Mr. HENRY H. LOOMIS, a member of the Presbyterian Theological Seminary in the city of New York, says, in a recent letter--
"The Rev. Mr. Hart, recently my pastor, in Otsego county, New York, and who has spent some time at the south as a teacher, stated to me that in the neighborhood in which he resided a slave was set to watch a turnip patch near an academy, in order to keep off the boys who occasionally trespa.s.sed on it. Attempting to repeat the trespa.s.s in presence of the slave, they were told that his "master forbad it." At this the boys were enraged, and hurled brickbats at the slave until his face and other parts were much injured and wounded--but nothing was said or done about it as an injury to the slave.
"He also said, that a slave from the same neighborhood was found out in the woods, with his arms and legs burned almost to a cinder, up as far as the elbow and knee joints; and there appeared to be but little more said or thought about it than if he had been a brute. It was supposed that his master was the cause of it--making him an example of punishment to the rest of the gang!"
The following is an extract of a letter dated March 5, 1839, from Mr.
JOHN CLARKE, a highly respected citizen of Scriba, Oswego county, New York, and a member of the Presbyterian church.
The "Mrs. Turner" spoken of in Mr. C."s letter, is the wife of Hon.
Fielding S. Turner, who in 1803 resided at Lexington, Kentucky, and was the attorney for the Commonwealth. Soon after that, he removed to New Orleans, and was for many years Judge of the Criminal Court of that city. Having ama.s.sed an immense fortune, he returned to Lexington a few years since, and still resides there. Mr. C. the writer, spent the winter of 1836-7 in Lexington. He says,
"Yours of the 27th ult. is received, and I hasten to state the facts which came to my knowledge while in Lexington, respecting the occurrences about which you inquire. Mrs. Turner was originally a Boston lady. She is from 35 to 40 years of age, and the wife of Judge Turner, formerly of New Orleans, and worth a large fortune in slaves and plantations. I repeatedly heard, while in Lexington, Kentucky, during the winter of 1836-7, of the wanton cruelty practised by this woman upon her slaves, and that she had caused several to be _whipped to death_; but I never heard that she was suspected of being deranged, otherwise than by the indulgence of an ungoverned temper, until I heard that her husband was attempting to incarcerate her in the Lunatic Asylum. The citizens of Lexington, believing the charge to be a false one, rose and prevented the accomplishment for a time, until, lulled by the fair promises of his friends, they left his domicil, and in the dead of night she was taken by force, and conveyed to the asylum. This proceeding being judged illegal by her friends, a suit was inst.i.tuted to liberate her. I heard the testimony on the trial, which related only to proceedings had in order to getting her admitted into the asylum; and no facts came out relative to her treatment of her slaves, other than of a general character.
"Some days after the above trial, (which by the way did not come to an ultimate decision, as I believe) I was present in my brother"s office, when Judge Turner, in a long conversation with my brother on the subject of his trials with his wife, said, "_That woman has been the immediate cause of the death of_ six _of my servants, by her severities_!
"I was repeatedly told, while I was there, that she drove a colored boy from the second story window, a distance of 15 to 18 feet, on to the pavement, which made him a cripple for a time.
"I heard the trial of a man for the murder of his slave, by whipping, where the evidence was to my mind perfectly conclusive of his guilt; but the jury were two of them for convicting him of manslaughter, and the rest for acquitting him; and as they could not agree were discharged--and on a subsequent trial, as I learned by the papers, the culprit was acquitted."
Rev. THOMAS SAVAGE, of Bedford, New Hampshire, in a recent letter, states the following fact:
"The following circ.u.mstance was related to me last summer, by my brother, now residing as a physician, at Rodney, Mississippi; and who, though a pro-slavery man, spoke of it in terms of reprobation, as an act of capricious, wanton cruelty. The planter who was the actor in it I myself knew; and the whole transaction is so characteristic of the man, that, independent of the strong authority I have, I should entertain but little doubt of its authenticity. He is a wealthy planter, residing near Natchez, eccentric, capricious and intemperate.
On one occasion he invited a number of guests to an elegant entertainment, prepared in the true style of southern luxury. From some cause, none of the guests appeared. In a moody humor, and under the influence, probably, of mortified pride, he ordered the overseer to call the people (a term by which the field hands are generally designated,) on to the piazza. The order was obeyed, and the people came. "Now," said he, "have them seated at the table. Accordingly they were seated at the well-furnished, glittering table, while he and his overseer waited on them, and helped them to the various dainties of the feast. "Now," said he, after awhile, raising his voice, "take these rascals, and give them twenty lashes a piece. I"ll show them how to eat at my table." The overseer, in relating it, said he had to comply, though reluctantly, with this brutal command."
Mr. HENRY P. THOMPSON, a native and still a resident of Nicholasville, Kentucky, made the following statement at a public meeting in Lane Seminary, Ohio, in 1833. He was at that time a slaveholder.
"_Cruelties_, said he, _are so common_, I hardly know what to relate.
But one fact occurs to me just at this time, that happened in the village where I live. The circ.u.mstances are these. A colored man, a slave, ran away. As he was crossing Kentucky river, a white man, who suspected him, attempted to stop him. The negro resisted. The white man procured help, and finally succeeded in securing him. He then wreaked his vengeance on him for resisting--flogging him till he was not able to walk. They then put him on a horse, and came on with him ten miles to Nicholasville. When they entered the village, it was noticed that he sat upon his horse like a drunken man. It was a very hot day; and whilst they were taking some refreshment, the negro sat down upon the ground, under the shade. When they ordered him to go, he made several efforts before he could get up; and when he attempted to mount the horse, his strength was entirely insufficient. One of the men struck him, and with an oath ordered him to get on the horse without any more fuss. The negro staggered back a few steps, fell down, and died. I do not know that any notice was ever taken of it."
Rev. COLEMAN S. HODGES, a native and still a resident of Western Virginia, gave the following testimony at the same meeting.
"I have frequently seen the mistress of a family in Virginia, with whom I was well acquainted, beat the woman who performed the kitchen work, with a stick two feet and a half long, and nearly as thick as my wrist; striking her over the head, and across the small of the back, as she was bent over at her work, with as much spite as you would a snake, and for what I should consider no offence at all. There lived in this same family a young man, a slave, who was in the habit of running away. He returned one time after a week"s absence. The master took him into the barn, stripped him entirely naked, tied him up by his hands so high that he could not reach the floor, tied his feet together, and put a small rail between his legs, so that he could not avoid the blows, and commenced whipping him. He told me that he gave him five hundred lashes. At any rate, he was covered with wounds from head to foot. Not a place as big as my hand but what was cut. Such things as these are perfectly common all over Virginia; at least so far as I am acquainted. Generally, planters avoid punishing their slaves before strangers."
Mr. CALVIN H. TATE, of Missouri, whose father and brothers were slaveholders, related the following at the same meeting. The plantation on which it occurred, was in the immediate neighborhood of his father"s.
"A young woman, who was generally very badly treated, after receiving a more severe whipping than usual, ran away. In a few days she came back, and was sent into the field to work. At this time the garment next her skin was stiff like a scab, from the running of the sores made by the whipping. Towards night, she told her master that she was sick, and wished to go to the house. She went, and as soon as she reached it, laid down on the floor exhausted. The mistress asked her what the matter was? She made no reply. She asked again; but received no answer. "I"ll see," said she, "if I can"t make you speak." So taking the tongs, she heated them red hot, and put them upon the bottoms of her feet; then upon her legs and body; and, finally, in a rage, took hold of her throat. This had the desired effect. The poor girl faintly whispered, "Oh, misse, don"t--I am most gone;" and expired."
Extract of a letter from Rev. C.S. RENSHAW, pastor of the Congregational Church, Quincy, Illinois.
"Judge Menzies of Boone county, Kentucky, an elder in the Presbyterian Church, and a slaveholder, told me that _he knew_ some overseers in the tobacco growing region of Virginia, who, to make their slaves careful in picking the tobacco, that is taking the worms off; (you know what a loathsome thing the tobacco worm is) would make them _eat_ some of the worms, and others who made them eat every worm they missed in picking."
"Mrs. NANCY JUDD, a member of the Non-Conformist Church in Osnaburg, Stark county, Ohio, and formerly a resident of Kentucky, testifies that she knew a slaveholder,
"Mr. Brubecker, who had a number of slaves, among whom was one who would frequently avoid labor by hiding himself; for which he would get severe floggings without the desired effect, and that at last Mr. B.
would tie large cats on his naked body and whip them to make them tear his back, in order to break him of his habit of hiding."
Rev. HORACE MOULTON, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Marlborough, Ma.s.sachusetts, says:
"Some, when other modes of punishment will not subdue them, _cat-haul_ them; that is, take a cat by the nape of the neck and tail, or by its hind legs, and drag the claws across the back until satisfied; this kind of punishment, as I have understood, poisons the flesh much worse than the whip, and is more dreaded by the slave."
Rev. ABEL BROWN, Jr. late pastor of the first Baptist Church, Beaver, Pennsylvania, in a communication to Rev. C.P. Grosvenor, Editor of the Christian Reflector, says:
"I almost daily see the poor heart-broken slave making his way to a land of freedom. A short time since, I saw a n.o.ble, pious, distressed, spirit-crushed slave, a member of the Baptist church, escaping from a (professed Christian) bloodhound, to a land where he could enjoy that of which he had been robbed during forty years. His prayers would have made us all feel. I saw a Baptist sister of about the same age, her children had been torn from her, her head was covered with fresh wounds, while her upper lip had scarcely ceased to bleed, in consequence of a blow with the poker, which knocked out her teeth; she too, was going to a land of freedom. Only a very few days since, I saw a girl of about eighteen, with a child as white as myself, aged ten months; a Christian master was raising her child (as well his own perhaps) to sell to a southern market. She had heard of the intention, and at midnight took her only treasure and traveled twenty miles on foot through a land of strangers--she found friends."
Rev. HENRY T. HOPKINS, pastor of the Primitive Methodist Church in New York City, who resided in Virginia from 1821 to 1826, relates the following fact:
"An old colored man, the slave of Mr. Emerson; of Portsmouth, Virginia, being under deep conviction for sin, went into the back part of his master"s garden to pour out his soul in prayer to G.o.d. For this offence he was whipped thirty-nine lashes."
Extract of a letter from DOCTOR F. JULIUS LEMOYNE, of Washington, Pennsylvania, dated Jan. 9, 1839.
"Lest you should not have seen the statement to which I am going to allude, I subjoin a brief outline of the facts of a transaction which occurred in Western Virginia, adjacent to this county, a number of years ago--a full account of which was published in the "Witness"
about two years since by Dr. Mitch.e.l.l, who now resides in Indiana county, Pennsylvania. A slave boy ran away in cold weather, and during his concealment had his legs frozen; he returned, or was retaken.
After some time the flesh decayed and _sloughed_--of course was offensive--he was carried out to a field and left there without bed, or shelter, _deserted to die_. His only companions were the house dogs which he called to him. After several days and nights spent in suffering and exposure, he was visited by Drs. McKitchen and Mitch.e.l.l in the field, of their own accord, having heard by report of his lamentable condition; they remonstrated with the master; brought the boy to the house, amputated both legs, and he finally recovered."
Hon. JAMES K. PAULDING, the Secretary of the Navy of the U. States, in his "Letters from the South" published in 1817, relates the following:
"At one of the taverns along the road we were set down in the same room with an elderly man and a youth who seemed to be well acquainted with him, for they conversed familiarly and with true republican independence--for they did not mind who heard them. From the tenor of his conversation I was induced to look particularly at the elder. He was telling the youth something like the following detested tale. He was going, it seems, to Richmond, to inquire about a draft for seven thousand dollars, which he had sent by mail, but which, not having been acknowledged by his correspondent, he was afraid had been stolen, and the money received by the thief. "I should not like to lose it,"
said he, "for I worked hard for it, and sold many a poor d----l of a black to Carolina and Georgia, to sc.r.a.pe it together." He then went on to tell many a perfidious tale. All along the road it seems he made it his business to inquire where lived a man who might be tempted to become a party in this accursed traffic, and when he had got some half dozen of these poor creatures, _he tied their hands behind their backs_, and drove them three or four hundred miles or more, bare-headed and half naked through the burning southern sun. Fearful that _even southern humanity_ would revolt at such an exhibition of human misery and human barbarity, he gave out that they were runaway slaves he was carrying home to their masters. On one occasion a poor black woman exposed this fallacy, and told the story of her being _kidnapped_, and when he got her into a wood out of hearing, he beat her, to use his own expression, "till her back was white." It seems he married all the men and women he bought, himself, because they would sell better for being man and wife! But, said the youth, were you not afraid, in traveling through the wild country and sleeping in lone houses, these slaves would rise and kill you? "To be sure I was," said the other, "but I always fastened my door, put a chair on a table before it, so that it might wake me in falling, and slept with a loaded pistol in each hand. It was a bad life, and I left it off as soon as I could live without it; for many is the time I have separated wives from husbands, and husbands from wives, and parents from children, but then I made them amends by marrying them again as soon as I had a chance, that is to say, I made them call each other man and wife, and sleep together, which is quite enough for negroes. I made one bad purchase though," continued he. "I bought a young mulatto girl, a lively creature, a great bargain. She had been the favorite of her master, who had lately married. The difficulty was to get her to go, for the poor creature loved her master. However, I swore most bitterly I was only going to take to take her to her mother"s at ---- and she went with me, though she seemed to doubt me very much. But when she discovered, at last, that we were out of the state, I thought she would go mad, and in fact, the next night she drowned herself in the river close by. I lost a good five hundred dollars by this foolish trick."" Vol. I. p. 121.
Mr. ---- SPILLMAN, a native, and till recently, a resident of Virginia, now a member of the Presbyterian church in Delhi, Hamilton co., Ohio, has furnished the two following facts, of which he had personal knowledge.
"David Stallard, of Shenandoah co., Virginia, had a slave, who run away; he was taken up and lodged in Woodstock jail. Stallard went with another man and took him out of the jail--tied him to their horses--and started for home. The day was excessively hot, and they rode so fast, dragging the man by the rope behind them, that he became perfectly exhausted--fainted--dropped down, and died.
"Henry Jones, of Culpepper co., Virginia, owned a slave, who ran away.
Jones caught him, tied him up, and for two days, at intervals, continued to flog him, and rub salt into his mangled flesh, until his back was literally cut up. The slave sunk under the torture; and for some days it was supposed he must die. He, however, slowly recovered; though it was some weeks before he could walk."
Mr. NATHAN COLE, of St. Louis, Missouri, in a letter to Mr. Arthur Tappan, of New-York, dated July 2, 1834, says,--
"You will find inclosed an account of the proceedings of an inquest lately held in this city upon the body of a slave, the details of which, if published, not one in ten could be induced to believe true.[11] It appears that the master or mistress, or both, suspected the unfortunate wretch of hiding a bunch of keys which were missing; and to extort some explanation, which, it is more than probable, the slave was as unable to do as her mistress, or any other person, her master, Major Harney, an officer of our army, had whipped her for three successive days, and it is supposed by some, that she was kept tied during the time, until her flesh was so lacerated and torn that it was impossible for the jury to say whether it had been done with a whip or hot iron; some think both--but she was tortured to death. It appears also that the husband of the said slave had become suspected of telling some neighbor of what was going on, for which Major Harney commenced torturing him, until the man broke from him, and ran into the Mississippi and drowned himself. The man was a pious and very industrious slave, perhaps not surpa.s.sed by any in this place. The woman has been in the family of John Shackford, Esq., the present doorkeeper of the Senate of the United States, for many years; was considered an excellent servant--was the mother of a number of children--and I believe was sold into the family where she met her fate, as matter of conscience, to keep her from being sent below."
[Footnote 11: The following is the newspaper notice referred to:--
An inquest was held at the dwelling house of Major Harney, in this city, on the 27th inst. by the coroner, on the body of Hannah, a slave. The jury, on their oaths, and after hearing the testimony of physicians and several other witnesses, found, that said slave "came to her death by wounds inflicted by William S. Harney."]