XXVI.
A northerner's idea of the south-west—Natchez and health—"Broadway" of Natchez—Street scenes—Private carriages—Auction store—Sale of a slave—Manner in which slaves view slavery—Shopping—Fashion—Southern gentlemen—Merchants—Planters—Whip bearers—Planters' families.
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. This idea is not without foundation. Like New-Orleans, this city has been the grave of many young and ambitious adventurers. Pestilence has here literally "walked at noonday." The sun, the source and preserver of life and health, in its path over this devoted city, has "become black as sackcloth," and "the moon that walketh in brightness," shedding her calm and gentle light upon the earth, has been "turned into blood," poisoning the atmosphere with exhalations of death, and converting the green earth into a sepulchre. But this is a record of the past. The angel of vengeance has gone by, leaving health and peace to exercise their gentle dominion over this late theatre of his terrible power. No city in our happy country is more blessed with health than is now, this so often depopulated place. For several years past its catalogue of mortality has been very much smaller than that of many towns in Vermont and Maine, containing the same number of inhabitants. Even that insatiable destroyer, the Asiatic cholera, which has strewn both hemispheres with the bones of its victims, has passed over this city without leaving a trace of his progress, except among the blacks and a few imprudent strangers. Not a citizen fell a victim to it. If any place demanded a dispensation of mercy it was this—if past misfortunes can challenge an exemption from farther infliction.
Main-street is the "Broadway" of Natchez. It extends from the river to the eastern extremity of the city, about half a mile in length, dividing the town into nearly equal portions, north and south. This street is to Natchez what Chartres-street is to New-Orleans, though on a much smaller scale. Here are all the banks and most of the dry goods and fancy stores. Here, consequently, is the centre of business, and, to the ladies, that of attraction; although the stores are not turned inside out every morning, to adorn their fronts and create zigzags on the side-walks, to the great edification of the shopmen, who are the operators, and the little comfort of gouty or hurrying pedestrians. In passing up this street, which is compactly built with handsome brick blocks, generally but two stories in height, the stranger is struck with the extraordinary number of private carriages, clustered before the doors of the most fashionable stores, or millineries, rolling through the street, or crossing and recrossing it from those by which it is intersected, nearly every moment, from eleven till two on each fair day. But few of these equipages are of the city: they are from the plantations in the neighbourhood, which spread out from the town over richly cultivated "hill and dale,"—a pleasant and fertile landscape—far into the interior. Walk with me into this street about noon on a pleasant day in December. It is the only one nearly destitute of shade trees; but the few it boasts are shedding their yellow leaves, which sprinkle the broad, regular, and well-constructed side-walks, and the warm sun shines down cheerily and pleasantly upon the promenaders.—Here, at the corner, surrounded by a crowd, is an auction store. Upon a box by the door stands a tall, fine-looking man. But he is black; ebony cannot be blacker. Of the congregation of human beings there, he is the most unconcerned. Yet he has a deeper interest in the transactions of the moment than all the rest—for a brief space will determine whom, among the multitude, he is to call master! The auctioneer descants at large upon his merits and capabilities.—"Acclimated, gentlemen! a first-rate carriage-driver—raised by Col. ——. Six hundred dollars is bid. Examine him, gentlemen—a strong and athletic fellow—but twenty-seven years of age." He is knocked off at seven hundred dollars; and with "There's your master," by the seller, who points to the purchaser, springs from his elevation to follow his new owner; while his place is supplied by another subject. These scenes are every-day matters here, and attract no attention after beholding them a few times; so powerful is habit, even in subduing our strongest prejudices. But the following dialogue, overheard by me, between two well-dressed, smart-looking blacks near by, one seated listlessly upon his coach-box, the other holding the bridle of his master's horse—though brief, contains a volume of meaning, in illustrating the opinions and views of the blacks upon the state of their degraded race.
"You know dat nigger, they gwine to sell, George?"
"No, he field nigger; I nebber has no 'quaintance wid dat class."
"Well, nor no oder gentlemens would. But he's a likely chap. How much you tink he go for?"—"I a'n't much 'quainted wid de price of such kind o' peoples. My master paid seven hundred dollar for me, when I come out from ole Wirginney—dat nigger fetch five hun'red dollar I reckon."
"You sell for only seben hun'red dollars!" exclaimed the gentleman upon the coach-seat, drawing himself up with pride, and casting a contemptuous glance down upon his companion: "my massa give eight hundred and fifty silver dollars for me. Gom! I tink dat you was more 'spectable nigger nor dat." At this turn of the conversation the negro was struck off at seven hundred, at which the colloquist of the same price became highly chagrined; but, stepping upon the stirrup, and raising himself above the crowd, that he might see "the fool massa what give so much for a miserable good-for-nothing nigger, not wort' his corn," consoled himself with the reflection that the buyer was "a man what made no more dan tirty bale cotton; while my master make tree hun'red, and one of de firs' gemmans too!"
Thus, though denied the privileges of his desired "caste," by the estimation of his personal value, he aspired to it by a conclusive argument, in the eye of a negro, viz. his master's wealth and rank in society. Can individuals, who are thus affected at the sale of their fellow-men, and who view their state of bondage in this light, feel deeply their own condition, or be very sensitive upon the subject of equal rights? Yet thus do negroes view slavery. Thus do they converse upon it; and are as tenacious of the limited privileges, (yet to them unlimited, because they know, and can therefore aspire to no other) which, like flowers, are entwined among the links of their moral bondage. There is one, proud that his chain weighs down a few more gold pieces than that of his fellow, while the latter is in no less degree mortified at the deficiency in weight of his own. Do such men "pine in bondage" and "sigh for freedom?" Freedom, of which they know nothing, and cannot, therefore, feel the deprivation; a freedom of which they have heard only, as the orientals of their fabled genii, but to which generally they no more think of aspiring than the subjects of the caliph to the immortality and winged freedom of these imaginary beings. These two negroes I have seen repeatedly since, and am assured that they are as intelligent, well informed, and "respectable," as any of their class; none of whom, allowing a very few exceptions, entertain higher or different views of their state as slaves, or of their rank in the scale of human beings. Do not mistake me: I am no advocate for slavery; but neither am I a believer in that wild Garrisonian theory, which, like a magician's wand, is at once to dissolve every link that binds the slave to his master, and demolish at one blow a system that has existed, still gaining in extent and stability, for centuries. The familiar French proverb, "imagination gallops while the judgment advances only on a walk," is most applicable to these visionary theorists who would build Rome in a day.
Opposite to the auction store are a cluster of gay carriages, to and from which fair beings, not quite angels, are "ascending and descending," to look over all the "pretty things" in the richly lined stores. Was there ever a fancy store that ladies were not hovering near? "A new store"—"new goods,"—"less than cost!" What magic words! What visions of silks and satins, gros de Swiss and gros de Naples, challys and shawls, Grecian laces and Paris gloves, with a thousand other charming etceteras, float before their delighted fancies, in every form of grace and ornament that the imagination can picture or a refined taste invent. Ladies are ladies all the world over; and where is the place in which they do not love "to shop?" In this far corner of the south and west, you are prepared to give fashion credit for but few devotees, and those only partial and half-souled worshippers. But you must not forget that these are southerners; and the southerner is never found unfashionable or deficient in taste. The moving galaxy of grace and beauty that floats down Chestnut-street, cannot at any time present more fashionable and elegantly-dressed promenaders than now enliven the street, or than that fair bevy of young ladies clustered round yonder carriage door, all chattering together, with their sweet pleasant voices, to a pale, beautiful, and interesting girl within, apparently an invalid. So far as I can judge, as much of "the ton," in dress and society, prevails here as in Philadelphia, where many residents of the city and country spend a portion of every summer—certainly more than at New-Orleans, which is by far the most unfashionable city in the United States. The gentlemen of Natchez are less particular in their dress, though much more punctilious than they were five or six years since, when there was not to be found what would be termed a "fashionable man," (according to the acceptation of the term in New-York) among the residents of this city. And where is the southern gentleman that ever dressed fashionably? They dress well and richly, but seldom fashionably. Their garments hang upon them loosely, as though made for larger men; and they wear them with a sort of free and easy air, enviable but inimitable by the stiffer and more formal northerner. The southerner, particularly the planter, would wear with a native and matchless grace the flowing toga of imperial Rome. Though destitute of that fashionable exterior which the tailor supplies, and for which, in general, they have a most sovereign indifference and contempt, they possess—I mean the genuine, native-born, well-educated southerner—an "air distingué," and in the highest degree aristocratic, which is every where the most striking feature of their appearance.
That knot of gentlemen issuing from a plain brick building—one of the banks—is composed of bank directors. Their decisions have elevated or depressed the mercury in many an anxious breast. Two or three faces resemble those one often sees in Wall-street, or on Change, in Boston. The resemblance is so striking that one is quite sure at the first glance that he has seen them there. But no; they are merchants of this city—thorough-going commercial men. The resemblance is only that of a species. Merchants resemble each other everywhere. Their features are strongly marked and characteristic. It has been said that a Boston merchant may be known all the world over. It has been proved that a sea-faring life, especially when commenced in early years, has a tendency to produce a physical change in the organ of vision. That a mercantile life, long and intently pursued, has a tendency to stamp a peculiar character upon the features, is equally certain, in the opinion of those whose habits of observation may have led them to such physiognomical investigations. Among the remainder, are two or three in white blanket coats, broad-brimmed white hats, with slender riding-whips in their hands, who will be readily designated as planters. A circumstance that very soon arrests the attention of the stranger, is the number of gentlemen with riding-whips in their hands to be met with in all parts of the city, particularly on days when any public meeting is held. Every third or fourth person is thus, to a northerner, singularly armed. At the north few ride except in gigs. But here all are horsemen; and it is unusual to see a gentleman in a gig or carriage. If his wife rides out, he attends her à cheval. Instead of gigs, therefore, which would fill the streets of a northern town, saddle-horses, usually with high pummelled Spanish saddles, and numerous private carriages, in which are the ladies of the family, drawn by long-tailed horses, throng the streets and line the outside of the pave. At least a third of the persons who fill the streets are planters and their families from the country, which every day pours forth its hundreds from many miles around the city, that like a magnet attracts all within its influence.
There are several public buildings in this street of which I shall make more particular mention hereafter. My object now is merely to give you some idea of things as, when presented to it in the novel hues of "first impressions," they strike the eye of a stranger.