by Various
Some will say it is very queer and they can not understand how the slaves get so enlightened; it is very easily understood. Some of them are very easily learned, and if a family has a favorite servant they will treat them as one of the family, but for the slightest offense they will sell them, and if they can, to the farthest plantation possible, and they will of course teach others.
When I commenced going down South, a widow and an overseer could, without difficulty manage a hundred slaves, now it takes three overseers and the master to rule the same number; times are fast, masters and mistresses are getting more enlightened, and so are servants. I know gentlemen and ladies who would not put on a suit of clothes without the servants say it is suitable, but if the same servants chance to offend them, they will sell them to go as far as cars and boats will carry them.
I know a widow lady who lives in Mississippi, she comes down to New Orleans every season to provide for her plantation. She is very much thought of and sought after, more particularly by merchants, on account of her immense wealth, her name is Mrs. G.; she came to the St. Charles and staid some days there. I had the pleasure of waiting on this honorable lady; she left to go home, and I went in the same boat to make a visit to a plantation further on. It seems the steward had offended her in some way, coming down, and on our going back again, when the boat stopped at her plantation, the steward came forward, expecting a dollar or so as steward’s fee, she handed him a little package and told him to carry it for her; there were about fifty or so of her servants came down to see her on her arrival, and when the steward came among them, she told them that fellow had insulted her, when they all put after him like a parcel of blood-hounds, and he had to actually jump into the water to reach the plank to get on board the boat, or they would have torn him in pieces. Such devotion is from kindness. She is a kind mistress.
In the same neighborhood, a short time before, a lady was attempted to be poisoned three times by her slaves for her cruelty to them. Was this lady a Louisiana lady? No, she was not, she was from the North, and was one who had to work for her living before going South; these are always the worst of mistresses. I remember a colored woman who was raised in Cincinnati, and her parents and family now live in the midst of our city: she is now a slave-holder in the city of New Orleans: the most tyrannical, overbearing, cruel task-mistress that ever existed: so you can see color makes no difference, the propensities are the same, and those who have been oppressed themselves, are the sorest oppressors. It is a well known fact, those who are as black themselves as the ace of spades will, if they can, get mulatoes for slaves, and then the first word is “my nigger.”
In the South, both whites and blacks, if they have but one garment to their back, must have a servant. I was a good deal amused one day to hear a dispute between a white and a colored woman; the colored woman was from New York, but was very wealthy, having accumulated quite a little fortune; the white woman was also from the North, and she had not been so fortunate in worldly matters: their dispute commenced on politics, and the white woman at length got so angry with some remarks of the other, that she started for the house, while in a voice quivering with passion, exclaimed, “I don’t care, I have the law on my side if you have the money,” while the other laughingly replied, “excuse me madam. I have both.” Not withstanding there is so much hatred between the two colors, and so much enmity exists, they will associate much more so in the slave States than in the free States. There is a great deal of sociability between the free colored and the rich whites in the slave States, but when you come to the lower orders of both, there is decided enmity. I will give you a little instance that I saw with my own eyes, and I know both parties well, the white I knew when I was a little girl in New York.
A family named B——, having had some trouble in bank business, left New York and went to New Orleans. After my being in New Orleans several seasons, I found them out by visiting next door to them; the lady next door was colored, and kept elegant furnished rooms. As I told you before, there are numbers here make fortunes, and it is a common thing to have these furnished rooms, and in no mean street either, but side by side with some of the very best mansions are these furnished apartments. They are generally occupied by gentlemen, who take their meals at the St. Charles, and sleep in these apartments; and it is not thought anything if the landlady is colored; even to this day, it is very fashionable for gentlemen to take their families to these rooms.
The colored lady who kept the house I have mentioned, was very beautiful and very wealthy: she owned a great deal of property and many slaves, and kept two houses more like some of the elegant mansions of the nobility, than anything else. She inherited this property by her husband and master, he emancipated her, and then finding himself about to be involved in his business, he made all over to her—property, money and shares—a short time after, he died, leaving her in possession of all his wealth. Several gentlemen were going to see her at one time, one of these gentlemen, was a Mr. B——. They made proposals to her, not exactly of matrimony, but by them considered in the same holy light as lawful marriage; she flattered Mr. B—— for some time, making him believe she would take him for her lawful “plaçayer.” but when the evening came on that he looked for the fulfillment of her promise, she deceived him, and took another. He went home and blew out his brains right in his father’s house. Did these people treat her with contempt? No, they always treated her both before and after that as a lady, and the last time I was in New Orleans they were living beside each other, in good neighborhood and good fellowship, and she was seen daily going out to the grave-yard strewing flowers over his tomb. Such occurrences as these are frequent. I could neither find paper nor time to tell you half of such things as came under my notice.
I will now tell you of a lady I know, who was raised in high life in New York. She married a gentleman from the South, a very elegant looking man, and she thought wealthy, supposing the wealth followed the looks—as the northern ladies generally think when a man comes from the South, who is fine looking, elegantly dressed, and so forth, he must be wealthy, but it is not so, for many come to the North to pick up a rich wife, that are depending on the wages of some poor old man or woman, and it may be, had their lands to mortgage to get the money for them to flourish on. I myself, went to the house this lady’s husband brought her to, a few miles from Memphis, and found it a log cabin; true she had a piano and some pieces of silver, and a great many costly things that were presented her on her leaving New York to go to her wealthy home. What a change for her from her three story brick on a fashionable street, to a little log cabin in the country, a few miles from Memphis!
Gentlemen do not think they are deceiving ladies in acting so, as they know ladies are taking them for their good looks and elegant appearance, and of course they think themselves a prize; and I know ladies who, on finding themselves so deceived, were ashamed to acknowledge it, and such often come to the North and boast of the riches and splendor of their southern home.
During the year 18—, I was in New Orleans; the season was as gay as any I had ever passed there; all was bright and brilliant. The St. Charles was crowded with people from all parts of the country; Madam Levert and Frederica Bremer were of the number. Great preparations were making for Jenny Lind, who was then in Cuba; among the rest was a gay married woman from Mississippi, whom I and numbers of others know to be a gay and fashionable lady; to my thinking she not only wore her crinoline but his pantaloons. She had at the hotel four children and several servants, and occupied two rooms, parlor and bedroom. She very seldom allowed the children to come in the parlor, but kept them with their nurse in the bedroom, unless on very particular occasions.
One day, while the children and nurse were out walking, I was in her bedroom combing her hair, when there came a knock at the door, she said, come in, and, to my surprise, a gentleman walked in and took a seat. They immediately commenced a conversation in French, when he told her to take care, as maybe I under
stood French, but she said, no, she is from the upper country, and does not know anything we are saying. So I combed away, and heard all their conversation. Their plan was to go to a fancy store, on the corner of Royal and St. Louis, a door opening on Royal and one on St. Louis. She was to go in at one door and a carriage was to be in waiting at the other, in which they were to drive to the Lake. The blinds were to be drawn, as if somebody was in it sick; she then told him in French, he had better go, as it was near the hour her husband come to lunch with her.
As soon as he left, I went and fastened the door, took my chair, and sat down right before her, and told her, word for word, what they had been saying, and told her never to treat any person with contempt before another because she was rich and highly educated, for there were many simple looking people, and poor people, who understood more than those who were speaking of them.
The lady became very much agitated, so much so that I feared she would faint, when I reassured her, by saying I would not expose her; I told her the circumstance I would mention, but never her name, as that should go to the grave with me; she offered me money, but I told her money never would seal my lips, nor anything except kindness. I then told her of a gentleman from Lexington, who came to me and tried to bribe me to answer just one question about some circumstance that occurred in Kentucky, which would place a lady in his power, so he offered me a seventy-five dollar silk dress if I would only answer him. She asked me if I gave him an answer. I told her no, I never did, nor I never would. She told me it was only a joke, as she was only fooling the gentleman, and did not intend to meet him; however, I had business at the St. Louis, and as it happened to be about the hour I went there to comb that she had made the appointment, I determined to see for myself, particularly as she had promised me she would not go. Shortly after I got there she came down the street, went in one door, purchased some little article, went out at the other door and into the carriage she went. I said no more to her, though I combed her for several weeks, as I had many such ladies, though their position was such no one would ever think of impeaching them.
My associate hair-dresser had a lady who, she said, was very difficult and hard to please, so she gave her over to me and I gave her one of my ladies, both of us pretending the hours would not suit. I found her very easy to get along with: after combing her for some time I found there was something wrong between her husband and herself: she was from Pittsburg and he also: they had been coming there for numbers of years. She one day asked me if I could keep a secret. I told her most assuredly I could, but I could keep it better if it was not told me. She said she for some time had her eye on me, as she thought me a bold, independent woman, and she asked me if I would go with her that afternoon our walking. I agreed, and we went out.
She took me into the French part of the city, where, after walking for several squares, we came to a little low, French built house, from appearance uninhabited, as it was all closed up, and looked as if no human being, but rats alone lived there. On going in the house she sat down and asked me if we had been seen coming there would I take the responsibility on myself. I told her that depended altogether on the nature of the case. She then told me the reason she had brought me to this strange house. She had taken a letter out of her husband’s pocket the night before, from a female, saying she left the key with the hotel porter, and would meet him there, and if he could not come at that time not to come till the next day, as one of the other gentlemen would be there that day, so she got the key and determined to be there to meet her husband.
I told her if I had known such was her object in coming I would not have come with her on any account, as it might end badly, for assuredly her husband would not overlook meeting her in such a place, and I feared it would result in no good to her; however, after expostulating a long time with her I at length asked her to come to a fortune-teller’s and have her fortune told and we could come back there again; she readily consented to go. Before leaving, however, we concluded to look round the place, it was certainly as curious a house as I ever saw.
The first room we went into was all lined, in place of papered ceiling and walls, with crimson oiled calico; there was a couch covered with the same, and also the chairs; there was but one mirror in the room. The next room was lined in like manner with oiled calico, but instead of crimson it was blue; the bed had a blue spread, and an elegant lace mosquito bar; a wash-stand was in one corner with everything on it belonging to a washstand, and in the other corner was a bureau, with everything on it a lady could require, even to paint and powder. In the third room were bottles of good old wine, bottles of champagne, dry wine, old bourbon, and every kind of liquor that could be desired; on a table spread in the middle of the floor were two or three packs of cards, with segars for both ladies and gentlemen; and on the mantlepiece were various novels. On examining some of these she declared most positively they were her books. While she sat down to look over them, panting for breath as if much agitated, I heard some one at the door trying to get in, I told her to keep quiet till I should go to the door; when I opened it I found a well known old citizen of this city and a married lady, also well known, and moving in a very high circle, who was the mother of several children. I told the gentleman, in an under tone, not to come in as there was something wrong, but to meet me at the hotel in two hours and I would explain all things to him. He and the lady went away, looking very much excited. I went back and told her it was only a man inquiring for some family who had lived there, and that it was time for us to go. We got ready and started, I slipping under my arm the books she had been looking at. When we came to the fortune-teller, I, having managed to get a moment’s private conversation with the latter, told her, among other things, to say to the lady she had been looking over some books and thought they belonged to her, but she would find hers at home when she went there. I told her also to speak well of the lady’s husband.
10
HARRIET WILSON
(1825–1900)
Harriet Wilson’s semi-autobiographical novel, Our Nig, rediscovered by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., in 1982, is one of the first novels written by an African American woman and the first novel published by an African American in North America. Wilson was born in Milford, New Hampshire, and became an indentured servant after her father’s death and her abandonment by her mother. At eighteen years old, she moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where she wrote Our Nig. Wilson was active in the Spiritualist Church community, giving lectures, teaching classes at the church’s school, and traveling to different church branches. No evidence exists of her having produced more writing after Our Nig.
Included here are the Preface, Chapter I, and Chapter XII of Our Nig. Chapter I tells the story of the parentage of Frado, the novel’s mixed-race protagonist, as “lonely” Mag Smith accepts a marriage proposal from the “African” Jim. The epigraph is from Thomas Moore’s widely anthologized Lalla Rookh (1817).
Selections from Our Nig (1859)
SOURCE: Harriet E. Wilson, Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black (Boston: G. C. Rand and Avery, 1859).
PREFACE
In offering to the public the following pages, the writer confesses her inability to minister to the refined and cultivated, the pleasure supplied by abler pens. It is not for such these crude narrations appear. Deserted by kindred, disabled by failing health, I am forced to some experiment which shall aid me in maintaining myself and child without extinguishing this feeble life. I would not from these motives even palliate slavery at the South, by disclosures of its appurtenances North. My mistress was wholly imbued with SOUTHERN principles. I do not pretend to divulge every transaction in my own life, which the unprejudiced would declare unfavorable in comparison with treatment of legal bondmen; I have purposely omitted what would most provoke shame in our good anti-slavery friends at home.
My humble position and frank confession of errors will, I hope, shield me from severe criticism. Indeed, defects are so apparent it requi
res no skilful hand to expose them.
I sincerely appeal to my colored brethren universally for patronage, hoping they will not condemn this attempt of their sister to be erudite, but rally around me a faithful band of supporters and defenders.
H. E. W.
CHAPTER I.
Mag Smith, My Mother.
Oh, Grief beyond all other griefs, when fate
First leaves the young heart lone and desolate
In the wide world, without that only tie
For which it loved to live or feared to die;
Lorn as the hung-up lute, that ne’er hath spoken
Since the sad day its master-chord was broken!
MOORE.
—
Lonely Mag Smith! See her as she walks with downcast eyes and heavy heart. It was not always thus. She HAD a loving, trusting heart. Early deprived of parental guardianship, far removed from relatives, she was left to guide her tiny boat over life’s surges alone and inexperienced. As she merged into womanhood, unprotected, uncherished, uncared for, there fell on her ear the music of love, awakening an intensity of emotion long dormant. It whispered of an elevation before unaspired to; of ease and plenty her simple heart had never dreamed of as hers. She knew the voice of her charmer, so ravishing, sounded far above her. It seemed like an angel’s, alluring her upward and onward. She thought she could ascend to him and become an equal. She surrendered to him a priceless gem, which he proudly garnered as a trophy, with those of other victims, and left her to her fate. The world seemed full of hateful deceivers and crushing arrogance. Conscious that the great bond of union to her former companions was severed, that the disdain of others would be insupportable, she determined to leave the few friends she possessed, and seek an asylum among strangers. Her offspring came unwelcomed, and before its nativity numbered weeks, it passed from earth, ascending to a purer and better life.