CHAPTER XXV.
SOME LOUISIANA FOLKS.
No negroes have ever been allowed to settle in the Catahoula country. The dead line is seven miles from Alexandria. No objection is made if anyone desires to bring a negro servant temporarily into the country, but he must go out with his employer. Once a lumberman brought negroes in, and determined to work them. They were warned, and left. Next year be brought in a new lot, and announced that he would protect them. They were duly warned, but refused to leave. One morning they were found—seven of them—hanging to the rafters of their house. Years elapsed before the experiment was again tried. The coroner's jury brought in a verdict of suicide—and this was in dead earnest—no joke or hilarity intended. To disregard due warning was equivalent to any other method of self-destruction.
When in after years an attempt was made to work negroes here, warnings were duly posted on their doors. The negroes left. But the employer was a determined man, and swore he would be eternally dingbusted—or words to that effect—if he didn't work all the niggers he pleased; and he enlisted a new lot of the most desperate characters he could find. Warning was given and neglected; when one evening, as the darkies sat at supper, a rifle bullet knocked the nail keg from under one of them, and next morning not a negro was to be found in the vicinity.
Observe the dispassionate, thoroughly conservative and gentlemanly way the people handled the affair. There was no thirsting for gore, no disposition to immolate these misguided folks to their employer's obstinacy; just a gentle hint that Catahoula did not allow negroes. An intimation to the employer followed, that a repetition would be followed by a rifle aimed at him, not the keg this time, and he was wise enough to see the point.
We have heard these people spoken of as being dangerous characters. They might be such, if misunderstood and their prejudices rudely affronted. But we found them a simple, warm-hearted, scrupulously honest set, with whom we thoroughly enjoyed a week's companionship, and expect to go back for another one. Their interests are limited, their viewpoint may not permit an extensive outlook, but their doors are always open to the stranger, the coffee-pot on the stove, and the best they have is offered him with a courtesy that never fails. They take little interest in politics, newspapers we did not once see there, and schooling is limited. Mrs. S. did not go to church in summer, because that would involve the putting on of shoes—though she did say that if she chose to go she would not hesitate to march into church in her bare feet, let those dislike it who might!
But do not imagine that these worthy people are deficient in common sense. Mr. S. was perfectly aware that the timber he does not cut now is worth three times what is was when he took up this land, and will be worth more every year.
This pine must reproduce itself with marvelous rapidity. We saw the furrows of the old cotton cultivation running away back through the woods, in which the trees were about ready for the saw. There is plenty of land still open for homesteading, but one must hunt it up for himself, as the government gives absolutely no information to inquirers, except that township maps cost a dollar apiece. If you want to know what townships of what parishes have land available, just get on your horse and explore, till you find out.
The land companies make amends for this. There are about ten million acres of land in Louisiana, and of this over six millions are offered for sale in one little pamphlet before me. Much of this is sea marsh, which ought to produce sea island cotton. We could find no one who knew of its ever having been tried, but presume there is some reason for not raising it, as this is a very profitable crop, selling for double the market price of ordinary cotton.
Why is there so much land for sale? For we did not meet a solitary man, northern or southern by birth, who seemed to contemplate leaving the state. The truth is there are not enough inhabitants to utilize the land. Millions of acres are lying idle for want of workers. Every inducement is extended to men to settle here and utilize the resources now going to waste.
The South needs "Yankees." An ex-Confederate, discussing Baton Rouge, said: "A dozen live Yankees would regenerate this town, and make fortunes at it." They would pave the streets, cover in the sewers, build up the vacant spots in the heart of the city, supply mechanical work at less inhuman prices than are now charged, and make this rich and intelligent community as attractive in appearance as the citizens are socially.
One such man has made a new city of Alexandria. He has made the people pave their streets, put in modern sewerage, water, electricity, etc., build most creditable structures to house the public officials, and in a word, has "hustled the South," till it had to put him temporarily out of office until it got its "second wind."
In consequence Alexandria has no rival in the state except Shreveport. And the people like it; they brag of Walsh and his work, take immense pride in the progress of their beautiful city, and have developed into keen, wide-awake Americans of the type that has built up our country.
It seems essential for the incentive, the leaven, to come from outside; but this is the lesson of history. Xanthippus did nothing for Corinth, but aroused Syracuse. Marion Sims vegetated in comparative obscurity till he left the South, to become the leading surgeon of New York and Paris. What would Ricord have been had he remained in America? The interchange of blood, the entering of a stranger among any community, acts as a disturbing element, that arouses action. And without action there is no progress.
The most promising indication is that this seems fully comprehended in the South, and the immigrant is welcomed.
It is well to be cautious about accepting as literally true the statements made to strangers. People will exaggerate; and the temptation to fill up a more or less gullible "tenderfoot" is often irresistible.
Thus, we are told that connections between white men and negro women are quite common; in fact, almost a matter of course. And these connections are defended, as exalting the white woman to such a pinnacle that the seduction of one would be followed by lynching the seducer; while there is no wrong done the negro woman, because she has no moral sense in such matters, to be injured. Instead of feeling that she is "lost," she brags of her "conquest."
But several facts lead us to doubt the literal truth of these statements. We note that the same tales are told in illustration that we heard when here five years ago. No new material seems to have appeared in that time. Then again, the mulatto is exceedingly rare; the negroes met on the streets and in the fields being pure black. These and similar facts lead us to receive the above accounts with a very large grain of salt.