Chapter III
CHAPTER III.
COLONEL LLOYD kept a large and finely cultivated garden, which afforded almost constant employment for four men, besides the chief gardener, (Mr. M'Durmond.)†Historical annotation: In 1824 Aaron Anthony hired William McDermott to work for Edward Lloyd V. McDermott lived and ate at Anthony's house at least through spring 1825. Aaron Anthony Ledger A, 1790-1818, folder 94, 42, 43, Dodge Collection, MdAA. This garden was probably the greatest attraction of the place. During the summer months, people came from far andnear from Baltimore, Easton, and Annapolis to see it. It abounded in fruits of almost every description, from the hardy apple of the north to the delicate orange of the south. This garden was not the least source of trouble on the plantation. Its excellent fruit was quite a temptation to the hungry swarms of boys, as well as the older slaves, belonging to the colonel, few of whom had the virtue†Textual note here indicates which edition or impression a text variation occurs. Webb may have suggested this alteration to Douglass on either moral or logical grounds or both: that resisting the temptation to steal fruit should not be potentially included in the category "vice" or that the phrase in B is inconsistent with the mutual exclusivity of virtue and vice. D1 deletes the reference to vice (B: Copy text, first published in Boston in 1845; D1: First impression of the second edition, published in Dublin in 1845). to resist it. Scarcely a day passed, during the summer, but that some slave had to take the lash for stealing fruit. The colonel had to resort to all kinds of stratagems to keep his slaves out of the garden. The last and most successful one was that of tarring his fence all around; after which, if a slave was caught with any tar upon his person, it was deemed sufficient proof that he had either been into the garden, or had tried to get in. In either case, he was severely whipped by the chief gardener. This plan worked well; the slaves became as fearful of tar as of the lash. They seemed to realize the impossibility of touching tar without being defiled.
The colonel also kept a splendid riding equipage. His stable and carriage-house presented the appearance of some of our large city livery establishments. His horses were of the finest form and noblest blood. His
carriage-house contained three splendid coaches, three or four gigs, besides dearborns and barouches of the most fashionable style.
This establishment was under the care of two slaves Old†Textual note here indicates which edition or impression a text variation occurs. Douglass uses the terms "old" and "young" in the passages referring to the two Barneys more as names than as adjectives. The capitalization of "old" and "young" in this context in D1, therefore, is warranted. Douglass also chose to capitalize "Old" in referring to "Old Barney" in Bondage and Freedom (112-114) (D1: First impression of the second edition, published in Dublin in 1845). This emendation note records the edition/impression symbol indicates the text in which the adopted variant first appears: D1; old. Barney and Young†Textual note here indicates which edition or impression a text variation occurs. See the preceding note. This variant occurs in D1, D2, and E1 (D1: First impression of the second edition, published in Dublin in 1845; D2: Second impression of the Dublin edition, published in 1846; E1: First impression of the third edition, published in Wortley near Leeds, England, in 1846). This emendation note records the edition/impression symbol indicates the text in which the adopted variant first appears: D1; young. Barney father and son.†Historical annotation: Old Barney was Barnett Sampson (c. 1768-?). He was owned by Edward Lloyd V and was the father of Young Barney, Barnett Bentley (c. 1810-?). He was listed as fifty-five years old in January 1824. Return Book, 1 January 1824, Land Papers—Maintenance of Property, Land Volume 39, reel 10, Lloyd Family Papers, MdHi. To attend to this establishment was their sole work. But it was by no means an easy employment; for in nothing was Colonel Lloyd more particular than in the management of his horses. The slightest inattention to these was unpardonable, and was visited upon those, under whose care they were placed, with the severest punishment; no excuse could shield them, if the colonel only suspected any want of attention to his horses a supposition which he frequently indulged, and one which, of course, made the office of Old and Young†Textual note here indicates which edition or impression a text variation occurs. See the preceding textual note. Emendation note records the edition/impression symbol indicates the text in which the adopted variant first appears: D1; old and young. Barney a very trying one. They never knew when they were safe from punishment. They were frequently whipped when least deserving, and escaped whipping when most deserving it. Every thing depended upon the looks of the horses, and the state of Colonel Lloyd's own mind when his horses were brought to him for use. If a horse did not move fast enough, or hold his head high enough, it was owing to some fault of his keepers. It was painful to stand near the stable-door, and hear the various complaints against the keepers when a horse was taken out for use. "This horse has not had proper attention. He has not been sufficiently rubbed and curried, or he has not been properly fed; his food was too wet or too dry; he got it too soon or too late; he was too hot or too cold; he had too much hay, and not enough of grain; or he had too much grain, and not enough of hay; instead of Old†Textual note here indicates which edition or impression a text variation occurs. See note above on terms "old" and "young." Emendation note records the edition/impression symbol indicates the text in which the adopted variant first appears: D1; old. Barney's attending to the horse, he had very improperly left it to his son." To all these complaints, no matter how unjust, the slave must answer never a word. Colonel Lloyd could not brook any contradiction from a slave. When he spoke, a slave must stand, listen, and tremble; and such was literally the case. I have seen Colonel Lloyd make Old†Textual note here indicates which edition or impression a text variation occurs. See note above on terms "old" and "young." Barney, a man between fifty and sixty years of age, uncover his bald head, kneel down upon the cold, damp ground, and receive upon his naked and toil-worn shoulders more than thirty lashes at the time. Colonel Lloyd had three sons Edward,†Historical annotation: Born in the Annapolis home of his maternal grandparents, Edward Lloyd VI (1798-1861) was the oldest child and principal heir of his father's great wealth. Educated at the Wye House plantation by tutors, the younger Lloyd received charge of a nearby plantation where his father built him the beautiful Wye Heights mansion upon his marriage in 1824 to Alicia McBlair, daughter of a Baltimore merchant. She died prematurely in 1838 after bearing five children. After inheriting the bulk of his father's landholdings, Lloyd successfully shifted from tobacco to grain farming and weathered the agricultural depression that struck most of the Eastern Shore in the 1840s and 1850s. Lloyd also purchased cotton growing land in Mississippi in 1837 and later added more in Arkansas and Louisiana. He transferred some of his swelling slave population to those new plantations. Although reputedly a stern disciplinarian, he did try to avoid separating families during these relocations and when sales occurred. A life-long Democrat, Lloyd served as a delegate to the Maryland constitutional convention of 1850 and as a state senator (1851 -52). 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 6-10 (slave schedule); Tilghman, Talbot County, 1 : 210-21; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 42-43,44-45, 70, 192; J. Donnell Tilghman, "Wye House," MdHM, 48 : 89-108 (June 1953). Murray,†Historical annotation: James Murray Lloyd (1803-47) was the middle son of Edward Lloyd V and Sally Murray Scott. When he married, his father built a mansion for him called Presqu'ile which quickly became a Talbot County show-place. In 1840, he was one of the region's richest farmers, owning 113 slaves. 1840 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 60; Stella Pickett Hardy, Colonial Families of the Southern States of America, (New York, 1911), 387; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 47, 49-50, 69, 70; Tilghman, Talbot County, 1 : 207, 222. and Daniel,†Historical annotation: Daniel Lloyd (1811-75) was the sixth-born child and youngest son of Edward Lloyd V. Daniel became a farmer and his wealth increased steadily, expanding the number of slaves he owned from 18 to 36 between 1840 and 1850. By the latter year, he possessed real estate valued at $25,000. After the death of his father, Lloyd resided at the nearby Wye Heights Plantation, earlier built for Edward Lloyd VI and his wife. Daniel's son, Henry, was Maryland's governor in the 1880s. 1840 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 59; 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 11a (free schedule), 14 (slave schedule); Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 54-55, 61, 81, 221n21; Tilghman, Talbot County, 1 : 207, 212. and three sons-in-law, Mr. Winder,†Historical annotation: Edward Stoughton Winder, son of Levin Winder, the sixteenth governor of Maryland, and Mary Sloss, married Elizabeth Tayloe Lloyd, the eldest daughter of Edward Lloyd V, in 1820. Their son, Charles Sidney Winder, became a Confederate brigadier general. Edward most likely died before 1850 as that year's census lists Elizabeth, rather than him, as the family head. 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 52; Tilghman, Talbot County, 1 : 207; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 221-22; Hardy, Colonial Families, 387; National Cyclopaedia of American Biography (New York, 1898), 5 : 514. Mr. Nicholson,†Historical annotation: Joseph Nicholson was the son of Rebecca Lloyd, Edward V's sister, and her husband, Joseph Hopper Nicholson (1770-1817), a Democratic-Republican Congressman from Baltimore from 1799 through 1806 and thereafter a prominent Maryland jurist. The younger Nicholson was the nephew of Edward Lloyd V, not the son-in-law, as Douglass identifies him. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 70, 222n4; Hardy, Colonial Families, 500-11; DAB, 13 : 505-06; BDAC, 1570. and Mr. Lowndes.†Historical annotation: Born in Kent County, Maryland, Charles Lowndes (1798-1885) entered the navy as a midshipman in 1815. He married Sally Scott Lloyd in the mid-1820s and by 1840 was a prosperous Talbot County farmer with thirty-five slaves. By the start of the Civil War, he had risen to the rank of captain in the U.S. Navy. Suspected of Confederate sympathies, he was placed on the retired list in 1862 and later promoted to commodore and placed on a war prize commission. 1840 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 70; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 47, 222; Johnson, Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary, 7 : n.p.; Christopher Johnston, "Lowndes Family," MdHM, 2 : 279 (September 1907); Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 6 vols. (New York, 1888-89), 4 : 44. All of these lived at the Great House Farm, and enjoyed the luxury of whipping the servants when they pleased, from Old†Textual note here indicates which edition or impression a text variation occurs. See note above on terms "old" and "young." Emendation note: see above. Barney down to William Wilkes,†Historical annotation: William Wilks (c. 1791-?) was a slave of Edward Lloyd V. Sometime in the first half of the 1830s he purchased his freedom and moved to Baltimore. In that city, Wilks worked as a general laborer and resided on Lexington Street, east of Park Street. Return Book, 1 January 1824, Land Papers—Maintenance of Property, Land Volume 39, reel 10, Lloyd Family Papers, MdHI; Matchett's Baltimore Director[y]. . . 1835-6 (Baltimore, 1835), 275; Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1837-8 (Baltimore, 1837), 472.
the coach-driver, I have seen Winder make one of the house-servants stand off from him a suitable distance to be touched with the end of his whip, and at every stroke raise great ridges upon his back.
To describe the wealth of Colonel Lloyd would be almost equal to describing the riches of Job.†Historical annotation: Douglass refers to the biblical story of Job, where his wealth is enumerated and he is described as "the greatest of all in the east." Job 1 : 1-3. He kept from ten to fifteen house-servants. He
was said to own a thousand slaves, and I think this estimate quite within the truth. Colonel Lloyd owned so many that he did not know them when he saw them; nor did all the slaves of the out-farms know him. It is reported of him, that, while riding along the road one day, he met a colored man, and addressed him in the usual manner of speaking to colored people on the public highways of the south: "Well, boy, whom do you belong to?" "To Colonel Lloyd," replied the slave. "Well, does the colonel treat you well?" "No, sir," was the ready reply. "What, does he work you too hard?" "Yes, sir." "Well, don't he give you enough to eat?" "Yes, sir, he gives me enough, such as it is."
The colonel, after ascertaining whom the slave belonged to,†Textual note here indicates which edition or impression a text variation occurs. whom the slave belonged to,] Douglass almost certainly intended to revise B's phrase, "where the slave belonged," to make it parallel with a phrase in the previous paragraph (23.6), where Colonel Lloyd asks a black man whom he meets on a road: " 'Well, boy, whom do you belong to?'" Douglass inserted "to" after "belonged" in D1, but either he or the compositor failed to substitute "whom" for "where" (B: Copy text, first published in Boston in 1845; D1: First impression of the second edition, published in Dublin in 1845). This emendation note records the edition/impression symbol indicates the text in which the adopted variant first appears; where the slave belonged,. rode on; the man also went on about his business, not dreaming that he had been conversing with his master. He thought, said, and heard nothing more of the matter, until two or three weeks afterwards. The poor man was then informed by his overseer that, for having found fault with his master, he was now to be sold to a Georgia trader. He was immediately chained and handcuffed; and thus, without a moment's warning, he was snatched away, and forever sundered, from his family and friends, by a hand more unrelenting than death. This is the penalty of telling the truth, of telling the simple truth, in answer to a series of plain questions.
It is partly in consequence of such facts, that slaves, when inquired of as to their condition and the character of their masters, almost universally say they are contented, and that their masters are kind. The slaveholders have been known to send in spies among their slaves, to ascertain their views and feelings in regard to their condition. The frequency of this has had the effect to establish among the slaves the maxim, that a still tongue makes a wise head.†Historical annotation: This saying probably had its roots in an old English epigram, "Hauyng a styll toung he had a besy head." The Proverbs and Epigrams of John Heywood (1562; New York, 1967), 214. They suppress the truth rather than take the consequences of telling it, and in so doing prove themselves a part of the human family. If they have any thing to say of their masters, it is generally in their masters' favor, especially when speaking to an untried man. I have been frequently asked, when a slave, if I had a kind master, and do not remember ever to have given a negative answer; nor did†Textual note here indicates which edition or impression a text variation occurs. We have retained the past tense despite the switch to present tense in D1 and D2 for two reasons. First, past tense works as well or better than present tense. Second, Douglass uses the past tense in a closely parallel passage in Bondage and Freedom (117) (D1: First impression of the second edition, published in Dublin in 1845; D2: Second impression of the Dublin edition, published in 1846). I, in pursuing this course, consider myself as uttering what was absolutely false; for I always measured the kindness of my master by the standard of kindness set up among slaveholders around us. Moreover, slaves are like other people, and imbibe prejudices quite common to others. They think their own better than that of others. Many, under the influence of this prejudice, think their own masters are better than the masters of other slaves; and this, too, in some cases, when the very reverse is true. Indeed, it is not uncommon for slaves even to fall out and
quarrel among themselves about the relative goodness of their masters, each contending for the superior goodness of his own over that of the others. At the very same time, they mutually execrate their masters when viewed separately. It was so on our plantation. When Colonel Lloyd's slaves met the slaves of Jacob Jepson,†Historical annotation: Jacob Gibson (1759-1818), a slaveowner locally feared for his volatile temper, resided at Marengo, a plantation bordering the Lloyd property. Douglass mistakenly refers to him as "Jacob Jepson." Appointed an associate judge for Talbot County in 1802, Gibson won election to the legislature in 1806. Residents remembered him because of his numerous vitriolic broadsides and newspaper essays as well as his physical assaults on his enemies. The 1810 U.S. census listed him as the owner of thirty-four slaves, whom Gibson reputedly ruled over as a stern taskmaster. Gibson's plantation belonged to his son Fayette at the time to which Douglass refers. 1810 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 342; Tilghman, Talbot County, 1 : 231-56; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 60, 221n28. they seldom parted without a quarrel about their masters; Colonel Lloyd's slaves contending that he was the richest, and Mr. Jepson's slaves that he was the smartest, and most of a man. Colonel Lloyd's slaves would boast his ability to buy and sell Jacob Jepson. Mr. Jepson's slaves would boast his ability to whip Colonel Lloyd. These quarrels would almost always end in a fight between the parties, and those that whipped were supposed to have gained the point at issue. They seemed to think that the greatness of their masters was transferable to themselves. It was considered as being bad enough to be a slave; but to be a poor man's slave was deemed a disgrace indeed!