Plantation

Uncle Remus by Joel Chandler Harris.

Legends of the Old Plantation, Chapter One, Uncle Remus Initiates the Little Boy.

One evening recently, the lady whom Uncle Remus calls Miss Sally, missed her little seven-year-old.

Making search for him through the house and through the yard, she heard the sound of voices in the old man's cabin, and looking through the window, saw the child sitting by Uncle Remus.

Uncle Remus by Joel Chandler Harris.

Chapter 31.

A Plantation Witch.

The next time the little boy got permission to call upon Uncle Remus, the old man was sitting in his door, with his elbows on his knees and his face buried in his hands, and he appeared to be in great trouble.

They fully understood that only he who can govern himself can govern others, and fathers always impressed this upon their sons.

It is what turned the habit of command into something great that led to excellence, rather than the mere swaggering haughtiness of the Madeira-swilling old massa of legend that Clifford Dowdy describes in The Great Plantation.

Smith, describing this, writes, "...the central message fathers tried to convey to their sons was the fundamental importance of achievement and self-government." Fathers always reminded their sons to be economical in their expenditures, to live morally, to achieve rather than just exist, and to be excellent.

This often meant rebuking them when they were extravagant, demanding great things of them when they were indolent, and demanding they avoid overindulgence in such vices as the gambling table or the cockpit.

Or even medicine, as with Arthur Lee.

Finally, it helped ensure that they remained an aristocracy, a collection of the best, as indeed they were, by ensuring that they remained more knowledgeable and better trained than the competition, which was the rest of society.

This helped add luster to their names, increase their opportunities for honor-bestowing action positions, and gave them a social cachet that made the habit of command seem natural rather than anachronistic, even as the days of the Great Plantation faded in the late 18th century, early 19th century.

Smith writes, describing this, quote, for sons of the gentry, paternal shadows fell on a relatively wide social landscape.