The first morning I was on the estate, while at breakfast with the manager, an old negro woman came into the room and said to him, “Dat gal’s bin bleedin’ agin dis mornin’.”

“Ah, has she? How much did she bleed?”

“About a pint, Sir.”

“Very well; I’ll call and see her after breakfast.”

“I come up for some sugar of lead, master; I gin her some powdered alum ’fore I come away.”

“Very well; you can have some.”

After breakfast the manager invited me to ride with him on his usual round through the plantations. On reaching the nearest “quarters,” we stopped at a house, a little larger than the ordinary cabins, which was called the loom-house, in which a dozen negroes were at work making shoes, and manufacturing coarse cotton stuff for negro clothing. One of the hands so employed was insane, and most of the others were cripples, or invalids with chronic complaints, unfitting them for field-work. From this we went to one of the cabins-where we found the sick woman that had been bleeding at the lungs, with the old nurse in attendance upon her. The manager examined and prescribed for her in a kind manner. When we came out he asked the nurse if there was anyone else sick.

“Dere’s oney dat woman Caroline.”

“What do you think is the matter with her?”

“Well, I don’t tink dere’s anyting de matter wid her, masser; I mus answer you for true, I don ’t tink anyting de matter wid her, oney she’s a little sore from dat wippin’ she had.”

We went to another cabin and entered a room where a woman lay on a bed, groaning. It was a very dirty, comfortless room, but there was a mosquito bar, much-patched and very dirty, covering the bed. The manager asked several times what was the matter, but could get no distinct reply. The woman appeared to be suffering very great pain. The manager felt of her pulse and looked at her tongue, and after making a few more inquiries, to which no intelligible reply was given, told her he did not believe she was ill at all; at this the woman’s groans redoubled. “I have heard of your tricks,” continued the manager, “you had a chill when I came to see you yesterday morning; you had a chill when the mistress came here, and you had a chill when the master came. I never heard of [225] a chill that lasted a whole day. So you’ll just get up now and go to the field, and if you don’t work smart, you ’ll get a dressing; do you hear?”

The manager said they rarely-almost never-had occasion to employ a physician for the people. Never for accouchements; the women, from their labor in the field, became strong and roomy, and were not subject to the difficulty, danger and pain which attended women of the better classes in child-birth.

Near the first quarters we visited was a large blacksmithing and wheelwright shop, and a number of mechanics at work. Most of them were eating their breakfast, which they warmed at their fires, as we rode up. They had about fifty plows which they were putting in order for cotton-planting. The manager inspected the work, found some of it faulty, reprimanded the workmen for not getting on faster, and threatened one of them with a whipping for not paying closer attention to the directions which had been given him. He told me that he had employed a white man from the North who professed to be a first-class workman, but he soon found he could not do nearly as good work as the negro mechanics on the estate, and the latter despised him so much that he had been obliged to discharge him in the midst of his engagement.

One of the overseers rode up while we were at the shop, and reported to the manager how all his hands were employed. There were so many at this and so many at that, and they had done so much since yesterday. “There’s Caroline,” said the manager; “she’s not sick, and I told her she must go to work; put her to the hoeing; there’s nothing the matter with her, except she’s sore from the whipping she got;-you must go and get her out.” The overseer did not seem to like the job. A woman was passing at the time, and the manager told her to go and tell Caroline she must get up and go to work, or the overseer should come and start her. She returned in a few minutes, and reported that Caroline said she could not get up. The overseer and manager rode towards the cabin, but before they reached it the girl came out and went to the field with her hoe. They then returned to me and continued their conversation. Just before we left the overseer, he said, “That girl that ran away last week was in her cabin last night.”

The manager told me as we rode on that their people often ran away after they have been whipped, or something else has happened to make them angry. They hide in the swamp and come into the cabins at night to get food. They seldom staid off longer than a fortnight. When they returned they were punished. The woman, Caroline, he said, had been delivered of a dead child about six weeks before, and had been complaining and getting rid of work ever since. She was the laziest woman on the estate. This shamming illness occasioned him the most disagreeable duty he had to perform. Negroes were famous for it. “If it was not for her bad character,” he continued, “) should not make her go to work to-day; but her pulse is steady and her tongue perfectly smooth. We have to be sharp with them; if we were not, every negro in the estate would be abed.”

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I was afterwards told that there had been a girl on one of the plantations that cheated her owner out of nearly two years’ work as she was supposed all the time to by dying of consumption. At length, there being some reason to suspect her, she was watched in her cabin, and it was ascertained that she was constantly employed as a milliner and dress-maker, working for pay for the other negroes. She had always previously to her supposed illness, been employed as a field hand, but she was now taken to the house and employed as a seamstress, and it was found that she had acquired a very wonderful degree of skill; so that without further instruction she was able to cut dresses for her mistress with nicety and taste. She was soon after hired out to a fashionable dress-maker in the city at high wages (to be paid, of course, to her owner).

We rode on to where the different gangs of laborers were at work, and inspected them one after another. The manner in which they worked and the way they were driven I have previously described. I observed, as we were looking at one of the gangs, that they were very dirty. “The negroes are the filthiest people in the world,” said the manager; “there are some of them that would never look clean twenty-four hours at a time if you gave them thirty suits a year.”

I ascertained that they were furnished with two suits of Summer clothing, and one of Winter each year. Besides which most of them get presents of some fine clothing, and purchase more for themselves, at Christmas. It is not unfrequent to see negroes dressed in military clothing. One of the drivers had on a splendid coat of an officer of the flying artillery. I was told that after the Mexican war, a great deal of military clothing was sold at auction in New-Orleans, and much of it was bought by planters at a low price, and given to their negroes, who were greatly pleased with it.

I asked if there were any plantation rules to maintain cleanliness. There were not, but sometimes the negroes were told at night that anyone who came into the field the next morning without being clean would be whipped. This gave no trouble to those who were habitually clean, while it was in itself a punishment to those who were not, as they were obliged to spend the night in washing.

Afterwards, as we were sitting near a gang with an overseer, he would occasionally call out to one and another by name. I asked if he knew them all by name. He did, but the manager did not know one-fifth of them. The overseer said he generally could call most of the negroes by their names in two weeks after he came on to a plantation, but it was difficult to learn them on account of their being so many of the same name, distinguished from each other by a prefix. “There’s a big Jim here, and a little Jim, and Eliza’s Jim, and Jim Bob, and Jim Clarisy.”

“What’s Jim Clarisy!-how does he get that name?”

“He’s Clarisy’s child, and Bob is Jim Bob’s father. That fellow’s name is Swamp; he always goes by that name, but his real name is Abraham, I believe, is it not, Mr. (Manager)?”

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“His name is Swamp on the plantation register-that’s all I know of him.”

“I believe his name is Abraham,” said the overseer; “he told me so. He was bought of Judge _____, and he told me his master called him Swamp because he ran away so much. He is the worst run-away on the place.”

I inquired about the increase of the negroes on the estate, and the manager having told me the number of deaths and births the previous year, I asked if the negroes began to have children at a very early age. “Sometimes at sixteen,” said the manager. “Yes, and at fourteen,” said the overseer; “that girl’s had a child”-pointing to a girl that did not appear older than fourteen.

“Is she married?”

“No. You see,” said the manager, “negro girls are not remarkable for chastity; and it rather hinders them from having children. They’d have them younger than they do, if they would marry and live with but one man sooner than they do. They often do not have children till they are 25 years old.”

“Are these that are married true to each other?” I asked. The overseer laughed heartily at the idea, and described the state of things.

“Do you not try to discourage this?”

“No, not unless they quarrel. They get quarreling among themselves sometimes about it,” the manager explained, “or come to the overseer and complain, and he has them punished.

“Give all hands a d_____d good hiding,” said the overseer.

“You punish for adultery, then, but not for fornication?”

“Yes,” answered the manager.

“No, “replied the overseer,”I punish them for quarreling; if they don’t quarrel I don’t mind anything about it. But if they make a muss about it, I give all four of ’em a warming.”

Riding through a gang afterwards, with two of the overseers in company, I observed that a large proportion of those before us were thorough-bred Africans. Both of them thought that the proportion of pure-blooded negroes was about three to four of the whole number, and that this would hold as an average in Mississippi and Louisiana. One of them pointed out a girl-“That one is pure white; you see her hair?” (it was straight and sandy.) “She is the only one we have got.”

I t was not uncommon to see slaves as white as that; so white that they could not be distinguished from pure-blooded whites. He had never been on a plantation before, that had not more than one on it.

“Now,” said I, “If that girl should dress herself well, and run away, would she be suspected of being a slave?”

“Oh, yes; you might not know her if she got to the North, but any of us would know her.”

.. By her language and manners.”

“But if she had been brought up as a house-servant?”

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“Perhaps not in that case.”

I asked if they thought the mulattoes or white slaves were weaker, or less valuable than the pure negroes.

“Oh, no; I’d rather have them a great deal,” said one.

“Well, I had not,” said the other; “the blacker the Letter for me.” “The white ones,” added the first, “are more active, and know more, and I think do a good deal the most work.”

“Are they more subject to illness, or do they appear to be of weaker constitution ?”

One said they were not, the other that they did not seem to bear the heat so well.

The first thought that this might be so, but that, nevertheless, they would do more work. I asked the manager’s opinion. He thought they did not stand excessive heat as well as the pure negroes, but that, from their greater activity and willingness, they would do more work. He was confident they were equally strong, and no more liable to illness; had never had reason to think them of weaker constitution. They often had large families, and he had not noticed that their children were weaker or more subject to disease than others. He thought that perhaps they did not have so many children as the pure negroes, but the reason evidently was that they did not begin bearing so young as the others, and this was because they were more attractive to the men, and perhaps more amorous themselves. He knew a great many mulattoes married together, and they generally had large and healthy families.

Afterwards, at one of the plantation nurseries, where there were some twenty or thirty infants and young children, a number of which were mulattoes. I asked the nurse to point out the healthiest children to me, and she indicated more of the pure than of the mixed breed. I then asked her to show me which were the sickliest, and she did not point to any of these. I then asked her if she had noticed any difference in this respect between the black and the yellow children. “Well, dey do say, master, dat de yellow ones is de sickliest, but J can’t tell for true dat I ever see as dey were.” I shall endeavor to investigate this subject further before giving the result of my own observations upon it.

In the evening I met the proprietor, and being seated with him and the manager, I asked about the religious condition of the slaves. There were “preachers” on the plantations, and they had some religious observances on a Sunday; but the preachers and the religious negroes were the worst characters among them, and, they thought, only made their religion a cloak to hide their greater immorality of life. They were, at all events, the most deceitful and dishonest slaves on the plantation, and oftenest required punishment. They had some negroes who called themselves Roman Catholics, but were so only in name. They paid no respect to the ordinances of the Church. The negroes of all denominations would join together in exciting religious observances, and even those who ordinarily made no religious pretensions.

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These gentlemen considered the public religious exercises of the negroes to be exactly similar, in their intellectual and moral character, to the Indian feasts and war-dances, and did not encourage them. Neither did they like to have a white man preach on the estate, because the negroes were good for nothing for a week afterwards. It excited them so much as to greatly interfere with the subordination and order which was necessary to obtain the profitable use of their labor. They would be singing and dancing every night in their cabins, and so utterly unfit themselves for work.

I remarked that I had been told that a religious negro was considered to be worth a third more, because of his greater honesty and reliability. “Quite the contrary,” they both assured me, for a religious negro generally made mischief and trouble, and they were glad to get rid of him. Though there were, to be sure, some negroes who were truly religious, and who were orderly, obedient and industrious. But these were seldom found among the field-hands. They were more common in the town negroes, or among house-servants, such as from their position had acquired better habits and more intelligence than were often found on the plantations.

The proprietor believed the negro race was expressly designed by Providence for servitude, and in discussing the subject referred to the condition of the negroes where they were allowed their freedom. Everywhere at the North and in the West Indies they were in a most melancholy condition, except where they were employed as servants, while on the other hand their condition when in Slavery he thought to be superior to that of any white laboring class in the world. Everywhere the laborer was degraded, stupid, unable to take care of himself. In Slavery he had a master, who, unlike a free laborer’s master, had a direct pecuniary interest in taking care of him, in protecting him and supporting him in his rights.

In England, he said, the laborer was entirely at the mercy of any bad man who chose to obtain his own emolument or secure his private ends by his ruin, and no matter how much he was defrauded, outraged or ill-used, owing to his own stupidity and poverty, he could obtain no redress or satisfaction, and no one else had any interest to obtain it for him.

At the North, owing to the general prosperity, the evil might not appear so prominently as in England, but in the constitution of society it was worse, because the laborer, being less dependent on his master, the interest of the latter was less like that of an owner. In fact, in the good old times in England, when the relation between master and laborer, or the landlord and his tenants, was more nearly similar to that of master and slave, there was a much more kindly and happy condition of things than at present. In Russia, he had seen his own Russian servant throw one of the laboring class upon the ground and whip him severely, because he had not got horses ready for them when they arrived. No man would dare do so to a slave in the South. His owner would resent it at law as an injury and outrage upon his property.

As to the moral condition of the slaves, he asked me who there was to [230] throw a stone. Look at the condition of things in New-York, where thousands of virtuously disposed women were forced by the state of society and their inability to take care of themselves. to most loathsome prostitution-a state of things that had no parallel. and never could have. in a slave country. In England laborers of all sorts were forced to crime and then punished for it. For a breach of the law to which they were most excusably driven by the destitution in which their master allowed them to live-for a crime, often. that could not be deemed an immorality-their whole future was irretrievably blighted. Even without the action of the law and for no crime. and while their masters were possessed of most sumptuous abundance. millions of them were driven into a dreary exile, voluntarily destroying their social happiness by sundering their family ties. and withdrawing themselves from all they loved. to gratify the meanest and most material wants. What kind of morality was such a state of society likely to produce?

A slave was rarely separated from his family, or deprived of those comforts which he most valued-not even for a crime. When he did wrong. his punishment did not degrade him or lead him to a worse life than before: it did not destroy the happiness of his innocent family and friends. and did not in the least remove their means of support. As to the licentiousness of slaves, it was, at all events, voluntary with them. It was not attended with the horrid consequences which resulted from the pestilential and destructive system into which the laboring class were forced in the North and in England. and it was no worse than the licentiousness which existed. as he asserted that he knew from his personal observation during several years’ intercourse with them. among the higher classes of the Continent.