Twelve Years a Slave - Enhanced Edition (41 page)

149.
Alanson Green Pearce (“Alonson Pierce” in the narrative), son of William, Sr. (1816-1863) and Frances Tanner Pearce, owned a plantation, Lone Pine, only a few miles from Oakwold, the home of his parents in Evergreen, Louisiana. Both plantation houses, built before the Civil War, still stand. Patrick Henry Toler was a neighbor of Alanson Pearce on his plantation in Evergreen. Grimball Addison Robert, a half-brother of Mrs. Epps’ father, was born near Cheneyville in 1812 [Stafford,
Three Pioneer
Families . . .
, 76, 345].

150.
Lafayette, established as Vermilionville in 1823, has become over the years an unofficial capital of French Louisiana in the lower southern part of the state [See Writers Program of Works Progress Administration
,
273].

151.
At Grand Coteau, St. Landry Parish, the Sisters of the Sacred Heart established a Sacred Heart Academy for Girls in 1821. A Jesuit St. Charles College was established at Grand Coteau in 1838 [See Writers Program, 120-122].

152.
Judge William Turner and Mrs. C. Ferguson are among those listed in Champomier’s book stating the sugar production of Louisiana cane planters for 1849-1850: “Mrs. C. Ferguson, thirty-nine, William Turner, nineteen, 58 hhds of sugar, Bayou Salle, St. Mary Parish.” Turner is similarly listed with Mrs. Ferguson in Champomier’s publications of 1850-1851 and 1851-1852 [See Champomier]. These statements were issued annually.

153.
These unwritten expected customs related to Sunday prevailed on all plantations in Louisiana and probably throughout the South. Planters who did not abide by this code of behavior would have been dealt with by their fellow planters. The pay undoubtedly varied from plantation to plantation.

154.
The name Yarney is not listed in the 1840 U.S. Census.

155.
Joseph Jedediah Robert, father of Mrs. Edwin Epps, was an exception among those who taught private lessons in Louisiana before the Civil War. Most teachers came from the North where formal education, both public and private, was available. To control plantation country, an elite group of influential planters throughout the South used private education as the major tool to establish and maintain a caste society.

156.
Many trusted slaves were allowed to use firearms. Some hunted game not only for themselves but for their owners: “Despite strict laws regarding the possession of firearms by slaves, many Negroes had guns and many did hunt . . . The black man added squirrel, turkey, duck, rabbit, and perhaps venison to his diet and also contributed to the master’s table . . . Some animals were caught with simple snares, and the raccoon and opossum were hunted at night with dogs” [See Taylor, 126].

157.
There is documentation that Indians used fish traps of various kinds as well as cane poles cut from the banks of the streams with a cord holding a baited hook, seines, and other means to secure fish. With “water, water everywhere,” Indians in Louisiana found streams a primary source of food. The French, Spanish, and English settlers also lived off what the land and the streams offered. They adopted the ways of the Indians and added new ideas about securing food.

158.
Douglas Marshall, an aristocrat in the caste society of antebellum Louisiana who seemed to perpetuate the stratification of the Old World, was a descendant of the brother of Supreme Court Justice John Marshall of Virginia. The elite had the money and power to obtain a formal education, which was inaccessible to the vast majority of the population. However, there were small numbers of whites and blacks who individually managed to educate themselves surprisingly well, and some of the moneyed elite did not choose to seek a formal education.

159.
The home of Dr. Jewel, the murdered victim, was in Opelousas, Louisiana, according to Dr. W.D. Haas’ note in 1930 in the flyleaves of his copy of the first edition of
Twelve Years a Slave
. Dr. Haas (1867-1940), a grandson of Douglas Marshall, was a descendant of an immigrant named Sam Haas, who came from Alsace Lorraine before the Civil War. Sam Haas became a captain in the Civil War, returning to open a country store in central Louisiana at Chicot. He was an astute businessman and loaned money from his own resources that he stored in a safe inside his home, thus beginning a sort of banking operation on the Louisiana frontier. Dr. Haas’ mother was Maccie Marshall, descendant of William Marshall of Virginia, a brother of United States Chief Justice John Marshall [See Holland. Alice Holland is a descendant of Dr. Haas.]

Chapter Fifteen

160.
Cutting cane on the lead row required the highest skill; all of the cane cutters competed for the honor. Not only was a lead cane cutter setting the pace as the one who could strip the stalk of flags, cut the stalk with one swift strike, and stack the stalk across the rows faster than anybody else, he was recognized as a leader in encouraging the team. Often songs or chants lifted spirits in what was typically forbidding weather.

161.
In addition to Solomon’s recollections of sugarcane production, ghost writer David Wilson also had access to numerous agricultural publications of the period. There were many articles about the sugar industry, growing sugar cane and making sugar. One example of facts about sugar is included in “Culture of the Sugar-Cane,” an article in
American Agriculturist
:

There are three varieties of the sugar-cane cultivated in the U.S. The Creole was first raised in Louisiana by the immigrants from the West India Islands. It is the smallest, but yields the richest and most valuable juice. The Otaheite was introduced into Georgia early during the present century, from the Sandwich Islands, and within a few years after, was carried from that state into Louisiana. It produces a large, luxuriant stalk, yielding profusely in juice, which is, however, much inferior in quality to that from the Creole. The blue-ribbon, brought to this country from Jamaica, subsequent to both others, is beautifully variegated with regular longitudinal stripes of blue and yellow, alternating in direction between each joint. It yields a juice of medium quantity and quality; but being by far the hardiest, it has usurped almost the entire sugar plantations of this State. Each of these varieties has undoubtedly originated in the East Indies, where the cane has been cultivated from time immemorial.

It was formerly the practice to plant the cane in rows, from 2 1/2 to 4 feet apart, and it is perhaps owing to this, and the careless system of culture, that the Creole may have degenerated and become the pigmy plant we now see it. A more rational system has been adopted for many years, by the most intelligent planters, and by them the rows are seldom permitted to be nearer than 8 feet. This is attended with many advantages. The rows contain three, and in some instances four parallel lines of plants, which furnish a greater number of stalks per acre than the more closely planted. They afford room for burying the trash (the worthless tops cut from the cane in the fall and destitute of saccharine matter), and the bagasse (the residuum of the cane after expressing the juice), between the rows, where it can lie undisturbed in the soil till decomposed. The sun and air have free access through the field, both of which are of vital importance in giving the fullest development to the plants; and finally, they allow of the use of the two-horse plow, by which a deeper furrow is made, the grass and weeds are more effectually turned under and destroyed, and a more thorough pulverization of the soil is effected, all of which is accomplished with the same expenditure of the animal, and with half that of the human labor employed with the single horse. Where deep plowing is not required to be repeated, but the destruction of weeds and grass is the only object sought, the greater width of the rows permits the use of the three-share plow, or a large steel-tooth or other cultivator,* by which one laborer will get over six acres in a day instead of two only with the plow. In fields suited to it, this practice has been adopted, the present season, with some of the New York implements, and has been attended with the most satisfactory results.

In preparing the land for cultivation, after providing a sufficient number of deep ditches as before described the surface is deeply turned over with four-horse plows. Sometimes this is done by a huge plow, called the giraffe, requiring six good animals to move it. The intended bed for the cane is then excavated to a depth of 4 to 6 inches, with a wide fluke, or a double-mould-board plow, leaving a furrow eight to twelve inches wide. The more careful planters clean out this by hand, and place three or four rows of the best plant in parallel lines four inches apart, lapping each and arranging them so that the eyes which occupy opposite sides may germinate horizontally, and shoot upward at the same time, thus giving evenness of growth to each stalk.

The planting may be commenced in December, and should be completed early in March. If done during the winter, protection from frosts requires that they be covered to a depth of four or five inches. On the approach of warm weather, this earth is removed within an inch or two of the cane, at which depth it is covered if the planting is deferred till this time. This is done to promote early germination, which is of great importance to secure a satisfactory maturity of the cane in this climate.

After the young shoots appear, the fine earth is gradually brought around and over it, and the plow is used for turning the furrow towards the rows. This operation is repeated as often as is necessary to keep the land sufficiently light and clear of weeds, and gradually lead the soil to the roots. When the cane has acquired sufficient growth to shade the ground, the final operation of ridging up, or laying by the crop, is performed with the plow and the hoe. The cane ought to be so forward as to admit of this by the middle of June.

*The steel-tooth cultivator is a new and very superior article, admirably adapted for cane as well as all other kinds of culture. It can be had at our agricultural warehouse, (187 Water Street. Price--$7.50 . . . [See “Culture of the Sugar-Cane,” 241-243]

Another such article providing information about sugarcane cultivation is “Sugar and Slavery in Louisiana” in 1847:

The report of the Commissioner of Patents contains a list of all the sugar planters in the State of Louisiana with the product of each plantation for the year 1844. The corrected aggregate of the sugar raised in that year is put at 215,000,000 pounds. . . At the beginning of the year there were in operation seven hundred and sixty-two sugar mills, of which four hundred and eight were worked by steam power and three hundred and fifty-four by horse power—the number of planters being about nine hundred. At the end of the year the number of mills had increased to eleven hundred and four, and the number of planters to one thousand eight hundred and fifty . . .

The sugar plantations of Louisiana lie along the shores of the rivers and bayous . . .

The way that much of the new States of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, & c., have grown into their great production and prosperity has been by the removal of planters with their slave families from the old to the new States . . . [See “Sugar and Slavery in Louisiana,” 55] Still another article on sugar is “The Sugar Crop of Louisiana”:

It is estimated by competent judges that the crop of sugar in this State will exceed the crop of last year by at least one hundred thousand hogsheads . . . Two hundred and forty thousand hogsheads is an estimate which no one regards as extravagant. At the rate of $50 per hhd., (lower, we believe than a fair average,) this will give the splendid sum of twelve millions of dollars as the value of one single agricultural product of twenty-three parishes of the State . . . there are but fourteen in which sugar is the leading or principal product. In St. Landry, Calcasieu, Lafayette, Vermillion, Avoyelles, Rapides, West Feliciana, and Pointe Coupee, sugar is cultivated to a limited extent, cotton and corn being the chief products, and grazing an extensive employment of the people. [See “The Sugar Crop of Louisiana,” 179]

162.
Winrowing was a familiar scene on Bayou Boeuf during cane cutting time.

163.
Hawkins Mill, located about three miles south of Cheneyville on Waverly Plantation, was the largest sugar mill for many miles. Remains of the mill survived for years, and were said to have come from a terrible explosion. Another Cheneyville slave, William O’Neal, born in 1827, worked building a sugar-house at the same mill in 1848. O’Neal’s description of the work at the sugar mill has a different tone than in David Wilson’s writing:

By October the tenth the sugar-house is ready for grinding; the fires blaze in the great furnaces, the wheels began to revolve, and it has become a thing of life. William has been inducted into the mysteries of engineering, and as we glance into the sugar-house we see him managing the great engine with deliberation characteristic of his nature.

The grinding season is a merry time on the sugar plantation, every-thing grows sleek and fat. All are full of life, buoyant and happy. In the fields may be heard many voices blending softly those sweet old plantation songs, once heard never to be forgotten.

Ah! There is romance indeed lingering about the old sugar plantation, distinctively characteristic of Louisiana. The broad acres of waving cane, where the keen knives glisten in the morning sunlight, wielded by a hundred sturdy hands.

The heavy two-wheeled carts roll by, laden with juicy cane, its purple stalks like the bloom on the ripened grapes of Italy. Long trains of these immense vehicles are coming and going, in the vain attempt to satiate the maw of that great colossus which is continually belching forth smoke and flame.

No time for idling now; for day and night all through the grinding season, which lasts until the last stalk of cane has passed through the crushers and emerged from the immense evaporators in the form of commercial sugar, all hands are kept busy. Thus ended the first season at the new sugar-house of Dr. Hawkins. [See O’Neal,
The Man Who Sold His Wife,
90-91]