The Hope of the South (2)
As is the case with most towns in the South, the villages of Mississippi come alive when Saturday rolls around. This is because it is Market Day, a day when the town is lined with stalls selling everything from agricultural produce to daily necessities.
Naturally, among those goods were slaves, the most valuable items traded in the South.
The Forks of the Road market on the outskirts of Natchez always hosted the largest slave auction, where countless planters and slave traders would come to inspect the quality of the slaves and make their purchases.
Immediately after the African slave trade was outlawed in the early 19th century, no more slaves were sold from Africa to the United States. So, how were so many slaves traded regularly? It was because slaves were bred in the Upper South (Virginia, Kentucky), where labor was relatively abundant, and sold to the Deep South, such as Mississippi or Louisiana.
Since the Upper South primarily farmed wheat and corn, they did not need such a massive number of slaves, whereas the Deep South always suffered from a chronic labor shortage. One could call it a win-win transaction.
It is truly a cycle of circulation overflowing with human love, one must say.
"Master, is it really necessary for you to come in person? I think you could have just sent an agent or a broker for something like this..."
"Indeed. I think I won't need to come next time."
Just as I had seen in James's memories, it was a sight that made me frown involuntarily. Even though I had become quite accustomed to the standards of the 19th century, wouldn't most 21st-century people raised in a normal environment feel the same way I did?
Perhaps my friends, the Dixies, also knew that this wasn't exactly a sight to be encouraged, as it was rare for a planter to personally show up at a pre-inspection site unless they were a real die-hard. Most planters didn't come to such places; they would just watch the actual auction show and let their agents or brokers handle the rest.
The reason I came here myself was that I felt I needed to see for myself what kind of place this market really was.
As I was slowly looking around the entire auction house, the broker I had hired came running over, panting, and bowed his head repeatedly.
"Mr. Sett, so you were here. I've roughly sorted out the items worth looking at during the pre-inspection."
"Good work. Then I'll go inside, so let me know before the auction starts."
"Yes. You can just trust me and take a good rest."
With a new hospital to build, an agricultural company to look into, and the need to invest evenly across the North and South, I was still short on hands. Besides, I had to finish expanding the scale of the farm before heading to Buchanan's inauguration, so I had no choice but to recruit as much manpower as possible now.
"Anyone watching would think this is the Roman era. This is the mid-19th century? What a truly insane place."
Looking at it now, the buildings were even constructed with a distinct ancient European feel. I shook my head, accompanied by Leo, and walked into the auction house.
If you need labor, you don't go to a job placement agency; you go to a slave auction. It wasn't 185 BC, nor was it 185 AD. It was the 1850s in the South, where the 20th century was only half a century away, and yet this was still accepted as a matter of course in daily life.
"Alright! Ladies and gentlemen of Mississippi, let's begin today's auction. I'm not just saying this, but the quality is truly, truly excellent today."
The auctioneer's exaggerated voice pierced the ears of the crowd sitting in their seats. Leo stood half a step behind James, watching it all with a blank expression.
The smell of heat, dust, fear, and resignation. This was the Saturday of the South that he knew. At first, his heart ached so much that it was hard to keep a straight face, but as it kept repeating, he had developed to the point where he could feign indifference.
Is this what human adaptability is?
"Alright! Here is today's first item!"
The auctioneer's voice tore through Leo's thoughts as a sturdy Black man climbed onto the podium. The auctioneer stripped off his upper garment and boasted about his muscles.
"Now, now, as you can see, this is a top-tier item. We'll start the bidding at one thousand dollars!"
James watched silently, then raised his finger a few times in accordance with the signal sent by his broker. After a few bids were exchanged, the hammer came down.
"Mr. James Sett has won the bid for 1,170 dollars!"
"My, sold to the Sett plantation. That fellow's in for a life of hardship."
"Indeed. Tsk tsk, the poor thing."
A fat planter standing nearby clicked his tongue and muttered. It was closer to mockery, with not even a fingernail's worth of genuine pity in his tone. Of course, whether the people around him did that or not, James won the necessary labor one by one according to his plan.
Surprisingly, perhaps because James's notoriety had spread to other farms, the slaves who realized they were being sold to the Sett family hung their heads and teared up.
'Ah, damn, I shouldn't laugh. This is hard to keep a straight face for a different reason.'
Leo, who was the only one besides James here who knew the reality, couldn't help but wonder what expression those slaves would make if they knew the truth.
'It's truly unfortunate to be born Black in this shitty world, but you've used up a lifetime's worth of luck today.'
That was when it happened. The auctioneer's voice rose even higher.
"Now, next is a very precious item! A very healthy and strong female who has just turned twenty! She already has experience giving birth, so she'll not only work well in the fields, but she'll also bear children well!"
A young woman who looked to be in her early twenties was pushed onto the podium. She scanned her surroundings repeatedly with terrified eyes, and the auctioneer stood a boy who looked about ten years old far away from her.
"And this brat is the female's offspring, but we'll sell him separately. If you work him to the bone from now on, he'll be a top-class worker in five years."
It was a tragic sight, but separating a young mother and her young son to sell them was common sense and standard practice in slave auctions. This was because there was rarely anyone who wanted to buy both mother and son at once, as the demand for the two rarely overlapped. In short, it meant that if you sold them separately, you could get their full value, but if you sold them together, you had to give a discount. Naturally, anyone with a brain had no choice but to sell them separately.
Facing this cold reality, the child's mother collapsed. She grabbed the auctioneer's pant leg and begged.
"Master, sir, please... please sell me with my son! I'll do anything! Please...!"
The auctioneer pushed her away without a word, as if she were a nuisance.
"Hehehe, stupid bitch."
"She's got motherhood, of all things. Pretending to be human is not just unpleasant, it's even funny."
There was no sympathy. Everyone just giggled as if it were an interesting spectacle. It was tragic, but this was reality, and this was the world.
Leo closed his eyes gently and erased the woman's screams from his mind. But then, an anomaly occurred.
"Mr. Sett, won the bid for 950 dollars!"
"630 dollars, won the bid! Huh? Mr. Sett again this time?"
James, who hadn't moved at all, had bought both the woman and the child. The fat planter sitting next to him lit up and spoke to James.
"Mr. Sett, you must know that buying such things as a set is a loss, so what's the occasion?"
James didn't even turn to look at him and replied nonchalantly.
"I need a nurse for the hospital. Having bought them like that, I thought it would be good to have a male nurse as well, thinking of the future. If you train them from a young age under their mother, wouldn't you get a fairly useful item?"
At the cold and pragmatic answer that felt devoid of any warmth, the planter nodded and backed off.
'Wow, as expected of our Master.'
This is it. This is James Sett, the man he serves. Even the other planters in Natchez who were worth their salt would be perfectly persuaded and swayed by the Master, and this time was no exception. In reality, the Master always acted reasonably and efficiently, so where did a Southern pig like that get the nerve to try and challenge him?
Leo felt his respect and loyalty for his master welling up from the depths of his heart once again.
After the eventful auction ended, the slaves who had been won were moved to the wagon the master had brought. James gestured to Leo with his chin in a haughty manner and said.
"Leo, you explain the basics to them. I'll head in first."
"Yes!"
As Leo approached them, the slaves who hadn't yet grasped the situation were trembling with expressions like pigs being dragged to the slaughterhouse. Leo asked, desperately holding back his laughter.
"Why are you all like this?"
The muscular Black man who had climbed onto the podium first answered, almost sobbing.
"...At our previous farm, the master always said. If we didn't listen, he'd sell us to the Sett plantation, where we'd be whipped to death for the rest of our lives..."
"I heard something similar too. That he's a man without blood or tears..."
Leo chuckled and patted the man's shoulder.
"Consider yourselves lucky. If there were many people around to hear that, you would have been the laughingstock of your lives."
"Excuse me?"
"By tomorrow, you'll know how lucky you are. So, for now, I recommend you just be grateful for this luck and pray to God that if this is a dream, it doesn't break."
Naturally, those here didn't understand Leo's words yet, and Leo didn't believe they would.
At that moment, the woman who had miraculously not been separated from her son opened her mouth cautiously. She bowed her head deeply toward the direction James had left and said.
"It doesn't matter what kind of person the new master is. Just for the grace of letting me be with my son... I will live my whole life in gratitude. Thank you, thank you so much."
Ah, seriously. I told you not to do this already. Leo shook his head as he looked at her.
"There will be a mountain of things to be grateful for in the future, so save those sentiments for later, when your emotions have calmed down. And let me tell you one thing: the Master prefers you to work harder rather than give lip service to gratitude."
"Th-that means... in the end, doesn't it mean he squeezes his slaves terribly, just like the rumors say?"
I want to tell them nicely, but even if they don't know any better, it didn't feel very good to hear them keep speaking ill of James. Especially if those words came from the mouths of people who would soon be family. Leo said in a voice that had turned slightly cold without him even realizing it.
"You must keep what I'm about to say in mind. It's a matter of your lives. There are two rules you must absolutely follow."
At the ominous atmosphere, the slaves who had boarded the wagon all tensed up and listened to Leo's explanation.
"First, never speak outside the farm about how blessed you are. Even if you show the slightest sign of wanting to boast about life here to outsiders, we, not the Master, will be the ones to break your necks first. Keep that in mind."
"......!"
"Second, never speak ill of the Master in front of other brothers on the farm. Whatever rumors you've heard, they absolutely don't apply here. Whether you're a newcomer or whatever, the moment you insult him, fists will fly from all directions, so keep that in mind. I'm telling you all this for your own good."
They must be confused. They have no choice but to be confused. Anyway, once they enter our Eden, they will be able to understand the meaning of what they just heard. The muscular Black man cautiously raised his hand and asked.
"By any chance... do the brothers at the Sett plantation really respect the Master?"
"Of course."
Leo answered without hesitation.
"To the point where we've pledged that if anyone tries to harm the Master, we will be the ones to cut their breath first."
This was not Leo's arbitrary decision, but a matter agreed upon by all 700 slaves of the Sett family, and a resolution they held in their hearts.
Around the time James and Leo were returning to the farm with the slaves they had won at the auction, a middle-aged man was passionately raising his voice and continuing his speech in a square in Boston, America.
"Therefore, we must root out this barbaric, inhumane, and shameful institution of slavery that is a disgrace to the Union! Please send your generous support and encouragement so that we may purify this land of sin!"
About eight months ago, the man who shocked the entire nation by slicing up five pro-slavery looters and slave hunters who led the Kansas raid with a broadsword—the topic of conversation, the radical abolitionist John Brown—was busy criticizing the evil institution of slavery again today.
As John Brown's track record suggests, he was not just an anti-slavery activist who only talked the talk, but closer to a warrior who actually kept seeking out fights. However, money was naturally needed for battle, and one had to fundraise to secure funds. As he was raising money to wipe out the pro-slavery faction, some unusual information reached his ears recently.
"James Sett?"
"Yes. They say he's a young guy who just inherited a farm in Mississippi, and they say he's a die-hard that even people in Natchez, Mississippi, are shaking their heads at. Hundreds of slaves must be suffering immensely because of this guy."
"A young guy already steeped in the taste of money... like trash."
I could guess what kind of person he was just by listening to the story. Trash of society who thinks the massive wealth inherited from his parents is his own ability, and who knows nothing but abusing slaves. In other words, it meant he was a pest whose disappearance from this world would be a help to this country.
Honestly speaking, those Southerners raid villages that oppose slavery every day and even kill people, so why shouldn't we do the same?
"Since he's a wealthy man recognized even in Mississippi, we can't avoid controversy if we kill him openly, but if we secretly put a bullet in the back of his head, everyone will think he received divine punishment. Furthermore, it will be a good warning to Buchanan and the Democratic Party guys who are about to have their inauguration."
"That's right. We must save the poor slaves suffering under that guy!"
A satisfied laugh leaked from John Brown's mouth on its own.
"Yes. Such a guy must be made to repent in hell. Indeed."
The most certain way to make slavery disappear from this world. That is to make all the slaveholders in this world disappear from the world. Fundraising and information gathering end here. Their next destination was decided as Mississippi.