There were a large number of steerage passengers occupying the main deck, forward of the shaft. Many of them were Irish, late immigrants, but the large majority were slaves, going on to New Orleans to be sold, or moving with their masters to Texas. There was a fiddle or two among them, and they were very merry, dancing and singing. A few, however, refused to join in the amusement, and looked very disconsolate. A large proportion of them were boys and girls, under twenty years of age.
On the forecastle-deck there was a party of emigrants, moving with waggons. There were three men, a father and his two sons, or sons-in-law, with their families, including a dozen or more women and children. They had two waggons, covered with calico and bed-ticks, supported by hoops, in which they carried their furniture and stores, and in which they also slept at night, the women in one, and the men in the other. They had six horses, two mules, and two pair of cattle with them. I asked the old man why he had taken his cattle along with him, when he was going so far by sea, and found that he had informed himself accurately of what it would cost him to hire or buy cattle at Galveston; and that taking into account the probable delay he would experience in looking for them there, he had calculated that he could afford to pay the freight on them, to have them with him, to go on at once into the country on his arrival, rather than to sell them at Mobile.
“But,” said he, “there was one thing I didn’t cakulate on, and I don’t understand it; the capting cherged me two dollars and a half for ‘wherfage.’ I don’t know what that means, do you? I want to know, because I don’t car’ to be imposed upon by nobody. I payed it without sayin’ a word, ‘cause I never travelled on the water before; next time I do, I shall be more sassy.” I asked where he was going. “Didn’t know much about it,” he said, “but reckoned he could find a place where there was a good range, and plenty of game. If ’twas as good a range (pasture) as ’twas to Alabama when he first came there, he’d be satisfied.” After he’d got his family safe through acclimating this time, he reckoned he shouldn’t move again. He had moved about a good deal in his life. There was his littlest boy, he said, looking kindly at a poor, thin, blue-faced little child—he reckoned they’d be apt to leave him; he had got tropsical, and was of mighty weak constitution, nat’rally; ’twouldn’t take much to carry him off, and, of course, a family must be exposed a good deal, moving so this time of year. They should try to find some heavy timbered land—good land, and go to clearing; didn’t calculate to make any crops the first year—didn’t calculate on it, though perhaps they might if they had good luck. They had come from an eastern county of Alabama. Had sold out his farm for two dollars an acre; best land in the district was worth four; land was naturally kind of thin, and now ’twas pretty much all worn out there. He had moved first from North Carolina, with his father. They never made anything to sell but cotton; made corn for their own use. Never had any negroes; reckoned he’d done about as well as if he had had them; reckoned a little better on the whole. No, he should not work negroes in Texas. “Niggers is so kerless, and want so much lookin’ arter; they is so monstrous lazy; they won’t do no work, you know, less you are clus to ’em all the time, and I don’t feel like it. I couldn’t, at my time of life, begin a-using the lash; and you know they do have to take that, all on ’em—and a heap on’t, sometimes.”
“I don’t know much about it; they don’t have slaves where I live.”
“Then you come from a Free State; well, they’ve talked some of makin’ Alabamy a Free State.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“O, yes, there was a good deal of talk one time, as if they was goin’ to do it right off. O, yes; there was two or three of the States this way, one time, come pretty nigh freein’ the niggers—lettin’ ’em all go free.”
“And what do you think of it?”
“Well, I’ll tell you what I think on it; I’d like it if we could get rid on ’em to yonst. I wouldn’t like to hev ’em freed, if they was gwine to hang ‘round. They ought to get some country, and put ’em war they could be by themselves. It wouldn’t do no good to free ’em, and let ’em hang round, because they is so monstrous lazy; if they hadn’t got nobody to take keer on ’em, you see they wouldn’t do nothin’ but juss nat’rally laze round, and steal, and pilfer, and no man couldn’t live, you see, war they was—if they was free, no man couldn’t live. And then, I’ve two objections; that’s one on ’em—no man couldn’t live—and this ere’s the other: Now suppose they was free, you see they’d all think themselves just as good as we; of course they would, if they was free. Now, just suppose you had a family of children: how would you like to hev a niggar feelin’ just as good as a white man? how’d you like to hev a niggar steppin’ up to your darter? Of course you wouldn’t; and that’s the reason I wouldn’t like to hev ’em free; but I tell you, I don’t think it’s right to hev ’em slaves so; that’s the fac—taant right to keep ’em as they is.”