"Ranaway, a negro woman named Rachel--_has lost all her toes except the large one_."
From the "Huntsville (Ala.) Democrat," June 16, 1838:
"TEN DOLLARS REWARD.--Ranaway from the subscriber, a negro woman named Sally, about 21 years of age, taking along her two children--one three years, and the other seven months old. These negroes were PURCHASED BY ME at the sale of George Mason"s negroes, on the first Monday in May, and left _a few days_ thereafter. Any person delivering them to the jailor in Huntsville, or to me, at my plantation, five miles above Triana, on the Tennessee river, shall receive the above reward.
CHARITY COOPER"
From the "Mississippian," May 13, 1838:
"TEN DOLLARS REWARD.--Ranaway from the subscriber, a man named Aaron, yellow complexion, blue eyes, &c. I have no doubt he is lurking about Jackson and its vicinity, probably harbored by some of the negroes sold as the property of _my late husband_, Harry Long, deceased. Some of them are about Richland, in Madison co. I will give the above reward when brought to me, about six miles north-west of Jackson, or put IN JAIL, _so that I can get him_. LUCY LONG."
If the reader, after perusing the preceding facts, testimony, and arguments, still insists that the "public opinion" of the slave states protects the slave from outrages, and alleges, as proof of it, that _cruel_ masters are frowned upon and shunned by the community generally, and regarded as monsters, we reply by presenting the following facts and testimony.
"Col. MEANS, of Manchester, Ohio, says, that when he resided in South Carolina, _his neighbor_, a physician, became enraged with his slave, and sentenced him to receive two hundred lashes. After having received one hundred and forty, he fainted. After inflicting the full number of lashes, the cords with which he was bound were loosed. When he revived, he staggered to the house, and sat down in the sun. Being faint and thirsty, he _begged_ for some water to drink. The master went to the well, and procured some water but instead of giving him to drink, he threw the whole bucket-full in his face. Nature could not stand the shock--he sunk to rise no more. For this crime, the physician was bound over to Court, and tried, and _acquitted_--and THE NEXT YEAR HE WAS ELECTED TO THE LEGISLATURE!"
Testimony of Hon. JOHN RANDOLPH, of Virginia
"In one of his Congressional speeches, Mr. R. says: Avarice alone can drive, as it does drive, this _infernal_ traffic, and the wretched victims of it, like so many post horses, _whipped to death_ in a mail coach. Ambition has its cover-s.l.u.ts in the pride, pomp, and circ.u.mstance of glorious war; but where are the trophies of avarice?
The hand cuff, the manacle, the blood-stained cowhide! WHAT MAN IS WORSE RECEIVED IN SOCIETY FOR BEING A HARD MASTER? WHO DENIES THE HAND OF A SISTER OR DAUGHTER TO SUCH MONSTERS?"
Mr. GEORGE A. AVERY, of Rochester, New York, who resided four years in Virginia, testifies as follows:
"I know a local Methodist minister, a man of talents, and popular as a preacher, who took his negro girl into his barn, in order to whip her--and _she was brought out a corpse_! His friends seemed to think this of _so little importance to his ministerial standing_, that although I lived near him about three years, I do not recollect to have heard them apologize for the deed, though I recollect having heard ONE of his neighbors allege this fact as a reason why he did not wish to hear him preach."
Notwithstanding the ma.s.s of testimony which has been presented establishing the fact that in the "public opinion" of the South the slaves find no protection, some may still claim that the "public opinion" exhibited by the preceding facts is not that of the _highest cla.s.s of society at the South_, and in proof of this a.s.sertion, refer to the fact, that "Negro Brokers," Negro Speculators, Negro Auctioneers, and Negro Breeders, &c., are by that cla.s.s universally despised and avoided, as are all who treat their slaves with cruelty.
To this we reply, that, if all claimed by the objector were true, it could avail him nothing for "public opinion" is neither made nor unmade by "the first cla.s.s of society." That cla.s.s produces in it, at most, but slight modifications; those who belong to it have generally a "public opinion," within their own circle which has rarely more, either of morality or mercy than the public opinion of the ma.s.s, and is, at least, equally heartless and more intolerant. As to the estimation in which "speculators," "soul drivers," &c. are held, we remark, that, they are not despised because they _trade in slaves_ but because they are _working_ men, all such are despised by slaveholders.
White drovers who go with droves of swine and cattle from the free states to the slave states, and Yankee pedlars, who traverse the south, and white day-laborers are, in the main, equally despised, or, if negro-traders excite more contempt than drovers, pedlars, and day-laborers, it is because, they are, as a cla.s.s more ignorant and vulgar, men from low families and boors in their manners. Ridiculous to suppose, that a people, who have, _by law_, made men articles of trade equally with swine, should despise men-drovers and traders, more than hog-drovers and traders. That they are not despised because it is their business to trade in _human beings_ and bring them to market, is plain from the fact that when some "gentleman of property and standing" and of a "good family" embarks in a negro speculation, and employs a dozen "soul drivers" to traverse the upper country, and drive to the south coffles of slaves, expending hundreds of thousands in his wholesale purchases, he does not lose caste. It is known in Alabama, that Mr. Erwin, son-in-law of the Hon. Henry Clay, and brother of J.P. Erwin, formerly postmaster, and late mayor of the city of Nashville, laid the foundation of a princely fortune in the slave-trade, carried on from the Northern Slave States to the Planting South; that the Hon. H. Hitchc.o.c.k, brother-in-law of Mr. E., and since one of the judges of the Supreme Court of Alabama, was interested with him in the traffic; and that a late member of the Kentucky Senate (Col. Wall) not only carried on the same business, a few years ago, but accompanied his droves in person down the Mississippi. Not as the _driver_, for that would be vulgar drudgery, beneath a gentleman, but as a nabob in state, ordering his understrappers.
It is also well known that President Jackson was a "soul driver," and that even so late as the year before the commencement of the last war, he bought up a coffle of slaves and drove them down to Louisiana for sale.
Thomas N. Gadsden, Esq. the princ.i.p.al slave auctioneer in Charleston, S.C. is of one of the first families in the state, and moves in the very highest cla.s.s of society there. He is a descendant of the distinguished General Gadsden of revolutionary memory, the most prominent southern member in the Continental Congress of 1765, and afterwards elected lieutenant governor and then governor of the state.
The Rev. Dr. Gadsden, rector of St. Phillip"s Church, Charleston, and the Rev. Phillip Gadsden, both prominent Episcopal clergymen in South Carolina, and Colonel James Gadsden of the United States army, after whom a county in Florida was recently named, are all brothers of this Thomas N. Gadsden, Esq. the largest slave auctioneer in the state, under whose hammer, men, women and children go off by thousands; its stroke probably sunders _daily_, husbands and wives, parents and children, brothers and sisters, perhaps to see each other"s faces no more. Now who supply the auction table of this Thomas N. Gadsden, Esq.
with its loads of human merchandize? These same detested "soul drivers" forsooth! They prowl through the country, buy, catch, and fetter them, and drive their chained coffles up to his stand, where Thomas N. Gadsden, Esq. knocks them off to the highest bidder, to Ex-Governor Butler perhaps, or to Ex-Governor Hayne, or to Hon. Robert Barnwell Rhett, or to his own reverend brother, Dr. Gadsden. Now this high born, wholesale _soul-seller_ doubtless despises the retail "soul-drivers" who give him their custom, and so does the wholesale grocer, the drizzling tapster who sneaks up to his counter for a keg of whiskey to dole out under a shanty in two cent gla.s.ses; and both for the same reason.
The plea that the "public opinion" among the highest cla.s.ses of society at the south is mild and considerate towards the slaves, that _they_ do not overwork, underfeed, neglect when old and sick, scantily clothe, badly lodge, and half shelter their slaves; that _they_ do not barbarously flog, load with irons, imprison in the stocks, brand and maim them; hunt them when runaway with dogs and guns, and sunder by force and forever the nearest kindred--is shown, by almost every page of this work, to be an a.s.sumption, not only utterly groundless, but directly opposed to ma.s.ses of irrefragable evidence. If the reader will be at the pains to review the testimony recorded on the foregoing pages he will find that a very large proportion of the atrocities detailed were committed, not by the most ignorant and lowest cla.s.ses of society, but by persons "of property and standing," by masters and mistresses belonging to the "upper cla.s.ses," by persons in the learned professions, by civil, judicial, and military officers, by the _literati_, by the fashionable elite and persons of more than ordinary "respectability" and external morality--large numbers of whom are professors of religion.
It will be recollected that the testimony of Sarah M. Grimke, and Angelina G. Weld, was confined exclusively to the details of slavery as exhibited in the _highest cla.s.ses of society_, mainly in Charleston, S.C. See their testimony pp. 22-24 and 52-57. The former has furnished us with the following testimony in addition to that already given.
"Nathaniel Heyward of Combahee, S.C., one of the wealthiest planters in the state, stated, in conversation with some other planters who were complaining of the idle and lazy habits of their slaves, and the difficulty of ascertaining whether their sickness was real or pretended, and the loss they suffered from their frequent absence on this account from their work, said, "I never lose a day"s work: it is an _established_ rule on my plantations that the tasks of all the sick negroes _shall be done by those who are well in addition to their own_. By this means a vigilant supervision is kept up by the slaves over each other, and they take care that nothing but real sickness keeps any one out of the field." I spent several winters in the neighborhood of Nathaniel Heyward"s plantations, and well remember his character as a severe task master. _I was present when the above statement was made_."
The cool barbarity of such a regulation is hardly surpa.s.sed by the worst edicts of the Roman Caligula--especially when we consider that the plantations of this man were in the neighborhood of the Combahee river, one of the most unhealthy districts in the low country of South Carolina; further, that large numbers of his slaves worked in the _rice marshes_, or "swamps" as they are called in that state--and that during six months of the year, so fatal to health is the malaria of the swamps in that region that the planters and their families invariably abandon their plantations, regarding it as downright presumption to spend a single day upon them "between the frosts" of the early spring and the last of November.
The reader may infer the high standing of Mr. Heyward in South Carolina, from the fact that he was selected with four other freeholders to const.i.tute a Court for the trial of the conspirators in the insurrection plot at Charleston, in 1822. Another of the individuals chosen to const.i.tute that court was Colonel Henry Deas, now president of the Board of Trustees of Charleston College, and a few years since a member of the Senate of South Carolina. From a late correspondence in the "Greenvile (S.C.) Mountaineer," between Rev.
William M. Wightman, a professor in Randolph, Macon, College, and a number of the citizens of Lodi, South Carolina, it appears that the cruelty of this Colonel Deas to his slaves, is proverbial in South Carolina, so much that Professor Wightman, in the sermon which occasioned the correspondence, spoke of the Colonel"s inhumanity to his slaves as a matter of perfect notoriety.
Another South Carolina slaveholder, Hon. Whitmarsh B. Seabrook, recently, we believe, Lieut. Governor of the state, gives the following testimony to his own inhumanity, and his certificate of the "public opinion" among South Carolina slaveholders "of high degree."
In an essay on the management of slaves, read before the Agricultural Society of St. Johns, S.C. and published by the Society, Charleston, 1834, Mr. S. remarks:
"I consider _imprisonment in the stocks at night_, with or without hard labor in the day, as a powerful auxiliary in the cause of _good_ government. To the correctness of this opinion _many_ can bear testimony. EXPERIENCE has convinced ME that there is no punishment to which the slave looks with more _horror_."
The advertis.e.m.e.nts of the Professors in the Medical Colleges of South Carolina, published with comments--on pp. 169, 170, are additional ill.u.s.trations of the "public opinion" of the _literati_.
That the "public opinion" of _the highest cla.s.s of society_ in South Carolina, regards slaves a mere _cattle_, is shown by the following advertis.e.m.e.nt, which we copy from the "Charleston (S.C.) Mercury" of May 16:
"NEGROES FOR SALE.--A girl about twenty years of age, (raised in Virginia,) and her two female children, one four and the other two year old--is remarkably strong and healthy--never having had a day"s sickness, with the exception of the small pox, in her life. The children are fine and healthy. She is VERY PROLIFIC IN HER GENERATING QUALITIES, _and affords a rare opportunity to any person who wishes to raise a family of strong and healthy servants for their own use._
"Any person wishing to purchase will please leave their address at the Mercury office."
The Charleston Mercury, in which this advertis.e.m.e.nt appears, _is the leading political paper in South Carolina_, and is well known to be the political organ of Messrs. Calhoun, Rhett, Pickens, and others of the most prominent politicians in the state. Its editor, John Stewart, Esq., is a lawyer of Charleston, and of a highly respectable family.
He is a brother-in-law of Hon. Robert Barnwell Rhett, the late Attorney-General, now a Member of Congress, and Hon. James Rhett, a leading member of the Senate of South Carolina; his wife is a niece of the late Governor Smith, of North Carolina, and of the late Hon. Peter Smith, Intendant (Mayor) of the city of Charleston; and a cousin of the late Hon. Thomas S. Grimke.
The circulation of the "Mercury" among the wealthy, the literary, and the fashionable, is probably much larger than that of any other paper in the state.
These facts in connection with the preceding advertis.e.m.e.nt, are a sufficient exposition of the "public opinion" towards slaves, prevalent in these cla.s.ses of society.
The following sc.r.a.p of "public opinion" in Florida, is instructive. We take it from the Florida Herald, June 23, 1838:
Ranaway from my plantation, on Monday night, the 13th instant, a negro fellow named Ben; eighteen years of age, polite when spoken to, and speaks very good English for a negro. As I have traced him out in several places in town, I am certain he is harbored. This notice is given that I am determined, that whenever he is taken, _to punish him till he informs me_ who has given him food and protection, and _I shall apply the law of Judge Lynch to my own satisfaction_, on those concerned in his concealment.
A. WATSON.
June 16, 1838."
Now, who is this A. Watson, who proclaims through a newspaper, his determination to _put to the torture_ this youth of eighteen, and to Lynch to his "satisfaction" whoever has given a cup of cold water to the panting fugitive. Is he some low miscreant beneath public contempt? Nay, verily, he is a "gentleman of property and standing,"
one of the wealthiest planters and largest slaveholders in Florida. He resides in the vicinity of St. Augustine, and married the daughter of the late Thomas C. Morton, Esq. one of the first merchants in New York.
We may mention in this connection the well known fact, that many wealthy planters make it a _rule never to employ a physician among their slaves_. Hon. William Smith, Senator in Congress, from South Carolina, from 1816 to 1823, and afterwards from 1826 to 1831, is one of this number. He owns a number of large plantations in the south western states. One of these, borders upon the village of Huntsville, Alabama. The people of that village can testify that it is a part of Judge Smith"s _system_ never to employ a physician _even in the most extreme cases_. If the medical skill of the overseer, or of the slaves themselves, can contend successfully with the disease, they live, if not, _they die_. At all events, a physician is _not to be called_.
Judge Smith was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States three years since.
The reader will recall a similar fact in the testimony of Rev. W.T.
Allan, son of Rev. Dr. Allan, of Huntsville, (see p. 47,) who says that Colonel Robert H. Watkins, a wealthy planter, in Alabama, and a PRESIDENTIAL ELECTOR in 1836, who works on his plantations three hundred slaves, "After employing a physician for some time among his negroes, he ceased to do so, alledging as the reason, that it was _cheaper to lose a few negroes every year than to pay a physician_."
It is a fact perfectly notorious, that the late General Wade Hampton, of South Carolina, who was the largest slaveholder in the United States, and probably the wealthiest man south of the Potomac, was _excessively cruel_ in the treatment of his slaves. The anecdote of him related by a clergyman, on page 29, is perfectly characteristic.
For instances of barbarous inhumanity of various kinds, and manifested by persons BELONGING TO THE MOST RESPECTABLE CIRCLES OF SOCIETY, the reader can consult the following references:--Testimony of Rev. John Graham, p. 25, near the bottom; of Mr. Poe, p. 26, middle; of Rev. J.
O. Choules, p. 39, middle; of Rev. Dr. Channing, p. 41, top; of Mr.
George A. Avery, p. 44, bottom; of Rev. W.T. Allan, p. 47; of Mr. John M. Nelson, p. 51, bottom; of Dr. J.C. Finley, p. 61, top; of Mr.
Dustin, p. 66, bottom; of Mr. John Clarke, p. 87; of Mr. Nathan Cole, p. 89, middle; Rev. William d.i.c.key, p. 93; Rev. Francis Hawley, p. 97; of Mr. Powell, p. 100, middle; of Rev. P. Smith p. 102.
The preceding are but a few of a large number of similar cases contained in the foregoing testimonies. The slaveholder mentioned by Mr. Ladd, p. 86, who knocked down a slave and afterwards piled brush upon his body, and consumed it, held the hand of a female slave in the fire till it was burned so as to be useless for life, and confessed to Mr. Ladd, that he had killed _four_ slaves, had been a _member of the Senate of Georgia_ and a _clergyman_. The slaveholder who whipped a female slave to death in St. Louis, in 1837, as stated by Mr. Cole, p. 69, was a _Major in the United States Army_. One of the physicians who was an abettor of the tragedy on the Bra.s.sos, in which a slave was tortured to death, and another so that he barely lived, (see Rev. Mr.
Smith"s testimony, p. 102.) was Dr. Anson Jones, a native of Connecticut, who was soon after appointed minister plenipotentiary from Texas to this government, and now resides at Washington city. The slave mistress at Lexington, Ky., who, as her husband testifies, has killed six of his slaves, (see testimony of Mr. Clarke, p. 87,) is the wife of Hon. Fielding S. Turner, late judge of the criminal court of New Orleans, and one of the wealthiest slaveholders in Kentucky.
Lilburn Lewis, who deliberately chopped in pieces his slave George, with a broad-axe, (see testimony of Rev. Mr. d.i.c.key, p. 93) was a wealthy slaveholder, and a nephew of President Jefferson. Rev. Francis Hawley, who was a general agent of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, confesses (see p. 47,) that while residing in that state he once went out with his hounds and rifle, to hunt fugitive slaves. But instead of making further reference to testimony already before the reader, we will furnish additional instances of the barbarous cruelty which is tolerated and sanctioned by the "upper cla.s.ses" of society at the south; we begin with clergymen, and other officers and members of churches.
That the reader may judge of the degree of "protection" which slaves receive from "public opinion," and among the members and ministers of professed christian churches, we insert the following ill.u.s.trations.
Extract from an editorial article in the "Lowell (Ma.s.s.) Observer" a religious paper edited at the time (1833) by the Rev. DANIEL S.
SOUTHMAYD, who recently died in Texas.