A Black Politician by Alice Morse Earle

On a bright June morning in the year 1811, old Cuddymonk sat in the cheerful sunlight at the open door of his house, on the banks of Lake Petaquamscut, in old Narragansett. Cuddymonk was a negro; but a Narragansett negro was, at that date, of almost another race than a Southern negro. He was free; he was usually respected and self-respecting; he might, and often did, own a house and farm of his own; and he had a certain independent social position which was far from being a despised one, for he enjoyed, with his rich white neighbors, who had been slave-owners, a friendly intimacy that was denied to a poor white man. He was, however, somewhat lazy, occasionally untruthful, and even dishonest -- like his Southern colored brother. Cuddymonk was a typical Narragansett negro -- sharp, shrewd, and in the main thrifty. He was deeply and consistently superstitious, and knew a thousand tales of ghosts and spirits and witches and Manitous, old traditions of African Voodooism and Indian pow-wows. He was profoundly learned in the meaning of dreams and omens and predictions, and he did not hesitate to practise -- or attempt to practise -- all kinds of witch-charms and "conjures" and "projects," though he was a member in good standing, as he proudly stated, of "de Pistikle Church."

He was a good cobbler, a fair tinker, a poor mason, a worse carpenter, a first-class fisherman. He worked at any and all of these trades with cheerful and indolent impartiality, just as he fiddled, and sheared sheep, and ploughed, and sowed, and raked, and harvested for his rich white neighbors; but when anyone asked him his real trade, he proudly answered, "I's er pollertishun."