Journeys and Explorations in the Cotton Kingdom. A Traveller's Observations on Cotton and Slavery in the American Slave States. Based Upon Three Former Volumes of Journeys and Investigations, Volume 2S. Low, son & Company, 1861 - Cotton growing |
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Common terms and phrases
acres ain't Alabama asked average bacon bales believe better breakfast brought cabins cents character church clothing comfort corn cotton cotton plantations crop Cuba cultivation district dollars farm farmer favourable field fifty free labour gentleman George Cope Georgia girl habits hands horse hundred land large plantations less Liberty county live look Louisiana maize manager master miles Mississippi molasses morning mulatto musquitoes Natchez negroes neighbours never niggers night North Northern observed Opelousas Orleans overseer owner plant planters plough poor population pounds reckon rich river road schools slaveholders slavery slaves soil South Carolina Southern square miles stopped Sunday supper suppose Texas things thought tillage tion tobacco told town traveller twenty venerable Edmund Virginia wealth whip woman women Yazoo York young
Popular passages
Page 33 - Laughed in the flickering light, and the pewter plates on the dresser Caught and reflected the flame, as shields of armies the sunshine.
Page 298 - ... that once furnished happy homes for a dozen white families. Indeed, a country in its infancy, where fifty years ago scarce a forest tree had been felled by the axe of the pioneer, is already exhibiting the painful signs of senility and decay apparent in Virginia and the Carolinas...
Page 310 - The acquisition of a respectable position in the scale of wealth appears so difficult, that they decline the hopeless pursuit, and many of them settle down into habits of idleness, and become the almost passive subjects of all its consequences. And I lament to say that I have observed of late years, that an evident deterioration is taking place in this part of the population, the younger portion of it being less educated, less industrious, and in every point of view less respectable than their ancestors.
Page 303 - Your inattention to your only source of wealth has scared the very bosom of mother earth. Instead of having to feed cattle on a thousand hills, you have had to chase the stump-tailed steer through the sedge-patches to procure a tough beefsteak. The present condition of things has existed too long in Virginia. The landlord has skinned the tenant, and the tenant has skinned the land, until all have grown poor together.
Page 111 - Where I used to live [Alabama], I remember when I was a boy —must ha' been about twenty years ago —folks was dreadful frightened about the niggers. I remember they built pens in the woods where they could hide, and Christmas time they went and got into the pens, 'fraid the niggers was risin'.
Page 250 - In this dilemma, planters, whose crops have been from 100 to 700 bales, find themselves forced to sacrifice many of their slaves, in order to get the common necessaries of life, for the support of themselves and the rest of their negroes. In many places, heavy planters compel their slaves to fish for the means of subsistence, rather than sell them at such ruinous rates. There are, at this moment, thousands of slaves in Mississippi, that know not where the next morsel is to come from. The master must...
Page 303 - You have relied alone on the single power of agriculture, and such agriculture ! Your sedge-patches outshine the sun. Your inattention to your only source of wealth, has seared the very bosom of mother earth. Instead of having to feed cattle on a thousand hills, you have had to chase the stump-tailed steer thrqugh the sedge-patches to procure a tough beef-steak.
Page 206 - The girl without any hesitation, without a word or look of remonstrance or entreaty, drew closely all her garments under her shoulders, and lay down upon the ground with her face toward the overseer, who continued to flog her with the raw-hide, across her naked loins and thighs, with as much strength as before.
Page 303 - Washington, not long ago, that he was traveling in a county not a hundred miles from this place, and overtook one of our citizens on horseback, with, perhaps, a bag of hay for a saddle, without stirrups, and the leading line for a bridle, and he said : ' Stranger, whose house is that ?' • It is mine,
Page 298 - Of the twenty millions of dollars annually realized from the sales of the cotton crop of Alabama, nearly all not expended in supporting the producers is reinvested in land and negroes.