Dwelling Place Page 33
Except for those in the plantation house, the young women in the settlements did not have as many opportunities as the men to learn specialized work such as belonged to drivers, carpenters, riders, or fishermen. Phoebe, Patience, Lucy, and a few others worked as cooks and seamstresses, chambermaids, and personal servants. But Andrew’s and Mary Ann’s daughters Sylvia, Dinah, and Delia, along with most of the young women in the settlements at Maybank and Carlawter, were taught to labor in the fields, plowing the ground, planting the seeds, hoeing the weeds, and harvesting the crops. To be sure, they had to learn how to handle a plow and make a mule turn to the right or left by calling “gee” or “haw,” and how to swing a hoe and carry on their heads a bundle of rice or bag of cotton, but their work was generally limited to the most routine and often burdensome of agricultural labor.31
Despite the schoolhouse’s being closed during the days of the week to those who lived in the settlement, it was open in the evenings as a chapel for their prayers and worship. And it was open on Sunday afternoons as well, the one time during the week that Gilbert and Niger and those who worked the fields or washed clothes were invited in for a lesson. Joining them were young and old from the settlements at nearby Woodville and Social Bluff who wished to take part in the Sunday school. Mary Jones and Julia King were the primary teachers, although when Charles was not away preaching and teaching, he often conducted the lessons. And as the Jones children grew older, they too joined in teaching biblical stories and their father’s catechism to old and young alike. The lessons that they taught followed the pattern at the various stations, but Mary and Julia frequently added another subject to their lessons—they read news reports from the Charleston Observer and other religious papers. Most often they read reports from missionaries, especially those of John Leighton Wilson from Cape Palmas and then Gabon, which, while couched in the piety of the mission movement, were rich in details about the history, traditions, and current events among the Kru and Grebo of Liberia, the Mpongwe of Gabon, and other peoples of the regions. Such reports must have been windows to a wider world for those who lived in the settlement—as they were windows for those who lived in the plantation house at Maybank. Indeed, the reports may have been one of the strongest drawing cards to the Sunday school for a people largely isolated on an island and kept from learning to read and write. Other worlds were revealed in the reports, and whatever ideological purposes may have been intended in reading them to slaves, the hearing of the reports provided important reminders that the way life was ordered at Maybank was not the way life was ordered everywhere, that whites were not always owners and blacks not always slaves. Such other worlds undercut white attempts to control the imagination of the settlements and to prevent the imagining of subversive alternatives that could challenge the current arrangements on the plantations.32
Woman pounding rice in Liberty County (courtesy Georgia Archives)
And so the education of the children and young adults who lived in the settlement at Maybank proceeded day by day, as did the education of those who lived in the plantation house. But there were other elements to the education in the settlement, elements that were more secretive and not as obvious as the education for their work or the education in the Sunday schools and worship services. These were the lessons taught by parents and other older ones around the evening fires in the settlement by the marsh. As the night wind stirred the ancient oaks and the sound of the surf rolled in the distance, lessons were taught about life on a low-country plantation and about how to act around whites. A central message of the lessons was for the children to recognize in whites, even benevolent ones, a dangerous presence. They were to be, said one Sea Island slave, “jus’ like de birds when a gunner was about, expectin’ a crack ebery minute.” Gilbert and Niger and other young slaves were taught to remain quiet or act dumb when questioned by Charles or Mary. Such a strategy was a way to avoid trouble and was a means to protect oneself and one’s family and friends. The young were taught to be cautious and act “Jes like the tarpins or turtles.” “Jes stick our heads out to see how the land lay.” Those who lived in the settlements, Charles wrote in some frustration, “are scrupulous on one point: they make common cause, as servants, in concealing their faults from their owners. Inquiry elicits no information; no one feels at liberty to disclose the transgressor; all are profoundly ignorant; the matter assumes the sacredness of a ‘professional secret.’”33
Gilbert and Niger, Sylvia and Dinah, and all the others growing up in the settlements were taught to use the language of subservience as a strategy of concealing the secret life of the slaves—“massa” or “missus” could be used as terms of address to make owners think the lessons of subservience had been well learned and to hide the lessons of resistance being taught by settlement elders. But such behavior required walking a fine line, and slave children had to learn how far they could go without evoking an angry response. For if a master thought what he was hearing was a sham, if a mistress thought some deception was in the air, they could quickly become outraged. Indeed, many whites believed all slaves were deceitful. Even Charles felt this. He believed that there was “an upper and an under current” in slave life. “Persons live and die in the midst of Negroes,” he wrote in the year James Dubuar came to Maybank, “and know comparatively little of their real character…. The Negroes are a distinct class in community, and keep themselves very much to themselves. They are one thing before the whites, and another before their own color. Deception towards the former is characteristic of them, whether bond or free, throughout the whole United States.” Charles believed that such behavior was taught in the settlements, that it was “a habit—a long established custom, which descends from generation to generation.” So life at Maybank, as at Montevideo and other plantations, involved deception by those who lived in the settlement and suspicion and surveillance by those who lived in the plantation house. No amount of benevolent intentions on the part of Charles and Mary could overcome this fundamental reality of life on a low-country plantation.34
The hidden lessons at Maybank and other plantations did not, however, always remain hidden. What was taught around the evening fires would be made public in veiled and opaque ways to those who lived in plantation houses. And at May-bank and Montevideo, the one who most often did this muffled revealing was apparently none other than Jack, the patriarch of the settlements, the most respected man of the settlements among both whites and blacks alike. Jack did the revealing by being the central storyteller and conveyor of folktales. While he was much more for the Jones family than an Uncle Remus figure—he was too important a part of their lives to be simply an old storyteller—he was apparently the primary one from whom young Charlie learned the Gullah tales he published years later as Negro Myths from the Georgia Coast, Told in the Vernacular. To be sure, the primary audience for Jack’s stories was Gilbert and Niger, Phoebe and Patience, and the others who struggled daily to make their way through the dangers of slavery. But the stories also provided a way to say to whites what could not be said directly. So stories were told on the kitchen steps to the young whites on the plantation, and they would be remembered and recorded by Charlie.35
Some of the stories Jack told appeared to be simply explanations of what could be seen in the landscape of the low country. As the white children sat around him, Jack explained “How Come Buh Alligatur Nebber Sleep Fur From de Ribber Bank.” Jack told how Buh Rabbit made trouble for Buh Alligatur—he set the broom grass on fire and made Buh Alligatur rush to get in the water. Buh Alligatur, said Jack, was so mad at Buh Rabbit that “Buh Rabbit faid Alligatur an ribber tell dis day.” And because of the fire, “From dat day to dis,” Jack noted, “you kin nebber ketch Buh Alligatur sleep fur from de bank; an de fus time eh yeddy [hears] bush crack, er anyting mek rackit, he leggo everyting an fall right in de water.”36
Some stories provided moral guidance and told the children of the settlement and the plantation house how to live in a community. You should keep your promises
for “Anybody wuh gwine back on eh prommus, an try fuh harm de pus-son wuh done um a faber, sho ter meet up wid big trouble.” And you should not meddle in other people’s business because it is a “Bad plan fur stranger fuh meddle long tarruh people bidness.” And you should always be a faithful friend because “Eh yent [it doesn’t do], in dis wul, fuh man fuh ceive [to deceive] he fren.” And when in need, you should turn to your friends, because “Wen you want somebody fuh do you sarbis, call pon you fren, but don’t trus you eenemy done um.”37
But Jack was interested in teaching young Gilbert and Niger and all the others in the settlements about the dangers of life in the low country, and in the muffled language of the stories he gave hints to the white children about the dangers blacks faced. He wanted those in the settlements to know how blacks needed to be always on their guard against whites, and he told stories that not only provided warnings but also taught strategies for surviving and for tricking masters and mistresses. In “Buh Fowl-Hawk an Buh Rooster,” Jack told how the hawk came to eat the children of the rooster:
When Buh Rooster clean forgit Buh Hawk, an leh eh chillun play bout een de grass, befo eh know, down drap Buh Fowl-Hawk, an eh ketch up one er dem same Buh Rooster chillun. En fly off wid um to one big oak tree, an eh pick eh bone clean. Buh Rooster holler, but eh cant tetch Buh Hawk. De chicken sweet. Buh Hawk feel good. From dat day tell now, Buh Fowl-Hawk blan [is accustomed to] pick eh chance an lib off Buh Rooster chillun.
Jack was giving a serious warning to all the parents in the settlements—watch after your children! Watch after your children! Always remember whites might sweep down at any moment and carry them off! Whites live off the children of the settlements, and once they get them, all your crying will not bring them back. In such a dangerous world, Jack insisted, parents should discipline their children: “Do same luk Buh Eagle. Mine you childlun well wen dem leetle; an soon es dem big nough fuh wuk, mek um wuk.” Jack’s niece Patience took these lessons to heart, but his daughter Phoebe ignored his warnings and would pay a bitter price. And as for the white children, they only found the stories entertaining.38
Jack also taught trickster tales that had their roots in west Africa. The tricksters—and Buh Rabbit was the greatest of them in the low country—used their wits to get the best of powerful figures like Buh Wolf, Buh Alligatur, and Buh Bear. In the story, for example, that explained why the alligator stays near the riverbank, the trickster makes the powerful anxious, always listening and ready to slip into the safety of the water at the slightest hint of danger.39
In perhaps the most daring of his stories, Jack told the children—and perhaps the adults on the piazza heard it too—how the two antagonists Buh Wolf and Buh Rabbit competed for the affection of a “rich an berry pooty” gal. Buh Rabbit tricks the wolf into letting him ride him to the woman’s house, where the victorious rabbit calls out: “Wuh you tink er me rarruh [father’s] ridin horse?” Having been mounted and humiliated before the woman, “Buh Wolf so painful, so bex, an so shame, eh keep on run, an eh nebber come back fur see de Gal no mo.” When the woman “notus how smate Buh rabbit bin,” she consents to marry him. In the worst of white nightmares, the weak not only wins the possession of the rich and pretty woman but also humiliates the strong male by mounting and domesticating him.40
The world Jack told about in the stories was a harsh world where danger could come sweeping down suddenly from the sky and where the weak could trust the strong only at great risk—even the strong who claimed to be the friend of the weak. His stories were filled with the bitter wisdom of those who knew all too well how arbitrarily whites could act, how indifferent they could be to the interests, affections, and commitments of blacks. Yet the world Jack revealed in his stories was profoundly complex, for the weak could turn against the weak and friend could betray friend. Life in the settlements was not all harmony, nor was it always marked by the solidarity of the oppressed. The powerful in the settlements, especially the drivers, could abuse the weak, especially the women, and those who were weak could adopt the brutal practices of the strong. After Buh Wolf tries to burn up Buh Rabbit in a hollow tree, Buh Rabbit tricks the wolf—who mistakenly trusts Buh Rabbit—into getting into a hollow log. The rabbit then burns up the wolf, showing him no mercy. “Buh Rabbit,” said Jack, “leetle fuh true an eh yent strong, but en berry scheemy an eh hab er bad heart.” Buh Rabbit knew, however, he was up against a powerful and ruthless opponent in Buh Wolf, who had his own tricks and schemes and his own bad heart.41
Such were the lessons taught to Gilbert and Niger and the other children of the settlement, and such were the lessons heard if not understood by the white children. For Jack was telling not simple stories but sophisticated narratives that were open to various interpretations. Charlie and most whites heard in them what they were educated to expect from blacks—amusing, fanciful tales of an ignorant and superstitious people. But for those who had ears to hear, especially those educated in the settlements, the stories explored in depth the character of human life in the low country and provided wisdom for living in a harsh and often arbitrary world.
The education of Gilbert and Niger, of Sylvia and Dinah, and all the others growing up in the settlements at Maybank and Carlawter was thus severely restricted but nevertheless multilayered and rich. Such an education helped to form them not into simple stereotypes—into those whose character was marked by an infantile dependence or whose rage led them to become heroic freedom fighters—but rather into complex personalities of often remarkable cohesion and integrity.42 During the coming years they would draw on the resources of their education to guide them along various and sometimes competing paths toward a distant freedom.
19
ARCADIA
Following his graduation from Columbia Seminary in 1839, John Jones spent almost a year as a part of the family at Montevideo and Maybank. He had been an assistant to Charles in his missionary work and had met with substantial success at the stations and at the North Newport Baptist Church. In the fall of 1840 he was called to the adjoining county to be the pastor of the Bryan Neck Presbyterian Church, a congregation composed primarily of three wealthy planting families—the Clays, the McAllisters, and the Arnolds—and of numerous black slaves.1
John was already demonstrating the characteristics that were to mark his long ministry—he had a warm and friendly manner that invited confidence, an ability to empathize deeply with the joys and sorrows of those around him, and an evangelical zeal that was rooted in a genuine and attractive piety. But he was a restless soul, and he would have difficulty staying in one place for very long. He was also—strange to say, in light of his restlessness—a great procrastinator. People came to expect him to be regularly late—it was, he lamented, his besetting sin. Repentance, however, did not change his behavior. He had been late writing a letter ending a relationship with Senator Elliott’s daughter, late writing a formal letter for the engagement with his fiancée, and he was late for one of the first church services at Bryan Neck. Friends rebuked him without success. His warmth and good humor, however, covered a multitude of such sins, and those who knew him came in time to overlook what would otherwise have appeared as negligence.2
Thomas Clay, with his long-standing concern for the religious instruction of slaves, played an important role in the call of John to be the pastor at Bryan Neck, and it was to his home, Richmond-on-the-Ogeechee, that John went on his arrival in Bryan County. Richmond was an unusually handsome plantation. Frederick Law Olmsted, the distinguished New York landscape architect, visited the plantation on one of his southern journeys and described with enthusiasm the
beauty of the place. After passing through the settlement, where Clay had constructed neat cottages on each side of the avenue, Olmsted approached the plantation house. On either side of the avenue, “at fifty feet distant, were rows of old live-oak trees, their branches and twigs slightly hung with a delicate fringe of gray moss, and their dark, shining, green foliage meeting and intermingling naturally but dens
ely overhead.” Olmsted stopped his horse and held his breath, for, he wrote, “I have hardly in all my life seen anything so impressively grand and beautiful.” He rode on and found a circular courtyard and the “owner’s mansion,” surrounded by an “irregular plantation of great trees,” with one oak that was seven feet in diameter. What Olmsted found was a home well known to Charles and Mary, one where during the coming years they would be frequent visitors.3
John arrived at Richmond as a young man about to be married to Jane Dunwody, a family friend. Her maternal grandfather, James Smith, had ridden with Charles’s father on his fateful hunt in 1805 and now divided his time between his plantations in the low country and his home near Marietta in “Cherokee Georgia.” Her uncle, John Dunwody, moved between his handsome new mansion in Roswell and his Liberty County plantation Arcadia. In December 1840 he visited the Clays at Richmond and made inquiries about the character of the young minister. Dunwody wrote his widowed sister: