A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States E-Book

Frederick Law Olmsted

• Herausgeber: Arcadia Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903) was a journalist and landscape designer who is regarded as the founder of American landscape architecture: his most famous achievement was Central Park in New York, of which he became the superintendent in 1857, but he also worked on the design of parks in many other burgeoning American cities, and was called by Charles Eliot Norton 'the greatest artist that America has yet produced'. His A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States was originally published in 1856, and arose from journeys in the south which Olmsted, a passionate abolitionist, had undertaken in 1853-4. This edition was published in two volumes in 1904, with the addition of a biographical sketch by his son and an introduction by William P. Trent. It abounds in fascinating and witty descriptions of Olmsted's encounters and experiences in a society which was on the verge of overwhelming change. 

Leseprobe

TABLE OF CONTENTS

COVER

TITLE

COPYRIGHT

A JOURNEY IN THESEABOARD SLAVE STATES

PREFACE.

CHAPTER I: WASHINGTON.

CHAPTER II: VIRGINIA.

CHAPTER III: THE ECONOMY OF VIRGINIA.

CHAPTER IV: THE EXPERIENCE OF VIRGINIA.

CHAPTER V: NORTH CAROLINA.

CHAPTER VI: SOUTH CAROLINA AND GEORGIA.

CHAPTER VII: RICE AND ITS CULTURE.

CHAPTER VIII: EXPERIMENTAL POLITICAL ECONOMY OF SOUTH CAROLINA AND GEORGIA.

CHAPTER IX: ALABAMA.

CHAPTER X: EXPERIENCE OF ALABAMA.

CHAPTER XI: LOUISIANA.

APPENDIX.

Frederick Law Olmsted

A JOURNEY IN THESEABOARD SLAVE STATES

Copyright © Frederick Law Olmsted

A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States

(1856)

Arcadia Press 2017

[email protected]

www.arcadiapress.eu

Storewww.arcadiaebookstore.eu

A JOURNEY IN THESEABOARD SLAVE STATES

PREFACE.

THE chief design of the author in writing this book has been, to describe what was most interesting, amusing, and instructive to himself, during the first three of fourteen months’ traveling in our Slave States; using the later experience to correct the erroneous impressions of the earlier.

He is aware that it has one fault — it is too fault-finding. He is sorry for it, but it cannot now be helped; so at the outset, let the reader understand that he is invited to travel in company with an honest growler.

But growling is sometimes a duty; and the traveler might well be suspected of being a “dead head,” or a sneak, who did not find frequent occasion for its performance, among the notoriously careless, make-shift, impersistent people of the South.

For the rest, the author had, at the outset of his journey, a determination to see things for himself, as far as possible, and to see them carefully and fairly, but cheerfully and kindly. It was his disposition, also, to search for the causes and extenuating circumstances, past and present, of those phenomena which are commonly reported to the prejudice of the slaveholding community; and especially of those features which are manifestly most to be regretted in the actual condition of the older Slave States.

He protests that he has been influenced by no partisan bias; none, at least, in the smallest degree unfriendly to fair investigation, and honest reporting. At the same time, he avows himself a democrat; not in the technical and partisan, but in the primary and essential sense of that term. As a democrat he went to study the South — its institutions, and its people; more than ever a democrat, he has returned from this labor, and written the pages which follow.

SOUTH-SIDE STATEN ISLAND, Jan. 9, 1856.

“Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.” — Macaulay.

“You have among you many a purchased slave,

Which, like your asses, and your dogs, and mules,

You use in abject and in slavish parts,

Because you bought them:

“So do I answer you.

The pound of flesh which I demand of him,

Is dearly bought; ‘tis mine, and I will have it.

If you deny me, fie upon your law!” — Shylock.

“The one idea which History exhibits as evermore developing itself into greater distinctness, is the idea of humanity, the noble endeavor to throw down all barriers erected between men by prejudice and one-sided views, and by setting aside the distinctions of religion, country, and color, to treat the whole human race as one Brotherhood, having one great object — the pure development of our spiritual nature.” — Humboldt’s Cosmos.

CHAPTER I

WASHINGTON.

GADSBY’S HOTEL, Dec. 10.

To accomplish the purposes which brought me to Washington, it was necessary, on arriving here, to make arrangements to secure food and shelter while I remained. There are two thousand of us visitors in Washington under a similar necessity. There are a dozen or more persons who, for a consideration, undertake to provide what we want. Mr. Dexter is reported to be the best of them, and really seems a very obliging and honestly-disposed person. To Mr. Dexter, therefore, I commit myself.

I commit myself by inscribing my name in a Register. Five minutes after I have done so, Clerk No. 4, whose attention I have been unable to obtain any sooner, suddenly catches the Register by the corner, swings it round with a jerk, and throws a hieroglyphic scrawl at it, which strikes near my name. Henceforth, I figure as Boarder No. 201, (or whatever it may be). Clerk No. 4 whistles (“Boarders, away!”), and throws key, No. 201 upon the table. Turnkey No. 3 takes it, and me, and my traveling bag, up several flights of stairs, along corridors and galleries, and finally consigns me to this little square cell.

I have faith that there is a tight roof above the very much cracked ceiling; that the bed is clean; and that I shall, by-and-by, be summoned, along with hundreds of other persons, to partake, in grandly silent sobriety, of a very sumptuous dinner.

Food and Shelter. Therewith should a man be content. It will enable me to accomplish my purpose in coming to Washington. But my perverse nature will not be content: will be wishing things were otherwise. They say this uneasiness — this passion for change — is a peculiarity of our diseased Northern nature. The Southern man finds Providence in all that is: Satan in all that might be. That is good; and, as I am going South, when I have accomplished my purposes at Washington, I will not here restrain the escape of my present discontent.

I have such a shockingly depraved nature that I wish the dinner was not going to be so grand. My idea is that, if it were not, Mr. Dexter would save moneys, which I would like to have him expend in other ways. I wish he had more clerks, so that they would have time to be as polite to an unknown man as I see they are to John P. Hale; and, at least, answer civil questions, when his guests ask them. I don’t like such a fearful rush of business as there is down stairs. I wish there were men enough to do the work quietly.

I don’t like these cracked and variegated walls; and, though the roof may be tight, I don’t like this threatening aspect of the ceiling. It should be kept for people of Damoclesian ambition: I am humble.

I am humble, and I am short, and soon curried; but I am not satisfied with a quarter of a yard of toweling, having an irregular vacancy in its centre, where I am liable to insert my head. I am not proud; but I had rather have something else, or nothing, than these three yards of ragged and faded quarter-ply carpeting. I also would like a curtain to the window, and I wish the glass were not so dusty, and that the sashes did not rattle so in their casements; though, as there is no other ventilation, I suppose I ought not to complain. Of course not; but it is confoundedly cold, as well as noisy. I don’t like that broken latch; I don’t like this broken chair; I would prefer that this table were not so greasy in its appearance; I would rather the ashes and cinders, and the tobacco juice around the grate, had been removed before I was consigned to the cell.

I wish that less of my two dollars and a half a day went to pay for game for the dinner, and the interest of the cost of the mirrors and mahogany for the public parlors, and of marble for the halls, and more of it for providing me with a private room, which should be more than a barely habitable cell, which should also be a little bit tasteful, home-like, and comfortable.

SERVANTS.

I wish more of it was expended in servants’ wages.

Six times I rang the bell; three several times came three different Irish lads; entered, received my demand for a fire, and retired. I was writing, shiveringly, a full hour before the fire-man came. Now he has entered, bearing on his head a hod of coal and kindling wood, without knocking. An aged negro, more familiar and more indifferent to forms of subserviency that the Irish lads, very much bent, seemingly with infirmity, an expression of impotent anger in his face, and a look of weakness, like a drunkard’s. He does not look at me, but mutters unintelligibly.

“What’s that you say?”

“Tink I can make a hundred fires at once?”

“I dont want to sit an hour waiting for a fire, after I have ordered one, and you must not let me again.”

“Nebber let de old nigger have no ress — hundred gemmen tink I kin mak dair fires all de same minute; all get mad at an ole nigger; I ain’t a goin to stan it — nebber get no ress — up all night — haint got nautin to eat nor drink dis blessed mornin — hundred gemmen — “

“That’s not my business; Mr. Dexter should have more servants.”

“So he ort ter, master, dat he had, one ole man ain’t enough for all dis house, is it master? hundred gemmen — “

“Stop — here’s a quarter for you; now I want you to look out that I have a good fire, and keep the hearth clean in my room as long as I stay here. And when I send for you I want you to come immediately. Do you understand?”

“I’le try, master — you jus look roun and fine me when you want yer fire; I’ll be roun somewhere. You got a newspaper, Sir, I ken take for a minit; I won’t hurt it.”

I gave him one; and wondered what use he could put it to, that would not hurt it. He opened it to a folio, and spread it before the grate, so the draft held it in place, and it acted as a blower. I asked if there were no blowers? “No.” “But haven’t you got any brush or shovel?” I inquired, seeing him get down upon his knees again and sweep the cinders and ashes he had thrown upon the floor with the sleeve of his coat, and then take them up with his hands; — no, he said, his master did not give him such things. “Are you a slave?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you belong to Mr. Dexter?”

“No, sir, he hires me of de man dat owns me. Don’t you tink I’se too ole a man for to be knock roun at dis kind of work, massa? — hundred gemmen all want dair fires made de same minute, and caus de old nigger cant do it all de same minute, ebbery one tinks dey’s boun to scold him all de time; nebber no rest for him, no time.”

I know the old fellow lied somewhat, for I saw another fireman in Mr. B.’s room. Was that quarter a good investment, or should I have complained at the office? No, they are too busy to listen to me, too busy, certainly, to make better arrangements.

It is time for me to call on Mr. S.; the fire has gone out, leaving a fine bituminous fragrance in the cell. I will “look round” for the fireman, as I travel the long road to the office, and, if I do not find him, leave an order, in writing, for a fire to be made before two o’clock.

A MARYLAND FARM.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14th. Called on Mr. C., whose fine farm, from its vicinity to Washington, and its excellent management, as well as from the hospitable habits of its owner, has a national reputation. It is some two thousand acres in extent, and situated just without the District, in Maryland.

The residence is in the midst of the farm, a quarter of a mile from the high road — the private approach being judiciously carried through large pastures which are divided only by slight, but close and well-secured, wire fences. The mansion is of brick, and, as seen through the surrounding trees, has somewhat the look of an old French chateau. The kept grounds are very limited, and in simple but quiet taste; being surrounded only by wires, they merge, in effect, into the pastures. There is a fountain, an ornamental dove-cote, and ice-house, and the approach road, nicely graveled and rolled, comes up to the door with a fine sweep.

I had dismounted and was standing before the door, when I heard myself loudly hailed from a distance.

“Ef yer wants to see Master, sah, he’s down thar — to the new stable.”

I could see no one; and when I was tired of holding my horse, I mounted, and rode on in search of the new stable. I found it without difficulty; and in it Mr. and Mrs. C. With them were a number of servants, one of whom now took my horse with alacrity. I was taken at once to look at a very fine herd of cows, and afterwards led upon a tramp over the farm, and did not get back to the house till dinner time.

The new stable is most admirably contrived for convenience, labor-saving, and economy of space. (Full and accurate descriptions of it, with illustrations, have been given in several agricultural journals.) The cows are mainly thorough-bred Shorthorns, with a few imported Ayrshires and Alderneys, and some small black “natives.” I have seldom seen a better lot of milkers; they are kept in good condition, are brisk and healthy, docile and kind, soft and pliant of skin, and give milk up to the very eve of calving; milking being never interrupted for a day. Near the time of calving the milk is given to the calves and pigs. The object is to obtain milk only, which is never converted into butter or cheese, but sent immediately to town, and for this the Shorthorns are found to be the most profitable breed. Mr. C. believes that, for butter, the little Alderneys, from the peculiar richness of their milk, would be the most valuable. He is, probably, mistaken, though I remember that in Ireland the little black Kerry cow was found fully equal to the Ayrshire for butter, though giving much less milk.

There are extensive bottom lands on the farm, subject to be flooded in freshets, on which the cows are mainly pastured in summer. Indian corn is largely sown for fodder, and, during the driest season, the cows are regularly soiled with it. These bottom lands were entirely covered with heavy wood, until, a few years since, Mr. C. erected a steam saw-mill, and has lately been rapidly clearing them, and floating off the sawed timber to market by means of a small stream that runs through the farm.

The low land is much of it drained, underdrains being made of rough boards of any desired width nailed together, so that a section is represented by the inverted letter V. Such covered drains have lasted here twenty years without failing yet, but have only been tried where the flow of water was constant throughout the year.

The water collected by the drains can be, much of it, drawn into a reservoir, from which it is forced by a pump, driven by horse-power, to the market-garden, where it is distributed from several fountain-heads, by means of hose, and is found of great value, especially for celery. The celery trenches are arranged in concentric circles, the water-head being in the center. The water-closets and all the drainage of the house are turned to good account in the same way. Mr. C. contemplates extending his water-pipes to some of his meadow lands. Wheat and hay are the chief crops sold off the farm, and the amount of them produced is yearly increasing.

The two most interesting points of husbandry, to me, were the large and profitable use of guano and bones, and the great extent of turnip culture. Crops of one thousand and twelve hundred bushels of ruta baga to the acre have been frequent, and this year the whole crop of the farm is reckoned to be over thirty thousand bushels; all to be fed out to the neat stock between this time and the next pasture season. The soil is generally a red, stiff loam, with an occasional stratum of coarse gravel, and, therefore, not the most favorable for turnip culture. The seed is always imported, Mr. C.’s experience, in this respect, agreeing with my own: — the Ruta baga undoubtedly degenerates in our climate. Bones, guano, and ashes are used in connection with yarddung for manure. The seed is sown from the middle to the last of July in drills, but not in ridges, in the English way. In both these respects, also, Mr. C. confirms the conclusions I have arrived at in the climate of New York; namely, that ridges are best dispensed with, and that it is better to sow in the latter part of July than in June, as has been generally recommended in our books and periodicals. Last year, turnips sown on the 20th July were larger and finer than others, sown on the same ground, on my farm, about the first of the month. This year I sowed in August, and, by forcing with superphosphate — home manufactured — and guano, obtained a fine crop; but the season was unusually favorable.

Mr. C. always secures a supply of turnips that will allow him to give at least one bushel a day to every cow while in winter quarters. The turnips are sliced, slightly salted, and commonly mixed with fodder and meal. Mr. C. finds that salting the sliced turnip, twelve hours before it is fed, effectually prevents its communicating any taste to the milk. This, so far as I know, is an original discovery of his, and is one of great value to dairymen. In certain English dairies the same result is obtained, where the cows are fed on cabbages, by the expensive process of heating the milk to a certain temperature and then adding saltpetre.

The wheat crop of this district has been immensely increased, by the use of guano, during the last four years. On this farm it has been largely used for five years; and land that had not been cultivated for forty years, and which bore only broom-sedge — a thin, worthless grass — by the application of two hundred weight of Peruvian guano, now yields thirty bushels of wheat to an acre.

Mr. C.’s practice of applying guano differs, in some particulars, from that commonly adopted here. After a deep plowing of land intended for wheat, he sows the seed and guano at the same time, and harrows both in. The common custom here is to plow in the guano, six or seven inches deep, in preparing the ground for wheat. I believe Mr. C.’s plan is the best. I have myself used guano on a variety of soils for several years with great success for wheat, and I may mention the practice I have adopted from the outset, and with which I am well satisfied. It strikes between the two systems I have mentioned, and I think is philosophically right. After preparing the ground with plow and harrow, I sow wheat and guano together, and plow them in with a gang-plow which covers to a depth, on an average, of three inches.

Clover seed is sowed in the spring following the wheat-sowing, and the year after the wheat is taken off, this — on the old sterile hills — grows luxuriantly, knee-high. It is left alone for two years, neither mown nor pastured; there it grows and there it lies, keeping the ground moist and shady, and improving it on the Gurney principle.

Mr. C. then manures with dung, bones, and guano, and with another crop of wheat lays this land down to grass. What the ultimate effect of this system will be, it is yet too early to say — but Mr. C. is pursuing it with great confidence.

SLAVE LABOR — FIRST IMPRESSIONS.

Mr. C. is a large hereditary owner of slaves, which, for ordinary field and stable-work, constitute his laboring force. He has employed several Irishmen for ditching, and for this work, and this alone, he thought he could use them to better advantage than negroes. He would not think of using Irishmen for common farm-labor, and made light of their coming in competition with slaves. Negroes at hoeing and any steady field-work, he assured me, would “do two to their one;” but his main objection to employing Irishmen was derived from his experience of their unfaithfulness — they were dishonest, would not obey explicit directions about their work, and required more personal supervision than negroes. From what he had heard and seen of Germans, he supposed they did better than Irish. He mentioned that there were several Germans who had come here as laboring men, and worked for wages several years, who had now got possession of small farms, and were reputed to be getting rich.

He was disinclined to converse on the topic of slavery, and I, therefore, made no inquiries about the condition and habits of his negroes, or his management of them. They seemed to live in small and rude log-cabins, scattered in different parts of the farm. Those I saw at work appeared to me to move very slowly and awkwardly, as did also those engaged in the stable. These, also, were very stupid and dilatory in executing any orders given to them, so that Mr. C. would frequently take the duty off their hands into his own, rather than wait for them, or make them correct their blunders: they were much, in these respects, like what our farmers call dumb Paddies — that is, Irishmen who do not readily understand the English language, and who are still weak and stiff from the effects of the emigrating voyage. At the entrance-gate was a porter’s lodge, and, as I approached, I saw a black face peeping at me from it, but, both when I entered and left, I was obliged to dismount and open the gate myself.

Altogether, it struck me — slaves coming here as they naturally did in direct comparison with free laborers, as commonly employed on my own and my neighbor’s farms, in exactly similar duties — that they must be very difficult to direct efficiently, and that it must be very irksome and trying to one’s patience, to have to superintend their labor.

MARKET-DAY — NEGROES AND LIVE STOCK.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 16. Visiting the market-place, early on Tuesday morning, I found myself in the midst of a throng of a very different character from any I have ever seen at the North. The majority of the people were negroes, and, taken as a whole, they appeared inferior in the expression of their face and less well-clothed than any collection of negroes I had ever seen before. All the negro characteristics were more clearly marked in each than they often are in any at the North. In their dress, language, manner, motions — all were distinguishable almost as much by their color, from the white people who were distributed among them, and engaged in the same occupations — chiefly selling poultry, vegetables, and small country-produce. The white men were, generally, a mean looking people, and but meanly dressed, but differently so from the negroes.

Most of the produce was in small, rickety carts, drawn by the smallest, ugliest, leanest lot of oxen and horses that I ever saw. There was but one pair of horses in over a hundred that were tolerably good — a remarkable proportion of them were maimed in some way. As for the oxen, I do not believe New England and New York together could produce a single yoke so poor as the best of them.

The very trifling quantity of articles brought in and exposed for sale by most of the market-people was noticeable; a peck of potatoes, three bunches of carrots, two cabbages, six eggs and a chicken, would be about the average stock in trade of all the dealers. Mr. F. said that an old negro woman once came to his door with a single large turkey, which she pressed him to buy. Struck with her fatigued appearance, he made some inquiries of her, and ascertained that she had been several days coming from home, had traveled mainly on foot, and had brought the turkey and nothing else with her. “Ole massa had to raise some money somehow, and he could not sell anything else, so he tole me to catch the big gobbler, and tote um down to Washington and see wot um would fotch.”

The prices of garden productions were high, compared even with New York. All the necessaries of life are very expensive in Washington; great complaint is made of exorbitant rents, and building-lots are said to have risen in value several hundred per cent. within five or six years.

The population of the city is now over 50,000, and is increasing rapidly. There seems to be a deficiency of tradespeople, and I have no doubt the profits of retailers are excessive. There is one cotton factory in the District of Columbia, employing one hundred and fifty hands, male and female; a small foundry; a distillery; and two tanneries — all not giving occupation to fifty men; less than two hundred, altogether, out of a resident population of nearly 150,000, being engaged in manufactures. Very few of the remainder are engaged in productive occupations. There is water-power near the city, superior to that of Lowell, of which, at present, I understand that no use at all is made.

LAND AND LABOR IN THE DISTRICT.

Land may be purchased, within twenty miles of Washington, at from ten to twenty dollars an acre. Most of it has been once in cultivation, and, having been exhausted in raising tobacco, has been, for many years, abandoned, and is now covered by a forest growth. Several New Yorkers have lately speculated in the purchase of this sort of land, and, as there is a good market for wood, and the soil, by the decay of leaves upon it, and other natural causes, has been restored to moderate fertility, have made money by clearing and improving it. By deep plowing and limeing, and the judicious use of manures, it is made very productive; and, as equally cheap farms can hardly be found in any free State, in such proximity to so high markets for agricultural produce, as those of Washington and Alexandria, there are good inducements for a considerable Northern immigration hither. It may not be long before a majority of the inhabitants will be opposed to Slavery, and desire its abolition within the District. Indeed, when Mr. Seward proposed in the Senate to allow them to decide that matter, the advocates of “popular sovereignty” made haste to vote down the motion.

There are, already, more Irish and German laborers and servants than slaves, and, as many of the objections which free laborers have to going further South, do not operate in Washington, the proportion of white laborers is every year increasing. The majority of servants, however, are now free negroes, which class constitutes one-fifth of the entire population. The slaves are one-fifteenth, but are mostly owned out of the District, and hired annually to those who require their services. In the assessment of taxable property, for 1853, the slaves, owned or hired in the District, were valued at three hundred thousand dollars.

THE NEGROES OF WASHINGTON.

The colored population voluntarily sustain several churches, schools, and mutual assistance and improvement societies, and there are evidently persons among them of no inconsiderable cultivation of mind. Among the Police Reports of the City newspapers, there was lately (April, 1855) an account of the apprehension of twenty-four “genteel colored men” (so they were described), who had been found by a watchman assembling privately in the evening, and been lodged in the watch-house. The object of their meeting appears to have been purely benevolent, and, when they were examined before a magistrate in the morning, no evidence was offered, nor does there seem to have been any suspicion that they had any criminal purpose. On searching their persons, there were found a Bible, a volume of Seneca’s Morals; Life in Earnest; the printed Constitution of a Society, the object of which was said to be “to relieve the sick, and bury the dead;” and a subscription paper to purchase the freedom of Eliza Howard, a young woman, whom her owner was willing to sell at $650.

I can think of nothing that would speak higher for the character of a body of poor men, servants and laborers, than to find, by chance, in their pockets, just such things as these. And I cannot value that man as a countryman, who does not feel intense humiliation and indignation, when he learns that such men may not be allowed to meet privately together, with such laudable motives, in the capital city of the United States, without being subject to disgraceful punishment. Washington is, at this time, governed by the Know Nothings, and the magistrate, in disposing of the case, was probably actuated by a well-founded dread of secret conspiracies, inquisitions, and persecutions. One of the prisoners, a slave named Joseph Jones, he ordered to be flogged; four others, called in the papers free men, and named John E. Bennett, Chester Taylor, George Lee, and Aquila Barton, were sent to the Work-house, and the remainder, on paying costs of court, and fines, amounting, in the aggregate, to one hundred and eleven dollars, were permitted to range loose again