Insurrection by a governess.
December 15th, I859.—Miss Platt has gone—Last night a letter came in the mail for her. It was a little late but the children had not gone to bed so Lucy carried it upstairs and she came back so excited. Robert, who is Fannie’s little boy, eleven years old he is now, was in Miss Platt’s room; she was holding him in her lap and kissing him and crying over him. Mother went upstairs to see about this and it was just as Lucy said. Mother talked to her and explained that in our country we did not do things like this and advised her to refrain from all such in the future.
Mother told us not to mention this to anybody. Well we did not, but Miss Platt was caught trying to persuade the negroes to rise up and follow in John Brown’s footsteps, put the torch to the home of every white man and murder the people wholesale, sparing none. Jordan and Adeline had found it out and told it. I am so glad our black folks love us and are our friends. Mother says it is so near Christmas she will not try to get another governess until after the holidays.
Susan Bradford is 13 years old when this diary entry was made. Robert, Fannie, Jordan, and Adeline are all slaves. Susan has received an education beyond her years from a succession of tutors, governesses, and hired teachers, of which Miss Platt is the latest. At this point, her perceptions are those of a privileged daughter of a cotton planter in antebellum Florida, views she largely retained for the rest of her life. I’m sure that the “black folks” perception of the situation was quite different.
Diary entries from before 1860 are included when the content is relevant to the issues that led to or framed the American Civil War. — MpG 5/22/2020