belonging to Mr. X-were at work. He called my attention to the excellence of their workmanship, and said that they exercised as much ingenuity and skill as the ordinary mechanics that he was used to employ in New England.

The plowmen got their dinner at this time: those not using horses do not usually dine till they have finished their tasks; but this, I believe, is optional with them. They commence work, I was told, at sunrise, and at about eight o'clock have breakfast brought to them in the field, each hand having left a bucket with the cook for that purpose. All who are working in connection, leave their work together, and gather about a fire, where they generally spend. about half an hour. The provisions furnished, consist mainly of meal, rice, and vegetables, with salt and molasses, and occasionally bacon, fish, and coffee. The allowance is a peck of meal, or an equivalent quantity of rice per week, to each working hand, old or young, besides small stores. Mr. X says that he has lately given a less amount of meat than is now usual on plantations, having observed that the general health of the negroes is not as good as formerly, when no meat at all was customarily given them. (The general impression among planters is, that the negroes work much better for being supplied with three or four pounds. of bacon a week.). . .

66

The field-hands are all divided into four classes, according to their physical capacities. The children beginning as quarter hands," advancing to "half hands," and then to "three-quarter hands:" and finally, when mature, and able-bodied, healthy, and strong, to "full hands." As they decline in strength, from age, sickness, or other cause, they retrograde in the scale, and proportionately less labor is required of them. Many, of naturally weak frame, never are put among the full hands. Finally, the aged are left out at the annual classification, and no more regular fieldwork is required of them, although they are generally provided with some light, sedentary occupation.

...

The whole plantation [one near Natchez], including the swamp land around it and owned with it, covered several square miles. It was four miles from the settlement to the nearest neighbor's house. There were between thirteen and fourteen hundred acres under cultivation with cotton, corn, and other hoed crops, and two hundred hogs running at large in the swamp. It was the intention that corn and pork enough should be raised to keep the slaves and cattle. This year, however, it has been found necessary to purchase largely, and such was probably usually the case, though the overseer intimated the owner had been displeased, and he "did not mean to be caught so bad again."

There were 135 slaves, big and little, of which 67 went to field regularly-equal, the overseer thought, to fully 60 prime hands. Besides these, there were 3 mechanics (blacksmith, carpenter, and wheel-wright), 2 seamstresses, I cook, I stable servant, I hog-tender, I teamster, I house servant (overseer's cook). . . . These were all first-class hands; most of them would be worth more, if they were for sale, the overseer said, than the best field-hands. There was also a driver of the hoe-gang who did not labor personally, and a foreman of the plow-gang. These two acted as petty officers in the field, and alternately in the quar

ters.

We found in the field thirty plows, moving together, turning the earth from the cotton plants, and from thirty to forty hoers, the latter mainly women, with a black driver walking about among them with a whip, which he often cracked at them, sometimes allowing the lash to fall lightly upon their shoulders. He was constantly urging them also with his voice.

I asked at what time they began to work in the morning. "Well," said the overseer, "I do better by my niggers than most. I keep 'em right smart at their work while they do work, but I generally knock 'em off at 8 o'clock in the morning, Saturdays, and give 'em all the rest of the day

to themselves, and I always gives 'em Sundays, the whole day. Pickin' time, and when the crap's bad in grass, I sometimes keep 'em to it till about sunset, Saturdays, but I never work 'em Sundays."

"How early do you start them out in the morning, usually?"

66

'Well, I don't never start my niggers 'fore daylight, 'less 'tis in pickin' time, then maybe I get 'em out a quarter of an hour before. But I keep 'em right smart to work through the day." He showed an evident pride in the vigilance of his driver, and called my attention to the large area of ground already hoed over that morning; well hoed, too, as he said.

"At what time do they eat?" I asked. They ate “their snacks" in their cabins, he said, before they came out in the morning (that is before daylight- the sun rising at this time at a little before five, and the day dawning, probably, an hour earlier); then at twelve o'clock their dinner was brought to them in a cart one cart for the plowgang and one for the hoe-gang. . . . All worked as late as they could see to work well, and had no more food nor rest until they returned to their cabins. At half-past nine o'clock, the drivers, each on an alternate night, blew a horn, and at ten visited every cabin to see that its occupants were at rest, and not lurking about and spending their strength in fooleries, and that the fires were safe - a very unusual precaution; the negroes are generally at liberty after their day's work is done till they are called in the morning. . . . The allowance of food was a peck of corn and four pounds of pork per week, each. When they could not get "greens" (any vegetables) he generally gave them five pounds of pork. They had gardens, and raised a good deal for themselves; they also had fowls, and usually plenty of eggs. ...

This was the only large plantation I had an opportunity of seeing at all closely, over which I was not chiefly conducted by an educated gentleman and slave owner, by whose

habitual impressions and sentiments my own were probably somewhat influenced. From what I saw in passing, and from what I heard by chance of others, I suppose it to have been a very favorable specimen of those plantations on which the owners do not reside. A merchant of the vicinity recently in New York tells me that he supposes it to be a fair enough example of plantations of its class.

F. L. Olmsted: The Cotton Kingdom, Vol. I, pp. 8-16, 100, 233-46; Vol. II, pp. 176-179. Mason Brothers, New York, 1861.

QUESTIONS

What were Olmsted s conclusions as to the comparative prosperity and comfort of Whites, North and South? How much did Olmsted think was the difference in cost between work of the same kind done by slaves in the South and by free workmen in the North? How much of the land of the Cotton States would you judge from Olmsted was actually used in raising cotton? Under what conditions could seven and ten bales of cotton to the hand be grown throughout the South? Was it for lack of fertile land or for lack of money to invest in "hands" that raising cotton on this scale could not be more general? With how much certainty could one calculate on such a yield? Explain Olmsted's statement that the value of slave labor did not in general justify the price paid for slaves. How did the "gambling instinct" then lead planters to pay unjustifiable prices for slaves? State the reasons why slaves could not be employed in factories using machinery? Could anything be done to employ them by a system of rewards and punishments? Do you find anything in this extract to disprove the statement on page 221? Anything in other selections? (Cf. Smedes.) Were these reasons applicable to slave labor or to negro labor? Explain the distinction. Are negroes now commonly employed in factories? Describe the negro settlements told of in the three plantations that are mentioned. How many prime hands could be counted on to two hundred negro slaves? Could a master then depend on all the slaves he owned for an equal amount of labor? Explain the terms 'quarter' half" and "whole" hands. What privileges were allowed the negroes on Mr. X's plantation? What were their hours of work? Their rations? What success did he have in securing mechanical work from slaves? Describe the organization of the hands on the last plantation described? How many prime hands were there? How long were the negroes worked? What

66

precautions were taken to see that they were quiet in their cabins? What was the weekly allowance of food?

XXXVIII

CONGRESSIONAL LEGISLATION ON SLAVERY

In the selections here given we have a number of successive steps in Congressional legislation concerning slavery. The first act, the Missouri Compromise, lasted for a generation, 1820-1854, and was based on the supposition that Congress could exclude slavery from the Territories; the last act, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854, provided for the repeal of the central provision of the Missouri Compromise. The report of the Committee of Thirteen contains the essential proposals which entered into the Compromise of 1850.

A

THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE

An Act to authorize the people of the Missouri Territory to form a Constitution and State government, and for the admission of such State into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, and to prohibit slavery in certain Territories.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That the inhabitants of that portion of the Missouri Territory included within the boundaries hereinafter designated, be, and they are hereby, authorized to form for themselves a constitution and State government, and to assume such name as they shall deem proper; and the said State, when formed, shall be admitted into the Union, upon an equal footing with the original States, in all respects whatsoever.

Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That the said State shall consist of all the territory included within the following boundaries, to wit: Beginning in the middle of the