sinners
around the bed. He read a chapter and prayed, after which they sang a
hymn.... Uncle Caleb lay motionless with closed eyes, and gave no sign.
Jeff approached and took his hand. 'Uncle Caleb,' said he earnestly, 'de
doctor says you are dying; and all de bredderin has come in for to see you
de last time. And now, Uncle Caleb, dey wants to hear from your own mouf de
precious words, dat you feels prepared to meet your God, and is ready and
willin' to go,' Old Caleb opened his eyes suddenly, and in a very peevish,
irritable tone, rebuffed the pious functionary in the following unexpected
manner: 'Jeff, don't talk your nonsense to me! You jest knows dat I an't
ready to go, nor willin' neder; and dat I an't prepared to meet nobody,'
Jeff expatiated largely not only on the mercy of God, but on the glories of
the heavenly kingdom, as a land flowing with milk and honey, etc. 'Dis ole
cabin suits me mon'sus well!' was the only reply he could elicit from the
old reprobate. And so he died."[9]

[Footnote 9: William H. Holcombe, "Sketches of Plantation Life," in the
_Knickerbocker Magazine_, LVII, 631 (June, 1861).]

The slaves not only had their own functionaries in mystic matters,
including a remnant of witchcraft, but in various temporal concerns also.
Foremen, chosen by masters with the necessary sanction of the slaves, had
industrial and police authority; nurses were minor despots in sick rooms
and plantation hospitals; many an Uncle Remus was an oracle in folklore;
and many an Aunt Dinah was arbitress of style in turbans and of elegancies
in general. Even in the practice of medicine a negro here and there gained
a sage's reputation. The governor of Virginia reported in 1729 that he had
"met with a negro, a very old man, who has performed many wonderful cures
of diseases. For the sake of his freedom he has revealed the medicine, a
concoction of roots and barks.... There is no room to doubt of its being
a certain remedy here, and of singular use among the negroes--it is well
worth the price (L60) of the negro's freedom, since it is now known how to
cure slaves without mercury."[10] And in colonial South Carolina a slave
named Caesar was particularly famed for his cure for poison, which was a
decoction of plantain, hoar-hound and golden rod roots compounded with rum
and lye, together with an application of tobacco leaves soaked in rum in
case of rattlesnake bite. In 1750 the legislature ordered his prescription
published f