For several years I have felt a desire to write these reminiscences, but did not conclude to do so until receiving, a few months ago, a letter from Mr. Martin F. Tupper—the English poet—in which he wrote: “Let me encourage you in the idea of writing ‘Plantation Reminiscences.’ It will be a good work; and it is time the world was learning the truth. I myself have learned it and shall not be slow in telling it to others.”
That my birth place should have been a Virginia plantation; my lot in life cast on a Virginia plantation; my ancestors, for nine generations, owners of Virginia plantations, remain facts mysterious and inexplicable but to Him who determined the bounds of our habitations, and said: “Be still, and know that I am God.”
Confined exclusively to a Virginia plantation, during my earliest childhood, I believed the world one vast plantation bounded by negro quarters. Rows of white cabins with gardens attached; negro men in the fields; negro women sewing, knitting, spinning, weaving, house-keeping in the cabins, with negro children dancing, romping, singing, jumping, playing around the doors, formed the only pictures familiar to my childhood.
The master’s residence—as the negroes called it, the “great house”—occupied a central position, and was handsome and attractive; the overseer’s being a plainer house, about a mile from this.
Each cabin had as much pine furniture as the occupants desired; pine and oak being abundant, and carpenters always at work for the comfort of the plantation.
Bread, meat, milk, vegetables, fruit and fuel were as plentiful as water in the springs near the cabin doors.
Among the negroes—one hundred—on our plantation, many had been taught different trades; and there were blacksmiths, carpenters, brick masons, millers, shoemakers, weavers, spinners, all working for themselves. No article of their handicraft ever being sold from the place, their industry resulted in nothing beyond feeding and clothing themselves.
My sister and myself, when very small children, were often carried to visit these cabins, on which occasions no young princesses could have received from admiring subjects more adulation. Presents were laid at our feet—not glittering gems—but eggs, chesnuts, popcorn, walnuts, melons, apples, sweet potatoes, all their “cupboards” afforded, with a generosity unbounded. This made us as happy as queens; and filled our hearts with kindness and gratitude to our dusky admirers.
Around the cabin doors the young negroes would quarrel as to who should be his or her mistress; some claiming me, and others my sister.
All were merry-hearted, and among them I never saw a discontented face. Their amusements were dancing to the music of the banjo, quilting parties, opossum hunting, and, sometimes, weddings and parties.
Many could read, and in almost every cabin was a Bible. In one was a Prayer-book, kept by one of the men—a preacher—from which he read the marriage ceremony at the weddings. This man opened a night school—charging twenty-five cents a week—hoping to inspire some literary thirst among the rising generation, who, however, preferred their nightly frolics to the school, so it had few patrons.
Our house servants were numerous, polite and well trained. My mother selected those most obliging in disposition and quick at learning, who were brought to the house at ten or twelve years of age, and instructed in the branches of household employment.
These small servants were always dressed in the cleanest, whitest long-sleeved aprons, with white or red turbans on their heads. No establishment being considered complete without a multiplicity of these; they might be seen constantly darting about on errands from the house to the kitchen and the cabins; up stairs and down stairs, being indeed omnipresent and indispensable.
It was the custom for a lady visitor to be accompanied to her room at night by one of these black, smiling “indispensables,” who insisted so good naturedly on performing all offices, combing her hair, pulling off her slippers, &c., that one had not the heart to refuse, although it would have been sometimes more agreeable to have been left alone.
The negroes were generally pleased at the appearance of visitors, from whom they were accustomed to receive some present on arriving or departing, the neglect of which was considered a breach of politeness.
The old negroes were quite patriarchal; loved to talk about “old times,” and exacted great respect from the young negroes, and also from the younger members of the white family. We called the old men “Uncle,” and the old women “Aunt,” cognomens of respect.
The atmosphere of our own home was consideration and kindness. The mere recital of a tale of suffering would make my sister and myself weep with sorrow. And I believe the maltreatment of one of our servants—we had never heard the word “slave”—would have distressed us beyond endurance. We early learned that happiness consisted in dispensing it, and found no pleasure greater than saving our old dolls, toys, beads, bits of cake, or candy for the cabin children, whose delight at receiving them richly repaid us. If any of the older servants became displeased with us, we were miserable until we had restored the old smile by presenting some choice bit of sweet meat, cake or candy.
I remember once, when my grand-mother scolded nurse Kitty, saying: “Kitty, the butler tells me you disturb the breakfast cream every morning, dipping out milk to wash your face,” I burst in tears, and thought it hard when there were so many cows poor Kitty could not wash her face in milk. Kitty had been told that her dark skin would be improved by a milk bath, which she had not hesitated to dip every morning from the breakfast buckets.
At such establishments one easily acquired a habit of being waited upon—there being so many servants with so little to do. It was natural to ask for a drink of water, when the water was right by you, and have things brought which you might easily have gotten yourself. But these domestics were so pleased at such errands one felt no hesitation in requiring them. A young lady would ask black Nancy or Dolly to fan her, whereupon Nancy or Dolly would laugh good naturedly, produce a large palm leaf and fall to fanning her young mistress vigorously, after which she would be rewarded with a bow of ribbon, candy or sweet cakes.
The negroes made pocket money by selling their own vegetables, poultry, eggs, &c.—made at the master’s expense, of course. I often saw my mother take out her purse and pay them liberally for fowls, eggs, melons, sweet potatoes, brooms, shuck mats and split baskets. The men made small crops of tobacco or potatoes for themselves on any piece of ground they chose to select.
My mother and grand-mother were almost always talking over the wants of the negroes,—what medicine should be sent—who they should visit—who needed new shoes, clothes or blankets,—the principle object of their lives seeming to be providing these comforts. The carriage was often ordered for them to ride around to the cabins to distribute light-bread, tea and other necessaries among the sick. And besides employing the best doctor, my grand-mother always saw that they received the best nursing and attention.
In this little plantation world of ours was one being—and only one—who inspired awe in every heart, being a special terror to small children. This was the Queen of the Kitchen—Aunt Christian—who reigned supreme. She wore the whitest cotton cap, with the broadest of ruffles; was very black and very portly, and her sceptre was a good sized stick, kept to chastise small dogs and children who invaded her territory. Her character, however, having been long established she had not often occasion to use this weapon, as these enemies kept out of her way.
Her pride was great, for, said she: “Haven’t I been, long before this here little master whar is was born, bakin’ the best light-bread and waffles and biscuit; and in my old master’s time managed my own affars!”
She was generally left to manage “her own affars,” and being a pattern of neatness and industry her fame went abroad from Botetourt, even unto the remotest ends of Mecklenburg county.
That this marvellous cooking was all the work of her own hands I am, in later years, inclined to doubt, as she kept several assistants, a boy to chop wood, beat biscuit, scour tables, lift off pots and ovens; one woman to make the pastry and another to compound cakes and jellies. But her fame was great; her pride lofty, and I would not now pluck one laurel from her wreath.
This honest woman was appreciated by my mother, but we had no affinity for her, in consequence of certain traditions on the plantation about her severity to children. Having no children of her own, a favorite orphan house-girl, whenever my mother went from home, was left to her care. This girl—now an elderly woman, and still our faithful and loved servant,—says she remembers to this day her joy at my mother’s return home, and her release from Aunt Christian. “I will never forget,” to use her own words, “how I watched the road every day, hoping that mistress would come back, and when I saw the carriage I would run a mile, shouting and clapping my hands.”
Smiling faces always welcomed us home as the carriage passed through the plantation, and on reaching the house we were received by the negroes about the yard with liveliest demonstrations of pleasure.
It was a long time before it dawned upon my mind there were places and people different from these. The plantations we visited seemed exactly like ours. The same hospitality everywhere, the same kindliness existing between the white family and the blacks.
Confined exclusively to plantation scenes, the most trifling incidents impressed themselves indelibly upon me.
One day while my mother was in the yard attending to the planting of some shrubbery, we saw approaching an old, feeble negro man, leaning upon his stick. His clothes were nearly worn out, and he, haggard and thin.
“Good day, Mistess,” said he.
“Who are you?” asked my mother.
“My name is John,” he replied, “and I belonged to your husband’s uncle. He died a long time ago. Before he died he set me free and gave me a good piece of land near Petersburg, and some money and stock. But all—my money and land—all gone, and I was starving. So I come one hundred miles to beg you and master please let me live and die on your plantation. I don’t want to be free no longer. Please don’t let me be free.”
I wondered what was meant by being “free,” and supposed from his appearance it must be some very dreadful and unfortunate condition of humanity. My mother heard him very kindly, and directed him to the kitchen where “Aunt Christian” would give him a plenty to eat.
Although there were already a number of old negroes to be supported, who no longer considered themselves young enough to work, this old man was added to the number, and a cabin built for him. To the day of his death he expressed gratitude to my mother for taking care of him, and often entertained us with accounts of his “old master’s times,” which he said were the “grandest of all.”
By way of apology for certain knotty excrescences on his feet, he used to say: “You see these here knots. Well, they come from my being a monstrous proud young nigger, and squeezin’ my feet in de tightest boots to drive my master’s carriage ’bout Petersburg. I nuver was so happy as when I was drivin’ my coach-an’-four, and crackin’ de postillion over de head wid my whip.”
These pleasant reminiscences were generally concluded with: “Ah! young Misses, you’ll nuver see sich times. No more postillions! No more coach-an’-four! And niggers drives now widout they white gloves. Ah! no, young Misses, you’ll nuver see nothin’! Nuver, in your time.”
With these melancholy predictions would he shake his head, and sigh that the days of glory had departed.
Each generation of blacks vied with the other in extolling the virtues of their particular mistress and master and “their times;” but notwithstanding this mournful contrast between the past and present, their reminiscences had a certain charm. Often by their cabin firesides would we listen to the tales of the olden days about our forefathers, of whom they could tell much, having belonged to our family since the landing of the African fathers on the English slave ships, from which their ancestors had been bought by ours. Among these traditions none pleased us so much as that an unkind mistress or master had never been known among our ancestors, which we have always considered a cause for greater pride than the armorial bearings left on their tombstones.
We often listened with pleasure to the recollections of an old blind man—the former faithful attendant of our grand-father—whose mind was filled with vivid pictures of the past. He repeated verbatim conversations and speeches heard sixty years before—from Mr. Madison, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Clay, and other statesmen, his master’s special friends.
“Yes,” he used to say, “I staid with your grandpa ten years in Congress, and all the time he was Secretary for President Jefferson. He nuver give me a cross word, and I nuver saw your grandma the least out of temper neither, but once, and that was at a dinner party ‘we’ give in Washington, when the French Minister said something disrespectful about the United States.”
Often did he tell us: “The greatest pleasure I expect in heaven, is seeing my old master.” And sometimes, “I dream about my master and mistress when I am sleep, and talk with them and see them so plain it makes me so happy that I laugh out right loud.”
This man was true and honest—a good Christian. Important trusts had been confided to him. He frequently carried the carriage and horses to Washington and Baltimore—a journey of two weeks—and sometimes sent to carry a large sum of money to a distant county.
His wife, who had accompanied him in her youth to Washington, also entertained us with gossip about the people of that day, and could tell exactly the size and color of Mrs. Madison’s slippers, how she was dressed on certain occasions, “what beautiful manners she had,” how Mr. Jefferson received master and mistress when “we” drove up to Monticello, what room they occupied, &c.
Although my grand-father’s death occurred thirty years before, the negroes still remembered it with sorrow; and one of them, speaking of it, said to me, “Ah, little mistess, ’twas a sorrowful day when de news come from Washington dat our good, kind master was dead. A mighty wail went up from dis plantation, for we know’d we had loss our bes friend.”
The only negro on the place who did not evince an interest in the white family was a man ninety years old, who, forty years before, announced his intention of not working any longer—although still strong and athletic—because, he said, “the estate had done come down so he hadn’t no heart to work no longer.” He remembered, he said, “when thar was three and four hundred black folks, but sence de British debt had to be paid over by his old master, and de Macklenbug estate had to be sold, he hadn’t had no heart to do nothin’ sence.” And “he hadn’t seen no real fine white folks—what he called real fine white folks—sence he come from Macklenbug.” All his interest in life having expired with an anterior generation; we were in his eyes but a poor set, and he refused to have anything to do with us. Not being compelled to work, he passed his life principally in the woods, wore a rabbit-skin cap and a leather apron. Having lost interest in, and connection with the white family, he gradually relapsed into a state of barbarism, refusing towards the end of his life to sleep in his bed, preferring a hard bench in his cabin, upon which he died.
Another very old man remembered something of his father, who had come from Africa; and when we asked him to tell us what he remembered of his father’s narrations, would say:
“My father told us that his mother lived in a hole in the ground, and when the English people come to Africa she sold him for a string of beads. He said ‘’twas mighty hard for him, when he fus come to dis country, to wear clothes.’ Sometimes he would git so mad wid us chillun, my mammy would have to run and hide us to keep him from killin’ us. Den sometimes at night he would say: ‘He gwine sing he country,’ den he would dance and jump and howl and skeer us to death.”
They spoke always of their forefathers as the “outlandish people.”
On some plantations it was a custom to buy the wife when a negro preferred to marry on another estate. And in this way we became possessed of a famous termagant, who had married our grand-father’s gardener, quarrelled him to death in one year and survived to quarrel forty years longer with the other negroes. She had no children—not even a cat or dog could live with her. She had been offered her freedom, but refused to accept it. Several times had been given away; once to her son—a free man—and to others with whom she fancied she might live, but, like the bad penny, was always returned to us. She always returned in a cart, seated on top of her chest and surrounded by her goods and chattels, dressed in a high hat, long black plume—standing straight up—gay cloth spencer and short petticoat, the costume of a hundred years ago. Although her return was a sore affliction to the plantation, my sister and myself found much amusement in witnessing it. The cold welcome she received seemed not to affect her spirits, but re-establishing herself in her cabin she quickly resumed the turbulent course of her career.
Finally one morning the news came that this woman, old Clara, was dead. Two women went to sweep her cabin and perform the last sad offices. They waited all day for the body to get cold. While sitting over the fire in the evening, one of them happening to glance at a small mirror inserted in the wall near the bed, exclaimed: “Old Clara’s laughing!” They went nearer and there was a horrible grin on the face of the corpse! Old Clara sprang out of bed exclaiming, “Git me some meat and bread. I’m most perish’d!”
“Old woman, what you mean by foolin’ us so?” asked the nurses.
“I jes want see what you all gwine do wid my things when I was dead!” replied the old woman, whose “things” consisted of all sorts of old and curious spencers, hats, plumes, necklaces, caps and dresses, collected during her various wanderings and worn by a long past generation.
Among these old cabin legends we sometimes collected bits of romance, and were often told how, by the coquetry of a certain Richmond belle, we had lost a handsome fortune, which impressed me even then with the fatal consequences of coquetry.