Part 193 (1/2)
”In the kitchen of the minister of the church, a slave man was living in open adultery with a slave woman, who was a member of the church, with an 'a.s.sured hope' of heaven--whilst the man's wife was on the minister's farm in Fayette county. The minister had to bring a cook down from his farm to the place in which he was preaching. The choice was between the wife of the man and this church member. He _left the wife_, and brought the church member to the adulterer's bed.
”A METHODIST PREACHER last fall took a load of produce down the river.
Amongst other _things_ he took down five slaves. He sold them at New Orleans--he came up to Natchez--bought seven there--and took them down and sold them also. Last March he came up to preach the Gospel again.
A number of persons on board the steamboat (the Tuscarora.) who had seen him in the slave-shambles in Natchez and New Orleans, and now, for the first time, found him to be a preacher, had much sport at the expense of 'the fine old preacher who dealt in slaves.'
A non-professor of religion, in Campbell county, Ky. sold a female and two children to a Methodist professor, with the proviso that they should not leave that region of country. The slave-driver came, and offered $5 more for the woman than he had given, and he sold her. She is now in the lower country, and _her orphan babes are in Kentucky_.
”I was much shocked once, to see a Presbyterian elder's wife call a little slave to her to kiss her feet. At first the boy hesitated--but the command being repeated in tones not to be misunderstood, be approached timidly, knelt, and kissed her foot.”
Rev. W.T. ALLAN, of Chatham, Illinois, gives the following in a letter dated Feb. 4, 1839:
”Mr. Peter Vanarsdale, an elder of the Presbyterian church in Carrollton, formerly from Kentucky, told me, the other day, that a Mrs. Burford, in the neighborhood of Harrodsburg, Kentucky, had _separated a woman and her children_ from their husband and father, taking them into another state. Mrs. B. was a member of the _Presbyterian Church_. The bereaved husband and father was also a professor of religion.
”Mr. V. told me of a slave woman who had lost her son, separated from her by public sale. In the anguish of her soul, she gave vent to her indignation freely, and perhaps harshly. Sometime after, she wished to become a member of the church. Before they received her, she had to make humble confession for speaking as she had done. _Some of the elders that received her, and required the confession, were engaged is selling the son from his mother_.”
The following communication from the Rev. WILLIAM BARDWELL, of Sandwich, Ma.s.sachusetts, has just been published in Zion's Watchman, New York city:
_Mr. Editor_:--The following fact was given me last evening, from the pen of a s.h.i.+pmaster, who has traded in several of the princ.i.p.al ports in the south. He is a man of unblemished character, a member of the M.E. Church in this place, and familiarly known in this town. The facts were communicated to me last fall in a letter to his wife, with a request that she would cause them to be published. I give verbatim, as they were written from the letter by brother Perry's own hand while I was in his house.
”A Methodist preacher, Wm. Whitby by name, who married in Bucksville, S.C., and by marriage came into possession of some slaves, in July, 1838, was about moving to another station to preach, and wished, also, to move his family and slaves to Tennessee, much against the will of the slaves, one of which, to get clear from him, ran into the woods after swimming a brook. The parson took after him with his gun, which, however, got wet and missed fire, when he ran to a neighbor for another gun, with the intention, as he said, of killing him: he did not, however, catch or kill him; he chained another for fear of his running away also. The above particulars were related to me by William Whitby himself. THOMAS C. PERRY. March 3, 1839.”
”I find by examining the minutes of the S.C. Conference, that there is such a preacher in the Conference, and brother Perry further stated to me that he was well acquainted with him, and if this statement was published, and if it could be known where he was since the last Conference, he wished a paper to be sent him containing the whole affair. He also stated to me, verbally, that the young man he attempted to shoot was about nineteen years of age, and had been shut up in a corn-house, and in the attempt of Mr. Whitby to chain him, he broke down the door and made his escape as above mentioned, and that Mr. W. was under the necessity of hiring him out for one year, with the risk of his employer's getting him. Brother Perry conversed with one of the slaves, who was so old that he thought it not profitable to remove so far, and had been sold; _he_ informed him of all the above circ.u.mstances, and said, with tears, that he thought he had been so faithful as to be ent.i.tled to liberty, but instead of making him free, he had sold him to another master, besides parting one husband and wife from those ties rendered a thousand times dearer by an infant child which was torn for ever from the husband.
WILLIAM BARDWELL.
_Sandwich, Ma.s.s._, March 4, 1839.”
Mr. WILLIAM POE, till recently a slaveholder in Virginia, now an elder in the Presbyterian Church at Delhi, Ohio, gives the following testimony:--
”An elder in the Presbyterian Church in Lynchburg had a most faithful servant, whom he flogged severely and sent him to prison, and had him confined as a felon a number of days, for being _saucy_. Another elder of the same church, an auctioneer, habitually sold slaves at his stand--very frequently _parted families_--would often go into the country to sell slaves on execution and otherwise; when remonstrated with, he justified himself, saying, 'it was his business;' the church also justified him on the same ground.
”A Doctor Duval, of Lynchburg, Va. got offended with a very faithful, worthy servant, and immediately sold him to a negro trader, to be taken to New Orleans; Duval still keeping the wife of the man as his slave. This Duval was a professor of religion.”
Mr. SAMUEL HALL, a teacher in Marietta College, Ohio, says, in a recent letter:--
”A student in Marietta College, from Mississippi, a professor of religion, and in every way worthy of entire confidence, made to me the following statement. [If his name were published it would probably cost him his life.]
”When I was in the family of the Rev. James Martin, of Louisville, Winston county, Mississippi, in the spring of 1838, Mrs. Martin became offended at a female slave, because she did not move faster. She commanded her to do so; the girl quickened her pace; again she was ordered to move faster, or, Mrs. M. declared, she would break the broomstick over her head. Again the slave quickened her pace; but not coming up to the _maximum_ desired by Mrs. M. the latter declared she would _see_ whether she (the slave) could move or not: and, going into another apartment, she brought in a raw hide, awaiting the return of her husband for its application. In this instance I know not what was the final result, but I have heard the sound of the raw-hide in at least _two_ other instances, applied by this same reverend gentleman to the back of his _female_ servant.”
Mr. Hall adds--”The name of my informant must be suppressed, as” he says, ”there are those who would cut my throat in a moment, if the information I give were to be coupled with my name.” Suffice it to say that he is a professor of religion, a native of Virginia, and a student of Marietta College, whose character will bear the strictest scrutiny. He says:--
”In 1838, at Charlestown, Va. I conversed with several members of the church under the care of the Rev. Mr. Brown, of the same place. Taking occasion to speak of slavery, and of the sin of slaveholding, to one of them who was a lady, she replied, ”I am a slaveholder, and I _glory_ in it.” I had a conversation, a few days after, with the pastor himself, concerning the state of religion in his church, and who were the most exemplary members in it. The pastor mentioned several of those who were of that description; the _first_ of whom, however, was the identical lady who _gloried_ in being a slaveholder!
That church numbers nearly two hundred members.
”Another lady, who was considered as devoted a Christian as any in the same church, but who was in poor health, was accustomed to flog some of her female domestics with a raw-hide till she was exhausted, and then go and lie down till her strength was recruited, rising again and resuming the flagellation. This she considered as not at all derogatory to her Christian character.”
Mr. JOEL S. BINGHAM, of Cornwall, Vermont, lately a student in Middlebury College, and a member of the Congregational Church, spent a few weeks in Kentucky, in the summer of 1838. He relates the following occurrence which took place in the neighborhood where he resided, and was a matter of perfect notoriety in the vicinity.