May 1855
Amelia Matilda Murray (1795–1884) was well-known in British society, not only because she had served as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria, but also because she was an artist, writer, and botanist. Initially, she did not intend to write a book on her travels, yet she wrote one of the best British travel books of the time. The Honorable Amelia Murray’s interests and published comments are catholic: architecture, social life, church services, as well as the usual interest in transportation and hotels, and flora, fauna and fossils. Before her travels to Cuba and the American South, her view of slavery was more definite than the conventional antislavery view of Europeans of the time, she was an abolitionist. She shocked both herself and her friends by altering her perception of slavery: judging that Southern house slaves were better clothed and fed than British apprentices and that Southern slaves were less discontented than Northern free blacks. Furthermore, she concluded that blacks were morally and intellectually inferior to whites and must, therefore, be governed. Considering this conclusion, Murray believed that the condition of Southern slaves was as best as could be expected from a practical standpoint.
Amelia M. Murray, Letters from the United States, Cuba and Canada (New York: G. P. Putnam and Company, 1856), 302–306.
LETTER XXV.
ATLANTA, ALABAMA, U.S.,}
May 7, 1855.}
MY DEAR FRIENDS,—
After five days’ hard travelling, we got here this evening—I should say five days and three nights; for with the exception of one night’s rest at Mobile, and one (till five this morning) at Montgomery, since leaving New Orleans, on Thursday last, we have never paused an hour anywhere. Night-work is the only serious obstacle to journeying in America: it is very fatiguing, and where there is a pretty country to pass through, very disappointing to strangers; both in Texas and Alabama this evil at present is incorrigible; because, through wide districts, there are no places to pause at, and the mail being the only means of conveyance, of course it cannot be detained for any one. I might have attempted to get up the Alabama River from Mobile, but the water being low, there was considerable risk of grounding for some days upon sandbanks; besides which, I see more of the country and of the vegetation by coach-travelling; and although it is often very tantalizing to pass by trees, and shrubs, and flowers, either new or rare, without being able to get at them, still it is something to observe the botanical features of a district; and by taking every opportunity, during a change of horses or a stop for meals, I have secured several interesting specimens, and sometimes get a sketch.
. . . Next day, Saturday, a steamer received us on board, and leaving Mobile Bay, we went up the river Tensaw, a stream beautiful as the Altamaha, and bordered by woods far exceeding those of Georgia: live oaks, catalpas, magnolias (as large as elms), just come into blow; the macrophylla with its flower still sweeter and more splendid than the grandiflora, melias, gleditzchias, cedars, sweet and black gum-trees, &c., with huge alligators occasionally basking beneath these verdant shores, and elegant birds flying above them.
At Stockport we found two roomy four-horse coaches waiting for passengers: five gentlemen, R——, and I took possession of one intended to hold nine inside, which would have been close packing; so we were fortunate in not being quite as much cramped as we might have been. Nearly the whole two hundred miles to this place is deep sand, varying from white to red; at first, through pine barrens like those of Florida, only covering a rolling country instead of a flat one; but within fifty miles of Montgomery the forest becomes as various, and as rich, and as hilly, as that of the eastern part of Texas, and much resembling it in character and in soil—a red iron-sand. At one of the little post-houses I got a nodule of iron ore, which they said was plentiful in the neighbourhood. By midnight we arrived at Montgomery, a clean looking, gas-lit town, of which I could not see a great deal, for it was necessary to be in the railroad cars by six the next morning. A short distance from Montgomery the line was bordered on each side by hedges of Cherokee roses, vivid evergreens with single white blossoms, and the foliage so thick that it is said not even a snake can get through it: then we went by the prettiest scenery of all—passing the rivers Coosa and Tallapoosa, and near the spot where General Jackson fought his ‘Battle of the Horseshoe’ with the Cherokees and Choctaws. One of my poor little horny, crusty reptiles is dead, in spite of all the care I could bestow upon him. I fear the other will not survive the long journey in prospect; perhaps it would be better that these creatures should travel at the usual season of their torpidity; now, the sun makes them too much inclined for an active life, and they evidently think it necessary to eat flies, whereas, in the winter season, that would not be requisite.
. . . During my last passage in the steamer from Mobile, a black woman came and sat down by me in the stern of the vessel. From what we hear in England, I imagined negroes were kept at a distance. That is the case in the Northern States, but in the South they are at your elbow everywhere, and always seek conversation. This was an old nurse, an aunty, or mammy, as they are sometimes called (all ancient women of the darky kind here are addressed as aunties). She was very communicative, told me she had a young mistress in Texas (sisters have sometimes a common property in slaves left by their parents); that she was very fond of this master and mistress, and she ran on as follows—‘But there ’tis hard to be divided from t’other; but then people must have their ’flictions in this world. When I was a young girl, there, I used sometimes to fancy ’twould be a fine thing to be free; but, there, I don’t now think ’twould be mighty fine at all; there, I have everything I want in the wide world, ’cept jewellery, and that I don’t want at all now, and, there (some of the coloured people have such a lot of jewellery you can’t think); I say, Cissy, now (addressing one of her charges) don’t go for to tumble over there; now if you gets into the water, we sha’n’t have you a bit more, and then your poor old aunty will die of it—that she will—and won’t see her no more. I say, missus, I don’t let master keep my children up o’nights as some of their papas and mammas do: I says, ‘Master, it sha’n’t be, it sha’n’t—it isn’t fit for they little ones as ought to be in their beds;’ and so my children have got colours in their faces, that they does.. I asked her what she thought of slaves being free here: her reply was, ‘I say, missus, it does ’em no good, nor any one else. If people has a fancy to make ’em free, send ’em to Africa, the place they comed from, I say. Why, missus, these free niggers are half their time bad niggers; and they does insult they niggers as keeps to their own masters and mistresses, and are mighty better and happier too, and that makes ’em mad to see. It is not right, missus, by the ’spectable slaves to have them there free niggers, with their jewellery, and their flowers, and their ’bacco, and their drink, idling about saucy and idle, it gives the dark people a bad ’kracter; and I say, missus, it isn’t right. Send ’em away, I say, and then they may go and sit in the sun and do nothing, just as the half of them do.’ So she ran on in a stream of talk, all much to the same purpose. One question to set these people off is generally enough to have the benefit of all their thoughts; but it is better to keep one’s own opinions in the background, for they are so imitative, they will often reflect you if they can. The day before yesterday, I heard of an intelligent negro just freed by his master, after thirty-six years’ good service. He was fifteen when brought over, remembered his native tongue, and intends to return to Africa. He strongly expresses his gratitude for having been brought over to America, and says, ‘Master, don’t you let white masters and mistresses hurt the Slavery Institution. I say, Master, it be Good Almighty’s school for the coloured people it be, that He have made. Why, Massa, what would such a man as me have been without the slave merchant? How should me have got a bit of education as me have? And now go and try to give a bit to the race out there, who would a bring us over? I say, Master, we should ha’ been worse than slaves, but for the Slavery Institution that brought us here to know how to work, and to hear about the good Almighty, and to know about what we should never have known in our own country. No, Massa, don’t hurt the Slave Institution.’ What would Mrs. Stowe say to this Uncle Tom? for he is the nearest to Uncle Tom of any negro I have heard of, and he will make a capital African missionary.