The New Man: Twenty-nine years a slave, twenty-nine years a free man

by Henry Clay Bruce

Richmond was also the principal slave market and this public highway the most direct route to the Southern cotton fields, especially those of Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee, and Negro traders passed over it many times each year with gangs of slaves bought at the public auction block in Richmond. I have seen many gangs of slaves driven over this old road. Usually, the slave men were handcuffed together with long chains between them extending the whole length of the gang, which contained as many as forty, sometimes, or twenty on each side of the chain marching in line. The women and small boys were allowed to walk unchained in the line while the children and the lame and those who were sick rode in wagons. The entire caravan would be under the charge of the owner and a guard of four or five poor white men armed each with a rawhide whip, with which to urge the gang along and to keep them in line or at least in the road.

It was not the custom, neither was it to the owner’s interest, to treat these slaves brutally, for, like mules brought up to be carried to a better market, or where larger prices prevailed, it was absolutely necessary that they should not show any signs of ill-treatment; and I cannot recall ever having seen the punishment of one of them. Of course these Negro traders could not allow grown men to march in line unchained, particularly those who did not want to go, because they might become unmanageable, run away, and escape capture, thus causing the loss of the price paid for them, or at least give considerable trouble. As a general rule, many of these slave men were sold in the first place on account of insubordination—had resisted their masters, or had beaten their overseers, and such slaves were considered by their owners dangerous fellows on the farm with others, especially young men who might follow such examples. Then again many slaves were sold because they had committed murder or some other crime not deserving the death penalty, and there were no penitentiaries for slaves.

These and many other recollections of my early life crowded upon me as I looked upon the old familiar scenes. The absence of familiar faces was no less remarkable than the changes in lands and improvements, for I found only one man I had seen before. There were two others whom I knew in that vicinity and who had never left it, but I failed to find them at their homes. I visited the home of Mrs. Sarah Perkinson, widow of Lemuel Perkinson, mentioned in a previous chapter, but did not see her, as she had left a few days prior on a visit to relatives in North Carolina. I was really sorry I did not see her, for I could have obtained much valuable information from her, as she had remained in that community ever since the year 1849, and could have given me an interesting history of past events. She still owns the old Perkinson farm consisting of about two thousand acres. The old frame mansion which was built before 1841 was still there and in a fair state of preservation, and without any apparent change since I last saw it forty-four years ago. I found old man, Major Perkinson, one of Mrs. Perkinson’s former slaves, occupying the Great House and tilling the land. There were about fifty acres under cultivation; the balance had grown wild. The old Major who is now ninety years of age and quite active, remembered me very well and proceeded to treat me like a southern gentleman of the old school would have done. I next visited our old home which was one mile away. Here I found the great house, also a frame building, built in the summer of 1842, in a good state of preservation, and as I went through every room I am sure that there had been but little change in its structure. I also visited the spot where my mother’s cabin stood, and then how forcibly those lines of the poet touched my mind, “Childhood days now pass before me, forms and scenes of long ago,” etc. The quarters for the colored people had disappeared here as well as those at Mrs. Perkinson’s place. This place is now owned by a Yankee lady in New York, and of the six hundred acres under fence when we left it in 1849, only four acres are now in use, the balance having grown up in forest.

I visited several places of interest, and among them was Green Bay, about two miles north of our old home. Here I met Mr. Thomas Rowlett, the station agent, and one, Mr. Scott, and a merchant named Richardson, whose father I remembered. All three of these men are direct descendants of the “Blue Bloods,” and I found them still defending the right. I was greatly impressed by a remark made by Mr. Richardson; he said, “We are now, and will be for the next twenty years, suffering from the curse of slavery; it cursed the slave, it cursed his master, it cursed the land.” He then called attention to the thousands of acres gone wild, too poor to produce anything, and the owners were unable to bring them to a rentable condition, and the colored people could not make a living on them and of course, left the country in search of work. He said one could buy land anywhere in that community for three dollars per acre. Of course it will cost at least ten dollars more to bring it up to a fair state of cultivation. When I saw these fine lands in 1849, tilled by slave labor, and kept in the very highest state of cultivation, and on which splendid crops of tobacco, corn and wheat were raised, I could not have realized that in the space of forty-four years these same lands would be a wilderness, the owners scattered, and even the former slaves gone. But so it is, and the names of the people who owned them forgotten. The only men I found who had remained and retained not only the old master’s name, but the farm as well, were the Scotts, consisting of the father, two sons, Charles and Thomas, and a daughter, Mrs. Lefere. They had acquired the old homesteads of their old masters in each case and occupied the great house built of brick over sixty years ago, and still in good condition. These farms were adjoining each other and located on the Pike Road leading to Farmville, and near Sandy River Church. I remembered these farms and the Scotts very well, and also the church where my master used to go to worship quite often, and allowed his slaves to go occasionally on Saturday afternoon. Why I recall this so vividly is, because Sandy River was a clear deep stream with an abundance of fish, and while the older ones attended divine service I went fishing.

The Scotts, Col. Scott, Charles and Thomas A. Scott, brothers, were considered the most aristocratic people in that community, and owned quite a large number of slaves and treated them humanely, a fact which the father of the Scotts now owning the lands will testify to. Old masters are dead, and their children, having sold the old farms and scattered, their former slaves now own these estates and are industrious and thrifty farmers. They had the best crops I saw in that country, with good stock in splendid condition. I found the wife of Thomas Scott and Mrs. Lefere splendid housekeepers and entertained as none but Virginia ladies can. Each had one or more grown daughters, well educated, refined, and very pretty girls. I confess my surprise at finding such intelligent and fashionably dressed girls in that community.

CHAPTER V.

It is encouraging to note the advancement made upon the stronghold of ignorance, superstition and voodooism by the Colored people, since their emancipation from the bonds of slavery, and especially is this so to those who remember the time when a large majority of them believed strongly in all kinds of superstition, voodooism, gophering, tricking and conjuring.

I readily recall many instances wherein they were fleeced out of their little valuables or money by professional humbugs, known as conjurors, who succeeded in duping their fellow-slaves so successfully, and to such an extent, that they believed and feared them almost beyond their masters. I have known of cases where these conjurors held whole neighborhoods, as it were, in such mortal fear, that they could do unto the Colored people anything they desired, without the least fear of them telling their masters. These conjurors made all kinds of boasts and threats, as to what they could and would do to anyone who dared to interfere with them, or even dispute their word, or question their ability to carry out what they claimed to be able to do.

These conjurors claimed to be able to do almost anything in the line of impossibilities, even to taking life by the winking of their eye, to make a master be kind to a slave, to prevent him from selling one, even if he desired to do so, to make a girl love a man, whether she desired him or not, to make a man love and even marry a woman if she desired him.

For a stipulated sum paid them, they would give what was called “a hand or a jack,” which they claimed would enable the holder to accomplish what he desired, and at the same time protect him from all harm, provided always, that the holder had faith and followed instructions.