'Scriptur' or no Scriptur', stranger, it's d——d heathenism,' replied the farmer, who, take him all in all, is a superior specimen of the class of small planters at the South; and yet, seeing polygamy practiced by his own slaves, he made no effort to prevent it. He told me that if he should object to his darky cohabiting with the Colonel's negress, it would be regarded as unneighborly, and secure him the enmity of the whole district! And still we are told that slavery is a divine institution!
After this, we strolled off into the woods, where the hands were at work.
They were all stout, healthy, and happy-looking, and in answer to my comments on their appearance, the native said that the negroes on the turpentine-farms are always stronger and longer-lived than those on the rice and cotton-fields. Unless carried off by the fevers incident to the climate, they generally reach a good old age, while the rice-negro seldom lives to be over forty, and the cotton-slave very rarely attains sixty. Cotton-growing, however, my host thought, is not, in itself, much more unhealthy than turpentine-gathering, though cotton-hands work in the sun, while the turpentine-slaves labor altogether in the shade.
'But,' he said, 'the' work 'em harder nor we does, an' doan't feed 'em so well. We give ourn meat and whisky ev'ry day, but them articles is skarse 'mong th' cotton blacks, an' th' rice niggers never get 'em excep' ter Christmas-time, an' thet cums but onst a yar.'
'Do you think the white could labor as well as the black, on the rice and cotton-fields?' I asked.
'Yas, an' better—better any whar; but, in coorse, 'tain't natur' fur black nor white ter stand long a workin' in th' mud and water up ter thar knees; sech work would kill off th' very devil arter a while. But th' white kin stand it longer nor the black, and it's 'cordin' ter reason that he shud; for, I reckon, stranger, that the spirit and pluck uv a man hev a durned sight ter du with work. They'll hole a man up when he's clean down, an' how kin we expec' thet th' pore nig, who's nary a thing ter work fur, an who's been kept under an' 'bused ever sense Adam was a young un'—how kin we expec' he'll work like men thet own 'emselfs, an' whose faders hev been free ever sense creation? I reckon that the parient has a heap ter du with makin' th' chile. He puts the sperit inter 'im: doan't we see it in hosses an' critters an' sech like? It mayn't crap eout ter onst, but it's shore ter in th' long run, and thet's th' way th' black han't no smarter nor he is. He's been a-ground down an' kept under fur so long thet it'll take more'n 'un gin'ration ter bring him up. 'Tan't his fault thet he's no more sperit, an' p'raps 'tan't ourn—thet is, them on us as uses 'em right—but it war the fault uv yer fader an' mine—yer fader stole 'em, and mine bought 'em, an' the' both made cattle uv 'em.'
'But I had supposed the black was better fitted by nature for hard labor, in a hot climate, than the white.'
'Wal, he arn't, an' I knows it. Th' d——d parsons an' pol'tishuns say thet, but 'tan't so. I kin do half agin more work in a day then th' best nig I've got, an' I've dun it, tu, time an' agin, an' it didn't hurt me nuther. Ye knows ef a man hev a wife and young 'uns 'pendin' on him, an' arn't much 'forehanded, he'll work like th' devil. I've dun it, an' ye hev ef ye war ever put ter it; but th' nigs, why, the' han't got no wives and young 'uns ter work fur—the law doan't 'low 'em ter have any—the' han't nary a thing but thar carcasses, an' them's thar masters'.'
'You say a man works better for being free; then you must think 'twould be well to free the negroes.'
'In coorse, I does. Jest luk at them nigs o' mine; they're ter all 'tents an' purposes free, 'case I use 'em like men, an' the' knows the' kin go whenever the' d——d please. See how the' work—why, one on 'em does half as much agin as ony hard-driv' nigger in creation.'