Volume III Part 45 (1/2)
”On one occasion I was crossing the plantation and approaching the house of a friend, when I met him, _rifle in hand_, in pursuit of one of his negroes, declaring he would shoot him in a moment if he got his eye upon him. It appeared that the slave had refused to be flogged, and ran off to avoid the consequences; _and yet the generous hospitality of this man to myself, and white friends generally, scarcely knew any bounds._
”There were amongst my slaveholding friends and acquaintances, persons who were as _humane_ and _conscientious_ as men can be, and persist in the impious claim of _property_ in a fellow being. Still I can recollect but _one instance_ of corporal punishment, whether the subject were male or female, in which the infliction was not on the _bare back_ with the _raw hide_, or a similar instrument, the subject being _tied_ during the operation to a post or tree. The _exception_ was under the following circ.u.mstances. I had taken a walk with a friend on his plantation, and approaching his gang of slaves, I sat down whilst he proceeded to the spot where they were at work; and addressing himself somewhat earnestly to a female who was wielding the hoe, in a moment caught up what I supposed a _tobacco stick_, (a stick some three feet in length on which the tobacco, when out, is suspended to dry.) about the size of a _man's wrist_, and laid on a number of blows furiously over her head. The woman crouched, and seemed stunned with the blows, but presently recommenced the motion of her hoe.”
Dr. DAVID NELSON, a native of Tennessee, and late president of Marion College, Missouri, in a lecture at Northampton, Ma.s.s. in January, 1839, made the following statement:--
”I remember a young lady who played well on the piano, and was very ready to weep over any fict.i.tious tale of suffering. I was present when one of her slaves lay on the floor in a high fever, and we feared she might not recover. I saw that young lady _stamp upon her with her feet;_ and the only remark her mother made was, 'I am afraid Evelina is too _much_ prejudiced against poor Mary.'”
General WILLIAM EATON, for some years U.S. Consul at Tunis, and commander of the expedition against Tripoli, in 1895, thus gives vent to his feelings at the sight of many hundreds of Sardinians who had been enslaved by the Tunisians:
”Many have died of grief, and the others linger out a life less tolerable than death. Alas! remorse seizes my whole soul when I reflect, that this is indeed but a copy of the very barbarity which _my eyes have seen_ in my own native country. _How frequently_, in the southern states of my own country, have I seen _weeping mothers_ leading the guiltless infant to the sales with as _deep anguish_ as if they led them to the slaughter; and _yet felt my bosom tranquil_ in the view of these aggressions on defenceless humanity. But when I see the same enormities practised upon beings whose complexions and blood claim kindred with my own, _I curse the perpetrators, and weep over the wretched victims of their rapacity._ Indeed, truth and justice demand from me the confession, that the Christian slaves among the barbarians of Africa are treated with more humanity than the African slaves among professing Christians of civilized America; and yet _here_ [in Tunis] sensibility _bleeds at every pore_ for the wretches whom fate has doomed to slavery.”
Rev. H. LYMAN, late pastor of the free Presbyterian Church, Buffalo, N.Y. who spent the winter of 1832-3 at the south, says:--
”In the interior of Mississippi I was invited to the house of a planter, where I was received with great cordiality, and entertained with marked hospitality.
”There I saw a master in the midst of his household slaves. The evening pa.s.sed most pleasantly, as indeed it must, where a.s.siduous hospitalities are exercised towards the guest.
”Late in the morning, when I had gained the tardy consent of my host to go on my way, as a final act of kindness, he called a slave to show me across the fields by a nearer route to the main road. 'David,' said he, 'go and show this gentleman as far as the post-office. Do you know the big bay tree?' 'Yes, sir.' 'Do you know where the cotton mill is?'
'Yes, sir.' 'Where Squire Malcolm's old field is?' 'Y--e--s, sir,'
said David, (beginning to be bewildered). 'Do you know where Squire Malcolm's cotton field is?' 'No, sir.' 'No, sir,' said the enraged master, _levelling his gun at him_. 'What do you stand here, saying, Yes, yes, yes, for, when you don't know?' All this was accompanied with _threats_ and _imprecations_, and a manner that contrasted strangely with the _religious conversation and gentle manners_ of the previous evening.”
The Rev. JAMES H. d.i.c.kEY, formerly a slaveholder in South Carolina, now pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Hennepin, Ill. in his ”Review of Nevins' Biblical Antiquities,” after a.s.serting that slaveholding tends to beget ”a spirit of cruelty and tyranny, and to destroy every generous and n.o.ble feeling,” (page 33,) he adds the following as a note:--
”It may be that this will be considered censorious, and the proverbial generosity and hospitality of the south will be appealed to as a full confutation of it. The writer thinks he can appreciate southern kindness and hospitality. Having been born in Virginia, raised and educated in South Carolina and Kentucky, he is altogether southern in his feelings, and habits, and modes of familiar conversation. He can say of the south as Cowper said of England, 'With all thy faults I love thee still, my country.' And nothing but the abominations of slavery could have induced him willingly to forsake a land endeared to him by all the a.s.sociations of childhood and youth.
”Yet it is candid to admit that it is not all gold that glitters.
There is a fict.i.tious kindness and hospitality. The famous Robin Hood was kind and generous--no man more hospitable--he robbed the rich to supply the necessities of the poor. Others rob the poor to bestow gifts and lavish kindness and hospitality on their rich friends and neighbors. It is an easy matter for a man to appear kind and generous, when he bestows that which others have earned.
”I said, there is a fict.i.tious kindness and hospitality. I once knew a man who left his wife and children three days, without fire-wood, without bread-stuff and without shoes, while the ground was covered with snow--that he might indulge in his cups. And when I attempted to expostulate with him, he took the subject out of my hands, and expatiating on the evils of intemperance more eloquently than I could, concluded by warning me, _with tears_, to avoid the snares of the latter. He had tender feelings, yet a hard heart. I once knew a young lady of polished manners and accomplished education, who would weep with sympathy over the fict.i.tious woes exhibited in a novel. And waking from her reverie of grief, while her eye was yet wet with tears, would call her little waiter, and if she did not appear at the first call, would rap her head with her thimble till my head ached.
”I knew a man who was famed for kindly sympathies. He once took off his s.h.i.+rt and gave it to a poor white man. The same man hired a black man, and gave him for his _daily task_, through the winter, to feed the beasts, keep fires, and make one hundred rails: and in case of failure the lash was applied so freely, that, in the spring, his back was _one continued sore, from his shoulders to his waist_. Yet this man was a professor of religion, and famous for his tender sympathies to white men!”
OBJECTION IV.--'NORTHERN VISITORS AT THE SOUTH TESTIFY THAT THE SLAVES ARE NOT CRUELLY TREATED.'
ANSWER:--Their knowledge on this point must have been derived, either from the slaveholders and overseers themselves, or from the slaves, or from their own observation. If from the slaveholders, _their_ testimony has already been weighed and found wanting; if they derived it from the slaves, they can hardly be so simple as to suppose that the _guest, a.s.sociate and friend of the master_, would be likely to draw from his _slaves_ any other testimony respecting his treatment of them, than such as would please _him_. The great shrewdness and tact exhibited by slaves in _keeping themselves out of difficulty_, when close questioned by strangers as to their treatment, cannot fail to strike every accurate observer. The following remarks of CHIEF JUSTICE HENDERSON, a North Carolina slaveholder, in his decision (in 1830,) in the case of the State _versus_ Charity, 2 Devereaux's North Carolina Reports, 513, ill.u.s.trate the folly of arguing the good treatment of slaves from their own declarations, _while in the power of their masters_. In the case above cited, the Chief Justice, in refusing to permit a master to give in evidence, declarations made to him by his slave, says of masters and slaves generally--
”The master has an almost _absolute control_ over the body and _mind_ of his slave. The master's _will_ is the slave's _will_. All his acts, _all his sayings_, are made with a view to propitiate his master. His confessions are made, not from a love of truth, not from a sense of duty, not to speak a falsehood, but to _please his master_--and it is in vain that his master tells him to speak the truth and conceals from him how he wishes the question answered. The slave _will_ ascertain, or, which is the same thing, think that he has ascertained _the wishes of his master,_ and MOULD HIS ANSWER ACCORDINGLY. We therefore more often get the wishes of the master, or the slave's belief of his wishes, than the truth.”
The following extract of a letter from the Hon. SETH M. GATES, member elect of the next Congress, furnishes a clue by which to interpret the looks, actions, and protestations of slaves, when in the presence of their masters' guests, and the pains sometimes taken by slaveholders, in teaching their slaves the art of _pretending_ that they are treated well, love their masters, are happy, &c. The letter is dated Leroy, Jan. 4, 1839.
”I have sent your letter to Rev. Joseph M. Sadd, Castile, Genesee county, who resided five years in a slave state, and left, disgusted with slavery. I trust he will give you some facts. I remember one fact, which his wife witnessed. A relative, where she boarded, returning to his plantation after a temporary absence, was not met by his servants with such demonstrations of joy as was their wont. He ordered his horse put out, took down his whip, ordered his servants to the barn, and gave them a most cruel beating, because they did not run out to meet him, and pretend great attachment to him. Mrs. Sadd had overheard the servants agreeing not to go out, before his return, as they said _they did not love him_--and this led her to watch his conduct to them. This man was a professor of religion!”
If these northern visitors derived their information that the slaves are _not_ cruelly treated from _their own observation_, it amounts to this, _they did not see_ cruelties inflicted on the slaves. To which we reply, that the preceding pages contain testimony from hundreds of witnesses, who testify that they _did see_ the cruelties whereof they affirm. Besides this, they contain the solemn declarations of scores of slaveholders themselves, in all parts of the slave states, that the slaves are cruelly treated. These declarations are moreover fully corroborated, by the laws of slave states, by a mult.i.tude of advertis.e.m.e.nts in their newspapers, describing runaway slaves, by their scars, brands, gashes, maimings, cropped ears, iron collars, chains, &c. &c.
Truly, after the foregoing array of facts and testimony, and after the objectors' forces have one after another filed off before them, now to march up a phalanx of northern _visitors_, is to beat a retreat.