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Page 2
The fields where tobacco has been cultivated during the previous summer
are sown in wheat in the autumn, unless they are new grounds, when the
rotation of crops is tobacco for two years in succession, followed in
the third year by wheat, and in the fourth by tobacco again. The soil is
then laid under the same rule of tillage as land that has been worked
for many seasons. As a result of this necessity for rotation, much wheat
is raised on the plantation, although the threshing of it interferes
very seriously with the attention which the tobacco requires at a very
critical period of its growth. The greater part of the low-grounds is
planted in Indian corn, the return in a good year being very large; and
even when there has been a drought, the general average in quantity and
quality falls short very little. The soil here is so fertile that
tobacco planted in it grows too coarse in its fibre, while the cost of
cultivating it is so high that the planter is reluctant to run the risk
of an overflow of the river, which destroys a crop at any stage in a few
hours. Although corn is very much injured by the same cause, it is not
rendered wholly useless, for it can be thrown to stock even when it is
unfit to be ground into meal. At a certain season the fields of this
grain along the river present a beautiful aspect, the mass of deep green
flecked by the white tops of the stalks resembling, at a distance,
level, unruffled waters; but sometimes a freshet descends upon it and
obliterates it from sight, the whole broad plain being then like a
highly-discolored lake, with rafts of planks and uprooted trees floating
upon its surface.
The general plantation is divided into three plantations of equal
extent, each tract being made up of several thousand acres of land; each
has its own overseer, and he has under him a band of laborers who are
never called away to work elsewhere, and who have all their possessions
around them. Each division has its stables, teams, and implements, and
its expenses and profits are entered in a separate account. In short,
the different divisions of the general plantation are conducted as if
they belonged to several persons instead of to one alone.
It is the duty of the overseer of each division to remain with his
laborers, however employed, and to overlook what they are doing. He sees
that the teams are well fed, the stock in good condition and in their
own bounds, the fences intact, and the implements sheltered from the
weather. He must hire additional hands when they are needed, and
discharge those guilty of serious delinquencies. His position is one of
responsibility, but at the same time of many advantages; for he is given
a comfortable house for his private use, with a garden, a smoke-house, a
store-room, and a stable,--a horse being furnished him to enable him to
get from one locality to another on the plantation under his charge with
ease and rapidity; and he is also supplied with rations for himself and
family every month. The social class to which he belongs is below the
highest,--namely, that of the planter,--and above that of the whites of
meanest condition. Formerly one of the three overseers on the plantation
which I am now describing was a colored man who had been a slave before
the war, a foreman in the field afterward, and was then promoted, in
consequence of his efficiency, to the responsible position which I have
named. He was a man of unusual intelligence, and gave the highest
satisfaction. His mind was almost painfully directed to the performance
of his duties, and the only fault that could be found with him was an
occasional inclination to be too severe with his own race. Very
naturally, he was looked up to by the latter as successful and
prosperous, and his influence in consequence was very great. Unlike most
of his fellows, he was given to hoarding what he earned, and in a few
years was able to buy a plantation of his own; and there he is now
engaged in cultivating his own land.
There is a population of about four hundred negroes on the three
divisions of the plantation, this number including both sexes and every
age and shade of color. All of the older set, with few exceptions, were
the slaves of their employer, and did not leave him even in the restless
and excited hour of their emancipation. Born on the place, they have
spent the whole of their long lives there, and consider it to be as much
their home as it is that of its owner. In fact, the negroes here are
remote from those influences that lead so many others to migrate. The
plantation is eighteen miles from a railroad and forty from a town, and
is set down in a very sparsely settled country that has been only
partially cleared of its forests. It has a teeming population of its
own, which satisfies the social instincts of its inhabitants as much as
if they were collected together in a small town. In consequence of all
these facts, and in spite of the new state of things which the war
produced, there survives in its confines something of that baronial
spirit which we observe on a landed estate in England at the present
day, where every man, woman, and child is accustomed to think of the
landlord as the fountain-head of power and benefits. A similar spirit of
loyal subordination prevails particularly among the oldest inhabitants
of the plantation, who were once the absolute chattels of its owner, and
who look upon that fact as creating an obligation in him to support them
in their decrepitude. Being too far in the sere and yellow leaf to work,
they are provided every month with enough rations to meet their wants,
and in total idleness they calmly await the inevitable hour when their
bones will be laid beside those of their fathers. There are few more
picturesque figures than are many of these old negroes, who passed the
heyday of their strength before they were freed, and who, born in
slavery, survived to a new era only to find themselves in the last
stages of old age. They are regarded by their race with as much
veneration as if they were invested with the authority of prophets and
seers. Some of them, in spite of their years, act occasionally as
preachers, and are listened to with awe and trepidation as they lift up
their trembling voices in exhortation or denunciation. As travellers
from a distant past, it is interesting to observe them sitting with bent
backs and hands resting on their sticks in the door-ways of their cabins
on bright days in summer, or by the warm firesides in winter, while
members of younger generations talk around them or play about their
knees.
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