Rev. John Rankin, of Ripley, Ohio, a native of Tennessee, and for same years a preacher in slave states.
"Thousands of the slaves are pressed with the gnawings of cruel hunger during their whole lives."
Report of the Gradual Emanc.i.p.ation Society, of North Carolina, 1826.
Signed Moses Swain, President, and William Swain, Secretary.
Speaking of the condition of slaves, in the eastern part of that state, the report says,--"The master puts the unfortunate wretches upon short allowances, scarcely sufficient for their sustenance, so that a _great part_ of them go _half starved_ much of the time."
Mr. Asa A. Stone, a Theological Student, who resided near Natchez, Miss., in 1834-5.
"On almost every plantation, the hands suffer more or less from hunger at some seasons of almost every year. There is always a _good deal of suffering_ from hunger. On many plantations, and particularly in Louisiana, the slaves are in a condition of _almost utter famishment,_ during a great portion of the year."
Thomas Clay, Esq., of Georgia, a Slaveholder.
"From various causes this [the slave"s allowance of food] is _often_ not adequate to the support of a laboring man."
Mr. Tobias Boudinot, St Albans, Ohio, a member of the Methodist Church. Mr. B. for some years navigated the Mississippi.
"The slaves down the Mississippi, are _half-starved,_ the boats, when they stop at night, are constantly boarded by slaves, begging for something to eat."
President Edwards, the younger, in a sermon before the Conn. Abolition Society, 1791.
"The slaves are supplied with barely enough to keep them from _starving._"
Rev. Horace Moulton, a Methodist Clergyman of Marlboro" Ma.s.s., who lived five years in Georgia.
"As a general thing on the plantations, the slaves suffer extremely for the want of food."
Rev. George Bourne, late editor of the Protestant Vindicator, N.Y., who was seven years pastor of a church in Virginia.
"The slaves are deprived of _needful_ sustenance."
2. KINDS OF FOOD.
Hon. Robert Turnbull, a slaveholder of Charleston, South Carolina.
"The subsistence of the slaves consists, from March until August, of corn ground into grits, or meal, made into what is called _hominy_, or baked into corn bread. The other six months, they are fed upon the sweet potatoe. Meat, when given, is only by way of _indulgence or favor._"
Mr. Eleazar Powell, Chippewa, Beaver Co., Penn., who resided in Mississippi, in 1836-7.
"The food of the slaves was generally corn bread, and _sometimes_ meat or mola.s.ses."
Reuben G. Macy, a member of the Society of Friends, Hudson, N.Y., who resided in South Carolina.
"The slaves had no food allowed them besides _corn,_ excepting at Christmas, when they had beef."
Mr. William Leftwich, a native of Virginia, and recently of Madison Co., Alabama, now member, of the Presbyterian Church, Delhi, Ohio.
"On my uncle"s plantation, the food of the slaves, was corn-pone and a small allowance of meat."
WILLIAM LADD, Esq., of Minot, Me., president of the American Peace Society, and formerly a slaveholder of Florida, gives the following testimony as to the allowance of food to slaves.
"The usual food of the slaves was _corn_, with a modic.u.m of salt. In some cases the master allowed no salt, but the slaves boiled the sea water for salt in their little pots. For about eight days near Christmas, i.e., from the Sat.u.r.day evening before, to the Sunday evening after Christmas day, they were allowed some _meat_. They always with one single exception ground their corn in a hand-mill, and cooked their food themselves."
Extract of a letter from Rev. D.C. EASTMAN, a preacher of the Methodist Episcopal church, in Fayette county, Ohio.
"In March, 1838, Mr. Thomas Larrimer, a deacon of the Presbyterian church in Bloomingbury, Fayette county, Ohio, Mr. G.S. Fullerton, merchant, and member of the same church, and Mr. William A. Ustick, an elder of the same church, spent a night with a Mr. Shepherd, about 30 miles North of Charleston, S.C., on the Monk"s corner road. He owned five families of negroes, who, he said, were fed from the same meal and meat tubs as himself, but that 90 out of a 100 of all the slaves in that county _saw meat but once a year_, which was on Christmas holidays."
As an ill.u.s.tration of the inhuman experiments sometimes tried upon slaves, in respect to the _kind_ as well as the quality and quant.i.ty of their food, we solicit the attention of the reader to the testimony of the late General Wade Hampton, of South Carolina. General Hampton was for some time commander in chief of the army on the Canada frontier during the last war, and at the time of his death, about three years since, was the largest slaveholder in the United States.
The General"s testimony is contained in the following extract of a letter, just received from a distinguished clergyman in the west, extensively known both as a preacher and a writer. His name is with the executive committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society.
"You refer in your letter to a statement made to you while in this place, respecting the late General Wade Hampton, of South Carolina, and task me to write out for you the circ.u.mstances of the case--considering them well calculated to ill.u.s.trate two points in the history of slavery: 1st, That the habit of slaveholding dreadfully blunts the feelings toward the slave, producing such insensibility that his sufferings and death are regarded with indifference. 2d, That the slave often has insufficient food, both in quant.i.ty and quality.
"I received my information from a lady in the west of high respectability and great moral worth,--but think it best to withhold her name, although the statement was not made in confidence.
"My informant stated that she sat at dinner once in company with General Wade Hampton, and several others; that the conversation turned upon the treatment of their servants, &c.; when the General undertook to entertain the company with the relation of an experiment he had made in the feeding of his slaves on cotton seed. He said that he first mingled one-fourth cotton seed with three-fourths corn, on which they seemed to thrive tolerably well; that he then had measured out to them equal quant.i.ties of each, which did not seem to produce any important change; afterwards he increased the quant.i.ty of cotton seed to three-fourths, mingled with one-fourth corn, and then he declared, with an oath, that "they died like rotten sheep!!" It is but justice to the lady to state that she spoke of his conduct with the utmost indignation; and she mentioned also that he received no countenance from the company present, but that all seemed to look at each other with astonishment. I give it to you just as I received it from one who was present, and whose character for veracity is unquestionable.
"It is proper to add that I had previously formed an acquaintance with Dr. Witherspoon, now of Alabama, if alive; whose former residence was in South Carolina; from whom I received a particular account of the manner of feeding and treating slaves on the plantations of General Wade Hampton, and others in the same part of the State; and certainly no one could listen to the recital without concluding that such masters and overseers as he described must have hearts like the nether millstone. The cotton seed experiment I had heard of before also, as having been made in other parts of the south; consequently, I was prepared to receive as true the above statement, even if I had not been so well acquainted with the high character of my informant."
2. QUANt.i.tY OF FOOD
The legal allowance of food for slaves in North Carolina, is in the words of the law, "a quart of corn per day." See Haywood"s Manual, 525. The legal allowance in Louisiana is more, a barrel [flour barrel]
of corn, (in the ear,) or its equivalent in other grain, and a pint of salt a month. In the other slave states the amount of food for the slaves is left to the option of the master.
Thos. Clay, Esq., of Georgia, a slave holder, in his address before the Georgia Presbytery, 1833.
"The quant.i.ty allowed by custom is _a peck of corn a week_!"
The Maryland Journal, and Baltimore Advertiser, May 30, 1788.
"_A single peck of corn a week, or the like measure of rice_, is the _ordinary_ quant.i.ty of provision for a _hard-working_ slave; to which a small quant.i.ty of meat is occasionally, though _rarely_, added."