LIFE AROUND 1846

NATIONAL PICTURE:

Slavery and Anti-slavery Agitation:

Both North and South stirred with agitation about slavery.

Abolitionists in North led by Wm Loyd Garrison and his
Liberator", Frederic Douglas, Sojourner Truth etc.

Great development of the Southwest, during decade 1830-40;
the admission of Texas, another slave state, in 1845; grow-
importance of cotton in the southwest made slavery more
profitable.

American Colonization Movement (1817-1840)-nationwide, among both races-unsuccessful.

War with Mexico 1846-48.

LOUISANNA AND NEW ORLEANS:

New Orleans-fourth largest city in country in 1840; second to New
York as a seaport. 102,192 inhabitants in 1840. Cultural
center of the South-Opera, Theater-European Stars. Gambling
horse racing, dueling, steamboat racing, cook-and dog-fight-
ing, magnificent balls, Mardi Gras-mecca for vacationists.
New public school system put into effect 1847.

Trade shifted from general commerce to cotton- Erie Canal and Sea-
board Railroads began to drain away traffic of the northwest
and middle west.

LIFE AROUND 1846

CONTEMPORARY FIGURES:

Presidents:

**Andrew Jackson:** born 1767; died 1845 in Nashville, Tenn.
hero of Battle of New Orleans 1814
President 1828-1832 (two terms)
1. Defeated the National Bank

**Martin Van Buren:** President-1836-40

**W. H. Harrison:** born 1773; died 1840 (while President)
hero of Tippecanoe on Wabash River
President one month 1840

**John Tyler:** President 1840-44

**James K. Polk:** born 1795; died 1849 in Nashville, Tenn.
President 1844-1848

**Zachary Taylor:** born?; died 1850 in the White House
hero of the War with Mexico
cotton planter with large estate in
Louisiana.
President 1848-1850 elected from La.

**Jefferson Davis:** born in 1808 in Kentucky not far from
Lincoln. Was a Miss. planter 1835-45.
President of the Confederacy.

LIFE AROUND 1846

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND- Things Adults Would Remember

Big fire of 1788- four-fifths of city burned- tapers lighted
in observance of Good Friday ignite curtains in home.

First Newspaper in Louisianna- Le Moniteur de la Louisianne in
1794; another big fire burn 212 buildings; first gran-
ulation of sugar-1794

Under Three Flags- Spanish Flag superceded by French, in turn
superceded by American-1803. People gather in Place
d'Armes to watch ceremonies. Dislike of Americans and
substitution of English as official language. Dueling
between Americans and Creols- leads to division of city
into three sections after Creole kills American in duel
and is freed by court according to custom- Americans mob
house of judge.

Aaron Burr and his scheme to set up a new nation in the West sails
to make New Orleans his headquarters- 1806

First Steamboat arrives in New Orleans January 10, 1812.

Louisianna admitted to the Union April 30, 1812

War of 1812- Battle of New Orleans 1815. City defended by Andrew Jackson, the famous pirates; Jean and Pierre Lafitte and the Baratarians; Coffee and his Kentucky Mountaineers, who marched 120 miles in two days, Negroes and Choctaw Indians. The grand triumphal parade.

Fulton-Livingston steamboat monoply voided by the U. S. Supreme
Court. Steamboats jump from 21 in 1814 to 989 in 1830.

First Criminal Court-1817 to take care of great influx of gamblers
Curfew at 8 and 9 o'clock sounded by cannon shot.

First Steam waterworks completed-1818. Water for drinking and gen-
eral use. Formerly water peddled at four bucketsful for
a picayune (6¼)

Expedition to rescue Napoleo. Dissolved with death of Napoleo in
1821.

First English Flay in New Orleans. Presented by James H. Caldwell.
Cornerstone laid for "American Theater" in 1822.

Illuminating gas introduced for street-lighting- 1823. Trees plant-
ed along the levee (especially Syoamores).

Masked Street Dancing-popular again in 1835 after being suppresed
by Spanish. Newspapers describe Mardi Gras for 1st time.

Pontchartrain Railroad- New Orleans to Milneburg 4½ miles- 1831
financial success.

Medical College Of Louisianna founded in 1834.

Bank Failures- Panic of 1837- 14 New Orleans banks suspend specie payment. Municipalities and even people print own money.

Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1832 and 1833- 10,000 die.

Washington Scandal - the snubbing of Peggy O'Neil during the second term of Andrew Jackson, by the wives of all the Cabinet members despite the defense of her morals by Jackson.

LIFE AROUND 1846

LIFE OF A CHILD 1840-50:

Social Life in Old New Orleans
by Elizabeth Ripley

(Story of childhood days as recollected)

Clothing: clothes were homemade; wool shawl for the shoulders:

pelisse made from an old of mothers.

Pantalettes of linen- straight and narrow and untrimmed,
fell over legs to shootops-white in most instances but
black bombazine or black alpaca for mourning.

For the grownups: "best frocks for dinners and parties
were made with short sleeves (caps, so called) and tapes
sewed in the armholes. Long sleeves were tied under the
"caps". (the ladies) Take off sleeves and put on gloves
to descend to the dancing room. Black, heels&slippers
with narrow black ribbons wound over the instep and cross-
ed and recrossed from the ankle way up over white stock-
ings were the style.

Hairdress: hair done in expansive plaits and puffs.

Henriette Blondeau fashionable hairdresser, had a style
called "basket of fruit"; front locks, tiny fluffy curls
on each side of face and long ringlets to float over
shoulders.

Everywoman at middle age wore lace caps- meeklin lace.

Parasols had heavy fringes in colors and were carried
upsidedown by ring that fitted the finger.

School: Private-girls taught music, manners, dancing, small talk etc.
One professor made delinquent pupils kneel in brickdust
and tracks and study neglected lessons aloud. Stockings
did not extend to knees and pantalettes were rolled up.
One professor of Department and Dancing carried his violin
in a green baize bag and wore corsets laced 'within an
inch of his life. He wore a long-tailed coat very full
at the spider waistline so that he could hold it like a
skirt when he taught the girls to courtesy. Sir Walter
Scott was read, though once the girls got hold of the
'pernicious' "Jane Eyre". They exercised by marching two
by two around the block. A teacher before and behind kept
away the mischievous boys from the school nearby. The
girls received many Valentines, however. In bad weather
the girls wore "gums" and wrapped in long shaggy coats,
very heavy. They were dosed with hot ginger tea for all
ailments.

Play: Kids jumped rope and went crawfishing in the ditches.
Dolls with wooden joints had all their features such as
hair, eyes, ears etc., painted on their smooth bullet-shape
heads. Parties ended at early candlelight. The whirls
and heel and toe steps of the polka were danced in steps
of eight like old time quadrilles. With the playing of
the march Norma the procession started for the refresh-
ments. New Year's was visiting day for the men and re-
ceiving day for the women. Eggnog and brandy were served.

LIFE AROUND 1846

Other Cooking Notes:

For making jelly, calves feet had to be se-
cured a week ahead. No fruit extracts, no
baking powder, no ground spices, no seedless
raisons, no isinglass or egg-beater. The
borrowing habit was unknown and one had to
walk great distances to get everything for
a meal or party.

Invitations to parties were all put in a
basket and carried from house by a servant.

Steamboats:

The Grey Eagle, number one floating palace;
the Belle of the West; the Fashion; the

Henry Clay. Ladies cabins were in the stern
ten or twelve cabins divided by curtains and
having upper and lower berths. The men's

cabins stretched down to the officers quarters,
the bar, barbershop, pantries and Social Hall.
Articles were carried in carpet bags-no valises
suitcases or steamer trunks. There was a
pitcher and basin in each cabin; lighted by
swinging whale-oil lamps. Flatboats a common
sight on the river. Boats had to stop "to
wood".

"Imagine steamer after steamer sweeping, sound-
ing, thundering on blazing with a thousand
lights, casting long brilliant reflections on
the fast rolling water beneath. (There are
often a number of them, one after another like
so many comets in Indian file) "From Grace
King page 277

Incidental Notes:

Alfred Munroe's "one price store". People accustomed to the fun of 'hectoring over price of articles and striking a bargain. New store with set price for all articles is successful. hold

Daguerreotypes-head with callipers or
steel braces- hold smile for full minute.

Before the streets were paved, marriages were
seldom used to go to the ball. Ladies seen
at times with skirts lifted high, shoes in hand
(also stockings) walking to the ball.

Street 37 feet wide and blocks 320 feet long.
Ditches at side to carry away seepage from leve
Slop and garbage created stench only relieved
by flushing rains. Streets lighted by means
of lanterns hung from hooks attached to the
corners of buildings.

LIFE AROUND 1846

**Morning Street Scene:** Chant of cream cheese woman in morning. Get tiny heart-shaped cheese with dash of cream from a claret bottle, price one picayune. Colored marchands, trays balanced on their heads and arms akimbo, selling small celesto figs or large blue ones nestling on fig leaves. Popcorn tic tac balls made with "open kettle" sugar (fragrant brown); pralines made with the same sugar, all fixed in small piles each for a picayune.

Boys with scoops watering streets from brimming gutters.

Wax head at Dr. De Leon, Dentist, which opened and shut its mouth, first with a row of teeth and with empty cavity.

Italian in his rude fruit stall selling bananas and oranges.

Quadroon with her early morning coffee stall. Fig trees, thickets of running roses in damp places, clusters of palmetto and blooming flags.

**Market Place:** Stalls where one can buy for a picayune a bit of cabbage, a leek, sprig of parsley, a carrot, a tiny turnip all tied in a slender package. Also a "cornet" of fresh gumbo "file", a bunch of horse radish roots, a little sage, parsley, herbs of every sort, a string of dried grasshoppers for the mocking bird.

**The Picayune:** Spanish coin usually well worn and often having a hole in it. Kids carried them tied in the corner of their handkerchiefs. Smallest coin. Kids bought some mead. Mead was a thick honey creamy drink, more for your money than the frothy, effervescent, palish soda water.

"Pa ordered ginger syrup (of all things) with his soda.

**Sugar:** Sugar was in cone-shaped loaves, hard as stone and weighing several pounds each. It was well shaped and kept hung (like hams in the smoke house) from the ceiling. It was cut in chips with carning knife and hammer and pounded and rolled into powder. Except for crude brown there was no cut, pulverized or granulated sugar.

**Ice Cream:** Seasoned by boiling whole vanilla bean in milk. Frozen in hugh cylinders without dasher; whirl-ed in an ice tub by hand for an hour.

LIFE AROUND 1846

Slave Trading:

"The great slave market is held in several houses situated in a particular part of the city. Groups of colored men and women of all shades between black and light yellow sit unemployed at the doors. Finally the slaves are summoned into a large hall and arranged in two rows. They are well-fed and clothed, but it is said that they present a different picture when brought in two by two chained, in long rows after many days fatiguing marches. Women are few in comparison with men. One of them, a slave girl, stands in the same manner as he would a horse.

Slave auction rooms are found in various parts of New Orleans. There are a number of people present. Twenty gentlemanlike men stood in a half-circle around a dirty wooden platform. By the wall stood the black men and women serious and silent. The whole assembly was silent. Two men entered and mounted the platform. One explained these were all good slaves being sold to meet a financial obligation, then handed a tall mulatto woman to the stage. She stood with sorrowful countenance looking only at the sleeping baby in her arms, while the man extroled her virtues. She wore a grey dress, worn close to the throat and had a pale yellow handkerchief checked in brown, tied around her head. Sold for $700, the child enchancing her value."

(Frederica Bremer-1852, in Grace King)

New Year's Day was hiring day for slaves. Slaves gathered outside on the grounds to be hired out for the year. It was easy to tell who were the good masters for the slaves crowded around begging them to hire them for the year. The slave who refused to go with his new master was whipped and jailed until he changed his mind. If he later changed his mind, he was put in chains for days and days. It was a sad day for the slaves, especially the mothers waiting for their children to be sold."

"The little master rubbed pennies with quicksilver and made my brother pass them off as quaters on the old man at the fruit stall"

"My brother Benjamine, recaptured after escaping on a ship, was chained to an old vermin infested man when he refused to beg the master for mercy."

LIFE AROUND 1846

Slave Trading:
(page two)

Following Nat Turner's Insurrecion, the poor whites were organized into searching parties led by the planters and overseers. They searched avery Negro's home, stealing all they could carry away."

Snake-bite:

Trying to escape, the author was bitten by a snake. Her friends applied warm ashes and vinegar. Another remedy was to soak a dozen coppers in vinegar over night, then apply the cankered vinegar to the wound. An Indian remedy was to apply wet ashes and plunge the limb in strong lie. The trappers used to carry a supply of ammonia, as did men working on railroads.

"$300 Reward:

Ran away from the subscriber, an intelligent, bright, mullatto girl named Linda, 21 years of age. Five feet four inches high. Dark eyes, and black hair inclined to curl: but it can be made straight. Has a decayed spot on a front tooth. She can read and write, and in all probability will try to get to the Free States. All persons are forbidden, under penality of the law, to harbor or employ said slave. $150 will be given to whoever takes her in the state, and $300 if taken out of the state and delivered to me or lodged in jail.

Dr. Flint"

(All of the above was taken from an auto-
biography entitled Incidents in the Life
of a Slave Girl by Linda Brent.)

$50 Dollars Reward

RAN AWAY from the plantation of Gen. Andrew Jackson....in Franklin County (Ala).Gilbert, a negro man, about 35 or 40 years of age, very black and fleshy, with full round face, has a scar on one of his cheeks but not recollected with...

John Coffee

"The euphemisms and amenities of the Black
Code were in the making. The word 'slave
met the eye or ear. One spoke of 'servants',
'the hands' or 'the force' slavery was trans-
lated as the South's 'peculiar' domestic in-
stitutions". (From Andrew Jackson by Marquis
James page 29) (kmautx (about 1822).

LIFE AROUND 1846

Prison Life:

"I write from Palmyra Jail (Mo.). The wall is about four feet thick, made of two thicknesses of hewed logs with one foot of stone between them and the outside brick. Myself and my companions sit on the floor. We have three of four very poor blankets for a bed. The food is cornbread and bacon which is eaten with the fingers. There are also two colored and one white in the cell. Upstairs the guards drank gambled and caroused with vile women." (Three religious students who crossed into Missouri from Illinois and are jailed on suspicion of enticing slaves to break for freedom.)

On the day of the trial, the shackles were knocked off with hammer and chisel and outside a gaping crowd gathered to witness. The jury confessed prejudice but thought they could decide on the justice of the case. The trial was posponed because it was difficult to get enough men jurors, and because there was no law that had been violated.

In his closing plea, the State's Attorney said that the slaves were as sheep and liberty as salt and enticing a slave by spreading the offer of liberty was just as really larceny as telling away a man's sheep with salt.

The men were sentenced to twelve years in the state penitentiary in Jefferson City.

The state penitentiary was leased out for ten-year periods for what leases could get out of them. The treatment varied according to the men in charge. The prevailing custom was to shave one side of the head and attire the men in bright striped suits and hats. The prisoners were chains, some on one ankle, some on both the chains also suspended from their loins. In addition some had large fetters on their feet.

**Rules:** Must not speak to any prisoner out of your cell or to each other in the cell, must not look at any visitor, even your brother; must take off your cap when speaking to officer or officer to you; call no conviet Mr.

**Cell:** Measured 12 by 8 feet and was arched. It was brick and plaster. A window on hinges in the corner at the top was defended by two large iron bars. The iron door was about four feet by 22 inches with a thick wooden door on the outside. For the three men in the cell there were two beds, a double and a single. There were three very poor, too short blankets. Food eaten in the cell, was bread and flesh (bacon) in the morning and noon, and bread and

LIFE AROUND 1846

Prison Life:
(page two)

water at night. Now and then cold beans and vegetables.

<u>Negroes, Free and slaves, were evidently kept</u>
<u>in this same penitentiary, but the Negroes were</u>
<u>worked harder and given less to eat. Also,</u>
<u>when a dealer came around looking for slaves to</u>
<u>sell in the South, slave prisoners were sold.</u>

Women were sometimes kept in the jail but were
worked outside. However a Negro women was lock-
ed in a cell with three men. In the daytime her
cell door was left open so that any prisoner or
guard could get to her.

(Prison Life and Reflections- Work, Burr and Thompson-1855)

ODD BITS:

<u>Stage Coach</u> - turtle-topped, high front seat,
passengers seats facing each other, front wheels
smaller than the rear ones, four or six horses.
Large coaches with seats on top.

<u>Race Track</u>: The Metairie Track; the dour -
mile race day; the famous Lexington-Lecompte
(horses) matched.

<u>Dinners</u> at Moreauss, Victor's, Miguel's, and
the famous lake restaurants.

<u>Duels</u>: one Sunday ten duels were fought.

<u>Thomy Lafon</u>, Negro in New Orleans owned real
estate valued at half a million dollars.

<u>Munity in 1841</u> aboard the brig Creole sailing
from Richmond to New Orleans. Slaves kill owner
and captain and sail ship to Nassau. Imprisoned.

<u>Northwest Ordinance</u>- Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois
free states. 1767.

<u>New Orleans</u>: "Carpentry was almost a monopoly
of the coloured".

<u>Winter</u>: was the gay season - balls and receptions.

LIFE AROUND 1846

NATIONAL PICTURE:

American Colonization Movement (1817-1840)- nationwide, but both races- unsuccessful.

War with Mexico 1846-48.

LOUISIANNA AND NEW ORLEANS:

New Orleans-fourth largest city in country in 1840; second to New
York as a seaport. 102,192 inhabitants in 1840. Cultural
center of the South-Opera, Theater-European Stars. Gambling
horse racing, dueling, steamboat racing, cock-and dog-fight-
ing, magnificent balls, Mardi Gras-mecca for vacationists.
New public school system put into effect 1847.

LIFE AROUND 1846

CONTEMPORARY FIGURES:

Presidents:

Andrew Jackson: born 1767; died 1845 in Nashville, Tenn.
hero of Battle of New Orleans 1814
President 1828-1832 (two.terms)
1. Defeated the National Bank

Martin Van Buren: President-1836-40

W. H. Harrison: born 1773; died 1840 (while President)
hero of Tippecanoe on Wabash River
President one month 1840

John Tyler: President 1840-44

James K. Polk: born 1795; died 1849 in Nashville, Tenn.
President 1844-1848

Zachary Taylor: born ?; died 1850 in the White House
Hero of the War with Mexico
cotton planter with large estate in
Louisianna.
President 1848-1850 elected from La.

Jefferson Davis: born in 1808 in Kentucky not far from
Lincoln. Was a Miss. planter 1835-45.

PRES. OF THE CONFEDERACY.

LIFE AROUND 1846

Under Three Flags- Spanish Flag superceded by French, in turn
superceded by American-1803. People gather in Place
d'Armes to watch ceremonies. Dislike of Americans and
substitution of English as official language. Dueling
between Americans and Creols-leads to division of city
into three sections after Creol kills American in duel
and is freed by court according to custom-Americans mob
house of judge.

First Steam waterworks completed-1818. Water for drinking and gen-
eral use. Formerly water peddled at four bucketsful for
a picayune (6¼¢)

Expedition to rescue Napolean. Dissolved with death of Napolean in
1821.

First English Play in New Orleans. Presented by James H. Caldwell.
Cornerstone laid for "American Theater" in 1822.

Illuminating gas introduced for street-lighting- 1823. Trees plant-
ed along the levee (especially Sycamores).

Masked Street Dancing-popular again in 1835 after being suppresst
by Spanish. Newspapers describe Mardi Gras for 1st time.

Medical College Of Louisianna founded 1834.

W

Washington Scandal- the snubbing of Peggy O'Neil during the second
term of Andrew Jackson, by the wives of all the Cabinet
members despite the defense of her morals by Jackson.

LIFE AROUND 1846

CONTEMPORARY EVENTS:

Financial Panic 1837

National in scope; banks suspend specie payment; municipalities and even individuals issue own money. 14 banks in New Orleans suspend payment.

Massacre at the Alamo March 6, 1836

X War with Mexico 1846-1848

Texas admitted as a State 1845 (December 19)

Inventions:

| Inventor | Date |
|---|---|
| Cotton Gin-Whitney | 1793 |
| High-pressure steam engine -Evans | 1799 |
| Screw Propeller-Stevens | 1804 |
| Electro magnet-Henry | 1828 |
| Mowing Machine-Manning | 1831 |
| Reaper-Schnebley-Hussey | 1833 |
| Revolver- Colt | 1835 |
| Magnetic telegraph Morse | 1832 |
| Phosphorus friction match-Phillips | 1836 |
| Vulcanized rubber-Goodyear | 1839 |
| Pneumatic tire-Thompson | 1845 |
| Sewing machine-Howe | 1846 |
| Rotary printing press -Robert Hoe | 1846 |
| Safety pin- Walter Hunt | 1849 |

Foreign:

Photography-Daguerre and Niepce 1839

LIFE AROUND 1846

LIFE OF A CHILD 1840-50:

**Clotning:** clothes were homemade; wool shawl for the shoulders; pelisse made from an old one of mothers.

Pantalettes of linen- straight and narrow and untrimmed.
fell over legs to shoetops-white in most instances but
black bombazine or black alpaca for mourning.

**For the grownups:** "best frocks for dinners and parties were made with short sleeves (caps, so called) and tapes sewed in the armholes. Long sleeves were tied under the "caps". (The ladies) Take off sleeves and put on gloves to descend to the dancing room. Black, heless slippers with narrow black ribbons wound over the instep and crossed and recrossed from the ankle way up over white stockings were the style.

**Hairdress:** hair done in expansive plaits and puffs.

Everywoman at middle age wore lace caps- mechlin lace
Parasols had heavy fringes in colors and were carried
upsidedown by ring that fitted the finger.

**School:** Private-girls taught music, manners, dancing, small talk etc. one professor made delinquent pupils kneel in brickdust and tacks and study neglected lessons aloud. stockings did not extend to knees and pantalettes were rolled up. one professor of Deportment and Dancing carried his violin in a green baize bag and wore corsets laced 'within an inch af his life'. He wore a long-tailed coat very full at the spider waistline so that he could hold it like a skirt when he taught the girls to curtesy. Sir Walter Scott was read, though once the girls got hold of the 'pernicious' "Jane Eyre". They exercised by marching two by two around the block. A teacher before and behind kept away the mischievous boys from the school nearby. The girls received many Valentines, however. In bad weather the girls wore "gums" and wrapped in long shaggy coats, very heavy. They were dosed with hot ginger tea for all ailments.

**Play:** Kids jumped rope and went crawfishing in the ditches. Dolls with wooden joints had all their features such as hair, eyes, ears etc., painted on their smooth bullet-shape heads. Parties ended at early candlelight. The whirls and heel and toe steps of the polka were danced in steps of eight like old time quadrilles. With the playing of the march Norma the procession started for the refreshments. New Year's was visiting day for the men and receiving day for the women. Eggnog and brandy were served.

LIFE AROUND 1846

**Other Cooking Notes:** For making jelly, calves feet had to be se-cured a week ahead. No fruit extracts, no baking powder, no ground spices, no seedless raisins, no isinglass or egg-beater. The borrowing habit was unknown and one had to walk great distances to get everything for a meal or party.

**Steamboats:** The Grey Eagle, number one floating palace; the Belle of the West; the Fashion; the Henry Clay. Ladies cabins were in the stern ten or twelve cabins divided by curtains and having upper and lower berths. The men's cabins stretched down to the officers quarters, the bar, barbershop, pantries and Social Hall. Articles were carried in carpet bags-no valises suitcases or steamer trunks. There was a pitcher and basin in each cabin; lighted by swinging whale-oil lamps. Flatboats a common sight on the river. Boats had to stop "to wood".

"Imagine steamer after steamer sweeping, sounding, thundering on blazing with a thousand lights, casting long brilliant reflections on the fast rolling waters beneath. (There are often a number of them, one after another like so many comets in Indian file) " From Grace King page 277

**Incidental Notes:** Alfred Munroe's "one price store". People accustomed to the fun of 'hectoring over price of articles and striking a bargain. New store with set price for all articles is successful.

Daguerreotypes head held with callipers or steel braces- hold smile for full minute.

Before the streets were paved, carriages were seldom used to go to the ball. Ladies seen at times with skirts lifted high, shoes in hand (also stockings) walking to the ball.

Streets 37 feet wide and blocks 320 feet long.

Ditches at side to carry away seepage from levee. Stop and garbage created stench only relieved by flushing rains. Streets lighted by means of lanterns hung from hooks attached to the corners of buildings.

LIFE AROUND 1846

Morning Street Scene:

Chant of cream cheese woman in morning. Get tiny heart-shaped cheese with dash of cream from a claret bottle. price one picayune.

Colored marchands, trays balanced on their heads and arms akimbo, selling small celesto figs or large blue ones nestling on fig leaves popcorn tic tac balls made with "open kettle" sugar (fragrant brown); pralines made with the same sugar, all fixed in small piles each for a picayune.

Quadroon with her early morning coffee stall. Fig trees, snickets of running roses in damp places, clusters of palmetto and blooming flags.

Market Place. Stalls where one can buy for a picayune a bit of cabbage, a leek, sprig of parsley, a corrot, a tiny turnip all tied in a slender package. Also a "cornet" of fresh gumbo "file", a bunch of horse radish roots, a little sage, parsley, herbs of every sort, a string of dried grasshoppers for the mocking bird.

The Picayune:

The Spanish coin usually well worn and often having a hole in it. Kids carried them tied in the corner of their handkerchiefs. Smallest coin. Kids bought soda water or mead. Mead was a snick honey creamy drink, more for your money than the frothy, effervescent, palish soda water. "Pa ordered ginger syrup (of all things) with his soda."

Sugar:

Sugar was in cone-shaped loaves, hard as stone and weighing about several pounds each. It was well-wrapped and kept nung (like hams in the smoke house) from the ceiling. It was cut in chips with carving knife and hammer and pound-ed and rolled into powder. Except for crude brown there was no cut, pulverized or granulated sugar.

Ice Cream:

Seasoned by boiling whole vanilla beaniin milk. Frozen in nugh cylinder without dasher; whirl-ed in an ice tub by hand for an hour.

LIFE AROUND 1846

Slave Trading:

"The great slave market is held in several houses situated in a particular part of the city. Groups of coloured men and women of all shades between black and light yellow sit unemployed at the doors. Finally the slaves are summoned into a large hall and arranged in two rows. They are well-fed and clothed, but it is said that they present a different picture when brought in two by two chained in long rows after many days fatiguing marches.

Women are few in comparison with men. One of the
men step up and examine a slave girl's teeth in
the same manner as he would a horse.

Slave auction rooms are found in various parts of
New Orleans. There are a number of people present.
Twenty gentlemanlike men stood in a half-circle
around a dirty wooden platform. By the wall stood
the black men and women serious and silent. The
whole assembly was silent. Two men entered and
mounted the platform. One explained these were
all good slaves being sold to meet a financial ob-
ligation, then handed a tall mulatto woman to the
stage. She stood with sorrowful countenance look-
ing only at the sleeping baby in her arms, while the
man extoled her virtues. She wore a grey dress worn
close to the throat and had a pale yellow handker-
chief checked in brown, tied around her head. Sold
for$700, the child enhancing her value."

"The little master rubbed pennies with quicksilver and made my brother pass them off as quarters on the old man at the fruit stall"

"My brother Benjamin, recaptured after escaping on a ship, was chained to and old vermin infested man when he refused to beg the master for mercy."

LIFE AROUND 1846

Slave Trading:
(page two)

Following Nat Turner's Insurrection, the poor whites were organized into searching parties led by the planters and overseers. They searched every Negro's home, stealing all they could carry away.

Snake-bite:

Trying to escape, the author was bitten by a snake. Her friends applied warm ashes and vinegar. Another remedy was to soak a dozen coppers in vinegar over night, then apply the cankered vinegar to the wound. An Indian remedy was to apply wet ashes and plunge the limb in strong lie. The trappers used to carry a supply of ammonia—also men working on the railroads.

" $300 Reward!

Ran away from the subscriber, an intelligent, bright, mulatto girl, named Linda, 21 years of age. Five feet four inches high. Dark eyes, and black hair inclined to curl; but it can be made straight. Has a decayed spot on a front tooth. She can read and write, and in all probability will try to get to the Free States. All persons are forbidden, under penality of the law, to harbor or employ said slave. $150 will be given to whoever takes her in the state, and $300 if taken out of the state and delivered to me or lodged in jail.

Dr. Flint"

"50 Dollars Reward

RAN AWAY from the plantation of Gen. Andrew Jackson.....in Franklin County (Ala).....
Gilbert, a negro man, about 35 or 40 years of age, very black and fleshy, with full round face, has a scar on one of his cheeks but not recollected with.........

John Coffee

"The euphemisms and amenities of the Black
Code were in the making. The word 'slave
met the eye or ear. One spoke of 'servants',
'the hands' or 'the force' slavery was trans-
lated as the South's "peculiar" domestic in-
stitutions". (from Andrew Jackson by Marquis
James page 29) (about 1822)

LIFE AROUND 1846

Prison Life:

"I write from Palmyra Jail (Mo.). The wall is about four feet thick, made of two thicknesses of hewed logs with one foot of stone between them and the outside brick. Myself and my companions sit on the floor. We have three or four very poor blankets for a bed. The food is cornbread and bacon which is eaten with the fingers. There are also two colored and one white in the cell. Upstairs the guards drank gambled and caroused with vile women." (Three religious students' cross into Missouri from Illinois and are jailed on suspicion of enticing slaves to break for freedom.) On the day of the trial, the shackles were knocked off with hammer and chisel and outside a gaping crowd gathered to witness. The jury confessed prejudice but thought they could decide on the justice of the case. The trial was posponed because it was difficult to get enough men jurors, and because there was no law that had been violated In his closing plea, the State's Attorney said that the slaves were as sheep and liberty as salt and enticing a slave by spreading the offer of liberty was just as really larceny as tolling away a man's sheep with salt.

The state penitentiary was leased out for ten-year periods for what leasees could get out of them. The treatment varied according to the men in charge. The prevailing custom was to shave one side of the head and attire the men in bright striped suits and hats. The prisoners wore chains, some on one ankle, some on both—the chains also suspended from their loins. In addition some had large fetters on their feet.

Rules: must not speak to any prisoner out of your cell or to each other in the cell; must not look at any visitor, even your brother; must take off your cap when speaking to officer or officer to you; call no convict Mr. X

Cell: measured 12 by 8 feet and was arched. It was brick and plaster. A window on hinges in the corner at the top was defended by two large iron bars. An iron door was about four feet by 22 inches with a thick wooden door on the outside. For the three men in the cell there were two beds, a double and a single. There were three very poor, too short blankets. Food eaten in the cell, was bread and flesh (bacon) in the morning and noon, and bread