Been in the Storm So Long_ The Aftermath of Slavery - Leon F. Litwack [157]
This time they responded; their remarks were brief, punctuated with defiance, and accompanied by none of the old “darky” antics. “O yes, we gwi wuk! we gwi wuk all right,” one of them assured him, but in a tone that suggested trouble rather than compliance. “We gwi wuk. We gwi wuk fuh ourse’ves. We ain’ gwi wuk fuh no white man.” If they refused to work for any white man, Pinckney asked them, where did they intend to go and how would they support themselves? He had only to look at their faces to anticipate their reply. “We ain’ gwine nowhar,” they declared. “We gwi wuk right here on de lan’ whar we wuz bo’n an’ whar belongs tuh us.” Some of them had not been born on this land, Pinckney recalled to himself, but had been purchased by him during the war—“in the kindness of his heart”—to avoid the division of a family in the settlement of an estate. If such thoughts crossed the minds of any of the blacks, there was nothing to indicate it. One of them, dressed in a Union Army uniform and carrying a rifle, made it clear that he would work or not as he pleased, come and go as he pleased, and he claimed a portion of the land as his own. And then, as if to underscore these words, he went to his cabin, stood in the doorway, looked his former master in the eye, brought his gun down with a crash, and declared, “Yes, I gwi wuk right here. I’d like tuh see any man put me outer dis house!”
After giving the blacks some time to reconsider their position, Pinckney assembled them once again. If anything, their attitude had grown “more insolent and aggressive.” Failing to reach any understanding with them, he now gave his former slaves ten days, after which those who remained unwilling to work for him would be forced off the plantation. Meanwhile, Pinckney heard of neighbors having similar experiences, some of them “severer trials” than his own. Where only a few years before “perfect confidence” had characterized slave-master relations, or so he thought, almost every white man now went armed, with his weapon exposed to view, and so presumably did most of the blacks. After consulting among themselves, the planters finally appealed directly to the Union Army commander at Charleston, and he agreed to send a company of troops and to address the blacks himself.
Despite the “Federal visitation,” which Pinckney thought had a “wholesome effect,” the blacks still refused to work. He decided now to wait them out until “starvation” brought about their capitulation. He did not have to wait long. One day, his former head plower came to see him, claiming that he could no longer feed his wife and children. When Pinckney reminded him that he had brought this grief on himself and could return to work at any time, the former slave replied, “Cap’n, I’se willin’. I been willin’ fuh right smart while. I ain’ nuvver seed dis way we been doin’ wuz zackly right. I been ’fused in my min’. But de other niggers dee won’ let me wuk. Dee don’ want me tuh work fuh you, suh. I’se feared.” Although Pinckney considered distributing some food rations “without conditions,” he decided that this might be interpreted as a sign of weakness. Several days later, as he no doubt expected, his head plower reappeared. “Cap’n, I come tuh ax you tuh lemme wuk fuh you, suh.” The planter assented, told him the plow and mule were ready, and he could now draw his rations. Having broken the back of the resistance, Pinckney now had the final satisfaction of watching his former slaves slowly drift back to their cabins and out into the fields. “They had suffered,” he recalled, “and their ex-master had suffered with them.”82
The ordeal of Adele Allston, like that of Thomas Pinckney, suggested comparable situations, particularly in low-country