One, a Mississippi planter, learning that I was a Northern man, took me aside, and with much emotion, asked if I thought there was "any chance of the government paying us for our niggers."

.."What niggers?"

"The niggers you've set free by this abolition war."

"This abolition war you brought upon yourselves; and paying you for your slaves would be like paying a burglar for a pistol lost on your premises. No, my friend, believe me, you will never get the first cent, as long as this government lasts."

He looked deeply anxious. But he still cherished a hope. "I've been told by a heap of our people that we shall get our pay. Some are talking about buying nigger claims. They expect, when our representatives get into Congress, there'll be an appropriation made."

He went on: "I did one mighty bad thing. To save my niggers, I run 'em off into Texas. It cost me a heap of money. I came back without a dollar, and found the Yankees had taken all my stock, and everything, and my niggers was free, after all.'

66

Jim B, from Warren County, ten miles from Vicksburg, was a Mississippi planter of a different type, — jovial, generous, extravagant in his speech, and, in his habits of living, fast. My niggers are all with me yet, and you can't get 'em to leave me. The other day my boy Dan drove me into town; when we got thar, I says to him, Dan, ye want any money?' 'Yes, master, I'd like a little?' I took out a ten-dollar bill and give him. Another nigger says to him, 'Dan, what did that man give you money for?' That man?' says Dan; 'I belongs to him.' 'No, you don't belong to nobody now; you're free.' 'Well,' says Dan, he provides for me, and gives me money, and he 's my master, any way.' I give my boys a heap more money than I should if I just hired 'em. We go right on like we always did, and I pole 'em if they don't do. right. This year I says to 'em, Boys, I'm going to make a bargain with you. I'll roll out the ploughs and the mules and

AN ARKANSAS PLANTER.

391

the feed, and you shall do the work; we'll make a crop of cotton, and you shall have half. I'll provide for ye, give ye quarters, treat ye well, and when ye won't work, pole ye like I always have. They agreed to it, and I put it into the contract that I was to whoop 'em when I pleased."

Jim was very enthusiastic about a girl that belonged to him. "She's a perfect mountain-spout of a woman!" (if anybody knows what that is.) "When the Yankees took me prisoner, she froze to a trunk of mine, and got it out of the way with fifty thousand dollars Confederate money in it."

He never wearied of praising her fine qualities. "She's black outside, but she's white inside, shore!" And he spoke of a son of hers, then twelve years old, with an interest and affection which led me to inquire about the child's father. "Well," said Jim, with a smile, "he's a perfect little image of me, only a shade blacker."

An Arkansas planter said: "I've a large plantation near Pine Bluff. I furnish everything but clothes, and give my freedmen one third of the crop they make. On twenty plantations around me, there are ten different styles of contracts. Niggers are working well; but you can't get only about two thirds as much out of 'em now as you could when they were slaves" (which I suppose is about all that ought to be got out of them). "The nigger is fated: he can't live with the white race, now he's free. I don't know one I'd trust with fifty dollars, or to manage a crop and control the proceeds. It will be generations before we can feel friendly towards the Northern people."

I remarked: "I have travelled months in the South, and expressed my sentiments freely, and met with better treatment than I could have expected five years ago."

"That's true; if you had expressed abolition sentiments then, you'd have woke up some morning and found yourself hanging from some limb."

Of the war he said: "Slavery was really what we were fighting for, although the leaders did n't talk that to the people. They saw the slave interest was losing power in the Union, and trying to straighten it up, they tipped it over."

A Louisiana planter, from Lake Providence, and a very intelligent, well-bred gentleman, said: "Negroes do best when they have a share of the crop; the idea of working for themselves stimulates them. Planters are afraid to trust them to manage; but it's a great mistake. I know an old negro who, with three children, made twenty-five bales of cotton this year on abandoned land. Another, with two women and a blind mule, made twenty-seven bales. A gang of fifty made three hundred bales, —all without any advice or assistance from white men. I was always in favor of educating and elevating the black race. The laws were against it, but I taught all my slaves to read the Bible. Each race has its peculiarities: the negro has his, and it remains to be seen what can be done with him. Men talk about his stealing: no doubt he'll steal: but circumstances have cultivated that habit. Some of my neighbors could n't have a pig, but their niggers would steal it. But mine never stole from me, because they had enough without stealing. Giving them the elective franchise just now is absurd; but when they are prepared for it, and they will be some day, I shall advocate it."

Another Louisianian, agent of the Hope Estate, near Water-Proof, in Tensas Parish, said: "I manage five thousand acres, fourteen hundred under cultivation. I always fed my niggers well, and rarely found one that would steal. My neighbors' niggers, half-fed, hard-worked, they 'd steal, and I never blamed 'em. Nearly all mine stay with me. They've done about two thirds the work this year they used to, for one seventh of the crops. Heap of niggers around me have never received anything; they're only just beginning to learn that they're free. Many planters keep stores for niggers, and sell 'em flour, prints, jewelry and trinkets, and charge two or three prices for everything. I think God intended the niggers to be slaves; we have the Bible for that: " always the Bible. "Now since man has deranged God's plan, I think the best we can do is to keep 'em as near a state of bondage as possible. I don't believe in educating 'em."

"Why not?'

TALK WITH THE DECK PASSENGERS.

393

"One reason, schooling would enable them to compete with white mechanics."

"And why not?"

"It would be a disadvantage to the whites," he replied,as if that was the only thing to be considered by men with the Bible in their mouths! "In Mississippi, opposite Water-Proof, there's a minister collecting money to buy plantations in a white man's name, to be divided in little farms of ten and fifteen acres for the niggers. He could n't do that thing in my parish he'd soon be dangling from some tree. There is n't a freedman taught in our parish; not a school; it would n't be allowed."

He admitted that the war was brought on by the Southern leaders, but thought the North "ought to be lenient and give them all their rights." Adding: "What we want chiefly is to legislate for the freedmen. Another thing: the Confederate debt ought to be assumed by the government. We shall try hard for that. If we can't get it, if the North continues to treat us as a subjugated people, the thing will have to be tried over again," meaning the war. "We must be left to manage the nigger. He can't be made to work without force." (He had just said his niggers did two thirds as much work as formerly.) "My theory is, feed 'em well, clothe 'em well, and then, if they won't work, d-n 'em, whip 'em well!"

I did not neglect the deck-passengers. These were all negroes, except a family of white refugees from Arkansas, who had been burnt out twice during the war, once near Little Rock, and again in Tennessee, near Memphis. With the little remnant of their possessions they were now going to seek their fortunes elsewhere, - ill-clad, starved-looking, sleeping on deck in the rain, coiled around the smoke-pipe, and covered with ragged bedclothes.

The talk of the negroes was always entertaining. Here is a sample, from the lips of a stout old black woman :

"De best ting de Yankees done was to break de slavery chain. I should n't be here to-day if dey had n't. I'm going to see my mother."

"Your mother must be very old."

"You may know she 's dat, for I 'm one of her baby chil'n, and I's got 'leven of my own. I've a heap better time now 'n I had when I was in bondage. I had to nus' my chil'n four times a day and pick two hundred pounds cotton besides. My third husband went off to de Yankees. My first was sold away from me. Now I have my second husband again; I was sold away from him, but I found him again, after I'd lived with my third husband thirteen years."

I asked if he was willing to take her back.

em

"He was willing to have me again on any terms,” phatically" for he knowed I was Number One!" Several native French inhabitants took passage at various points along the river, below the Mississippi line. All spoke very good French, and a few conversed well in English. One, from Point Coupée Parish, said: "Before the war, there were over seventeen thousand inhabitants in our parish." (In Louisiana a county is called a parish.) "Nearly thirteen thou sand were slaves. Many of the free inhabitants were colored; so that there were about four colored persons to one white. We made yearly between eight and nine thousand hogsheads of sugar, and fifteen hundred bales of cotton. The war has left us only three thousand inhabitants. We sent fifteen hundred men into the Confederate army. All the French population were in favor of secession. The white inhabitants of these parishes are mostly French Creoles. We treated our slaves better than the Americans treated theirs. We didn't work them so hard; and there was more familiarity and kindly feel ing between us and our servants. The children were raised together; and a white child learned the negroes' patois before he learned French. The patois is curious: a negro says Moi pas connais' for 'Je ne sais pas' (I do not know); and they use a great many African words which you would not understand. Our slaves were never sold except to settle an estate. Besides these two classes there was a third, quite separate, which did not associate with either of the others. They were the free colored, of French-African descent, some almost or