Some of the Negroes had become landowners by the middle of the century, and some were themselves slave owners. More and more, however, the owners of Negroes were holding them tenaciously, and regarding them as salable property; and from, 1680 onward, the laws for slave control became as definite as those in the Islands.
The charter and later settlement of the South Carolina Colony, in 1663, by Sir John Colleton of Barbadoes and his company, for the purpose of attracting colonists from the English Islands, fixed the general legal status of slavery upon the American Colonies. This was made the more sure because in the first-settled coast regions of the colony, rice, and later indigo, were introduced as the staple crops, for the cultivation of which only Negroes could endure the necessary swampy conditions. The owners, dwelling in the neighboring pine elevations by night and in summer, went to their plantations only in the day time and in the winter season.
Likewise, in the Northern Colonies, without exception, the system found its way; first, through the enslaving of captive Indians, then, by 1630, of Negroes also. While the traffic in slaves persisted for a long time with Newport as the chief center, neither climatic nor economic conditions were favorable to the system. In one way or another, slavery declined, and the field presents little that is valuable to our study.
The Revolutionary War, with the Declaration of Independence, and its assertion of the freedom and equality of men as its justifying principle and motive, produced a profound effect upon the mind of America; not, indeed, sufficiently great to enable any State to enact laws looking to gradual emancipation, but great enough to arouse most of the Northern States and all of the Southern, except Georgia, to prohibit, by the year 1787, the further importation of slaves from beyond their borders. The Federal Congress was still, however, inhibited for twenty years, from enacting such laws.
The action of the State tended to stabilize social life, by reducing the number of strange Negroes from across the ocean; and to strengthen the ties of masters and servants, by prolonged association. The result was well-nigh universal in the Slave States in spite of South Carolina’s repeal of its law, four years before the Federal Act was passed at the close of 1807. Meanwhile the introduction of cotton, in about 1790 as the chief crop of these States, proved to be the greatest material factor in determining the social and industrial life of the Eastern and Southern States, especially the latter. Once firmly established, following Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin in 1793, it almost as firmly established the life of the Negro in his agricultural home.
The Louisiana Purchase, in 1803, and the expansion of sugar-planting on a large scale, completed, for many generations, the cycle of Southern agricultural industry. Since then, much has happened; but agriculturally the Negro’s home is practically unchanged and his development has been through a stable school of arts which ministered to his rural life.
The pupils, we must bear in mind, came from many tribes of Africans. Professor John McCrady, in the course of a lecture to his students in Sewanee, said that he had clearly defined fourteen different dialects spoken by the Negroes of the Sea Islands of South Carolina, and did not doubt but that many more could be found by the student of the Southern Negro. Not only were the dialects different, but quite marked were the physical and mental characteristics. It is a mistake to imagine that all Negroes are alike. The pupils of the plantation school came to be known and rated personally just as the pupils of any school must be; and so, too, the children of the large patriarchal family.
The character of the plantation school was determined, partly by the crops raised, partly by the nature of the land, partly by the personality of the master and his foreman, partly by the number of workers, and partly by the neighborhood customs. Some neighborhoods operated on the gang system, dividing the workers into groups; others on the task system, allotting so much as the labor of the day; while still others used successfully both systems, often the former for men, the latter for women and younger learners.
If the owner had but one or half a dozen families of servants he usually labored with them at plough, or hoe, or wagon. If a greater number, his time was fully occupied in planning the work, and overseeing the workers. If the plantations were very large, the organization was elaborate and complete. In every case, to the Negro, as he came new from his African home and for long after, the school was most valuable and every day brought lessons to body, mind and soul. As the great majority of the old servants were congregated on the larger plantations, it was there that most of the training was received. Should the reader have access to one of a number of books like A Southern Planter, by Mrs. S. D. Smedes, the reading will be most delightful and not less instructive in its exact picture of the old régime. Or if a visit could be paid to Alfred Holt Stone’s Dunleith Plantation (a very fine sample of many like it) in Washington County, Mississippi, there would be seen a perfect likeness of the old life, under the much improved conditions (in many respects) of free labor. For all that was best in the old régime, the mutual interest, the personal attachments, the mutual confidence, the pride in home, the loyalty and friendship between master and servant, has been preserved in the descendants of both. The statement just made and that which follows have been tested all over the South, and never found wanting whenever the two races are still found in the old homes. There never has been a place or time when there were more Christian Whites and Christian Negroes more earnestly interested in forming and keeping the highest and best race-relations, and in seeking the best interests of both races alike, than in the South at this present time. Unfortunately, they are not all Christians who call the name of Christ.
The organization of a large plantation had to be very perfect if it was to succeed in maintaining its great family. Phillips’ American Slavery presents many samples and, with minute detail, describes the routine, interesting but not necessary to our study. One type will sufficiently illustrate the educative value of all.