“Some of the cotton and corn fields, through which we passed, were in a decidedly bad state of cultivation, others better, but hardly any quite satisfactory, until we reached the plantation to which our journey was directed. Then the appearance of the crops suddenly changed; the fields were free from weeds, the cotton plants healthy, and the corn fields promising a heavy yield. Everything bespoke thrift and industry. We passed through a most beautiful grove of live-oaks, with its graceful festoons of gray moss—under the shadow of the trees a roomy log cabin, in which a colored preacher was addressing an audience of devout negroes, for it was Sunday—until, at last, we found the ‘mansion,’ surrounded with live-oaks and magnolia trees. The estate had, before the war, belonged to one of the wealthiest planters of that region, who had gone to parts unknown as soon as the blue jackets threatened their descent upon Beaufort. It struck me as singular that a man of such wealth, as he was reputed to possess, should have lived in a house so small and unpretending, as in the North would be considered as belonging to a forty-acre farm; but such was the case.”
[19]. The correspondent of the Boston Advertiser gives the following Sea Island incident, which occurred in July:
“While we were conversing with the lessee, we observed a negro woman, with two children, leaning against the railing of the Verandah. Her countenance wore so sad a look that we asked for the cause. The story was mournful enough. She had been sick. Another woman had come into her house to attend to her work. Her husband, Tony, had taken a fancy to the other woman. After awhile, he had gone away and ‘married her.’ She had insisted upon his remaining with her. He had done so, for some time, and then gone off again to live with the other wife. Where was her husband? ‘He was in the meeting-house, yonder, praying.’ Of course, they had been slaves, had but recently left the ‘old plantation,’ where such things were little more than matters of course. The vices of the negro are the vices of the slave. When ‘Tony’ will know what it is to be a freeman, he will know, also, that it will not do to have two wives, and to go praying, while one of his wives, with her and his children, are standing by the side of the meeting-house, weeping over his inconstancy.”
CHAPTER XII.
Business, Speculation and Progress Among the Sea Island Negroes.
Whatever may be the end of the wars for the “great city,” which everybody assures us is to be built hereabouts—at Hilton Head, or at Bay Point, or up the river, at Beaufort—it is certain that, thus far, Hilton Head has the start in business. Wading through the sand here, one finds, at the distance of a square or two from the landing, a row of ambitious-fronted one and two-story frame houses, blooming out in the most extravagant display of fancy-lettered signs. The sutlers and keepers of trade stores, who do here abound, style their street Merchants’ Row. The luckless staff officers, who have made their purchases there, preferred to call it “Robbers’ Row,” and there was the inherent fitness in the title which makes names stick.
The counters in Robbers’ Row are piled with heavy stocks of ready-made clothing, pieces of coarse goods, hats and the like; and the show-cases are filled with cheap jewelry, and the thousand knick-knacks which captivate the negro eye. It was a busy season for the negroes, but still a number were in the stores making purchases. “There, my fine fellow, that fits you exactly. Now, when you get one of those cheap cravats, and an elegant hat, together with a pair of new boots, which you must have, and this elegant pair of check pants to match your coat, you’ll look like a gentleman, won’t he, Auntie?” The uncouth, coarse-limbed plantation black eyed the trader suspiciously, however, and felt the coarse check coat, with which he had been furnished, as if he were afraid so fine a fabric would fall to pieces at his touch. But “Auntie’s” pleasure in contemplating her husband thus gorgeously arrayed, in something becoming his style of beauty, was unbounded; and the reduction in the family purse, that day wrought, must be set to her account. Substitute straight hair for wool, and change the complexion somewhat, and the scenes here become reproductions of others, familiar long ago. They, however, were witnessed far above the head of navigation, on the Mississippi, at a lonely trading post, among the Chippewas, kept by a thrifty half-breed. Of the two races, the Sea-Island negroes evince decidedly the superior judgment in selecting articles, with some reference to their usefulness.
Of course, at all these stores, just as at the Indian trading posts, the customers are swindled; but there is the consolation that the swindle is regulated and limited by law. A military order has been found necessary to curtail the extravagant profits of the traders, and protect the negroes; and, in most cases, they do not now probably pay over two prices for what they buy. Kid gloves, I found, were only five dollars a pair, and a very good lady’s riding guantlet could be had for six dollars. From these, the average scale of prices may be guessed.
This, however, is only of late date. The prices that were charged, and the profits realized, here in the earlier months, and even years, of the occupation, seem fabulous. One man, for example, has accumulated what would be regarded a handsome fortune, even in New York, who had to work his passage down here as a deck hand. He was a bankrupt merchant, honest, but penniless. He believed the fall of these islands would open a field for handsome trade, and came down, as a sailor, to see for himself. Returning, he told his creditors what he had seen; and they had faith enough in him to make up for him a stock of goods, which he sold out immediately, at such profit as to enable him to make subsequent purchases on his own account. He has paid off every dollar of his indebtedness, and is a wealthy man. Numerous stories of the kind are told; and it may be safely concluded that whoever would endure the dirty work involved in following the army as trader, has had almost unlimited opportunities before him.
Speculation now busies itself about something more permanent. In spite of the fact that vessels find it hard to ride at anchor near Hilton Head during a storm, every effort is to be made to stimulate on its site the growth of a city. A newspaper is already published, which dilates on the magnificence of its future, and rebukes everybody who doesn’t call the place Port Royal (the name generally given to the great sheet of water constituting at once its harbor, that of Bay Point, and of one or two other places farther in), rather than Hilton Head. An immense wooden hotel is up, and nearly ready for the furniture, which is all stored here in advance, ready for the shoal of visitors expected with the return of cool weather. A railroad is projected nearly due north to Branchville, a distance of seventy to eighty miles, where it would connect with the whole railroad system of the South, and make Beaufort and Hilton Head absolutely independent of Charleston and Savannah. “Charleston can never have the trade of this coast again, you know; the North hates it too much, and, in fact, the port never ought to be opened again; and if we can only get this railroad connection, our harbor is so much finer than any other on the coast, that we will inevitably have the greatest city south of Baltimore.” Boston capitalists are said to stand ready to advance the money for the railroad, but where, in the absence of State Government, to get the authority to build it, is the question; and General Gillmore tells me he was appealed to, the other day, to know if he couldn’t declare it a military necessity.
That these glowing anticipations of Port Royal greatness will be realized, at least in part, is unquestionable. The harbor is one of the very finest on the coast—incomparably superior to either Charleston or Savannah. The Sea Island soil produces the best cotton in the world, and the negroes already have it in a state of more thorough cultivation than was ever before known. The increased wants of the freedmen will stimulate trade, and small farmers will not be able, as the planters were in old times, to go to Savannah or Charleston and buy supplies at wholesale. Whatever the fortune of South Carolina, the Sea Islands must henceforth be flourishing. Whether negroes will not, by and by, prefer to trade with persons of their own color, remains to be seen. Real estate ventures must be further complicated, also, with the probabilities that the whole sea-coast of South Carolina (if not the entire State), will speedily become one vast negro colony. Already, the only inhabitants on the Sea Islands are negroes, and the same race is in a majority for many miles inland. Compulsory colonization has always been a failure; but is it not probable that there will be a natural tendency of negroes to places where flourishing negro communities are already established, and the local government is mainly in their own hands?