What Became of the Slaves on a Georgia Plantation?: Great Auction Sale of Slaves, at Savannah, Georgia, March 2d & 3d, 1859 — John Shaqi
What Became of the Slaves on a Georgia Plantation?: Great Auction Sale of Slaves, at Savannah, Georgia, March 2d & 3d, 1859Doesticks, Q. K. Philander
History
What Became of the Slaves on a Georgia Plantation?: Great Auction Sale of Slaves, at Savannah, Georgia, March 2d & 3d, 1859
Doesticks, Q. K. Philander
Slave trade -- United States; Slavery -- Georgia
It is, perhaps, a fit tribute to large-handed munificence to say that,
when the negro man was sold, there was no extra charge for the negro
man's clothes; they went with the man, and were not charged in the
bill. Nor is this altogether a contemptible idea, for many of them
had worldly wealth, in the shape of clothing and other valuables, to
the extent of perhaps four or five dollars; and had all these been
taken strictly into the account, the sum total of the sale would have
been increased, possibly, a thousand dollars. In the North, we do not
necessarily sell the harness with the horse; why, in the South, should
the clothes go with the negro?
In these sheds were the chattels huddled together on the floor, there
being no sign of bench or table. They eat and slept on the bare boards,
their food being rice and beans, with occasionally a bit of bacon and
corn bread. Their huge bundles were scattered over the floor, and
thereon the slaves sat or reclined, when not restlessly moving about,
or gathered into sorrowful groups, discussing the chances of their
future fate. On the faces of all was an expression of heavy grief;
some appeared to be resigned to the hard stroke of Fortune that had
torn them from their homes, and were sadly trying to make the best
of it; some sat brooding moodily over their sorrows, their chins
resting on their hands, their eyes staring vacantly, and their bodies
rocking to and fro, with a restless motion that was never stilled;
few wept, the place was too public and the drivers too near, though
some occasionally turned aside to give way to a few quiet tears.
They were dressed in every possible variety of uncouth and fantastic
garb, in every style and of every imaginable color; the texture of
the garments was in all cases coarse, most of the men being clothed
in the rough cloth that is made expressly for the slaves. The dresses
assumed by the negro minstrels, when they give imitations of plantation
character, are by no means exaggerated; they are, instead, weak and
unable to come up to the original. There was every variety of hats,
with every imaginable slouch; and there was every cut and style of
coat and pantaloons, made with every conceivable ingenuity of misfit,
and tossed on with a general appearance of perfect looseness that is
perfectly indescribable, except to say that a Southern negro always
looks as if he could shake his clothes off without taking his hands out
of his pockets. The women, true to the feminine instinct, had made, in
almost every case, some attempt at finery. All wore gorgeous turbans,
generally manufactured in an instant out of a gay-colored handkerchief
by a sudden and graceful twist of the fingers; though there was
occasionally a more elaborate turban, a turban complex and mysterious,
got up with care, and ornamented with a few beads or bright bits of
ribbon. Their dresses were mostly coarse stuff, though there were some
gaudy calicoes; a few had ear-rings, and one possessed the treasure
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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