I have seen in a Southern street-car all blacks sitting and all whites standing; have seen a big black woman enter a car and flounce herself down almost into the lap of a white man; have seen white ladies pushed off sidewalks by black men. The new manners of the blacks were painful, revolting, absurd. The freedman’s misbehaviour was to be condoned only by pity that accepted his inferiority as excuse. Southerners had taken great pains and pride in teaching their negroes good manners; they wanted them to be courtly and polished, and it must be said for the negroes, they took polish well. It was with keen regret that their old preceptors saw them throw all their fine schooling in etiquette to the winds.
Interest in and affection for negroes made these new manners the more obnoxious. Here, in one woman’s statement, is the point illustrated: “I considered Mammy part of our family; my family pride would have been aggrieved, I would have tingled with mortification, to see her so far forget what was due herself as to push herself into places where she was not wanted. These are things she could not possibly do of herself, her own good taste, perfect breeding, and sturdy self-respect forbidding. But her husband and son quickly succumbed to the demoralisation of freedom and were vulgar and troublesome; we were in fear and trembling lest they should lead her into some situation in church, theatre, or car, where she would find herself conspicuous and from which she would not know how to withdraw until officially escorted out in the midst of trouble created by her men.”
Many worthy negroes, the old, infirm and children, lost needed protection. Negroes had not been permitted to get drunk—except around corn-shucking and Christmas. There was no such restraint now. Formerly, a negro, if so disposed, could not beat his child unmercifully. Now, women and children might feel a heavy hand unknown before. White people might not interfere in family disputes as formerly, though they continued, at personal risk, to do what they could. A case in point was that of Mr. R., a respected merchant of Petersburg, who ejected his cook’s drunken husband from the kitchen where the brute was cruelly maltreating her. The old gentleman was arrested and marched through the streets, as I have been told, by negro sergeants to trial before a negro magistrate.
A characteristic common to uncultured motherhood is over-indulgence and over-severity by turns. When provoked, the negro mother would descend like a fury upon her offspring, beating it as a former master would never have suffered her to abuse his property. A word or suggestion from a white would bring fresh blows upon the luckless wight, the mother thinking thus to demonstrate independence and ownership.
Under freedom, negroes developed bodily ills from which they had seemed immune. A consumptive of the race was rarely heard of before freedom. After freedom, they began to die of pulmonary complaints. There were frequent epidemics of typhoid fever, quarters not being well kept. “The race is dying out,” said prophets. Negroes began to grow mad. An insane negro was rarely heard of during slavery. Regular hours, regular work, chiefly out of doors, sobriety, freedom from care and responsibility, had kept the negro singularly exempt from insanity and various other afflictions that curse the white. Big lunatic asylums established for negroes soon after the war and their continual enlargement tell their own story.[13]
Freedom broke up families. Under stress of temptation, the young and strong deserted the aged, the feeble, the children, leaving these to shift for themselves or to remain a burden upon a master or mistress themselves impoverished and, perhaps, old and infirm.
In the face of so much distraction, demoralisation and disorder, the example of those negroes who were not affected by it shines out with greater clearness as witness for the best that is in the race. Thousands stood steadfastly to their posts, superior to temptations which might have shaken white people, performing their duties faithfully, caring for their children, sick and aged, shirking no debt of love and gratitude to past owners. Some negroes still live in families for which their ancestors worked, the bond of centuries never having been broken.
When this is true, the tie between white and black is yet strong, sweet and tender, like the tie of blood. The venerable “uncles” and “aunties” with their courtly manners, their good warm hearts, their love for the whites, are swiftly passing away, and their like will not be seen again. They were America’s black pearl; and America had as good reason to be proud of her faithful and efficient serving-class as of her Anglo-Saxons. They were needed; they filled an honourable and worthy place and filled it well.
MRS. ANDREW PICKENS CALHOUN