Los juegos de azar

The [slave] consciousness is, fo r the master, the object which embodies the truth o f his certainty o f himself. B ut it is evident that this object does not correspond to its notion; for, just where the master has effectively achieved lordship, he really fin d s that something has come about quite different from an independent consciousness. It is not an in­

dependent, but rather a dependent consciousness that he has achieved.. . . The truth o f the [ master]

consciousness is accordingly the consciousness o f the bondsman.

G. W. F. HEGEL

F

OR TWO HUNDRED YEARS black, brown and yel­

low men and women were held in bondage in America. During these years “a social system as coercive as any yet known” was erected on the framework of

“the most im placable race consciousness yet observed in virtual­

ly any society.”

-A curtain of cotton rang down on some four million human beings.* It became a crime to teach these men and women to read and write; it became a crime to give them a Bible.

Behind this cotton curtain four million human beings were systematically deprived of every right of personality. Vice, im­

morality and brutality were institutionalized. The sanctity of the family was violated; children were sold from mothers and father­

hood, in effect, was outlawed. The rape of a slave woman, a Mississippi court ruled, is an offense unknown to common or civil law. The “ father of a slave,” a Kentucky court ruled, “ is un­

known to our law .”

• Out of this system came the black American and, though some would like to forget it, the white American; for everyone— black and white, free and slave, slaveholder and nonslaveholder— was stained by it. In this system, in this back alley of American his­

tory, the American Dream was temporarily derailed for millions.

It is not possible to know much about blacks or whites unless one knows a little about those terrible two hundred years through which they came together.

“The pro-slavery theory of the ante-bellum South,” Gunnar Myrdal said, “ is basic to certain ideas, attitudes, and policies prevalent in all fields of human relations even at the present tim e.”

It was fashionable, for many years, to view this era through the astigmatic lenses of Gone with the Wind. A radical reevaluation in scholarly circles has largely destroyed that myth. Although a number of white scholars have tried to pump new life into the old and discredited myth with computer printouts and other scholarly sleight of hand, it is established by irrefutable evidence that American slavery was a moving and instructive chapter in the history of mankind. Historian Kenneth M. Stampp, whose book (The Peculiar Institution) helped shape the new interpretation, said: “The record of slave resistance forms a chapter in the story of the endless struggle to give dignity to human life. Though the history of southern bondage reveals that men can be enslaved under certain conditions, it also demonstrates that their love of

*The U .S. Census report of 1860 listed 3,953,700 slaves and 488,070 free men and women.

freedom is hard to crush. The subtle expressions of this spirit, no less than the daring thrusts for liberty, comprise one of the rich­

est gifts the slaves have left to posterity.”

Let us go back in time to the peculiar institution which stamped these people.

Let us feel the lash which broke their skins and sing the spirituals that soothed their hearts: “ O Lord, O my Lord! O my good Lord, keep me from sinking down.”

Let us visit the houses and fields where the trouble started.

The big white house stands in colonnaded splendor on a hill which overlooks field s fleeced with cotton or lined with tobacco or sugar cane or rice. Near this house, which oftentimes was neither big nor very white, huddle two rows o f “log-and-daub” cabins.

Other houses and buildings dot the landscape: the overseer’s quar­

ters, the stables, the corn cribs, the gin and press. The center o f this agricultural factory is the “big house ” From it radiate like spokes the fields and gardens: the sweet potato field, the water­

melon patch, the cornfield, the pews o f cotton or sugar cane or tobacco or rice.

This is a plantation. This is where the trouble started.

Not all blacks were slaves: there was a substantial free popula­

tion, even in the South. Nor did all slaves work on plantations:

some five hundred thousand worked in cities as domestics, skilled artisans and factory hands. But they were exceptions to the general rule. Most blacks were slaves on plantation-sized units in seven states of the Deep South.

Plantations and planters varied. There were small farmers with two or three slaves, planters with ten to thirty slaves and big planters who owned a thousand or more slaves. Scholars gener­

ally agree that slaves received better treatm ent on the small farms and plantations which did not employ overseers or general managers. Almost half of the bondsmen, however, lived, worked and died on plantations where the owners delegated much of their authority to overseers. Of much more pointed social relevance is the fact that the plantation and its fleecy flower, King Cotton, gave tone and direction to the whole society.

The plantation was a combination factory, village and police precinct. Its most conspicuous external characteristic was to­

talitarian regimentation. One manifestation of this—to begin with slave children— was a communal nursery which prepared

slave children for slavery and made it possible for their mothers to work in the fields. The woman who cared for black children was commonly designated “aunty” to distinguish her from the “ mam­

my,” the nurse of white children. Sometimes one women cared for both white and black children. Children — boys and girls — flopped around in a state of near-nudity until they reached the age of toil. On some plantations they were issued tow-linen shirts;

on others they wore guano bags with holes punched in them for the head and arms. Children were never issued shoes until they were sent to the fields, usually at the age of six or seven. Young workers were broken in as water boys or in the “trash gang.” At the age of ten or twelve, children— boys and girls— were given a regular field routine.

“ Children had to go to the fiel' at six on our place,” a former slave recalled. “ Maybe they don’t do nothin’ but pick up stones or tote water, but they got to get used to bein’ there. Uncle Zack had fought the injuns an’ had a twisted leg. Used to set in the shade lookin’ at the children goin’ to the field and m utter, ‘Slave young, slave long.’ ”

Cooking, in many instances, was also a collective project. On most plantations food was prepared in a common kitchen and sent to the workers in the field. In most cases, however, slaves were expected to cook the evening meal in their cabins. The food, which was issued once a week, was generally coarse and lacking in variety. The usual allocation was a peck of corn and three or four pounds of bacon or salt pork. Fractional amounts, usually one-half, were allotted to each child in the family. Most slaves supplemented this meager fare by trapping coons and opossums in the fields or by “ stealing” corn from the m aster’s corn cribs and chickens from his chicken coops. Slaves, it should be noted, made a distinction between “ taking” and “ stealing.” It was con­

sidered right and proper to “ take” anything that belonged to white folk. It was considered wrong to “ steal” the property of other slaves.

Twice a year the regimented slave was issued a clothes ration.

A South Carolina planter described a typical allowance in his plantation manual: “ Each man gets in the fall 2 shirts of cotton drilling, a pair of woolen pants and a woolen jacket. In the spring 2 shirts of cotton shirting and 2 pr. of cotton pants. . . . Each woman gets in the fall 6 yds. of woolen cloth, 6 yds. of cotton

drilling and a needle, skein of thread and V² dozen buttons. In the spring 6 yds. of cotton shirting and 6 yds. of cotton cloth similar to that for m en’s pants, needle, thread and buttons. Each worker gets a stout pr. of shoes every fall, and a heavy blanket every third year.”

Clothes came in two sizes, large and small, and women and men were apparently issued the same kind of shoes. Form er slaves said “ the Negro brogans” burned and blistered in the sum mer and “ got stiff as a board in cold w eather.” On some plantations the same man shod slaves and horses. W est Turner, who was a slave in Virginia, rem em bered Old Black Jack Fly, a blacksmith, who would “ trace yo’ foot in the dirt with a stick, but it didn’t do no good, ’cause he ain’t never made the shoes like the dirt say.”

Most slaves lived in family-type cabins, but some lived in large barracks “literally alive with slaves of all ages, conditions and size.” Some of the family cabins were two- and three-room brick or frame structures with windows and brick fireplaces. The vast majority, however, were rickety structures, built flat on the ground. It was a common procedure to put five or six slaves into one room. “Everything,” a former slave said, “ happened in that one room— birth, sickness, death— everything.”

There was considerable specialization on larger plantations. The basic division in the work force was between field slaves, who, as the name implies, worked in the fields, and house slaves, who worked in and around the house (maids, cooks, butlers) or per­

formed services as specialists (nurses, gardeners). Although work in and around the house was generally lighter, it brought disad­

vantages, including constant surveillance by whites and the psychic tension of wearing a public mask. For this reason, and others as well, many slaves preferred field work to house work, a fact noted by Frederick Law Olmsted, who said: “ Slaves brought up to house work dread to be employed at field-labour; and those accustomed to the comparatively unconstrained life of the Negro-settlement detest the close control and careful movements required of the house-servants. It is a punishm ent for a lazy field-hand to employ him in menial duties at the house . . . and it is equally a punishment to a neglectful house-servant, to banish him to the field-gangs.”

In addition to house slaves and field slaves, there was another and different layer composed for the most part of highly skilled technicians, such as engineers, millwrights and m aster carpen­

ters. From this layer came the men who were largely responsible for the construction and maintenance of antebellum mansions and plantation mills and machinery. “ Such slaves,” according to the Atlanta University study, The Negro A rtisan, “ were especially valuable and formed usually a privileged class, with a larger de­

gree of freedom. . . . Many if not most of the noted leaders of the Negro in earlier times belonged to this slave mechanic class, such as [Denmark] Vesey, Nat Turner, Richard Allen and Absalom Jones. They were exposed neither to the corrupting privileges of the house servants nor to the blighting tyranny of field work and had large opportunity for self developm ent.” There is further­

more the testimony of J. D. Smith, an engineer who learned his trade from a slave engineer: “ One only needs to go down South and examine hundreds of old Southern mansions, and splendid old church edifices, still intact, to be convinced of . . . the clev­

erness of the Negro artisans, who constructed nine-tenths of them .”

At the apex of the white-imposed slave structure was an am­

biguous figure called the driver, an unambiguous title which pointed to the function, driving slaves in the fields and maintain­

ing order in the quarters. Feared and detested by most slaves, the driver was an integral part of the plantation command structure, holding a position roughly comparable to a m aster sergeant under a lieutenant (overseer), under a captain (slaveholder). When there were two or more drivers, one was named head driver. “The head driver,” one planter said, “ is the most im portant Negro on the plantation, and is not required to work like other hands. He is to be treated with more respect than any other Negro by both m aster and overseer. . . . He is to be required to maintain proper discip­

line at all times; to see that no Negro idles or does bad work in the field, and to punish it with discretion. . . .”

The operative words here are “ with discretion.” Real, that is to say, instructive punishment was adm inistered and/or supervised by the slavemaster or overseer. The usual punishment was thirty-nine lashes with a cowskin whip. It was not unusual, how­

ever, for slaves to receive one hundred or more lashes. And few slaves, no m atter how obedient or humble, reached old age

with-by “soul-drivers,”

marched in

Washington, D.C., in the shadow of the Capitol. Washington was a famous

American slave market until 1850.

Men, women and children worked in the fields during the slave regime. The large plantation was a

combination factory, village and police precinct. For some two hundred years, blacks were held in

bondage in America.

• dP3*5£Zty %a.o$&^... jfy/0. *»

t.' /^IM' \3$<*-&*C/A. • ^{• . . .} J / ^^{, #-■}

*y *s/6 &&*- ^{. . .} / ^ ^ ^ ^{. *-.}

K S ^fa A M 'yCo-O />> . . . . • , . (f~ 0 C . ,_»

r tz L , &F> ^{. .} •^{. .} jv * ^{. ~}

y ^ a J ^ C ^ / - . 2a ^ 0 ^cx* ^o ta . & e ^ v i/fa .’v . . * • » s if

. . . . , # / • ^ *

y /rayrv^y 3 ' $ &

s u r f M >++*&+cUeS j s i * . s 'f i u . t f f a t * & C £ * » (3

^

^ ■ •

Sss&f*

■X

£

^ast**? (,^ y 'rt^st~~*J& sT**ps>*

< f ^ 7 * 4 t^ e ^ u x i » i* r* -y r '/jiu ^ .

/Ct^*s ^ix»/A4»^ 7%tt*A- /%.++■%+£fit) ^

< g ' ^ t/ / ^ r“ ^~

' fft'e) ^{-^}2^> A l > < ) l / ^5» * t c < / /n* * tftr

S«&A. a ^<vmi iS /<***"& 4/~ £*- ** Se+*ft

2 < -/C A * -'y h rr J r - /yy* < '* * t4 t> * 'T ~ £ * ■ /'{ * ’**

/fi v^c’

■ ‘:.:NT * r

,.1 ' \ A " v*- r & J»

H XL>: t :- - i ^ v r ~ _ : :V^L£v'n,‘ ? »v:.

-%**3feerfe'F^ v ^ V t

,*vrv-!Ldlr* ^

:Wyt\ v * V j

Plantation invoice lists prices paid for slaves. The seller noted: “I did intend to leave Nancy child [sic] but she made such a damned fuss I had to let her take it.”

out receiving at least one lashing. As one would expect, psychotic and sadistic masters added embellishments. But even “ kind”

slavemasters whipped the skin off the backs of slaves and washed them down with brine. charged with it is sure of a flogging. This offense may be commit­

ted in various ways; in the tone of an answer; in answering at all;

in not answering; in the expression of the countenance; in the motion of the head; in the gait, m anner and bearing of the slave.”

There was method in this seeming m adness, which was de­

signed, at least in part, to keep slaves off balance. And the method was reinforced by the bells, horns and military formations of plantation life. One need only read Charley Williams’s classic description to pick up the tempo of that life:

“When the day begin to crack, the whole plantation break out with all kinds of noises, and you could tell what was going on by the kind of noise you hear.

“ Come the daybreak you hear the guinea fowls start potracking down at the edge of the woods lot, and then the roosters all start up round the barn, and the ducks finally wake up and join in. You can smell the sowbelly frying down at the cabins in the Row, to go with the hoecake and the buttermilk. sounded about four in the morning. Thirty minutes later the field hands were expected to be out of their cabins and on the way to the fields. Stragglers and late-sleepers were lashed with the whip.

An eyewitness recalled seeing women scurrying to the field “with their shoes and stockings in their hands, and a petticoat wrapped

over their shoulders, to dress in the fields the best way they could.” Overseers and drivers, armed with whips, drove the work force. The overseer sometimes carried a bowie knife and a pistol.

He often rode a horse, accompanied by a vicious dog.

Solomon Northup, a free black who was kidnapped and sold into slavery, said the hands worked steadily and “ with the excep­

tion of ten or fifteen minutes, which is given them at noon to swallow their allowance of cold bacon, they are not perm itted to be a moment idle till it is too dark to see, and when the moon is full, they often labor till the middle of the night.” Another former slave said that it seemed that the fields stretched “ from one end of the earth to the other.” Men, women and children worked in these fields. Women cut down trees, dug ditches and plowed.

The old and the ailing worked, oftentimes in the yards, feeding poultry, cleaning up, mending clothes and caring for the infants and the sick. Male and female, the quick and the halt worked the traditional hours of slavery— from can (see) to can’t (see).

What happened at the end of the day?

Former slaves said the day never really ended. After work, to quote Northup again, “ each must then attend to his respective chores. One feeds the mules, another the swine— another cuts the wood, and so forth. . . . Finally, at a late hour, they reach the quarters, sleepy and overcome with the long day’s toil. Then a fire must be kindled in the cabin, the corn ground in the small hand-mill, and a supper, and dinner for the next day in the field prepared. . . . By this time, it is usually midnight. The same fear of punishment . . . possesses them again on lying down to get a snatch of rest. It is the fear of oversleeping in the morning. Such an offense would certainly be attended with not less than twenty lashes. With a prayer that he might be on his feet and wide awake at the first sound of the horn, he sinks to his slumbers nightly.”

Fear, toil, the lash, hard words, a little ash cake and bacon, and fields stretching “ from one end of the earth to the other” — such was life, for most slaves, day in and day out, season after season, with a half-day off on Saturday perhaps and a whole day off on Sunday. Small wonder that the burdened bondsmen eased his weary frame down and addressed God in stark eloquence:

Come day, Go day,

God send Sunday.

If all this was designed to crush the spirit of the slaves, it had precisely the opposite effect. For the slaves, in the most astonish­

ingly creative act in our history, transcended their environment, creating a new structure of meaning and putting their oppressors and the world in their debt. No one can read the record of that piles that bottomed the new synthesis called Black America. The results— the spirituals, the blues, the rhythmic tonality of Black America — point to and guarantee the medium, which was a

ingly creative act in our history, transcended their environment, creating a new structure of meaning and putting their oppressors and the world in their debt. No one can read the record of that piles that bottomed the new synthesis called Black America. The results— the spirituals, the blues, the rhythmic tonality of Black America — point to and guarantee the medium, which was a

In document L L A A S S B B A A SE S ES S S SO OC C IA I A L L ES E S D D E E L L A A L L U U D D OP O PA AT T ÍA Í A (página 53-57)