There was a slave named Bluford, belonging to a hemp
raiser in Salene County, Missouri, who owned a
large plantation, and owned a large number of slaves, and who
had a poor white man employed as overseer. This overseer got
angry at Bluford for some offense or neglect, and attempted to
flog him, but instead got flogged himself and reported to the
master the treatment he had received. The master sent for
Bluford, and without making inquiry to ascertain the facts,
proceeded to punish the slave, who in turn flogged his master
and then ran away. The Missouri River is a very wide, rapid
and dangerous stream, and runs between Howard and Salem
counties, only a few miles from his master's plantation. By some
means Bluford crossed it and hid himself in a wheat field on the
other side of the river to wait till dark. He told me that he was
hid in a corner of a fence, and the wheat being ripe was ready
to be cut. Now what spirit lead the owner of the field to get
over the fence right in that corner can never be known, but he
did, and found Bluford, whom he grabbed in the collar, and
refused to let go after being warned. Bluford was armed with a
butcher's knife, and with it he cut the man across the abdomen,
severing it to the backbone, causing death in a very short time.
Hunting parties were immediately organized, who searched the
surrounding country in vain for the murderer. I think this
occurred in July, 1855. I had been acquainted with Bluford
previous to that time.
Some time during the spring of 1865, I met Bluford on the
street in Leavenworth, Kansas, after he had been to Kansas
City, Missouri, to meet some relative. He gave me the facts in
the case, and told me that he followed Grand River to its head
water, which was in Iowa, then made his way to Des Moines,
where he remained
until the war, when he enlisted and served to the close
of the war.
Bluford could read quite well when I knew him in 1855,
and had paid attention to the maps and rivers of the state of
Missouri.
Then there were different kinds of slaves, the lazy fellow,
who would not work at all, unless forced to do so, and required
to be watched, the good man, who patiently submitted to
everything, and trusted in the Lord to save his soul; and then
there was the one who would not yield to punishment of any
kind, but would fight until overcome by numbers, and in most
cases be severely whipped; he would then go to the woods or
swamps, and was hard to capture, being usually armed with an
axe, corn knife, or some dangerous weapon, as fire arms at that
time were not obtainable. Then there was the unruly slave,
whom no master particularly wanted for several reasons; first,
he would not submit to any kind of corporal punishment;
second, it was hard to determine which was the master or which
the slave; third, he worked when he pleased to do so; fourth, no
one would buy him, not even the Negro trader, because he
could not take possession of him without his consent, and of
course he could not get that. He could only be taken dead, and
was worth too much money alive to be killed in order to
conquer him. Often masters gathered a gang of friends,
surrounded such fellows, and punished them severely, and at
other times the slave would arm himself with an axe, or
something dangerous, and threaten death to any one coming
within his reach. They could not afford to shoot him on account
of the money in him, and of course they left him. This class of
slaves were usually industrious, but
very impudent. There were thousands of that class, who spent
their lives in their master's service, doing his work undisturbed,
because the master understood the slave.
I am reminded of a fight I once witnessed between a slave
and his master. They were both recognized bullies. The master
was a farmer, whose name I shall call Mr. W., who lived about
three miles from Brunswick, Missouri. He had, by marriage I
think, gained possession of a slave named Armstead. Soon after
arriving at his new home his master and he had some words; his
master ordered him to "shut up," which he refused to do. The
master struck him and he returned the blow. Then Mr. W. said,
"Well, sir, if that is your game I am your man, and I tell you
right now, if you lick me I'll take it as my share, and that will
end it, but if I lick you, then you are to stand and receive twenty
lashes."
They were out in an open field near the public road, where
there was nothing to interfere. I was on a wagon in the road,
about forty yards distant. Then commenced the prettiest fist
and skull fight I ever witnessed, lasting, it seemed, a full half
hour; both went down several times; they clinched once or
twice, and had the field for a ring, and might have occupied
more of it than they did, but they confined themselves to about
one fourth of an acre. Of course Armstead had my Sympathy
throughout, because I wanted to see whether Mr. W. would
keep his word. They were both bloody and also muddy, but
grit to the backbone. Finally my man went down and could not
come to time, and cried out, "Enough." There was a creek
near by, and they both went to it to wash. I left, but was
informed that
the agreement was carried out, except that Mr. W. gave his
whipped man but six light strokes over his vest. Could he have
done less? But I have been informed that these men got along
well afterwards without fighting, and lived together as master
and slave until the war.
I believe in that old saying, that blood will tell. It is found
to be true in animals by actual tests, and if we will push our
investigations a little further, we will find it true as to human
beings.
Of course I do not wish to be understood as teaching the
doctrine, that blood is to be divided into white blood and black
blood, but on the contrary, I wish to be understood as meaning
that it should be divided into inferior and superior, regardless of
the color of the individual in whose veins it flows.
The fact of the presence in the South, especially, of the
large number of the typical poor whites, held as it were, in a
degree of slavery, is a contradiction of the assertion, that white
blood alone is superior.
If this class had superior blood in their veins, (which I
deny) is there a sane man who will believe that they would have
remained in the South, generations after generations, filling
menial positions, with no perceptible degree of advancement? I
venture to say not. The truth is, that they had inferior blood;
nothing more. To further explain what I mean relative to inferior
and superior blood among slaves, I will state, that there were
thousands of high-toned and high-spirited slaves, who had as
much self-respect as their masters, and who were industrious,
reliable and truthful, and could be depended upon by their
masters in all cases.
These slaves knew their own helpless condition. They also
knew that they had no rights under the laws of the land, and that
they were, by those same laws, the chattels of their masters,
and that they owed them their services during their natural lives,
and that the masters alone could make their lives pleasant or
miserable. But having superior blood in their veins, they did not
give up in abject servility, but held up their heads and
proceeded to do the next best thing under the circumstances,
which was, to so live and act as to win the confidence of their
masters, which could only be done by faithful service and an
upright life.
Such slaves as these were always the reliables, and the
ones whom the master trusted and seldom had occasion to
even scold for neglect of duty. They spent their lives in their
master's service, and reared up their children in the same
service.
Such slaves were to be found wherever the institution of
slavery existed, and when they were freed by the war, these
traits which they had exhibited for generations to such good
effect, were brought into greater activity, and have been largely
instrumental in making the record of which we feel so proud
to-day. This class of slaves not only looked after their own
interests, but their master's as well, even in his absence.
I recall a case in point. Some time during the fall of 1857,
in company with a man belonging to Dr. Watts, who lived near
Brunswick, Missouri, as we were passing his master's farm,
one Sunday night, we heard cattle in the corn field destroying
green corn. These cattle had pushed down the fence. I said to
the man: "Let us drive them out and put up the fence."
His reply was, "It's Massa's corn and Massa's cattle, and I
don't care how much they destroy; he won't thank me for
driving them out, and I will not do it."
To the class of superior blooded slaves may be added the
fighting fellows, or those who knew when they had discharged
their duty, and by virtue of knowing this fact, would not submit
to any kind of corporal punishment at the hand of their
master, and especially his overseer.
Just as among the whites in the South there was an inferior
blooded class, so among the slaves there was an inferior
blooded class, one whose members were almost entirely devoid
of all the manly traits of character, who were totally unreliable
and were without self-respect enough to keep themselves clean.
They spent their lives much like beasts of burden. They
took no interest in their master's work or his property, and went
no further than forced by the lash, and would not go without it.
They reared their children in the same way they had come
up, with no perceptible change for the better. They had not the
spirit nor the courage to resist punishment, and bore it
submissively. From that class, I believe, springs the worthless,
the shiftless, the dishonest and the immoral among us to-day,
casting unmerited blame upon the honest, thrifty and intelligent
colored people, who strive to live right in the sight of
God and man.
Another view held by people who have given the matter
some thought, is this: there were masters of quite different
temperament and disposition. Some had no humane feelings,
and regarded their slaves as brutes, and treated them as such,
while there were
others, (a very large class) who were good men, and I might
say, religious men, and who regarded slavery as wrong in
principle, but as it was handed down to them, they took it,
believing that they, by fair treatment, could improve the slave,
morally a least, for it was generally believed, that if he was
freed and returned to Africa, he would relapse into barbarism.
This latter class of slave owners treated their slaves better by
far, than the other class, and my belief and experience tend to
show that they got better service from their slaves, and enjoyed
more pleasure, being almost entirely freed from the
disagreeable duty of inflicting corporal punishment. I have
personal knowledge of cases where young slaves had violated
important rules, and the master, instead of punishing them
himself, would go to their parents, lay the case before them,
and demand that they take action.
In cases where the master had confidence in his slaves,
and they in turn had confidence in him, both got along
agreeably.
So that the point I wish to make is, that with few
exceptions, a good master made good slaves, intelligent,
industrious and trustworthy, while on the other hand, a mean
and cruel master made shiftless, careless, and indolent slaves,
who, being used to the lash as a remedy for every offense, had
no fears of it, and would not go without it. Some people assert
that long-continued ill-treatment had taken all the spirit of
manhood out of this class of slaves, and that it will take
generations of schooling and contact with intelligent people to
instill into them the spirit of manhood, self-respect, and correct
ideas of morality.
Admitting this to be true, I believe it is as much
the duty of the American white people to extend the necessary
aid to these unfortunate people, as it is the duty of the better
class among us, (the colored people), to do this work of
uplifting them.
I recently visited my old home in Prince Edward County,
Virginia, after an absence of forty-four years, and was greatly
surprised at the changes which had taken place during that
period. I had much trouble to find farms which I had
knowledge of, because I remembered them only by the names
they were called by in 1849. The owners of them had died or
moved away and others had acquired the lands, changing the
names of them, while other farms had been deserted and
allowed to grow up in forests, so that with a few exceptions the
country for miles in every direction was an unbroken forest of
young trees.
Among the many notable changes which have taken place
in this part of the State since 1849, are two or three to which
my attention was particularly directed. The first is the entire
change in the method of travel and transportation of freight and
produce between Richmond, the western portion of the State
and the Southern States.
The entire absence of the large number of six-horse teams,
in charge of a colored driver and a water boy, that used to pass
up and down the public road, which ran in front of our old
home, and which extended from Richmond to the Blue Ridge
Mountains, was quite noticeable, because that was the principal
method by which freight and produce were carried.
That system of travel and transportation has been
superseded by railroads, and goods are now delivered
by the Richmond & Danville inside of three days after purchase,
to any place on that railroad within two or three hundred miles.
This railroad now runs parallel with the old public road from
Richmond to the Blue Ridge Mountains and the South, and has
entirely usurped the trade formerly monopolized by the old
six-horse team system.
Very vividly do I recall the many six-horse teams which
used to pass daily up and down that old road with their great
loads of corn, wheat and tobacco, and return loaded with
drygoods and groceries for the country merchants. I have seen
as many as twenty of these teams pass our old home in one day.
The teamsters, though slaves, were absolutely reliable and
therefore, were intrusted with taking orders and produce from
country storekeepers to the wholesale merchants in Richmond
and on their return they would bring back the drygoods and
groceries that had been ordered by the country dealers living
along the road. Usually these wagoners went in squads of four or
five and camped at the same camping grounds. The owners of
these teams would come along about once a month paying and
collecting bills.
These great wagons, covered with white canvas to protect
the freight they bore, sometimes carrying from seven to ten
thousand pounds and each drawn by six fine blooded horses,
made to me at least, a grand and impressive picture, as the
procession moved along the old road in front of our place. This
picture was heightened by the picturesqueness of the colored
driver in charge and his peculiar and characteristic dress. As he
rode along on the sadle horse of the team he
seemed conscious
of the great responsibility resting upon his
shoulders, and to the simple-minded colored people along the
road he was simply an uncrowned king. When the wagons
stopped at the camping grounds, located at regular intervals
along the road, the colored people of the neighborhood flocked
around to get a glimpse of this great man.
Although the freight was very valuable sometimes and often
carried great distances, robbing or molesting these trains was
something unheard of. They were perfectly secure while on the
move or in camp, even in the most sparsely settled districts,
because there were no robbers or gangs of thieves organized in
those days to plunder passing teams It is quite doutful whether
the same would be true nowadays if a return to the old method
of transportation was resorted to.
The country merchants in
those days were contented and
happy, I suppose, to be able to get their orders filled and goods
delivered inside of from thirty to ninety days.
This great public
highway, which was kept in such splendid
condition in 1849 and prior thereto, and which had so many
beautiful camping grounds where wood and water were
convenient and not far apart, with little villages every ten or
fifteen miles, where there were inns for travellers to rest and feed
their horses has become a thing of the past along with that old
system of travel and transportation. I have seen many men,
called travelers in those days, pass over that old road going to,
or from the South or West on horseback, with large saddlebags
strapped behind them armed with a horse pistol, which was
about twenty inches long and as large as an old flint musket.
Usually they carried a pair of these pistols hanging down in
front of them, one on each side of the horses neck. That was
the usual way of travel in those days when persons wished
to go a long distance, particularly to the West or South.
Signs of this old road can yet be seen in places, but the
road has been almost deserted, and has grown up in
forest.
In front of our old place, and in fact from Millers Store, a
little village with a post-office, to Scofields, a similar place, a
distance of ten miles, that old road was nearly on a straight line,
was broad and almost level, and was the pride of that
community; but when I saw it in July, 1893, and attempted with
a horse and buggy to pass over it for a distance of a few miles I
found it impassable. From John Queensbury's Public Inn and
Camping ground to our old home, a distance of three miles the
old road has been entirely obliterated.
This road was kept in such a fine condition up to 1849
that many tobacco raisers used to put rollers around one or two
hogs heads of tobacco, weighing about a thousand pounds
each, then attach a pair of shafts and with a single horse draw
them to Richmond, a distance of sixty miles.
I readily recall many different kinds of travel and trade
which once thrived on this public highway. Richmond at that
date being a great pork market and the most convenient one for
the pork raisers of West Virginia and the Eastern portion of
Kentucky, and this old public highway being the most direct
route for travel from the West to Richmond, these hog raisers, in
order to reach a market for their hogs, were compelled to drive
them on foot over the road a distance of over two hundred
miles. I have seen as many as three hundred hogs in one drove
pass our old home in one
day going towards Richmond. Usually these hog drivers
brought along several wagon loads of corn to feed their hogs
while en route. They could and did travel from ten to twelve
miles a day, and from early fall to spring each year many
thousand hogs were driven into Richmond over this public
highway.
Besides supplying Richmond with pork, which in turn,
furnished other places, especially in the South, these hog raisers
sold hogs to planters on the road, who had failed to raise
enough pork for home consumption. Pork was the principal
meat diet at that time for both white and blacks there being few
sheep or beef cattle killed for table use, and then always for the
table of the master classes.
To advise a farmer now living in West Virginia or Eastern
Kentucky, who owns a hundred head of marketable hogs, to
drive them two hundred miles to market, as his father had done,
would be considered by him very foolish advice. But such was
the only way of transportation of that kind of product prior to
the year 1849, of which the writer has personal recollections.
These cases mentioned show clearly what railroads have
done, not only for Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, but the
whole country and especially the Southern portion of it.
Richmond was also the principal slave market and this
public highway the most direct route to the Southern cotton
fields, especially those of Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana,
Arkansas, and Tennessee, and Negro traders passed over it
many times each year with gangs of slaves bought at the public
auction block in Richmond. I have seen many gangs of slaves driven
over this old road. Usually, the slave men were handcuffed
together with long chains between them extending the whole
length of the gang, which contained as many as forty,
sometimes, or twenty on each side of the chain marching in line.
The women and small boys were allowed to walk unchained in
the line while the children and the lame and those who were
sick rode in wagons. The entire caravan would be under the
charge of the owner and a guard of four or five poor white men
armed each with a rawhide whip, with which to urge the gang
along and to keep them in line or at least in the road.
It was not the custom, neither was it to the owner's
interest, to treat these slaves brutally, for, like mules brought up
to be carried to a better market, or where larger prices
prevailed, it was absolutely necessary that they should not show
any signs of ill-treatment; and I cannot recall ever having seen
the punishment of one of them. Of course these Negro traders
could not allow grown men to march in line unchained,
particularly those who did not want to go, because they might
become unmanagable, run away, and escape capture,
thus
causing the loss of the price paid for them, or at least give
considerable trouble. As a general rule, many of these slave
men were sold in the first place on account of
insubordination - had resisted their masters, or had beaten their
overseers, and such slaves were considered by their owners
dangerous fellows on the farm with others, especially young
men who might follow such examples. Then again many slaves
were sold because they had committed murder or some other
crime not deserving the death penalty, and there were no
penitentiaries for slaves.
These and many other recollections of my early life
crowded upon me as I looked upon the old familiar scenes. The
absence of familiar faces was no less remarkable than the
changes in lands and improvements, for I found only one man I
had seen before. There were two others whom I knew in that
vicinity and who had never left it, but I failed to find them at their
homes. I visited the home of Mrs. Sarah Perkinson, widow of
Lemuel Perkinson, mentioned in a previous chapter, but did not
see her, as she had left a few days prior on a visit to relatives in
North Carolina. I was really sorry I did not see her, for I could
have obtained much valuable information from her, as she had
remained in that community ever since the year 1849, and could
have given me an interesting history of past events. She still
owns the old Perkinson farm consisting of about two thousand
acres. The old frame mansion which was built before 1841 was
still there and in a fair state of preservation, and without any
apparent change since I last saw it forty-four years ago. I found
old man, Major Perkinson, one of Mrs. Perking former slaves,
occupying the Great House and tilling the land. There were
about fifty acres under cultivation; the balance had grown wild.
The old Major who is now ninety years of age and quite active,
remembered me very well and proceeded to treat me like a
southern gentleman of the old school would have done. I next
visited our old home which was one mile away. Here I found
the great house, also a frame building, built in the summer of
1842, in a good state of preservation, and as I went through
every room I am sure that there had been but little change in its
structure. I also visited the spot where my
mother's cabin stood, and then how forcibly those lines of the
poet touched my mind, "Childhood days now pass before me,
forms and scenes of long ago,'' etc. The quarters for the colored
people had disappeared here as well as those at Mrs.
Perkinson's place. This place is now owned by a Yankee lady
in New York, and of the six hundred acres under fence when
we left it in 1849, only four acres are now in use, the balance
having grown up in forest.
I visited several places of interest, and among them was
Green Bay, about two miles north of our old home. Here I met
Mr. Thomas Rowlett, the station agent, and one, Mr. Scott,
and a merchant named Richardson, whose father I
remembered. All three of these men are direct descendants of
the "Blue Bloods," and I found them still defending the right. I
was greatly impressed by a remark made by Mr. Richardson;
he said, "We are now, and will be for the next twenty years,
suffering from the curse of slavery; it cursed the slave, it
cursed his master, it cursed the land." He then called
attention to the thousands of acres gone wild, too
poor to produce anything, and the owners were unable to
bring them to a rentable condition, and the colored people
could not make a living on them and of course, left the country
in search of work. He said one could buy land anywhere in that
community for three dollars per acre. Of course it will cost at
least ten dollars more to bring it up to a fair state of cultivation.
When I saw these fine lands in 1849, tilled by slave labor, and
kept in the very highest state of cultivation, and on which
splendid crops of tobacco, corn and wheat were raised, I could
not have realized that in the space of forty-four years these
same lands
would be a wilderness, the owners scattered, and even the
former slaves gone. But so it is, and the names of the people
who owned them forgotten. The only men I found who had
remained and retained not only the old master's name, but the
farm as well, were the Scotts, consisting of the father, two
sons, Charles and Thomas, and a daughter, Mrs. Lefere. They
had acquired the old homesteads of their old masters in
each case and occupied the great house built of brick over
sixty years ago, and still in good condition. These farms were
adjoining each other and located on the Pike Road leading to
Farmville, and near Sandy River Church. I remembered these
farms and the Scotts very well, and also the church where
my master used to go to worship quite often, and allowed his
slaves to go occasionally on Saturday afternoon. Why I recall
this so vividly is, because Sandy River was a clear deep stream
with an abundance of fish, and while the older ones attended
divine service I went fishing.
The Scotts, Col. Scott, Charles and Thomas A. Scott,
brothers, were considered the most aristocratic people in that
community, and owned quite a large number of slaves and
treated them humanely, a fact which the father of the Scotts
now owning the lands will testify to. Old masters are dead, and
their children, having sold the old farms and scattered, their
former slaves now own these estates and are industrious and
thrifty farmers. They had the best crops I saw in that country,
with good stock in splendid condition. I found the wife of
Thomas Scott and Mrs. Lefere splendid housekeepers and
entertained as none but Virginia ladies can. Each had one
or more grown daughters, well educated, refined, and very
pretty girls. I confess my surprise at finding such intelligent
and fashionably dressed girls in that community.
It is encouraging to note the advancement made upon the
stronghold of ignorance, superstition and voodooism by the
Colored people, since their emancipation from the bonds of
slavery, and especially is this so to those who remember the time
when a large majority; of them believed strongly in all kinds of
superstition voodooism, gophering, tricking and conjuring.
I readily recall many instances wherein they were fleeced
out of their little valuables or money by professional humbugs,
known as conjurors, who succeeded in duping their fellow-slaves
so successfully, and to such an extent, that they believed
and feared them almost beyond their masters. I have known of
cases where these conjurors held whole neighborhoods, as it
were in such mortal fear, that they could do unto the Colored
people anything they desired, without the least fear of them telling
their masters. These conjurors made all kinds of boasts and
threats, as to what they could and would do to anyone who
dared to interfere with them or even dispute their word, or
question their ability to carry out what they claimed to be able to
do.
These conjurors claimed to be able to do almost anything
in the line of impossibilities, even to taking lift by the winking of
their eye, to make a master be kind to a slave, to prevent him
from selling one, even if he desired to do so, to make a girl love
a man, whether she desired him or not, to make a man love and
even marry a woman if she desired him.
For a stipulated sum paid them, they would give what was
called "a hand or a jack," which they claimed would enable the
horde to accomplish what he desired, and at the same time
protect him from all harm, provided always, that the holder had
faith and followed instructions.
These conjurors claimed to be able to bury a hand or a
jack under the master's door step, which would prevent him
from whipping a particular slave while it was there. Of course,
if that particular slave got whipped, and so reported to the old
conjuror, he would promptly claim one of three things, either
that someone had removed the jack, or that the fellow had
failed to carry out instructions, or had no faith in the jack, and
therefore was deserving of punishment.
These conjurors claimed to be able to put pain, or even
permanent disability upon any one they desired, and could
remove the trick put on by another conjuror, could cause live
scorpions to appear under the skin of persons, and could take
out those put there by other conjurors. They claimed that nearly
every pain or ache was the result of conjuration, and the one
sent for could take it off. To show to what extent these people
believed in voodooism, and could be fleeced, I will relate a story
told me by Ike Cabel, of Brunswick, Mo. He said he was out
with a surveying party about the year I852, and camped near a
large plantation in Louisiana. He gave it out among the slaves
that he was a conjuror, and soon thereafter his camp was
besieged every night by slaves with all kinds of aches and pains,
which he cured with red clay, oak leaves and salt boiled, and
collected fifty cents from each. A man came one night claiming
that he had a scorpion in his
leg, and that he felt it running up and down the leg. He told the
man to come the next night, which he did. The next day he
wanted a live scorpion, and being afraid of it himself, he got two
young white men of the party to catch one for him, promising
them one-half he was to receive for the job, and of course, let
them into the secret. They captured a scorpion, wrapped it up
carefully in brown paper, so that it could not escape or bite, and
delivered it to Ike.
After rubbing the man's leg for a while with his other trick
medicine with one hand, carefully holding his little animal in the
other, and when ready for the final act, he looked heavenward,
and in a loud voice commanded the scorpion to come out of the
man's leg. Then in a few seconds he informed his dupe that the
animal had come, and at the same time, and by a quick motion,
freed the scorpion and brushed it from the leg to the floor, when
the freed scorpion attempted to escape, and was killed and
carried away by the patient after paying the three dollars.
Now it would have been a hard job to convince that poor,
innocent, unsuspecting man, that he did not have a live scorpion
taken from his leg. His imagination was cured, and he was
satisfied, and spread the news far and wide of his wonderful
cure.
It is claimed that the way scorpions and other little
poisonous animals or insects are gotten into the body is through
whiskey. That the little scorpion is killed and laid out to dry, and
when thoroughly dried is beaten into dust, and the dust put into a
bottle of whiskey, and in a short time after being drank will
reproduce itself, whatever it is, under the skin of the drinker. At
any rate, I remember that conjurors were
never asked for a drink of whiskey, and people were always
afraid to take a drink from some men's bottle until the owner
had drank first, "to take the poison off."
These conjurors practiced with different kinds of roots,
seeds, barks, insects, and other strange ingredients, but polk
root and green planten were among their principal remedies to
take off a trick or a pain. Of course they had some queer ways
of mixing things to make it appear mysterious A poultice made of
polk root is said to be a good remedy for rheumatism, and these
conjurors probably knew that, and put in the poultice a few
harmless things to make it appear strange, and if the rheumatic
pain was removed, they would claim that they had taken off a
trick put there by some conjuror. Of course different conjurors
have different jacks and different "hands," but the two I saw
were composed of hog-bristles, old horse shoe nails, a little red
clay, salt, red pepper, red oak leaves, soaked in vinegar, then
wrapped in a roll about three inches long and one inch thick, and
tied with a yarn string very tightly. There is a peculiar lingo to
accompany the "jack," and it varies according to requirements.
To show how thoroughly these people believed in
conjurors, and to what extent they could be imposed upon by
them, I will relate one more instance, which was told me by an
old lady whose word I cannot doubt, and whom I have known
for these many years, but to honor and cheer. She said that she
belonged to one of two brothers living on adjoining farms in
Amelia County, Va, prior to the year 1830, and that one of them
was a bachelor and the other a widower, and that they loved
each other dearly. That they owned about
thirty slaves each, and that one of them decided to break up and
take his slaves to Alabama, and made all arrangements to do
so. When the day came to start, he gave the order to load the
wagons and hitch up the horses, which was done, and that they
remained standing, as did the slaves, until late in the
afternoon, when the master came to the front door and gave
orders to unload and unhitch the teams, and for the slaves to go
to his brother's field to work. On the next day he left on
horseback in company with another man bound for Alabama.
She said that many of his slaves did not want to go, and
hearing of a great conjuror living ten miles away, made up a
purse and sent for him. He came the night previous to the time
set for starting to Alabama. My informant says, that he told them
upon his arrival, that they hid waited too long in sending for him,
that if they had sent for him earlier he could have stopped all, but
now he could only stop the slaves from going, and even that
would depend on whether the master walked over a "hand,"
which he was going to put under the front door steps. She says
the old conjuror went to the front door steps of the great house
about twelve o'clock that night, dug a small hole under the
ground step, took from his pocket a little ball, talked to it a while
in a whisper, then kissed it and put it in the hole, and covered it
carefully and came away. That the slaves, she among them,
watched the old master next morning, until they saw him come
down the steps and walk around a while, then go back over this
particular step. That they were then satisfied that the old master
could not take them anywhere, and he did not.
I was never able to convince my dear old lady friend that
all conjurors were humbugs, and this one was among them, and
that it was purely a matter of chance so far as he was
concerned. I do not want it understood that these conjurors
were believed in by all Colored people, for there were a large
number of intelligent ones, who paid no attention to conjurors,
even defied them, told them that they were humbugs and liars
These conjurors were a shrewd set of fellows, and on that
account alone were enabled to fool the less informed. They were
industrious, and hard working, and faithful servants, and of
course received no punishment, and were keen enough to point
to this fact as evidence of the power of their jack in keeping their
master under control, when, as a matter of fact, it was their
faithful service alone that protected them from the lash.
There have been cases where Colored people took sick
from some cause, and imagined themselves tricked or poisoned
by some one, and the white doctor, unable to do them any
good, gave up the case, and the patients, believing themselves
poisoned and therefore incurable, have died, when they might
have been saved, if the white doctor had only thought for a
moment, and instead of giving up the case, announced himself a
conjuror, and proceeded to doctor his patient's mind.
Superstition in some form has always existed, especially
among illiterate people, regardless of color, and the more
illiterate the greater the amount of superstition, and as a case of
strong evidence of this, I point to the "spirit dance" by the
Indians of the far West, where the excitement created by it has
been so great, that an uprising was only kept down by the
vigilance
of the regular army. While conjuring, tricking and gophering, and
the like, were believed in by the slaves, and spirit dances and
other forms of superstition were practiced by the Indians, the
American white people believed as strongly in another form of
superstition called "witch craft," that they burnt innocent men
and women at the stake.
In order to show that education and intelligence are the
great powers which have been the means of dispelling the gloom
of superstition and voodooism among the Colored people
especially, I will state that the Colored people of Missouri,
particularly those of Chariton, Howard, Carroll and Randolph
counties, were above the ordinary slaves in the more extreme
Southern states in intelligence and education, and did not believe
in voodooism or conjuration nearly as much as those in old
Virginia, and when one was brought to Missouri who claimed to
be able to exercise those miraculous powers, he was
immediately laughed and openly defied by all excepting a few of
the more illiterate. I recall one instance where a man named
Magruder, who owned about forty slaves, which he brought to
Brunswick, Missouri, from Virginia, and bought land near the
town and settled thereon. Among his slaves was an old,
whiteheaded, crippled man, known as a conjuror. He claimed to
be able to do many mysterious and impossible things, and among
those who belonged to his master he was believed and feared,
but the Colored people in that vicinity laughed at him, defied his
threats, and denounced him as an old humbug, for in truth such
he was, and when those who believed in him saw him defied and
denounced, and his inability to carry out his threats, they took
courage and denounced him too. When he saw his business
assailed and himself defied, with no more opportunity to gull the
people, he gave it out that his favorite plants and roots did not
grow or could not be found in that country, and that alone was
the reason why he could not practice his profession. The truth of
the matter was, that the Colored people in that state were more
intelligent than those from whence he came, and therefore
could not be easily humbugged.
After having traveled over the rich lands of the Western
Country, where fine crops were raised without much effort, and
especially without any fertilizer, our master could not be content
to remain in the poor, hilly, rocky state of Virginia, and determined
to go to Mississippi, where his sister, Mrs. Susan Green then
lived. So, about October, 1849, having sold the old farm he started
with his slaves.
On this occasion there was a separation of man
and wife. Eight or ten months previously, my sister Eliza had been
married to a man named Tom, belonging to Nathan Fulks, who
claimed inability to buy my sister, and her owner said he did not
have the cash to spare to buy Tom, but offered to take him
along and pay hire for him, which his master refused, and thus
they were separated forever. She married again after six or
seven years, but I never heard of Tom afterward.
While en route to Mississippi, Uncle Walt, before
mentioned, was taken sick with some kind of a fever and had to
be left for better care and treatment near the line of Virginia and
Tennessee. His wife, Aunt Martha, did not want to be
separated from him and was left, too. I have been informed
recently that they were sold to the man with whom they were
left. I remember when we lived in adjoining cabins that they
were very quarrelsome people, and did not want their son Isaac
to play with me, because, they said, I was a
"yarler nigger." I may have been a bad boy at that time and am
not now prepared to say that I was not, but they used to treat
me meanly in every possible way, and I often sauced them and
ran when they got after me. I remember that I was wicked
enough to be glad when they were left or sold, because they,
particularly Aunt Martha, were always trying to raise trouble
about something.
With one exception our master then owned only my
mother and her children. By the first of December, I849, we had
reached the Greene plantation, located about fifteen miles from
Holly Springs, Mississippi, which was a very large one and tilled
by about three hundred slaves in charge of a very mean
overseer.
The day after our arrival at this place, those old enough to
pick cotton were sent to the field, and this was my first
experience in cotton-picking. We were called up by the
overseer by means of a horn, ate breakfast and were in the field
by daylight, sometimes, before it was light enough to see the
cotton balls, and kept steadily at work till noon, when dinner
was brought to us on large trays and the order given by the
overseer to eat. We sat down right there and as soon as the
last mouthful was swallowed the order was given to go to work.
We were given good, wholesome food and plenty of it, only the
time was so short in which to eat it. From noon until dark we
were driven by the overseer who carried a long whip called a
blacksnake.
At dark, the females were allowed to go to their quarters,
but the men and boys were divided into squads of five; each had
a bale of cotton to turn out. Gins run by mules had been going
all day, making lint cotton which had to be put in bales, and
each bale had
to stand under the press about twenty minutes, so that the last
squad seldom got through earlier than nine o'clock; and this
went on each day except Sunday.
Mr. Greene ran a large cooking establishment, so that
when the work of the day was over supper was ready for all,
and the horn was blown for breakfast an hour before daylight.
We remained here until January 1, 1850, when we were
hired to Thomas Greene, a son of Mr. Greene, living about eight
miles away. We got along without any punishment, while at old
man Greene's plantation, but I saw others whipped. It has
occurred to me since that our owner had something to do with
this, for he was opposed to brutal treatment generally. He had
hired us out for a year, but in March of that year he had become
so dissatisfied with that country that he determined to leave it
and go back to Missouri.
Slave owners, even Mississippians, were not all brutal.
This was especially true of young Thomas Greene and his wife
who were very good people. There was also a man named Cox,
near by, who owned about four hundred slaves whom he treated
very well. He gave them good quarters and built a church on his
place and hired a white preacher to preach the gospel to them
every Sunday, and compelled each slave to attend. He gave each
man the use of an acre of land, and every Saturday afternoon to
cultivate it. One acre, well cultivated, would yield a bale of cotton
which Mr. Cox would sell for them and buy whatever little things
they might want, especially such as were not furnished by him.
Usually this would be nice Sunday clothes, shoes, hats and
Sunday wear for the women. I wish to state that Mr. Cox gave
a half day every Saturday to
all of his slaves, and I state this from personal knowledge,
having visited the Cox plantation many times and played with
the boys and girls thereon.
There was also a large plantation south of the Greene
place, but the owner's name I cannot recall. He owned a large
number of slaves and I was told was kind to them, but I
remember that he allowed no visitors on his place, neither did he
allow any of his slaves to get outside of his fence at any time. He
had some very pretty girls about my age, and we met and talked
with the fence between us, on Sunday afternoon.
A near neighbor's cattle used to break into the field and
destroy corn and other grain on Green's plantation and I had to
drive them out, and in doing so threw a brick which broke the
leg of one of them. The owner of it came over very soon and
wanted to whip me for doing it, and I supposed would have
done so, as he was a very large man, but Mr. Greene came to
my rescue, ordered him off the place and told him, "If you whip
the boy, I will whip you." He left, threatening to whip me the first
time he caught me off Mr. Greene's land. I never went on this
neighbor's land after that.
Having hired us out for a year, our master could not
rightfully claim us until the end of the time specified in the
contract, unless he would give the time we had served from
January to March free, which he agreed to do, and once more
we were in his possession. I am unable to express the joy we
felt when he informed us of his intention to take us back to
Missouri. That was a great blessing to us, and the older ones
thanked the Lord for this deliverance. He came to our quarters
one Sunday afternoon and gave us this very welcome news, and
I remember that we were so
overjoyed that we could not sleep that night. He got started
about April 1, 1850. Having sold his teams when we reached
Mississippi, our owner had to hire Mr. Greene's team to haul us
to Memphis, Tennessee, where we took steamer bound for St.
Louis, and thence to Brunswick, Missouri. The trip was a
pleasant one and made in less than ten days.
There was much rejoicing when we were landed at
Brunswick, and were met at the levee by W. B. Bruce, with a
conveyance to take us out to his plantation, were we met old
acquaintances, including my brother and sister, who also
belonged to him. We were once more in the state we loved
and intent or remaining whether our master liked it or not,
for he had brought us where it was not so easy to take slaves
about without their consent, and besides some had become
men.
I recall that one Sunday, about two years afterwards, our master
sent for the four men of us to meet him at the home of W. B
Bruce. We did so and he informed us that he had about made
up his mind to take us all to Texas. My older brothers, James
and Calvin, told him they would not go and I joined in. He got
angry and ordered us to "shut up," which we did. He then told
us to come back next Sunday, when he would tell us what to
depend on, which was done and then, after seeing how bitterly
his plans were opposed by us he informed us that he would buy
land and settle in that country, which he did within two years.
After resting a few days upon our arrival at Mr. Bruce's
from Mississippi, we were all hired to one J. B. Barrett, a
tobacconist. My sisters were hired out as house girls and
mother as cook to a man named
Treadway, a school teacher who was a mean man, not only to
her, but to his wife as well. I don't think he ever struck my
mother, but he abused her in every other way possible His wife
was a good woman and treated mother humanely, but old
Treadway was so mean that he would not allow any of mother's
children to come to his kitchen to see her at any time, and in
order to see her we used to wait until he was in bed, and then
steal in. I don't think mother stayed there longer than that year.
The next two years she was hired to J. B. Barrett, who
allowed his wife to manage the household affairs to suit herself,
and as she was a very good woman and mother a good cook
they got along splendidly, and Mrs. Barrett was well pleased
with mother's style of cooking.
J. B. Barrett hired six of us for three years, and although he
was a noisy kind of man, cursed a good deal and threatened to
whip or have it done by his overseer, one Jesse Hare, he
seldom punished anyone, especially those who were grown. I
worked for him from June 1850, to January 1, 1854, and was
whipped only once and that for fighting another fellow who had
struck my younger brother, B. K. Bruce. This man, Charles
Sanders, was a grown man at that time and I was an eighteen
year old boy, yet I beat him so badly that he was disabled for
work, at least two months thereafter. Knowing so well what
would follow after this fight, I ran to the woods and made my
way to my owner, about four miles distant. But that did not save
me for the overseer came after me, and after I had made my
statement my owner's answer was, "You knew better than to
fight and you will be whipped, and
I will do nothing to prevent it." I wanted him to pay
my fine and save me. He came to town with me, and
in the presence of J. B. Barrett and himself I was
whipped by old Jesse Hare, who did not like me and
took this opportunity to lay the lash on very hard, but
was promptly stopped by J. B Barrett and severely
reprimanded for his brutality.
This man Hare disliked me any way, because of
an old score, for previous to that he had attempted to
flog me and I resisted, and threatened to go to my
master. But I doubt very much, even now, whether
he would have protected me in such a case, for he was
so bitterly opposed to a slave's resisting or being saucy
to a white man.
After the factory closed in the fall of 1853, I was
hired out by J. B Barrett to a poor white man, named
David Hampton, and had not been with him more than
a month when one of his boys sauced me and I slapped
him. He ran to his father who called me to him,
ordered me to take off my shirt, a thing neither my
master nor any other man had ordered me to do. Of
course I refused to obey and told him so in language
which he understood. He then threw a stick of cordwood
at me which missed its mark, and I pricked it up
and was about to throw it back, when he ran into the
house. This ended our fight. I would be ashamed of
myself, even now, had I allowed that poor white man
to whip me. But the fun came later. When supper
was called, the old man and his wife had eaten and left
the table, and the children, two girls and three small
boys and I ate together. Just as I finished and was
about to leave the table, the old lady came in behind
me with a hickory switch in hand. I could not afford
to resist her, neither could I get out until she had given
me several severe blows. She left her marks on me,
which I carried for several days, and I suppose she was
satisfied; I know I was.
But after all, the Hamptons were very reasonable
people and I was well pleased with them, and often
visited them afterward. While they were poor people
they were not the typical poor whites. Many of the
parties mentioned are living and can take me to task if
I misrepresent facts; but I have stated the truth in
every particular, as I saw and experienced it.
There was a trait of character running through
my mother's family, a desire to learn, and every member
could read very well when the war broke out, and
some could write. The older ones would teach the
younger, and while mother had no education at all, she
used to make the younger study the lessons given by
the older sister or brother, and in that way they all
learned to read. Another advantage we enjoyed was
this: we were all hired to the same man and we
worked and slept together in the same factory where,
by hard work, we usually made some little money
every week, which we could spend for whatever suited
our fancy.
The men who hired slaves, and owners as well,
had to feed and clothe them, and the slaves had no care
as to those necessaries. Slavery in some portions of
Missouri was not what it was in Virginia, or in the
extreme South, because we could buy any book wanted
if we had the money to pay for it, and masters seemed
not to care about it, especially ours, but of course there
were exceptions to the rule.
But, returning to my life in the tobacco factory, I
must state that when we were hired out our owner
notified the hirer that he did not whip any of his grown
slaves, and would not allow it to be done by anyone
else, and when the man who hired them found that he
could not get along without punishing he should return
them to him. That was the saving clause for us, but we
did not take advantage of this to shirk or play; as proof
of this I will state that there are men now living in
Brunswick, who will bear testimony to the fact that the
"Bruce hands," as we were called, brought the highest
prices. Our master received from two hundred and
fifty to three hundred dollars a year for each man or
boy over seventeen years old, the hirer to feed and
clothe us, etc.
When the factory closed in September, 1854, I was
hired to Charles Cabel, a farmer, recently from Louisiana,
living about four miles from town and who owned
twenty-five or thirty slaves, and was reported to be a
very hard master I had been used to good fare, and
that prepared and served clean and nice, but here the
meals were served in such unclean vessels, while they
may have been wholesome, I could not and would not
eat them. W. B. Bruce lived only a mile away, and I
went there to supper, stayed all night, took my breakfast
and dinner with me to work.
In a few days Mrs. Susan Cabel found this out and
sent for me; I explain, and she said that her Negroes
were so very dirty that she did not blame me, and from
that date she sent my meals from her table, which came
in nice clean dishes and in abundance. She was a good
mistress as far as I knew.
Mr. Cabel had a very large number of lazy slaves
and often inflicted punishment when, in my opinion, it
might have been avoided. After I had been at his
place about ten days he sent me with another fellow
named Ike to split rails in a large body of timber north
of his house. We had been at this work but a very
short time, when I discovered Ike to be a lazy man. I
had never been thrashed on account of laziness and did
not want to chance it at that time, knowing the reputation
of Mr. Cabel as a hard master. I had never split
rails before and was put under Ike for training, and of
course had to do as he directed. He was a great
storyteller and would often stop to tell a story. I urged him
to work but could not keep him at it over ten minutes
at a time.
One day when we had cut off a log and I had
commenced to split it, while Ike was sitting in the
shade, I called on him to come and help me turn the
log over, which he failed to do, and I went on working
it alone. Mr. Cabel who had been watching near by
and had heard all that was said came up, as if by
magic, gun in hand, which he set by a stump, took out
his knife, cut a hickory switch and ordered Ike to take
off his shirt. Ike begged in vain, but he gave him
thirty or more lashes on the bare back. During this
exciting time I was scared almost to death, thinking my
time would come next. I was tempted to break and
run to my master but knowing I had done my duty I
concluded not to do so until I was called to take my
share of this thrashing. I had determined to run if
called and take chances on being shot, for I could not
and would not stand such punishment as was given Ike.
When he had finished whipping Ike he said, "Henry
will work if you will let him; I have been listening to
you for an hour." I can never express the relief those
words gave me, for I did not want to be forced to resist
and would not submit to any kind of corporal punishment,
and was glad that I did not run while Ike was
being punished. I served out my term with Mr. Cabel,
which ended December 25, 1854, without even being
scolded. Ike and I were separated after the
above-mentioned incident, fully half a mile, and I was given a
task which I performed easily every day. I shall speak
of Mr. Cabel again later on.
On January 1, 1855, with three younger brothers, I
was hired to Mr. Beasley, who owned a large tobacco
factory and worked about eighty hands, mostly hired. I
did not want to go there and told my master so in the
presence of Mr. Beasley, who asked the reasons why.
I told him that I had heard that he was a hard man to
please. My master remained silent during this conversation
and finally Beasley and I came to terms, he
assuring me that if we worked for him as he had been
informed we did for Mr. Barrett, we would have no
trouble. After it was arranged my master took me
aside and severely scolded me for speaking so harshly
to Mr. Beasley. I took it easy for I never sauced him
at any time. But that was my opportunity to make
easy sailing that year with Beasley.
The overseer at this factory was named Tom
Black, who was really a much better man than old
Jesse Hare, and if one would do his work faithfully
would have no trouble with Mr. Black. He and I
became fast friends and I had an easy time, but I always
did my work well. Beasley gave an order that for
men were to come to his residence after the factory
closed, at sunset each day to cut or saw wood. When
my time came I refused to go. He was informed of the
fact and said he was going to have Tom Black whip me
the next day, which was Saturday; in fact he told him
in my presence to do it on Monday morning. But previous
to this he called me up to know why I disobeyed
his order. I told him that I was not hired for that purpose.
Oh, but how he did cut up, yet he did not attempt to strike me.
Before going home to my master, which I certainly
should have done, I thought it best to use a little strategy.
During Sunday I had a talk with Mr. Black in
which I told him my plans. He advised me not to go,
and said that unless ordered again he would not
attempt to whip me, and even then he would give me
plenty of chance to run; but he said he would go and
see Mr. Beasley that day. Now what passed between
them I am unable to state, but when Mr. Black
returned he said it was all right, and it was, for I was
never molested after that, and Mr. Beasley revoked the
order and had two men detailed to saw wood about
four o'clock every evening. I had no more trouble that
year with Beasley or his overseer.
I enjoyed life in the factories very much. We had
good wholesome food and plenty of it, and when the
factory closed at sunset we were free to go where we
pleased until sunrise next day. I remember that the
M. E. Church, South, allowed the colored people to
meet in the basement of their church, and their minister
preached to them every Sunday, commencing at three
o'clock, P. M., and his text was not always from Luke
xii. 47, or Titus ii. 9, but I have no recollection of hearing
one preached from Ephesians vi. 9, where the
duties of master to servant are explained. Some of the
ministers were good men and preached reasonable sermons
giving good advice, spiritually and morally, and
were beloved by their colored congregations. I
remember one whose name was W. G. Cooper, who
was so well admired by his colored flock that they
raised forty-five dollars and presented him a suit of
clothes, when he went to conference, and sent a
petition to have him returned to that charge.
Nearly every slave made some money which he
could spend for fine clothes or such other things suited
to his taste, so that when attending church I remember
that the slaves were dressed almost as nicely as their
owners, at any rate they looked as well as I have seen
them on like occasions since they have been free.
We had some colored preachers, too, who held
prayer meetings in their quarters and preached every
Sunday afternoon in the white people's church, but
there was always some leading white man present to
take note of what the preacher said. If he used words
deemed insubordinate or not in keeping with the
pro-slavery idea, he was promptly stopped, there and then,
and lectured for his mistake, and in some cases his
license was recalled. Of course these licenses were
granted by his master to preach during good behavior.
Not three in ten of these preachers could read their
texts or any other part of the Bible, but they stood in
the pulpit, opened the Bible, gave out the song which
did not always fit the tune, and delivered prayer with
much force and in language that, while not the choicest,
greatly impressed its hearers.
There were a few colored men who could read the
Bible, in and around Brunswick at that time, but none
of them were preachers. The men who felt themselves
called to preach had no education at all, but had a fair
amount of brain, good memories, were fluent talkers,
and considered pious and truthful. They could line a
hymn from memory as clearly as their masters could
from their books, and take a text and state were it was
to be found.
I remember a story told
on Uncle Tom Ewing, an
old colored preacher, who was praying on one occassion, after the close of his sermon, in the church
near Jacob Vennable's place, five miles from Brunswick.
The old fellow got warmed up, and used the words,
"Free indeed, free from death, free from hell, free from
work, free from the white folks, free from everything."
After the meeting closed, Jacob Vennable, who sat in
front of the pulpit took Tom to task and threatened to
have his license revoked if he ever used such language
in public. Jacob Vennable was a slave holder and
considered a fair master, so I was informed by Jesse, one
of his slaves, and others who were supposed to know.
I heard Uncle Tom preach and pray many times after
the above-described occurrence, but never heard him
use the words quoted above.
I remember when a question as to the purity of
Christians (whether two clean sheets could soil each
other) was being agitated among the colored people in
the Bluff, as the hilly portion of the country, five miles
east of Brunswick, was then called It was argued
pro and con with considerable warmth on both sides
by the preachers and lay members. Considerable
excitement was created thereby, and pending this the
white men called a meeting and ordered some of the
leading advocates of this new doctrine to appear before
them, and they were then and there notified that if they
did not stop that kind of talk, they, the white people,
would whip every man who favored the clean sheet
idea. That ended the new idea and I heard no more
of it. I was then living on a farm in that neighborhood
and know whereof I speak.
There is this to be said for the slaveholders in that
part of the country, at least, that they believed in having
their slave women live a virtuous life, and encouraged
them in getting married, and did not under any
circumstances allow plural marriages among them. Of
course there would be occasionally a strange freak, a
black mother with a very light-colored child, whose
real father's name was never stated, but these cases
were rare, the exception rather than the rule. When
two lovers became engaged, the consent of the girl's
parents, and that of both masters, if they belonged to
different owners, had to be obtained. Then the girl's
master would give them a wedding supper, and invite
a few of his white friends, who would dine first, then
the bridal party and their invited guests. The ceremony
was usually performed by a colored preacher.
After supper dancing commenced, which lasted until a
late hour, when they would disperse. The master had
built and furnished a cabin for the couple, and when
the time came to retire, they were conducted to their
cabin and left, after receiving many blessings.
I have stated in this chapter, that there were many
masters who encouraged slave girls in their efforts to
live virtuous lives, and in a former chapter, I stated
that there were thousands of high-toned families,
although held in slavery by the laws of the land, and
who clearly understood their helpless condition, and yet,
by reason of having superior blood in their veins, were
enabled thereby to attain the very best conditions possible
under the circumstances. These people were very
sensitive as to their moral character and standing, and
abhorred disgrace and dishonor. To prove this I will
cite a case which occurred, and one of which I have
personal knowledge.
There lived a slave owner named V. Harper about
nine miles from Brunswick, Missouri, who owned quite
a number of slaves. Among them was an old man, his
wife, and several grown children, one of whom was a
very good-looking girl, about nineteen years old. This
family were considered high-toned and greatly respected
by others, even their owners, for their moral
worth and character, and held themselves quite above
the common slave.
The girl above mentioned was considered to be of
clean character and quite a belle. It is not known who
led her from the paths of rectitude, but when she
became aware of the fact, that at no distant day, she, a
single girl, would become a mother, and realized the
dishonor and loss of character which would follow the
exposure, she decided that death was preferable in her
case to disgrace, walked two miles to reach the
Missouri River, plunged herself into it and was drowned.
This occurred about the year 1858.
From 1857 to 1862 times
had become rather hard
on slaves in Chariton County, Missouri, and were very
little better for the free Negroes, for while they were
called free, they really had but few more privileges than
the slave. They had to choose guardians to transact
all their business, even to writing them a pass to go
from one township to another in the same county.
They could not own real estate in their own right,
except through their guardian, neither could they sell
their crop without his written consent. Of course, he
made a charge for everything he did for them, which
was quite a drain upon their resources. There were
two or three families of free Negroes in that county,
and some of them I often visited. In some cases slave
owners did not allow their slaves to associate or in any
way communicate with free Negroes, but our owner
did not prohibit us in this respect, neither did W. B.
Bruce.
Previous to 1840, an old man named Brown, and
his wife, together with their slaves, came to Chariton
County from the South. They had acquired seven
hundred acres of land in that neighborhood, which were
located about ten miles from Brunswick. They decided
to set their slaves free and leave to them, by will, all
their earthly possessions. In order to fit these freed
people for the battle of life, they determined to educate
them, and for this purpose started a school on the
plantation, with themselves as teachers. All who were old
enough were compelled to attend. I am unable to
state exactly the date when this commenced, but
remember that those old enough to attend it could read
and write fairly well when I became acquainted with
them in 1850. Unfortunately these people did not
succeed well; they became poorer each year after the
death of their master
There were found many causes for this state of
affairs. The property was left to them as a whole, and
was only to be subdivided under certain conditions
named in the will. All were not industrious, and the
thrifty had to support the lazy. The agent claimed the
right to sell the crop each year and divide the earnings
equally among the several families.
By order of the Court the plantation was sold in
1855, and the proceeds divided equally among them,
after which the families soon scattered, some going to
Iowa, and others to Illinois. I have not heard from
any of them since. The general opinion was that their
guardian, P. T. Abel, got the cream of that estate,
because when he arranged the sale of the plantation to
Captain Withers, he retained five hundred dollars of the
three thousand for his own professional service.
As already stated, there were three families of
freed Colored people in that county, and they could
only visit one another occasionally, because they lived
about ten or fifteen miles apart; to do so they had to
secure a written permit from their guardian, for if one
of them was caught on the public road without a pass,
he was subject to arrest by any white man who chose
to make it. Respecting these families of free Colored
people, I wish to state that there was one exception,
Davy Moore, or "Free Davy," as he was called, who
lived about five miles from Keytesville, the county seat
of Chariton count. He was a man of good character,
industrious habits, and greatly respected by the better
class of white people On account of faithful and
efficient service, his old master, Colonel Moore, gave
him his freedom, also that of his wife and children, and
eighty acres of land. He was treated like a man; held
the respect not only of the Colored, but the white people
as well, and enjoyed the same privileges as any
other man, excepting the right to vote. In his veins
flowed superior blood, and as has already been stated
in a former chapter, that blood will tell, regardless of
the color of the individual in whose veins it flows.
Singularly enough I had more real pleasure and
real freedom than these free people, for with my master's
horse and a pass from him I could ride over the
county, in fact did whenever occasion demanded it, and
without molestation. If disturbed I had only to show
my pass, when I would be immediately released.
Two older brothers of mine, who were bricklayers
and stone masons, hired their time from their owner
and travelled, not only in the county where we lived,
but also in the adjoining counties of Carroll, Howard
and Randolph, in search of work, armed with a pass
good only in Chariton County. They had no trouble
even outside of that county, because they were known
as slaves. They made their own contracts, collected
their pay, and were not disturbed.
I recall but one instance where either of them had
any trouble. One of them had secured a job in Randolph
County by underbidding a white man. Upon
finding he belonged to a man living in another county,
this white man had him arrested. He was carried to
Huntsville, the county seat, for trial. Fortunately there
was a man there named Cass Wisdom, who knew our
family, and who had him promptly released and became
responsible for my brother's behavior while in that
county. So that the only difference between the slave
and the free Negro, as I saw it, was that the latter had
no boss to make him work, or punish him if he did not;
he could ride over the county every day if only provided
with a pass from his guardian; he could spend
his earnings as he pleased after paying his guardian's
share. They certainly did not have as much fun as I
had, going to balls and parties given by slaves, where
they were not allowed to come. But still the free fellows
felt themselves better than the slave, because of
the fact, I suppose, that they were called free, while in
reality they were no more free than the slave, until the
war set both classes free. So bitter was the feeling
existing in Kansas in March, 1864, that those who
became free by the war were called, in derision, by the
freeborns, "contrabands."
An effort was made in Leavenworth, Kansas, in
1865 or 1866, to organize a combination or social
circle, which allowed no contraband to be in it. The
object of this organization, as I understood it, was to
control everything in which Colored people had a
voice, and it was to some extent successful, or at least
for a while. During those years a steady stream of
contrabands poured into Kansas, and soon constituted
about ninety per cent. of the colored population.
In a
few years many had acquired little homes and standing,
and had learned not only the object of the free class,
but their own strength, and it was not long before they
had relegated many of these would be leaders to the
rear. Of course this brought about a conflicting and
unfortunate state of affairs. The freeborns managed to
keep control of politics and especially the church and
other societies; they not only found, but created places
for one another. For a long time after the war, a
contraband preacher, however competent he might be,
could not get a charge that would give him a decent
support. All the fat places in the connection were
given to the other class. If a contraband was sent to a
small charge, and worked it up so as to get a fair living
out of it, and so reported to the conference, lay some
means he was replaced by one of the other set, and
sent further out.
I remember a worthy man named Jesse Mills, now
dead, who was a man of clean character, and had some
education, or at any rate could read and write; he had
been preaching before the war, and was a slave. For
nearly ten years that man did not get a decent charge,
and if he brought one up to the point where it
supported him, he had to go in order to give place to some
fellow preacher from the North, out of a job.
There were others served equally as badly as Jesse
Mills, whose names I have not the space to mention,
save one, who I feel should not be overlooked. Rev.
Moses White had been a preacher for several years
prior to the war, could read and write, in fact preached
quite an intelligent sermon, but not such an one as
would suit the conference; he therefore could not get
a charge. He had been one of the men who organized
and built the Colored A. M E. Church at Leavenworth,
prior to 1864; but he could not be or was not
assigned to any charge in that conference, and about
1867 or 1868, knowing or feeling that he had been
called to preach the gospel, he left the conference and
organized a church on his own responsibility.
I write of these matters as I knew them, not being
a member of any church at that time. In after years
young men got in, such as W. A. Moore, an ex-slave,
a man of clean character and of fine education, and
greatly beloved by all who knew him; J. W. Wilson,
who had been a slave and a brave soldier, and others of
their crass, self-educated men. They soon superseded
those old fogies or leeches, if the term is admissible.
So clearly and successfully has this been accomplished
by the admission of young men, sons of ex-slaves, that
to-day the term "contraband," or "freeborn," has been
forgotten. But I have drifted away from my subject,
"slavery, as I saw it on a plantation in Missouri," and
with the permission of the reader, will return, taking up
the line of recollections where I left off.
Early in the Spring of 1856, our master had
bought the Mann Plantation, located about seven miles
east of Brunswick, and had made all arrangements to
move to it, taking mother and four of her children,
including myself. I did not want to go, but my desires
in that respect were not considered, and I went without
entering even a mild protest. Having lived in the
city so long, I had lost all love for farm life. I had no
knowledge of farming, especially that kind carried on in
that part of the state, and personal experience taught
me that my master possessed but little more than I did,
because he ordered so many things done that were a
loss of time and money. In his experimenting, for
such it was, he would give an order one day, and
change it the next, causing the loss of many days of
labor. But it was my duty to obey him, right or wrong,
and I did it right along.
After I had gained some practical knowledge, by
experience, of the system of farming in that county, I
ventured to suggest to him when I saw a better plan,
or the uselessness of the order given. Of course he
would not take the course I had suggested at the time,
and in its entirety, but after thinking it over, he would
change his orders as nearly to my plans as possible,
without adopting them. But, oh, how I would catch it
if he found flaws in them afterwards.
He worked the first year on that plantation almost
as steadily as any of us, but that was his last year of
work while he was my owner. He was a man who
never talked much to his slaves at any time, as I have
worked with him without a word being said, aside from
my duty, between us many days, and I rather preferred
it, because if he said anything, it would usually be scolding.
I have a very clear recollection of the amount of
scolding I got the first Spring on that farm, when laying
off corn and tobacco rows. It was my first effort,
and in nearly every row there would be one or more
crooks, for which he would scold, then take my horse
and plow, straighten the row, and give them back;
pretty soon I would have it as crooked as before. The
result of all this was that I soon learned to lay off a row
nearly as straight as he could, and I will state that he
could and did lay off the straightest row I had ever
seen. He insisted that corn grew better in straight
rows than in crooked ones, and I became convinced of
the truth of his statements and took pride in having
every row as straight as if laid off by line, and have
been complimented on account of it.
At this plantation we had some neighbors whom I
did not like, men who came from Kentucky and other
southern states, and who tried to keep up the customs
in vogue in those states of curtailing the liberties of
their slaves, liberties which slaves in other parts of
Missouri enjoyed; but even then the life of a slave in
that part of Missouri was far better than in some of the
older slave states.
Being a green hand at farming, I made many
mistakes, which caused the boss to scold, but as that was
all the punishment he inflicted, I soon became used to
that, and went ahead doing the best I could. My boss
really delighted in scolding; he could quarrel, make
more noise, and do less whipping than any man in that
county. He was not mean, in the sense that some of
his neighbors were, and I have always believed that he
tried to appear to his neighbors what he was not, a hard
master. The reason why I entertained this belief is that
in the presence of a neighbor he always scolded
more, acted more crabbed, and was harder to please
than when alone with us, for as soon as the neighbor
left, we could get along with him very well. We were
well fed, had such vegetables as were raised on the
farm, and save biscuit and coffee, we had such food as
was prepared for him.
Farming in Missouri consisted in raising tobacco,
corn, wheat and stock, but tobacco was the principal
product for sale. With five hands we usually raised
about twenty thousand pounds, which at that time sold
in Brunswick for about eight cents per pound. Each
man was allowed one acre of ground to raise his own
little crop, which, if well cultivated, would produce
about nine hundred pounds of tobacco. We used his
horse and plow, and worked our crop as well as we
did his in the daytime, and when ready for market, he
sold our crop with his, giving each one his share.
This was our money, to be spent for whatever we
wanted aside from that given by him. He gave two
suits of summer and one of winter clothes, hats and
boots, blankets and underwear. Our cash was spent
for Sunday clothes, sugar, coffee and flour, for we
would have biscuits at least once a week, and coffee
every day.
The practice of allowing slaves ground to raise a
little crop obtained generally among slave owners, but
most of them had to work their crop of tobacco after
sundown, and without plowing. The master got the
benefit of this money after all, because the slave spent
it for his own pleasure and comfort, which was a direct
advantage to his master.
There were several slave owners around us at this
farm, some were called mean and some considered fair,
but the meanest man near us was a Yankee teacher,
preacher and farmer, S. J. M. Bebee, who owned or
hired four or five slaves, and treated them very meanly.
This man came to that county from the East, and by
teaching and preaching saved up money enough to buy
a farm, and was considered by the Colored people
meaner than the original slave-holders I lived on a
farm within two miles of Mr. Bebee's farm, and had
good opportunities to know the truth of what I state.
There lived near our home an old gentleman
named Ashby, usually called "Father Ashby," who
was a good man, much beloved by white and black,
and who dropped dead in the pulpit at the close of one
of his sermons. Previous to his death I used to visit
his place, and sometimes we exchanged work. He
owned three or four slaves and treated them kindly.
Pending the campaign of 1856, when Fremont was the
Republican nominee for President, I had a talk with
"Father Ashby." He then said that he believed slavery
to be wrong, but it was handed down to him from
his father, and although he held and owned slaves, he
had never bought or sold one, and had always treated
them well.
I had learned to read, and could understand enough
of the political situation at that date to be a "Fremont
man," but a very silent one. I am safe in saying that
Fremont did not receive one vote in Chariton County
at that election. Certainly there was not an outspoken
Republican in the county. Slave holders never talked
politics in the presence of slaves, but by some means
they learned the news, kept posted as to what was
going on, and expected to be set free if Fremont was
elected. A Colored man who could read was a very
important fellow, for they would come miles and bring
stolen papers for him to read to them at night or on
Sunday, and I have known them to go to town and
buy them from Dr. Blue, an old slave-holder, and bring
them to some slave who could read.
Our owner did not like the farm he owned, and
early in 1857 sold it, and bought uncultivated land
adjoining his brother-in-law, W. B. Bruce. Here I had
to open a place in the brush for a home, and for our
own quarters, assist in putting up buildings, make the
rails necessary to fence eighty acres of land, break it up
and put in a crop, all of which was accomplished in
one year. I had got used then to farm life, and rather
enjoyed it.
This farm was only one-half a mile from W. B.
Bruce's, and the families were now practically together.
Our master and his son, Willie, spent a great deal of
their time at Bruce's, and so did the Colored families.
I was then a full fledged foreman with four
younger brothers, who constituted my force, but as a
matter of fact, I got more scolding than any one of
them, for the reason that I was held responsible for
everything, as our owner seldom went over any part of
the farm, and left me to manage it entirely, reporting
to him every morning. I really had full control of the
place, but he did not want me to think so, and acted
rather queer quite often. He had a habit of calling me
to his door every morning after breakfast, to report
what was done the previous day, and what I thought
should be done that day. I would state my opinion,
and he would be certain to make light of it, get angry,
tell me I had no sense, etc., make some suggestions,
then cool down and tell me to go ahead and do just the
work I had suggested. He, I believe, enjoyed that
kind of acting, and I had got used to it and took it
quietly, for that was the extent of my punishment.
We had but one neighbor who was called a hard
master, Charles Cabel, for whom I had previously
worked. Cabel had rather a lazy set of slaves, with
one exception, a young man named Samuel Savage,
and this, I suppose, made him appear meaner than he
really was. His farm joined ours, and therefore I
could hear and see much that was done. I am not an
apologist for Mr. Cabel simply because he treated me
nicely, not only when I was hired to him, but often
afterwards on our farm. He saw what fine crops we
raised every year, more and better tobacco, which sold
for more money than his, while we worked but five
hands, and he had ten or twelve.
There was no whipping on our place at any time,
while on his some one was whipped nearly every week.
Mr. Cabel used to come over on our land and talk with
me quite often, and insisted that his Negroes made him
appear mean, that if he had such Negroes as we were,
he would never hit one. He said this to me many
times; yet his slaves called him the meanest man in the
county. I am safe in stating, that I had more talk with
Mr. Cabel during the five or six years we lived as
neighbors than with any slave owner during my service
as a slave. Often he would come where I was at work
and entertain me for an hour, he evidently enjoyed my
company, and I confess a liking for him.
I recall an instance where he whipped four of his
men within calling or hearing distance of me. I went
to the timber to make some rails. Our timber land
which was four miles away, joined Mr. Cabel's, and he
sent four of his men to make rails, and we all went on
Monday. With the aid of a brother about sixteen
years old, I had cut and split four hundred rails by two
o'clock, or thereabouts, on Wednesday, not quite three
days. Mr. Cabel came to me and asked when I commenced,
and on being told, proceeded to count my
rails, and when through, went over to where his men
were. I don't think he found them at work; at any
rate, in a short time, I heard the lash and the men begging
for mercy. Pretty soon he came back to me, and
said his men had made only two hundred and sixty
rails, and then asked if I blamed him for punishing
them. What could I say under the circumstances,
knowing that there were four of them as against two of
us, and one a mere boy?
My opinion is that Mr. Cabel as well as his slaves
were to be blamed for the condition that existed on
that farm, based upon the following reasons: The master
who treated his slaves humanely had less trouble
with them, got better service from them, and could
depend upon their doing his work faithfully, even in his
absence, having his interest in view always. Maltreated
slaves and ill-treated beasts of burden are much
alike; if trained to be punished, whether deservedly or
not, they take no interest in their service, and go no
further than the lash forces them, because they receive
no encouragement even when they perform their duty
well.
I recall a case in point, and as the parties
mentioned are living I call upon them to set me right if I
misrepresent the facts in the case. My master bought
three yoke of oxen to break up this new land heretofore
mentioned, much of which was covered with hazel
brush about four feet high, and to haul rails and
firewood from the timber land four miles away. I had the
sole management of this team, in fact had to break them
in. I took pride in that team, trained my oxen to obey
without the use of the whip, fed and watered them well
under all circumstances, and they looked sleek, fat and
cheerful, if I may use the term for an ox. I was the
master in this case and almost loved my oxen, and
believe they loved me. When I said "Go," they went,
regardless of the load, and the question was whether
the wagon would bear it up.
W. B. Bruce, before mentioned, owned three yoke
of oxen and a driver named Bob or Robert Bruce, who
had no love or mercy for his team, took no pride or
interest in his oxen, not even enough to feed and water
them regularly. He used a rawhide whip, and I have
seen him break their hides and bring out the blood
when using the lash. I have said he did not feed them
well, and the reasons why I say it are these: His
master, W. B. Bruce, always raised plenty of corn and
other kinds of stock feed and allowed his dumb
creatures enough, and there existed no sufficient reasons
why Bob's team should not look as fat and as sleek,
and draw as heavy a load as mine; but they did not,
and the reasons are very plain. I cared for mine, and
by so doing won their confidence and love and
obedience, without the use of the lash, while Bob used the
lash in the place of kind treatment and kind words.
In 1857, the county had become pretty thickly
settled with pro-slavery men from the South, mostly
from Virginia and Kentucky, with a few Eastern men
and Germans. Of course the men from the East, as
soon as they landed, proclaimed themselves in favor of
slavery and often hired slaves, and in such cases treated
them meaner than the slave owner. They, it seemed,
regarded the slave as a machine which required no
rest, and they gave him none; they would drive the
slave in all kinds of weather without mercy, so much
so that slaves who belonged to estates or others who
were for hire, would beg to be hired to some southern
man, who had a knowledge of slave labor and the
slave.
The Germans were quite different; they never
hired slaves, and I can recall the name of only one who
owned a slave. His name was Goss and he lived about
six miles North of our place. He treated his slaves as
he did his children; he owned four or five.
There was a lot of poor white trash scattered over
that county, as there was in other southern states, and
they answered the same purpose, as servants to their
masters. But few of them could get a job as overseer,
for the reason that there were but few large slave
owners in that county; I mean that there were not a
dozen men in the county owning over forty, and most
of them owned less; they did their own over-seeing.
But I must say that the poor whites, as a general thing,
in that county at least, worked hard for a living, and I
can mention several who, by dint of hard labor and
economy, attained to a fair standing in their community.
After the landing at Brunswick, of the first installment
of Germans, and as they obtained homes and
money they sent for relatives and Fiends in Germany,
so that there was a steady stream of German immigrants
to that county each year up to 1864. But from
1853 to 1864, they had to submit to many indignities
from ultra pro-slavery men. I have seen them kicked
off the principal street without resistance by Col. Pugh
Price, a brother, I think, of Gen. Sterling Price. But
still they came, and soon some of them had opened
business places such as cooper and shoe shops, cake
and candy stands, and finally a brewery. It was
wonderful to see how rapidly the people learned to
drink lager beer made by a German, John Stroebe.
There was a large tract of land five or six miles
below Brunswick, called Bowling Green, which lay
quite low and was sometimes overflowed by the
Missouri River. It was considered unhealthy in that
locality and on that account the land sold cheap. The
Germans bought the greater part of it and formed quite
a settlement. This land was known as the richest in
the county and retains that reputation to-day, and is
thickly settled and about as healthful as any other part
of the county, is more valuable and is still owned by
Germans whom we considered quite prosperous
farmers.
There was a feeling created against these people
about 1859 and 1860, caused by some suspicious
pro-slavery men charging them with talking to slaves, and
I cannot say they were not guilty They were opposed
to slavery and when they had an opportunity to tell a
slave so, without his master's knowledge, they often did
it, especially if they had confidence in the slave. Slaves
never betrayed a friend; they would stand severer
punishment rather than give away a white friend who
favored freedom for all.
There was a white man, Dan Kellogg by name, in
Brunswick, who was a peculiar fellow and one I could
never understand, and who I think was a northerner.
For two or three years before the war he was known
as a friend of freedom, among the slaves at least. He
had told some of them so, and my impression is that as
early as 1856, he told me that he was opposed to the
institution of slavery, but of course this was sub rosa; but when the war broke out he had changed his mind
and was classed with bushwhackers in that county, too
much of a coward to join the Confederate Army and
stand up in the open field to shoot and be shot at; but
he hid in dense forests and shot at Union citizens and
soldiers as they passed. I have been told that he was
captured by one Captain Truman, commanding a squad
of the Fourth Missouri Volunteer Infantry, and ordered
to be hanged by the neck until dead, but was begged off
by friends. I have not heard from Mr. Kellogg for
many years and do not know whether he is dead or
alive, but if he is alive and should read this statement
he will, I think admit its truthfulness, May 20, 1893.
Since the above was written I have been reliably
informed that Mr. Kellogg's death occurred about two
years ago, and that he removed to Keytesville, the
county seat of Chariton County, Ma., where he lived
since the war, and had accumulated quite a little
fortune and was up to the date of his death a staunch
friend to the colored people, who greatly lamented his
taking off.
He held the position of county treasurer for one or
more terms, and regardless of politics, received almost
the unanimous colored vote, he being a democrat.
The national election of
1860, created more
excitement probably than any that had preceded it, not
excepting the "Hard Cider Campaign " of 1840,
because greater questions and issues had to be met
and settled. The North was opposed to the extension,
of slavery, in fact there was a strong sentiment against
its existence, while the South wanted more territory for
its extension; then there was a spirit of disunion existing
North and South. The abolitionists of the North had
declared the National Constitution to be a league with
hell, while the extreme southern men such as Bob Toombs
of Georgia, wanted to extend slavery to every State in
the Union, and he declared in a speech delivered early
in 1861, that he wanted to call the roll of his slaves on
Bunker Hill, and would do so if the South was successful.
The campaign opened early in July that year, and
kept red hot until the ballots were in the box. There
was speaking once or twice a week at Brunswick, and
several barbecues in different parts of the county. I
remember attending one held five miles north of town,
which appeared to be a joint affair, because there were
speeches made in the interest of all the tickets except
the Republican. My young master made his maiden
effort for Bell and Everett, as I now remember.
The political excitement began in Missouri, especially
in Chariton County, when the National Democratic
Convention met at Charleston, S. C., April 23, 1860,
and after spending ten days wrangling over the adoption
of the platform, adjourned to meet at Baltimore,
Md., June 18, 1860, without making a nomination for
President. I might state that the main fight was upon
the second section of the majority report of the
Committee on Resolutions. The report reads as follows:
Second, "Resolved; That it is the Duty of the Federal
Government, in all its departments, to protect when
necessary the rights of persons and property in the
territories, and wherever else its constitutional authority
extends." The minority report which was substituted
for the majority by a vote of 165 to 138, reads as follows:
"Inasmuch as difference of opinion exists in the
Democratic party, as to the nature and extent of the
powers of a territorial legislature, and as to the powers
and duties of Congress, under the Constitution of the
United States, over the institution of slavery within the
Territories," Second, "Resolved, that the Democratic
party will abide by the questions of constitutional law."
After that vote many of the southern delegates withdrew
from the Convention. Missouri stood solid in the
Douglas column, refusing to secede with the other
southern States, and cast her vote the following
November for him for President and Johnson for Vice
President.
If we stop to consider a moment, the fact that the
Democratic party had the Supreme Court by a large
majority at that time, we must arrive at the conclusion,
that there existed no valid cause for the split in its
national convention, thus dividing its strength and making
it possible for the Republicans to elect their candidate;
for it is generally believed that if there had been
no split, Stephen A Douglas would have been elected
President and served his party as a good Democrat, for
he owned a large plantation in the South, and the interest
of the South would have been his as well. But it
has always seemed to me that there was a higher
power shaping matters and things at that time, which
was irresistible. Hatred existed among Democrats
North and South to such an extent, that southern
Democrats denounced their northern brothers as
"doughfaces" and cowards, which had the effect of
driving many of them to vote the Republican ticket at
the ensuing presidental election.
The extreme southern
delegates who seceded from
the National Convention, met and nominated John C.
Breckinridge of Kentucky, for President, and Joseph
Lane of Oregon, for Vice-President. From the day
the campaign opened in the State of Missouri, especially
in Chariton County, the two factions of the Democratic
party were very bitter towards each other, and
this condition of things existed up to and including the
day of election, but when it was known later on that
Lincoln was elected, all differences were healed and the
factions came together, declaring for secession. They
were joined by a large portion of the old line Whigs,
who had voted for Bell and Everett at the last election;
but there were a few who remained loyal to the Union.
It is a wonder to me, even now, that they did so, when
I recall the bulldozing, the taunts, jeers and epithets
hurled against them. They were intensely hated and
abused, more than the loyal Germans and northern
men who had settled in that county, but they stood it
out through trials and tribulations, remaining loyal to
the close of the war.
There was another class of men who suffered
severely during the war, known as "Neutrals," assisting
neither side, but who were accused of aiding both
and therefore hated by both.
During the years of 1860 and 1861, the slaves had
to keep very mum and always on their masters' land,
because patrols were put out in every township with
authority to punish slaves with the lash, if found off
their masters' premises after dark without a written
pass from them. Patrol duty was always performed by
the poor whites, who took great pride in the whipping
of a slave, just as they do now in lynching a Negro.
They whipped some slaves so unmercifully that their
masters' attention was called to it, so that they met and
issued an order to patrols, that in punishing a slave
captured no skin should be broken nor blood brought
out by the lash. There being no positive law of patrolling,
it having existed as a custom to please a few mean
slave holders, many men whose names I can give,
would not submit to it, and threatened to punish any
man or set of men interfering in any way with their
slaves, although found off their lands. Of course the
patrols carefully avoided such men's slaves wherever
seen.
I have heard of many jokes played on these
patrols by slaves, tending to show how easy it was to
fool them, because they were as a rule illiterate, and
of course could not read writing. The slaves knowing
this would take a portion of a letter picked up and
palm it off on them as a pass when arrested. The
captain would take it, look it over wisely, then hand it
telling the slave to go. Others would secure a pass
from their master, get some one who could read writing
to erase the day and month, then use it indefinitely,
while others would get their young master or mistress
to write them a pass whenever they wanted to go out,
signing their father's name.
In order that the reader may clearly understand
why slaves had to resort to so many tricks to get a
pass. I will state that masters objected to giving passes
often, upon the ground that they wanted the slave to
stay at home and take his rest which he could not get
if out often after dark.
In the fall of 1859 there was a dance given at Col.
Ewing's farm, to which several young men and girls
were invited and attended; most of them had passes
except four girls, who had failed to secure them. The
patrols came about twelve o'clock that night and
surrounded the house, allowing those having passes to go
free, and were preparing to whip the four girls who had
none, right there in the presence of their beaux, who
were powerless to protect them, when a young fellow,
whose name was Lindsay Watts, came up and said,
"Lor, masses, it am a great pity to whip dese sweet
angels, 'deed 'tis; if you will let dem go, I will take the
whippin' for dem all." His proposition was accepted,
and the girls turned loose made rapid steps to their
homes. The patrols took Lindsay outside of the yard,
and stripped him naked, preparatory to giving him four
times nine and thirty lashes, but being naked and hard
to hold or grab, he escaped and ran home to his master
in that condition, followed closely by the patrols.
But his master protected him. The girls who barely
escaped a lashing reached home safely and thankfully.
I remember another ball given a Day's Mill, near
Brunswick, early in 1861, which I attended, and left
about eleven o'clock that night. Later, a man named
Price, without law or authority, as he lived in the city
and was not an officer thereof, gathered a squad of
roughs and went to the Mill and surrounded the
ballroom. They ordered all who had passes to come forward,
and they were allowed to go free. There were
five men and one girl without a pass left in the room.
The white men stood in the doorway, intending to whip
each Negro and pass him out. They had given the
order for each one to take off his shirt. There was a
fellow whose name, for prudential reasons, I will call
John Smith, who got a shovel and threw fire coals, one
shovelful after another, at the patrols. The lights had
been extinguished; some of them got burnt in the face
and neck badly, while others got clothing burnt. This
cleared the way, and the Negroes, even the woman,
escaped. They never found the man who threw the
fire. I remember that they offered a reward to other
slaves to betray the one who threw it.
About the winter of 1858, the Colored people gave
a dance, to which many of the young people were
invited and attended, and were enjoying themselves to
their hearts' content, when, about twelve o'clock, a
squad of patrols appeared and surrounded the
ballroom. Those having passes were not disturbed, but
those without were arrested and taken out for punishment,
which numbered five, and of these only two were
whipped; the other three resisted, and in the scuffle
got loose and ran.
There was at that time a poor white man at the
head of the city patrols, named Brawner, whose
jurisdiction covered the city limits only, and he had no legal
rights as patrol outside of it. But the desire of this
poor white man to whip a slave was so great, that he
left his post of duty, gathered secretly a squad of men
of his ilk, went two miles into the country, and that,
too, without the knowledge or consent of the city
officers, for they knew nothing of it until next day.
Now comes the worst part of it; when they had finished their
hellishness, they returned to the city to find it on fire in
several places, and as a result, several frame buildings
in different portions of the city were destroyed by fire.
Many efforts were made to detect the incendiary, but
in vain, and the blame for the fire fell upon the Chief of
Patrolmen, Brawner, who was, I think, promptly
dismissed. I write of this matter without the fear of
contradiction, because I am sure that there are men now
living, white and black, who will corroborate my statement.
Slaves were much truer to one another in those
days than they have been since made free, and I am
unable to assign any reason for it, yet it is a fact,
nevertheless, and as further proof of it, I will state, that they
would listen carefully to what they heard their owners
say while talking to each other on political matters, or
about the fault of another slave, and as soon as
opportunity would admit, go to the quarters and warn the
slave of his danger, and tell what they had heard the
master say about the politics of the country.
The Colored people could meet and talk over what
they had heard about the latest battle. and what Mr.
Lincoln had said, and the chances of their freedom, for
they understood the war to be for their freedom solely,
and prayed earnestly and often for the success of the
Union cause. When the news came that a battle was
fought and won by Union troops, they rejoiced, and
were correspondingly depressed when they saw their
masters rejoicing, for they knew the cause thereof. As
I have stated before, slaves who could read and could
buy newspapers, thereby obtained the latest news and
kept their friends posted, and from mouth to ear the
news was carried from farm to farm, without the
knowledge of masters. There were no Judases among
them during those exciting times.
After the war had commenced, about the spring of
1862, and troops of both sides were often passing
through that county, it was not safe for patrols to be
out hunting Negroes, and the system came to an end,
never to be revived. The regular confederate troops
raised in that and adjoining counties went South as fast
as recruited, so that only bushwhackers remained, and
they were a source of annoyance to Union men and
Union troops of that county up to the fall and winter of
1864, when they were effectually cleaned out. Many
of these men claimed to be loyal, especially so in public
and at their homes in the day time, in order to be
protected, while at heart they were disloyal, aiding
bushwhackers not only with ammunition, rations, and
information as to when and where Union troops would pass,
but with their presence at night on the roadside, shooting
at Union citizens and soldiers while passing. They
would select some safe spot where a returned fire
would not reach them.
The spirit of secession was almost as strong in that
county in 1861, as it was in South Carolina, and when
Fort Sumter was fired upon, Col. Pugh Price, of
Brunswick, hung out the confederate flag, and called
for volunteers. There were two companies raised who went
South, one of which was commanded by Capt. J. W.
Price. That county furnished its full share to the
confederate army, composed largely of the best blood, men
who were willing to shoot and be shot at in the open
field of battle.
There was a man named James Long, a plasterer
by trade, who was a noisy fellow, and who cast the
only vote Lincoln received in that county. When
called upon to give his reasons for so doing, he stated
that he did it for fun; he then and there cursed Lincoln
in language quite strong, and said that he ought to be
assassinated. A year later, a loyal man had to be
appointed postmaster at Brunswick, and then this man
Long came forward as the only original Lincoln man,
stating that his vote represented his sentiments, and
that his former denial was caused by intimidation. He
got the appointment, and in a year or two was arrested,
tried, convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary for
misappropriation of government money. But the
secessionists last a friend in him, because it was believed
by Union men that he was not of them, and it was
charged that he aided the rebels in every way possible,
even to rifling Union men's letters, and giving their
contents to rebels.
But this man's downfall was a blessing to some
extent, to the Colored people who received mail
through that office, for he would not give them their
mail, but held it and delivered it to their masters Our
family had no trouble in this respect, for our master
would bring our letters unopened and deliver them
without question. I remember getting one from my
brother, B. K. Bruce, who was in Lawrence, Kan., at
the time of the Quantrell raid, in 1863, which he brought
from town, and waited to hear how B. K. Bruce escaped
being killed in the Lawrence massacre.
From I862 to the close of the war, slave property
in the state of Missouri was almost a dead weight to the
owner; he could not sell because there were no buyers.
The business of the Negro trader was at an end, due
to the want of a market. He could not get through
the Union lines South with his property, that being his
market. There was a man named White, usually
called "Negro-trader White," who travelled over the
state, buying Negroes like mules for the southern market,
and when he had secured a hundred or more, he
would take them, handcuffed together, to the South.
He or his agents attended all sales where Negroes
were to be sold without conditions. The sentiment
against selling Negroes to traders was quite strong
and there were many who would not sell at all, unless
forced by circumstances over which they had no
control, and would cry with the Negroes at parting. A
Negro sold to a trader would bring from one to three
hundred dollars more money.
I recall a case where a master was on a note as
surety, and had the same, which was a large sum, to
pay at maturity, and to do so he was forced to sell a
young girl to raise the cash. He sent for Negro-trader
White, and the sale was made in the city without his
wife's knowledge, but when he attempted to deliver
her, his wife and children clung to the girl and would
not let her go. When White saw he could not get his
Negro, he demanded a return of his money, which the
seller had applied on the note and could not get back.
The matter was finally settled in some way; at any
rate the girl was not sold, and was in that county until
1864.
The Negro trader usually bought all Negroes who
had committed murder or other crimes, for which public
whipping was not considered sufficient punishment.
Slaves usually got scared when it became known that
Negro-trader White was in the community. The
owners used White's name as a threat to scare the
Negroes when they had violated some rule. "I'll sell
you to the Negro trader, if you don't do better" was
often as good or better punishment than the lash, for
the slave dreaded being sold South, worse than the
Russians do banishment to Siberia.
Excitement, such as I had never seen, existed not
alone with the white people, but with the slaves as
well. Work, such as had usually been performed,
almost ceased; slaves worked as they pleased, and
their masters were powerless to force them, due largely
to the fact that the white people were divided in
sentiment. Those who remained loyal advised the slaves
who belonged to those called disloyal, not to work for
men who had gone or sent their sons South, to fight
against the government. Slaves believed, creep down
in their souls, that the government was fighting for
their freedom, and it was useless for masters to tell
them differently. They would leave home in search of
work, and usually found it, with small pay, with some
Union man and often without pay for weeks at a time,
but his master had to clothe him as he had always done,
and in some cases pay his own slave for his work.
Near the close of 1863, the Union men were on
top, and the disloyal or southern sympathizer had to
submit to everything. The lower class of so-called
Union men almost openly robbed rebel sympathizers
by going to their farms, dressed and armed as soldiers,
taking such stock as they wanted, which the owner was
powerless to prevent; in fact he would have been
killed had he attempted it. The period had been
reached when the master found his slave to be his best
and truest friend, because it often happened that he was
forced for self-protection to hide his valuables from
these prowlers, and knowing that their quarters would
not be invaded, he placed his precious property in their
hands for safe keeping.
I remained on our farm, managing it as I had done
in past years, but I saw that the time had about come
when I could do so no longer. I saw men, whose
names I could state, take from our farm hogs, cattle,
and horses without permission and without paying for
them, under the presence that it was a military necessity.
Of course no such necessity existed, and the
government received no benefit therefrom.
I remember that W. B
Bruce owned a fine lot of
horses and cattle in 1862, but by March, 1864, they had
all or nearly all been taken, without his consent, and
often without his knowledge. I speak of only two
cases of this kind, because I have personal knowledge
of them. After the war, many of these men who had
lost their property, other than slaves, presented claims
against the government for property supposed to have
been confiscated or appropriated to the use of Uncle
Sam, and these claiments were honest in their
belief
that their property was so taken, when, as a matter of
fact, it was taken by thieves, dressed in uniform for the
purpose of deception, men who were not in the Union
army, and the stolen property was used for their own
personal benefit. W. B. Bruce is now living and can,
if he will, testify to the truthfulness of what I state here.
The Germans were all Union men, and on that account
had suffered severely at the hands of the bushwhackers
from the beginning of the war to January, 1864, after
which time they revere as secure as any other
class, and finally became the leaders on the Union side.
W. B. Bruce and my owner joined their fortunes with
the men of the South, and lost all they had contributed.
Agents stole through the lines from the South,
authorized to recruit men and receive money donations.
They told wonderful stories about the confederacy, its
success, what it would do, etc; that they needed
money and men, and in a very short time the war
would be over, and the South would be on top.
I remember a young man named Kennedy, raised
in Brunswick, and enlisted as a private in 1861, who
went South in a Missouri rebel regiment. He came
back in the fall of 1863 with the rank of Colonel,
authorized to raise men and money for the southern
confederacy. He was hiding around Brunswick and
vicinity for a long time, and left without the Unionists
knowing he had been there. Many southern
sympathizers contributed money to the cause, which
they have had dire need for since, and I believe my
master and W. B. Bruce were among the victims.
I had several talks with my young master, W. E.
Perkinson, in 1862, on the subject of loyalty. He
wanted to join Col. Moberly's company of State militia,
and if left to his choice, would have done so, but he was
so bitterly opposed by his father and uncle, that he
finally went South and served to the day of surrender,
came home penniless, and with health gone. I am
satisfied that he has sincerely regretted his action ever
since, because he found young men, who were not his
equals in ability and standing, but who had taken the
Union side, occupying important positions in the city,
county and state, while he was disfranchised and did not
get his disabilities removed for many years. He had
been reared in the lap of luxury, graduated from
college, then had studied law, and never earned a dollar
to defray expenses; and he returned to find his father
dead, his Negroes freed, and stock stolen, but the land
was there, and that alone constituted his earthly
possession. I was his playmate and nurse in childhood,
though but a few years older, and always liked him; we
never had any harsh words at any time, even after he
had become a man. I have been informed that he has
succeeded as a lawyer and judge on the bench.
There were a few poor whites who failed to
identify themselves with either side, and of course did not
enlist in either army; they were anything to suit
present company. Near the close of the winter of 1863-4
the Union side seemed to be getting on top, had a
company of soldiers stationed at Brunswick, had rid the
county of bushwhackers and rebel soldiers, and these
fellows who had been on the fence for two years now
openly declared for the Union.
The enlistment of Colored
men for the army
commenced in Chariton County, Missouri, early in
December, 1863, and any slave man who desired to be a
soldier and fight for freedom, had an opportunity to do
so. Certain men said to be recruiting officers from
Iowa, came to Brunswick, to enlist Colored men for the
United States Army, who were to be accredited not to
Missouri, but to certain townships in Iowa, in order to
avoid a draft there. I am unable to state the number
of Colored men who enlisted in that county during the
period from December, 1863, until the close of
enlistments in the spring of 1865, but I am sure it was large.
I had some trouble with these enlisted men, which was
as follows: Being in the United States service
themselves, they thought it no more than right to press
in every young man they could find. Being secretly aided
by these white officers, who, I learned afterwards,
received a certain sum of money for each recruit raised
and accredited as above described. These Colored
men scoured the county in search of young men for
soldiers, causing me to sleep out of nights and hide from
them in the daytime. I was afraid to go to town while
they were there, and greatly relieved when a company
was filled out and left for some point in Iowa.
Our owner did not want us to leave him and used
every persuasive means possible to prevent it. He
gave every grown person a free pass, and agreed to
give me fifteen dollars per month, with board and
clothing, if I would remain with him on the farm, an
offer which I had accepted to take effect January 1,
1864. But by March of that year I saw that it could
not be carried out, and concluded to go to Kansas. I
might have remained and induced others to do so and
made the crop, which would have been of little benefit
to him, as it would have been spirited away. I made
the agreement in good faith, but when I saw that it
could not be fulfilled had not the courage to tell him
that I was going to leave him.
I was engaged to marry a girl belonging to a man
named Allen Farmer, who was opposed to it on the
ground, as I was afterwards informed, that he did not
want a Negro to visit his farm who could read, because
he would spoil his slaves. After it was known that I
was courting the girl, he would not allow me to visit
his farm nor any of his slaves to visit ours, but they did
visit notwithstanding this order, nearly every Sunday.
The girl's aunt was our mutual friend and made all
arrangements for our meetings. At one of our secret
meetings we decided to elope and fixed March 30, 1864,
at nine o'clock, P. M., sharp, as the date for starting.
She met me at the appointed time and place with her
entire worldly effects tied up in a handkerchief, and I
took her up on the horse behind me. Then in great
haste we started for Laclede, about thirty miles north
of Brunswick, and the nearest point reached by the
Hannibal and St. Joe Railroad. This town was occupied
by a squad of Union Troops. Having traveled
over that country so often, I had acquired an almost
perfect knowledge of it, even of the by-paths. We
avoided the main road, and made the entire trip
without touching the traveled road at any point and without
meeting any one and reached Laclede in safety, where
we took the train for St. Joe, thence to Weston, where
we crossed the Missouri River on a ferry boat to Fort
Leavenworth, Kansas. I then felt myself a free man.
I learned soon afterwards that Jesse Boram, Allen
Farmer and as many other men as could be hastily
gotten together started in pursuit of us, following every
road we were supposed to take, and went within six
miles of Laclede, hoping to overtake us. Of course
they would have ended my earthly career then and
there, could they have found me that night. But I had
carefully weighed the cost before starting, had nerved
myself for action and would have sold my life very
dearly had they overtaken us in our flight. How could
I have done otherwise in the presence of the girl I
loved, one who had forsaken mother, sister and brothers,
and had placed herself entirely under my care and
protection.
I am satisfied, even now, that I was braver that
night than I have ever been since. I was a good shot
and knew it, and intended to commence shooting as
soon as my pursuers showed up; but it was a Godsend
to all concerned, and especially to myself and bride,
soon to be, that we were not overtaken; for I was
determined to fight it out on that line, as surrender
meant death to me. I had buckled around my
waist a pair of Colt's revolvers and plenty of ammunition,
but I feel now that I could not have held out
long before a crowd of such men, and while I might
have hit one or two of them, they would in the end
have killed me.
My bravery, if that was
what affected me, was not
of the kind that will not shun danger, for I resorted to
every scheme possible to avoid it. We had the start
of our pursuers about an hour, or in other words the
girl was missed from her room in that time; then it
took probably another hour to get the men together.
But they stood a very poor show to capture us on the
main road, for we left it after the first half mile and
took to the brush and by-paths. They expected to
overtake us on the main road, where they would have
killed me, taken the girl back and given her a severe
flogging, but they were badly fooled, for we traveled
east, nearly on a straight line for six miles, then turned
north, the correct course of our destination.
I had heard it whispered among his Colored people,
that Mr. Farmer's house was a kind of
rendezvous for the bushwhachers in that part of
the
country, a place to meet to secure rations, amunition
and information, and that, occasionally, he went out
with them at night. If it be true that he acted with
brushwhackers, then I assert that he went out with
them just once too often, for he was killed as such,
during the Summer of 1864, while on the run after being
halted.
As already stated in a preceding chapter, I had
learned to read, but could not write. Prior to leaving
home I printed with pen and ink a note, which was
pinned to the bridle, telling a friend of my master, who
lived within four miles of Laclede, and in whose front
yard I tied the horse about daybreak, to whom it
belonged, and requesting him to send it home or notify
its owner to come for it. I learned afterwards that the
horse, "Old Fiddler," was sent home the next day. I
did not want to be called a horse thief, and ever
afterwards be afraid to visit my old home, friends and
relatives.
In January, 1865, I visited my old master and found
him greatly disheartened and hard pressed. He told
me that he wished I had kept the horse for he would
have been better satisfied, as it had been taken from
him by the thieves, dressed for self-protection in the
uniform of Uncle Sam. He had but one horse on the
farm at the time of my visit, and offerred that
to me as
a gift, knowing that it was only a matter of time, when
it, too, would be stolen. I did not accept the gift and
was sorry that I did not, for I was informed by letter
that three armed men appeared a few days afterward
and took, not only the horse, but a wagon load of corn
to feed it.
On March 31, 1864, I
landed at Leavenworth,
Kansas, with my intended wife, without a change of
clothing and with only five dollars in cash, two of
which I gave Rev. John Turner, Pastor of the A. M. E.
Church, who united us in marriage in his parlor that
day. I knew a friend in that city, who came from
Brunswick, Paul Jones, and upon inquiry soon found
and secured room and board with him. The next day
I was out hunting for work, which I obtained with a
brick contractor, at two dollars and seventy-five cents
per day, to carry a mud-hod, which I had done before;
so that the work was not entirely new, nor the
contractor a stranger to me. His name was Amos Fenn;
he had worked for a contractor named Hawkins, who
built a row of brick buildings at Brunswick, Mo., in the
Fall of 1854, where I worked a few weeks, and when
we met I remembered him and he gave me a job.
For the first few weeks I was well pleased with
the pay I received, and thought I would soon have
plenty of money, but now I had a new problem to
solve, which was to support and clothe myself and a
wife and pay doctors' bills, which was something new
to me. I had never been trained in the school of economy,
where I could learn the art of self-support, as
my master had always attended to that little matter
from my earliest recollections. Now I had expenses to
meet of every kind The necessaries of life were all
very high, including house rent, and by the time I paid
up my bills on Saturday night, I found my week's
earnings well nigh gone; this was the case right along. I
also found that I had to make my own bargains for
whatever necessaries we needed, and to provide for a
rainy day, all of which experiences were new to me,
yes, very new, and were a source of annoyance for a
long time, because it taxed my mind each day to
provide the necessaries for the next week and from week
to week. I had lived to be twenty-eight years old, and
had never been placed in a position where I had
occasion to give this matter a single thought, for the
reason that my master had it to attend to, as before stated.
I found myself almost as
helpless as a child, so far
as managing and providing for personal welfare and
the future was concerned, and although I had been
trained to work from a child and had acquired almost a
perfect knowledge of it, together with a will and ability
to perform hard manual labor, yet I had not learned the
art of spending my earnings to the best advantage. I
had a very limited knowledge of the value of any article,
and often paid the price demanded without question,
and ofttimes bought articles which were useless
to
me. My wife and I had good health and worked
steadily every day, and by so doing managed to save up
money enough in a short time to rent and fit up a small
two-room house.
Continuing to enjoy good
health and obtaining
steady work, we had saved enough money within two
years to buy the house and lot, having nearly two-thirds
cash therefor. I felt proud, being then for the first
time in my life a land-owner, but it was of short
duration. I had relied upon the word of a white man, and
had paid him the amount agreed upon, and had
received what I had supposed to be a clear title to the
land, but it turned out soon afterwards, that the man
owned only the house, and the land upon which it
stood was the property of another, who notified me to
pay rent for the land or move my house away.
I found the white men of Kansas quite different
from those of Missouri, in their dealings with Colored
people or ex-slaves. They would talk and act nicely
and politely, and in such a way as to win my confidence;
always referring to my former condition and
abusing pro-slavery men, pretending great friendship
for me, and by so doing they ingratiated themselves
into my confidence to such an extent, that I would
follow their advice in the purchase of what they had to
sell. Of course I believed what they told me and was
often cheated out of my hard earnings.
I had been reared where it was a crime for me to
dispute a white man's word, and that idea was so well
and thoroughly grounded in me that it took time and
great effort to eradicate it. It took me a long time to
learn that a white man would lie as quickly as a black
one, and there are thousands of illiterate ex-slaves now
living who have not entirely dismissed that idea, that a
white man can not lie, drilled into them from early
childhood, for I have found this true in dealing with
them.
Let any ex-slave, uneducated, wanting information
come to an educated colored man for it, and
obtain it, he will not be really satisfied until he lays the
matter before some white man, and if approved, then it
is allright, but if condemned then the white
man's opinion
is accepted and the other rejected; this holds good
to-day, and in my opinion is one of the results of slavery,
which I can only explain by stating that slave-holders
considered it very low to lie to a slave, and
would not do it under any circumstances, and had great
contempt for another one who would purposely do so.
I have known them to refuse to answer questions rather
than tell a lie, when they could not afford to tell the
truth. Many times the slave has wished that his master
would lie, when he has told him that at a certain hour
or upon a certain day he would punish him; for he
knew he would get the promised flogging almost as
surely as the day came. Sometimes he would be told,
"I am doing this only to keep my word." My own
personal experience is, that in dealing with slaves they
master was perfectly honorable and truthful, and would
not cheat or practice deception in any way with them,
and the slave knew that the master would not lie and
therefore believed what he said.
I found by sad experience that the white men in a
free state, especially in business transactions, were not
as truthful as the slave-holders of Missouri, in dealing
with colored people, a fact to which many colored men
in Leavenworth and Atchison, Kansas, can testify, men
like myself who have been deceived into buying a lot,
and who, in installments had paid the entire price
agreed upon. After having built a house thereon, in a
few years they found that the land was owned by some
one else.
I could give the names of several colored men in
the cities named above, who lost their property in that
way, and who were forced to vacate or pay a higher
price for the land than at first. Men from the South
tell me that that class of white men in that section, who
were almost the soul of honor, in dealing with the
colored people, is fast dying out, and the young men
taking their places will lie to and cheat the ex-slave of
his earnings right along, and do not display the honor
of their fathers in such dealings.
I am unable to vouch for the truthfulness of this
statement, not having lived in the South and therefore
having no personal knowledge on that point. If it be
true that the young men of the South, who have taken
their fathers' places, are less honorable, less reliable in
dealings with their fathers' ex-slaves, cheating and by
deception, defrauding them of their earnings, then I
assert that it is a sad reflection upon the once boasted
chivalry and honor of the southern gentlemen, the men
of the old school. But I am of the opinion that the
class of men in the South, who are cheating and lying
to colored people, are the newcomers and oldtime slave
drivers or their offspring, who were always the enemies
of the slave, and to day are jealous of him as a free
man, and will take the lead in any matter that will
militate against the colored man.
In thus describing my own experience upon being
emancipated from slavery, I only show that of over four
million others. History does not record where four
millions of people had been held in slavery so long, that
they had lost all knowledge of the way to provide for
their own support, to expend their earnings to advantage,
to use economy in purchasing necessaries of life
and to lay up for another day.
This was the condition of the Colored people at
the close of the war. They were set free without a
dollar, without a foot of land, and without the
wherewithal to get the next meal even, and this too by a great
Christian Nation, whose domain is dotted over with
religious institutions and whose missionaries in heathen
lands, are seeking to convert the heathen to belief in
their Christian religion and their Christian morality.
These slaves had been trained to do hard manual
labor from the time that they were large enough to
perform it, to the end of their lives, right along, and
received no education or instruction in the way of
economy. They had no care as to the way they were
to get the next meal, the next pair of shoes or suit of
clothes. This being the duty of the master, they looked
to him for these necessaries, just as a child looks to its
mother or the horse to its master for its daily sustenance.
The history of this country, especially that portion
of it south of Mason and Dixon's line, shows that the
labor of these people had for two hundred years made
the country tenable for the white man, had cleared
away the dense forests and produced crops that
brought millions of money annually to that section,
which not only benefitted the South, but the North as
well. It does seem to me, that a Christian Nation,
which had received such wealth from the labor of a
subjugated people, upon setting them free would, at
least, have given them a square meal. Justice seems to
demand one year's support, forty acres of land and a
mule each.
Did they get that or any portion of it? Not a cent.
Four million people turned loose without a dollar and
told to "Root hog or die!" Now, whose duty was it
to feed them? Was it the former masters' or that of
the general governments which had conquered the
masters, and in order to make that victory complete
freed their slaves? My opinion is that the government
should have done it.
The master had been conquered, after four years'
hard fighting, and largely by the aid of the two hundred
thousand Colored volunteers, mustered in the United
States Army, and told to fight for the freedom of their
race. The history of that conflict says they did it
loyally and bravely.
General Lee had surrendered. The South had
staked its all upon that contest and had been conquered
and laid waste, as it were; its business gone, its crops
confiscated by both armies, and its slaves set free, but
it had to feed these homeless and penniless people or
see them starve. No one will say the masters did not
feed the freedmen until a crop was made, and, too, at a
time when they had no money in cash and no credit at
the North.
When we take into consideration the penniless
condition of these four million people at the close of the
war, and the fact that they were destitute of education
and turned loose in the midst of a people educated in
science, art, literature and economy, a people owning
the land and chattels of every kind, with money to do
the business of the country and with the experience
and training of a thousand years, the tact that the
freed-men did succeed under these adverse conditions in
obtaining a living, and in many cases in getting little
homes for themselves and families, instead of becoming
a public charge, is greatly to their credit.
Many white people who were friendly to them had
great mis-givings and doubts as to whether these
freed-men could succeed in making themselves self-supporting
in the race of life, with so many obstacles to meet
and overcome. They were illiterate, without money
and confronted with a prejudice due in part to their
former condition and in part to the fact of their being
candidates for the labor work, which, up to that period,
had been performed by the poor whites, especially
foreigners, in the North, East and West.
The freeing of the American slaves and their
partial migration to these states, seeking employment,
excited the enmity of the white laborers, particularly
the Irish, because at that time they constituted fully
seventy-five per cent of the laboring class, and who
imagined that the influx of Negro laborers from the
South, would divide the labor monopoly which they
held, and of course they became opposed to the Colored
people and so much so, that they would have done
almost anything calculated to extirpate them. They
were always ready to incite a riot and take the lead in
it, and had not the business men, capitalists and
ministers frowned upon their course, would have
succeeded in doing serious harm.
I remember the bitter feeling existing between the
Irish and the Colored laborers in Leavenworth, Kansas,
which had its beginning about the close of the war.
They had several little conflicts, and on one occasion
the civil authorities interfered to prevent bloodshed.
I recall an instance when the Colored people had
been informed that the Irish were intent on surrounding
the Baptist Church, corner Third and Kiowa streets,
to "clane the nagurs out," on Sunday night. The
Colored people prepared to meet them, by selecting
Fenton Burrell as captain, and secreting nearly fifty
armed men in a vacant lot in the rear of the church, to
await the appearance of the Irish. Soon a squad of
them came up Third street to within a hundred yards
of the church, but after halting a few minutes marched
back and dispersed. I learned afterwards that Col. D.
R. Anthony, a recognized friend of both races, went in
person to the leaders and informed them of the reception
they would receive if they proceeded further, and
advised them to disperse and go home, which they did.
The Negro has committed no offense against the
Irish; the two races had never lived together at any
time to engender hatred, and as I understand it, there
is no valid reason why the Irish should have been so
bitter against the Negro, except the fact that they were
both seekers after the unskilled labor of this country. I
have stated that it was the labor question that excited
the enmity of the Irish against the Colored people, and
the reason why I say this is, that the past history of the
two races since the conquest of Ireland, by England is
much alike; both had been in bondage a long time.
While the Irish had not been in slavery, pure and
simple, they had been held in a state of subjugation and
servitude, nearly approaching to it, and enjoyed but few
more liberties than the American slave. They had a
country only in name and no voice in the government
thereof or ownership in the land on which they lived,
any more than the slaves in the United States. They
were not free men until they reached the United States.
With such a similarity in past history and present
condition, it would seem that these two races should have
been friends instead of foes, and in my opinion they
would have been, had they not been seekers for the
same kind of employment, and thus becoming
competitors. So that the scramble for that
employment has caused the Irish to resort to means,
which have aided largely in kindling the feeling of
prejudice against the Colored people. They were aided in
thus accomplishing this object by the native poor white,
and the further fact that they were white men, because
whenever that question or issue is raised, it will catch
the illiterate whites en masse, and in many cases the
thoughtless aristocratic class, who will join a mob to
lynch a Colored man without giving the matter a
second thought, as to whether he is guilty or not. In
many cases the charge is cooked up for a sinister
purpose, to get rid of him, or in order to obtain a lucrative
position held by him.
I have stated before that it is the labor question,
more than any other, which causes the Colored people
to suffer greater indignities than any other class of
Americans in this country, and I believe it is not on
account of their color, so much as it is the desire of
white laborers to do the work and to receive pay which
might go to him It is an admitted fact that these same
laborers or mechanics in search of a job, will go South,
where the Colored men have charge of such work, or
nearly so, and will not only work with them, but hire to
them and be bossed by them. Foreigners, seeking
employment, have gone to the South in large numbers
during the last five years, and finding there the typical
poor whites, who are the ancient enemies of the
Colored people and ever ready to do them harm, have
united with them on the color line and raised that old
familiar cry that "this is a white man's country, that
white men must and shall rule it; no Negro domination
over white men." When that feeling has grown
sufficiently strong to cover the real designs of the vicious
elements, and to deceive the better class, then it is that
the charges against some harmless, helpless Colored
man are trumped up, and they lynch him. So rapid
is the mob in forming and blood-thirsty in its murderous
howls, that the better class is powerless to assist
the helpless victim while alive, and when dead the
charges which were preferred by a poor white man or
a foreigner, for a mere trifle or sinister purpose, are
magnified until it would appear that the victim was a
savage brute and deserved the punishment inflicted.
So brutal are these charges made to appear after the
death of the victim, that the better class of southern
white people, allow these lynchers to escape punishment,
upon the ground, I suppose, that they had rid the
community of a bad character.
The lynching of the Colored people is always the
work of the poor white laboring class, and as a striking
incident tending to show the facts, I call attention to
the list of the killed and wounded at Roanoke, Va., in
September, 1893, when the State militia, in upholding
the dignity of the law of the State, fired into a mob,
killing and wounding thirty men, twenty-four of whom
were laborers, track-walkers, section hands, and
employes in the machine shops of that city. I
take these
figures from the published report made at the time of
the occurrence; and to my mind one thing is made
plain by this incident, which is this, that it was not the
aristocracy that was doing the lynching at the South, or
any other part of the country, though they are held
morally responsible in the eyes of the nation.
But the aristocracy of the South is getting its eyes
open to this growing evil, and I am of the opinion, that
its eyes will not have been opened any too soon, for
this is only another form of anarchy, which is feeding
itself upon the Colored people, and will ere long turn
upon the aristocrat and the capitalist, and serve them
even worse than the Colored people have been.
The better class at the South will soon see the
error of their past conduct, if they have not already
done so, in taking the poor whites into their confidence
and social circle, which, I suppose, was for political
purposes, for they now feel themselves the equals of
their former lords, and will not down at their bidding.
They drove out the Republican government at the
South by brutal force, and they had the acquiescence
of their former lords, who enjoyed a benefit for a time,
but this element of roughs, augmented by the influx of
foreigners, is beginning to show its disloyalty to the old
aristocratic element by leaving them at home, and when
possible, sending one of its ilk as a representative to the
legislative halls, State and National.
But as to lynching, I think I see among the better
class evidence of a change of public sentiment taking
place at the South, a return to law and order, as
indicated by a few extracts from leading newspapers in
that section. The first is from the Indianapolis
World (Colored), issue of September 19, 1893, as
follows: "It looks as if light were breaking into the
hitherto darkened condition of the South. The carnival of
crime in which the depraved and merciless element of
that section has reveled unchecked for many months,
is at last arousing the dormant spirit of justice and fair
play, inherent in the American bosom, and the fabric
upon which our Constitution rests. Just as the insolent
and exorbitant ambition of the slave power laid the
train, which resulted in the downfall of the unfavorite
institution, the repeated cruelties, tortures, and human
outrages of southern brutes has awakened the
conscience of the better classes, whose love for the fair
name of their country outweighs all fear of Negro
domination. The 'vaulting ambition' of the
stake-burners and lynchers overstept itself, and we
verily believe the reign of misrule is reaching the
beginning of the end."
A few months ago, scarcely a southern newspaper
dared to lift up a voice against the inhuman practices
of the mobs. They either gave open encouragement
to their so-called "best citizens," or silently acquiesced.
To-day, however, the leading journals of Virginia,
South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Louisiana,
perceiving the change of the tide, and that the southern
craft is dashing dangerously near the breakers of
anarchy, are pleading for a cessation of horrors, and
the re-establishment of law and order. The Memphis
Commercial has been at all times one of the most
arrogant and ungenerous enemies of the Negro
throughout the South, but it is a revelation of a
highly creditable character to hear it give
birth to such sentiments as these: "Even when
outraged virtue and all the ties of nature and humanity
call for the death of criminals, the demoralization of
violence and the contagion of cruelty accompany
these things. There is no passion which
so thrives from gratification as the lust of cruelty. The
English Parliament declared that public executions
were debauching the whole British people. Mercy
was drowned in blood during the reign of terror, and
the whole future of French civilization is stained and
poisoned by the memory of the guillotine. So it is with
lynching in the South. The horror has spread, and a
people, originally the gentlest, bravest, noblest in the
world, are actually threatened with a generation of
cruel and violent men. Every boy, who witnesses a
lynching loses something of his humanity. Every
groan of the dying wretch kills part of his native
tenderness, and every drop of blood congeals the
mercy and gentleness of his heart. It were better that a
young man should cut off his right hand than to see the
torture of one man. It is better that he should be
struck with deafness than to hear the death shriek of
one dying ravisher.
"Such scenes have made the Murats and
Robespierres of history. Such things done in
America will curse the future of civilization
and darken the glory of coming years. Hence,
we deem that swift and summary
justice should be meted by law to all who practice
these horrors, unless the flagrancy of the offence
justify lawlessness by the higher law of necessary
punishment. In Louisiana, a few day ago, a mob of brutal
whites most cruelly lynched three innocent Negroes,
and have sent word to the agents of the State's laws
that they intend to burn another one in broad daylight.
This constitutes treason, and we hold that the Governor
of Louisiana should stamp it out at once, if it must be
done with the bayonet of armed authority. It is the
glory of the South, up to this time, in spite of all that
may be said to the contrary, that she has been
considerate, generous and kind in the face of
the most difficult class of conditions that ever
confronted a people. Let us not lose so fair a
fame by any delays of laws or fears of prejudice "
These sentiments are their own comment, and
indicate that if the appeals of the Negro for justice for
justice's sake are ignored, the southern leaders are
learning that they cannot escape the consequences of
natural laws and are moved to action through the law
of self-protection. The strong stand taken against
mob violence by Governor Brown of Maryland,
Governor McKinney of Virginia, and the ringing words of
brave Mayor Trout of Roanoke, are all encouraging
cases in point, which evidence the change of front by
the intelligent, thrifty and liberty-loving people below
the Mason and Dixon line.
We must not lose our head, or fly into an impotent
rage when contemplating our wrongs. Let us recognize
fully the seriousness of our condition, study the
temper of the southern mind, analyze the cause of
every action against us, and set about applying a sensible
remedy, based upon the state of the case as shown
by the symptoms. A condition which is the natural
outgrowth of slavery will improve as the evils of that
period diminish. Therefore let us grow in education,
in wealth, in respectability, in morals, and in political
generosity, and we will rise to our rightful place in the
esteem and confidence of the nation. This will take
time, and time is an essential element in the solution of
all chronic complaints and in all great problems.
Before closing this chapter, I feel that an explanation
should be made as to what I really mean in using
the term "poor white " people, for I do not want to be
understood as meaning that all poor white people are
alike, and therefore are opposed to the Colored people's
enjoying the rights and immunities conferred upon
others by the law of the country, for such is far from
my intention or desire. There are thousands of aristocratic
white people who are poor, financially speaking,
due to accident or misfortune, but they still retain in
their veins the blood of aristocracy, that will not and
cannot be concealed by the change of position. This
class, as a result of the war, is more largely found in
the South, but wherever found, as a rule, they always
are the friends of the oppressed, and the Colored people
regard them as their friends.
Blood and education will tell; even the children of
that class of men are infinitely superior to those of the
typical poor whites, whose offspring seldom rise above
the positions held by their fathers' in life, and when we
find one who has, we regard him as the exception, and
not the rule. He may acquire wealth, and, on account
of it, command respect, but will have all the failings and
prejudices of his kind or line of consanguinity.
Now as to the Irish, I do not want it understood
from what I have said concerning the position they have
occupied toward the Colored people, that they are all
enemies to the ex-slave, for such is not the case,
because there are thousands of them in this country as
friendly to the Colored people as any other class of
American citizens, and just as ready to give them a fair
show as any other.
But I will state, that my experience has been that
this class of Irish Americans are the refined, educated
class always, and not the common laborer, or the
illiterate class. But I think I see a greet change for the
better taking place.
The Irish who have been in this country long
enough, and are educated, and have accumulated
money, are giving up the labor work, and engaging in
the various kinds of business, leaving the labor work to
be performed by others, and in such cases they cease to
be prejudiced. The Germans have never sought the
labor work of the country, and therefore have always
been friendly with the Colored people, and retain their
friendship and confidence in return.
I have stated in a former
chapter that the Colored
people, notwithstanding the many adverse circumstances
surrounding them, did succeed in obtaining a
living and avoided becoming a great public charge,
which fact, I think, will be universally admitted. But
we can go further and show that they not only accomplished
this, but other things, equally as great during
the period from 1865 to the present. Many white people
believed, when these people were freed that they
were incapable of taking education, and therefore could
not safely attain to citizenship, all of which has long
since been shown to be erroneous, and at this present
time the men holding such views cannot be found.
The Colored people have fully demonstrated their
ability to take education, not only in the common, but
in the higher branches as well, and as rapidly and as
thoroughly as the white student. They have also
shown their ability to master any of the learned
professions, so that the men who have heretofore
prated so loudly about the incapacity of the
colored man, have been driven successfully
from each stand they have taken, until the last
ditch is reached; they now admit the Colored man's
ability to cope with them in the professions, but
say he is unreliable. But he will soon drive them from
that position also.
We are now classed as a "Negro" race. Webster
says the word "Negro" applies to black men of
southern Africa, or their descendants. While there are a
few pure black men among the Colored people of the
United States, at the most, not over one-fifth, the other
four-fifths are mixed, in a lesser or greater degree, with
the white race, and this process of mixing has been
going on for over two hundred years. Children take
their nationality from their mothers and not their
fathers; so that every child whose mother is a white or
a Colored American, is an American to all intents and
purposes, and cannot be otherwise. These mixed
bloods married, and begat children, who were
Americans. Though they were deprived of their liberty by
American law, they could not be called Africans any
more than the white Americans could be called
Europeans, and this forces me to state that there
is no such a thing as a Negro race in this country.
We are Colored Americans and this, I think is the
proper name for us.
One thing is pretty clearly seen, and that is, we are
not a race with sufficient race pride and affinity, which
are the special prerequisites of all races of men in the
great struggle for race supremacy. We have not and
cannot have face pride, because we know nothing of a
mother country; nothing of a united people; nothing
of the different nations in Africa, from which some of
our ancestors were purchased or stolen. We are here
by the will of God, and He will in His own time and in
His own way shape our destiny. For the present, in
my opinion, we are here to show the sin and wickedness
of the American people, and we are here to stay.
This is our country; our coming here being co-existent
with that of our white brother, we know no other; we
have contributed our full share to make it what it is;
we have defended it in all its wars, before and since the
Declaration of Independence, and we will defend it
against all nations. We are Americans as truly as any
others in this land; this is our home, and its flag is our.
flag.
I have been unable to find a case in history,
ancient or modern, where a people had been held in
subjugation and ignorance so long, and reduced to such
a state of immorality, that they had not the slightest
conception of; or respect for the marital relations, and
especially the moral law. This was the condition of the
Colored people at the close of the war. It is unnecessary for
me to ask, who was responsible for this crying shame, or
whether it was the fault of the Colored people. In my
opinion it was and is the sin of the American people
who had gone to Africa and stolen little children from
their virtuous homes and parents, brought them here,
reared them as they reared their cattle, and
of the rights of humanity, the laws of morality and
Christianity itself, reduced them to slavery, and robbed
them of all conceptions of chasity and virtue. I
have
said this crime was committed by the American people,
and I say this, because nearly every one of the original
thirteen States, which formed the United States, July 4,
1776, held slaves or recognized property in them. But
the most absurd of all absurdities, is to hear white people
prating about the immoral conduct of Colored people
when, as a matter of fact, they are responsible
whatever they see in us to condemn, for we are what
they made us. I say Colored people, because we would
have been pure black, were it not that immoral
men have, by force, injected their blood into our veins,
to such an extent, that we now represent all colors,
from pure black to pure white, and almost entirely as
the result of the licentiousness of white men, and not of
marriage or by the cohabitation of Colored men with
white women.
The fact is this, that we had to take ourselves as
we found ourselves, regardless of the many different
shades of colors among us, and start then, for the first
time in our history, to build our own characters and
homes, with a very limited knowledge as to the way
to proceed. Upon being emancipated we commenced the
practice of morality and virtue by going to the church
and the courts, and being legally married, and by raising
our children up in the care of the church and the
Sabbath schools. So that in a very short time after our
freedom, nearly all those who had been living as
man and wife, by order or consent of their masters, had
been lawfully married. Then and not till then, did we
commence to build our own homes and to perpetrate a
name. Of course the name could be only that of our
masters, as we had none and were compelled to adopt
that of our last master or some other, as the names
that were borne in Africa, by our stolen ancestors,
were entirely lost, after nearly two centuries in slavery.
It should not be expected that a people with so
many disadvantages and drawbacks could attain to the
degree of morality and virtue of a people, who had the
benefit and experience of a thousand years' training,
but I think we compare very favorably with that class
of whites, who can command no more capital than we.
Our people have not added to the increasing number of
tramps, infesting nearly every State in the Union, committing
crime wherever they go, and causing the women
to be in mortal fear in the absence of their male protectors.
The Colored people are, as a rule, content
and faithful workers wherever employed, a fact which
contractors who have given them work will confirm.
They have never been known to organize a strike, or to
be in any way connected with one, unless it be to accept
work where white strikers had refused, and that at the
solicitation of owners or contractors. So that it may
be stated without the fear of successful contradiction,
that the Colored laborers are the most reliable class of
workers the country possesses to-day, less riotous,
less turbulent and more tractable than any other
class, and can and do perform as full a day's service.
The Colored American is most loyal to his
government as a citizen and as a soldier, a fact
which will be generally admitted by even his
worst enemies. He is not to be classed among
the anarchists, or any other class of men who plot
against the laws of the land. His loyalty and bravery
as a soldier have been shown, not only in the late war,
but since as an enlisted man in the regular army, a
fact which the Seventh United States Cavalry will admit
willingly, because it was the Colored troops that came
in the nick of time to their aid at the Wounded Knee
fight, and turned defeat into victory. And speaking of
their loyalty, I feel safe in making the assertion, that
they would be among the first to enlist to defend the
old flag, in case of an invasion by a foreign enemy,
even though he landed his forces in the extreme South.
Having no mother country with which to divide
his sympathies, the old flag would receive the Colored
soldier's loyal support. Can this be truthfully said of
any other distinct class of adopted citizens? I think
not. Suppose this country was forced to declare war
against Germany or Italy, could we expect the undivided
support of the German Americans or the naturalized
Italians? Not at all. We would be at the mercy
of either of these great powers, because they could
have their spies and emissaries in our rear at every
movement. This would not be the case with the
Colored Americans, who know only America, and
whose allegiance need not be questioned. The Colored
American will be found fighting in the ranks of the
loyalists to sustain our present system of government
intact when the great conflict shall come, which now
seems threatening, and which came near being inaugurated
at Chicago in the spring of 1894, between those
who are loyal to our present economic system of
government, and the extreme socialists, who are mostly of
foreign birth, and therefore less in sympathy with our
institutions and established mode of government.
The Colored American will always be found voting
and fighting on the side of the white American aristocratic
classes, the classes that have made our common country
what it is to-day - the best government on
the face of the globe, and who are striving to keep it
in the lead of all other civilized governments.
There are several questions of great magnitude
agitating the minds of the American people to-day,
questions which have been before them for the last few
years; and which will have to be met and settled, in
my opinion, at no very distant day, and in that final
settlement, whether in a war of ballots or bullets, the
Colored Americans will wield an important power, and
will have an opportunity to make themselves masters
of the situation.
When the social question, or the struggle between
labor and capital, between law and order, between
American and encroaching foreign ideas, shall present
themselves for settlement, the Colored Americans,
being most loyal to everything that is American, and
especially to those things which conduce to law and
order and good government, can and will always be
found battling against the anarchist and the revolutionist
of any character. On account of their unwavering
loyalty to America and its established institutions, the
Colored Americans will in such struggles, in all
probability, hold the key to the situation, or the casting
influence, and if rightly and wisely used, they will hold the
balance of power in this country.
I have tried to show that the typical poor whites
and their allies, the foreigners, seeking to control the
labor work of the country, are no friends of the Colored
people, and have never been, and that the Colored
people cannot support any measure they may advocate.
So then it will be seen that it is the duty of the Colored
people to support the principles of the better classes of
white people, North and South, for the aristocratic
classes are our real friends, and are also the friends of
good government for Americans.
I cannot see how a Christian nation can so far forget
its duties as to allow a loyal, industrious class of its
citizens to suffer injustice and wrongs at its hands, a
class of people who only ask a fair chance in common
with its other citizens. One great injustice the Colored
people are forced to suffer, without the means of redress,
is at the hands of the press, especially the periodicals,
which allow any writer who may wish to attack
the Colored people, space to vent his spleen, and when
he has given his story about them, whether true or
false, the publishers' will not allow the Colored writer
space to reply. Strange as it may seem, these
publishers will promptly refuse to publish articles
reflecting upon the moral habits and character of
any other distinct class of people in this country.
Then why treat the Colored people differently? Fair
play and a fair show are all they ask, and this they
will ever ask, and as Americans this they have a right to ask.
Great injustice has been inflicted upon the Colored
people of this country by men engaged in business
enterprises, such as manufacturers, mill and mine owners,
in their refusal to give them employment. These great
captains of industry have persistently discriminated
against the sober, industrious, faithful Colored American
citizen, and given preference to foreigners, who,
neither understanding nor feeling the slightest interest
in our institutions, have, at times, by strikes and boycots, caused great loss to the employer and the
employed, and unnecessary inconvenience to the general
public.
I make no complaint
against that class of men,
who, leaving the old world and coming to the new, and
assuming the responsibilities of American citizenship
in good faith, adopt the broad American doctrine of
equal rights to all. I refer to that irresponsible class,
who, leaving their country for their country's good,
have contributed little or nothing to the peace, order
and prosperity of the United States; they are the inciters
of strikes, riots and general disorder in nearly all of
our great centres of population.
The situation in this respect is becoming more and
more a matter of anxiety and alarm on the part of
patriotic Americans, and the question now confronting
us is, "What shall we do about it?" Many things can
be done, some of which must be done speedily.
Restrict imigration to the industrious, sober,
law-abiding
classes, enforce the law rigorously against rioters,
anarchists, and the like, make education compulsory, and
teach English in all the public schools, and admit to the
factories, the mills, the mines, and other works, the
worthy American worker, both white and Colored, upon
terms of perfect equality.
It is a burning shame, a disgrace to the country,
that our own citizens should be denied the opportunity
of earning a livelihood at the suggestion of a herd of
ignorant and lawless foreigners.
The white people charge
us with being imitators,
incapable of originating anything in the domain of
science, art or invention, and to a certain extent I am
free to admit that the charge is true, and the reasons
are easily explained. Being a new people, as it were,
we had not attained to the point of originality, and
situated in the midst of white people who had education,
refinement of manners, money and the advantage it
gives, we are compelled to imitate them. Besides, it
was their advice to us to do so if we wished to succeed,
and we have, therefore, been imitating them for nearly
thirty years, adopting their habits and customs, the
good, and, I am sorry to say, the bad as well. Having
followed the advice of those white people, who we
knew meant well, and whom we knew to be our real
friends, as anxious for our success as we were, and
who will have our sincere thanks always, for the noble
and generous deeds they have done for us; yet we have
made mistakes. Whenever we could, we gave our
children the same course of study that white children
received, often graduating them from the same
platform, and then, when able, sent our boys to college to
take a professional course, either in law, medicine or
the ministry, this being the usual course followed by
white parents, and being imitators, could we be
expected to adopt any other with our limited means or
foresight ? I answer, no.
Being a peculiar, or I might say a proscribed people,
the same course of study, after leaving the common
branches, which was deemed best for the white
children, experience has shown us, was not the best
suited for the Colored children. Being almost entirely
a laboring class of people, we should have used every
means in our power to educate our children's hands as
well as their heads by giving them a trade of some
kind, by establishing industrial schools as a part of the
course of study, so that our boys would have a trade
when they reached the age of twenty-one years, and
our girls at the same age coming out of the schools,
would be trained nurses, cooks or seamstresses,
prepared to make an honest living.
I do not want it to be understood that I am
opposed to the higher studies or professions; far be it
from me. On the contrary, I am proud of every young
Colored man who has attained to these honors, and
would be glad to see as many more turned out
full-fledged every year. In order that they may take our
places in the labor world, when we, who have been
taught trades by our owners, shall have passed from life
to death, we should strive to give our children trades
of some kind, and we should commence now Have
we to-day as many shoemakers, carpenters, bricklayers,
blacksmiths, stone masons and wagon makers
among us as when emancipated? I think not. This
presents a very unfortunate condition, if true, and I
believe it is. But I am glad to see our people awakening
to this neglected duty, and I think no man deserves
more credit for this than Booker T. Washington,
President of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute.
On the fourth of July, 1881, this school began, in
an old church building, with one teacher and thirty
pupils. Since then its growth has been most remarkable.
To-day it owns over 1500 acres of land, nineteen
buildings, has more than six hundred students,
forty-one teachers, and gives instruction in eighteen industries.
Its lands and buildings are worth $185,000. Its
industries include farming, brickmaking, sawmill work,
planing, carpentry, painting, brickmasonry, plastering,
blacksmithing, wheelwrighting, chairmaking,
mattressmaking, printing, bee-culture; and for girls,
laundering, general housekeeping, sewing, including
cutting and making garments, and cooking lessons for
seniors. Eight of the largest buildings have been built
wholly or in part by student labor. It has been the aim
of the school from the first to combine thorough
mental training with industrial work.
No one can visit the school to-day and see what it
is doing in the class-room, in the farm, in the carpenter-shop,
in the blacksmith-shop, in the sawmill, in the
brickyard, in the printing office, in the laundry, in the
sewing room, in the literary societies, and in the various
religious exercises, - for the development of the
head, hand and heart of the young men and women
gathered there, without feeling profoundly thankful to
God.
There are a few things about this school that are
especially worthy of note: 1st. It is a live school. It
believes in progress. It has never stood still a day
since its organization. Every year it presents new
evidences of growth and development. 2nd. It does
what it aims to do thoroughly. It employs only
well-qualified officers and teachers, and subjects
all its pupils to the most rigid examination before
sending them forth. 3rd. It is no sham affair,
existing on paper
only. It is all it represents itself to be, and more; and
it does all it professes to do. 4th. Its funds are wisely
and economically administered; there is no waste anywhere,
everything is utilized, and utilized for the general good.
The immediate work to which the school is committed,
in its greatness and importance, seems to weigh upon
every mind; and how to get the most out of what they
have is the one thought. Hence the salaries are small and
the working force is cut down to the smallest possible
number, thereby increasing the burdens of the officers
and teachers, but by them willingly, cheerfully endured,
as it helps to keep down expenses; hence, also the
buildings, as well as their furnishings, the food, etc.,
are all of the plainest character. An example of the rigid
economy which characterizes everything there, may be
found in the fact, that eight dollars will keep a young man
there for a month, including everything, board, lodging,
washing, mending, fuel and light. 5th. Every officer and
teacher in it, from the beginning to the present, has been
Colored. Whatever ability has been displayed therefore
in the management of its affairs, and in working it up to its
present high standard, we may justly claim as our own.
In this particular it stands alone among the Colored
institutions in our land. Not that there are no other
schools that have proved a success under exclusively
Colored management and direction, but none of such
magnitude, whose success is so unquestioned, and
where such large sums of money are expended annually.
The feeling of the whites in the neighborhood is
now most friendly to the school, and they frequently
employ the students in their different departments of
labor. As an illustration of this friendly feeling, a
southern lady living near the school has recently given
to it an estate valued at $15,000.
At the head of this school, and its animating,
controlling spirit, from the very beginning, is Prof.
Booker T. Washington, a graduate of Hampton,
a quiet, unassuming man, with a wise head and a big
heart, and the weight of this race problem resting upon
him as upon scarcely any other that I have met. You
do not hear very much about him through the columns
of the newspapers, or of his addressing great meetings
in the various parts of the country; but judged by his
work, he is a most remarkable man - a man to be
proud of, and to be honored, a modest man, caring
nothing about notoriety, content to be unknown, so long
as the work goes on, and his people go up; a born
leader, with all the elements of leadership, especially for
the work in which he is engaged, with a keen intellect,
a strong will, courage, perseverance and enthusiasm.
When this great race problem shall be solved;
when slavery and all its dreadful consequences shall be
a thing of the past, and when we shall stand on the
same plane with others in point of wealth, intelligence
and culture, which I firmly believe we will, and even
the history of the influences by which it has been
brought about shall be written, I believe that no man
will be assigned a more honorable place than this man,
Booker T. Washington.
I have written quite fully of the institution over
which Professor Washington presides, to the exclusion
of others, not because there were no others worthy of
mention, but because I had fuller information of that
institution than of any other. But I am reliably informed
that there are several such schools established
in the South, and that they are doing a good work, but
being in their infancy, as it were, are not on a par with
the Tuskegee Institute.
In a former chapter I
have attempted to show the
manner in which we have suffered in the past from the
effects of an unwarranted prejudice against us, due not
so much to our color as to our condition, and from the
mistakes we have made in mapping out the course best
suited for us to follow. We are a peculiar people,
hitherto unknown to the laws of the United States. We
have been made citizens by these laws, but are still
regarded as a distinct people. In this chapter I shall
try to give my views as to the best course for us, as a
class, to pursue in order to succeed in the race of life
as newly made citizens, and this advice is intended
wholly for the Colored people.
Above every other consideration we must get
money, and to do that, we must engage in business of
some kind, however small, and then support it with our
undivided patronage. By so doing we shall not only
build up business houses, but create places for our boys
and girls when they leave the schools, fitted for higher
callings than the mudhod or the washtub. We can do
this without any sacrifice, as we are compelled to spend
a large portion of our earnings for the necessaries of
life any way, and when it comes to the question as to
whether we shall spend it with a white or a Colored
tradesman, other things being equal, the question itself
ought to suggest the answer.
We would do well, in my opinion, to take a few
lessons from the Hebrews in this country, as to the
way in which to accumulate money, for they have been
sorely pressed by all Christian nations for centuries,
and notwithstanding have steadily, and in the face of
great prejudice, accumulated vast wealth. By turning
their attention entirely to trade, they have been enabled
to command respect by reason of their money solely,
so that to-day, especially in this country, they have a
very high standing in the commercial business of the
country, and are gradually increasing it each year, so
that it is only a matter of time, when they will be able
to control such business. They give their children a
common school course, then a business course, and
then put them to work as salesmen, rarely ever
sending them to college.
We are the real producers of the wealth of the
country, especially of the southern portion, and have
that advantage over the Hebrews, who never produce
anything at any time, and yet they strive to control the
business of the entire country. As an evidence of the
fact that we are the real producers, note the large
number of mercantile failures when there is a shortage
in the crop. Now then, since we are the producers
of the wealth, why not spend it in a way to benefit
ourselves? So long as the merchant can get our trade
without recognition, he will not give employment to
our young men and women, in consideration of that
class of trade, and is sometimes bold enough to say so.
As a case in point, I will state this: A few years
ago, a certain merchant on Pennsylvania Avenue,
Washington, D. C., who had and still has a large trade
with the Colored people, especially the better class,
including the families of clerks in the several departments
and school teachers, there being over three
hundred of them, was applied to by a delegation of
Colored citizens for a position for a respectable and
well-educated girl, wanting employment. They called
his attention to the fact that he had a very large
Colored patronage and that he had employees
representing nearly every other class of people, and
that it would be nothing more than fair to give
employment to one Colored saleswoman. He refused.
They gave him to understand that an effort would be
made to withdraw the Colored trade from him, since
he would not recognize it in a substantial way. His
reply was: "Gentlemen, you may make all the efforts
you please, but you cannot do it; good day".
Are we prepared to say that this merchant did not
state the fact? I think not, because he knew our
disorganized condition, our inability to concentrate our
strength in a way to make it effective, and therefore
felt free to tell the delegation to their faces, "You
cannot do it." He spoke the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth, because they could not do it
then, and cannot do it now, and never will until the
Colored people are educated to it by force of
self-defence.
As parents we are partly responsible for the
idleness and unemployed condition of our young
men and women, after they have reached maturity
and left the schools, by neglecting to utilize the
means in our hands for the benefit of our children.
After having given them an education which fits
them for higher callings than mere ordinary laborers,
we fail to create these higher places for them, and
the children, as a matter of fact, have been injured
rather than benefited by our misdirected kindness
and parental love. To a very
large extent this accounts for the great number of
young men and women marching the streets in
idleness, for which we are directly and morally responsible.
We have no just cause for censuring the white people
for their conduct toward us in refusing us recognition.
They have done no wrong; they have only taken
advantage of the opportunities we have given them and
nothing more. They know that we are a disorganized
people, and while in that condition are certainly not in
a position to strike back when pressed, and therefore
they press us with impunity.
It is not enough to say that the prejudice against
us is due to color; while in part that might be true,
there is another and a greater cause, which in my
opinion, fans and keeps alive that hydra-headed monster,
and that is our penniless condition. We are a class of
people who represent, comparatively speaking, nothing,
and in the business world absolutely nothing, although
we are the producers of the wealth in several States, as
has already been stated, we have no voice in the barter
and sale of it.
The laws are made by and for the business men
of all countries and not in the interest of the laboring
classes. The business men are the law-makers in this
country and of course shape the laws to suit their own
interests. My candid belief is, that more respect will
be shown us, when we are represented in the business
world, and I think we should make an effort to be
represented in the various lines of business as other
Americans. We have tried various plans, looking to
success, and have not attained it to a very satisfactory
degree, and I think the time has come for us to try
something new. If we were a distinct race, as some
writers who have not given the subject much thought
assert, the advice to make an effort would be superfluous,
because being a race we would necessarily be a
united people, aiding one another in efforts to rise.
Circumstances compel us to be a distinct class of
Americans, without regard to shades of color; because
we have many among us who are as white as any
Caucasian, but when the fact is known that they have in
their veins the slight admixture of African blood,
whether they are of light or dark hue, they are all
classed as Colored people, treated as such, and might
as well mingle as such, allowing character only to be
the dividing line. The fact is this, we are all Colored
people and must hold together as such, if we expect to
succeed, remembering that in union there is strength,
and the old adage which is a good one, that it is better
to be a king among dogs than a dog among kings.
I have thus far tried to show some of the causes
operating against our progress and the part we have
acted or taken against our own best interests, in our
blind efforts to succeed. And now as to the remedy.
Our ministers see the necessity of our being more
closely united in a business way. They picture the
good results that will follow such action, and like Rev.
Dr. Seaton, of Georgetown, D. C, heartily approve
such a course, and at the same time lay the blame for
non-action at the doors of our political leaders, by
saying that they should have been advising, urging and
educating our people, up to this essential necessity long
ago. Our political leaders also see the necessity of
such action on our part, and have advised us, whenever
they had a chance to be heard, to be more closely
united, but they insist that little good can be accomplished
until our ministers become interested in the
matter. Here it is seen that both classes of leaders see
the need of and admit the necessity for such action, and
yet both remain comparatively inactive. Not being a
minister or a political leader, I feel myself competent
to decide this question without prejudice and therefore
state that, in my opinion, it is the failure of our spiritual
advisers to discharge their whole duty towards their
congregations, and I will mention some of my reasons
for making this assertion. In the first place our ministers
wield a greater influence over the people than any
other class of men, and can if they choose, lead them
into almost any measure they may wish them to adopt.
They have led them to contribute of their meagre
earnings, the large sums of money invested in church
property, located in every State. It was raised by the
untiring efforts of our spiritual advisers, a little at a
time; so that it is claimed that the Colored people of
the United States, own over two hundred million
dollars worth in church property, and support fifteen
thousand ministers, at an annual cost of seven and a
half million dollars a year. *
By the payment of such a large sum annually,
without a murmur on our part, it would seem quite
reasonable that we are entitled to and should have not
only the spiritual, but the temporal advice as well, for
we need it badly Again, our ministers are always in
touch with their congregations and see their needs,
have their undivided attention whenever desired, talk to
them, selecting their own
subjects every week, about
saving souls, and the course they should pursue to
accomplish that desirable result. All this is very good,
and they love their pastors for showing them the way
to eternal life, but it seems to me that while the ministers
have their ears, confidence and continued attention,
and knowing their divided and thereby weakened
condition, should, if they have any genuine pride in them,
take advantage of their position and give them some
instruction as to the caring for the body, as well as the
soul. If they will do this, as though it were really a
religious duty, advising them mutually to aid one
another with their patronage, they will have rendered
their people a lasting service.
There is hardly a doubt, that our ministers have an
advantage over our political leaders in this; they have
the people before them every week, and therefore have
a better opportunity to advise and urge them towards
united action, than the political leader, who may not
have a chance to address his people more than once or
twice in a year, and that at some celebration. I am
decidedly of the opinion that the various religious
bodies in this country, supported by us, should instruct
their ministers and see that they carry it out, to devote
more time to the temporal care of their congregations,
by teaching and urging upon them the necessity of
being more closely united as a people; that in union
there is strength; that a house divided against itself
cannot stand. Our ministers can unite us, and they
alone can. Will they make the effort?
Those among us who have accumulated wealth
have done so single-handed and alone, and against
great odds, and in nearly every case by dealing with
white men, rarely with a majority of Colored customers.
I cannot recall a single instance where a Colored
merchant, relying solely upon the patronage of his own
people, has succeeded. That old idea drilled into them
during slavery, that white people are better than
Colored people, is still in them, notwithstanding their
denial of the fact, for it is shown in their actions, in the
purchase of what they need and in the employment of
skilled workmen. If the job is a small one, amounting
to a few dollars, we may give it to a colored workman,
but if it is a large one, we give it to a white man, who
will then send, probably, the Colored bidder to do the
work, and we are satisfied. And as to our purchases,
we act as though the white man's goods were better than
those of the Colored man. In this respect the upper
as well as the lower classes of Colored people need
training badly, a fact which many of us, who are now
or have been in business will confirm.
When we are ripe for it, there will appear Colored
men with means ready to enter nearly every line of
business, who are now afraid to do so, because of the
fact that they cannot rely upon their own people for
support.
We recognize three distinct grades among us;
namely, the wealthy or those who have acquired money,
supporting their families in the style that aristocratic
Americans do; the working class including those
engaged in business, professors, tradesmen, and the
daily laborers; the third and last class includes the
shiftless, worthless, and thoroughly degraded. Many
prejudiced white people affect to know but one grade,
and that the lowest always, and promptly charge all
crimes committed by that class to the Colored people
generally, taking that class as a criterion by which to
judge the entire people, placing men like Frederick
Douglass on a par with this degraded class, in speaking
to him about them as "your people." They know
as well as they know anything, that Mr. Douglass has
no more dealings or association with that class of
Colored people, than Chauncey M. Depew has with the
roughs and thugs of New York. It really makes me
feel hurt to hear white men who, I believe, know better
than to talk that way, men who will never reach
Mr. Douglass's standing, if they live to be old as
Methuselah.
It would be well for us to remember, that we cannot
always be considered as little helpless babes, and
therefore objects of charity by the white philanthropists
of this country. They have been very liberal
towards us in their donations to establish institutions of
learning, not only in the common branches, but the
higher as well, so that we have a large number of
colleges and universities sustained by donations from the
white people, regardless of politics. We own many
million dollars worth of school property, located in the
South, which came to us by donation, besides a large
amount invested in church property, much of which
came in the same way. The charitably-disposed white
people of this country have been very good to us, but
we are now nearly thirty-year old children, and these
philanthropists will find that out some day and cease
their liberality upon the ground, that we are old enough
to take care of ourselves. Can we dispute this fact? I
think not. We will have to meet the obstacles I have
referred to at no distant day, and should be paving the
way to that end, so as to be prepared for them when
the time comes. If there is a better plan than the one
I have suggested, one more practical, let it not be only
stated, but adopted and put into active operation, for
we cannot expect to succeed with so many difficulties,
teas we are now forced to encounter, unless we unite
ourselves more closely.
In addition to present obligations as members of
our several religious creeds, we should have one
obligation, pledging our support and patronage to each
other in preference to any other class. As already
stated, we are morally and religiously responsible for
the conduct and character assumed by our children in
after life. If as parents, we have discharged our whole
duty towards them, and have complied with divine
instruction in accordance with Proverbs xxii. 6: "Train
up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old
he will not depart from it," we need have no fear as to
our childrens' success in after life.
One almost neglected field of labor in which our
ministers should spend more time and attention in their
efforts for reform, and one which is in the line of their
special calling, is this: A very large number of supposed
Christian people members of churches, in most
cases in good standing, entertain and practice a false
idea of the virtue of prayer, believing honestly that it is
the panacea for every evil, and cure for ever wrong
committed, even intentionally. They believe that any
crime committed against the law of the land, or any
violation of the laws of God, can be atoned for by
prayer; or in other words, they believe that they can
steal the goods and chattels of another, and without
making restitution go to the Lord in prayer, and that
he will forgive them and allow them to retain the stolen
goods. Among the illiterate class of Colored people,
this false idea or misconception of divine law is
practiced entirely too much. Our ministers should turn
their attention to the eradication of this evil practice or
false conception of the word of God In a large degree,
in my opinion, this accounts for the great number
of church members, in good standing, before the police
and other courts, charged with petty larceny.
There is another evil practice which is closely
allied to the one above described, and needs the
attention of our teachers and preachers badly. It is this,
religion without morality. We have too many immoral
religionists in our churches. There are members of
our churches apparently filled with religion, as it were,
and at the same time totally devoid of morality. I can
conceive of a moral man without religion, but I cannot
conceive of a religious man devoid of morality.
Among the illiterate and also the shiftless class of
Colored people these seeming incongruities exist, and
herein lies work for our educated ministers and our
Christian teachers to show the right. We want pure
men and women, honest, upright, reliable, and
trustworthy in every station, and to obtain them we must
raise up our children correctly, or in other words, we
must raise them up to be truthful and self-respecting.
The young man or young woman possessing these
qualities will succeed even in adversity, for these traits
of character will be of incalculable benefit to them in
obtaining and filling responsible positions.
With the aid of our ministers, the reforms I have
mentioned can be obtained, and our ministers will have
made themselves our leaders in fact, and we will have
been placed under renewed obligation to them, and
will also be placed in a better condition to respond to
their support than we have been in the past. Will
they undertake this great reform, and continue to per-
severe until their efforts shall be crowned with success?
I hope and pray they will.
In this closing chapter I
shall try to give more of
my personal history than has been stated in the
preceding ones; for in those I spoke only of matters and
things as I saw them, and incidentally mentioned the
wrongs we suffered, the causes leading up to them and
the remedy. But in this chapter, as stated above, I
shall confine myself more closely to my own personal
history and experience.
By the winter of 1867-1868, I had, by hard work
and strict economy, since the close of the war, saved
up five hundred dollars, with which I bought out a
small business fronting on the levee at Leavenworth,
Kansas, and made money out of it from the day I took
possession. I immediately had improvements made to
the extent of two hundred dollars, and thought I had a
bonanza. Being located in an old frame building, I
could get but two hundred dollars insurance on my
stock, and it was good that I got that much, for within
sixty days from the time I bought the place it was
destroyed by fire, with its contents. I had the two hundred
dollars only. I then secured another location, and
with the assistance of the firm of Haas & Co.,
merchants of that city, I was partly on my feet again,
although in debt to them for my stock of merchandise.
I succeeded in paying off my debts and getting a fair
living out of the business, and continued it until the
fall of 1870, when I transferred it to Atchison, Kansas,
where I still continued in the same business until the
fall of 1875, when it, too, was destroyed by fire, entailing
a loss of six hundred dollars. I then rented the
brick building on the corner of Fourth and Commercial
streets, owned by Hon. C. C. Burnes, and opened
again, and continued the business until the fall of 1878,
when I was forced to close for want of cash. I had
bills due me for groceries amounting to thirty-three
hundred dollars, which I could not collect, due in part
to two causes: a very severe winter, and the very dry
summer which followed, in which the farmers' crops
were entire failures. My liabilities were about one
thousand dollars, which I could not meet, and was
forced to the wall. I have never been able to collect
over ten per cent. of those bills, which are now
dead by
limitation of statutes.
About this time I found myself without money, and
had a wife and four children to support. A friend
advanced me money enough to buy two express teams,
one of which I drove, and the driver of the other was
paid one half of the cash he collected. I made a fair
living out of that business, repaid the borrowed money,
and had some cash on hand, when I received the
Republican nomination for the Legislature front the Fourth
Legislative District of Kansas, in the fall of 1880.
After a hard fought campaign I was defeated by Hon.
George W. Glick, by twenty-five votes, out of a total
of nine hundred and fifty. That defeat was a very
severe blow to me, because I had spent, in what is
called legitimate election expense, every dollar that I
had saved up.
Soon after the day of election, business grew very
dull, and winter set in early and was very severe, so
that from November 6, 1880, to January 10, 1881, I
experienced the hardest time I ever saw. I had a family
to support and my mules to feed, as they did not earn
money enough to buy their feed. By the efforts of
Senators L. M. Briggs, A. S. Everest, J. W. Rector,
Ira Collins, Richard Blue, and others, I was elected
Doorkeeper of the State Senate, January I0, 1881.
That election was a Godsend to me at that time, for I
was hard pressed for cash, so much so, that I did not
have money necessary to pay my fare to Topeka, to be
sworn in, and I borrowed ten dollars from Colonel John
A. Martin.
The pay was twenty-one dollars per week, which
amount carried me through the winter, and to the
close of the session.
After the adjournment of the Legislature and my
return home, General W. W. Guthrie secured for me the
position of foreman of a gang of forty-two Colored men
to work a construction train on the A. & N. Rail Road,
between Atchison, Kansas, and Lincoln, Nebraska.
The salary paid me was fifty dollars per month. I
promptly accepted the position, and held it until August,
1881, when my brother, who was then Register of the
United States Treasury, telegraphed that he could get
me a position in the Post Office Department, at
Washington, at a salary of seven hundred and twenty
dollars per annum, with a chance of promotion. This I
considered a permanent job, and one less dangerous,
and I accepted it and came on to Washington.
After one year's service in the Money Order
Division of that Department, and no promotion or
prospect of one, my brother secured an appointment for
me in the Pension Office, at the salary of one thousand
dollars per annum, and I was sworn in, September 22,
1882, as an examiner, which position I have held ever
since. I was promoted to Class One in the fall of 1886
and to Class Two in the summer of 1889. Of course,
I appreciated these honors, and felt proud of them,
probably more than some other men would have done.
And why should I not, when I recall that I was a slave
at the age of twenty-nine years, then freed without a
dollar, could not write my name at the close of the war,
but by close study since then, had reached these
positions?
Having served under every Commissioner who
has held the office of Commissioner of Pensions since
September, 1882, and having had a good opportunity
for observing the administration of the office by each,
candor compels me to state, that General John C.
Black filled that chair with more dignity, ability, and
impartiality, than any of those under whom I have
served. He held no "Star Chamber" investigations.
If one clerk preferred charges against another, he was
required to put them in writing, signing his name; then
the accused was furnished a copy of said charges, and
given a chance to be heard in his own defense before
action was taken. If unable to meet and refute said
charges, then, and not until then, was action taken.
General Black was Commissioner in fact, when he
occupied that position, and no underling was allowed
to dictate to him his duty. No clerk, high or low,
republican or democrat, could leave his desk at will, and
go to have a chat with the Commissioner, without first
obtaining a written permit to do so. I am sorry that I
cannot say the same of others under whom I have
served.
General Black had no pets;
every employe was
required to perform his duty without favor and
irrespective of party or color. He broke up the rings
which had existed in the office, whereby some got easy
places, little work and big pay, came to the office when
they pleased, and left it when they felt like it.
Up to the beginning of General Black's term of
office, examiners had been rated according to the
number of pension claims submitted, either for admission,
rejection or special investigation. Gun shot wound
claims were always considered as easy cases, much
more so, than injury or disease claims, and an examiner
who was lucky enough to draw from the files a bundle
of the former class of claims had an advantage over his
fellow clerks, who drew the latter class, because these
gunshot wound cases required very little work to
complete them, while the other classes would require three
or four times as much work, and often covering from
one to seven years time in which to obtain the
necessary evidence to establish the claim I recall an
instance, when I saw a chief of divisors go to the files,
select a bundle of gun-shot wound claims, bring them
to a certain examiner's desk, lay them down, smile and
walk away. Of course, that examiner gained an
advantage over others by the action of his friend.
Soon after assuming charge of the office, General
Black issued his famous order, number 110, whereby all
employes were required to be at their desks at
nine
o'clock, A. M., and at one o'clock, P. M., thirty minutes
being allowed for lunch, from twelve thirty P. M., and
to remain at their desks, until four o'clock, P M., when
the office closed. Chiefs of divisions were required to
see that order strictly enforced, and to report all
violators of it, to the Commissioner immediately, and he
would require the violator to write him a letter,
explaining the cause of tardiness. If the excuse given was
satisfactory to the Commissioner that ended it, if not,
the violator received a severe reprimand through letter,
directly from the Commissioner. So that order number
110, cured tardiness effectually in the Pension
Office, and that order remains in force to-day and
not-withstanding the great number of orders now in force,
every employe has perfect knowledge of old order,
number 110.
Up to the spring of 1885, when said order was
issued, many favored employee failed to appear at their
place of duty on time. Some were thirty minutes and
some an hour late; some would leave the office one,
and sometimes two hours before closing time, and this
would occur quite often during the month. These
same employee would apply for their thirty days annual
leave and obtain it, just the same as those who had not
been tardy.
Order, number 110, has been modified in form
some what, but its essential parts are still in force and
will remain.
Promotions under General Black's administration
of the Pension Office, were based upon merit solely,
and with respect to Colored men it was eminently so;
for they were Republicans and had no special claims
upon a Democratic administration, and yet I am
informed that there were more Colored men promoted
under that administration than under the one following
it. Of course, with other Colored employes, I was
quite scared, when the Democrats carried the country
in 1884, thinking that we would all be discharged, and
when we were not, we were very agreeably surprised.
Many white Republican leaders wished it, and some
were bold enough to say that the Colored man would
have to go. Among those who said it was Ex-Senator
Ingalls, who stated to me, that he wished the Democrats
would discharge all Republican office holders. I
understood him clearly. He meant it as an aid to
solidify the Republican party vote at the polls. By the
failure to discharge the Colored employes, the thing the
Republican leaders most desired, the Democrats made
many friends for their party, and particularly President
Cleveland.
Mr. Cleveland's election in 1884, and assumption
of power in March, 1885, however much they regretted
it, was a good thing for the Republican leaders,
because they had on hand a lot of old barnacles to care
for, as chiefs of divisions and the like, who, occupying
those positions, were a dead weight to the party, and
they had held them so long, that rings had been formed,
whereby none but its members or their friends stood
any chance of promotion, however worthy they might
be. These rings were so well organized, that they
could and did defeat the endorsements of Senators and
Members of Congress. When the change came and
these leeches had to step down and out, and new men
appointed fresh from the people, of different views and
politics, with no pets, no favorites and free from ring
rule, and whose only duty or desire was to see the
work over which they had charge faithfully performed,
then it was that every employe was required to attend
strictly to his duty, and every one was placed upon a
common level.
Some of these deposed chiefs, on account of old
age and as a matter of charity, in some cases, were
reduced to clerkships and allowed to remain; but even
then it was hard on them, to be forced to come down
to do clerical work with men whom they had lorded it
over, and in some cases treated unjustly while in
power. But after all, the service was purified by the
change, and when the Republicans came to power in
March, 1889, they appointed in nearly every case new
men from the States to these chiefships, who were free
from rings and cliques, and they ignored the claims of
the old ex-chiefs, who thought they had a monoply
of
these positions, and were bold enough to say so when
speaking of them, as "my old place."
Of course, the Colored
employes were benefited
by any change, that put all on a common level where
no favors were shown, and each one was credited with
the amount of work done and nothing more. I have
seen men who had been of the favored class before
the change, working hard and close to retain their
present pay in the higher grades to which they had been
promoted over others more deserving. Some of this
class of employes were reduced to a lower grade,
and
some by hard work and promptness to duty retained
their pay in the higher grades.
My reference to rings
relates to the Pension Office
exclusively, but I have been reliably informed that the
system obtained also in other bureaus and
departments, especially the Treasury.
Hon. James Tanner, who
succeeded General
Black, as Commissioner of Pensions, was an able man
and also a good man, and one liked by employes
regardless of politics; and I believe, would have
succeeded in the administration of the office of
Commissioner of Pensions, with entire satisfaction to the
country, had he surrounded himself with strong men as
advisers. But he failed to do so and failed as
Commissioner, not because of his inability to discharge the
duties of the office, a fact which can be proven by his
previous official life and subsequent conduct, as an
attorney before the various departments of the
Government, but solely because of falling into the
hands of weak advisers.
Mr. Tanner in turn, was succeeded by Hon. G. B.
Raum, a man of details and rules, who reminded me of
what an English correspondent of a London paper,
who was with our army during the late war, wrote of
General McClelland, to his home paper, after seeing
the General himself superintending the laying of a
pontoon bridge across some river, an act which any
ordinary army officer could have done with ease. The
correspondent said that General McClelland was a man of
details, spending his time, which should have been
devoted to a higher calling, on matters of minor details,
which are the duties of subordinate officers, and
therefore could never be a great general.
General Raum, would have been a great success
as general superintendent of the working force of the
office, seeing it done well and adopting rules best
suited for its accomplishment. He acted the part of
superintendent well.
There are chiefs and assistants in every division.
A chief clerk and assistant, a captain of the watch, and
a superintendent of the building. With this large list
of officers, one would suppose, that any order issued
could be carried out to the letter, without the personal
attention of the Commissioner, but such was not the
case. He could be seen almost any day giving his
personal direction to the divisions, just as though he had
no officer in charge competent to carry out his orders.
He visited every part of the building, even to the wash
rooms; for I have seen him in those rooms abusing the
laborers about the spittoons, etc., not being clean, thus
ignoring his captain of the watch, whose special duty
it was to look after such work.
General Raum had no pets or favorites to award
easy places, and I think that he was a man who really
wanted to see every employe doing his duty. He
worked hard and wanted others to do the same.
With his record before us as General of Volunteers,
Member of Congress, and later on as United
States Internal Revenue Commissioner, - all of which
positions he filled with eminent satisfaction to the
country, - can any one doubt for a moment General
Raum's honesty and ability? I think not.
His administration of the Pension Office, while it
was not up to the high standard attained by General
Black, was the equal of any other under which I have
served, and had he relied more upon his subordinates to
attend to the minor details of the office, and devoted
his entire time to higher questions of law governing
pensions, his administration of that office would have
been much more esteemed.
Commissioner Raum was succeeded by Judge
William Lochren, the present incumbent, who, like
General John C. Black, belongs to that class of men
who disdain to do small things and whose likes and
dislikes of men are not based upon their color. Therefore,
he, like General Black, also fills the chair of Commissioner
of Pensions with dignity and ability. Exhibiting
confidence in the ability of his subordinate officers, to
effectively carry out his instructions, the Commissioner
relieves himself of the objectionable duty of going from
room to room to watch the employes.
Judge Lochren is a
disciplinarian and insists upon
a strict compliance with the rules laid down for the
government of the working force of the Pension
Office, and allows no favoritism to be shown any
employe regardless of politics, sex or color. All
are
required to perform their full duty.
A man whom I regard as thoroughly reliable,
informed me that he was present and heard what was said
at an interview between Commissioner Lochren and a
certain chief of a division in the Pension Office, who had
recommended a Colored man employed under him for
dismissal, without any cause assigned or charges
preferred against him. It appears that charges of
dereliction of duty, inefficiency or insubordination had been
filed against several employes and after an
investigation,
three or four of these employes were recommended
for
dismissal and the papers for the same were prepared
and laid on the Commissioner's desk for his signature.
By some means, not explained, the recommendation
for dismissal of a Colored man whose name I shall
designate as Mr. L., got with the other papers, which
had been agreed upon for dismissal for cause, and
Commissioner Lochren approved, and then sent them
to the Secretary of the Interior, who also approved
them, and those employes were dismissed in a few
days thereafter, Mr. L., in the lot. Immediately upon
receiving his notice of discharge, Mr. L., sought and
obtained an interview with the Commissioner of
Pensions During this interview it became clear to Mr.
L., that the Commissioner had no personal knowledge
of his case. Mr. L., then presented his certificate of
discharge and politely asked to know the cause for
which he was dismissed. Being unable to state the
cause, the Commissioner asked Mr. L., to leave with
him his certificate of discharge and to call next day
which he did. Pending this conversation, the
Commissioner sent for the division chief, who made the
recommendation for Mr. L's. discharge, and demanded
of him the grounds upon which he had recommended
this man's dismissal. He could only state that he did
it in order to get a place for a Democrat, and upon
being further questioned, he admitted that there were
no charges against Mr. L., that he was a good man and
had discharged his duty satisfactorily. After hearing
his reply, the Commissioner turned to this chief, very
abruptly, and said: "How dare you recommend a man
for dismissal against whom no charges have been
preferred? I want you to understand that this thing must
not occur again, and that I will have Mr. L., reinstated
immediately."
It is needless for me to state that Mr. L., was
reinstated within five days from that date and is now
on the pay rolls of the Pension Office, drawing his little
stipend of nine hundred dollars per annum.
It sometimes happens that a small man gets the
position of chief of a divisor, and by reason of the fact
that he has none of the aristocratic blue blood in his
veins, but comes from the lower class of white people,
and is therefore filled with the prejudice of his kind, he
will try hard to get rid of Colored clerks under him, by
means which are very questionable. Cases of this kind
are rare, but they have occurred under Republican as
well as Democratic administrations and I state this,
because I have been hearing of such cases during the
last fourteen years. Such white men are in all political
parties and whenever elevated to power over Colored
men, will deal them a blow in the back when they
have the opportunity to do so under cover.
Now as to dismissals, reductions and promotions,
they have occurred under every administration
following a change of political control. They occurred
during President Cleveland's first term and again under
President Harrison's administration, and it is quite
reasonable to expect them to occur under the present
regime; because the party in power, will always find
some means by which they are enabled to place their
political friends in good places. It was the practice
under Republican rule, and it is the practice under
Democratic rule and, in my opinion, it will always be
the custom, not only in the Pension Bureau, but in all
the departments of the government, even at the
expense of reducing their opponents to lower grade in
pay.
Of the one hundred and
twenty-five Colored
employes, borne on the pay-rolls of the United States
Pension Office, on November 7, 1892, there was only
one man who claimed to be a Democrat, and he hails
from the South and was then, and is now, a $1400
clerk There were four or five Colored employes, who
opposed President Harrison's renomination, but when
he received it they quieted down like good party men,
but after Harrison's defeat, they commenced to trim
sail, as it were, and by March 5, 1893, they had become
fullfledged "After Election Democrats."
So as a matter of fact, we had no special hold
upon a Democratic administration for favors in the
shape of promotions. There were one hundred and
twenty-five Colored men on the pay-rolls of the United
States Pension Office, March 5, 1893, and there are
now, March 30, 1895, borne on said rolls, the names of
one hundred and twenty-three Colored employees,
showing that we have lost only two men since the
Democratic party regained control.
The records of this
office show the following:
Number of Colored employee on the rolls March 5,
1893:
Number of Colored employee appointed since March 5,
1893:
Among the twenty clerks
reduced from a higher
to lower grade of pay, my name occurs, but as it was
a political matter purely, and did not reflect upon my
efficiency as a clerk, and only reduced me from
fourteen to twelve hundred dollars, I felt that there was no
cause afforded me to grumble and did not do so. And
although being one of the unlucky number, I am free
to say, that Colored employes have been fairly treated
thus far, under Judge Lochren's administration, and so
far as my own personal treatment goes, I can say
truthfully, that I never received more respect and
kindness under any administration, than I have under
the officers of this, from the Commissioner down to
my section chief.
Like most people in the States, who have only a
vague idea of a clerkship in the departments of the
government at Washington, I thought a position in one
of these departments was a bonanza, and that I could
save at least one half of my salary every month, and
that any clerk who did not do so was a spendthrift, and
ought not to be retained. I soon learned that nearly
everything one needed costs more here than the same
article would cost in the States, besides, one is almost
compelled to board and room at a first class place, and
pay a higher rate for whatever article he needed, in
order to be classed with respectable people. If one
stopped at a cheap house with second-class people,
that act alone settled his status in Washington society.
There are private and public boarding houses
here, which furnish room and board at from twelve to
forty dollars per month, so that one can take his choice
as to place and price, but the usual price paid by
Department clerks for room, board and washing, is about
twenty-five dollars per month. A decent house here,
with modern improvements, cannot be rented for less
than twenty-five dollars per month, nor a front room
for less than ten dollars for the same period. One will
soon find that he must dress in the latest style, if he
wishes to be on a par with his fellow clerks, and to do
that he is required to go dressed up in his best clothes
every day, thereby making his clothing bill twice or
three times what it would be in the States. Of course,
there is no regulation requiring clerks to appear at
their desks dressed in their best clothes, but there is an
implied understanding, that poorly dressed employes
are to be classed with the lower grade of Washington
society, a position not desired, because it is generally
believed that a clerk who is too stingy to spend money
so as to appear at his desk decently dressed, is not a fit
subject for promotion. At any rate, in my opinion and
experience, such persons seldom, if ever, are recommended
for a higher grade, and what I state here applies to lady
clerks and gentlemen alike.
So that a new clerk from the States, receiving an
appointment here, thinks for the first few weeks that
he is going to save money, and not only that, but he is
going to set an example of economy to his fellow
clerks. But he soon finds that he cannot do it, and if
he would command respect and association, he must do
as he sees others do, and like an adept, he falls in,
convinced that his fellow clerks are not spendthrifts after
all. There are several other lessons the new clerk
learns, after he is sworn into the Departmental service,
especially if he came in through examination under
Civil Service Rules; that there are old clerks here, who
are competent to teach him many things which he
failed to learn at school, and that the ideas he had
previously formed, touching the ability of government
clerks, who were appointed prior to the passage of the
Civil Service Act, were erroneous. To his surprise,
he finds men and women in the Departments here,
highly cultivated and well posted in the very latest
literature of the day, and competent to take a leading
part in almost any of the historical and scientific
researches of recent date. So that the newcomer,
although having successfully passed a civil service
examination, and received an appointment based thereon,
must take his position at the foot of the class, as it
were, and go to work to even hold that position, for it
has often happened that such clerks have been dropped
after six months service - "cause, Inefficiency," while
older clerks, because of their efficiency, hold on.
One of the first lessons a new appointee should
learn, and I might say the most important one, is entire
and complete subordination, for without this he cannot
succeed. He must make up his mind to lay aside
what he calls his manly instincts and personal
independence, and resolve to submissively obey all
order of his superiors without a murmur, even though
they are not stated exactly in accordance with the rules
of syntax, laid down by Lindley Murray. He will also
find that he must so act as to win the respect and
confidence of his superiors in office, and to so live as to
hold them, and to do this, he must be a gentleman
away from the office as well as in it, for if he keeps bad
company, the report of it will eventually reach his
superiors, and thereby affect his standing materially. A
new clerk will not be here very long before he will find
that in addition to these other necessary requirements,
that "Influence" counts a good deal, and without it
one can make slow headway singlehanded and alone,
trusting to his own ability. To obtain social standing
and influence, one must associate with the better class
of peoples and to do that he must be of clean character,
if he expects to obtain entre therein. The various
Departments of the government here are run by old and
experienced clerks, who have spent a large part of their
lives in this service, and cannot well be displaced by
the new ones, however intelligent they may be. The
fitness of these old clerks is proved by long, efficient
and faithful service. They also very clearly understand
the value of influence, and know just when, where and
how to bring it to bear. They are regular diplomats.
But aside from other considerations, these men
have devoted their lives to the service, grown old in it,
and are content, and I might say, fitted to this kind of
work to the exclusion of all other work. They cannot
go out into the world and make a decent living on their
own wits, and therefore should be let alone, because the
government has received the benefit of their best days
of service, and should not cast them out on account of
old age, at least, to "go over the hill to the poor
house."
THE END.
Probably the most unique
work of its kind will be
Mr. H. C. Bruce's book, "The New Man." It is
ostensibly the author's autobiography, but he has made
more of it than a simple narrative by interweaving with
his own experience much of the history of the antebellum
days and very many vivid descriptions of the
habits and customs of the Old South.
One of the most conspicuous features of this book
is the entire absence of the passion usually displayed
when former slaves refer to their past bondage. Yet
without this very dispassionateness no history can be
authentic. We may be fascinated by the elegant style
of an historian, but the fascination changes to doubt in
the presence of his evident bias and his expressed
prejudice.
Mr. Bruce felt his bondage - all slaves felt it - but
he has been fair enough, and I may add courageous
enough, to say that within his experience and observation,
savagery and brutality in the treatment of slaves
were the exception and not the rule. The great wrong
was in the enslavement per se of a fellow-man. Why,
he argues, would a man abuse and over-work and starve
his slave, a valuable piece of property, any more than
he would poorly feed or maltreat his horse or his ox?
His own self-interest would require good treatment in
order to secure good results from the labor of his
slaves. There were harsh, even brutal masters, but
Mr. Bruce claims that these were usually found among
a class of people who were low bred, and he asserts
that the cruelties of slavery could be as easily traced to
this class of white men, as we can trace to a similar
class to-day the proscriptions, and persecutions and
hardships that are suffered by the better element of
Colored people.
If left to themselves, Mr. Bruce believes, there
would be the best of feeling between the old aristocrat
and his former slave, and the world would not be
periodically shocked by the intelligence of lynching
bees and burnings.
To me, Mr. Bruce's accounts of the old highway
system, with the then prevailing modes of travel and
trade, are as instructive as they are interesting. But
this is only one of the many valuable contributions to
history, with which the book abounds.
Mr. Bruce's narration of his experiences begins
with his childhood, when he was encouraged by his
master to eat and play on his Virginia farm, and carries
the reader through the intervening years, until when at
Brunswick, practically in charge of his master's business,
the war came and changed a nominal freedom
into an actual freedom.
Another prominent feature of the book, is Mr.
Bruce's contention that the two classes of people in
the South should not divide along the line of race or
color, and in this connection he furnishes argument to
support his condemnation of the common blooded
blacks and whites alike, whose bad conduct he asserts
has brought shame and disgrace, and misery upon the
better classes of white and Colored people of the
South.
All the way through the book sets the reader to
thinking and whoever may peruse its pages will be
amply repaid for his time, and the reader may rest
assured that he will not find it a task to read what Mr.
Bruce has written. So far from this he will find that,
after reading the first page, he will have a desire to
read the second page, and his interest will increase to
the end of the book
J. H. N. WARING, M. D.,
WASHINGTON, D. C.
Supervisor Public Schools.
WASHINGTON, D. C, April 19th, 1895.
I have read in
manuscript, Mr. H. C. Bruce's book,
"The New Man," and have been greatly interested in
its perusal. It gives us a very novel, and I am sure a
truthful glimpse of the life of the slave. I think it the
only book that fairly represents the relations of the
master and slave. Other books have been written
on this topic, but they have been written for
the purpose of inflaming prejudice, and the horrors of
slave life appear to be greatly exaggerated. Mr. Bruce,
however, has a simple story to tell and does it well.
This book may be read
with profit by the Colored
race for the example it affords. the author was a
slave until his twenty-ninth year, but by diligence and
hard work, in the face of all opposition, he has
succeeded in educating himself and gaining
positions of honor and trust.
I commend this book to
any one who desires to
get a true idea of the old-time slave in the cotton fields
of the South.
THOS. FEATHERSTONHAUGH.
We have been permitted to
examine the manuscript
of a projected book, the subject and the style of
which will, we think, prove extremely interesting to the
general public. It is the work of a Colored man, a
resident of this city, and an employe of the Pension
Office - Henry C. Bruce, a brother of Hon. B. K.
Bruce, once United States Senator from Mississippi,
and latterly Recorder of Deeds from the District of
Columbia. It is the unpretentious story, simply and
directly told, of a Colored man twenty-nine years a
slave. The earlier chapters contain the record of his
life during ante-bellum days, his experiences under
slavery as a child, youth, and a grown man, the joys,
the sorrows, the privations, the pleasures, and the
vicissitudes which came to him in turn. The closing
chapters tell of the conditions with which emancipation
confronted him, what helps and hindrances he
encountered in his new career, through what changing
fortune he made his way to comfort and independence.
We doubt whether there is to be found in
literature anything of its kind at once as authentic
and as entertaining. The writer is not a professional
Colored man. He is not conspicuous in protest
against the attitude of the white people toward the
race. He does not claim to have been a bleeding
martyr during his term of slavery. He does not picture
the old southern proprietor class as monsters and
tyrants - quite the contrary - or pretend that all the
virtue, kindness, worth, and loyalty of that section
was to be found in the Negroes. The fact is, that
Mr. Bruce writes of the period during which he lived
in bondage in Virginia, Mississippi, and Missouri,
very much as his own master would have written -
truthfully, fairly, philosophically. It is evident that
he cherishes no resentful feeling toward those in
whose service he spent the first half of
his life Indeed, one can see that he has for them the
truest affection and regard. If there be one sentiment
which, more than any other, runs through the whole
narrative from beginning to end, it is the sentiment of
pride in the old southern aristocracy, and contempt for
every other type and variety of white man. He is loyal
to his own people, in the highest and truest meaning of
loyalty, but for the slave owners as he knew them, he
has the sense of gratitude and justice strong within
him.
The book is full of wisdom and kindness. Here
and there are touches of shrewd observations which
the Colored people will do well to ponder and reflect
upon. And not the least valuable and creditable feature
of Mr. Bruce's work is to be found in the candid,
generous, and fair comment he indulges as to the
management of the Pension Office under Messrs.
Black, Raum, and Lochren. It is refreshing, indeed,
to find a Colored man writing so intelligently of
slavery during his own term of bondage, and of
race issues and politics, in which for thirty years
past he has been an active, if a modest and
unostentatious participant. --
Washington Post,
April 14, 1895.
Return to Menu Page for The New Man. Twenty-Nine Years a Slave... by Henry Clay Bruce Return to North American Slave Narratives Home Page Return to First-Person Narratives of the American South Home Page Return to Documenting the American South Home Page
CHAPTER I.
Page 12
Page 13
Page 14
Page 15
Page 16
Page 17
Page 18
Page 19
Page 20
Page 21
Page 22
Page 23
Page 24
CHAPTER II.
Page 25
Page 26
Page 27
Page 28
Page 29
Page 30
Page 31
Page 32
CHAPTER III.
Page 33
Page 34
Page 35
Page 36
Page 37
Page 38
Page 39
Page 40
Page 41
Page 42
Page 43
CHAPTER IV.
Page 44
Page 45
Page 46
Page 47
Page 48
Page 49
Page 50
Page 51
Page 52
CHAPTER V.
Page 53
Page 54
Page 55
Page 56
Page 57
Page 58
Page 59
Page 60
CHAPTER VI.
Page 61
Page 62
Page 63
Page 64
Page 65
Page 66
Page 67
Page 68
Page 69
Page 70
Page 71
Page 72
Page 73
Page 74
Page 75
Page 76
CHAPTER VII
Page 77
Page 78
Page 79
Page 80
Page 81
Page 82
CHAPTER VIII.
Page 83
Page 84
Page 85
Page 86
Page 87
Page 88
Page 89
Page 90
Page 91
Page 92
Page 93
CHAPTER IX.
Page 94
Page 95
Page 96
Page 97
Page 98
Page 99
Page 100
Page 101
Page 102
Page 103
Page 104
Page 105
Page 106
Page 107
CHAPTER X.
Page 108
Page 109
Page 110
Page 111
Page 112
CHAPTER XI.
Page 113
Page 114
Page 115
Page 116
Page 117
Page 118
Page 119
Page 120
Page 121
Page 122
Page 123
Page 124
Page 125
Page 126
Page 127
Page 128
CHAPTER XII.
Page 129
Page 130
Page 131
Page 132
Page 133
Page 134
Page 135
Page 136
Page 137
CHAPTER XIII.
Page 138
Page 139
Page 140
Page 141
Page 142
Page 143
CHAPTER XIV.
Page 144
Page 145
Page 146
Page 147
Page 148
* The above figures are
furnished by Rev.
F. J. Grimke,
of the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church, Washington,
D.C., from which I make the estimate of five hundred dollars
as the average cost of each minister, which I think very
reasonable.
Page 149
Page 150
Page 151
Page 152
Page 153
Page 154
Page 155
CHAPTER XV.
Page 156
Page 157
Page 158
Page 159
Page 160
Page 161
Page 162
Page 163
Page 164
Page 165
Page 166
Page 167
Page 168
Page 169
Page 170
Page 171
Page 172
Page 173
ENDORSEMENTS.
Page 174
Page 175
Medical Referee, Bureau of Pensions.
THE NEGRO BOND AND FREE.
Page 176