Volume III Part 6 (2/2)
”The slaves down the Mississippi, are _half-starved,_ the boats, when they stop at night, are constantly boarded by slaves, begging for something to eat.”
President Edwards, the younger, in a sermon before the Conn. Abolition Society, 1791.
”The slaves are supplied with barely enough to keep them from _starving._”
Rev. Horace Moulton, a Methodist Clergyman of Marlboro' Ma.s.s., who lived five years in Georgia.
”As a general thing on the plantations, the slaves suffer extremely for the want of food.”
Rev. George Bourne, late editor of the Protestant Vindicator, N.Y., who was seven years pastor of a church in Virginia.
”The slaves are deprived of _needful_ sustenance.”
2. KINDS OF FOOD.
Hon. Robert Turnbull, a slaveholder of Charleston, South Carolina.
”The subsistence of the slaves consists, from March until August, of corn ground into grits, or meal, made into what is called _hominy_, or baked into corn bread. The other six months, they are fed upon the sweet potatoe. Meat, when given, is only by way of _indulgence or favor._”
Mr. Eleazar Powell, Chippewa, Beaver Co., Penn., who resided in Mississippi, in 1836-7.
”The food of the slaves was generally corn bread, and _sometimes_ meat or mola.s.ses.”
Reuben G. Macy, a member of the Society of Friends, Hudson, N.Y., who resided in South Carolina.
”The slaves had no food allowed them besides _corn,_ excepting at Christmas, when they had beef.”
Mr. William Leftwich, a native of Virginia, and recently of Madison Co., Alabama, now member, of the Presbyterian Church, Delhi, Ohio.
”On my uncle's plantation, the food of the slaves, was corn-pone and a small allowance of meat.”
WILLIAM LADD, Esq., of Minot, Me., president of the American Peace Society, and formerly a slaveholder of Florida, gives the following testimony as to the allowance of food to slaves.
”The usual food of the slaves was _corn_, with a modic.u.m of salt. In some cases the master allowed no salt, but the slaves boiled the sea water for salt in their little pots. For about eight days near Christmas, i.e., from the Sat.u.r.day evening before, to the Sunday evening after Christmas day, they were allowed some _meat_. They always with one single exception ground their corn in a hand-mill, and cooked their food themselves.”
Extract of a letter from Rev. D.C. EASTMAN, a preacher of the Methodist Episcopal church, in Fayette county, Ohio.
”In March, 1838, Mr. Thomas Larrimer, a deacon of the Presbyterian church in Bloomingbury, Fayette county, Ohio, Mr. G.S. Fullerton, merchant, and member of the same church, and Mr. William A. Ustick, an elder of the same church, spent a night with a Mr. Shepherd, about 30 miles North of Charleston, S.C., on the Monk's corner road. He owned five families of negroes, who, he said, were fed from the same meal and meat tubs as himself, but that 90 out of a 100 of all the slaves in that county _saw meat but once a year_, which was on Christmas holidays.”
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