- #Edwin epps plantation louisiana driver#
- #Edwin epps plantation louisiana full#
- #Edwin epps plantation louisiana free#
A plough drawn by one mule is then run along the top of the ridge or center of the bed, making the drill, into which a girl usually drops the seed, which she carries in a bag hung round her neck. The beds, or ridges, are six feet wide, that is, from water furrow to water furrow. The women as frequently as the men perform this labor, feeding, currying, and taking care of their teams, and in all respects doing the field and stable work, precisely as do the ploughboys of the North. Oxen and mules, the latter almost exclusively, are used in ploughing. The ground is prepared by throwing up beds or ridges, with the plough-back-furrowing, it is called. His principal business was raising cotton, and inasmuch as some may read this book who have never seen a cotton field, a description of the manner of its culture may not be out of place. Roberts, his wife’s uncle, and was leased by Epps.
#Edwin epps plantation louisiana driver#
He had been a driver and overseer in his younger years, but at this time was in possession of a plantation on Bayou Huff Power, two and a half miles from Holmesville, eighteen from Marksville, and twelve from Cheneyville. When sober, he was silent, reserved and cunning, not beating us indiscriminately, as in his drunken moments, but sending the end of his rawhide to some tender spot of a lagging slave, with a sly dexterity peculiar to himself. Latterly, however, he had reformed his habits, and when I left him, was as strict a specimen of temperance as could be found on Bayou Boeuf When “in his Cups,” Master Epps was a roystering, blustering, noisy fellow, whose chief delight was in dancing with his “niggers,” or lashing them about the yard with his long whip, just for the pleasure of hearing them screech and scream, as the great welts were planted on their backs. At the time I came into his possession, Edwin Epps was fond of the bottle, his “sprees” sometimes extending over the space of two whole weeks. He has the faculty of saying most provoking things, in that respect even excelling old Peter Tanner. His manners are repulsive and coarse, and his language gives speedy and unequivocal evidence that he has never enjoyed the advantages of an education. He has the sharp, inquisitive expression of a jockey.
#Edwin epps plantation louisiana full#
He has blue eyes, a fair complexion, and is, as I should say, full six feet high. The details of his death have never been documented.ĮDWIN EPPS, of whom much will be said during the remainder of this history, is a large, portly, heavybodied man with light hair, high cheek bones, and a Roman nose of extraordinary dimensions. He largely disappears from the historical record in 1857 (although a letter later reported him alive in early 1863) some commentators thought he had been kidnapped again, but historians believe it unlikely, as he would have been considered too old to bring a good price. He lectured on behalf of the abolitionist movement, giving more than two dozen speeches throughout the Northeast about his experiences, to build momentum against slavery. In his first year of freedom, Northup wrote and published a memoir, Twelve Years a Slave (1853). Those who had kidnapped and enslaved Northup received no punishment. Later, in New York State, his northern kidnappers were located and charged, but the case was tied up in court for two years due to jurisdictional challenges and finally dropped when Washington, D.C., was found to have jurisdiction. Birch, was arrested and tried, but acquitted because District of Columbia law prohibited Northup as a black man from testifying against white people. The slave trader in Washington, D.C., James H. Family and friends enlisted the aid of the Governor of New York, Washington Hunt, and Northup regained his freedom on January 3, 1853.
#Edwin epps plantation louisiana free#
He remained in slavery until he met a Canadian working on his plantation who helped get word to New York, where state law provided for aid to free New York citizens kidnapped into slavery. He was shipped to New Orleans, purchased by a planter, and held as a slave for 12 years in the Red River region of Louisiana, mostly in Avoyelles Parish. (where slavery was legal), where he was kidnapped, and sold as a slave. In 1841, he was offered a traveling musician’s job and went to Washington, D.C. A farmer and violinist, Northup owned land in Hebron, New York. A free-born African American from New York, he was the son of a freed slave and free woman of color. Solomon Northup (July 1808–1863?) was an American abolitionist and the primary author of the memoir Twelve Years a Slave.
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