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"Were many lives lost around
here?"
an old man was asked. He stood with
his hands folded in front of him and
his eyes seeking the ground. If he had
held his faded and flabby hat in his
hands his attitude would have been that
of the peasant in Millets picture of the
Angelus. He stood stock-still, his bare
feet placed close together.
"He gone deaf,
suh," said a woman
standing near.
She touched him gently on the arm, and instantly he was alert. The
question was repeated.
"Were many lives lost around here?"
"Oh, yes, suh; 'bunnunce!" His
voice sounded as if it came from far
away.
"How many?"
"One, two, t'ree -" he held up the
fingers of one thin hand. "Mebby se'm.
Mebby l'em. Enty?" He turned to
the woman to confirm his figures, but
she merely smiled. "We no count dem," he went on, shaking his head and
shutting his eyes. "Dee gone!"
Then the old man relapsed into his
former attitude. His eyes sought the
ground, his hands clasped in front of
him, his bare feet close together. The woman who had spoken for him
formed part of a little group standing
near. She was rubbing the head of a
four-year-old pickaninny.
"How many children have you?"
she was asked.
"Tree, suh. Two boy; one lil' gal."
"Were any of them drowned?"
"How dee gwan drown, suh?" she answered, laughing. The
intonation of
her voice was indescribable. "I up'd
de tree," she said, after a pause, with a
gesture that explained how she saved
them. "Dee choke - dee strankle - I up'd de tree!" The woman turned and
pointed to another woman who was
standing apart by the waters edge, looking out over the lonely marshes. "She
los' dem chillun, suh. She have trouble."
And so it turned out. This woman,
standing apart, as lonely as the never-ending marshes, had lost three children.
She had five. In the fury and confusion
of the storm, she had managed to get
them all in a tree. The foundations of
this place of refuge were sapped, and
the tree gave way before the gale,
plunging the woman and her children
into the whirling flood. Three were
swept from under her hands out into
the marsh, into the estuary, and so into
the sea. They were never seen any
more. She had nothing to add to this
story as brief as it is tragic. One mo
ment she had five children clinging to
her, in another moment there were only
two. The angry winds and the hungry
waters had torn them from her and
swept them out of hearing before they
could utter a cry. But what this wom
an said did not run in the direction of
grief. "I glad to God I got two lil'
one lef'." After all, the woman had
reason to be glad. Pathetic as her own
story was, it was not as touching as another that she told of a neighboring
family. She showed where the house
had stood, but there was nothing to
mark its site, save a blackened stone
that had lain in the fireplace. Every
other vestige of the cabin, and of the
other cabins that had clustered near,
was swept away.
"T'irteen in de house,
suh," the woman said, "I call dem w'en I run. I call
dem an' run. If dee make answer, I no
yeddy dem. Dee gone!"
An entire family swept away, and
their friends and neighbors too busy
with their own troubles to grieve after
them, unless, indeed, a keen ear might
catch a note of sorrow in the plaintive
voice that told the story.
VII
But this is not even the beginning.
It hardly gives an intimation of the
worst. The great trouble about these
islands is the lack of communication.
On the 30th of August, two days after
the storm, not a word had come from
the Sea Islands, and it was only through
the adventurous energy of a newspaper
reporter from Atlanta, that the public
knew of the condition of Beaufort and
Port Royal on that day. On the first
of September, four days after the storm,
there were vague hints of the condition of the islands. Beaufort and Port
Royal, while engaged in rescuing their
own dead from the tide, found the bodies of strangers among the rest. Two
of these were identified as Negroes living on the farther side of Ladies Island, and another was thought to be
the body of a woman from Coosaw. Still
there was no definite information.
But on September
2nd, Charleston
heard a part of the dismal story, and on
the same day the people of Beaufort and
Port Royal awoke to the fact that, severe
as their own trouble was, the trouble
on the Sea Islands was greater. A demand for instant relief came from these
settlements, and the demand was the
more imperative because of its plaintive
ness. It was the more urgent because
of the knowledge of the whites of the
exposed situation of the islands that
faced the open sea. Prompt measures
were taken, but, in the very nature of
the case, they could bear no proportionate relation to the demand that was made
on the zeal, energy, and benevolence of
those who, before slavery was abolished,
held themselves responsible for the safety and well-being of the Negroes on the
islands, and who, in some sort, still feel
the pressure of the old habit of responsibility.
Relief would have been inadequate if
it had been on a much larger scale than
the adjacent communities could afford.
It would have been tardy if it had been
undertaken the day after the storm. But
the work was undertaken as soon as possible and went as far as it could go. At
the very best, the lack of communication is remarkable. No other portion
of the continent is more secure in its
isolation. Doubtless the tax-collector
visits the islands - he goes everywhere;
perhaps a pension agent is to be found
there occasionally, for there are pensioners on the Sea Islands; but, practically, the people are isolated. They come
to market in their little boats, but they
have no regular channels of communication. Their coming and going is
intermittent. If a stranger wants to visit
the islands he must depend on a happy
chance, and if he is in a hurry he will go
away without seeing them. This was so
before the August storm, and it will be
so when the storm has become a tradition.
But on the day after the hurricane,
and for days that must have seemed an
age to the Negroes on the wind-torn and tide swept islands, there were no possible means of communication. The little boats of the
Negroes had been blown
away; the tugs and launches in and
around Charleston, Beaufort, and Port
Royal were driven ashore or temporarily disabled; a clean sweep had been
made of all the craft that are available
on ordinary occasions. It is said that
the first information of the real condition of the islands was brought to Beaufort by two
Negroes in a boat, one rowing and the other bailing; and only
men impelled by dire necessity would
have dared to venture across from one
island to another in such a disabled
canoe.
VIII
It has been said of the Gulf storm
that it is unparalleled in its terrible
completeness. It should be said of
this South Atlantic hurricane that it is
the most disastrous that ever visited
this coast. It struck helplessness where
it was weak. It is not to be measured
by the destruction to life which it
caused, though that was something terrible, but by the suffering which has
followed.
It is
estimated - and the estimate is
not in the nature of a rough guess -
that two thousand five hundred lives
were lost in the islands and on the adjacent coast. The truth would not be
missed very far if the number were
placed at three thousand. Not all of
those were lost in the storm. Two
thousand persons, the great majority
of them Negroes, were drowned or
killed on the night of the storm. The
others died from exposure, from a lack
of food, or from the malarial fever that
was epidemic on the islands during the
hot September days that succeeded the
disturbance.
This epidemic originated from two causes - from the stench of bodies buried hastily in shallow graves where the
tide could uncover them - and from
the stagnant pools of water left when
the high tide receded. The wells on
the islands were filled with sea-water.
The first reports of the dead left un
buried were exaggerated.
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The Negroes
were quick to bury their dead, but the
work was necessarily hurried, for there
was a great deal of it to be done. But
they have a superstition or belief -
these island Negroes - that is tersely
expressed in one of their childish
rhymes - "Die by water,
Lie by water."
That is to say, those who are drowned
should be buried as near to the water
as possible. In their haste they buried
many where the tide could uncover
them, and the exposure of these added
to the epidemic. Surgeon Magruder, of the Marine
Hospital, who inspected the sanitary
condition of the largest of the islands
during the first weeks after the storm,
reports that three thousand seven hundred and nine cases of sickness were
treated, of which two thousand five
hundred and forty-two were malarial
fever. This report covers only eight of
the islands. The same condition existed on all the islands.
There was a windfall for St. Helena.
The storm brought close to its shores
the wreck of the City of Savannah.
When the passengers and crew were
rescued, the Negroes seized upon the
stores that had been left, and surely
Providence never poured timelier gifts
into the laps of the needy. Almost out
of reach of relief, many of these Negroes must have perished but for this succor,
sent them on the wings of the storm
that had stripped them of their small
possessions. But the wreck was a
bone that was soon picked. Its stores
were but a mouthful as compared with
the needs of the population. It has been estimated that at least
thirty thousand people were left practically homeless and in need of relief by
the storm. I cannot vouch for this estimate, but it has not been challenged.
It is made by those who have made a
thorough canvass of all the islands exposed to the storm. But let us give
cold doubt the benefit of its prudence
a prudence that is frequently untimely;
let us say that there are twenty thousand Negroes on the Sea Islands whose
possessions were destroyed by the hurricane - twenty thousand who stand in
need of relief; is not this something
for the benevolent to think about, even
now? Bear in mind that relief in this
in
stance means not a momentary ebullition of benevolence, but the actual
means of subsistence for a period covering several months. The Negroes have lost not their possessions alone,
but their growing crops. When the
storm swooped down upon them they
were just getting ready to market their cotton - the famous Sea Island cotton
that enters into the manufacture of the
finer grades of goods - they were just
getting ready to dig their sweet potatoes. But the wind whipped their cotton out of the bolls and off the stalks,
the salt sea-water rose and ruined their
potatoes; and wind and sea carried
away their boats; so that relief, in order
to be at all effective, must carry these
practically helpless Negroes over the
period that lies between two crops.
And there comes into the calculation
this additional problem - to what extent
has the deluge of salt-water destroyed
the productive capacity of the land?
All these things are to be considered,
and the Red Cross Society is engaged
in considering them.
To provide for the pressing and immediate wants of twenty or thirty
thousand people from the first of September
to the end of February, a period of six
months; to give them subsistence without making beggars or drones of them;
that is the task to which the Red Cross
Society has set itself. It is a task so
noble in its conception and purpose that
it ought to attract the sympathetic attention of the American people; for its
success depends wholly on those who
have the will and the means to fill the
hands of the little band which, marching under the flag of the Red Cross, is
devoting itself with an unselfishness
that involves the sacrifice of all personal
comfort, and with a zeal that is beyond
all praise, to the work of relieving the
victims of the storm.
Until now I have not mentioned,
except incidentally, the Red Cross Society,
of which Miss Clara Barton is president.
The work of that organization, the methods it has employed, and the results it
has wrought out of resources the most
slender, will be fully set forth in another
article. But meanwhile, before that
article can appear - even before this can
be printed - it is to be feared that the
apathy of the public will have cut down
the means of the Society to a limit too
pitiful to think about. These means
were pitifully narrow in November, and
at that time the flood-tide of public benevolence was flowing in to aid Miss Barton's Society. The newspapers were
devoting columns to the necessities of
the storm sufferers, and one enterprising journal, the New York World, had
chartered a railway train to convey sup
plies to the coast. From every quarter
came food, clothing, tools. The sympathy of the public had been thoroughly
aroused.
But there were from twenty to thirty
thousand people to be tided over the
winter months and into the spring.
Recognizing this fact, Miss Barton and
her assistants adopted from the very
first the most rigid system of economy
a system far more efficacious in the
end than any lavish dispensation of charity could have been. A peck of grits
and a pound of pork - these are the rations for a family of six. They seem at
first thought to be a poor excuse for
charity, and the Negro who goes after
them in his little ox-cart most likely
takes them away with a disappointed look on his face, glancing back at the
little bundles as he drives along, or shaking his head
doubtfully as he measures their weight by lifting them in
his hand. "Mockin' bud been eat mo' dun dat!" He
remembered the days when the Government poured out its
bounty through the Freedman's Bureau.
But a peck of
grits and a pound of pork mean something more than
momentary relief - something more than mere charity. They
mean that the head of a family which has to depend on them
for a week's subsistence must bestir himself; that he must
catch fish to go with the rations; that, in short, he is
not to eat the bread of idleness. This rigid economy on
the part of the Red Cross Society grows out of the
necessities of the situation, and is not intended
primarily to spur the needy ones to provide for
themselves. It is a pinching policy that does not, I
imagine, commend itself very heartily to the approval of
Miss Barton, except as a measure of absolute necessity
that looks carefully to the future. But those who have
seen measures of relief misdirected and private bounty
mismanaged, will recognize in this economy of the Red
Cross Society, a wise administration of the resources that
benevolent people have placed at the disposal of those who
were despoiled by the storm. For surely that measure of
relief is wise (whether dictated by necessity or by
experience) that prevents those whom it succors from
sitting in idleness to be maintained by charity, public or
private.
In
November the Red Cross Society had barely completed its
work of organizing relief for the suffering and destitute
on the Sea Islands. Compared with the demands made upon
it, the Society's resources were small, and the fear -
which may have developed into absolute certainty by the
time these pages go to the public - was that they would
grow smaller and smaller as the cold weather came on. Miss
Barton's last word to inc was to ask that an appeal be
made to benevolent people throughout the country, to the
end that the resources at the command of the Red Cross
Society may not be sensibly diminished by reason of the
increased demands made upon them in the winter months, and
to the end that, at least by the first of April, these
unfortunate Negroes, despoiled by wind and tide, may be
placed securely on their feet, as nearly independent as
they were the day before the storm.
I went to the
Sea Islands with no prejudice against the Red Cross
Society, but certainly with no prepossession in its favor.
I had pictured it in my mind as a sort of fussy and
contentious affair, running about with a tremendous amount
of chatter and flourishing a great deal of red tape - a
sort of circumlocution office, situated in the air between
individual officiousness and
newspaper notoriety.
As a matter of
fact, the Red Cross Society as I saw it at Beaufort is
something entirely different from any other
relief organization that has come under my observation.
Its strongest and most admirable feature is its extreme
simplicity. The perfection of its machinery is shown by
the apparent absence of all machinery. There are no
exhibitions of self-importance. There is no display -no
torturous cross-examination of applicants - no needless
delay. And yet nothing is done blindly, or hastily, or
indifferently.
This poor
little tribute to Miss Clara Barton I want to pay in
heartily seconding her appeal to the benevolence of the
whole country to aid her in carrying out her work on the
Sea Islands. Such aid will be more important in the last
days of her mission than it was when the sympathies of the
public had been touched by the awful story of the disaster
that went tingling over the wires on the last day of
August.
...from
Scribner's Magazine, February 1894 |
