The Yellow Chief

Unfortunately, humane men were exceptions among planters of the lower Mississippi; and so bad at one time was the reputation of this section of the South, that to have threatened a Virginia negro – or even one of Kentucky or Tennessee – with sale or expulsion thither, was sufficient at any time to make him contented with his task!

The word “Coast” was the bogey of negro boyhood, and the terror of his manhood.

Planter Blackadder, originally from the State of Delaware, was among the men who had contributed to this evil reputation. He had migrated to Mississippi at an early period of his life, making a purchase of some cheap land on a tract ceded by the Choctaws (known as the “Choctaw Purchase”). A poor man at the period of his migration, he had never risen to a high rank among the planter aristocracy of the State. But just for this reason did he avail himself of what appeared, to a mind like his, the real privilege of the order – a despotic bearing toward the sable-skinned helots whose evil star had guided them into his hands. In the case of many of them, their own evil character had something to do in conducting them thither; for planter Blackadder was accustomed to buy his negroes cheap, and his “stock” was regarded as one of the worst, in the section of country in which his plantation was “located.” Despite their bad repute, however, there was work in them; and no man knew better than Squire Blackadder how to take it out. If their sense of duty was not sufficient to keep them to their tasks, there was a lash to hinder them from lagging, held ever ready in the hands of a man who had no disposition to spare it. This was Snively, the overseer, who, like the Squire himself, hailed from Delaware State.

Upon the Blackadder plantation was punishment enough, and of every kind known to the skin of the negro. At times there was even mutilation – of the milder type – extending beneath his skin. If Pomp or Scip tried to escape work by shamming a toothache, the tooth was instantly extracted, though not the slightest sign of decay might be detected in the “ivory!”

Under such rigid discipline, the Blackadder plantation should have thrived, and its owner become a wealthy man. No doubt he would have done so, but for an outlet on the other side, that, dissipating the profits, kept him comparatively poor.

The “’scape-pipe” was the Squire’s own and only son, Blount, who had grown up what is termed a wild fellow. He was not only wild, but wicked; and what, perhaps, grieved his father far more, he had of late years become ruinously expensive. He kept low company, preferring the “white trash;” fought cocks, and played “poker” with them in the woods; and, in a patronising way, attended all the “candy pullings” and “blanket trampings” for ten miles around.

The Squire could not be otherwise than indulgent to a youth of such tastes, who was his only son and heir. In boyhood’s days he had done the same himself. For this reason, his purse-strings, held tight against all others, were loosed to his hopeful son Blount, even to aiding him in his evil courses. He was less generous to his daughter Clara, a girl gifted with great beauty, as also endowed with many of those moral graces, so becoming to woman. True, it was she who had stood in the porch while Blue Dick was undergoing the punishment of the pump. And it is true, also, that she exhibited but slight sympathy with the sufferer. Still was there something to palliate this apparent hardness of heart: she was not fully aware of the terrible pain that was being inflicted; and it was her father’s fault not hers, that she was accustomed to witness such scenes weekly – almost daily. Under other tutelage Clara Blackadder might have grown up a young lady, good as she was graceful; and under other circumstances been happier than she was on the day she was seen to such disadvantage.

That, at this time, a cloud overshadowed her fate, was evident from that overshadowing her face; for, on looking upon it, no one could mistake its expression to be other than sadness.

The cause was simple, as it is not uncommon. The lover of her choice was not the choice of her father. A youth, poor in purse, but rich in almost every other quality to make man esteemed – of handsome person, and mind adorned with rare cultivation – a stranger in the land – in short, a young Irishman, who had strayed into Mississippi, nobody knew wherefore or when. Such was he who had won the friendship of Clara Blackadder, and the enmity both of her brother and father.

In heart accepted by her – though her lips dared not declare it – he was rejected by them in words scornful, almost insulting.

They were sufficient to drive him away from the State; for the girl, constrained by parental authority, had not spoken plain enough to retain him. And he went, as he had come, no one knew whither; and perhaps only Clara Blackadder cared.

As she stood in the porch, she was thinking more of him than the punishment that was being inflicted on Blue Dick; and not even on the day after, when her maid Sylvia was discovered dead under the trees, did the dread spectacle drive from her thoughts the remembrance of a man lodged there for life!

As the overseer had predicted, Squire Blackadder, on his return home, was angry at the chastisement that had been inflicted on Blue Dick, and horrified on hearing of the tragedy that succeeded it.

The sins of his own earlier life seemed rising in retribution against him!

Chapter Three.

A Changed Plantation

We pass over a period of five years succeeding the scene recorded.

During this time there was but little change on the plantation of Squire Blackadder; either in the dwellers on the estate, or the administration of its affairs. Neither castigation by the cowskin, nor the punishment of the pump, was discontinued. Both were frequent, and severe as ever; and whatever of work could by such means be extracted from human muscles, was taken out of the unhappy slaves who called Mr Snively their “obaseeah.” Withal, the plantation did not prosper. Blount, plunging yet deeper into dissipation, drained it of every dollar of its profits, intrenching even on the standard value of the estate. The number of its hands had become reduced, till there were scarce enough left for its cultivation; and, despite the constant cracking of Mr Snively’s whip, weeds began to show themselves in the cotton fields, and decay around the “gin” house.

At the end of these five years, however, came a change, complete as it was cheerful.

The buildings underwent repair, “big house” as well as out-offices; while the crops, once more carefully cultivated, presented a flourishing appearance. In the court-yard and negro quarters the change was still more striking. Instead of sullen faces, and skins grey with dandruff, or brown with dirt, ill-concealed under the tattered copperas-stripe, could now be seen smiling countenances, with clean white shirts covering an epidermis that shone with the hue of health. Instead of profane language and loud threats, too often followed by the lash, could be heard the twanging of the banjo, accompanied by its simple song, and the cheerful voice of Sambo excited in “chaff,” or light-hearted laughter.

The change is easily explained. It was not the same Sambo, nor the same “obaseeah,” nor yet the same massa. The whole personnel of the place was different. A planter of the patriarchal type had succeeded to the tyrant; and Squire Blackadder was gone away, few of his neighbours knew whither, and fewer cared. By his cruelty he had lost caste, as by the courses pursued by his son – the latter having almost brought him to Bankruptcy. To escape this, he had sold his plantation, though still retaining his slaves – most of them being unsaleable on account of their well-known wickedness.

Taking these along with him, he had “started west.”

To one emigrating from the banks of the Mississippi this may seem an unfitting expression. But at the time a new “west” and a “far” one had just entered on the stage of colonisation. It was called California, a country at that time little known; for it had late come into the possession of the United States, and the report of its golden treasures, although on the way, had not yet reached the meridian of the Mississippi.

It was its grand agricultural wealth, worth far more than its auriferous riches, that was attracting planter Blackadder to its plains – this and the necessity of escaping from the too respectable society that had sprung up around him in the “Choctaw Purchase.”

He had not taken departure alone. Three or four other families, not very dissimilar either in circumstances or character, had gone off along with him.

Let us follow upon their track. Though three months have elapsed since their leaving the eastern side of the Mississippi, we shall be in time to overtake them; for they are still wending their slow and weary way across the grand prairie.

The picture presented by an emigrating party is one long since become common; yet never can it be regarded without a degree of interest. It appeals to a pleasant sentiment, recalling the earliest, and perhaps most romantic period of our history. The huge Conestoga wagon, with its canvas tilt bleached to a snowy whiteness by many a storm of rain, not inappropriately styled the “ship of the prairies;” its miscellaneous load of tools and utensils, with house furniture and other Penates, keeping alive the remembrance of the home left behind, still more forcibly brought to mind by those dear faces half hid under the screening canvas; the sun-tanned and stalwart horsemen, with guns on shoulder, riding in advance or around it; and, if a Southern migration, the sable cohort forming its sure accompaniment, all combine to form a tableau that once seen will ever be remembered.

And just such a picture was that presented by the migrating party of Mississippi planters en route for far California. It was a “caravan” of the smaller kind – only six wagons in all – with eight or ten white men for its escort. The journey was full of danger, and they knew this who had undertaken it. But their characters had hindered them from increasing their number; and, in the case of more than one, the danger left behind was almost as much dreaded as any that might be before them.

They were following one of the old “trails” of the traders, at that time becoming used by the emigrants, and especially those from the South-western States. It was the route running up the Arkansas to Bent’s Fort, and thence striking northward along the base of the Rocky Mountains to the pass known as “Bridger’s.”

At that time the pass and the trails on both sides of it were reported “safe.” That is, safe by comparison. The Indians had been awed by a sight unusual to them – the passage through their territory of large bodies of United States troops – Doniphan’s expedition to New Mexico, with those of Cooke and Kearney to California. For a short interval it had restrained them from their attacks upon the traders’ caravan – even from the assassination of the lonely trapper.

As none of Blackadder’s party was either very brave, or very reckless, they were proceeding with very great caution, keeping scouts in the advance by day, and guards around their camps by night.

And thus, watchful and wary, had they reached Bent’s Fort, in safety. Thence an Indian hunter who chanced to be hanging around the fort – a Choctaw who spoke a little English – was engaged to conduct them northward to the Pass; and, resuming their journey under his guidance, they had reached Bijou Creek, a tributary of the Platte, and one of the most beautiful streams of prairie-land.

They had formed their encampment for the night, after the fashion practised upon the prairies – with the wagons locked tongue and wheel, inclosing a hollow space – the corral– so called after a word brought by the prairie-merchants from New Mexico.[1 - The Spanish word for inclosure, adopted at an early period by the prairie-traders, and now become part of our language.]

The travellers were more than usually cheerful. The great chain of the Rocky Mountains was in sight, with Long’s Peak raising its snow-covered summit, like a vast beaconing star to welcome, and show them the way, into the land of promise that lay beyond it.

They expected, moreover, to reach Saint Vrain’s Fort, by the evening of the next day; where, safe from Indian attack, and relieved from camp watching, they could once more rest and recruit themselves.

But in that hour of relaxation, while they were looking at Long’s Peak, its snowy crown still gilded by the rays of the setting sun, there was a cloud coming from that same quarter that threatened to overwhelm them.

It was not the darkening of the night, nor mist from the mountain-sides; but a dusky shadow more to be feared than either.

They had no fear of it. They neither saw, nor knew of its existence; and, as they gathered around their camp-fire to make their evening repast, they were as gay as such men might be expected to be, under similar circumstances.

To many of them it was the last meal they were ever destined to eat; as was that night the last of their lives. Before another sun had shone upon Long’s Peak, one-half their number was sleeping the sleep of death – their corralled wagons enclosing a space afterward to become their cemetery.

Chapter Four.

A Painted Party

About five miles from the spot upon which the emigrants were encamped, and almost at the same hour, another party had pitched their tents upon the plain.

There was not the slightest resemblance between the two sets of travellers, either in personal appearance, in the language spoken, or in their camp-equipments.

The latter were all horsemen, unencumbered with wagons, and without even the impedimenta of tents.

On dismounting they had simply staked the horses on the grass, and laid down upon the buffalo robes, that were to serve them both as shelter and for couches.

There were about two score of them in all; and all without exception were men. Not a woman or child was among them. They were young men too; though to this there were several exceptions.

To have told the colour of their skins it would have been necessary to submit them to ablution: since that portion of it not covered by a breech-clout with legging continuations of leather, was so besmeared with paint that not a spot of the natural tint could be detected.

After this, it is scarce necessary to say, that they were Indians; or to add that their painted bodies, nude from neck to waist, proclaimed them “on the war-trail.”

There were other evidences of this, in the manner in which they were armed. Most of them carried guns. On a hunting excursion they would have had bows and arrows – the prairie tribes preferring these weapons in the chase.[2 - They have several reasons for this preference. The arrow does its death-work silently, without alarming the game; besides, powder and lead cost more than arrow-sticks, which can also be recovered.] They had their spears, too, slung lance-fashion by the side of the saddle; with tomahawks stuck in their belts. All of them were furnished with the lazo.

Among them was one sufficiently conspicuous to be at once recognised as their chief. His superior dress and adornment told of his title to this distinction; while there was that in his bearing toward the others, that placed it beyond doubt. They seemed not only to fear, but respect him; as if something more than the accident of hereditary rank gave him a claim to command them.