The Devil on the Santee

(A Rice-Planter’s Story)

Between the plantation where harmony and industry still prevailed and that in which was complete upheaval of the old order, were thousands showing its disintegration in intermediate grades. On the James River, in Virginia, and on waterways in rice and cotton lands up which Federal gunboats steamed, and on the Sea Islands, plantations innumerable furnished parallel cases to that set forth in the following narrative, which I had from Captain Thomas Pinckney, of Charleston, South Carolina. When Captain Pinckney went down to El Dorado, his plantation on the Santee, in 1866, he found things “in a shocking condition and the very devil to pay.” The night before reaching his place he spent at the house of an English neighbour, who had had oversight of his property. He received this report:

“Your negroes sacked your house, stripped it of furniture, bric-a-brac, heirlooms, and divided these among themselves. They got it into their heads that the property of whites belongs to them; and went about taking possession with utmost determination and insolence. Nearly all houses here have been served the same way. I sent for a United States officer and he made them restore furniture—the larger pieces, which are much damaged. Small things—mementoes which you value as much or more—are gone for good. There was but one thing they did not remove—the mirror in the wall.”[22] “The negroes have been dancing shin-digs in your house,” the Englishman went on. “They have apportioned your land out among themselves.”

Yet the Captain was not fully prepared for the desolation that met his eyes when he went home next day. Ever before, he had been met with glad greetings. Now, instead of a merry crowd of darkeys rushing out with shouts of “Howdy do, Marster!” “Howdy do, Boss!”, silence reigned and no soul bade him welcome as he made his way to his own door. Within the house one faithful servant raised her voice in lonely and pathetic notes of joy. “Where are the others?” he asked. “Where are the men?” “Don’ know, Marster.” “Tell any you can find to come here.” She returned from search to say none could be found. Dinner-hour passed. The men kept themselves invisible. He said to her: “I will be back tomorrow. Tell the men I must see every one of them then.” He returned armed. It was his known custom as a huntsman to carry a gun; hence he could carry one now without betraying distrust. “Indeed, I felt no fear or distrust,” he says; “these were my own servants, between whom and myself the kindest feelings had always existed. They had been carefully and conscientiously trained by my parents; I had grown up with some of them. They had been glad to see me from the time that, as a little boy, I accompanied my mother when she made Saturday afternoon rounds of the quarters, carrying a bowl of sugar, and followed by her little handmaidens bearing other things coloured people liked. At every cabin that she found swept and cleaned, she left a present as an encouragement to tidiness. I could not realise a need of going protected among my own people, whom I could only remember as respectful, happy and affectionate.”

He bade the woman summon the men, and he waited under the trees. They came, sullen, reluctant, evincing no trace of old-time cordiality; addressed him as “you” or “Cap’n”; were defiant; brought their guns. “Men,” he said, “I know you are free. I do not wish to interfere with your freedom. But I want my old hands to work my lands for me. I will pay you wages.” They were silent. “I want you to put my place in order, and make it as fruitful as it used to be, when it supported us all in peace and plenty. I recognise your right to go elsewhere and work for some one else, but I want you to work for me and I will on my part do all I can for you.”

They made answer short and quick: “O yes, we gwi wuk! we gwi wuk all right. De Union Ginruls dee done tell us tuh come back f’om follin arter de army an’ dig greenbacks outer de sod. We gwi wuk. We gwi wuk fuh ourse’ves. We ain’ gwi wuk fuh no white man.” “Where will you go?” “We ain’ gwine nowhar. We gwi wuk right here on de lan’ whar we wuz bo’n an’ whar belongs tuh us.” Some had not been born on the land, but had been purchased during the war by Captain Pinckney, in the kindness of his heart, to prevent family division in the settlement of an estate. One of this lot, returning from a Yankee gunboat, swaggered to conference under the trees, in a fine uniform, carrying a handsome rifle, and declared he would work or not as he pleased, come and go as he pleased and consider the land his own. He went to his cabin, stood in the door, looked the Captain in the eye, brought his gun down with a crash, and said: “Yes, I gwi wuk right here. I’d like tuh see any man put me outer dis house!”

Captain Pinckney, after waiting for the men to think over the situation, assembled them again. Their attitude was more insolent and aggressive. He gave them ten days longer for decision; then all who would not work must go. His neighbours were having similar experiences. In a section where a few years before perfect confidence had existed between white and black, all white men went armed, weapons exposed to view. They were few, the blacks many. After consultation, they reported conditions to General Devens at Charleston, and suggested that he send down a representative. He sent a company under an officer whom the planters carried from plantation to plantation. Negroes were called and addressed: “I have come to tell you people that these lands belong to these planters. The Government has not given these lands to you; they do not belong to the Government to give. You are free to hire out to whom you will, or to rent lands. But you must work. You can’t live without work. I advise you to make contracts quickly. If crops are not made, you and your families will suffer.”

This Federal visitation was not without wholesome effect. Yet the negroes would not work till starvation drove them to it. The Captain’s head-plower came confessing: “Cap’n, I ’clar’ ’fo’ Gawd, suh, I ain’ got no vittles fuh my wife an’ chillun. I ain’ got a day’s rations in my cabin.” “It’s your own fault. You can go to work any minute you want to.” “Cap’n, I’se willin’. I been willin’ fuh right smart while. I ain’ nuvver seed dis way we been doin’ wuz zackly right. I been ’fused in my min’. But de other niggers dee won’ let me wuk. Dee don’ want me tuh wuk fuh you, suh. I’se feared.” The Captain was sorely tempted to give rations without conditions, but realised that he must stand his ground. In a day or two the head-plower reappeared. “Cap’n, I come tuh ax you tuh lemme wuk fuh you, suh.” “All right. There’s your plow and mule ready. You can draw rations ahead.” One by one all came back. They had suffered, and their ex-master had suffered with them.

Many planters had severer trials than the Captain and his immediate neighbours. Down on the coast, negroes demanded possession of plantations, barricaded them and shot at owners. They pulled up bridges so owners could not reach their homes, and in this and other ways kept the whites out of property. Many planters never recovered their lands. When the time came that they might otherwise have done so, they were unable to pay accumulated taxes, and their homesteads passed forever out of their keeping.

In making contracts, Captain Pinckney’s negroes did not want money. “We don’ trus’ dat money. Maybe it git lak Confeddick money.” In rice they saw a stable value. Besides a share in the general crop, the Captain gave each hand a little plot on which to grow rice for family consumption. When the general crop was divided into shares, they would say, after retaining a “sample”: “Keep my part, suh, an’ sell it wid yo’s.” They knew he could do better for them than they could for themselves. In business and in the humanities, they looked to him as their truest friend. If any got sick, got out of food and clothes, got into a difficulty or trouble of any sort, they came or sent for him; sought his advice about family matters wherein they would trust no other man’s counsel; trusted him in everything except politics, in regard to which they would rely upon the word of the most unprincipled stranger did he but appear under the title “Republican,” “Radical,” “Union Leaguer.”

Carpet-baggers told them: “If the whites get into power, they will put you back in slavery, and will not let your wives wear hoop-skirts. If we win the election we will give you forty acres and a mule.” “I know for a fact,” Captain Pinckney assured me, “that at Adam’s Run negroes came to the polls bringing halters for mules which they expected to carry home.”

The excitement of the election of 1876, when native whites strained every nerve to win the negro vote, was fully felt on the Santee. The morning news reached El Dorado of Hampton’s election, the Captain, according to custom, walked down to his wharf to give orders for the day. He found his wharf foreman sitting on an upturned canoe, his head hung down, the picture of dejection. “William,” the Captain said, “I have good news.” “Whut is it, suh?” “General Hampton is elected.” Silence. Presently the negro half lifted his face, and looking into the eyes of the white man with the saddest, most hopeless expression in his own, asked slowly: “Well—Cap’n—whut you goin’ tuh do wid we, now?” The master’s heart ached for him! Remanded back to slavery—that was what negroes were taught to look for—to slavery not such as they had known, but in which all the follies and crimes to which they had been incited since freedom should be charged up to them. They did not, could not, realise how their old owners pitied, condoned, forgave.

Next election the struggle was renewed. After a hopeful barbecue, the Captain’s hands were threshing his rice crop. He called the foreman behind the stacks, and asked: “Well, Monday, what are you people going to do at the polls tomorrow?” “Dee gwi vote de ’Publican ticket, suh. Ef dee tells you anything else, dee’s lyin’. I gwi vote de ’Publican ticket, suh. I got it tuh do. I b’lieve all what you white gent’muns been tellin’ us at de barbecues. I knows myse’f dat dis way we niggers is a-doin’ an’ a-votin’ ain’ de bes’ way fuh de country—anybody kin see dat. But den I got tuh vote de ’Publican ticket, suh. We all has. Las’ ’lection I voted de Democrack ticket an’ dee killed my cow. Abum, he vote de Democrack ticket; dee killed his colt.” Monday counted off the negroes who had voted the “Democrack” ticket, and every one had been punished. One had been bombarded in his cabin; another’s rice crop had been taken—even the ground swept up and every grain carried off, leaving him utterly destitute. “I tell you, suh,” said Monday, “I got tuh do it on my ’count, an’ on yo’ ’count. You make me fo’man an’ ef I didn’ vote de ’Publican ticket, I couldn’ make dese niggers wuk. I couldn’ do nothin’ ’tall wid ’em.”

MRS. WADE HAMPTON

(Daughter of Governor McDuffie, of South Carolina.)

From a painting photographed by Reckling & Sons, Columbia, S. C.

The night before an election the Democratic Club was in session at McClellanville when Mr. McClellan came in and said there would be trouble next day. He had heard on the river that negroes were buying up ammunition and were coming armed to the polls. He had gone to stores and given orders that sale should be stopped. Whites now tried to buy but found stock sold out. They collected available arms and ammunition in village and neighbourhood, and concealed these under a hay-wagon, which appeared next day near the polls, one of many of similar appearance. Squads were detailed for duty near polls and wagon.

Blacks came armed, and, demurring, stacked muskets at the cross-roads which marked the hundred-yard limit prescribed by election ruling; all day they were in terrible humour. “I heard my own servants,” Captain Pinckney tells, “between whom and myself the kindliest feelings had existed, say in threatening tones: ‘We’s here tuh stan’ up fuh our rights. We ain’ gwi leave dese polls. None our colour got tuh leave dese polls ’fo’ dee close.’”

Whites preserved a front of unconcern they were far from feeling. Seventy-five whites and 500 blacks voted at this precinct. Guns once in the hands of the blacks, and turned against this little handful of whites, God help all concerned! Whites had begun to hope the day would end smoothly, when a trifling incident seemed to precipitate conflict. Two drunken white men rode hallooing along the road. The negroes, taking this as a pretext for a fight, rushed for their muskets. An old trial justice, Mr. Leland, sprang on a box and called loudly: “Come here! Come here!” They looked back. “I am the Peace Officer!” he yelled. “Come, listen to me!” Threatening, curious, sullen, they came back some paces with an air of defiance, of determination suspended for the moment. “I don’t like the looks of things,” said the old trial justice, “and I am going to call on the most influential men in the community to act as my constabulary force and help me maintain order. Pinckney!” The gunboat desperado stepped forward. “Calhoun! De Saussure! Huger! Horry! Porcher! Gaillard!” So the wily old justice went on, calling names famous in the annals of South Carolina, and black men answered. “Line up there! Take the Oath of Office! Hold up your hands and swear that, so help you God, you will help me maintain the laws and preserve the peace and dignity of the State of South Carolina!” He happened to have in his pocket a dozen old badges of office, and swift as he swore the men in, he pinned badges on them. He made them a flighty, heroic little speech and the face of events was changed.He had picked off ring-leaders in mischief for justices of the peace. Whites found it difficult to pocket smiles while beholding them strutting around, proud as peacocks, and reducing to meekness inoffensive negroes who would never have made any disturbance in the first place but for the prodding of these same new “limbs of the law.” It was trying in a different way to see a peaceable, worthy negro knocked about incontinently by bullies “showing off.” Yet the matter in hand was to get the day over without bloodshed. And this end was achieved.

Avoidance of bloodshed was not attained at all public meetings, as students of reconstruction history know too well. “And all sorts of lies went North about us,” says the Captain, “the Radicals and their paid allies sending them; and sometimes, good people writing about things they did not understand or knew by hearsay only. I stopped reading Northern papers for a long time—they made me mad. The ‘Tribune’s’ false accounts of the Ellenton Riot exasperated me beyond endurance. It got its story from a Yankee schoolmarm who got it from a negro woman. I was so aggravated that I sat down and wrote Whitelaw Reid my mind. I told him I had subscribed to the ‘Tribune’ for years, but now it was so partisan it could not tell the truth; its reports were not to be trusted and I could not stand it any longer; and he would oblige me by never sending me another copy; he could give the balance of my subscription to some charity. I directed his attention to the account of the Ellenton Riot in the ‘New York Herald’ and reminded him that the truth was as accessible to one paper as the other. Reid did not answer my letter except through an editorial dealing with mine and similar epistles.” He said in part, to the best of the Captain’s memory:“We have received indignant letters from the South in regard to recent articles in this paper. A prominent South Carolinian writes: ‘I can’t stand the “Tribune” any longer!’ One party from Texas says: ‘Stop that d—d paper!’ Now, all this for reasons which can be explained in a few words. When the ‘Tribune’ is exposing Republican rascalities, the Southerners read it with pleasure. But when it exposes Democratic rascalities, they write: ‘Stop that d—d paper!’”

BATTLE FOR THE STATE HOUSE