Part 177 (1/2)

They have commonly great sway over the other slaves, their example is contagious, and their influence subversive of 'plantation discipline.'

Consequently they must be made a warning to others. It is for the _interest_ of the masters (at least they believe it to be) to put upon such slaves iron collars and chains, to brand and crop them; to disfigure, lacerate, starve and torture them--in a word, to inflict upon them such vengeance as shall strike terror into the other slaves.

To this cla.s.s may be added the incorrigibly thievish and indolent; it would be for the interest of the masters to treat them with such severity as would deter others from following their example.

7. _Runaways._ When a slave has once runaway from his master and is caught, he is thenceforward treated with severity. It is for the interest of the master to make an example of him, by the greatest privations and inflictions.

8. _Hired slaves._ It is for the interest of those who hire slaves to get as much out of them as they can; the temptation to overwork them is powerful. If it be said that the master could, in that case, recover damages, the answer is, that damages would not be recoverable in law unless actual injury--enough to impair the power of the slave to labor, be _proved._ And this ordinarily would be impossible, unless the slave has been worked so greatly beyond his strength as to produce some fatal derangement of the vital functions. Indeed, as all who are familiar with such cases in southern courts well know, the proof of actual injury to the slave, so as to lessen his value, is exceedingly difficult to make out, and every hirer of slaves can overwork them, give them insufficient food, clothing, and shelter, and inflict upon them nameless cruelties with entire impunity. We repeat then that it is for the _interest_ of the hirer to push his slaves to their utmost strength, provided he does not drive them to such an extreme, that their const.i.tutions actually give way under it, while in his hands.

The supreme court of Maryland has decided that, 'There must be _at least a diminution of the faculty of the slave for bodily labor_ to warrant an action by the master.'--_1 Harris and Johnson's Reports, 4._

9. _Slaves under overseers whose wages are proportioned to the crop which they raise._ This is an arrangement common in the slave states, and in its practical operation is equivalent to a bounty on _hard driving_--a virtual premium offered to overseers to keep the slaves whipped up to the top of their strength. Even where the overseer has a fixed salary, irrespective of the value of the crop which he takes off, he is strongly tempted to overwork the slaves, as those overseers get the highest wages who can draw the largest income from a plantation with a given number of slaves; so that we may include in this last cla.s.s of slaves, the majority of all those who are under overseers, whatever the terms on which those overseers are employed.

Another cla.s.s of slaves may be mentioned; we refer to the slaves of masters who _bet_ upon their crops. In the cotton and sugar region there is a fearful amount of this desperate gambling, in which, though money is the ostensible stake and forfeit, human life is the real one.

The length to which this rivalry is carried at the south and south west, the mult.i.tude of planters who engage in it, and the recklessness of human life exhibited in driving the murderous game to its issue, cannot well be imagined by one who has not lived in the midst of it.

Desire of gain is only one of the motives that stimulates them;--the _eclat_ of having made the largest crop with a given number of hands, is also a powerful stimulant; the southern newspapers, at the crop season, chronicle carefully the ”cotton brag,” and the ”crack cotton picking,” and ”unparalleled driving,” &c. Even the editors of professedly religious papers, cheer on the melee and sing the triumphs of the victor. Among these we recollect the celebrated Rev. J.N.

Maffit, recently editor of a religious paper at Natchez, Miss. in which he took care to a.s.sign a prominent place, and capitals to ”THE COTTON BRAG.” The testimony of Mr. Bliss, page 38, details some of the particulars of this _betting_ upon crops. All the preceding cla.s.ses of slaves are in circ.u.mstances which make it ”for the _interest_ of their masters,” or those who have the management of them, to treat them cruelly.

Besides the operation of the causes already specified, which make it for the interest of masters and overseers to treat cruelly _certain cla.s.ses_ of their slaves, a variety of others exist, which make it for their interest to treat cruelly _the great body_ of their slaves.

These causes are, the nature of certain kinds of products, the kind of labor required in cultivating and preparing them for market, the best times for such labor, the state of the market, fluctuations in prices, facilities for transportation, the weather, seasons, &c. &c. Some of the causes which operate to produce this are--

1. _The early market_. If the planter can get his crop into market early, he may save thousands which might be lost if it arrived later.

2. _Changes in the market_. A sudden rise in the market with the probability that it will be short, or a gradual fall with a probability that it will be long, is a strong temptation to the master to push his slaves to the utmost, that he may in the one case make all he can, by taking the tide at the flood, and in the other lose as little as may be, by taking it as early as possible in the ebb.

3. _High prices_. Whenever the slave-grown staples bring a high price, as is now the case with cotton, every slaveholder is tempted to overwork his slaves. By forcing them to do double work for a few weeks or months, while the price is up, he can _afford_ to lose a number of them and to lessen the value of all by over-driving. A cotton planter with a hundred vigorous slaves, would have made a profitable speculation, if, during the years '34, 5, and 6, when the average price of cotton was 17 cents a pound, he had so overworked his slaves that half of them died upon his hands in '37, when cotton had fallen to six and eight cents. No wonder that the poor slaves pray that cotton and sugar may be cheap. The writer has frequently heard it declared by planters in the lower country, that, it is more profitable to drive the slaves to such over exertion as to _use them up_, in seven or eight years, than to give them only ordinary tasks and protract their lives to the ordinary period.[26]

[Footnote 26: The reader is referred to a variety of facts and testimony on this point on the 39th page of this work.]

4. _Untimely seasons_. When the winter encroaches on the spring, and makes late seed time, the first favorable weather is a temptation to overwork the slaves, too strong to be resisted by those who hold men as mere working animals. So when frosts set in early, and a great amount of work is to be done in a little time, or great loss suffered.

So also after a long storm either in seed or crop time, when the weather becomes favorable, the same temptation presses, and in all these cases the master would _save money_ by overdriving his slaves.

5. _Periodical pressure of certain kinds of labor._ The manufacture of sugar is an ill.u.s.tration. In a work ent.i.tled ”Travels in Louisiana in 1802,” translated from the French, by John Davis, is the following testimony under this head:--

”At the rolling of sugars, an interval of from two to three months, they (the slaves in Louisiana,) work _both night and day_. Abridged of their sleep, they scarcely retire to rest during the whole period” See page 81.

In an article on the agriculture of Louisiana, published in the second number of the ”Western Review,” is the following:--”The work is admitted to be severe for the hands, (slaves) requiring, when the process of making sugar is commenced, TO BE PRESSED NIGHT AND DAY.”

It would be for the interest of the sugar planter greatly to overwork his slaves, during the annual process of sugar-making.

The severity of this periodical pressure, in preparing for market other staples of the slave states besides sugar, may be inferred from the following. Mr. Hammond, of South Carolina, in his speech in Congress, Feb. 1. 1836, (See National Intelligencer) said, ”In the heat of the crop, the loss of one or two days, would inevitably ruin it.”

6. _Times of scarcity_. Drought, long rain, frost, &c. are liable to cut off the corn crop, upon which the slaves are fed. If this happens when the staple which they raise is at a low price, it is for the interest of the master to put the slave on short rations, thus forcing him to suffer from hunger.

7. _The raising of crops for exportation_. In all those states where cotton and sugar are raised for exportation, it is, for the most part, more profitable to buy provisions for the slaves than to raise them.

Where this is the case the slaveholders believe it to be for their interest to give their slaves less food, than their hunger craves, and they do generally give them insufficient sustenance.[27]

[Footnote 27: Hear the testimony of a slaveholder, on this subject, a member of Congress from Virginia, from 1817 to 1830, Hon. Alexander Smyth.