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Transcriber's Note:
The author's name on the cover and in the copyright notice seems tobe a pseudonym. According to the catalog of the Library of Congress,the author was Letitia M. Burwell.
PlantationReminiscences
Copyrighted in 1878 by Page Thacker.
DEDICATION.
Dedicated to my nieces, who will find in English and American publicationssuch epithets applied to their ancestors as: “Cruel slave-owners;” “inhuman;”“Southern task masters;” “hard-hearted;” “dealers in human souls,”&c. From these they will naturally recoil with horror. My own life wouldhave been embittered had I believed myself descended from such; and thatthose who come after us may know the truth I wish to leave a record of plantationlife as it was. The truth may thus be preserved among a few, and thepraise they deserve awarded noble men and virtuous women who have passedaway.
PREFACE.
For several years I have felt a desire to write these reminiscences, but didnot conclude to do so until receiving, a few months ago, a letter from Mr.Martin F. Tupper—the English poet—in which he wrote: “Let me encourageyou in the idea of writing ‘Plantation Reminiscences.’ It will be a goodwork; and it is time the world was learning the truth. I myself have learnedit and shall not be slow in telling it to others.”
PLANTATION REMINISCENCES.
CHAPTER I.
That my birth place should have been a Virginia plantation; mylot in life cast on a Virginia plantation; my ancestors, for nine generations,owners of Virginia plantations, remain facts mysteriousand inexplicable but to Him who determined the bounds of ourhabitations, and said: “Be still, and know that I am God.”
Confined exclusively to a Virginia plantation, during my earliestchildhood, I believed the world one vast plantation bounded by negroquarters. Rows of white cabins with gardens attached; negro menin the fields; negro women sewing, knitting, spinning, weaving,house-keeping in the cabins, with negro children dancing, romping,singing, jumping, playing around the doors, formed the only picturesfamiliar to my childhood.
The master’s residence—as the negroes called it, the “greathouse”—occupied a central position, and was handsome and attractive;the overseer’s being a plainer house, about a mile from this.
Each cabin had as much pine furniture as the occupants desired;pine and oak being abundant, and carp