Been in the Storm So Long_ The Aftermath of Slavery - Leon F. Litwack [115]
When confronted with Yankee threats and insolence, the “faithful few” often stood their ground and defended the lives and property of their owners. Booker T. Washington would later try to explain such loyalty: “The slaves would give the Yankee soldiers food, drink, clothing—anything but that which had been specifically intrusted to their care and honour.” Hoisted up by his two thumbs, a South Carolina slave still refused to divulge where he had hidden his master’s money and gold watch. After her master had been taken prisoner, a loyal housegirl clung to the trunk filled with valuables, thereby earning for herself the highest possible praise a slave owner could bestow: “She’s black outside, but she’s white inside, shore!” Individual feats of heroism would become legendary, along with the tales of how the slaves pleaded with the Yankees not to burn the master’s house and the ways in which they came to the defense of the white women. Even the most grateful white families might have found it difficult to fathom the quality of loyalty that could induce a young slave on a South Carolina plantation to save her mistress from rape by taking her place! That same kind of loyalty may have saved the life of John Williams, a Louisiana planter, whom the Yankees had ordered either to dance for them or to make his slaves dance.
Dar he stood inside a big ring of dem mens in blue clothes, wid dey brass buttons shining in de light from de fire dey had in front of de tents, and he jest stood and said nothing, and it look lak he wasn’t wanting to tell us to dance.
So some of us young bucks jest step up and say we was good dancers, and we start shuffling while de rest of de niggers pat.
Some nigger women go back to de quarters and git de gourd fiddles and de clapping bones made out’n beef ribs, and bring dem back so we could have some music. We git all warmed up and dance lak we never did dance befo’! I speck we invent some new steps dat night!
The slave performers appear to have satisfied the soldiers; more importantly, they felt they had saved their master from unnecessary humiliation and physical violence. “We act lak we dancing for de Yankees,” one of the slaves later recalled, “but we trying to please Master and old Mistress more than anything, and purty soon he begin to smile a little and we all feel a lot better.”96
The tales of slave heroism and sacrifice made the rounds of southern white society and no doubt cheered many a listener who had yet to face his moment of crisis. But the reassurances were at best ephemeral, and the doubtful remained doubtful. Unlike the popular toy Negro that danced minstrel-style when wound up, black men and women refused to conform to any predictable pattern of behavior. If they had, the white South might have felt less compelled to celebrate the feats of loyalty as though they were extraordinary and exceptional rather than what anyone should have expected of his slaves. “Such faithfulness among so faithful few deserves to be recorded,” Emma Holmes wrote of a slave who had saved the valuables of the family to whom he belonged. What made the behavior of the “faithful few” so praiseworthy was the mounting evidence of desertion, disaffection, and “betrayal.” “Five thousand negroes followed their Yankee brothers from the town and neighborhood,” Sarah Morgan noted; “but ours remained.” Mary Chesnut contrasted the exemplary conduct of her blacks with stories