The Blue-Grass Region of Kentucky, and Other Kentucky Articles

by James Lane Allen

V

But as is the master, so is the slave, and it is through the characters of the Shelbys that we must approach that of Uncle Tom. For of all races, the African—superstitious, indolent, singing, dancing, impressionable creature—depends upon others for enlightenment, training, and happiness. If, therefore, you find him so intelligent that he may be sent on important business, so honest that he may be trusted with money, house, and home, so loyal that he will not seize opportunity to become free; if you find him endowed with the manly virtues of dignity and self-respect united to the Christian virtues of humility, long-suffering, and forgiveness, then do not, in marvelling at him on these accounts, quite forget his master and his mistress—they made him what he was. And it is something to be said on their behalf, that in their household was developed a type of slave that could be set upon a sublime moral pinnacle to attract the admiration of the world. [75]

Attention is fixed on Uncle Tom first as head-servant of the farm. In a small work on slavery in Kentucky by George Harris, it is stated that masters chose the cruelest of their negroes for this office. It is not true, exceptions allowed for. The work would not be worth mentioning, had not so many people at the North believed it. The amusing thing is, they believed Mrs. Stowe also. But if Mrs. Stowe's account of slavery in Kentucky is true, Harris's is not.

It is true that Uncle Tom inspired the other negroes with some degree of fear. He was censor of morals, and reported derelictions of the lazy, the destructive, and the thievish. For instance, an Uncle Tom on one occasion told his master of the stealing of a keg of lard, naming the thief and the hiding-place. "Say not a word about it," replied his master. The next day he rode out into the field where the culprit was ploughing, and, getting down, walked along beside him. "What's the matter, William?" he asked, after a while; "you can't look me in the face as usual." William burst into tears, and confessed everything. "Come to-night, and I will arrange so that you can put the lard back and nobody will ever know you took it." The only punishment was a little moral teaching; but the Uncle Tom in the case, though he kept his secret, looked for some days as though the dignity of his office had not been suitably upheld by his master. [76]

It was Uncle Tom's duty to get the others off to work in the morning. In the fields he did not drive the work, but led it—being a master-workman—led the cradles and the reaping-hooks, the hemp-breaking and the corn-shucking. The spirit of happy music went with the workers. They were not goaded through their daily tasks by the spur of pitiless husbandry. Nothing was more common than their voluntary contests of skill and power. My recollection reaches only to the last two or three years of slavery; but I remember the excitement with which I witnessed some of these hard-fought battles of the negroes. Rival hemp-breakers of the neighborhood, meeting in the same field, would slip out long before breakfast and sometimes never stop for dinner. So it was with cradling, corn-shucking, or corn-cutting—in all work where rivalries were possible. No doubt there were other motives. So much work was a day's task; for more there was extra pay. A capital hand, by often performing double or treble the required amount, would clear a neat profit in a season. The days of severest labor fell naturally in harvest-time. But then intervals of rest in the shade were commonly given; and milk, coffee, or, when the prejudice of the master did not prevent (which was not often), whiskey was distributed between meal-times. As a rule they worked without hurry. De Tocqueville gave unintentional testimony to characteristic slavery in Kentucky when he described the negroes [77] as "loitering" in the fields. On one occasion the hands dropped work to run after a rabbit the dogs had started. A passer-by indignantly reported the fact to the master. "Sir," said the old gentleman, with a hot face, "I'd have whipped the last d——n rascal of 'em if they hadn't run 'im!"

CHASING THE RABBIT.

The negroes made money off their truck-patches, in which they raised melons, broom-corn, vegetables. When Charles Sumner was in Kentucky, he saw with almost incredulous eyes the comfortable cabins with their flowers and poultry, the fruitful truck-patches, and a genuine Uncle Tom—"a black gentleman with his own watch!" Well enough does Mrs. Stowe put these words into her hero's mouth, when he hears he is to be sold: "I'm feared things will be kinder goin' to rack when I'm gone. Mas'r can't be 'spected to be a-pryin' round everywhere as I've done, a-keepin' up all the ends. The boys means well, but they's powerful car'less." [78]

More interesting is Uncle Tom's character as a preacher. Contemporary with him in Kentucky was a class of men among his people who exhorted, held prayer-meetings in the cabins and baptizings in the woods, performed marriage ceremonies, and enjoyed great freedom of movement. There was one in nearly every neighborhood, and together they wrought effectively in the moral development of their race. I have nothing to say here touching the vast and sublime conception which Mrs. Stowe formed of "Uncle Tom's" spiritual nature. But no idealized manifestation of it is better than this simple occurrence: One of these negro preachers was allowed by his master to fill a distant appointment. Belated once, and returning home after the hour forbidden for slaves to be abroad, he was caught by the patrol and cruelly whipped. As the blows fell, his only words were: "Jesus Christ suffered for righteousness' sake; so kin I." Another of them was recommended for deacon's orders and actually ordained. When liberty came, he refused to be free, and continued to work in his master's family till his death. With considerable knowledge of the Bible and a fluent tongue, he would nevertheless sometimes grow confused while preaching and lose his train of thought. At these embarrassing junctures it was his wont suddenly to call out at the top of his voice, "Saul! Saul! why persecutest thou me?" The effect upon his hearers was electrifying; and as none but a [79] very highly favored being could be thought worthy of enjoying this persecution, he thus converted his loss of mind into spiritual reputation. A third, named Peter Cotton, united the vocations of exhorter and wood-chopper. He united them literally, for one moment Peter might be seen standing on his log chopping away, and the next kneeling down beside it praying. He got his mistress to make him a long jeans coat and on the ample tails of it to embroider, by his direction, sundry texts of Scripture, such as: "Come unto me, all ye that are heavy laden!" Thus literally clothed with righteousness, Peter went from cabin to cabin preaching the Word. Well for him if that other Peter could have seen him.

These men sometimes made a pathetic addition to their marriage ceremonies: "Until death or our higher powers do you separate!"