XXXVIII.
Coloured population of the south—Mississippi saddle and horse caparisons—Ride through the city—Chain gang—Lynch law—Want of a penitentiary—Difficulties in consequence—Summary justice—Boating on the Mississippi—Chain gang and the runaway—Suburbs—Orphan asylum—A past era.
For the tourist to give sketches of the south without adverting to the slave population, would be as difficult, as for the historian to write of the early settlement of America without alluding to the aborigines. I shall, therefore, in this and two or three subsequent letters, discursively, as the subject is suggested to me, introduce such notices of the relative and actual condition of the slaves in this state, as may have a tendency to correct any prejudices, which as a New-Englander you may have imbibed, and set you right upon a subject, which has been singularly misrepresented. With slavery in the abstract, my remarks have nothing to do. Southerners and northerners think alike here—but I wish to present the subject before you precisely, as during a long residence in Mississippi it has constantly been presented to me—not to give you ex parte facts, and those from the darkest side of the picture—recording the moan here, and omitting the smile there—remembering the sound of the lash, and forgetting that of the violin—painting the ragged slave, and passing by his gayly-dressed fellow—but to state facts impartially and fearlessly, leaving you to draw your own conclusions.
Aware of the nature of the ground, upon which I am about to venture, I trust that I shall approach a subject upon which the sons of the chivalresque south are naturally so sensitive—involving as it does, a right so sacred as that of property—without those prejudices with which a northerner might be supposed fore-armed. Among the numerous important subjects with which the public mind within a few years past has been agitated, no one has been so obscured by error, and altogether so little understood as this.
In my letters from New-Orleans, there was but little allusion to this subject, as I then possessed very slight and imperfect knowledge of it. But the broad peculiarities of slavery, and the general traits of African character differ not materially, whether exhibited on the extensive sugar fields of Louisiana, or on the cotton plantations of Mississippi. The relative situations, also, of the slaves are so much alike, that a dissertation upon slavery as it exists in one state, can with almost equal precision be applied to it as existing in the other. All my remarks upon this subject, however, are the result only of my observations in the state of Mississippi.
"Will you ride with me into the country?" said a young planter as we rose from the table d'hote of the Mansion house. "I am about purchasing a few negroes, and a peep into a slave-mart may not be uninteresting to you." I readily embraced the opportunity thus presented of visiting a southern slave market; and in a few minutes our horses were at the door—long-tailed pacers with flowing manes and slender limbs. One of them was caparisoned with the deep concave Spanish saddle I have so often mentioned, with a high pummel terminating in a round flat head—and covered with blue broad-cloth, which hung nearly to the stirrup, and, extending in one piece far behind, formed ample housings. The other horse bore an ordinary saddle, over which was thrown a light blue merino blanket several times folded, and secured to the saddle by a gayly-woven surcingle. Southerners usually ride with a thick blanket, oftener white than coloured, thus bound over their saddles, forming a comfortable cushion, and another placed between the saddle and the back of the horse. These blankets are considered indispensable in this climate. They are not always of the purest white, and the negroes, whose taste in this as well as in many other things might be improved, usually put them on awry, with a ragged corner hanging down in fine contrast with the handsome saddle, and in pleasant companionship with the cloth skirts of the rider. These little matters, however, the southerner seldom notices. If well mounted, which he is always sure to be, the "keeping" of the ensemble is but a secondary affair. The saddle blankets are often unstrapped by the rider, in case of rain, and folded about him after the manner of the Choctaws. This custom of wearing blankets over the saddle originated with the old pioneers, who carried them to sleep on, as they camped in the woods.
Crossing Cotton Square—the chief market place for cotton in the city—we in a few minutes entered upon the great northern road leading to Jackson, the capital of this state, and thence to Washington, the seat of the general government. Near the intersection of this road with the city streets, a sudden clanking of chains, startled our horses, and the next instant a gang of negroes, in straggling procession, followed by an ordinary looking white man armed with a whip, emerged from one of the streets. Each negro carried slung over his shoulder a polished iron ball, apparently a twenty-four pounder, suspended by a heavy ox chain five or six feet in length and secured to the right ancle by a massive ring. They moved along under their burthen as though it were any thing but comfortable—some with idealess faces, looking the mere animal, others with sullen and dogged looks, and others again talking and laughing as though "Hymen's chains had bound them." This galley-looking procession, whose tattered wardrobe seemed to have been stolen from a chimney-sweep, was what is very appropriately termed the "Chain gang," a fraternity well known in New-Orleans and Natchez, and valued for its services in cleaning and repairing the streets. In the former city however there is one for whites as well as blacks, who may be known by their parti-coloured clothing. These gangs are merely moving penitentiaries, appropriating that amount of labour, which at the north is expended within four walls, to the broader limits of the city. In Natchez, negro criminals only are thus honoured—a "coat of tar and feathers" being applied to those white men who may require some kind of discipline not provided by the courts of justice. This last summary process of popular justice, or more properly excitement, termed "Lynch's law," I believe from its originator, is too much in vogue in this state. In the resentment of public as well as private wrongs, individuals have long been in the habit of forestalling and improving upon the decisions of the courts, by taking the execution of the laws into their own hands. The consequence is, that the dignity of the bench is degraded, and justice is set aside for the exhibition of wild outbreaks of popular feeling. But this summary mode of procedure is now, to the honour of the south, rapidly falling into disuse, and men feel willing to yield to the dignity of the law and acquiesce in its decisions, even to the sacrifice of individual prejudices. That "border" state of society from which the custom originated no longer exists here—and the causes having ceased which at first, in the absence of proper tribunals, may have rendered it perhaps necessary thus to administer justice, the effect will naturally cease also—and men will surrender the sword of justice to the public tribunals, erected by themselves.
The want of a penitentiary has had a tendency to keep this custom alive in this state longer than it would otherwise have existed. When an individual is guilty of any offence, which renders him amenable to the laws, he must either be acquitted altogether or suffer death. There is no intermediate mode of punishment, except the stocks, whipping, branding and cropping—the last two are seldom resorted to now as legal punishments, and the others are regarded as too light an expiation for an offence which merited a seven years' imprisonment. Therefore when a criminal is acquitted, because his guilt is not quite sufficient to demand the sacrifice of his life, but enough to confine him to many years' hard labour in a state's prison—popular vengeance, if the nature of his guilt has enlisted the feelings of the multitude—immediately seizes upon him, and the poor wretch expiates his crime, by one of the most cruel systems of justice that human ingenuity has ever invented. When a criminal is here condemned to death, whose sentence in other states would have been confinement for a limited period, there is in public feeling sometimes a reaction, as singularly in the other extreme. Petitions for his pardon are circulated, and, with columns of names appended, presented to the governor, for here there can be no commutation of a sentence of death.—There must be a free, unconditional pardon or the scaffold. Sometimes a criminal under sentence of death is pardoned by the governor, thinking his crime not sufficiently aggravated to be atoned for by his life, which may often be the case in a state where eleven crimes are punishable with death.[15] In such instances the criminal, unless escorted beyond the reach of popular resentment, receives from the multitude a commutation of his sentence, which, through the tender mercies of his judges, is more dreadful than death itself. Death indeed has in two or three instances terminated the sufferings of these victims of public feeling; sometimes they have been placed upright in a skiff with their arms pinioned behind them, and a jug of whiskey placed at their feet, and thus thrown upon the mercy of the Mississippi, down which under a burning sun, naked and bare-headed they are borne, till rescued by some steamer, cast upon the inhospitable shores, or buried beneath the waves. This act, inhuman as it may appear, does not indicate a more barbarous or inhuman state of society than elsewhere. It is the consequence of a deficiency in the mode and means of punishment. Was there but one sentence passed upon all criminals in sober New-England, and that sentence, death, humanity would lead to numerous acquittals and pardons, while popular feeling, when it felt itself injured, refusing to acquiesce in the total escape of the guilty, would take upon itself to inflict that punishment which the code had neglected to provide. A penitentiary in this state would at once do away this custom, which however necessary it may appear in the opinion of those who adhere to it, can never be defended.
The "chain gang," which led to this digression, consists of insubordinate negroes and slaves, who, having run away from their masters, have been taken up and confined in jail, to await the reclamation of their owners; during the interval elapsing between their arrest and the time of their liberation by their masters, they are daily led forth from the prison to work on the streets, under the charge of an overseer. This punishment is considered very degrading, and merely the threat of the Calaboose, or the "ball and chain," will often intimidate and render submissive the most incorrigible.