Chapter XVIII: Appendix: (c.)

COST OF LABOUR IN THE BORDER STATES.

From a native Virginian, who has resided in New York:

“_To the Editor of the N. Y. Daily Times._

“SIR—You will not object, I think, to receive an endorsement
from a Southern man, of the statements contained in number seven
of ‘Letters on the Productions, Industry, and Resources of the
Southern States’ [by Mr. Olmsted], published in your issue on
Thursday last * * *

“Where you would see one white labourer on a Northern farm,
scores of blacks should appear on the Virginian plantation, _the
best of them only performing each day one-fourth a white man’s
daily task, and all requiring an incessant watch to get even this
small modicum of labour_. Yet they eat as much again as a white
man, must have their two suits of clothes and shoes yearly, and
although the heartiest, healthiest looking men and women anywhere
on earth, actually lose for their owners or employers one-sixth
their time on account of real or pretended sickness. Be assured,
our model Virginia farmer has his hands full, and is not to be
envied as a jolly fox-hunting idler, lording it over ‘ranks of
slaves in chains.’ No, sir; he must be up by ‘the dawn’s early
light,’ and head the column, direct in person the commencing
operations, urging, and coaxing; must praise and punish—but too
glad to reward the meritorious, granting liberty (_i. e._ leave of
absence) often to his own servant, that he dare not take himself,
because he must not leave home for fear something will go wrong
ere his return. Hence but too many give up, to overseers or other
irresponsible persons, the care and management of their estates,
rather than undergo such constant annoyance and confinement.
Poor culture, scanty crops, and worn-out land, is the inevitable
result; and yet, harassed and trammeled as they are, no one but a
Southerner regards them with the slightest degree of compassion
or even forbearance; and our good friends, the Abolitionists,
would have ‘all the rest of mankind’ rank them with pirates
and cut-throats. But my object in this communication is not to
sympathize with nor ask sympathy on behalf of slaveholders. For,
however sinning or sinned against, they seem quite able to take
their own part, if molested; and are remarkably indifferent,
withal, as to the opinions expressed by ignorant ranters
concerning them.

“If I have the ability, my desire is to draw a parallel between
the state and condition of Northern and Southern farmers and
farming. The Northern farmer does undoubtedly experience a full
share of those troubles and cares attendant even upon the most
easy and favourable system of farming; but, sir, can he have any
such responsibility as that resting upon the owner of from 50 to
300 ignorant, lazy negroes?

* * * * *

“You must plough deep, follow up quickly, and sow with powerful
fertilizers, attend closely to the growing crop, gather in rapidly
before blight or mildew can come and destroy, says our Northern
farmer. On a farm of three hundred acres, thus managed with five
hands, two extra during harvest, I can raise thirty bushels of
wheat to the acre. Now picture the condition of him South, and
hear his answer. With from three to fifteen hundred acres of land,
and a host of negroes great and small, his cares and troubles are
without end. ‘The hands,’ able men and women, to say nothing of
children, and old ones laid by from age or other infirmity, have
wants innumerable. Some are sick, others pretend to be so, many
obstinate, indolent, or fractious—each class requires different
treatment; so that without mentioning the actual daily wants,
as provisions, clothing, etc., etc., the poor man’s time, and
thoughts—indeed, every faculty of mind—must be exercised on behalf
of those who have no minds of their own.

“His answer, then, to the Northern farmer is: ‘I have not one hand
on my place capable and willing to do the work you name.’ They
tell me that ‘five of them could not perform the task required
of one.’ They have never been used to do it, and no amount of
force or persuasion will induce them to try. Their task is so
much per day; all over that I agree to pay them for, at the same
rate I allow free labourers—but ’tis seldom they make extra time,
except to get money enough to buy tobacco, rum, or sometimes fine
clothes. Can it be wondered at that systematic farming, such as
we see North and East, is unknown or not practised to any great
degree South? The two systems will not harmonize.

“R. J. W.”

From a native New Yorker, who has resided in Virginia:

“_To the Editor of the New York Daily Times._

“I have read with deep interest the series of letters from
the South, published in your columns. Circumstances have made
me quite familiar with the field of your correspondent’s
investigation, much more familiar than he is at present, and
yet I am happy to say, that his letters are more satisfactory
than any I have ever seen relating to the South. It is now
about ten years since, going from this State, I first became
familiar with those facts in regard to the results of slave
labour, etc., that your correspondent and his readers are
so much surprised at. I have talked those subjects over
as he is doing, with the planters along the shores of the
Chesapeake, and on both sides of the James River, through
the Tidewater, the middle and the mountainous districts east
of the Blue Ridge, and in many of those rich counties in the
Valley of Virginia. I may add that, subsequently, spending my
winters at the South for my health, I have become well nigh
as familiar with the States of North and South Carolina, and
Georgia, as I am with Virginia. I have, therefore, almost of
necessity, given not a little thought to the questions your
correspondent is discussing.

“His statement, in regard to the comparative value of slave
and free-labour, will surprise those who have given little or
no attention to the subject. I wish to confirm his statements
on this subject. In Eastern Virginia I have repeatedly been
told that the task of one cord of wood a day, or five cords a
week, rain or shine, is the general task, and one of the most
profitable day’s work that the slave does for his master. And
this, it should be remembered, is generally pine wood, cut
from trees as straight and beautiful as ever grew. The reason
of this ‘profitableness’ is the fact that the labour requires
so little mental effort. The grand secret of the difference
between free and slave labour is, that the latter is without
intelligence, and without motive. If the former, in Western
New York, has a piece of work to perform, the first thought
is, how it can be done with the least labour, and the most
expeditiously. He thinks, he plans, before he commences, and
while about his labour. His mind labours as much as his body,
and this mental labour saves a vast deal of physical labour.
Besides this, he is urged on by the strongest motives. He
enjoys the products of his labour. The more intelligent
and earnest his labours, the richer are his rewards. Slave
labour is exactly the opposite of this. It is unintelligent
labour—labour without thought—without plan—without motive. It
is little more than brute force. To one who has not witnessed
it, it is utterly inconceivable how little labour a slave,
or a company of slaves, will accomplish in a given time.
Their awkwardness, their slowness, the utter absence of all
skill and ingenuity in accomplishing the work before them,
are absolutely painful to one who has been accustomed to
seeing work done with any sort of spirit and life. Often they
spend hours in doing what, with a little thought, might be
despatched in a few moments, or perhaps avoided altogether.
This is a necessary result of employing labour which is
without intelligence and without motive. I have often thought
of a remark made to me by a planter, in New Kent County,
Virginia. We were riding past a field where some of his
hands were making a sort of wicker-work fence, peculiar to
Eastern Virginia. ‘There,’ said he, in a decidedly fretted
tone, ‘those “boys” have been —— days in making that piece
of fence.’ I expressed my astonishment that they could have
spent so much time, and yet have accomplished so very little.
He assured me it was so—and after a slight pause, the tones
of his voice entirely changed, said: ‘Well, I believe they
have done as well as I would in their circumstances!’ And
so it is. The slave is without motive, without inducement
to exertion. His food, his clothing, and all his wants are
supplied as they are, without care on his part, and when
these are supplied he has nothing more to hope for. He can
make no provision for old age, he can lay up nothing for
his children, he has no voice at all in the disposal of the
results of his earnings. What cares he whether his labour is
productive or unproductive. His principal care seems to be to
accomplish just as little as possible. I have said that the
slaves were without ingenuity—I must qualify that remark. I
have been amused and astonished at their exceeding ingenuity
in avoiding and slighting the work that was required of them.
It has often seemed to me that their principal mental efforts
were in this direction, and I think your correspondent will
find universal testimony that they have decided talent in
this line.

“H. W. P.”

In a volume entitled “Notes on Uncle Tom’s Cabin; being a Logical Answer to its Allegations and Inferences against Slavery as an Institution,” by the Rev. E. J. Stearns, of Maryland (much the most thorough review of that work made from the Southern stand-point), the author, who is a New-Englander by birth, shows, by an elaborate calculation, that in Maryland, the cost of a negro, at twenty-one years of age, has been, to the man who raised him, eight hundred dollars. Six _per cent._ interest on this cost, with one and three-quarters per cent. for life insurance, per annum, makes the lowest wages of a negro, under the most favourable circumstances, sixty-two dollars a year (or five dollars a month), _paid in advance_, in the shape of food and clothing. The author, whose object is to prove that the slaveholder is not guilty, as Mrs. Stowe intimates, of _stealing_ the negroes’ labour, proceeds, as follows, to show that he pays a great deal more for it than Mrs. Stowe’s neighbours in New England do, for the labour they hire:—

“If now we add to this (what every New-Englander who has
lived at the South _knows_), that Quashy does not do more
than one-third, or, at the very utmost, one-half as much
work as an able-bodied labourer on a farm at the North; and
that, for this he receives, besides the five dollars above
mentioned, his food, clothing, and shelter, with medical
attendance and nursing when sick, and no deduction for lost
time, even though he should be sick for years, while the
‘farm-hand’ at the North gets only ten or twelve dollars, and
has to clothe himself out of it, and pay his own doctor’s
and nurse’s bill in sickness, to say nothing of lost time,
I think we shall come to the conclusion if there has been
stealing anywhere, it has not been from Quashy.”—P. 25.

“I recollect, the first time I saw Quashy at work in the
field, I was struck by the lazy, listless manner in which he
raised his hoe. It reminded me of the working-beam of the
engine on the steam-boat that I had just landed from—fifteen
strokes a minute; but there was this difference: that,
whereas the working-beam kept steadily at it, Quashy, on the
contrary, would stop about every five strokes and lean upon
his hoe, and look around, apparently congratulating himself
upon the amount of work he had accomplished.

“Mrs. Stowe may well call Quashy ‘shiftless.’ One of my
father’s hired men—who was with him seven years—did more
work in that time than an average negro would do in his
whole life. Nay, I myself have done more work in a day,—and
followed it up, too—than I ever saw a negro do, and I was
considered remarkably lazy with the plough or hoe.”—P. 142.