The Anti-Slavery Examiner Volume III Part 17

A mistress of my acquaintance asked her servant boy, one day, what was the reason she could not get him to do his work whilst his master was away, and said to him, "Your master works a great deal harder than you do; he is at his office all day, and often has to study his law cases at night." "Master," said the boy, "is working for himself, and for you, ma'am, but I am working for _him_". The mistress turned and remarked to a friend, that she was so struck with the truth of the remark, that she could not say a word to him. But I forbear--the sufferings of the slaves are not only innumerable, but they are _indescribable_. I may paint the agony of kindred torn from each other's arms, to meet no more in time; I may depict the inflictions of the blood-stained lash, but I cannot describe the daily, hourly, ceaseless torture, endured by the heart that is constantly trampled under the foot of despotic power. This is a part of the horrors of slavery which, I believe, no one has ever attempted to delineate; I wonder not at it, it mocks all power of language. Who can describe the anguish of that mind which feels itself impaled upon the iron of arbitrary power--its living, writhing, helpless victim! every human susceptibility tortured, its sympathies torn, and stung, and bleeding--always feeling the death-weapon in its heart, and yet not so deep as to _kill_ that humanity which is made the curse of Its existence.

In the course of my testimony I have entered somewhat into the _minutiae_ of slavery, because this is a part of the subject often overlooked, and cannot be appreciated by any but those who have been witnesses, and entered into sympathy with the slaves as human beings.

Slaveholders think nothing of them, because they regard their slaves as _property_, the mere instruments of their convenience and pleasure.

_One who is a slaveholder at heart never recognises a human being in a slave_.

As thou hast asked me to testify respecting the _physical condition_ of the slaves merely, I say nothing of the awful neglect of their _minds and souls_ and the systematic effort to imbrute them. A wrong and an impiety, in comparison with which all the other unutterable wrongs of slavery are but as the dust of the balance.

ANGELINA G. WELD.

GENERAL TESTIMONY

TO THE CRUELTIES INFLICTED UPON SLAVES.

Before presenting to the reader particular details of the cruelties inflicted upon American slaves, we will present in brief the well-weighed declarations of slaveholders and other residents of slave states, testifying that the slaves are treated with barbarous inhumanity. All _details_ and particulars will be drawn out under their appropriate heads. We propose in this place to present testimony of a _general character_--the solemn declarations of slaveholders and others, that the slaves are treated with great cruelty.

To discredit the testimony of witnesses who insist upon convicting themselves, would be an anomalous scepticism.

To show that American slavery has _always_ had one uniform character of diabolical cruelty, we will go back one hundred years, and prove it by unimpeachable witnesses, who have given their deliberate testimony to its horrid barbarity, from 1739 to 1839.

TESTIMONY OF REV. GEORGE WHITEFIELD.

In a letter written by him in Georgia, and addressed to the slaveholders of Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia, in 1739.--See Benezet's "Caution to Great Britain and her Colonies."

"As I lately pa.s.sed through your provinces on my way hither, I was sensibly touched with a fellow-feeling of the miseries of the poor negroes.

"Sure I am, it is sinful to use them as bad, nay worse than if they were brutes; and whatever particular _exceptions_ there may be, (as I would charitably hope there are _some_,) I fear the _generality_ of you that own negroes _are liable to such a charge_. Not to mention what numbers have been given up to the inhuman usage of cruel _taskmasters_, who by their unrelenting scourges, have ploughed their backs and made long furrows, and at length brought them to the grave!

"_The blood of them, spilt for these many years, in your respective provinces, will ascend up to heaven against you!_" The following is the testimony of the celebrated JOHN WOOLMAN, an eminent minister of the Society of Friends, who traveled extensively in the slave state.

We copy it from a "Memoir of JOHN WOOLMAN, chiefly extracted from a Journal of his Life and Travels." It was published in Philadelphia, by the "Society of Friends."

"The following reflections, were written in 1757, while he was traveling on a religious account among slaveholders."

"Many of the white people in these provinces, take little or no care of negro marriages; and when negroes marry, after their own way, some make so little account of those marriages, that, with views of outward interest, they often part men from their wives, by selling them far asunder; which is common when estates are sold by executors at vendue.

"Many whose labor is heavy, being followed at their business in the field by a man with a whip, hired for that purpose,--have, in common, little else allowed them but _one peck_ of Indian corn and some salt for one week, with a few potatoes. (The potatoes they commonly raise by their labor on the first day of the week.) The correction ensuing on their disobedience to overseers, or slothfulness in business, is often _very severe_, and sometimes _desperate_. Men and women have many times _scarce clothes enough to hide their nakedness_--and boys and girls, ten and twelve years old, are often _quite naked_ among their masters' children. Some use endeavors to instruct those (negro children) they have in reading; but in common, this is not only neglected, but disapproved."--p. 12.

TESTIMONY OF THE 'MARYLAND JOURNAL AND BALTIMORE ADVERTISER,' OF MAY 30, 1788.

"In the ordinary course of the business of the country, the punishment of relations frequently happens on the same farm, and in view of each other: the father often sees his beloved son--the son his venerable sire--the mother her much loved daughter--the daughter her affectionate parent--the husband sees the wife of his bosom, and she the husband of her affection, _cruelly bound up_ without delicacy or mercy, and without daring to interpose in each other's behalf, and punished with all the _extremity of incensed rage, and all the rigor of unrelenting severity_. Let us reverse the case, and suppose it ours: ALL IS SILENT HORROR!"

TESTIMONY OF THE HON. WILLIAM PINCKNEY, OF MARYLAND.

In a speech before the Maryland House of Delegates, in 1789, Mr. P.

calls slavery in that state, "a speaking picture of _abominable oppression_;" and adds: "It will not do thus to ... act like _unrelenting tyrants_, perpetually sermonizing it with liberty as our text, and actual _oppression_ for our commentary. Is she [Maryland]

not ... the foster mother of _petty despots_,--the patron of _wanton oppression?_"

Extract from a speech of Mr. RICE, in the Convention for forming the Const.i.tution of Kentucky, in 1790:

"The master may, and _often does, inflict upon him all the severity of punishment the human body is capable of bearing."_

President Edwards, the Younger, in a sermon before the Connecticut Abolition Society, 1791, says:

"From these drivers, for every imagined, as well as real neglect or want of exertion, they receive the lash--the smack of which is all day long in the ears of those who are on the plantation or in the vicinity; and it is used with such dexterity and severity, as not only to lacerate the skin, but to tear out small portions of the flesh at almost every stroke.

"This is the general treatment of the slaves. But many individuals suffer still more severely. _Many, many are knocked down; some have their eyes beaten out: some have an arm or a leg broken, or chopped off_; and many, for a very small, or for no crime at all, have been beaten to death, merely to gratify the fury of an enraged master or overseer."

Extract from an oration, delivered at Baltimore, July 4, 1797, by GEORGE BUCHANAN, M.D., member of the American Philosophical Society.

Their situation (the slaves') is _insupportable_; misery inhabits their cabins, and pursues them in the field. Inhumanly beaten, they _often_ fall sacrifices to the turbulent tempers of their masters! Who is there, unless inured to savage cruelties, that can hear of the inhuman punishments _daily inflicted_ upon the unfortunate blacks, without feeling for them? Can a man who calls himself a Christian, coolly and deliberately tie up, _thumb-screw, torture with pincers_, and beat unmercifully a poor slave, for perhaps a trifling neglect of duty?--p. 14.

TESTIMONY OF HON. JOHN RANDOLPH, OF ROANOKE--A SLAVEHOLDER.

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!_"

MAJOR STODDARD, of the United States' army, who took possession of Louisiana in behalf of the United States, under the cession of 1804, in his Sketches of Louisiana, page 332, says:

"The feelings of humanity are outraged--the most odious tyranny exercised in a land of freedom, and hunger and nakedness prevail amidst plenty. * * * Cruel, and even unusual punishments are daily inflicted on these wretched creatures, enfeebled with hunger, labor and the lash. The scenes of misery and distress constantly witnessed along the coast of the Delta, [of the Mississippi,] the wounds and lacerations occasioned by demoralized masters and overseers, torture the feelings of the pa.s.sing stranger, and wring blood from the heart."

Though only the third of the following series of resolutions is directly relevant to the subject now under consideration, we insert the other resolutions, both because they are explanatory of the third, and also serve to reveal the public sentiment of Indiana, at the date of the resolutions. As a large majority of the citizens of Indiana at that time, were _natives of slave states_, they well knew the actual condition of the slaves.

1. "RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY, by the Legislative Council and House of Representatives of Indiana Territory, that a suspension of the sixth article of compact between the United States and the territories and states north west of the river Ohio, pa.s.sed the 13th day of January, 1783, for the term of ten years, would be highly advantageous to the territory, and meet the approbation of at least nine-tenths of the good citizens of the same."

2. "RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY, that the abstract question of liberty and slavery, is not considered as involved in a suspension of the said article, inasmuch as the number of slaves in the United States would not be augmented by the measure."

3. "RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY, that the suspension of the said article would be equally advantageous to the territory, to the states from whence the negroes would be brought, and _to the negroes themselves._ The states which are overburthened with negroes which they cannot comfortably support; * * and THE NEGRO HIMSELF WOULD EXCHANGE A SCANTY PITTANCE OF THE COa.r.s.eST FOOD, for a plentiful and nourishing diet; and a situation which admits not the most distant prospect of emanc.i.p.ation, for one which presents no considerable obstacle to his wishes."

4. "RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY, that a copy of these resolutions be delivered to the delegate to Congress from this territory, and that he be, and he hereby is, instructed to use his best endeavors to obtain a suspension of the said article."

J.B. THOMAS, _Speaker of the House of Representatives._

PIERRE MINARD, _President pro tem. of the Legislative Council.

Vincennes, Dec._ 20, 1806.

"Forwarded to the Speaker the United States' Senate, by WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, Governor"--_American State Papers_ vol 1. p. 467.