R. G. Thwaites: Cyrus Hall McCormick, in Proceedings of the Wisconsin Historical Society, 1908, pp. 234259, passim. QUESTIONS How is the amount of grain that can be grown limited by the shortness of the harvest season? Under a system of harvesting by hand, would it be possible for a farming community to grow very much more grain than would be required to feed farm laborers? Would it be possible under such a system to spare many people from farm work to be employed in manufacturing? If few people were employed in manufacturing, could many of our modern manufactured conveniences be enjoyed by people in general? What is the connection between the growth of modern cities and the development of the farming region? Explain why the reaper found its greatest usefulness in the West. How did it aid in building up the Mississippi Valley? How far did its usefulness depend on the existence of some means for transporting the grain raised to market? How did the reaper assist the North in the Civil War by setting men free to enter the Union armies, and by bringing riches to the men of the North? How has the improved agricultural machinery of to-day saved farmers from drudgery? How has this benefited them intellectually? XXVII SLAVERY IN THE NEW SOUTHWEST The following selection, which is taken from an eulogistic biography of Colonel Thomas Dabney, a Mississippi planter, shows slavery at its best- as regards both the economic efficiency of the system, and the relation between master and slaves. The extract illustrates a thing not very easy to understand how old established slave-holding families, living lives of elegance in the older Slave States, moved into the comparatively frontier States of the lower South; and there speedily established the slave system of production and began again a life of comfort and luxury similar to that they had left in the older States. The date of Colonel Dabney's migration was about 1835. About the year 1835 a great many Virginians were induced to remove their families to the far South. For several reasons Thomas began to consider the expediency of moving out to the then new country. He was considered one of the most successful wheat and tobacco farmers in his part of the State. But the expensive style of living in Gloucester began to be a source of serious anxiety. He knew that with a young and growing family to educate and provide for the difficulty would be greater each year. He felt also the increasing difficulty of giving to his negroes the amount of nourishing food that he considered necessary for laboring people. In view of these facts, he made up his mind that he must leave his home in Virginia for a new one in the cotton-planting States. Thomas Dabney went through a large part of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, looking at the country before deciding on a body of land in Hinds County, Mississippi. He succeeded in purchasing four thousand acres from half a dozen small farmers. When the southern move was decided on, Thomas called his servants together and announced to them his intention to remove, with his family, to Mississippi. He further went on to say that he did not mean to take one unwilling servant with him. His plan was to offer to buy all husbands and wives, who were connected with his negroes, at the owners' prices, or he should, if his people preferred, sell those whom he owned to any master or mistress whom they might choose. No money difficulty should stand in the way. Mammy Harriet says of this time, "Marster was good all de time. He do all he could to comfort he people. When he was gittin' ready to move to Mississippi, he call 'em all up, an' tell 'em dat he did not want anybody to foller him who was not willin': He say, all could stay in Figinny, an' dey could choose dey own marsters to stay wid. Ebery one o' he own, and all who b'long to de odder members o' de fambly who was wid him, say dey want to foller him, 'ceptin' 'twas two old people, ole grayheaded people, who was too ole to trabble. An' dey was de onli est ones leff behind on dat plantation an' dey did cry so much I did feel so sorry for dem. . . . The journey was made with so much care and forethought that not a case of serious illness occurred on the route. The white families were quartered at night, if practicable, in the houses that they found along the way. Tents were provided for the negroes. The master himself, during the entire journey, did not sleep under a roof. The weather was perfect: no heavy rains fell during the two months. I give here Mammy Harriet's account of the journey. "We leff in September, when dey was pullin' fodder, an' we git to Mississippi three weeks to Christmas. On dat road I come to somethin' what I nebber see before; it 'twas a log town. All de houses was made out o' logs; all 'ceptin' de court-house. Dat was weatherboarded. I dunno whar 'twas. I nebber 'quire 'bout dat. 66 ... Marster was so good to us. He do eberything on dat journey dat was for our good. 66 Marster do all he could to comfort he people. "He buy fresh meat, salt fish, eberything. Ef he see a turnip-patch or cabbages or apples or 'taters, he say, ‘Go on, see if you can get these things.' Sometimes dey gib 'em to us, sometimes we buy. Thomas [Thomas Dabney] was misunderstood and misjudged by the people in Mississippi by whom he found himself surrounded. The plainer classes in Virginia, like those in England from whom they were descended, recognized the difference between themselves and the higher classes, and did not aspire to social equality. But in Mississippi the tone was different. They resented anything like superiority in breeding.. ... It was the custom among the small farmers in his neighbourhood to call on each other to assist when one of them built his house, usually a log structure. Accordingly, one day an invitation came to the newcomer to help a neigh 1 bour to "raise" his house. At the appointed time he went over with twenty of his men, and he did not leave till the last log was in place and the last board nailed on the roof, handing over the simple cabin quite completed to the owner. This action, which seemed so natural to him, was a serious. offense to the recipient, and to his regret, he was sent for to no more “house-raisings." On another occasion, a small farmer living a few miles from him got "in the grass," as the country people express it when the grass. has gotten ahead of the young cotton plants and there is danger of their being choked by it. Again Thomas went over with twenty men, and in a few hours the field was brought to perfect order. The man said that if Colonel. Dabney had taken hold of a plow and worked by his side he would have been glad to have his help, but to see him sitting up on his horse with his gloves on directing his negroes how to work was not to his taste. He heard a long time after these occurrences that he could have soothed their wounded pride if he had asked them to come over to help him to raise his cabins. But he could not bring himself to call on two or three poor white men to work among his servants when he had no need of help. Susan Dabney Smedes: A Southern Planter, pp. 7-15; 29-30. London, 1889. 1 The "house-raising " was the social event of the frontier. The man whose house was to be raised provided refreshments such as liquor for those who came to help; and all who came worked side by side all day at the house, leaving it completed at nightfall. It summed up all the spirit of the frontier — the neighborly willingness to help a newcomer get on his feet and the sense of the true dignity and worth of labor that set all to working side by side on perfect equality. It is only by understanding this that one can reach the depth of Colonel Dabney's offending in patronizingly bringing over a gang of slaves to work side by side with his neighbors on work he would not himself set his hands to. QUESTIONS How did Colonel Dabney get his land in Mississippi? Would you judge from the incident that the tendency in Mississippi at this period was toward the establishment and development of the small farm tilled by free labor or toward the plantation system? Why when slavery as a system of labor was so expensive could the big plantation grow up in the new West? This is a question not easily answered; but we must take into consideration that slavery was working as advantageously as it possibly could, where the soil was fertile and fresh, where land was plentiful, and where cotton was the chief or only crop. Tell of the consideration that Colonel Dabney showed for the feelings of his servants. What sacrifices did he make to avoid separating husbands and wives? Describe as far as you can, the way in which the master, his family, and his slaves emigrated. Did the writer of the book believe in social equality between the large slave-holding planter and the small farmer? How did Colonel Dabney offend his neighbors? What opinion did these actions show he had of manual work? Would such an attitude toward manual labor affect others? Was this a natural result of slavery in a community? XXVIII AN ENGLISHMAN ON AMERICAN TRAVEL In the half century that preceded the Civil War patriotic Americans were in a state of chronic irritation at the criticism, justified and unjustified, that was poured out on the United States and all things in it by English travelers. Charles Dickens's American Notes is perhaps the best known of these books of criticism. The book, from which is quoted the extract here given, is perhaps more willing to see the good in American life than are the great majority of such books. Its author was Robert Marryat, officer in the British navy and author of fascinating tales of adventure at sea that were many of them drawn from his own experience. The selection illustrates the stage of American transportation in which the railroad was replacing the stage-coach. Note the amusing description of the necessity for the "cow-catcher" on the American locomotive, and of "ten minutes for refreshments" stops. |