The Memories of Fifty Years. W. H. Sparks
Читать онлайн книгу.
returned in kind, however, when a neighbor's necessities required. These log-rollings were generally accompanied with a quilting, which brought together the youth of the neighborhood; and the winding up of the day's work was a frolic, as the dance and other amusements of the time were termed. Upon occasions like this, feats of strength and activity universally constituted a part of the programme. The youth who could pull down his man at the end of the hand-stick, throw him in a wrestle, or outstrip him in a footrace, was honored as the best man in the settlement, and was always greeted with a cheer from the older men, a slap on the shoulder by the old ladies, and the shy but approving smiles of the girls—had his choice of partners in the dance, and in triumph rode home on horseback with his belle, the horse's consciousness of bearing away the championship manifesting itself in an erect head and stately step.
The apparel of male and female was of home-spun, woven by the mothers and sisters, and was fashioned, I was about to say, by the same fair hands; but these were almost universally embrowned with exposure and hardened by toil. Education was exceedingly limited: the settlements were sparse, and school-houses were at long intervals, and in these the mere rudiments of an English education were taught—spelling, reading, and writing, with the four elementary rules of arithmetic; and it was a great advance to grapple with the grammar of the language. As population and prosperity increased, their almost illiterate teachers gave place to a better class; and many of my Georgia readers will remember as among these the old Irish preachers, Cummings, and that remarkable brute, Daniel Duffee. He was an Irishman of the Pat Freney stripe, and I fancy there are many, with gray heads and wrinkled fronts, who can look upon the cicatrices resulting from his merciless blows, and remember that Milesian malignity of face, with its toad-like nose, with the same vividness with which it presents itself to me to-day. Yes, I remember it, and have cause. When scarcely ten years of age, in his little log school-house, the aforesaid resemblance forced itself upon me with such vim that involuntarily I laughed. For this outbreak against the tyrant's rules I was called to his frowning presence.
"What are you laughing at, you whelp?" was the rude inquiry.
Tremblingly I replied: "You will whip me if I tell you."
"And you little devil, I will whip you if you don't," was his rejoinder, as he reached for his well-trimmed hickory, one of many conspicuously displayed upon his table. With truthful sincerity I answered:
"Father Duffy, I was laughing to think how much your nose is like a frog."
It was just after play-time, and I was compelled to stand by him and at intervals of ten minutes receive a dozen lashes, laid on with brawny Irish strength, until discharged with the school at night. To-day I bear the marks of that whipping upon my shoulders and in my heart. But Duffy was not alone in the strictness and severity of his rules and his punishments. Children were taught to believe that there could be no discipline in a school of boys and girls without the savage brutality of the lash, and the teacher who met his pupils with a caressing smile was considered unworthy his vocation. Learning must be thrashed into the tender mind; nothing was such a stimulus to the young memory as the lash and the vulgar, abusive reproof of the gentle and meritorious teacher.
There was great eccentricity of character in all the conduct and language of Duffy. He had his own method of prayer, and his own peculiar style of preaching, frequently calling out the names of persons in his audience whom it was his privilege to consider the chiefest of sinners, and to implore mercy for them in language offensive almost to decency. Sometimes, in the presence of persons inimical to each other, he would ask the Lord to convert the sinners and make the fools friends, first telling the Lord who they were by name, to the no small amusement of his most Christian audience; many of whom would in deep devotion respond with a sonorous "Amen."
From such a population sprang the present inhabitants of Georgia; and by such men were they taught, in their budding boyhood, the rudiments of an English education;—such, I mean, of the inhabitants who still live and remember Duffy, Cummings, and McLean. They are few, but the children of the departed remember traditionally these and their like, in the schoolmasters of Georgia from 1790 to 1815.
At the close of the war of 1812–15, a new impetus was given to everything throughout the South, and especially to education. The ambition for wealth seized upon her people, the high price of cotton favored its accumulation, and with it came new and more extravagant wants, new and more luxurious habits. The plain homespun jean coat gave way to the broad-cloth one; and the neat, Turkey-red striped Sunday frock of the belle yielded to the gaudy red calico one, and there was a sniff of aristocratic contempt in the upturned nose towards those who, from choice or necessity, continued in the old habits.
Material wealth augmented rapidly, and with it came all of its assumptions. The rich lands of Alabama were open to settlement. The formidable Indian had been humbled, and many of the wealthiest cultivators of the soil were commencing to emigrate to a newer and more fertile country, where smiling Fortune beckoned them.
The first to lead off in this exodus was the Bibb family, long distinguished for wealth and influence in the State. The Watkinses, the Sheroos, and Dearings followed: some to north, some to south Alabama. W.W. Bibb was appointed, by Mr. Madison, Territorial Governor of Alabama, and was followed to the new El Dorado by his brothers, Thomas, John Dandridge, and Benajah, all men of substance and character.
For a time this rage for a new country seemed to threaten Georgia and South Carolina with the loss of their best population. This probably would have been the result of the new acquisition, but, in its midst, the territory between the Ocmulgee and Chattahoochee was ceded by the Indians, and afforded a new field for settlement, which effectually arrested this emigration at its flood. The new territory added to the dominion of Georgia was acquired mainly through the energy and pertinacity of George M. Troup, at the time Governor of Georgia.
I have much to record of my memories concerning this new acquisition, but must reserve them for a new chapter.
CHAPTER III.
THE GEORGIA COMPANY.
Yazoo Purchase—Governor Mathews—James Jackson—Burning of the Yazoo Act—Development of Free Government—Constitutional Convention—Slavery: Its Introduction and Effects.
The grant by the British Government of the territory of Georgia to General Oglethorpe and company, comprised what now constitutes the entire States of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, except that portion of Alabama and Mississippi lying below the thirty-first degree of north latitude, which portions of those States were originally part of West Florida.
The French settlements extended up the Mississippi, embracing both sides of that river above the mouth of Red River, which discharges into the former in the thirty-first degree of north latitude. The river from the mouth of the Bayou Manshac, which left the river fourteen miles below Baton Rouge, on the east side, up to the thirty-first degree of north latitude, was the boundary line between West Florida and Louisiana. Above this point the French claimed jurisdiction on both sides; but Georgia disputed this jurisdiction over the east bank, and claimed to own from the thirty-first to the thirty-sixth degree of latitude. There were many settlements made by Americans upon this territory at a very early day—one at Natchez, one at Fort Adams, and several on the Tombigbee, the St. Stephens, at McIntosh's Bluff, and on Bassett's Creek. These settlements formed the nucleus of an American population in the States of Mississippi and Alabama. The lands bordering upon these rivers and their tributaries were known to be exceedingly fertile, and proffered inducements to settlers unequalled in all the South. Speculation was very soon directed to these regions. A company was formed of citizens of Georgia and Virginia for the purchase of an immense tract of territory, including most of what is now Mississippi and Alabama. This company was known as the Georgia Company, and the territory as the Yazoo Purchase. It was a joint-stock company, and managed by trustees or directors. The object was speculation. It was intended to purchase from Georgia this domain, then to survey it and subdivide it into tracts to suit purchasers. Parties were delegated to make this purchase: this could only be done by the Legislature and by special act