Chesapeake

  It was a triumphal return such as few naval centers have witnessed, for the victorious vessel came to the dock laden with oysters, and as Tim Caveny called out details of the battle, Otto Pflaum counted the iron buckets as buyers on dock hauled them ashore: “Tally three! Tally four! Mark one!”

  At the close he informed his fellow crewmen, “Damn near record. Thirty-nine and three!” But the Jessie T had earned more that day than one hundred and ninety-eight bushels of oysters. It had won the right to say that the riches of the Choptank would be harvested in a responsible manner.

  The victory of the Choptank men led to a series of events that no one could have imagined.

  The fact that Captain Turlock was now able to berth each weekend at Patamoke allowed him and Caveny to go duck hunting, with such good results that the two watermen accumulated surplus income in the Steed bank.

  Since Jake Turlock had grown sick and tired of hearing the men at the store downgrade his boat—he loathed especially their contemptuous description “the side-assed skipjack”—he decided to get rid of her and buy the partnership a real boat with its centerboard where it ought to be. When he approached Gerrit Paxmore with this proposal he found the Quaker willing to listen. “I’ve been pondering this matter, Jacob, and have concluded that I’ve been obstinate in refusing to build in the new manner. There is a difference between an ocean-going schooner, whose keel must be kept inviolate, and a skipjack destined for bay use only, where the strain is not so great. I’d like a chance to build thee one to thy design.”

  When the contract between Paxmore and the Turlock-Caveny partnership was drawn—“a first-class skipjack with centerboard trunk through the keel, $2,815”—Gerrit Paxmore asked the owners of the Jessie T what they intended doing with their present skipjack, and Turlock said, “I suppose we’ll find a buyer somewheres, even if she is side-assed,” and Paxmore replied, “I think I can take it off thy hands,” and Caveny asked, “You got a buyer?” and Paxmore said, “I think so,” but he would not divulge who it was.

  So the new skipjack was built, superior in every way to the Jessie T, and when it had been launched and given a couple of trial runs out into the bay, Jake and Tim concluded that they had bought themselves a masterpiece, and the former said with some relief, “Now we can hire a white crew. You, me, three Turlocks and Big Jimbo in the galley.”

  “Them niggers wasn’t so bad,” Caveny recalled.

  “Yes, but a white crew’s better. Less likelihood of mutiny.”

  “The niggers fought well.”

  “Yes, but a white crew’s better.” Jake paused, then added, “ ’Course, I’d not want to sail without Jimbo. Best cook this bay ever produced.”

  But when he went to Frog’s Neck to advise Jimbo that the new skipjack would be sailing on Monday, he found to his dismay that the big cook would not be assuming his old place.

  “Why not?” Jake thundered.

  “Because ...” The tall black was too embarrassed to explain, and Turlock heckled him, charging cowardice because of the gunfight, a lack of loyalty to his crew mates, and ingratitude. Big Jimbo listened impassively, then said in a soft voice, “Cap’m Jake, I’m takin’ out my own skipjack.”

  “You’re what?”

  “Mr. Paxmore done sold me the Jessie T.”

  The information staggered the waterman, and he stepped back, shaking his head as if to discharge evil invaders. “You buyin’ my boat?”

  “Yes, sir. From the day I could walk my daddy tol’ me, ‘Git yourse’f a boat.’ He had his own ship ... for a while ... as you know.”

  “What ship did Cudjo ever have?” Turlock asked in disgust, and Big Jimbo thought it best not to pursue the topic. What he did say was this: “He tol’ me, time and again, ‘When a man got his own boat, he free. His onliest prison the horizon.’ ”

  “Hell, Jimbo, you don’t know enough to captain a skipjack.”

  “I been watchin’, Cap’m Jake. I been watchin’ you, and you one o’ the best.”

  “You goddamn nigger!” Jake exploded, but the words denoted wonder rather than contempt. He burst into laughter, slapped his flank and said, “All the time you was on deck, doin’ extry work to help the men, you was watchin’ ever’thing I was doin’. Damn, I knowed you niggers was always plottin’.” In the old camaraderie of the cabin, where these two men had worked together, and eaten and slept, Jake Turlock punched his cook in the back and wished him well.

  “But you got to change her name,” Jake said.

  Big Jimbo had anticipated him. When he and Captain Jake went to the Paxmore Boatyard to inspect the refitted Jessie T they found the old name painted out, and in its place a crisp new board with the simple letters Eden.

  “Where you get that name?” Jake asked, admiring the condition of his old boat. “That’s a Bible name, ain’t it?”

  “My mother’s name,” Jimbo said.

  “That’s nice,” Jake said. “I named her after my mother. Now you niggers name her after yours. That’s real nice.”

  “She give me the money to buy it”

  “I thought she was dead.”

  “Long ago. But she always collectin’ money ... fifty years. First she gonna buy her freedom, and the Steeds give it to her. Then she gonna buy Cudjo’s freedom, and he earned it hisse’f. Then she gonna buy her brother’s freedom, and Emancipation come along. So she give me the money and say, ‘Jimbo, some day you buy yourse’f a boat and be truly free.’ ”

  In October 1895 the skipjack Eden out of Patamoke made its first sortie on the oyster beds. It was known throughout the fleet as “the side-assed skipjack with the nigger crew,” but it was in no way impeded, for Captain Jimbo had to be recognized as a first-class waterman. There was, of course, much banter when the other captains gathered at the store: “Eden like to went broke last summer. Cap’m Jimbo tooken her up the Choptank to fetch a load o’ watermelons to the market in Baltimore, but when he got there the crew had et ever’ goddamned melon.”

  There was no laughter, however, when the black crew began to unload huge quantities of oysters into the buy-boats. And the bay might have been outraged in the fall of 1897, but not really surprised, when Randy Turlock, a distant nephew of Captain Jake’s, showed up as a member of the Eden’s crew, which now consisted of five blacks and one white.

  “Why would a decent, God-fearin’ white man consent to serve with a nigger?” the men at the store raged at the young waterman.

  “Because he knows how to find arsters,” young Turlock said, and in the 1899 season Big Jimbo’s crew was four blacks and two whites, and thus it remained as the new century dawned.

  Onshore, relations between whites and blacks did not duplicate what prevailed in the skipjacks. When oyster dredging, a waterman was judged solely on his performance; if he said he was a cook, it was presumed that he could cook; and a deck hand was expected to muscle the dredges. A man won his place by exhibiting skills, and his color did not signify.

  But when he stepped ashore the black oysterman could not join the circle at the store, nor send his children to the white man’s school, nor pray in a white church. For seven months he had eaten shoulder to shoulder with his white crew mates, but onshore it would have been unthinkable for him to dine with his betters. He had to be circumspect in what he said, how he walked the pavements and even how he looked at white people, lest they take offense and start rumors.

  The permanent relationship between the two races was underlined at the start of the century when a gang of venal Democratic politicians in Annapolis proposed an amendment to the Maryland constitution, revoking the right of blacks to vote. This was done for the most corrupt of reasons—perpetuation of thieving officeholders—but behind the most honorable and persuasive façade. The gang did not offer the amendment under its own besmirched name; it employed the services of the dean of the law school at the university, a handsome man with a mellifluous three-barreled name, John Prentiss Pope, and he devised a simple formula for perpetually denying the ballot: “Any
Maryland resident is entitled to vote if he or his ancestors were eligible to do so on January 1, 1869, or if he can read and interpret a passage of the Maryland constitution.” It was especially effective in that it avoided the necessity of stating openly that it was anti-Negro.

  “What we intend doin’,” the Democrats explained when they visited Patamoke, “is end this silly business of niggers traipsin’ to the polls like decent people. You know and I know they ain’t never been a nigger qualified to vote, nor ever will be.”

  The campaign became virulent. Newspapers, churches, schools and congregations at country crossroads united in an inflamed crusade to restore Maryland to its pristine honor: “We gonna end this farce of niggers pretendin’ they got the brains to comprehend politics. End nigger votin’ and reinstate honest government.”

  Not many blacks voted, actually, and some who did accepted money, but the basic argument against them was they supported the Republican party because Abraham Lincoln had belonged to it, and he had freed the slaves. Endlessly the Democrats had tried to lure black voters into their party, but had failed; now the blacks would vote no more. The unfolding campaign indicated that the amendment would carry, for Democratic orators stormed the countryside, proclaiming, “If a respected professor like John Prentiss Pope says niggers shouldn’t vote, you know what your duty is on Election Day.”

  The Steeds favored the amendment because they remembered John C. Calhoun, spiritual leader of their family; he had claimed that the governing of free men should be restricted to those with education, moral principle and ownership of wealth. “I am not against the black man,” Judge Steed said at one public meeting held in the Patamoke Methodist Church, “but I do not want him casting his ballot on issues which concern only white men.”

  The Turlocks were savagely supportive of the proposed restrictions and campaigned up and down the river for its passage: “Niggers killed our cousin Matt. They’re slaves at heart and better be kept that way.” Even the family members who had shipped with Big Jimbo aboard the Jessie T or served under him on the Eden were vehement in their pronouncement that no black had the intelligence to vote; their experiences to the contrary aboard a skipjack were ignored, and the men ranted, “They’re animals. They got no rights.” Only Jake Turlock suffered confusion on this matter; he knew that Big Jimbo was the most capable man ever to serve on the Jessie T, more reliable even than Tim Caveny, but whenever he was tempted to concede this, he recalled the description of blacks that he had memorized so well in school, and he could see the words inflamed in his copybook:

  Niggers: Lazy, superstitious, revengeful, stupid and irresponsible. Love to sing.

  No black who had ever served with him had been lazy, but in his mind all blacks were. No blacks had been as superstitious as a skipjack captain who would allow no blue, no bricks, no women, no walnuts, no hold cover wrong side up. No blacks had been so vengeful as the German Otto Pflaum, and as for stupidity and irresponsibility, these words could never remotely be applied to Big Jimbo or the black watermen he enlisted, yet Jake believed that all blacks were flawed by those weaknesses, because in his childhood he had been so taught. One night after a hectic meeting at which he had spoken in defense of the amendment, he said to Caveny, “Come to think of it, Tim, I never heard a nigger sing aboard our skipjack, but it’s well known they love to sing.” “They’re a bad lot,” Caveny replied. “Cain’t never tell what they’re up to.”

  The Cavenys, now a growing clan along the river, had always been disturbed by the presence of blacks in their community. “We didn’t have no niggers in Ireland. Wouldn’t tolerate ’em if they tried to move in. They ain’t Catholic. They don’t really believe in God. Ain’t no reason in the world why they should vote like ordinary men.” The entire Caveny brood intended to vote for the amendment and could imagine no reason for doing otherwise.

  The other residents along the Choptank were almost universally opposed to black franchise, and this illustrated a singular change that was modifying Eastern Shore history: during the Civil War well over half the Choptank men who had served did so in the Union army, but now when their descendants looked back upon that war they claimed that well over ninety-five percent had fought with the Confederacy. The reasons behind this self-deception were simple: “No man could have pride in havin’ fought for the North, side by side with niggers. My pappy was strictly South.” Patamoke families were proud if an ancestor had marched with Lee or ridden with Jeb Stuart, ashamed if he had served with Grant, and it became common for families to lie about past affiliations.

  Because of this selective memory, the Eastern Shore converted itself into one of the staunchest southern areas, and people were apt to say, “Our ancestors had slaves and fought to keep ’em. Emancipation was the worst evil ever to hit this land.” It was these belated southerners, egged on by plantation families whose ancestors had honestly sided with the South, who now united to keep blacks from their schools and churches; they joined in mobs to discipline them when they became fractious; and gleefully they combined to adopt this amendment which would rescind the right to vote. Indeed, it seemed as if this might be the first step in a return to the good, rational days of the past, when blacks knew their place and when life on the Eastern Shore was placid and orderly—“We end this votin’ nonsense for niggers, we can restore some peace and quiet in this community.”

  The only people who opposed the new law were the Paxmores and a few dissidents like them, and even these would have been muted by the unanimity of the community had it not been for a formidable schoolteacher. Miss Emily Paxmore was one of those tall, gangly women of indefinite age who seemed destined from birth to be spinsters; she might have taught music, or served as clerk in some uncle’s store, or concentrated her efforts on whatever church she attended, but in her case she found a place in the schoolroom, where she taught with a persistence that amazed both the parents and their children.

  She was a large woman who favored severe clothes, a hairdo drawn taut, and a frown which repelled parents on first acquaintance, then softened as she spoke about the educability of their children. When she first heard of the proposed legislation, she supposed that the reporter was teasing her because of her known sympathy with blacks, and she made a frivolous response: “To even consider such a law would be like turning the calendar back two hundred years.”

  This unfortunate remark became a rallying cry for the advocates of the amendment, who declared, “That’s exactly what we want. The way things were two hundred years ago, before the niggers fouled them up.”

  When Miss Paxmore realized that the sponsors of the bill were serious, she directed her formidable energy to resisting them. She rose in meeting to enlist the support of her fellow Quakers, but found a surprising number sympathetic to the bill, supporting the theory that Negroes were not capable of understanding issues.

  She convened public meetings, but made the serious mistake of inviting northern ministers and politicians to address them, for this tactic lost more votes than it gained—“We don’t need northerners comin’ down here to instruct us on how to vote.”

  She moved about the town, relentlessly buttonholing anyone who would listen, but she accomplished nothing. In despair she traveled across the bay to Baltimore for consultation with opponents of the bill, and there found only gloom. “The situation is this, Miss Emily. All the Eastern Shore favors the legislation. All the southern counties, loyal to the Confederacy, will vote for it. The far western areas, where a sense of freedom has always maintained, will support the Negro’s right to vote, and so will much of Baltimore. But if you add our votes and theirs, they’ve got to win.”

  Maryland became a test case for black rights; orators from many southern states came north to excite voters against the dangers of black franchise, and sabers rattled as ancient battles were recalled. Each week it became increasingly apparent that the amendment was going to be adopted and that in Maryland, at least, blacks would revert to the conditions they had occupied during their cen
turies of slavery.

  Emily Paxmore returned to Patamoke a defeated woman, and men at the store chuckled as she picked her grim way back to her home near the school. And then, four weeks before the plebiscite was to take place, she had an idea, and without conferring with anyone, she boarded the Queen of Sheba and sped to Baltimore. Breathlessly she told the men and women running the campaign against the amendment, “It’s quite simple. We can defeat this fraud by a tactic that will prove irresistible.”

  “What could possibly turn the tide?”

  “This. From today on we never mention the word Negro. Instead we hammer at the fact that this amendment will deprive Germans, Italians, Jews and even Irishmen of their right to vote. We’ll make them fight our battle for us.”

  “But the amendment doesn’t say that,” a gentleman versed in law objected.

  Miss Paxmore tensed. “Few Germans or Italians or Russian Jews were eligible to vote on January 1, 1869. Think of that!”

  “But we all know that the law is not to be applied against them.”

  “I don’t know it,” she said primly. “And I’m going to shout from every housetop that this is a plot to disfranchise immigrants.”

  “Wouldn’t that be dishonest?”

  Miss Paxmore folded her hands, considered the accusation, and replied, “If I am telling a lie, the other side will be able to refute it ... six weeks after the election.”

  She was on the street twenty hours a day, a tall, furious woman dressed in gray, asking her impudent question in the German district and the Italian: “Does thee think it proper for good people who pay their taxes to be denied the vote?” She wrote advertisements that appeared in the papers, challenged legislators of German and Italian extraction to open their eyes to the danger threatening their families, and spent her evenings in Baltimore’s Third Ward, haranguing Russian Jews: “They are plotting to rob thee of thy rights. Thee must fight this law.”