Independence Day

This week we visit an old Southern plantation. Likely one that grows cotton or tobakkie. The War for Independence has come and gone. The Founders have grown fat and happy.

But their slaves, well, not so much.

Folks don’t like being enslaved. And so, occasionally, they rise up and fight back.

They declare their Independence.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the ten Minute Storyteller. That's me Bill Simpson,
your host, narrator and author. We hear at the ten
minute Storyteller endeavor to entertain you with tall tales or
rendered swiftly and with the utmost empathy. We pledge to

(00:25):
pack as much entertainment, emotion, and exploration into the human
condition as ten minutes will permit. Many novels on steroids.
This week we visit an old Southern plantation, likely one

(00:47):
that grows cotton or tobacco. The war for independence has
come and gone. The founders have grown fat and happy,
but they're slaves, well not so much folks. They don't
really like being enslaved, and so occasionally they rise up

(01:08):
and fight back. They declare their independence Independence Day. The
plantation owner, in all his glory, drives up the long
plantation drive beneath a canopy of towering Chinese elms billowing

(01:32):
with Spanish moss. Two powerful geldings pull the plush family carriage.
The master at the helm beside him sits his tall, slender,
well coughed bride, who has never in her life, notwithstanding

(01:52):
the crush of childbirth, done a lick of work in
the rear. The masters five daughters, ranging in age from
eleven to seventeen. They sprawl across the carriage seats, hot
and tired and ornery. They are a spoiled lot. They're

(02:14):
silly lives, entirely irrelevant affairs. They have just been down
the road apiece at ash Lawn Plantation celebrating the nation's independence,
a splendid affair with over one hundred guests, dancing and
sack races. Pin the tail on the negro, ride the

(02:38):
big bull. Negroes like bucking broncos. The sun high, the
day hot, everyone a little sunburned and in need of
refreshment and a cool bath. Atop the little mountain they
see their splendid white plantation house dead ahead. There will

(02:59):
be lemonade and chilled tea on the front of verandah.
Inside both tubs will be filled with cool water from
the spring. Anything less and heads will roll. The Master
he considers himself a benign owner of negroes, neither too

(03:20):
hard nor too soft. Yes he uses the whip, and
yes he uses the irons, and yes he has on
occasion lopped off digits, hands and feet, and even entire limbs.
If absolute obedience proves challenging, but he is an educated man,

(03:40):
a great believer in truth and liberty. Rarely does he
demand of his slaves more than twelve hour days in
the fields, always offers the Sabbath as a day of
rest and reflection, and generally speaking, he expects no labor
or Independence Day or on Christmas. Yes, he buys and

(04:05):
sells and breaks up families as easily as civilized men
trade hogs and steers and horses. But this is only
because he does not view the negro as a human being,
but rather as another beast of burden. What is that,
he asks his wife, pointing to something hanging from one

(04:28):
of the Chinese elms up near the head of the drive.
I'm not sure, husband, the sun is low and in
my eyes I can't see. If I'm not mistaken, it's
a man's been hung. Oh no, do you think the
overseer had to deal with impertinence on Independence Day? I

(04:48):
would hope it would be more than just impertinent wife
to hang a negro. Well, perhaps obstinates, or maybe a
runaway who's been captured. Whatever the there is no place
to hang a man. The overseer and I will have
words over this. Unfortunately, these words will not be possible,

(05:12):
because it is the overseer Ben Rawlins, a sick, sadistic
piece of human excreatment who hangs from a low branch
of that Chinese elm. Ben beat the Negroes for wiping
their brows under the hot sun. He tied their wrists together,

(05:33):
threw them on the ground, and dragged them around behind
his horse. If they dared to look him in the
eye or offer an opinion, the man's cruelty knew no bounds. Well.
Now Ben is dead, whipped raw, and then strung up
like a side of lamb. His body sways just a

(05:56):
bit in the hot evening breeze. The carriage full of
white people, their mouths now hanging open and their jaws
down around their knees, pass beneath the overseer and continue
on toward the plantation house. No one mutters a word.

(06:17):
House slaves stand at their posts on the veranda. Stable
slaves wait beside the fountain to help the family out
of their carriage and tend to the horses. Garden slaves,
hoe and weed field slaves, dozens of them, nearly a hundred,
and all sweep out of the fields and woods and

(06:39):
close in behind the carriage as the Master drives the
geldings around the fountain and stops at the wide stairway
leading up to the veranda. Only the Master, frankly is
master no more. His days as Master of Little Mountain,

(07:01):
as a declarer of independence, are all but over. Over Brandy.
He may have called the peculiar institution a hideous undertaking,
and more than once he claimed possessing slaves was the
height of moral depravity. But this was just drawing room gobbledegook,

(07:26):
a touch of intellectual rubbish to make himself feel all
neat and cozy and superior. In truth, this founder, in
his lifetime bought, sold, and beat well over six hundred Negroes.
But no matter for the one hundred and forty two

(07:46):
Negro slaves presently living on Little Mountain, today truly is
Independence Day. They pull the Master down off the carriage
while his women shriek. They push him into the dirt
and tear off his fancy white suit and his fancy
silly white hat. In his skivies. With his pasty white

(08:10):
skin and flaming orange hair, he looks weak, scrawny, exposed, defenseless.
The big buck snaps the whip and gives the x
master fifty lashes. His thin skin tears open and bleeds
with each crack of the whip. They rape the wife first,

(08:36):
then the daughters, one by one, oldest to youngest. Any
buck who wants to rut is given the opportunity and
the pick of the litter. The ex master, in the
meantime is given additional doses of his own medicine. They
chain him in irons, spread eagle on the ground, and

(08:57):
lop off with a hatchet and index finger, a couple
of toes, and then a hand at the wrist, and
finally a foot well up on the ankle. Due unto others,
preaches the biggest bull of all, so black he is
almost purple. As you would have them do unto you.

(09:19):
They corterize his stumps with a red hot branding iron
so he will not bleed to death. They hang him
next to the overseer, but they do not hang him
so that his neck breaks. They hang him low enough
in that Chinese elm that his toes just barely touched
the ground, neck stretched to the max. After a lifetime

(09:45):
of leisure and hypocrisy, it is important he stay alive
for further humiliations, those being the ongoing violations against his
womenfolk and the torching of his grand plantation house. They
set the evil abode ablaze and burn it to the ground,

(10:05):
while the ex master's women, their legs tied open endure
both the heat of the burning house and the heat
of the liberated bulls. Yes, there will be hell to
pay for these insurrectionists, these rapists, these murderers, these enslaved

(10:26):
human beings. But not today. Today is Independence Day. Thanks
for listening to this original audio presentation of Independence Day.

(10:51):
If you enjoy today's story, please take a few seconds
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go to Thomas William Simpson dot com for additional information
about the author and to view his extensive canon. The
Ten Minute Storyteller is produced by Andrew Pleglici and Josh

(11:14):
Colodney and as part of the Elvis Duran Podcast Network
in partnership with Iheartproductions. Until next time, this is Bill Simpson,
your ten Minute Storyteller.