The Indianapolis journal., 1885-08-22
CONCERNING THE NEGRO.
The Real and the Burlesque-Tfow They Got
News in the War.
Atlanta Constitution.

News in the War
Atlanta Constitution
OF course negro minstrelsy as an illusion. It
represents nothing on earth except the abnormal
development OF n most extraordinary bun lesque.
Perhaps the very breadth and stature tso to
speak, of this burlesque, overshadowing and
putting to shame all modern buresques, gives it
strength and vitality, for 1t is enjoyed with as
keen a relish in the South where the negro is
supposed to be known. as it is in any part of the
North, where all that is known of the negro is
that he was a slave, and that he has what may
be called humorous turn.
In Georgia for instance, we have long ago
ceased to ask ourselves why the stage negro ap-
pears in variegated clothes, with his coat tails
dragging the floor, or why il is that his paste
board shirt collars threaten to scrape the hard
OIL finish from the moon, or why his buttons are
as large as saucepans We have long ago
ceased to remember that the negro was and is
anything but comic character; that he made no
puns and asked conundrums. Under the
vital influence of the stage we have even ceased
to remember his seriousness, feature intensified
rather than lightened by his humor. When,
therefore, the mammoth TOR the mastodon, as
the may bel aggregation of minstrels
march IN and proceed to crack the old Jokes we
have seen in the almanac, and perform on all
sorts or difficult instruments, and warble senti-
mental songs, we accept it all genuine--at
any rate We enjoy it as keenly as if were an un-
exaggerated transcript from life. But it is all
false in fact 1t is not even passabe burlesque;
for burlesque to be passable must have some
grain of truth Of bottom.
In the summer of 1864, when Sherman was
manipulating his army in the neighhorhood of
Atlanta, negro named Harbert, living on the
Turner plantation, in Putnam county met the
writer hereof in the woods, and said he wanted
to have Il talk. Something like the following
collOquy ensued:
What is the matter now Harbert97
Il tell you, honey, amt feelin' well in my
min"
What is the troubled"
al lOnJ< iEn Ipx- rrNxsvo 4ar ha
trouble all round yer"
'What kind of trouble Harbert2'
War trouble-war trouble. Dem Yankee
folks dey'er comm sho"
How do you known
'De news done cot in 'mongst my bones
Dey'er comm sho Dey're comm right yer"
Harberts statement was laughed at as the
widest vagary, but the colloquy proceeded:
"Well suppose they do come, what are you
gong to do?7
when, honeyN
why, when they comes"
"Who! Mel Bless yo' soul, honey! Tn
gwine ter git up 70 day, fry my meat en- cook
my bread an eat my brekus"
We'll, what are you going to do after you eat
your breakfast!'
BLESS yo' soul, honey! I'm a gwne ter whirl
in an git my dinner-ez nigh ez kin, I'm
gwine ter whirl in en- cit M dinner"
And then what will you do?'
"Well, sir, after gifts my dinner, I'm gwne
ter fly round en- see eff / can't git some
supper"
'Den I'm gwin ter march ter de house en- an
AK marser eff he amt got nothing else for me
ter do. Den, after dat, I'm gwine back en- git
me little sack er sumpn ner ter eat en- den
I'll drap back in my cheer and nod. OATS me,
up down"
After this converaton with Harbert he was in
the habit of giving his young white friend
great deal of information in regard to the move
ments of the Union army Whether he was
moved by desire to insure the personal safety
of his friend or merely by desire to impress a
youngsters mind with statements that seemed
at the time to be the inventions of the widest
Imagination, but which turned out to be liter
ally true, 1t is impossible to say. But Harbert
was better Informed and more accurate than the
newspapers of that day, albeit his method of
dispensing the news seemed to take the some
what picturesque shape of prophecy. There can
be no doubt that this neGro-and of course 9TH
ers in that section-knew that Sherman's army
would march through Putnam, and by the Tur-
ner plantation.
The mystery is not such mystery after all.
Plantation discipline was severer in form than
in fact. 1t was rule, for instance, that negroes
should not visit neighboring plantations without
the written consent of their owners-this witten
consent taking the shape of pass A negro
without this pass was liable to be caught and
punished by the patrol. AS matter of fact,
however, the patrol exercised its functions of
visiting from plantation to plantation only at
long intervals, and even during the war period,
when most of the able bodied men were in the
confederate army. its vigilance was not measur-
bly, increased The result that a negro
| rarely thought of asking for pass unless he
had occasion to make a journey that would carry
him to strange neighborhood. He visited his
friends and acquaintance without let or him
drance and there was a constant coming and
going among the plantations at all times Of the
night.