Tales from Brookgreen

by Lynn Michelsohn

  The rice barn was not a very inviting place to spend the night but the Overseer made himself a pallet out of rice straw and curled up near the door to wait. He didn’t bother to stay awake because he knew that anyone entering the barn would rouse him.

  The next morning the Overseer awoke nicely rested. His sleep had not been disturbed by anyone coming into the barn. Disappointed but undaunted, he slept in the barn again the next night, with the same results.

  This puzzled the Overseer greatly. Why wasn’t his plan working? He thought some more and decided that Devine must have known somehow that he was sleeping in the rice barn. Of course Devine and the others would avoid coming in to steal rice with him there. So that evening the Overseer made a big show of moving his pallet out of the barn and giving up his attempt to catch anyone coming into the barn at night. But as soon as it was dark he sneaked out of his cottage and crept back to the rice barn. This time he hid himself in the trees along the edge of the barnyard where he could keep close watch on the barn without being seen.

  The Overseer sat for hours watching in the dark, again with no results. No moon or stars shone through the cloudy skies and night noises made him uneasy at times but he was determined to catch his thief.

  Suddenly a faint light appeared at the far edge of the barnyard. The Overseer’s initial thrill quickly turned to apprehension. This was a very strange looking light. It was not a torch but a faint, eerie glow. Gradually his apprehension turned to terror. All the stories he had ever heard about haunts and plat eyes came rushing back to him as the faint glow bobbed slowly along the far tree line. What manner of horrifying specter was coming from the miasmic swamps to threaten him? At least it wasn’t coming any closer!

  Slowly the glow moved toward one of the outbuildings in the barnyard, the one where workers stored rice straw after they threshed the rice grains out of it. Nothing was wasted on the plantation and even worthless rice straw made good animal bedding or compost for cornfields.

  In another moment a light flared inside the outbuilding as if someone had lit a torch. Suddenly the explanation came to the shaken Overseer: the faint glow that he had watched bob along the tree line had come from a glowing ember carried hidden in a pot. Now someone had used that ember to light a torch inside the building.

  Fear drained from the Overseer, to be replaced by curiosity. What was anyone doing sneaking into the shed where they stored rice straw? The Overseer moved closer until he could see inside the building. A large muscular slave stood with his back to the doorway holding a small “fat light’erd,” a splinter of pine heartwood saturated with pine resin that served as a torch, illuminating the inside of the building. Under his direction three field hands dug down into the piles of straw and pulled out seagrass baskets. From the baskets they poured rice into sacks.

  When the sacks were full and tied closed the workers hoisted them over their shoulders. The man with the torch then turned to lead them out and the Overseer could see him clearly. It was not Devine. It was John! One of Captain Ward’s most trusted field hands, and the plantation Class Leader!

  As the Overseer watched, John extinguished his torch. He and the others stole back out into the night and headed toward their homes in the Street. The Overseer understood that later they would pound the rice in homemade mortars hidden in the swamps to remove the outer hulls, then boil it up for dinner in their cabins in the Street. Not only would they have extra rice to stretch their weekly rations, but fancy whole-grain rice even better than the midlins, which are the broken grains that could not be sold on the international market, that Captain Ward and his family ate, and certainly better than the small broken pieces the slaves usually got in their weekly food ration.

  Now the whole situation became clear. No wonder he hadn’t caught his rice thief by sleeping in the barn. Devine was not stealing rice from the barn. Nobody was stealing rice from the barn! And Devine was not involved at all. The thief was John!

  Each day as field workers threshed the rice and scooped it into baskets, they hid some of the baskets in bundles of straw instead of taking them to the rice barn. Then when they carried the bundles of rice straw into the outbuilding for storage they were also carrying away hidden baskets of the newly threshed grain. Later they easily returned during the night to collect the hidden rice from under the straw in the unlocked shed. There was no need to steal rice from the carefully locked rice barn!

  The Overseer had discovered his thieves at last. And the biggest shock was that John, the plantation Class Leader, was leading them in their thievery!

  >>> <<<

  A Brief Historical Digression:

  Cousin Corrie explains Class Leaders, Parson Belin, and the Methodist Mission to the Slaves

  Now I should tell you something about what it meant to be a Class Leader and why it was so shocking that a Class Leader would be involved in stealing.

  For you to really understand about Class Leaders I have to explain about the Methodist Mission to the Slaves on the Waccamaw Neck. That all started with Parson James Lynch Belin (which he pronounced “Blane”), who was a great-uncle of Dr. Wardie, the man who told me this story.

  James Belin grew up in Charleston in a wealthy planter family. Like all planters’ sons he was educated for life as a planter himself. His older brother, Allard Belin, enjoyed the politics and mercantile dealing that made up a planter’s life but James did not, although he accepted the vocation that his family had planned for him.

  When James reached adulthood in the early 1800s, his father gave him the management, and later the ownership, of Wachesaw Plantation here on the Waccamaw Neck (we don’t know the exact details, thanks to General Sherman, but that’s another story). James was quite content to move to the Waccamaw Neck. He had always preferred the quiet isolated lifestyle of planters here to the social whirl and political intrigues in Georgetown and Charleston that so engaged his older brother.

  Additionally, James’ favorite sister, Margaret, and her husband, Dr. Ebenezer Flagg, made their home here. Dr. Eben, as he was known, was the son of Dr. Henry Flagg and Rachel Moore Allston Flagg of Brookgreen Plantation (remember them?). Dr. Eben had not inherited any land on the Waccamaw Neck but he contracted his medical services to other planters to take care of their families and their large populations of slaves.

  Because of their close proximity and compatibility, James grew especially attached to Eben and Margaret and to their growing family. He never had children and soon came to view the Flagg children almost as his own. He shared Eben and Margaret’s joy at the birth of each child and then their sorrow at the early death of their firstborn son, Allard Belin Flagg, named in honor of Margaret and James’ successful brother Allard (perhaps in the hope that wealthy Brother Allard would become a patron to his namesake, as was often the custom at that time).

  When Eben and Margaret had another son, James encouraged them to name him Allard Belin Flagg II, in remembrance of their beloved firstborn as well as their successful brother. James enjoyed the other Flagg children, including Arthur and Alice, but always took a special interest in Allard and even gave him Wachesaw Plantation when he became an adult.

  Of course, like most planters, James Belin had been raised in the Episcopal Church. Like many in the Carolina Lowcountry in the early 1800s however, he was curious about early Methodist bishops who traveled these wild areas by horseback, holding camp meetings and revivals where they expounded fiery new doctrines that challenged established teachings of the Episcopal Church. He heard both Bishop Asbury and Bishop Coke preach in their travels through the Lowcountry. James soon “caught the spark of this new fire.” He traveled to hear Methodist preaching as often as he could and decided to dedicate his life to spreading the Word of God as Methodists understood it to be. Bishop Asbury himself ordained James Belin as a Methodist minister.

  Now Methodism had run into one major stumbling block in South Carolina. Basic tenets of Methodism held that slavery was wrong. You can imagine that this teaching did not sit too well with t
he powers-that-be, most of whom were large slave owners. It was bad enough having to deal with Northern abolitionists but now to have charismatic preachers traveling throughout the countryside teaching that God’s Word spoke against the very institution that formed the basis for their whole way of life was just too much! Wealthy and powerful planters began to oppose this new religion with vigor.

  Methodist bishops soon recognized that practical considerations demanded a change in Church policy. Using logic along the lines of “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” the Methodist Church decided that in areas where the law sanctioned slavery, they would not press this issue.

  Perhaps as a way to soothe their consciences, Church leaders established a Methodist Mission to the Slaves that rapidly gained support in the Carolina Lowcountry as well as in other Southern states.

  This Mission gave slaves in the American South the same chance to receive the benefits of God’s Word and the teachings of Christ that Methodist Missions to Africa and China gave other non-Christians.

  Before the early 1800s, nobody had paid much attention to the religion of slaves who worked the plantations. Most slaves had brought their tribal religions with them from Africa, of course, and still practiced them as far as possible in their new circumstances. Planters suppressed practices that they considered blatantly heathen but most African practices and beliefs remained strong, if hidden, and many still do today. The whole subject of Hoodoo and conjure doctors and protective spells and evil spirits is one that outside people know very little about.

  Many slaves readily accepted the new Christian religion when it was offered to them. That is not to say that they necessarily gave up their old religions but this new one seemed a good addition to deal with their concerns in America, and it did offer hope of a better life to come in the Promised Land, a land where all toils and tasks were over.

  So James Belin became a Methodist preacher and he found all the work he would ever need right around him. He continued to operate his Wachesaw Plantation but devoted himself to the Methodist Church’s Mission to the Slaves on the Waccamaw Neck.

  At first Parson Belin’s neighbors were shocked by the idea of his mission. At times they actively discouraged his efforts so he started out preaching only to his own slaves on Wachesaw Plantation. He was soon able to convince Robert and Francis Withers, who by that time owned nearby Brookgreen and Springfield Plantations, to let him minister to their slaves as well.

  On Sundays, always a day of rest on plantations, Parson Belin preached the Gospel to slaves gathered outdoors under the shade of spreading live oak boughs. He held catechism classes for adults and children where he taught them to recite the questions and answers of Methodist doctrine from memory. But more was needed. In those days, joining the Methodist Church was not a simple matter. The Methodist Church required serious study and a period of probation for prospective members before baptism and being admitted to “the Communion of Saints, the Forgiveness of Sins, the Resurrection of the Body, and the Life Everlasting.” Parson Belin could not do all the teaching himself so he selected a slave from each plantation who could read and write at least a little to become the Class Leader. Under Parson Belin’s instruction, Class Leaders read and studied the Bible and other religious tracts, then taught their fellow slaves what they had learned. In this way Class Leaders prepared their class members to be baptized and to join the Methodist Church.

  Becoming a Class Leader was quite an honor. It was also a way to gain special privileges among plantation slaves. Only the most intelligent, educated, diligent, and outwardly moral were selected for this great honor and position of trust. Each worked hard to maintain himself as a model of pious devotion to the tenets of Christianity. And each led the constant effort to seek out and severely chastise anyone in the slave community whose behavior might be unacceptable in the eyes of God, or the plantation master. The Class Leader became the paragon, as well as the enforcer, of moral righteousness on each plantation.

  Parson Belin made a good start in the early years of his Mission to the Slaves, but then the Vesey Rebellion, a thwarted slave uprising in Charleston in 1822, brought the Mission to the Slaves to a standstill.

  Planters throughout the Lowcountry began to oppose the Mission because they believed that instruction and organization by slave Class Leaders had encouraged the Vesey Rebellion. Hysteria of all sorts took hold. In spite of this Parson Belin continued his work.

  Finally, after the furor had died down, more planters began to recognize the benefits of the Mission to the Slaves. In addition to any concerns they might have had for their slaves’ spiritual welfare, planters began to see practical advantages in teaching them the Christian Gospel. In the planters’ eyes these teachings promoted stability on the plantation by encouraging order, obedience, and morality among slaves and by reducing lawlessness and the most obvious vices.

  In fact, in addition to supporting Parson Belin’s work, Waccamaw Neck planters began encouraging their own Episcopal Church to bring Christian teachings to their slaves. Reverend Alexander Glennie of All Saints Episcopal Church later became well known for his missionary work among slaves and for the numerous slave chapels he convinced planters to build on the Waccamaw Neck. But it should not be forgotten that in the early years, it was Parson Belin who started this whole movement in our area. For many years it was only he who brought the Christian Gospel to the slaves. He was the one who taught them hymns of the Methodist Church that they developed into their rich body of Gullah spirituals. He was the one who selected and developed Class Leaders, and even slave preachers, who became spiritual and political leaders of their people in the turbulent years that followed.

  When Colonel Joshua John Ward bought Brookgreen Plantation from the Withers family in the 1830s he encouraged Parson Belin and his assistants to continue working among his slaves.

  So did Colonel Ward’s son, Captain Joshua Ward, after he inherited Brookgreen and Springfield Plantations in the 1850s. (Of course Joshua Ward wasn’t a Captain then; that came later when he took command of the Wachesaw Riflemen and then the Waccamaw Light Artillery during the War but I still think of him as Captain Ward and I’ll call him that.)

  Old Colonel Ward (and I don’t know why he was called Colonel) had been a stern but fair master, respected by his slaves and the white community alike. Young Captain Joshua Ward continued this tradition. He and his wife Bessie were generally liked and respected by their workers. The plantations ran smoothly under his management and Class Leaders on them continued to be highly respected men among their fellow slaves and among planters.

  >>> <<<

  Then Cousin Corrie continued her story …

  Captain Ward had grown to admire John, the Class Leader on his Brookgreen Plantation. John was a tall strong man, a good worker, and a leader among his people. As a field hand he became expert in all phases of rice production. Captain Ward came to rely on John more and more because of his intelligence, his expertise, his leadership abilities, and especially because of his honesty. The plantation Overseer was not quite so trusting of John and sometimes resented Captain Ward’s reliance on John’s judgment in matters related to the rice growing operation. But Captain Ward continued to entrust John with numerous responsibilities and to praise his abilities and loyalty.

  The year that this story took place, which must have been shortly before the War, had been a good one for rice production. When the harvest came, Captain Ward placed John in charge of the threshing floor just in front of the rice barn. John worked under the direction of Devine, the Driver or head slave, and under the direction of the white Overseer of course, but Captain Ward trusted John completely and gave him serious responsibilities. After all, John was the Class Leader on Brookgreen Plantation.

  The harvest was in full swing. Every day rice flats piled high with bundles of rice stalks laden with plump grains of rice arrived at Brookgreen Landing, just down the rice island steps from us here at the Museum. A steady stream of field hands carried bundles of rice st
alks up the steps from flatboats to the barnyard. John directed them as they arranged the bundles on the hard packed dirt of the threshing floor in front of the barn.

  Under John’s supervision, workers beat the rice stalks with wooden flails to knock rice grains loose from the stalks. Then, they scooped up the rough rice from the threshing floor into coiled seagrass baskets and carried it into the rice barn to storage bins where it would wait for milling later in the season. Finally, they carried off the bundles of rice stalks, now just the remaining straw, to an outbuilding for storage.

  At least, that was what was supposed to happen. But now the Overseer had discovered that John wasn’t sending all the rice into the barn. There in the dark of the midnight barnyard the Overseer had discovered the secret of John’s thievery!

  ~

  The Overseer was eager to tell Captain Ward what he had discovered, especially since it involved John, whom he had long suspected of being less perfect than Captain Ward believed. The Overseer went to Captain Ward first thing the next morning and recounted his story.

  Captain Ward was a strict man but he was fair. When his Overseer came to him with the story of John leading other field hands in stealing rice, Captain Ward determined to give John a chance to defend himself against the charge. Stealing was a serious offense that merited severe punishment.

  Captain Ward sent for John. There on the front porch of the plantation mansion that stood where the Alligator Bender Pool stands today, in the presence of the Ward family, the household servants, and the Overseer, Captain Ward confronted his trusted Class Leader.

  “John, are you a good Christian man?”

  “I most certainly am, Master Josh, sir!” John replied with enthusiasm.

  Captain Ward agreed and went on to praise John’s leadership and his fine record of behavior and hard work at Brookgreen. Then he grew more solemn.