Fifty Years in Chains; or, the Life of an American Slave

by Charles Ball

The description of one great cotton plantation will give a correct idea of all others; and I shall here present an outline of that of my master's.

He lived about two miles from Caugaree river, which bordered his estate on one side, and in the swamps of which were his rice fields. The country hereabout is very flat, the banks of the river are low, and in wet seasons large tracts of country are flooded by the super-abundant water of the river. There are no springs, and the only means of procuring water on the plantations is from wells, which must be sunk in general about twenty feet deep, before a constant supply of water can be obtained. My master had two of these wells on his plantation—one at the mansion house, and one at the quarter.

My master's house was of brick, (brick houses are by no means common among the planters, whose residences are generally built of frame work, weather boarded with pine boards, and covered with shingles of the white cedar or juniper cypress,) and contained two large parlors, and a spacious hall or entry on the ground floor. The main building was two stories high, and attached to this was a smaller building, one story and a half high, with a large room, where the family generally took breakfast, with a kitchen at the farther extremity from the main building.

There was a spacious garden behind the house, containing, I believe, about five acres, well cultivated, and handsomely laid out. In this garden grew a great variety of vegetables; some of which I have never seen in the market of Philadelphia. It contained a profusion of flowers, three different shrubberies, a vast number of ornamental and small fruit trees, and several small hot houses, with glass roofs. There was a head gardener, who did nothing but attend to this garden through the year; and during the summer he generally had two men and two boys to assist him. In the months of April and May this garden was one of the sweetest and most pleasant places that I ever was in. At one end of the main building was a small house, called the library, in which my master kept his books and papers, and where he spent much of his time.

At some distance from the mansion was a pigeon-house, and near the kitchen was a large wooden building, called the kitchen quarter, in which the house servants slept, and where they generally took their meals. Here, also, the washing of the family was done, and all the rough or unpleasant work of the kitchen department—such as cleaning and salting fish, putting up pork, &c., was assigned to this place.

There was no barn on this plantation, according to the acceptation of the word barn in Pennsylvania; but there was a wooden building, about forty feet long, called the coach-house, in one end of which the family carriage and the chaise in which my master rode were kept. Under the same roof was a stable large enough to contain a dozen horses. In one end the corn intended for the horses was kept, and the whole of one loft was occupied by the blades and tops of the corn. About a quarter of a mile from the dwelling house were the huts or cabins of the plantation slaves, standing in rows. There were thirty-eight of them, generally about sixteen feet square, and provided with pine floors. In these cabins were two hundred and fifty people, of all ages, sexes and sizes. A short distance from the cabins was the house of the overseer. In one corner of his garden stood a corn-crib and a provision-house. A little way off stood the house containing the cotton-gin. There was no smoke-house, nor any place for curing meat, and while I was on this plantation no food was ever salted for the use of the slaves.

I went out into the garden, and after sundown my old master sent me to the overseer's house. He was just coming in from the field, followed by a great number of black people. He asked me my name, and calling a middle-aged man, who was passing us at some distance, told him he must take me to live with him. I followed my new friend to his cabin, which was the shelter of his wife and five children. Their only furniture consisted of a few blocks of wood for seats; a short bench, made of a pine board, which served as a table; and a small bed in one corner, composed of a mat, made of common rushes, spread upon some corn husks, pulled and split into fine pieces, and kept together by a narrow slip of wood, confined to the floor by wooden pins. There was a common iron pot standing beside the chimney, and several wooden spoons and dishes hung against the wall. Several blankets also hung against the wall upon wooden pins. An old box, made of pine boards, without either lock or hinges, occupied one corner.

At the time I entered this humble abode the mistress was not at home. She had not yet returned from the field; having been sent, as the husband informed me, with some other people late in the evening, to do some work in a field about two miles distant. I found a child, about a year old, lying on the mat-bed, and a little girl about four years old sitting beside it.

These children were entirely naked, and when we came to the door, the elder rose from its place and ran to its father, and clasping him round one of his knees, said, "Now we shall get good supper." The father laid his hand upon the head of his naked child, and stood silently looking in its face—which was turned upwards toward his own for a moment—and then turning to me, said, "Did you leave any children at home?" The scene before me—the question propounded—and the manner of this poor man and his child, caused my heart to swell until my breast seemed too small to contain it. My soul fled back upon the wings of fancy to my wife's lowly dwelling in Maryland, where I had been so often met on a Saturday evening, when I paid them my weekly visit, by my own little ones, who clung to my knees for protection and support, even as the poor little wretch now before me seized upon the weary limb of its hapless and destitute father, hoping that, naked as he was, (for he too was naked, save only the tattered remains of a pair of old trowsers,) he would bring with his return at evening its customary scanty supper. I was unable to reply, but stood motionless, leaning against the walls of the cabin. My children seemed to flit by the door in the dusky twilight; and the twittering of a swallow, which that moment fluttered over my head, sounded in my ear as the infantile tittering of my own little boy; but on a moment's reflection I knew that we were separated without the hope of ever again meeting; that they no more heard the welcome tread of my feet, and could never again receive the little gifts with which, poor as I was, I was accustomed to present them. I was far from the place of my nativity, in a land of strangers, with no one to care for me beyond the care that a master bestows upon his ox; with all my future life one long, waste, barren desert, of cheerless, hopeless, lifeless slavery; to be varied only by the pangs of hunger and the stings of the lash.

My revery was at length broken by the appearance of the mother of the family, with her three eldest children. The mother wore an old ragged shift; but the children, the eldest of whom appeared to be about twelve, and the youngest six years old, were quite naked. When she came in, the husband told her that the overseer had sent me to live with them; and she and her oldest child, who was a boy, immediately set about preparing their supper, by boiling some of the leaves of the weed, called lamb's-quarter, in the pot. This, together with some cakes of cold corn bread, formed their supper. My supper was brought to me from the house of the overseer by a small girl, his daughter. It was about half a pound of bread, cut from a loaf made of corn meal. My companions gave me a part of their boiled greens, and we all sat down together to my first meal in my new habitation.