These mechanics were called "uncles" by all the younger slaves, not
because they really sustained that relationship to any, but according to
plantation _etiquette_, as a mark of respect, due{54} from the younger
to the older slaves. Strange, and even ridiculous as it may seem, among
a people so uncultivated, and with so many stern trials to look in
the face, there is not to be found, among any people, a more rigid
enforcement of the law of respect to elders, than they maintain. I
set this down as partly constitutional with my race, and partly
conventional. There is no better material in the world for making a
gentleman, than is furnished in the African. He shows to others, and
exacts for himself, all the tokens of respect which he is compelled to
manifest toward his master. A young slave must approach the company
of the older with hat in hand, and woe betide him, if he fails to
acknowledge a favor, of any sort, with the accustomed _"tank'ee,"_ &c.
So uniformly are good manners enforced among slaves, I can easily detect
a "bogus" fugitive by his manners.

Among other slave notabilities of the plantation, was one called by
everybody Uncle Isaac Copper. It is seldom that a slave gets a surname
from anybody in Maryland; and so completely has the south shaped the
manners of the north, in this respect, that even abolitionists make very
little of the surname of a Negro. The only improvement on the "Bills,"
"Jacks," "Jims," and "Neds" of the south, observable here is, that
"William," "John," "James," "Edward," are substituted. It goes against
the grain to treat and address a Negro precisely as they would treat
and address a white man. But, once in a while, in slavery as in the
free states, by some extraordinary circumstance, the Negro has a surname
fastened to him, and holds it against all conventionalities. This was
the case with Uncle Isaac Copper. When the "uncle" was dropped, he
generally had the prefix "doctor," in its stead. He was our doctor of
medicine, and doctor of divinity as well. Where he took his degree I am
unable to say, for he was not very communicative to inferiors, and I was
emphatically such, being but a boy seven or eight years old. He was too
well established in his profession to permit questions as to his native
skill, or his attainments. One qualification he undoubtedly had--he{55
PRAYING AND FLOGGING} was a confirmed _cripple;_ and he could neither
work, nor would he bring anything if offered for sal