Part 11 (1/2)
The following advertis.e.m.e.nt is before us (”Spirit of Liberty”):--
”VALUABLE SLAVES AT AUCTION.--I will sell on Sat.u.r.day, the 14th inst. in front of the Market-house, one woman and her child. The woman is about 24 years old; and the child, a girl, about 5 years of age. The woman accustomed to house-business, also to the farm. The negroes are very likely, and warranted sound. They will be sold on a credit of sixty days for negotiable paper satisfactorily endorsed.
”Nov. 5. CHARLES PHELPS, Auctioneer.”
The following is taken from a paper published at Opelousas (La.):--
”AUCTION SALE.--The undersigned will offer for sale, through the ministry of a public auctioneer, on her plantation, near Carancro, in the parish of St. Landry, on Monday the 5th day of February next, and the following days, one hundred choice slaves, of both s.e.xes and different ages, among which is a good blacksmith and several other mechanics. These slaves will be sold separately, and under full and satisfactory guarantee of t.i.tles.--8 ox-carts, 69 work-oxen, 20 mules, 20 work-horses, 1,500 barrels of corn, 12,500 cypress pickets.
Conditions of Sale.--The slaves will be sold on a credit of one and two years from the day of sale; purchasers giving sufficient security to the satisfaction of the vendor, and the slaves remaining specially mortgaged until final payment of princ.i.p.al and the interest which may accrue thereon, at the rate of eight per cent per annum from time due until final payment. The conditions of the sale of the movable property will be made known on the day of sale.
WIDOW HYPOLITE CRETIEN.
”Opelousas, January 3d, 1849.”
Literally speaking, tens of thousands of such advertis.e.m.e.nts as these might be adduced. You can hardly open a Southern paper without finding several.
Part of the trade is carried on by water. This part of the trade is regulated by Act of Congress (Act March 2, 1807, sect. 8-10), and slavers sail apparently with commendable regularity. The following notice is taken from the ”National Intelligencer” a few years since:--
”ALEXANDRIA AND NEW ORLEANS PACKETS.--Brig Tribune, Samuel C. Bush, master, will sail as above on the 1st January; brig Isaac Franklin, William Smith, master, on the 15th January; brig Uncas, Nathaniel Boush, master, on the 1st February. They will continue to leave this port on the 1st and 15th of each month, throughout the s.h.i.+pping season. _Servants that are intended to be s.h.i.+pped will at any time be received for safe keeping at twenty-five cents a day._ JOHN AMFIELD, Alexandria.”
The two following advertis.e.m.e.nts are taken from the ”American Beacon” of January 24, 1848, published at Norfolk, Virginia. They are advertis.e.m.e.nts of the same person, who, as we have just seen, offers to ”attend to s.h.i.+pping of negroes to any of the Southern ports:”--
”FOR NEW ORLEANS.--Virginia and Louisiana Line Packets. The fast-sailing packet barque Bachelor, Page, master, will sail for the above port from the 20th to the 27th inst. For freight, cabin or steerage pa.s.sage, for which she has good accommodations, apply to G. W. APPERSON.”
”FOR NEW ORLEANS.--Virginia and Louisiana Line Packets will commence their regular trips to the above port the 20th September, and continue monthly throughout the season. They consist of the following vessels, to wit, barque Parthian, Capt. G. W. Allen; barque Bachelor, Capt. Hiram Horton; barque Phoenix, Capt.
Nathaniel Boush.
”The above vessels are all of the first cla.s.s, and commanded by long and experienced commanders.--For further information, apply to G. W. APPERSON.”
This Capt. Nath. Boush is probably the same man who figures in Mr.
Amfield's advertis.e.m.e.nt. But _Southern_ traders by no means have a monopoly of this coastwise slave-trade. The barque Parthenon, Mellish, master, cleared from the port of New York, October 10, 1846, for Richmond, Virginia, _avowedly_ ”_to load with slaves for the port of New Orleans_.”
How business-like is the following letter from a North Carolina slave-trader to his consignee in New Orleans! (”A Reproof of the American Church,” p. 22):--
”HALIFAX, N.C. November 16, 1839.
”Dear Sir,--I have s.h.i.+pped in the brig Addison, prices as below:--No. 1, Caroline Ennis, $650; 2, Silvy Holland, $625; 3, Silvy Booth, $487.50; 4, Maria Pollock, $475; 5, Emeline Pollock, $475; 6, Delia Averit, $475.
”The two girls that cost $650 and $625 were bought before I s.h.i.+pped my first. I have a great many negroes offered to me; but I will not pay the prices they ask, for I know they will come down. I have no opposition in market. I will wait until I hear from you before I buy, and then I can judge what I must pay. Goodwin will send you the bill of lading for my negroes, as he s.h.i.+pped them with his own.
_Write often, as the times are critical, and it depends on the prices you get to govern me in buying._ ”Yours, &c.
G. W. BARNES.
”Mr. Theophilus Freeman, New Orleans.”
The number of slaves thus bought and sold can never be known with perfect accuracy. Hon. John G. Palfrey, in his excellent Papers on the Slave Power (p. 83), estimates the number annually sold from the more northerly Slave States at not less than _forty thousand_! We think his estimate within the truth.
In the course of a single year, 1835-6, no less than forty thousand slaves are said to have been sold out of Virginia alone! (”Niles's Reg.”
Oct. 8, 1836.) The ”New York Journal of Commerce” of Oct. 12, 1835, contained a letter from a Virginian, whom the editor calls ”a very good and sensible man,” a.s.serting that _twenty thousand_ slaves had been driven to the South from Virginia during that year, of which nearly one fourth was then remaining. But 1835 and 1836 were years of great speculation. In 1837 the consequent severe pressure in the money market was attributed by a committee of the citizens of Mobile (Ala.) in part to over-trading in slaves. Their report states, that purchases by Alabama of that species of property from other States since 1833 have amounted to about ten million dollars annually.
The slaves increase in about the same ratio in all of the Slave States.
If the warmer lat.i.tudes of the extreme South are more congenial to them, and favor their increase more than the climate of Virginia, this effect is, at least, fully balanced by the great amount and unhealthy character of much of the labor on the sugar, rice, and cotton plantations, and by the great extent to which slave-breeding is carried in the more northern States. The following table exhibits the rates of increase of the slaves, every ten years, from 1790 to 1840:--
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
1790-1800
1800-1810
1810-1820
1820-1830
1830-1840
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
27
33
29
30
28
+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
Accordingly, for the fifty years ending in 1840, the slaves increased on an average a little over twenty-eight per cent every ten years. We adopt this as a fair statement of what should be their decennial natural increase in all the States; and, by natural increase, we mean increase from births. The following tables explain themselves:--
SLAVE-EXPORTING STATES.
+----------------+---------+---------+-------------+---------+---------+
Number
which ought
Decrease
Annual
Name of State.
Slaves
Slaves
to have been
every ten
decrease.
in 1830.
in 1840.
in each State
years.
in 1840.
+----------------+---------+---------+-------------+---------+---------+
Delaware
3,292
2,605
4,214
1,619
162
Maryland
102,294
89,737
130,936
41,199
4,120
Dis. of Columbia
6,119
4,694
7,833
3,139
313
Virginia
469,757
448,987
601,289
152,302
15,230
North Carolina
235,601
245,817
301,569
55,752
5,575
South Carolina
315,401
327,038
403,713
76,675
7,668
Kentucky
165,213