Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-08-24
THE LIBRARY TABLE
By the BOokloUer

tenth centuries Is described from ma
terial furnished by the plantation owners
and their overseers themselves in Life
and Labor in the Old South" by Ulrich
B. Phillips. The records of the owners are
supplemented by letters and diaries of
travellers who were Hospitality enter
tanned on the plantations. Three chap
tiers Of the book contain the most inter-
eSt1ng of these accounts, and furnish
valuable social history-"Some Virginia
Masters" Southeastern Plantations"
and planters of the Southwest" Mr..
Phillips says: "As rule, sojourners
wrote more illuminatingly than tourists,
because more intimately and with some
| continuity of experience. Philip Fithian,
j. H. Ingraham, A. de Puy Van Buren,,
Emily Burke and Catherine Hopley
went as teachers, Nehemiah Adams and
T. D. Ozanne as preachers, Solomon
Norttup went as Negro kidnapped into
| slavery, and wrote vivid account Of
plantation life from the under side. But
eX-slave narratives in general, and those
of Charles Ball, Henry Box Brown and
Esther Henson in particular, were issued
with so much abolitionist editing that
as a class their authenticity Is doubt
full" Propaganda was present in much
of the writing done specifically for the
press, so care must be exercised by the
student using such material. The ac-
counts Of travellers are usually free from
propaganda, but have other faults as
documents. They often take note of
what Is unfamiliar to the writers and do
not discriminate between exceptional
happenings and the regular routine of
plantation life. Mr.. Phillips lists his
material as diaries Of routine, financial
records, overseers' reports, miscellanies
Of letters, legal documents and vouch-
ers, and these are "often, Of course,
mingled with mass of trivial rubbish"
X X X 4
Life on the Carter plantation In Vir-
ginia may be followed through scat
tered records for at least four genera
lions. The "chief architect of the fam
lily fortune" was Robert Carter, born in
1868. His wealth, many public Offices
and "domineering demeanro" won him
the name of King Carter" BY the be-
ginning Of the eighteenth century he
was one of the leading landed pro-
prietors in the Northern Neck, and at
his death the inventory of his estate,
left to his nine children, made a huge
catalogue On his estate at Corotoman
were II indentured white servants, some
Of whom were sailors, tailorS, carpenters,
glazier, bricklayer and black
smith, and 80 slaves. On his wide
spreading lands in nearly dozen coun-
ties were about 700 slaves, 100 or more
horses, nearly 1000 cattle, as many
swine, and several hundred sheep. The
slaves were distributed over the land in
about so quarters" with a white over
seer and a slave foreman over each
group. The fourth surviving son Of this
King Carter" Landon, was master of
q INA Yon Gor0ny-iHn Y6 q
near the Rappahannock, and Nippon
Hall and Rings Neck, on the York. He
kept an interesting diary, in which he
recorded data concerning crops, prices,
slaves, overseers, politics, wars and gen.
eral news travel, house parties and bar
becues, the management Of his house.
hold, the education Of his children and
family quarrels. His chief crops were
cereals, tobacco, flax, hemp and cotton.
He had considerable trouble with his
slaves and was not always satisfied with
his overseers. One entry reads: This
is a strange year about my overSeers-
some horrid, hellish rogues, and others
religious villains" Robert Carter of
Nomini Hall was nephew Of Landon
Carter. His homestead Is described by
Philip Fithian, who was tutor to his
children, 177374. This Carter, called
Councillor Carter. because of his mem
II children, and the expenses Of life at
Nomini Hall were heavy. Fithian notes
that the food consumed annually in
cluded 20 beeves, $4,000 pounds of pork,
500 bushels of wheat, unmeaSured corn,
4 hogSheadS of rum and 3 barrels of
whisky, with much Madeira-and this
was when number of the children were
not yet born. There we're % fireplaces,
and in Winter six oxen hauled four
loads of wood a day to supply them.
The handsome estate of Shirley came
into the Carter family when John Car
ter, son Of king Carter" married the
daughter of Col. Edward Hill, who had
built the original house at Shirley, on
the James River, in 1850. Charles Car
ter, son of John, found this house too
small for his family of % children, and
enlarged it by adding a third story in
mansard style. In 1888 Shirley was the
home of Hill Carter, grandson of
Charles. In that year it was visited by
Henry Barnard, a Yale graduate, who
described the life there. The table was
sumptuously supplied. At dinner were
served soup, saddle of mutton, ham, beef,
turkey, ducks. eggs, sweet potatoes,
greens. hominy, champagne, plum pud-
ding, tarts, ice cream, branded peaches,
figs, raisins, almonds, Madeira, port and
sweet wine Cfor the ladies'.
X X X +
Life on the plantations of the South
east and Southwest was not as elegant
and luxurious as in Virginia. In Louis
lana concomitants Of plantation life
were yellow fever and malaria. John
Palfrey, a Boston merchant, bought a
tract of wild land on Bayou rAlbaye,
in Louisiana, and parcel of slaves to
work 1t. He thus became Louisiana
planter, and kept journals, in which he
recorded the expenses and happenings
of his estate. He called his place For
lorn Hope, and there passed the re-
mainder Of his life in melancholy seclu-
sion. Two of his sons died of yellow
fever, and malaria among his slaves
caused such expense that he was Obliged
to sell a slave man for $525 to pay the
doctor. Palfreys chief crop was, at first,
cotton, and his slaves picked from Sep
TENDER to February. As he had no gin,
he sent 1t to a neighbor to be ginned in
the Summer of 1912, and then the war
with Great Britain depressed the price,
and he was obliged to sell at great loss
to pay his debts. Finding the moist
climate Of the Teche district unfavorable
to cotton. Palfrey changed his crop to
sugar, and built a sugar mill in 1929
The new crop helped to pay off the
debts of the cotton failure. Through
the years Of failure and modest success,
yellow fever and malaria, Palfrey's
slaves increased steadily, and he seems
to have treated them well. In 1911 he
owned %, and at the time of his death,
In 1843, the number was more than
trebled. After the death of Palfrey
Forlorn Hope was sold. Mr.. Phillips
says of the son Of John Palfrey: "This
planter was often hampered by illness
canes and excessive rain. His low lati-
tude, however, gave his sugar cane a
long growing season. and sometimes a