They need no taskmaster, no overseer.  They will do all and more than I expect them to do, and I can trust them with untold gold.  All the adults are well instructed, and all are members of Christian churches in the neighbourhood; and their conduct is becoming their professions.  I respect them as my children, and they look on me as their friend and father.  Were they to be taken from me it would be the most unhappy event of their lives,’ This conversation induced me to view more attentively the faces of the adult slaves; and I was astonished at the free, easy, sober, intelligent and thoughtful impression which such an economy as Mr. Mickle’s had indelibly made on their countenances.”

[Footnote 46:  William Faux, Memorable Days in America (London, 1823), p. 68, reprinted in Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, XI, 87.]

CHAPTER XVI

PLANTATION LIFE

When Hakluyt wrote in 1584 his Discourse of Western Planting, his theme was the project of American colonization; and when a settlement was planted at Jamestown, at Boston or at Providence as the case might be, it was called, regardless of the type, a plantation.  This usage of the word in the sense of a colony ended only upon the rise of a new institution to which the original name was applied.  The colonies at large came then to be known as provinces or dominions, while the sub-colonies, the privately owned village estates which prevailed in the South, were alone called plantations.  In the Creole colonies, however, these were known as habitations—­dwelling places.  This etymology of the name suggests the nature of the thing—­an isolated place where people in somewhat peculiar groups settled and worked and had their being.  The standard community comprised a white household in the midst of several or many negro families.  The one was master, the many were slaves; the one was head, the many were members; the one was teacher, the many were pupils.

The scheme of the buildings reflected the character of the group.  The “big house,” as the darkies loved to call it, might be of any type from a double log cabin to a colonnaded mansion of many handsome rooms, and its setting might range from a bit of primeval forest to an elaborate formal garden.  Most commonly the house was commodious in a rambling way, with no pretense to distinction without nor to luxury within.  The two fairly constant features were the hall running the full depth of the house, and the verandah spanning the front.  The former by day and the latter at evening served in all temperate seasons as the receiving place for guests and the gathering place for the household at all its leisure times.  The house was likely to have a quiet dignity of its own; but most of such beauty as the homestead possessed was contributed by the canopy of live-oaks if on the rice or sugar coasts, or of oaks, hickories or cedars, if in the uplands.  Flanking the main