J. H. Ingraham

“ A few days since, in company with a northern friend, I made an excursion to an extensive plantation two hours' ride from the city. We left the hotel at an early hour, exchanging our mattresses—the universal southern bed—for more luxurious seats in elastic Spanish saddles, upon delightfully cradling pacers, and proceeded through one of the principal streets, already alive with pedestrians and horsemen; for, in a southern climate, evening and morning constitute the day—the day itself being a "noon of indolence," where ice and shade are the only blessings to be devoutly wished. ”

“ I have as fine a lot as ever came into market."—We approached them, one of us as a curious spectator, the other as a purchaser; and as my friend passed along the line, with a scrutinizing eye—giving that singular look, peculiar to the buyer of slaves as he glances from head to foot over each individual—the passive subjects of his observations betrayed no other signs of curiosity than that evinced by an occasional glance. The entrance of a stranger into a mart is by no means an unimportant event to the slave, for every stranger may soon become his master and command his future destinies. ”

“ To the northerner, to whom every verdant hill is a magazine of health, every mountain torrent and limpid river are leaping and flowing with life, who receives a new existence as the rays of the summer's sun fall upon his brow, and whose lungs expand more freely and whose pulse beats more strongly under the influence of every breeze, Natchez has been, till within a very short period, associated with miasma and marshes over which the yellow fever, like a demon king, held undisputed sway. ”

“ The nakedness of the tall shafts is relieved by the luxuriant tendrils of the muscadine and woodbine twining about them, in spiral wreaths, quite to their summit, or hanging in immense festoons from tree to tree. In these woods horsemen can advance without obstruction, so spacious are the intervals between the trees, so high the branches above them, and so free from underwood is the sward. Of such forest-riding the northerner knows nothing, unless his lore in tales of Italian banditti may have enabled him to form some idea of scenes with which his own country refuses to gratify him. ”

“ The rich and luxuriant character of the scenery, which charms and attracts the eye of the traveller as he ascends the Mississippi from New-Orleans to Baton Rouge, is now changed. A broad, turbid flood, rolling through a land of vast forests, alone meets the eye, giving sublime yet wild and gloomy features to the scene. On looking from the cabin window, I see only a long, unbroken line of cotton trees, with their pale green foliage, as dull and void of interest as a fog-bank. ”

“ The grandeur of the forests in the south, and the luxuriance of the shrubs and plants, have no parallel. But southerners tread the avenues, breathe the air, and recline under the trees and in the arbours of their paradise, thankfully accepting and enjoying their luxurious boon, but seldom insinuating, through the cultivation of flowers, that nature has left her work imperfect. There are, it is true, individual exceptions. One of the finest private gardens in the United States, which has suggested these remarks, is in the south, and within two hours ride of Natchez. ”

“ It is not the boon, so much as a beginning, a hope, and a promise of future good to the African; it is simply one of the means, a most important and paramount one, indeed, for acquiring the blessings of rational liberty; but it is not the blessing itself. It becomes, therefore, the bounden duty, on every principle of equity and religion, of those who, either of their own free will, or by menaces to the master, give emancipation to the slave, to carry out what they have begun, to realize what they have promised, to fulfil the hopes which they have raised. ”

“ Nor do I speak unadvisedly or lightly, when I say that a band of insurgent slaves will be more easily intimidated and defeated by half the number of planters, with whips or canes, and their peculiarly authoritative voices, than by an equal number of northern soldiers armed cap à pie. Fear, awe, and obedience in relation to his master, are interwoven into the very nature of the slave. They are the main-spring of all his actions; a part and portion of himself, and no extraneous circumstances can enable him to rise superior to their influence. ”

“ A northerner looks upon a band of negroes, as upon so many men. But the planter, or southerner, views them in a very different light; and armed only with a hunting whip or walking-cane, he will fearlessly throw himself among a score of them, armed as they may be, and they will instantly flee with terror. There is a peculiar tone of authority, in which an angry master speaks to his slaves, which, while they are subordinate, cowers them, and when they are insubordinate, so strong is the force of habit, it does not lose its effects. ”

“ About a mile from Natchez, we passed, close by the road-side, a family cemetery, whose white paling was bursting with shrubbery. No mausoleum gratefully relieving the eye, rose amid the luxuriant foliage, enshrining the affection of the living or the memory of the dead. On the opposite side of the road stood a handsome mansion, though without that noble expanse of lawn which is the finest feature in the grounds of an English country residence. ”

“ Imagine a forest of them lifting their tops to heaven and yourself bounding away upon a fleet horse beneath its sublime domes, with a noble stag, flying down its glades like a winged creature, while the shouts of hunters, the tramp of horses, and the baying of hounds echo through its solemn corridors, and then you will have some faint idea of the glory of a southern forest and the noble character of its enjoyments. ”

“ Every plough-furrow becomes the bed of a rivulet after heavy rains—these uniting are increased into torrents, before which the impalpable soil dissolves like ice under a summer's sun. By degrees, acre after acre, of what was a few years previous beautifully undulating ground, waving with the dark green, snow-crested cotton, presents a wild scene of frightful precipices, and yawning chasms, which are increased in depth and destructively enlarged after every rain. ”

“ Have those who advocate immediate and unconditional emancipation weighed well these several branches of inquiry on this momentous subject? It is to be feared, indeed, by their language and conduct, that they have not. They should beware, while they are denouncing the slave-holder, that they do not themselves incur a still more fearful responsibility, and make themselves answerable for jeoparding, if not actually dissolving, the Union, and encouraging civil, perhaps servile war, with all its horrors and atrocities. ”

“ There is a mound about five miles from Natchez, upon the plantation of a gentleman, whose taste or ambition has influenced him to erect his dwelling upon its summit. A strange dwelling-place for the living, over the sepulchres of the dead! Eleven miles from the city there is another mound, or a collection of mounds, which, in the beauty of its location, the elevation of its summit, and the ingenuity displayed in its construction, either as a fortress or a temple, is entitled to an important rank among these mysterious structures of the western valley. ”

“ On the contrary, the reverse is most true of them—for "hospitality" and "southern planter" are synonymous terms. Though there are not more hospitable men in the world than southern gentlemen—though no men can render their houses more agreeable to the stranger—though none are more fascinating in their manners, or more generous in heart—yet they are deficient in that social, domestic feeling, which is the life, excellence, and charm of New-England society, which renders it so dear to every wanderer's heart, and casts around the affections a spell that no power but death can injure or destroy. ”

“ In the resentment of public as well as private wrongs, individuals have long been in the habit of forestalling and improving upon the decisions of the courts, by taking the execution of the laws into their own hands. The consequence is, that the dignity of the bench is degraded, and justice is set aside for the exhibition of wild outbreaks of popular feeling. But this summary mode of procedure is now, to the honour of the south, rapidly falling into disuse, and men feel willing to yield to the dignity of the law and acquiesce in its decisions, even to the sacrifice of individual prejudices. ”

“ He glides easily along upon his pacer, with the bridle thrown upon its neck, or over the high pummel of his handsome Spanish saddle; talking as unconcernedly with his companions, as though lounging, arm in arm with them, along the streets. He seldom goes out of a pace. If he is in haste, he only paces the faster. Of every variety of gaited animals which I have seen, the Mississippian pacer is the most desirable. I shall, however, have occasion to allude hereafter to southern equestrianism more particularly, and will return from my digression to the funeral. ”

“ For if alarmed while feeding upon the high grounds back front the Mississippi, they at once bound off to the shelter of the swamps or bottoms near the river—and the skilful hunter, whose experience teaches him by what paths they will seek to gain the lowlands where the hounds cannot follow them, takes his stand with his rifle behind some tree by which he is tolerably sure the deer will pass, and as the noble and terrified animal bounds past him, he levels the deadly rifle with unerring aim, and buries a bullet in his heart. ”

“ The poor Natchez shared the hospitality of their protectors until their necessities and sorrows were alike relieved by death; their bones repose in a land unknown to their fathers; their spirits may be again mingled in the beautiful regions which they believe to be prepared by the Great Spirit for the fearless warrior, the successful hunter, and the faithful and hospitable Indian, beyond the great lakes. ”

“ The bugbear reputation of this country for mortality, has long deterred young ministers from filling the places occasionally deserted by their former occupants; many of whom, if they do not resign their office, pass the long summers at the north.—But as no country can well be healthier than this has been, for the last six or seven years, this "health plea" can no longer be offered as an excuse. Indeed, so singularly healthy is this portion of the south-west, that were I required to give it a name, with reference to some one striking characteristic, I should at once call it "Buenos Ayres." ”

“ The Mississippi rolled through the midst unseen. As we rode on we passed roads diverging to the right and left from the highway, leading to the hidden dwellings of the planters. A large gate set into a rail fence usually indicates the vicinity of a planter's residence in the south—but the plantation roads here turned into the forests, through which they romantically wound till lost in their depths. Any of these roads would have conducted us to the villa of some wealthy planter. There can be little ostentation in a people who thus hide their dwellings from the public road. ”

“ And so long as these startling anomalies exist—freedom without its enjoyments, equality without its social privileges—we really do not see how the people of the free states can pretend, with any show of propriety or justice, even had they the power by law and constitution, to meddle with the relations between master and slave, in the slave-holding states. ”

“ Seeing such a sad assembly I approached them with curiosity, while their master, notified of their arrival, came out to examine into the state of this his walking hospital. Of all modifications of the "human face divine," that of the sick negro is the most dolorous. Their miserable, abject, hollow-eyed look has no parallel. The negro is not an Adonis in his best estate. But he increases his natural ugliness by a laxity of the muscles, a rolling of the eye and a dropping of the under jaw, when ill, which give his face a most ludicrously wo-begone appearance. ”

“ Though southerners do not often pursue horticulture as a science, yet they are passionately fond of flowers. At the south, gentlemen, without the charge of coxcombry or effeminacy, wear them in the button-holes of their vests—fair girls wreathe them in their hair, and children trudge to school loaded with bouquets. The south is emphatically the land of flowers; nature seems to have turned this region from her hand as the chef d'œuvre of her skill. ”

“ The moss, and wild rose, the last a native, in which the creative power of horticulture annually unfolds new beauties, the dwarf cape jessamine, the Washita willow, with its pretty flower, the laurustina, hypiscus, and citronelle, or fragrant lemon grass, the tea-tree, three feet high, with orange and lemon trees, bending under their golden fruit, and a guava tree, the only one in fruit in the state, clustering with its delicious apple, presented on every side the most delightful offerings to the senses. ”

“ There are two or three fat men, in gray and blue—a brace of bluff, manly-looking Germans—a lynx-eyed, sharp-nosed New-York speculator—four old French Jews, with those noble foreheads, arched brows, and strange-expressioned eyes, that look as though always weeping—the well-known and never to be mistaken characteristics of this remarkable people. ”

“ Suspended on the floods of the Mississippi, grouped on rocks and mountains and dispersed in valleys, trees of every odour, every shape, every hue, entwine their variegated heads, and ascend to an immeasurable height; bignonias, vines, and colocynths, wind their slender roots around their trunks, creep to the summit of their branches, and passing from the maple to the tulip tree and alcea, form a thousand bowers and verdant arcades; stretching from tree to tree they often throw their fibrous arms across rivers and erect on them arches of foliage and flowers. ”

“ Secluded in the solitude of an extensive plantation, which is their world, beyond whose horizon they know nothing—their walks limited by the "quarters" and the field—their knowledge and information derived from the rude gossip of their fellows, straggling runaways, or house servants, and without seeing a white person except their master or overseer, as they ride over the estate, with whom they seldom hold any conversation—they present the singular feature of African savages, disciplined to subordination, and placed in the heart of a civilized community. ”

“ The slave always prefers a southern master, because he knows that he will be understood by him. His kindly feelings toward, and sympathies with slaves, as such, are as honourable to his heart as gratifying to the subjects of them. He treats with suitable allowance those peculiarities of their race, which the unpractised northerner will construe into idleness, obstinacy, laziness, revenge, or hatred. There is another cause for their difference of treatment to their slaves. The southerner, habituated to their presence, never fears them, and laughs at the idea. ”

“ A plantation well stocked with hands, is the ne plus ultra of every man's ambition who resides at the south. Young men who come to this country, "to make money," soon catch the mania, and nothing less than a broad plantation, waving with the snow white cotton bolls, can fill their mental vision, as they anticipate by a few years in their dreams of the future, the result of their plans and labours. ”