A Child"s Anti-Slavery Book.
by Various.
A FEW WORDS ABOUT AMERICAN SLAVE CHILDREN.
Children, you are free and happy. Kind parents watch over you with loving eyes; patient teachers instruct you from the beautiful pages of the printed book; benign laws, protect you from violence, and prevent the strong arms of wicked people from hurting you; the blessed Bible is in your hands; when you become men and women you will have full liberty to earn your living, to go, to come, to seek pleasure or profit in any way that you may choose, so long as you do not meddle with the rights of other people; in one word, _you are free children_! Thank G.o.d! thank G.o.d! my children, for this precious gift. Count it dearer than life. Ask the great G.o.d who made you free to teach you to prefer death to the loss of liberty.
But are all the children in America free like you? No, no! I am sorry to tell you that hundreds of thousands of American children are _slaves_.
Though born beneath the same sun and on the same soil, with the same natural right to freedom as yourselves, they are nevertheless SLAVES.
Alas for them! Their parents cannot train them as they will, for they too have MASTERS. These masters say to them:
"Your children are OURS--OUR PROPERTY! They shall not be taught to read or write; they shall never go to school; they shall not be taught to read the Bible; they must submit to us and not to you; we shall whip them, sell them, and do what else we please with them. They shall never own themselves, never have the right to dispose of themselves, but shall obey us in all things as long as they live!"
"Why do their fathers let these masters have their children? My father wouldn"t let anybody have me," I hear one of my little free-spirited readers ask.
Simply, my n.o.ble boy, because they can"t help it. The masters have banded themselves together, and have made a set of wicked laws by which nearly four millions of men, women, and children are declared to be their personal chattels, or property. So that if one of these slave fathers should refuse to let his child be used as the property of his master, those wicked laws would help the master by inflicting cruel punishments on the parent. Hence the poor slave fathers and mothers are forced to silently witness the cruel wrongs which their helpless children are made to suffer. Violence has been framed into a law, and the poor slave is trodden beneath the feet of the powerful.
"But why did those slaves let their masters bring them into this state?
Why didn"t they fight as our forefathers did when they threw off the yoke of England"s laws?" inquires a bright-eyed lad who has just risen from the reading of a history of our Revolution.
The slaves were not reduced to their present servile condition in large bodies. When our ancestors settled this country they felt the need of more laborers than they could hire. Then wicked men sailed from England and other parts of Europe to the coast of Africa. Sending their boats ash.o.r.e filled with armed men, they fell upon the villages of the poor Africans, set fire to their huts, and, while they were filled with fright, seized, handcuffed, and dragged them to their boats, and then carried them aboard ship.
This piracy was repeated until the ship was crowded with negro men, women, and children. The poor things were packed like spoons below the deck. Then the ship set sail for the coast of America. I cannot tell you how horribly the poor negroes suffered. Bad air, poor food, close confinement, and cruel treatment killed them off by scores. When they died their bodies were pitched into the sea, without pity or remorse.
After a wearisome voyage the survivors, on being carried into some port, were sold to the highest bidder. No regard was paid to their relationship. One man bought a husband, another a wife. The child was taken to one place, the mother to another. Thus they were scattered abroad over the colonies. Fresh loads arrived continually, and thus their numbers increased. Others were born on the soil, until now, after the lapse of some two centuries, there are nearly four millions of negro slaves in the country, besides large numbers of colored people who in various ways have been made free.
You can now see how easy it was for the masters to make the wicked laws by which the slaves are now held in bondage. They began when the slaves were few in number, when they spoke a foreign language, and when they were too few and feeble to offer any resistance to their oppressors, as their masters did to old England when she tried to oppress them.
I want you to remember one great truth regarding slavery, namely, that a slave is a human being, held and used as property by another human being, and that _it is always_ A SIN AGAINST G.o.d _to thus hold and me a human being as property_!
You know it is not a sin to use an ox, a horse, a dog, a squirrel, a house, or an acre of land as property, if it be honestly obtained, because G.o.d made these and similar objects to be possessed as property by men. But G.o.d did not make _man to be the property of man_. He never gave any man the right to own his neighbor or his neighbor"s child.
On the contrary, he made all men to be free and equal, as saith our Declaration of Independence. Hence, every negro child that is born is as free before G.o.d as the white child, having precisely the same right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as the white child. The law which denies him that right does not destroy it. It may enable the man who claims him as a slave to deprive him of its exercise, but the right itself remains, for the wicked law under which he acts does not and cannot set aside the divine law, by which he is as free as any child that was ever born.
But if G.o.d made every man, woman, and child to be free, and not property, then he who uses a human being as property acts contrary to the will of G.o.d and SINS! Is it not so, my children?
Yet that is what every slaveholder does. _He uses his slaves as property_. He reckons them as worth so many dollars, just as your father sets a certain money value on his horse, farm, or merchandise. He sells him, gives him away, uses his labor without paying him wages, claims his children as so many more dollars added to his estate, and when he dies wills him to his heirs forever. And this is SIN, my children--a very great sin against G.o.d, a high crime against human nature.
Mark what I say! the sin of slavery does not lie merely in whipping, starving, or otherwise ill-treating a human being, but in using him as property; in saying of him as you do of your dog: "He is my property. He is worth so much money to me. I will do what I please with him. I will keep him, use him, sell him, give him away, and keep all he earns, just as I choose."
To say that of a man is sin. You might clothe the man in purple, feed him on manna from heaven, and keep him in a palace of ivory, still, if you used him as your property, you would commit sin!
Children, I want you to shrink from this sin as the Jews did from the fiery serpents. Hate it. Loathe it as you would the leprosy. Make a solemn vow before the Saviour, who loves the slave and slave children as truly as he does you, that you will never hold slaves, never apologize for those who do. As little Hannibal vowed eternal hatred to Rome at the altar of a false G.o.d, so do you vow eternal enmity to slavery at the altar of the true and living Jehovah. Let your purpose be, "I will rather beg my bread than live by the unpaid toil of a slave."
To a.s.sist you in carrying out that purpose, and to excite your sympathy for poor slave children, the following stories were written. The characters in them are all real, though their true names are not always given. The stories are therefore pictures of actual life, and are worthy of your belief.
D.W.
[Ill.u.s.tration: LITTLE LEWIS SOLD.]
LITTLE LEWIS:
The Story of a Slave Boy.
BY JULIA COLMAN.
"A, B, C," said little Lewis to himself, as he bent eagerly over a ragged primer. "Here"s anoder A, an" there"s anoder, an" there"s anoder C, but I can"t find anoder B. Missy Katy said I must find just so many as I can. Dear little Missy Katy! an" wont I be just so good as ever I can, an" learn to read, an" when I get to be a man I"ll call myself white folks; for I"m a most as white as Ma.s.sa Harry is now, when he runs out widout his hat; A, B, C." And so the little fellow ran on, thinking what a fine man he would be when he had learned to read.
Just then he heard a shrill laugh in the distance, and the cry, "Lew!
Lew! where"s Lew?"
It was Katy"s voice, and tucking his book in his bosom, he ran around the house toward her with light feet; for though she was often cross and willful, as only daughters sometimes are, she was the only one of the family that showed him even an occasional kindness. She was, withal, a frolicsome, romping witch, and as he turned the corner, she came scampering along right toward him with three or four white children at her heels, and all the little woolly heads of the establishment, numbering something less than a score.
"Here, Lew!" she said, as she came in sight, "you take the tag and run."
With a quick movement he touched her outstretched hand, and he would have made the others some trouble to catch him, for he was the smartest runner among the children; but as he turned he tripped on a stone, and lay sprawling. "Tag," cried Hal, Katy"s cousin, as he placed his feet on the little fellow"s back and jumped over him. It was cruel, but what did Hal care for the "little n.i.g.g.e.r." If he had been at home he would have had some little fear of breaking the child"s back, for his father was more careful of his _property_ than Uncle Stamford was.
Before Lewis could rise, two or three of the negro boys, who were always too ready to imitate the vices of their masters, had made the boy a stepping stone, and then d.i.c.k, his master"s eldest son, came down upon him with both knees, and began to cuff him roundly.
"So, you black scamp, you thought you"d run away with the tag, did you!"
Just then he perceived the primer that was peeping out of Lewis"s shirt bosom. "Ha! what"s here?" said he; "a primer, as I live! And what are you doing with this, I"d like to know?"
"Missy Katy give it to me, and she is teaching me my letters out of it.
Please, ma.s.sa, let me have it again," said he, beseechingly, as d.i.c.k made a motion as if to throw it away. "I would like to learn how to read."
"You would, would you!" said d.i.c.k. "You"d like to read to Tom and Sam, down on a Louisiana plantation, in sugar time, when you"d nothing else to do, I suppose. Ha, ha, ha!" and the young tyrant, giving the boy a vigorous kick or two as he rose, stuffed the book into his own pocket, and walked off.
Poor Lewis! He very well knew the meaning of that taunt, and he did not open his mouth. No threat of a dark closet ever frightened a free child so much as the threat of being sold to a Southern plantation terrifies the slave-child of Kentucky.
Lewis walked slowly toward the kitchen, to see Aunt Sally. It was to her he used to go with all his troubles, and sometimes she scolded, and sometimes she listened. She was very busy dressing the vegetables for dinner, and she looked cross; so the little fellow crept into the chimney corner and said nothing; but he thought all the more, and as he thought, the sad tears rolled down his tawny cheeks.
"What is the matter now, little baby?" was Aunt Sally"s tender inquiry.
Lewis commenced his pitiful tale; but as soon as Aunt Sally heard that it was about learning to read, she shut him up with "Good enough for you! What do you want of a book? Readin" isn"t for the likes of you; and the less you know of it the better."
This was poor sympathy, and the little fellow, with a half-spiteful feeling, scrambled upon a bench near by, and tumbled out of the window.
He alighted on an ash-heap, not a very nice place to be sure, but it was a retired corner, and he often hid away there when he felt sad and wanted to be alone. Here he sat down, and leaning his head against the side of the house, he groaned out, "My mother, O my mother! If you ain"t dead, why don"t you come to me?"
By degrees he calmed down, and half asleep there in the sunshine, he dreamed of the home that he once had. His mother was a n.o.ble woman, so he thought. n.o.body else ever looked so kindly into his face; he was sure n.o.body else ever loved him as she did, and he remembered when she was gay and cheerful, and would go all day singing about her work. And his father, he could just remember him as a very pleasant man that he used to run to meet, sometimes, when he saw him coming home away down the road; but that was long ago. He had not seen him now for years, and he had heard his mother say that his father"s master had moved away out of the state and taken him with him, and maybe he would never return. Then Lewis"s mother grew sad, and stopped her singing, though she worked as hard as ever, and kept her children all neat and clean.