Been in the Storm So Long_ The Aftermath of Slavery - Leon F. Litwack [26]
Whether because of the threatened disruption of local and family ties or the proximity to freedom, few slaves relished the idea of being removed from the home farm or plantation. Sensing that reluctance, a Tennessee planter tried to ease the pain by sharing the remaining whiskey with his slaves before ordering their departure. Perhaps he had only intended to numb their senses; nevertheless, the act revealed a certain compassion, when compared to the owners who employed various deceptions to prepare their slaves for the arduous trek, telling them about the murderous Yankees and, as one slave recalled, “dat where dey is goin’ de lakes full of syrup and covered with batter cakes, and dey won’t have to work so hard.” Rather than resort to such ruses, the proprietress of a plantation in central Georgia appealed to the faithfulness of her slaves and made removal a virtual test of their loyalty. “I reminded them of their master’s absence; how he had committed his wife and children to their care; how desirous was I to be able to tell him on his return that they deserved his confidence to the last.” All but two of the slaves left with her the next morning.68
Whatever their owners told them, the slaves seemed to know instinctively (if not from the “grapevine”) why they were being sent away, and for some that proved to be sufficient reason to take immediate action to determine their own destinations. Stephen Jordon, who had been a slave in Louisiana, regarded his master as “a good man” but with a highly volatile temper. When slaves in the neighborhood ran off to Union-occupied New Orleans, however, he assured his master that he had no such intention. “I shall never leave you. Those Yankees are too bad, I hear.” But when his master announced plans to remove all the slaves to Texas, Jordon had to reconcile his sense of obligation with his deep yearning for freedom.
Of course I liked Mr. Valsin well enough, but I rather be free than be with him, or be the slave of any body else. So his word about going to Texas rather sunk deep into me, because I was praying for the Yankees to come up our way just as soon as possible. I dreaded going to Texas, because I feared that I would never get free. The same thought was in the mind of every one of the slaves on our place. So two nights before we were to leave for Texas all the slaves on our place had a secret meeting at midnight, when we decided to leave to meet the Yankees. Sure enough, about one o’clock that night every one of us took through the woods to make for the Union line.
In low-country South Carolina, a planter made the mistake of telling his slaves that he intended to move them into the interior after the crop had been completed; seventy-six of them left the night of his announcement and reached the Union lines. The steady movement of Louisiana planters into Texas and Arkansas was to have included the slaves belonging to John Williams of Assumption Parish; the morning of his intended departure, however, he awakened to discover that twenty-seven of them, including several of the family favorites, were nowhere to be found. “Will you ever have faith in one again?” his daughter thought to ask him. No matter how hard the planter tried to conceal his intentions, the information managed to reach the slave quarters. Only two days after making some discreet inquiries in town about a plantation to rent, John Berkley Grimball, a prominent South Carolina planter, learned that nearly every one of his slaves,