Chapter Three.
A Changed Plantation.
We pass over a period of five years succeeding the scene recorded.
During this time there was but little change on the plantation of Squire Blackadder; either in the dwellers on the estate, or the administration of its affairs. Neither castigation by the cowskin, nor the punishment of the pump, was discontinued. Both were frequent, and severe as ever; and whatever of work could by such means be extracted from human muscles, was taken out of the unhappy slaves who called Mr Snively their “obaseeah.” Withal, the plantation did not prosper. Blount, plunging yet deeper into dissipation, drained it of every dollar of its profits, intrenching even on the standard value of the estate. The number of its hands had become reduced, till there were scarce enough left for its cultivation; and, despite the constant cracking of Mr Snively’s whip, weeds began to show themselves in the cotton fields, and decay around the “gin” house.
At the end of these five years, however, came a change, complete as it was cheerful.
The buildings underwent repair, “big house” as well as out-offices; while the crops, once more carefully cultivated, presented a flourishing appearance. In the court-yard and negro quarters the change was still more striking. Instead of sullen faces, and skins grey with dandruff, or brown with dirt, ill-concealed under the tattered copperas-stripe, could now be seen smiling countenances, with clean white shirts covering an epidermis that shone with the hue of health. Instead of profane language and loud threats, too often followed by the lash, could be heard the twanging of the banjo, accompanied by its simple song, and the cheerful voice of Sambo excited in “chaff,” or light-hearted laughter.
The change is easily explained. It was not the same Sambo, nor the same “obaseeah,” nor yet the same massa. The whole personnel of the place was different. A planter of the patriarchal type had succeeded to the tyrant; and Squire Blackadder was gone away, few of his neighbours knew whither, and fewer cared. By his cruelty he had lost caste, as by the courses pursued by his son—the latter having almost brought him to Bankruptcy. To escape this, he had sold his plantation, though still retaining his slaves—most of them being unsaleable on account of their well-known wickedness.
Taking these along with him, he had “started west.”
To one emigrating from the banks of the Mississippi this may seem an unfitting expression. But at the time a new “west” and a “far” one had just entered on the stage of colonisation. It was called California, a country at that time little known; for it had late come into the possession of the United States, and the report of its golden treasures, although on the way, had not yet reached the meridian of the Mississippi.
It was its grand agricultural wealth, worth far more than its auriferous riches, that was attracting planter Blackadder to its plains—this and the necessity of escaping from the too respectable society that had sprung up around him in the “Choctaw Purchase.”