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The year 1850, down to which time I have now arrived, omitting many occurrences uninteresting
to the reader, was an unlucky year for my companion Wiley, the husband of Phebe, whose
taciturn and retiring nature has thus far kept him in the background. Notwithstanding
Wiley seldom opened his mouth, and revolved in his obscure and unpretending orbit without
a grumble, nevertheless the warm elements of sociality were strong in the *** of that
silent "***" In the exuberance of his self-reliance, disregarding the philosophy of Uncle Abram,
and setting the counsels of Aunt Phebe utterly at naught, he had the fool-hardiness to essay
a nocturnal visit to a neighboring cabin without a pass.
So attractive was the society in which he found himself, that Wiley took little note
of the passing hours, and the light began to break in the east before he was aware.
Speeding homeward as fast as he could run, he hoped to reach the quarters before the
horn would sound; but, unhappily, he was spied on the way by a company of patrollers.
How it is in other dark places of slavery, I do not know, but on Bayou Boeuf there is
an organization of patrollers, as they are styled, whose business it is to seize and
whip any slave they may find wandering from the plantation. They ride on horseback, headed
by a captain, armed, and accompanied by dogs. They have the right, either by law, or by
general consent, to inflict discretionary chastisement upon a black man caught beyond
the boundaries of his master's estate without a pass, and even to shoot him, if he attempts
to escape. Each company has a certain distance to ride up and down the bayou. They are compensated
by the planters, who contribute in proportion to the number of slaves they own. The clatter
of their horses' hoofs dashing by can be heard at all hours of the light, and frequently
they may be seen driving a slave before them, or leading him by a rope fastened around his
neck, to his owner's plantation. Wiley fled before one of these companies,
thinking he could reach his cabin before they could overtake him; but one of their dogs,
a great ravenous hound, griped him by the leg, and held him fast. The patrollers whipped
him severely, and brought him, a prisoner, to Epps. From him he received another flagellation
still more severe, so that the cuts of the lash and the bites of the dog rendered him
sore, stiff, and miserable, insomuch he was scarcely able to move It was impossible in
such a state to keep up his row, and consequently there was not an hour in the day but Wiley
felt the sting of his master's rawhide on his raw and bleeding back. His sufferings
became intolerable, and finally he resolved to run away. Without disclosing his intentions
to run away even to his wife Phebe, he proceeded to make arrangements for carrying his plan
into execution. Having cooked his whole week's allowance, he cautiously left the cabin on
a Sunday night, after the inmates of the quarters were asleep. When the horn sounded in the
morning, Wiley did not make his appearance. Search was made for him in the cabins, in
the corn-crib, in the cotton-house, and in every nook and corner of the premises. Each
of us was examined, touching any knowledge we might have that could throw light upon
his sudden disappearance or present whereabouts. Epps raved and stormed, and mounting his horse,
galloped to neighboring plantations, making in inquiries in all directions. The search
was fruitless. Nothing whatever was elicited, going to show what had become of the missing
man. The dogs were led to the swamp, but were unable to strike his trail. They would circle
away through the forest, their noses to the ground, but invariably returned in a short
time to the spot from whence they started. Wiley had escaped, and so secretly and cautiously
as to elude and baffle all pursuit. Days and even weeks passed away, and nothing could
be heard of him. Epps did nothing but curse and swear. It was the only topic of conversation
among us when alone. We indulged in a great deal of speculation in regard to him, one
suggesting he might have been drowned in some bayou, inasmuch as he was a poor swimmer;
another, that perhaps he might have been devoured by alligators, or stung by the venomous moccasin,
whose bite is certain and sudden death. The warm and hearty sympathies of us all, however,
were with poor Wiley, wherever he might be. Many an earnest prayer ascended from the lips
of Uncle Abram, beseeching safety for the wanderer.
In about three weeks, when all hope of ever seeing him again was dismissed, to our surprise,
he one day appeared among us. On leaving the plantation, he informed us, it was his intention
to make his way back to South Carolina—to the old quarters of Master Buford. During
the day he remained secreted, sometimes in the branches of a tree, and at night pressed
forward through the swamps. Finally, one morning, just at dawn, he reached the shore of Red
River. While standing on the bank, considering how he could cross it, a white man accosted
him, and demanded a pass. Without one, and evidently a runaway, he was taken to Alexandria,
the shire town of the parish of Rapides, and confined in prison. It happened several days
after that Joseph B. Roberts, uncle of Mistress Epps, was in Alexandria, and going into the
jail, recognized him. Wiley had worked on his plantation, when Epps resided at Huff
Power. Paying the jail fee, and writing him a pass, underneath which was a note to Epps,
requesting him not to whip him on his return, Wiley was sent back to Bayou Boeuf. It was
the hope that hung upon this request, and which Roberts assured him would be respected
by his master, that sustained him as he approached the house. The request, however, as may be
readily supposed, was entirely disregarded. After being kept in suspense three days, Wiley
was stripped, and compelled to endure one of those inhuman floggings to which the poor
slave is so often subjected. It was the first and last attempt of Wiley to run away. The
long scars upon his back, which he will carry with him to the grave, perpetually remind
him of the dangers of such a step. There was not a day throughout the ten years
I belonged to Epps that I did not consult with myself upon the prospect of escape. I
laid many plans, which at the time I considered excellent ones, but one after the other they
were all abandoned. No man who has never been placed in such a situation, can comprehend
the thousand obstacles thrown in the way of the flying slave. Every white man's hand is
raised against him —the patrollers are watching for him—the hounds are ready to follow on
his track, and the nature of the country is such as renders it impossible to pass through
it with any safety. I thought, however, that the time might come, perhaps, when I should
be running through the swamps again. I concluded, in that chase, to be prepared for Epps' dogs,
should they pursue me. He possessed several, one of which was a notorious slave-hunter,
and the most fierce and savage of his breed. While out hunting the *** or the opossum,
I never allowed an opportunity to escape, when alone, of whipping them severely. In
this manner I succeeded at length in subduing them completely. They feared me, obeying my
voice at once when others had no control over them whatever. Had they followed and overtaken
me, I doubt not they would have shrank from attacking me.
Notwithstanding the certainty of being captured, the woods and swamps are, nevertheless, continually
filled with runaways. Many of them, when sick, or so worn out as to be unable to perform
their tasks, escape into the swamps, willing to suffer the punishment inflicted for such
offences, in order to obtain a day or two of rest.
While I belonged to Ford, I was unwittingly the means of disclosing the hiding-place of
six or eight, who had taken up their residence in the "Great Pine Woods." Adam Taydem frequently
sent me from the mills over to the opening after provisions. The whole distance was then
a thick pine forest. About ten o'clock of a beautiful moonlight night, while walking
along the Texas road, returning to the mills, carrying a dressed pig in a bag swung over
my shoulder, I heard footsteps behind me, and turning round, beheld two black men in
the dress of slaves approaching at a rapid pace. When within a short distance, one of
them raised a club, as if intending to strike me; the other snatched at the bag. I managed
to dodge them both, and seizing a pine knot, hurled it with such force against the head
of one of them that he was prostrated apparently senseless to the ground. Just then two more
made their appearance from one side of the road. Before they could grapple me, however,
I succeeded in passing them and taking to my heels, fled, much affrighted, towards the
mills. When Adam was informed of the adventure, he hastened straightway to the Indian village,
and arousing Cascalla and several of his tribe, started in pursuit of the highwaymen. I accompanied
them to the scene of attack, when we discovered a puddle of blood in the road, where the man
whom I had smitten with the pine knot had fallen. After searching carefully through
the woods a long time, one of Cascalla's men discovered a smoke curling up through the
branches of several prostrate pines, whose tops had fallen together. The rendezvous was
cautiously surrounded, and all of them taken prisoners. They had escaped from a plantation
in the vicinity of Lamourie, and had been secreted there three weeks They had no evil
design upon me, except to frighten me out of my pig. Having observed me passing towards
Ford's just at night-fall, and suspecting the nature of my errand, they had followed
me, seen me butcher and dress the porker, and start on my return.
They had been pinched for food, and were driven to this extremity by necessity. Adam conveyed
them to the parish jail, and was liberally rewarded.
Not unfrequently the runaway loses his life in the attempt to escape. Epps' premises were
bounded on one side by Carey's, a very extensive sugar plantation. He cultivates annually at
least fifteen hundred acres of cane, manufacturing twenty-two or twenty-three hundred hogsheads
of sugar; an hogshead and a half being the usual yield of an acre. Besides this he also
cultivates five or six hundred acres of corn and cotton. He owned last year one hundred
and fifty three field hands, besides nearly as many children, and yearly hires a drove
during the busy season from this side the Mississippi.
One of his *** drivers, a pleasant, intelligent boy, was named Augustus. During the holidays,
and occasionally while at work in adjoining fields, I had an opportunity of making his
acquaintance, which eventually ripened into a warm and mutual attachment. Summer before
last he was so unfortunate as to incur the displeasure of the overseer, a coarse, heartless
brute, who whipped him most cruelly. Augustus ran away. Reaching a cane rick on Hawkins'
plantation, he secreted himself in the top of it. All Carey's dogs were put upon his
track—some fifteen of them—and soon scented his footsteps to the hiding place. They surrounded
the rick, baying and scratching, but could not reach him. Presently, guided by the clamor
of the hounds, the pursuers rode up, when the overseer, mounting on to the rick, drew
him forth. As he rolled down to the ground the whole pack plunged upon him, and before
they could be beaten off, had gnawed and mutilated his body in the most shocking manner, their
teeth having penetrated to the bone in an hundred places. He was taken up, tied upon
a mule, and carried home. But this was Augustus' last trouble. He lingered until the next day,
when death sought the unhappy boy, and kindly relieved him from his agony.
It was not unusual for slave women as well as slave men to endeavor to escape. Nelly,
Eldret's girl, with whom I lumbered for a time in the "Big Cane Brake," lay concealed
in Epps' corn crib three days. At night, when his family were asleep, she would steal into
the quarters for food, and return to the crib again. We concluded it would no longer be
safe for us to allow her to remain, and accordingly she retraced her steps to her own cabin.
But the most remarkable instance of a successful evasion of dogs and hunters was the following:
Among Carey's girls was one by the name of Celeste. She was nineteen or twenty, and far
whiter than her owner, or any of his offspring. It required a close inspection to distinguish
in her features the slightest trace of African blood. A stranger would never have dreamed
that she was the descendant of slaves. I was sitting in my cabin late at night, playing
a low air on my violin, when the door opened carefully, and Celeste stood before me. She
was pale and haggard. Had an apparition arisen from the earth, I
could not have been more startled. "Who are you?" I demanded, after gazing at
her a moment. "I'm hungry; give me some bacon," was her
reply. My first impression was that she was some
deranged young mistress, who, escaping from home, was wandering, she knew not whither,
and had been attracted to my cabin by the sound of the violin. The coarse cotton slave
dress she wore, however, soon dispelled such a supposition.
"What is your name?" I again interrogated. "My name is Celeste," she answered. "I belong
to Carey, and have been two days among the palmettoes. I am sick and can't work, and
would rather die in the swamp than be whipped to death by the overseer. Carey's dogs won't
follow me. They have tried to set them on. There's a secret between them and Celeste,
and they wont mind the devilish orders of the overseer. Give me some meat—I'm starving."
I divided my scanty allowance with her, and while partaking of it, she related how she
had managed to escape and described the place of her concealment. In the edge of the swamp,
not half a mile from Epps' house, was as a large space, thousands of acres in extent,
thickly covered with palmetto. Tall trees, whose long arms interlocked each other, formed
a canopy above them, so dense as to exclude the beams of the sun. It was like twilight
always, even in the middle of the brightest day. In the centre of this great space, which
nothing but serpents very often explore—a sombre and solitary spot—Celeste had erected
a rude hut of dead branches that had fallen to the ground, and covered it with the leaves
of the palmetto. This was the abode she had selected. She had no fear of Carey's dogs,
any more than I had of Epps'. It is a fact, which I have never been able to explain, that
there are those whose tracks the hounds will absolutely refuse to follow. Celeste was one
of them. For several nights she came to my cabin for
food. On one occasion our dogs barked as she approached, which aroused Epps, and induced
him to reconnoitre the premises. He did not discover her, but after that it was not deemed
prudent for her to come to the yard. When all was silent I carried provisions to a certain
spot agreed upon, where she would find them. In this manner Celeste passed the greater
part of the summer. She regained her health, and became strong and hearty. At all seasons
of the year the howlings of wild animals can be heard at night along the borders of the
swamps. Several times they had made her a midnight call, awakening her from slumbers
with a growl. Terrified by such unpleasant salutations, she finally concluded to abandon
her lonely dwelling; and, accordingly, returning to her master, was scourged, her neck meanwhile
being fastened in the stocks, and sent into the field again.
The year before my arrival in the country there was a concerted movement among a number
of slaves on Bayou Boeuf, that terminated tragically indeed. It was, I presume, a matter
of newspaper notoriety at the time, but all the knowledge I have of it, has been derived
from the relation of those living at that period in the immediate vicinity of the excitement.
It has become a subject of general and unfailing interest in every slave-hut on the bayou,
and will doubtless go down to succeeding generations as their chief tradition. Lew Cheney, with
whom I became acquainted —a shrewd, cunning ***, more intelligent than the generality
of his race, but unscrupulous and full of treachery—conceived the project of organizing
a company sufficiently strong to fight their way against all opposition, to the neighboring
territory of Mexico. A remote spot, far within the depths of the
swamp, back of Hawkins' plantation, was selected as the rallying point. Lew flitted from one
plantation to another in the dead of night, preaching a crusade to Mexico, and, like Peter
the Hermit, creating a furor of excitement wherever he appeared. At length a large number
of runaways were assembled; stolen mules, and corn gathered from the fields, and bacon
escaped from smoke-houses, had been conveyed into the woods. The expedition was about ready
to proceed when their hiding place was discovered. Lew Cheney, becoming convinced of the ultimate
failure of his project, in order to curry favor with his master, and avoid the consequences
which he foresaw would follow, deliberately determined to sacrifice all his companions.
Departing secretly from the encampment, he proclaimed among the planters the number collected
in the swamp, and, instead of stating truly the object they had in view, asserted their
intention was to emerge from their seclusion the first favorable opportunity, and ***
every white person along the bayou. Such an announcement, exaggerated as it passed
from mouth to mouth, filled the whole country with terror. The fugitives were surrounded
and taken prisoners, carried in chains to Alexandria, and hung by the populace. Not
only those, but many who were suspected, though entirely innocent, were taken from the field
and from the cabin, and without the shadow of process or form of trial, hurried to the
scaffold. The planters on Bayou Boeuf finally rebelled against such reckless destruction
of property, but it was not until a regiment of soldiers had arrived from some fort on
the Texan frontier, demolished the gallows, and opened the doors of the Alexandria prison,
that the indiscriminate slaughter was stayed. Lew Cheney escaped, and was even rewarded
for his treachery. He is still living, but his name is despised and execrated by all
his race throughout the parishes of Rapides and Avoyelles.
Such an idea as insurrection, however, is not new among the enslaved population of Bayou
Boeuf. More than once I have joined in serious consultation, when the subject has been discussed,
and there have been times when a word from me would have placed hundreds of my fellow-bondsmen
in an attitude of defiance. Without arms or ammunition, or even with them, I saw such
a step would result in certain defeat, disaster and death, and always raised my voice against
it. During the Mexican war I well remember the
extravagant hopes that were excited. The news of victory filled the great house with rejoicing,
but produced only sorrow and disappointment in the cabin. In my opinion—and I have had
opportunity to know something of the feeling of which I speak—there are not fifty slaves
on the shores of Bayou Boeuf, but would hail with unmeasured delight the approach of an
invading army. They are deceived who flatter themselves that
the ignorant and debased slave has no conception of the magnitude of his wrongs. They are deceived
who imagine that he arises from his knees, with back lacerated and bleeding, cherishing
only a spirit of meekness and forgiveness. A day may come—it will come, if his prayer
is heard—a terrible day of vengeance when the master in his turn will cry in vain for
mercy.
End of Chapter 17