Special Correspondence of the New-York Daily Times

Slaves Owning Horses, Guns, and Dogs—The New Code of Alabama—Illicit Trade with Negroes—Pilfering—The Socialistic Aspect of Slavery—The Paternal Aspect of Slavery.

In returning from the “Cracker meeting” to the plantation, we passed a man on horseback, who had the appearance of one of the civilized native East Indian gentlemen; his complexion dark olive, with good features, and a thick moustache. He was well-dressed, and raised his hat in bowing to us with a courteous and well-bred air. I asked who it was.

“He is one of our people—Robert—a very valuable servant. He is the watchman, and has charge of the engine and all the stores.”

We met a wagon with a pleasant family party of common field hand negroes. They also belonged to

Mr. A. I inquired if they usually let them have horses to go to Church.

“Oh, no; that horse belongs to the old man.”

“Belongs to him! Why, do they own horses?”

“Oh, yes; William (the House servant) owns two, and Robert, I believe, has three now that was one of them he was riding.”

“How do they get them?”

“Oh, they buy them.”

“But can they have money enough to buy horses?”

“Oh, yes; William makes a good deal of money; so does Robert. You see he is such a valuable fellow, father makes him a good many presents. He gave him a hundred dollars only a little while ago. The old man was getting infirm, and could not get about very well, so father gave him a horse.”

I afterwards met the man, Robert, at the mill, where he lived as “watchman,” or steward, in a cabin by himself, at a distance from the quarters of the other negroes. His language and manner was confident, frank, and manly; contrasting as much as possible with that of the negroes or mulattoes of ordinary circumstances. He wore a belt, on which were hung a large number of keys, and he walked about with his owner and me, to open the doors of the mill, barns, storehouses, and stables, conversing freely, and explaining a variety of matters with much intelligence.

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I learned that he was employed while a boy as a house-servant, until, at his own request, he was put in the plantation blacksmith’s shop; after acquiring this craft, he learned to make cotton-gins, and then, as he wanted to become a machinist, his master took him to Savannah, where he remained living at his own pleasure for several years. At length his owner, finding that he was acquiring dissipated habits and wasting all his earnings, brought him back to his plantation, and by giving him duties flattering to his self-respect, and allowing him peculiar privileges, made him content to remain there. He had made all the alterations and repairs necessary in running a steam-engine and extensive machinery during seven years, and his work was admirable, both in contrivance and execution.

Elsewhere I saw another negro engineer of remarkable intelligence; the gentleman in whose employment he had been for many years, esteemed him very highly, and desired to make him free. His owner, a large capitalist, a gentleman moving in our best society, and a church-member, resides at the North. He does not think it a good plan to emancipate slaves, and refuses to sell him at even a great price for that purpose. He (the owner) receives two hundred dollars a year as the wages for his services.

Though in reality a slave, being himself the property of another, cannot possess property, yet in the same way that our children and minors have things “for their own,” they acquire many articles which few masters would be mean enough to take from them, except they were of a character to hurt them—such as ardent spirits—or such as they might be afraid of their using to the injury or annoyance of others.

The new code of Alabama, which, in one or two particulars, is less inhumane than the laws of any other Southern State, except Louisiana, in its provisions with regard to the negroes, has one article forbidding slaves to own dogs. As it seemed to me by the incessant yelping at night that every negro in the State must keep half a dozen curs, I asked a legal friend what was the object of the law. He could not tell me, but assured me that it would never be enforced. I presume it was intended to abate the great destruction of sheep by negroes’ dogs (or rather the destruction which the negroes attribute to dogs, to shield a theft of one of themselves), an evil which is everywhere complained of at the South, and which operates to prevent more extensive wool-growing there. It will probably not be enforced except on extraordinary occasions.

Other provisions of this code, enumerated by a writer in the Times a few days since, as examples of the humane amelioration of the laws of the South in favor of the negroes, seem to me of value only as expressing the views of the enactors on certain minor moralities of Slavery, such as that forbidding the separation from their mothers (mothers only) of children, before they are ten years old, in sheriffs sales, unless their owner deems that his interests require it (for this is all it amounts to), and to prevent the separation of relatives in mortgagee’s sales, where they can just as well be sold together in family lots. The gratification which “Walpole” finds in such provisions for the more [184] humane use of negroes, in a State which he considers to be “rapidly advancing in all that constitutes true civilization,” and as “leading the way” by such measures in a glorious work of reformation, well shows with how much smaller a progress than most Northern men would have been apt to suppose safe and practicable, even the most intelligent, liberal, humane, and hopeful Southerners would be content—bearing out the views f have before expressed upon this point.

I fear many of your readers will have been surprised to find such a man touching upon it as a great thing—a reformation to be pointed to as an honor to the civilization of the good people of Alabama—that the law does not violently separate, for the fault or indiscretion of another person (their owner, as it deems him), a child under five years of age from its mother, under any circumstances, nor remove a child under ten years old from its mother, unless the said owner will make and deliver to an officer in charge an affidavit that his (the said owner’s) interests will be materially prejudiced by the sale of them together. The law does not even propose to hinder, by so much as requiring an affidavit to be made that he will make money by it, the owner of a mother and child who pays his debts, from selling one to go to Texas, and retaining the other. This would be thought exceeding the appropriate duties of legislation---too great an interference with the natural laws of commerce.

I have often suggested the propriety of such laws as “Walpole” refers to, to prevent the internal slave trade, and have been answered that it was impossible to make such laws efficient. In Georgia, I was told, there is a law forbidding the introduction of slaves from abroad to be sold within the State; but it is constantly evaded. The law does not forbid persons without the State selling to those within, nor the transfer of slave property between resident citizens. The slave trader, therefore, has merely to have a partner, or confederate resident, execute bills of sale of his Virginia importation to him, and the latter may then resell without let or hindrance. I entirely agree with “Walpole” in his views of the principles on which Southern Statesmanship should be guided on this subject, and if I had the least ability to influence the South, I would not wish to use it in any other direction than that in which his enthusiasm flows.

If I err in my statement of facts, or if I have misapprehended public sentiment at the South, on this or any other subject, I shall consider it a favor to be corrected by those whose residence at the South gives them means of more reliable information and better judgment, than I can hope to have enjoyed. But I ask you, Southern readers, to remember, that a stranger to their habits and proceedings in connection with Slavery, must reflect from so different and distant a standpoint from that in which familiarity places them, that it will not be strange if what appears light to them, sometimes remains dark to him, and that a movement which to them is great and important, is to him almost imperceptible.

The watchman, Robert, besides owning three horses, had in his [185]possession three guns—one of them a valuable fowling piece of a noted London make. Upon further inquiry, I found that several of the field hands also owned guns, which they kept in their cabins. Nothing could show better than this how small is the fear of insurrection where the negroes are managed discreetly, and treated with a moderate degree of confidence and kindness. I have not examined the laws of the State upon the subject, but it was probably illegal, as I know it would be in Alabama and Louisiana for them to be possessed of these weapons. The negroes had purchased them or, in some cases, received them as presents from their owner.

On inquiring of him what were their privileges in buying and selling, he informed me that during a large part of the year all the industrious hands finish the regular tasks required of them by one or two o’ clock in the afternoon, and during the remainder of the day are at liberty, if they choose, to labor for themselves. Each family has a half-acre of land allotted to it, for a garden, besides which there is a large vegetable garden, cultivated by a gardener for the plantation, from which they are supplied, to a greater or lesser extent. They are at liberty to sell whatever they choose from the products of their own garden, and to make what they can by keeping swine and fowls. His family had no other supply of poultry and eggs, except what was obtained by purchase from his own negroes; they frequently, also purchase game from them.

The only restriction upon their traffic was a “liquor law.” They were not allowed to buy or sell ardent spirits. This prohibition, like liquor laws elsewhere, unfortunately could not be enforced, and of late years, Irishmen moving into the country and opening small shops, buying stolen goods from the negroes, and selling them poisonous washes under the name of grog, had become a very great evil; and the planters, although it was illegal, were not able to prevent it. They had combined to do so, and had brought several offenders to trial; but as it was a penitentiary offence, the culprit would spare no pains or expense to save himself from it, and it was almost impossible, in a community constituted as theirs was, to find a jury that would convict.

A remarkable illustration of this evil had just occurred. A planter, discovering that a considerable quantity of cotton had been stolen from him, and suspecting one of his negroes to have taken it, from finding him drunk and very sick from the effects of liquor soon after, informed the patrol of the neighboring planters of it. A lot of cotton was prepared by mixing hair with it, and put in a tempting place. The negro was seen to take it, and was followed to a grog-shop, several miles distant, where he sold it, its real value being nearly ten dollars, for ten cents, taking his pay in liquor. The man was arrested, and the theft being made to appear, by the hair, before a justice, obtained bail in $2,000 to answer at the higher Court.

In a community where the greater number of families live miles apart, and have but rare intercourse with one another, where occasion for Law and Government is almost unknown, where one part of the people, poor, untrained, illiterate, recklessly and improvidently live almost from day to day on the bounty [186] of Nature, making rude log huts, every man for himself; of restless disposition, and frequently, from mere caprice, leaving them and moving away to make new homes; habitually a law to themselves, while they are accustomed, from childhood, to the use of the most certain deadly weapon; and where, in the other part of the people, a barbarous, patriarchal system of government exists, within another Government—as far as possible, with this circumstance, of the most republican and enlightened form—it is really wonderful that Law has so much power, and its deliberate movements and provisions for justice to accused parties are so much respected, as, spite of calumny and occasional exceptions, is usually the case in our Slave States. Why are not these villainous scamps scourged out of the district, and their dens burned, where the Law is so slow and uncertain with them?

This evil of the grog shops, and other illicit and criminal business with negroes, is a great and increasing one at the South. Everywhere that I have been, I have found the planters provoked and angry about it. A great swarm of Jews, within the last ten years, has settled in nearly every Southern town, many of them men of no character, opening cheap clothing and trinket shops, ruining or driving out of business many of the old retailers, and engaging in a clandestine trade with the simple negroes, which is found very profitable. The law which prevents the reception of the evidence of a negro in Courts, here strikes back with a most annoying force upon the dominant power itself. In the mischief thus arising, we see a striking illustration of the danger which stands before the South, whenever its prosperity shall invite extensive immigration, and lead what would otherwise be a healthy competition to flow through its channels of industry.

Mr. A. remarked that his arrangements allowed his servants no excuse for dealing with these fellows. He made it a rule to purchase everything they had to sell, and to give them a high price for it himself. Eggs constituted a circulating medium on the plantation; their par value was considered to be twelve for a dime, at which they would be exchanged for cash or taken on deposit at his kitchen.

Whatever he took of them that he could not use in his own family, or had not occasion to give to others of his servants, was sent to town to be resold. The negroes would not commonly take money for the articles he had of them, but would have the value of them put to their credit, and a regular account was kept with them. He had a store, well supplied with ’articles that they most wanted, which were purchased in large quantities and sold to them at wholesale prices; thus giving them a great advantage in dealing with him rather than with the grog shops. His slaves were sometimes his creditors to large amounts; at the present time he owed them about five hundred dollars. A woman had charge of the store, and when there was anything called for that she could not supply, it was usually ordered by the next conveyance of his factors in town.

Here you see an illustration of what, I believe, I have before suggested:

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Slavery is a grand, practical, working system of Socialism. It brings up, too, another aspect of Slavery—its happiest and best.

The negroes came to us from barbarism as from a cradle, with a confused, half-developed mind, with strong and simple appetites and impulses, but whimsical and unreliable; forming attachments quickly, and cleaving closely to their protectors and superiors; but, if removed from one, forming the same relations quickly, and with equal strength, with another; subject to violent and uncontrollable passions, and altogether undisciplined, uneducated, unchristianized.

Here I see their master, dealing with them as a father might with such children; guarding them sedulously against dangerous temptations, forbidding them to indulge in bad practices, rewarding the diligent and obedient, and chastising the perverse and indolent; anticipating and providing for their wants; encouraging them in the provident use of their little means of amusement, and comfort, and luxury; all the time furnishing them the necessary support of life; caring diligently for them in sickness; and only when they are of good age and strength, so long as he is their guardian, demanding of them a certain amount of their labor and assistance, to increase his own comforts, provide for his age.

Were but all Slavery this, and were but this all of Slavery!