Journeys and Explorations in the Cotton Kingdom: A Traveller's Observations on Cotton and Slavery in the American Slave States, 1. köideSampson Low, 1861 |
Common terms and phrases
acre aint asked bales better boat cabin called Census clothing coach coloured corn cost cotton cotton plantation crop cultivated dollars door Drapetomania employed evidently Fayetteville feet fire free labourers frequently gang gentleman girls ground habits half hands heard hired horses hour hundred James River land leave less live logs look Louisiana maize massa master miles mulatto Nachitoches negroes never niggers night North North Carolina Northern o'clock Orleans overseer owner passed passengers pine plantation planter poor quadroon quarter railroad Raleigh reckon Red River river road Savannah Sea Island cotton servants slavery slaves soil sometimes soon South Southern steamboat suppose swamp thought told town trees turpentine twenty usually Virginia wages walked whisky woman women wood York
Popular passages
Page 89 - This is just what I have thought when I have seen slaves at work — they seem to go through the motions of labor without putting strength into them. They kee.p their powers in reserve for their own use at night, perhaps.
Page 159 - BLOOD-HOUNDS.— I have TWO of the FINEST DOGS for CATCHING NEGROES in the Southwest. They can take the trail TWELVE HOURS after the NEGRO HAS PASSED, and catch him with ease. I live just four miles southwest of Boliver, on the road leading from Boliver to Whitesville.
Page 276 - ... and railings, and scattering the passengers on the berth deck. Negro hands were sent to the top of the bank, to roll the bales to the side, and Irishmen were kept below to remove them, and stow them. On asking the mate (with some surmisings) the reason of this arrangement, he said: " The niggers are worth too much to be risked here; if the Paddies are knocked overboard, or get their backs broke, nobody loses anything!
Page 58 - Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri, as much attention is paid to the breeding and growth of negroes as to that of horses and mules. Further south, we raise them both for use and for market. Planters command their girls and women ( married or unmarried) to have children; and I have known a great many negro girls to be sold off, because they did not .have children. A breeding woman is worth from one-sixth to one-fourth more than one that does not breed.
Page 214 - possums. Returning to the rail-road, I found a comfortable, warm passenger-car, and, wrapped in my blanket, went to sleep. At midnight I was awakened by loud laughter, and, looking out, saw that the loading gang of negroes had made a fire, and were enjoying a right merry repast. Suddenly, one raised such a sound as I never heard before ; a long, loud, musical shout, rising, and falling, and breaking into falsetto, his voice ringing through the woods in the clear, frosty night air, like a buglecall.
Page 181 - We stopped once, nearly half an hour, for some unexplained reason, before a house on the road. The door of the house was open, an enormous fire was burning in it, and, at the suggestion of the driver, I went in to warm myself. It was a large log-cabin, of two rooms, with beds in each room, and with an apartment overhead, to which access was had by a ladder. Among the inmates were two women; one of them sat in the chimney-corner smoking a pipe, and rocking a cradle; the other sat directly before the...
Page 7 - England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her, save the South. No, you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares to make war upon it.
Page 246 - quarter-hands," advancing to "half-hands," and then to " three-quarter hands ;" and, finally, when mature, and ablebodied, healthy and strong, to "full hands." As they decline in strength, from age, sickness, or other cause, they retrograde in the scale, and proportionately less labor is required of them. Many, of naturally weak frame, never are put among the full hands. Finally, the aged are left out at the annual classification, and no more regular field-work is required of them, although they...
Page 248 - Labor," most of the slaves work rapidly and well. In nearly all ordinary work, custom has settled the extent of the task, and it is difficult to increase it. The driver who marks it out, has to remain on the ground until it is finished, and has no interest in over-measuring it; and if it should be systematically increased very much, there is danger of a general stampede to the " swamp" — a danger the slave can always hold before his master's cupidity.
Page 45 - A man had, in the meantime, gone into a ravine near by, and now returned with two small branches, hung with withered leaves, that he had broken off a beech tree; these were placed upright, one at the head, the other at the foot of the grave. A few sentences of prayer were then repeated in a low voice by one of the company, and all dispersed. No one seemed to notice my presence at all. There were about fifty colored people in the assembly, and but one other white man besides myself. This man lounged...