Been in the Storm So Long_ The Aftermath of Slavery - Leon F. Litwack [118]
If slaveholding families came to be alarmed by the extent of the disaffection, the implications for their self-image as benign and benevolent patriarchs could be even more disturbing, sometimes downright traumatizing. No more plaintive cry resounded through slaveholding society than that the slaves in whom they had placed the greatest trust and confidence were the very first to “betray” them. If this complaint recurred most frequently, perhaps that was because it seemed least comprehensible. “Those we loved best, and who loved us best—as we thought—were the first to leave us,” a Virginian lamented, voicing an experience that would leave so many families incredulous. To Robert P. Howell, a North Carolina planter who had lost a number of slaves, the behavior of Lovet “disappointed” him the most. “He was about my age and I had always treated him more as a companion than a slave. When I left I put everything in his charge, told him that he was free, but to remain on the place and take care of things. He promised me faithfully that he would, but he was the first one to leave … and I did not see him for several years.” To the wife of a prominent Louisiana slaveholder, the most troubling defection was that of “a colored woman born in the same house with me, always treated as well as me, always till my marriage slept in the same bed with me, and now, she is the first to leave.” John H. Bills, the Tennessee planter, least expected to hear of Tom’s departure—“he is the first to leave me & had thought would have been the last one to go”—while Louis Manigault, the rice planter, found himself at a loss to explain why the slave he esteemed most highly should have been “the very first to murmur” and “give trouble.”104
To whom could masters and mistresses turn for comfort and reassurance if not to the old family favorites, the legendary “aunties” and “uncles,” with whom they had lived so intimately, who had reared them as children, who had regaled them so often with their stories and songs, and who had shared with them the family tragedies and celebrations. But these slaves, too, refused to comply with the expectations of those who claimed to own them. “Even old Cirus went,” a perplexed Mississippian observed. “I reckon he is over a hundred years old.” Equally bewildered, Alexander and Cornelia Pope of Washington, Georgia, learned of “the rascality” of Uncle Lewis. This “old gray-haired darkey,” wrote Eliza Andrews, a neighbor and niece of the Popes, “has done nothing for years but live at his ease, petted and coddled and believed in by the whole family. The children called him, not ‘Uncle Lewis,’ but simply ‘Uncle,’ as if he had really been kin to them.” During the family prayers, he sat in a special place and was frequently called upon to lead the worship. “I have often listened to his prayers when staying at Aunty’s, and was brought up with as firm a belief in him as in the Bible itself.” Here, then, was the very prototype of the faithful servant, venerated by his owners and the townspeople as “an honored institution.” With the coming of the Yankees, Uncle Lewis not only deserted but told “a pack of lies” about his mistress and claimed a portion of the family lands. Although the Popes no longer tolerated his presence, the memories of their “fallen saint” and his startling betrayal lingered on.105
The behavior of an Uncle Lewis clearly overshadowed in significance if not in actual numbers those celebrated examples of wartime fidelity. The planter found it easier to resign himself to the defection of the field hands, for he may have had little direct contact with them, particularly if he employed an overseer or driver, and they could not be expected to have as strong an attachment to their “white folks.” But the conduct of the house servants, whom he thought he knew so well and no doubt felt he had pampered, most of whom had given him years of loyal service, raised questions which few slaveholding families