The women were not very well-favoured; one yellow girl, with fair hair and light eyes, whose child was quite white, excepted; the men were disguised in such strangely cut clothes, their hats, and shoes, and coats so wonderfully made, that one could not tell what their figures were like. On all faces there was a gravity which must be the index to serene contentment and perfect comfort, for those, who ought to know best, declare they are the happiest race in the world.
It struck me more and more, however, as I examined the expression of the faces of the slaves, that deep dejection is the prevailing, if not universal, characteristic of the race. Here there were abundant evidences that they were well treated; they had good clothing of its kind, food, and a master who wittingly could do them no injustice, as he is, I am sure, incapable of it. Still, they all looked sad, and even the old woman who boasted that she had held her old owner in her arms when he was an infant, did not smile cheerfully, as the nurse at home would have done, at the sight of her ancient charge.
The negroes rear domestic birds of all kinds, and sell eggs and poultry to their masters. The money is spent in purchasing tobacco, molasses, clothes, and flour; whisky, their great delight, they must not have. Some seventy or eighty hands were quartered in this part of the estate.
Before leaving the enclosure I was taken to the hospital, which was in charge of an old negress. The naked rooms contained several flock beds on rough stands, and five patients, three of whom were women. They sat listlessly on the beds, looking out into space; no books to amuse them, no conversation—nothing but their own dull thoughts, if they had any. They were suffering from pneumonia and swellings of the glands of the neck; one man had fever. Their medical attendant visits them regularly, and each plantation has a practitioner, who is engaged by the term for his services. If the growth of sugar-cane, cotton, and corn, be the great end of man’s mission on earth, and if all masters were like Governor Roman, slavery might be defended as a natural and innocuous institution. Sugar and cotton are, assuredly, two great agencies in this latter world. The older one got on well enough without them.
The scraping of the fiddles attracted us to the sugar-house, where the juice of the cane is expressed, boiled, granulated, and prepared for the refinery, a large brick building, with a factory-looking chimney. In a space of the floor unoccupied by machinery some fifteen women and as many men were assembled, and four couples were dancing a kind of Irish jig to the music of the negro musicians—a double shuffle in a thumping ecstasy, with loose elbows, pendulous paws, angulated knees, heads thrown back, and backs arched inwards—a glazed eye, intense solemnity of mien.
At this time of year there is no work done in the sugar-house, but when the crushing and boiling are going on the labour is intensely trying, and the hands work in gangs night and day; and, if the heat of the fires be superadded to the temperature in September, it may be conceded that nothing but “involuntary servitude” could go through the toil and suffering required to produce sugar.
In the afternoon the Governor’s son came in from the company which he commands: his men are of the best families in the country—planters and the like. We sauntered about the gardens, diminished, as I have said, by a freak of the river. The French creoles love gardens; the Anglo-Saxons hereabout do not much affect them, and cultivate their crops up to the very doorway.
It was curious to observe so far away from France so many traces of the life of the old seigneur—the early meals, in which supper took the place of dinner—frugal simplicity—and yet a refinement of manner, kindliness and courtesy not to be exceeded.
In the evening several officers of M. Alfred Roman’s company and neighbouring planters dropped in, and we sat out in the twilight, under the trees in the verandah, illuminated by the flashing fire-flies, and talking politics. I was struck by the profound silence which reigned all around us, except a low rushing sound, like that made by the wind blowing over corn-fields, which came from the mighty river before us. Nothing else was audible but the sound of our own voices and the distant bark of a dog. After the steamer which bore us had passed on, I do not believe a single boat floated up or down the stream, and but one solitary planter, in his gig or buggy, traversed the road, which lay between the garden palings and the bank of the great river.
Our friends were all creoles—that is, natives of Louisiana—of French or Spanish descent. They are kinder and better masters, according to universal repute, than native Americans or Scotch; but the New England Yankee is reputed to be the severest of all slave-owners. All these gentlemen to a man are resolute that England must get their cotton or perish. She will take it, therefore, by force; but as the South is determined never to let a Yankee vessel carry any of its produce, a question has been raised by Monsieur Baroche, who is at present looking around him in New Orleans, which causes some difficulty to the astute and statistical Mr. Forstall. The French economist has calculated that if the Yankee vessels be excluded from the carrying trade, the commercial marine of France and England together will be quite inadequate to carry Southern produce to Europe.