Manuel Pereira; Or, The Sovereign Rule of South CarolinaAdams, F. Colburn (Francis Colburn)
General
Manuel Pereira; Or, The Sovereign Rule of South Carolina
Adams, F. Colburn (Francis Colburn)
African Americans -- Fiction; Biographical fiction; Pereira, Manuel -- Fiction; South Carolina -- Fiction
“Don't be bothering with your four dollars-sure ye a'n't in the West
Inges now; and money's plenty in Charleston, and I can't bring up so
much-half so much. Don't be bothering with yer West Inge nonsense. If
ye try to raise a fuss here, I'll make the Captain suffer. Ye must learn
that it won't do for a nigger to dispute a white man in Charleston; we'd
twitch ye up by the same law; we'd put it to our own niggers, and ye'd
git trised up, and about fifty paddles on yer bare butt.” The Dutchman
put down a dollar and seventy cents, but Manuel refused to take it up;
when this fellow, Dunn, pretending to be the friend of Manuel, held out
his hand, and telling the bar-keeper to put another dollar, which he
did, he passed it hurriedly into Manuel's hand, and making a pass, told
him to put it into his pocket.
It was now about good business time for the Dutchman, and his customers
were coming in with their bottles and pots in great numbers. The place
was a little filthy hole, very black and dirty, about twelve feet long,
and seven feet wide, with a high board counter almost in the centre. The
only stock-in-trade that decorated it, was a few barrels of lager beer;
several kegs, with names to set forth the different qualities of liquors
painted upon them; a bushel basket about half full of onions, and a few
salt fish in a keg that stood by the door. Around the room were
several benches similar to those in guard-houses. Upon two of them were
stretched two ragged and filthy-looking negroes, who looked as if they
had been spending the night in debauchery. Dunn, as if to show his
authority, limped toward them, and commenced fledging their backs
with his hickory stick in a most unmerciful manner, until one poor old
fellow, with a lame hand, cried out for mercy at the top of his voice.
“It's a bad business keeping these niggers here all night, Swizer-you
know I've done the clean thing with you several times,” said Dunn,
pointing his finger at the Dutchman; who winked, and coming from behind
the counter, slipped something into his hand, and stepping to the door,
assumed some threatning language against the negroes, should they ever
came back to his store. A large portion of those who came for liquor
were negroes, who looked as if they were parting with their last cent
for stimulant, for they were ragged and dirty, and needed bread more
than liquor. Their condition seemed pitiful in the extreme, and yet the
Dutch “corner-shop keeper” actually got rich from their custom, and so
craving was he upon their patronage, that he treated them with much more
courtesy than his white customers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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