Part 142 (2/2)

Hon. T.T. Bouldin, a slave-holder, and member of Congress from Virginia in a speech in Congress, Feb. 16, 1835.

Mr. Bouldin said ”_he knew_ that many negroes had _died_ from exposure to weather,” and added, ”they are clad in a _flimsy fabric, that will turn neither wind nor water_.”

George Buchanan, M.D., of Baltimore, member of the American Philosophical Society, in an oration at Baltimore, July 4, 1791.

”The slaves, _naked_ and starved, _often_ fall victims to the inclemencies of the weather.”

Wm. Savery of Philadelphia, an eminent Minister of the Society of Friends, who went through the Southern states in 1791, on a religious visit; after leaving Savannah, Ga., we find the following entry in his journal, 6th, month, 28, 1791.

”We rode through many rice swamps, where the blacks were very numerous, great droves of these poor slaves, working up to the middle in water, men and women nearly _naked_.”

Rev. John Rankin, of Ripley, Ohio, a native of Tennessee.

”In every slave-holding state, _many slaves suffer extremely_, both while they labor and while they sleep, _for want of clothing_ to keep them warm.”

John Parrish, late of Philadelphia, a highly esteemed minister in the Society of Friends, who travelled through the South in 1804.

”It is shocking to the feelings of humanity, in travelling through some of those states, to see those poor objects, [slaves,] especially in the inclement season, in _rags_, and _trembling with the cold_.”

”They suffer them, both male and female, _to go without clothing_ at the age of ten and twelve years”

Rev. Phineas Smith, Centreville, Allegany, Co., N.Y. Mr. S. has just returned from a residence of several years at the south, chiefly in Virginia, Louisiana, and among the American settlers in Texas.

”The apparel of the slaves, is of the coa.r.s.est sort and _exceedingly deficient_ in quant.i.ty. I have been on many plantations where children of eight and ten yeas old, were in a state of _perfect nudity_. Slaves are _in general wretchedly clad_.”

Wm. Ladd, Esq., of Minot, Maine, recently a slaveholder in Florida.

”They were allowed two suits of clothes a year, viz. one pair of trowsers with a s.h.i.+rt or frock of osnaburgh for summer; and for winter, one pair of trowsers, and a jacket of negro cloth, with a baize s.h.i.+rt and a pair of shoes. Some allowed hats, and some did not; and they were generally, I believe, allowed one blanket in two years.

Garments of similar materials were allowed the women.”

A Kentucky physician, writing in the Western Medical Reformer, in 1836, on the diseases peculiar to slaves, says.

”They are _imperfectly clothed_ both summer and winter.”

Mr. Stephen E. Maltby, Inspector of provisions, Skeneateles, N.Y., who resided sometime in Alabama.

”I was at Huntsville, Alabama, in 1818-19, I frequently saw slaves on and around the public square, _with hardly a rag of clothing on them_, and in a _great many_ instances with but a single garment both in summer and in winter; generally the only bedding of the slaves was a _blanket_.”

Reuben G. Macy, Hudson, N.Y. member of the Society of Friends, who resided in South Carolina, in 1818 and 19.

”Their clothing consisted of a pair of trowsers and jacket, made of 'negro cloth.' The women a petticoat, a very short 'short-gown,' and _nothing else_, the same kind of cloth; some of the women had an old pair of shoes, but they _generally went barefoot_.”

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