My Southern Home: Or, the South and Its People

by William Wells Brown

On Sabbath mornings, reading of the Scriptures, and explaining the same, generally occupied from one to two hours, and often till half of the negroes present were fast asleep. The white members of the family did not take as kindly to the religious teaching of the doctor, as did the blacks.

For his Christian zeal, I had the greatest respect, for I always regarded him as a truly pious and conscientious man, willing at all times to give of his means the needful in spreading the Gospel.

Mrs. Sarah Gaines was a lady of considerable merit, well-educated, and of undoubted piety. If she did not join heartily in her husband’s religious enthusiasm, it was not for want of deep and genuine Christian feeling, but from the idea that he was of more humble origin than herself, and, therefore, was not a capable instructor.

This difference in birth, this difference in antecedents does much in the South to disturb family relations wherever it exists, and Mrs. Gaines, when wishing to show her contempt for the Doctor’s opinions, would allude to her own parentage and birth in comparison to her husband’s. Thus, once, when they were having a “family jar,” she, with tears streaming down her cheeks, and wringing her hands, said,—

“My mother told me that I was a fool to marry a man so much beneath me,—one so much my inferior in society. And now you show it by hectoring and aggravating me all you can. But, never mind; I thank the Lord that He has given me religion and grace to stand it. Never mind, one of these days the Lord will make up His jewels,—take me home to glory, out of your sight,—and then I’ll be devilish glad of it!”

These scenes of unpleasantness, however, were not of everyday occurrence, and, therefore, the great house at the “Poplar Farm,” may be considered as having a happy family.

Slave children, with almost an alabaster complexion, straight hair, and blue eyes, whose mothers were jet black, or brown, were often a great source of annoyance in the Southern household, and especially to the mistress of the mansion.

Billy, a quadroon of eight or nine years, was amongst the young slaves, in the Doctor’s house, then being trained up for a servant. Any one taking a hasty glance at the lad would never suspect that a drop of negro blood coursed through his blue veins. A gentleman, whose acquaintance Dr. Gaines had made, but who knew nothing of the latter’s family relations, called at the house in the Doctor’s absence. Mrs. Gaines received the stranger, and asked him to be seated, and remain till the host’s return. While thus waiting, the boy, Billy, had occasion to pass through the room. The stranger, presuming the lad to be a son of the Doctor, exclaimed, “How do you do?” and turning to the lady, said, “how much he looks like his father; I should have known it was the Doctor’s son, if I had met him in Mexico!”

With flushed countenance and excited voice, Mrs. Gaines informed the gentleman that the little fellow was “only a slave and nothing more.” After the stranger’s departure, Billy was seen pulling up grass in the garden, with bare head, neck and shoulders, while the rays of the burning sun appeared to melt the child.

This process was repeated every few days for the purpose of giving the slave the color that nature had refused it. And yet, Mrs. Gaines was not considered a cruel woman,—indeed she was regarded as a kind-feeling mistress. Billy, however, a few days later, experienced a roasting far more severe than the one he had got in the sun.