Adelaide chattered merrily as the three of us rode together toward our destination, but as we approached the drive leading up to Southwood, my horse shied, setting off skittish behavior with the other two horses.
“I’m afraid these horses haven’t been worked in a while. Use a heavy hand if you must,” Mr. Spencer directed. “Here, Addy, let me take your reins,” he said as she worked to calm her horse.
“No, Father!” she said, using her crop to take command, while glancing at me to see if I noted her accomplished riding skills.
As we approached Southwood, we moved our horses out of the brutal sun and into the shade of the tall cedars that lined the long drive. Past the trees on either side lay open fields with workers bent over vegetation. We were approaching one of the largest cotton plantations in this northern Carolina region.
I looked about hopefully, wondering if I might see Pan out in the fields, but my horse, sensitive to my nerves, began to sidestep.
“Use your crop!” Mr. Spencer instructed, but I knew the problem was with me and not the horse.
“He’ll be fine. He’ll settle down. How many acres do they have in cotton?” I asked as a means of distraction.
“That is a question you might ask Thomas,” Mr. Spencer said, his attention on his own spirited horse.
The night before, Mr. Spencer had warned me to tread carefully with Bill Thomas. My host explained that for years Thomas had complete run of Southwood and the absentee owners relied on him exclusively. No one in the area could dispute that this was one of the most efficiently run plantations and that the cotton production was enviable. However, Mr. Spencer said, “Bill Thomas is a man who runs his place by his own rules.”
I knew what he insinuated, for I remembered Tall Oaks and the absolute control Rankin had enjoyed. His actions were seldom, if ever, influenced by the law, and as a result he was ruthless.
THE FIRST BUILDING that came into view was a fair-sized clapboard house set at the head of the drive. It had a balcony protruding from the second floor, a place where a man might observe all of the many buildings under his jurisdiction. I was not surprised to learn that it was Bill Thomas’s home.
A wide brick path was laid parallel to the drive and both ran up and past a row of neatly constructed whitewashed buildings. Farther down, the two trails divided, and while the road wound around to the right, the brick path turned left toward a handsome house set in the center of a heavily treed garden. This house, too, was white-painted clapboard, but it was easily four times the size of the first, and from it protruded three large balconies.
From atop my horse I could see the entire plantation laid out on flat terrain, with a river at the far end creating a natural boundary. A good distance from the main house, set back from the riverbank, was an extended row of small but orderly gray cabins that constituted the quarters.
Another boundary was set to the left of the house by a canal that intersected with the river and traveled down the property out and away as far as I could see. I later learned that this waterway was used to transport the cotton via a series of rivers and other canals that wound their way down to Edenton.
We stopped in front of the manager’s home and before Mr. Spencer had time to dismount, a woman came to the door. Although she was white, her faded homespun dress, worn face, and disheveled hair alerted one to the fact that she was not a woman of leisure. She dried her hands with a rag, then tossed it over her shoulder as she squinted at us. “You looking for Bill?” she asked in a hard voice. Not waiting for a reply, she pointed toward the big house. “He’s up there, workin’ on something. But he don’t have no time for sittin’ around talkin’.”
“We’ve come on business,” Mr. Spencer answered.
“You’ll just have to go on up, then. Ask any of the niggas you see where he is. They’ll tell you.”
My horse was prancing and so agitated that I decided to dismount. “Give him the crop!” Mr. Spencer directed, but my feet were already on the ground.
“I’ll straighten him out tomorrow,” I answered.
“We might as well join you on foot.” Mr. Spencer slipped down from his horse and handed me the reins, thereby freeing himself to assist his daughter.
“I’ll get Alfred from the barn to take your horses,” the woman said. Without warning, she put her fingers to her mouth and gave a shrill whistle for help. Addy was preparing for dismount when her horse, startled by the whistle, jumped back. Addy, tossed forward, flew through the air and landed hard on the brick path. With her scream of pain, her father rushed to her side. As Mr. Spencer helped her stand, her face went white. “Daddy,” she cried, clutching at her arm and falling against him. “Daddy! My arm!”
He scooped her up and frantically looked about. The woman hesitated but then opened the door of her home and waved the two of them in before she looked back at me. “Give Alfred your horses,” she said, nodding toward the newly arrived servant, “then go on to that building up there, the sickhouse, the one with the glass windows. Get Sukey. She’s a nigga, but good as any doctor hereabouts.”
I did as directed and moved swiftly past the washhouse yard where women boiled and scrubbed and slapped at the air with wet laundry. Though concerned for Addy, I hadn’t forgotten Pan as I hurried up the road. I glanced into the next building, where the door stood open and inside a lone woman clanked away at a room-sized loom. I kept moving, and in the shade of the loom house, I startled a group of women who looked up, grim-faced, from their spinning. I greeted them with a nod, but they did not respond. This might have been a peaceful scene, but something was amiss. Unsettled by their silence, concerned about Addy, and growing more desperate to get a glimpse of Pan, I left the drive to cut through a yard and found myself at the back of the cooper’s shop. I brushed past some dozen or so newly constructed wooden barrels and rounded the building so quickly that I almost tripped over the cooper. The man worked like one possessed. Wood shavings flew as perspiration dripped from his face, and even as I greeted him, he didn’t take note of me. Then I saw why.
In front of him, in the center of the work yard, set a type of stockade. There, seated on a thin wedge of board, a nude Negro man was locked into a wooden contraption. With his feet tied straight out and his hands secured behind him, he had nothing to support his back; the pain of the wood cutting into his buttocks must have been unbearable. Added to his torture were the scorching sun and the clouds of flies and mosquitoes that surrounded him. His head lolled to the side and his eyes were glazed with pain, while his breathing came in short guttural grunts.
Because of his location, all of the yard workers were witness to his torment yet almost certainly were forbidden to do anything to relieve his suffering. I stared, sickened, before turning away.
I ran then toward the building with glass panes and rapped heavily on the door. When there was no response, I pushed in and closed the door behind me. My breathing finally quieted as I looked about the sparsely furnished hallway, and when I heard voices, I followed the sound through another door. The large room I entered had at least twenty pallets lining the walls, and though most were empty, it was well built to serve this community of more than two hundred slaves.