The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Since the exploit of the former hero, they have been forbidden to preach, except

  to their fellow slaves, the property of the same owner; to have public funerals,

  unless a white person officiates; or to be taught to read and write. Their

  funerals formerly gave them great satisfaction, and it was customary here to

  furnish the relations of the deceased with bacon, spirit, flour, sugar, and butter,

  with which a grand entertainment, in their way, was got up. We were once

  much amused by a hearty fellow requesting his mistress to let him have his

  funeral during his lifetime, when it would do him some good. The waggish

  request was granted; and I venture to say there never was a funeral the subject

  of which enjoyed it so much. When permitted, some of our negroes preached

  with great fluency. I was present a few years since, when an Episcopal minister

  addressed the people, by appointment. On the conclusion of an excellent sermon,

  a negro preacher rose and thanked the gentleman kindly for his discourse, but

  frankly told him the congregation “did not understand his lingo.” He then

  proceeded himself, with great vehemence and volubility, coining words where

  they had not been made to his hand, or rather his tongue, and impres-

  sing his hearers, doubtless, with a decided opinion of his superiority over

  his white co-labourer in the field of grace. My brother and I, who own

  contiguous estates, have lately erected a chapel on the line between

  them, and have employed an acceptable minister of the Baptist persuasion, to

  which the negroes almost exclusively belong, to afford them religious instruc-

  tion. Except as a preparatory step to emancipation, I consider it exceedingly

  impolitic, even as regards the slaves themselves, to permit them to read and

  write: “Where ignorance is bliss, `tis folly to be wise.” And it is certainly

  impolitic as regards their masters, on the principle that “knowledge is power.”

  My servants have not as long holidays as those of most other persons. I allow

  three days at Christmas, and at each of three other periods, besides a little time

  to work their patches; or, if very busy, I sometimes prefer to work them myself.

  Most of the ancient pastimes have been lost in this neighbourhood, and religion,

  mock or real, has succeeded them. The banjo, their national instrument, is

  known but in name or in a few of the tunes which have survived. Some of the

  younger negroes sing and dance, but the evenings and holidays are usually occu-

  pied in working, in visiting, and in praying and singing hymns. The primitive

  customs and sports are, I believe, better preserved further south, where slaves were

  brought from Africa long after they ceased to come here.

  6th. The provision usually made for their food and clothing, for those who are

  too young or too old to labour.--My men receive twelve quarts of Indian meal

  (the abundant and universal allowance in this State), seven salted herrings,

  and two pounds of smoked bacon or three pounds of pork, a-week; the

  other hands proportionally less. But, generally speaking, their food is issued

  daily, with the exception of meal, and consists of fish or bacon for breakfast,

  and meat, fresh or salted, with vegetables whenever we can provide them,

  for dinner; or for a month or two in the spring, fresh fish cooked with a

  little bacon. This mode is rather more expensive to me than that of weekly

  rations, but more comfortable to the servants. Superannuated or invalid

  slaves draw their provisions regularly once a-week; and the moment a child

  ceases to be nourished by its mother, it receives eight quarts of meal (more

  than it can consume) and one half-pound of lard. Besides the food furnished

  by me, nearly all the servants are able to make some addition from their

  private stores; and there is among the adults hardly an instance of one so

  improvident as not to do it. He must be an unthrifty fellow, indeed, who

  cannot realise the wish of the famous Henry IV. in regard to the French pea-

  santry, and enjoy his fowl on Sunday. I always keep on hand, for the use of

  the negroes, sugar, molasses, &c., which, though not regularly issued, are

  applied for on the slightest pretexts, and frequently no pretext at all, and are

  never refused except in cases of misconduct. In regard to clothing: the men

  and boys receive a winter coat and trousers of strong cloth, three shirts, a stout

  pair of shoes and socks, and a pair of summer pantaloons, every year; a hat

  about every second year, and a great-coat and blanket every third year.

  Instead of great-coats and hats, the women have large capes to protect the

  bust in bad weather, and handkerchiefs for the head. The articles furnished

  are good and serviceable; and, with their own acquisitions, make their

  appearance decent and respectable. On Sunday these are even fine. The

  aged and invalid are clad as regularly as the rest, but less substantially.

  Mothers receive a little raw cotton, in proportion to the number of children,

  with the privilege of having the yarn, when spun, woven at my expense. I

  provide them with blankets. Orphans are put with careful women, and treated

  with tenderness. I am attached to the little slaves, and encourage familiarity

  among them. Sometimes, when I ride near the quarters, they come running

  after me with the most whimsical requests, and are rendered happy by the dis-

  tribution of some little donation. The clothing described is that which is given

  to the crop hands. Home-servants, a numerous class in Virginia, are of course

  clad in a different and very superior manner. I neglected to mention, in the

  proper place, that there are on each of my plantations a kitchen, an oven, and

  one or more cooks; and that each hand is furnished with a tin bucket for his

  food, which is carried into the field by little negroes, who also supply the

  labourers with water.

  6th. Their treatment when sick.--My negroes go, or are carried, as soon as

  they are attacked, to a spacious and well-ventilated hospital, near the mansion-

  house. They are there received by an attentive nurse, who has an assortment of

  medicine, additional bed-clothing, and the command of as much light food as

  she may require, either from the table or the store-room of the proprietor.

  Wine, sago, rice, and other little comforts appertaining to such an establishment,

  are always kept on hand. The condition of the sick is much better than that of

  the poor whites or free coloured people in the neighbourhood.

  7th. Their rewards and punishments.--I occasionally bestow little gratuities

  for good conduct, and particularly after harvest; and hardly ever refuse a favour

  asked by those who faithfully perform their duty. Vicious and idle servants are

  punished with stripes, moderately inflicted; to which, in the case of theft, is

  added privation of meat, a severe punishment to those who are never suffered to

  be without it on any other account. From my limited observation, I think that

  servants to the North work much harder than our slaves. I was educated at

  a college in one of the free States, and, on my return to Virginia, was struck

  with the contrast. I was astonished at the number of idle domestics, and

  actually worried my mother, much to my contr
ition since, to reduce the

  establishment: I say to my contrition, because, after eighteen years' residence in

  the good Old Dominion, I find myself surrounded by a troop of servants about

  as numerous as that against which I formerly so loudly exclaimed. While on

  this subject it may not be amiss to state a case of manumission which occurred

  about three years since. My nearest neighbour, a man of immense wealth,

  owned a favourite servant, a fine fellow, with polished manners and excellent

  disposition, who reads and writes, and is thoroughly versed in the duties of a

  butler and housekeeper, in the performance of which he was trusted without

  limit. This man was, on the death of his master, emancipated with a legacy of

  6,000 dollars, besides about 2,000 dollars more which he had been permitted to

  accumulate, and had deposited with his master, who had given him credit for it.

  The use that this man, apparently so well qualified for freedom, and who has had

  an opportunity of travelling and of judging for himself, makes of his money and his

  time, is somewhat remarkable. In consequence of his exemplary conduct, he has

  been permitted to reside in the State, and for very moderate wages occupies the

  same situation he did in the old establishment, and will probably continue to oc-

  cupy it as long as he lives. He has no children of his own, but has put a little

  girl, a relation of his, to school. Except in this instance, and in the purchase of

  a few plain articles of furniture, his freedom and his money seem not much to

  have benefited him. A servant of mine who is intimate with him, thinks he is not

  as happy as he was before his liberation. Several other servants were freed at the

  same time, with smaller legacies, but I do not know what has become of them.

  I do not regard negro slavery, however mitigated, as a Utopian system, and

  have not intended so to delineate it. But it exists, and the difficulty of removing

  it is felt and acknowledged by all, save the fanatics, who, like “fools, rush in

  where angels dare not tread.” It is pleasing to know that its burdens are not too

  heavy to be borne. That the treatment of slaves in this State is humane, and

  even indulgent, may be inferred from the fact of their rapid increase and great

  longevity. I believe that, constituted as they are, morally and physically, they

  are as happy as any peasantry in the world; and I venture to affirm, as the re-

  sult of my reading and inquiry, that in no country are the labourers so liberally

  and invariably supplied with bread and meat as are the negro slaves of the United

  States. However great the dearth of provisions, famine never reaches them.

  P.S. It might have been stated above that on this estate there are about one

  hundred and sixty blacks. With the exception of infants, there has been, in

  eighteen months, but one death, that I remember--that of a man fully sixty-five

  years of age. The bill for medical attendance, from the second day of last

  November, comprising upwards of a year, is less than forty dollars.

  The following accounts are taken from “Ingraham's Travels

  in the South-west,” a work which seems to have been written

  as much to show the beauties of slavery as anything else. Speak-

  ing of the state of things on some Southern plantations, he gives

  the following pictures, which are presented without note or com-

  ment:

  The little candidates for “field honours” are useless articles on a plantation

  during the first five or six years of their existence. They are then to take

  their first lesson in the elementary part of their education. When they

  have learned their manual alphabet tolerably well, they are placed in the

  field to take a spell at cotton-picking. The first day in the field is their

  proudest day. The young negroes look forward to it with as much restlessness

  and impatience as school-boys to a vacation. Black children are not put to work

  so young as many children of poor parents in the North. It is often the

  case that the children of the domestic servants become pets in the house

  and the playmates of the white children of the family. No scene can be

  livelier or more interesting to a Northerner, than that which the negro

  quarters of a well-regulated plantation present on a Sabbath morning, just before

  church hours. In every cabin the men are shaving and dressing; the women,

  arrayed in their gay muslins, are arranging their frizzly hair--in which they take

  no little pride--or investigating the condition of their children; the old people.

  neatly clothed, are quietly conversing or smoking about the doors; and those of the

  younger portion who are not undergoing the infliction of the wash-tub are enjoy-

  ing themselves in the shade of the trees, or around some little pond, with as

  much zest as though slavery and freedom were synonymous terms. When all are

  dressed, and the hour arrives for worship, they lock up their cabins, and the

  whole population of the little village proceeds to chapel, where divine service is

  performed, sometimes by an officiating clergyman, and often by the planter him-

  self, if a church member. The whole plantation is also frequently formed into a

  Sabbath class, which is instructed by the planter, or some member of his family;

  and often, such is the anxiety of the master that they should perfectly under-

  stand what they are taught--a hard matter in the present state of their intel-

  lect--that no means calculated to advance their progress are left untried. I was

  not long since shown a manuscript catechism, drawn up with great care and

  judgment by a distinguished planter, on a plan admirably adapted to the compre-

  hension of the negroes.

  It is now popular to treat slaves with kindness; and those planters who are

  known to be inhumanly rigorous to their slaves are scarcely countenanced by the

  more intelligent and humane portion of the community. Such instances, how-

  ever, are very rare; but there are unprincipled men everywhere, who will give

  vent to their ill-feelings and bad passions, not with less good-will upon the back

  of an indented apprentice than upon that of a purchased slave. Private chapels

  are now introduced upon most of the plantations of the more wealthy, which are

  far from any church; Sabbath-schools are instituted for the black children, and

  Bible-classes for the parents, which are superintended by the planter, a chaplain,

  or some of the female members of the family.

  Nor are planters indifferent to the comfort of their grey-headed slaves. I have

  been much affected at beholding many exhibitions of their kindly feeling towards

  them. They always address them in a mild and pleasant manner, as “Uncle,” or

  “Aunty,” titles as peculiar to the old negro and negress as “boy” and “girl” to

  all under forty years of age. Some old Africans are allowed to spend their last years

  in their houses, without doing any kind of labour; these, if not too infirm, cultivate

  little patches of ground, on which they raise a few vegetables--for vegetables

  grow nearly all the year round in this climate--and make a little money to pur-

  chase a few extra comforts. They are also always receiving presents from their

  masters and mistresses, and the negroes on the estate, the latter of
whom are ex-

  tremely desirous of seeing the old people comfortable. A relation of the extra

  comforts which some planters allow their slaves would hardly obtain credit at the

  North. But you must recollect that Southern planters are men, and men of feeling,

  generous and high-minded, and possessing as much of the “milk of human kind-

  ness” as the sons of colder climes--although they may have been educated to regard

  that as right which a different education has led Northerners to consider wrong.

  With regard to the character of Mrs. Shelby, the writer must

  say a few words. While travelling in Kentucky, a few years

  since, some pious ladies expressed to her the same sentiments

  with regard to slavery which the reader has heard expressed by

  Mrs. Shelby.

  There are many whose natural sense of justice cannot be made

  to tolerate the enormities of the system, even though they hear

  it defended by clergymen from the pulpit, and see it coun-

  tenanced by all that is most honourable in rank and wealth.

  A pious lady said to the author, with regard to instructing

  her slaves, “I am ashamed to teach them what is right; I know

  that they know as well as I do that it is wrong to hold them as

  slaves, and I am ashamed to look them in the face.” Pointing

  to an intelligent mulatto woman who passed through the room,

  she continued, “Now, there's B--: she is as intelligent and

  capable as any white woman I ever knew, and as well able to

  have her liberty and take care of herself; and she knows it isn't

  right to keep her as we do, and I know it too; and yet I cannot

  get my husband to think as I do, or I should be glad to set

  them free.”

  A venerable friend of the writer, a lady born and educated a

  slaveholder, used to the writer the very words attributed to Mrs.

  Shelby: “I never thought it was right to hold slaves. I always

  thought it was wrong when I was a girl, and I thought so still

  more when I came to join the church.” An incident related by

  this friend of her examination for the church, shows in a striking

  manner what a difference may often exist between theoretical and

  practical benevolence.

  A certain class of theologians in New England have advocated