As we turned off from the main road, which runs the whole length of the island, and began to pass through the gates, which made a sort of private way among the cotton fields to the church, the throng increased, till the roads were alive with the church-going freedmen. Every little group stopped as we came up; every old negress gave us a droll bob of the head; the men touched their hats, soldier fashion, or lifted them altogether from their heads, and the young women made, in many cases, not ungraceful courtesies. “Dere’s General Saxby,” we could often hear energetically whispered among the groups, and there was no mistaking the pleased expression which the name summoned to every countenance. “Are not negroes likely hereafter, as heretofore, to be controlled by their old masters?” some one asks. “We’s know our frens, massa,” was the emphatic answer of a coal-black plantation hand, the other day, when I put some such question to him. Clearly, these people, on St. Helena, “know their friends.”
Presently a group of negroes, with many a respectful scrape of the foot and tug at the hat, threw open the last gate, and, under a refreshing canopy of trees, we drove to the old country church, which, time out of mind, has been the central worshipping place for both whites and blacks of St. Helena. Overflowing all the church-yard, flooding the road, through which our carriages could hardly be driven, and backing up against the grave-yard, were the negroes, gay with holiday attire, many-colored kerchiefs, and the best their earnings (and the sutler’s extortions) would permit them to buy. The woods, back of the church, were filled with carts and wagons; the horses were unharnessed, tied to the trees and fed; their owners were gathered in groups about the carts, discussing the condition of the cotton crop, or the price Sam had paid for “dat new mar;” and how much “Aunt Sukie was gittin’ down to Bufor’ for dem dis year’s pullets.”
The interior of the plain, low brick church was deserted, the deacons having decided that there was not room for the throng in attendance—an event, as we afterward learned, of almost weekly occurrence. Three times in the week these people had filled the “praise meetings” on their respective plantations, and already there had been another such meeting on Sunday before they started to church; yet, here was a great throng, which the church could not contain, and still the roads, for miles in each direction, swarmed with those yet coming. We have been told that emancipated slaves would be disorderly vagrants, and, doubtless, there is ground for some apprehension, but this Sabbath scene does not tend to increase it.
Within the church were traces of the slaveholding era, as one finds in the Silurian stratification fossils that tell the story of a past age. The doors were on each side, near the middle of the building, and connected by a broad aisle. Above this, toward the pulpit, were the square, high-backed pews for the planters of the island—when they chose to occupy them. Back of the aisle were rude benches, which the poor whites, or, in their absence, the negroes, were privileged to take; and in the long galleries on either side (approached by stairs that were built for the steps of giants), were benches exclusively devoted to the negro population. The pews still stand with open doors, nearest the pulpit; but the men that filled them come no more. Some are North, many fill unknown graves, or trenches on battle-fields, the rest are in that unexplored region, whence come no sounds but those of sorrow, “the interior.” And to the right of the pulpit, in a shady little inclosure, still carefully preserved, are the moss-grown marble monuments, which no filial hands come now to garnish or adorn. The graves of their fathers have passed under the guardianship of the alien race.
While our party stood looking about this scene of the past, a white-wooled deacon came, with the politeness, if not the grace, of an old-world master of ceremonies, to summon us to one of the present. “De people is gathered, sah, and was ready for de suvvices to begin.” There was a not unnatural sensation as the Major-Generals, the Chief Justice and the ladies of the party, were led through the crowd to a little platform under the live-oaks; but it was when Rev. Dr. Fuller—“ole massa Richard”—made his appearance, that the wondering stare brightened and eyes grew moist, and ancient negresses could be heard vehemently whispering “Bress de Lod, bress de Lod!” “Hebenly Marster!” “Gra-a-ate King!” No word had been sent of our coming, and it was but within the last half hour that the old slaves of Dr. Fuller had heard that he was to address them. There was no way of estimating the number of these “Fuller slaves” in attendance—he had owned between two and three hundred, but probably half of them were now at Beaufort. Every adult negro in the assemblage, however, seemed to know him.
The Talk at Dr. Fuller’s Plantation.—Page [102].
The scene was a striking one. In front of us was the old church; behind, the new school-house. Half a dozen superb live-oaks spread their gnarled branches over us, the silvery, pendulous streamers of Spanish moss floating down and flecking with the sunlight the upturned faces of the great congregation of negroes, while the breezes made mournful music among the leaves, and the mocking-birds sent back a livelier refrain. The little valley between the platform and the church was densely packed with negroes, all standing, and, as the Deacon told us, “eagah fur de Wud.” They clustered, too, about the platform, leaned over the railing, behind, and at the sides, and spread away in all directions, among the carts and wagons, that formed a sort of outer line of works, shutting in the scene. The coats were of every color, and cut, and age. There were a few straw hats on the heads of the younger females, and cotton gloves, gaudy calico dresses and crinolines were abundant; but the older ones clung to the many-colored handkerchiefs, wound turban-wise about the head, and affected gowns that clung closely to their not graceful figures. Altogether they were dressed as well as the average of day-laborers’ families at the North would be, but in a taste that even such Northern families would pronounce barbarous.
A quaint old African, clad in cotton checks, and bowed with many years of cotton hoeing, stepped out on the platform, when all the party had been seated. Leaning, like a patriarch, on his cane, and gently swaying his body to and fro over it, as if to keep time, he struck up, in a shrill, cracked voice, a curiously monotonous melody, in which, in a moment, the whole congregation were energetically joining. For the first time I observed, what had often been told me (though I had never before realized it), that the language of these sea islanders (and I am told that, to some extent, the same is true of the majority of plantation hands in South Carolina), is an almost unintelligible patois. Listening carefully to the swaying old leader, I found it impossible, for a time, to make out his meaning; and the vocal contortions to which the simplest words seemed to subject him, was a study that would have amazed a phonetic lecturer. The words were those of an old song, which our soldiers found them singing shortly after the fall of Bay Point: