Note 18 — Chapter III · Economics of Slavery in Tennessee

The following is a description of “a master in Haywood County, who, having the Shanghai mania, raised one year over eight hundred of them, under the careful attention and supervision of an old man, who had numbered his three score years, and was very infirm, but who, after proper preparation in the several coops and houses, with suitable places as depositories for their food, took great pleasure in his charge, and, with the negroes assisting him, it was pleasing to see the delight he manifested in the care of his brood, and with what pride he would discourse on their good qualities to his respective visitors. Upwards of one hundred pair were given away, and from the sales of others at five dollars the pair, the old negro’s labor contributed to the income of the farm more than two hundred dollars. To suppress the romantic suggestions that his rural pursuits in his retirement might lead to, he would exhibit his ‘happy family’ uncaged to his visitors, when he pointed to the fowl, the duck, the turkey, the pea-fowl, the pigeon, the partridge, the dove, the jaybird, the squirrel, the rabbit, the red bird, the woodpecker, the humming and mocking bird, as they occupied their respective places in the forest before his dwelling, and frequently several of them might be seen eating together, feeling instinctively conscious, from habit long indulged, that they had a protector over them, that prevented their being wantonly destroyed.”

Comptroller’s Report 1855-6, p. 432.