God's Children
()
About this ebook
In 1937, after decades in the North, Archibald Rutledge returned to what he described as the “hyacinth days and camellia nights” of his native Carolina Lowcountry to restore his ancestral home, Hampton Plantation, which had been in his family since 1730.
Originally published in 1947, these pages describe, in intimate and fascinating detail, the plantation life he found upon his return. In the simple, lyrical language of the first poet laureate of South Carolina, Rutledge portrays the black men and women, descendants of slaves, who labored alongside him in the marshes of the Santee, the stories they shared, and his interactions with them. God’s Children serves as a vivid snapshot of day-to-day activity on a plantation in the American South in the first half of the twentieth century, and of a lifestyle that was ever so slowly disappearing.
Archibald Rutledge
Archibald Rutledge (1883–1973) was South Carolina’s most prolific writer and the state’s first poet laureate. His nature writings garnered him the prestigious John Burroughs Medal.
Read more from Archibald Rutledge
Tales of Whitetails: Archibald Rutledge's Great Deer-Hunting Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Ocean's Menace Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCarolina Christmas: Archibald Rutledge's Enduring Holiday Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Plantation Game Trails Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClaws Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHunting and Home in the Southern Heartland: The Best of Archibald Rutledge Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bird Dog Days, Wingshooting Ways: Archibald Rutledge's Tales of Upland Hunting Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to God's Children
Related ebooks
Good Lil’ Boys and Girls from the Cotton State of Alabama and the Magnolia State of Mississippi: (Black Children Speak Series!) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSee Me Naked: Black Women Defining Pleasure in the Interwar Era Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Negro in the South Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPoetry of a Black American Muslim Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJournal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation (1838-1839) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Commerce of Louisiana During the French Regime, 1699-1763 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHistory of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Testimonies of Slaves: Hundreds of Recorded Interviews and Life Stories of Former Slaves in the South Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Angel Oak Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhite Robes, Silver Screens: Movies and the Making of the Ku Klux Klan Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClotel; or, The President's Daughter Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlack Sheep: A Blue-Eyed Negro Speaks of Abandonment, Belonging, Racism, and Redemption Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDirt Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Slavery and The Civil War: What Your History Teacher Didn’t Tell You Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWithin the Plantation Household: Black and White Women of the Old South Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution: With Sketches of Several Distinguished Black Persons Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Slave-Trader's Letter-Book: Charles Lamar, The Wanderer, and Other Tales of the African Slave Trade Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Religious Instruction of the Negroes in the United States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Dorothy Porter Wesley at Howard University: Building a Legacy of Black History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFaith in Their Own Color: Black Episcopalians in Antebellum New York City Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings1000 Things Worth Knowing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Words of African-American Heroes Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRed Now and Laters: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Maximilian Emancipation: World/Time Diaspora, #1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Life of William Apess, Pequot Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Ethnic Studies For You
Black Rednecks & White Liberals Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Barracoon: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo" Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Self-Care for Black Women: 150 Ways to Radically Accept & Prioritize Your Mind, Body, & Soul Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5All About Love: New Visions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black Like Me: The Definitive Griffin Estate Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Amazing Facts About the Negro with Complete Proof Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Kind of People: Inside America's Black Upper Class Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Rock My Soul: Black People and Self-Esteem Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stories of Rootworkers & Hoodoo in the Mid-South Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Things That Make White People Uncomfortable Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Conspiracy to Destroy Black Women Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Wretched of the Earth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Spook Who Sat by the Door Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism within US Slave Culture Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Burning: The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lakota Woman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heavy: An American Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Blood of Emmett Till Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for God's Children
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
God's Children - Archibald Rutledge
Chapter 1
Black Henchmen
My father bequeathed to me many friends. Nor could there be a richer heritage than this. Among these were many of the plantation Negroes he had trained in particular skills. Always keen to recognize and to appreciate special aptitudes, he took great pride in his black henchmen, as he called them. They are my best workers today, belonging to a fine old school which took delight in craftsmanship, and knew nothing of mass production. I call these henchmen mine; and I inherited them from my father. They are a part of his fine legacy to me.
While some publicity has been given the American Negro as an artist, and while a very great deal, on the stage, on the screen, and in novels and short stories, has been made of his laziness, his apprehensive superstitions and his general laissez faire attitude toward life, no tribute of which I know has ever been paid to him as a loyal and intelligent worker. And since it is as a worker that I know the Negro best, I should like to give an account of certain of my black henchmen and of the labors they perform. Mention will be made also of what we call special aptitudes. I believe that my story will be heartening to all those who really love the Negro and wish him well. I hope also to reveal other aspects of his character. It appears wise to attempt to do so by recounting certain authentic happenings of plantation life and by telling some true stories of what I have known Negroes to do.
Of course, I live in the wilderness, and on my remote Carolina plantation things are somewhat as they have always been. My Negroes—I call them mine, for they are my people; but more truly, I am theirs—are Nubians; that is, their ancestors were brought from North Africa. Undoubtedly in their veins was some admixture of Egyptian, Moorish and Arab blood. Many of my henchmen are tall, straight and handsome; and their native intelligence is such that I frequently go to them for advice, even on rather intimate personal matters. They know nothing of literature and little of the modern world; but they know, it seems to me, everything about life and about human character. I have long made it a practice never to start any project on the plantation without first consulting some of my henchmen. They can often see farther than I do; and they have the quaint and eerie gift of being able to see around corners.
Recently I decided to put a trunk in the bank of an old abandoned rice field. My place is directly on the river, ten miles above the ocean; and we have fresh tidewater.
This I wanted to control, so that I could dry or flow the field at will. A trunk or floodgate is the only device by which this can be done. In the old days of rice growing in coastal Carolina, there were thousands of trunks made and put into operation; and there were many good trunkmakers, also all among the Negroes. But today old Sambo Green is the only Negro I know who can make one of these wooden floodgates which, by a kind of hydraulic magic, harness the tides; and though we do not often consider this fact, behind every tide is the incredible might of the ocean.
Sambo Green is old, small, mild-mannered, peering. He is well over seventy, and he walks stoopingly and unsteadily. To me he perfectly illustrates the fine principle that skill, intelligence and gentleness are often of far more effect than brute strength. I have many Negroes who could tie Sambo up with one hand, but not one of them can make a trunk. Nature endowed him with this certain, if slight, wizardry, and long experience has made him a master in his field.
Set deeply under the banks of old rice fields on my place are similar trunks. Since immediately above some of them grow stately pines and cypresses which cannot be less than a century old, the floodgates beneath them must be much older. Yet with a little work on their doors, these trunks could be made to work today. Therefore the trunk that mild Sambo made for me will be effective a hundred years hence. How few examples of human handicraft, especially those exposed to the elements, last so long!
When the massive lumber was assembled on the bank, near the cut in the dike into which the trunk, when completed, would be lowered, Sambo went to work. Incidentally, he lives four miles from me, but he does not mind walking to and from work. Both on arriving and on departing he can be heard whistling—mildly broadcasting cheerfulness.
Most workmen of today, if they were confronted by the task Sambo faced, would have to be supplied with a multitude of modern gadgets. Sambo had only the elementals: an auger, a saw, a hatchet and an old plane, the box of which he himself had made. Of course his real tools were his understanding heart, his seeing eye and his sensitive, intelligent hands. He likes to work alone. If I appeared on the scene, he tolerated me very courteously, but I could tell that he knew exactly how to do to the thing, whereas I did not. While I questioned him a little, out of curiosity, I refrained from making any suggestions. One must not make suggestions to an artist. Genius is a solitary thing, and knows its way