Part 1

Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

AMERICAN SLAVE TRADE;

OR,

An Account of the Manner in which the Slave Dealers take Free People from some of the United States of America, and carry them away, and sell them as Slaves in other of the States; and of the horrible Cruelties practised in the carrying on of this most infamous Traffic:

WITH

REFLECTIONS on the Project for forming a Colony of American Blacks in Africa, and certain Documents respecting that Project.

_By JESSE TORREY, Jun. Physician._

WITH FIVE PLATES.

LONDON:

REPRINTED BY C. CLEMENT, AND PUBLISHED BY J. M. COBBETT, 1, CLEMENT'S INN.

1822.

PREFACE.

"And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, shall surely be put to death."

_Exodus xxi. 16._

1. Throughout this work I have numbered the _paragraphs_, a practice which I find to be attended with numerous advantages. The work was published in Philadelphia in 1817.

2. The reader will perceive, that Mr. TORREY, the author of the work here presented to the public, has mixed his reflections with his narrative of facts. A different arrangement would have tended to clearness. But, as applicable to the English reader, there is a defect of greater importance; namely, the want of a description of the relative extent and situation of the Countries or States, in which this abominable slave trade is carried on. The author speaks of the _Middle States_, and the _Southern States_. He speaks of _Maryland_, of _Delaware_; and, then again, of _Georgia_, _Carolina_, _Mississippi_; but the English reader ought to be told, and have pretty clearly explained to him, how these several Countries lie with regard to each other; and, that he may judge of the magnitude of the evil, he ought to be informed over how large a part of the whole of the United States Slavery does actually extend. He ought further to be informed of the nature of the Governments, and of the laws, as far as these latter relate to Slavery. For, he must otherwise naturally be astonished to find that this dreadful traffic is carried on with impunity. He hears Mr. TORREY talk of Judges, Senators, Governors, Presidents, speaking against this traffic; and yet he finds it most vigorously carried on; and actually making a part of the internal trade of the Country; at which he is utterly astounded, so often hearing the _virtues_ of Republicans sounded in his ears, and being informed that Mr. JEREMY BENTHAM is actually engaged, at this moment, in the Southern Peninsula of Europe, to teach the art of Constitution-making upon the American plan. The book stands, therefore, in need of a Preface to explain these matters a little; and such Preface I am now doing myself the honour to write.

3. For want of a map, I must resort to a description by words. The States lie in the following order, along the side of the Atlantic from North to South, _Maine_, _New Hampshire_, _Massachusetts_, _Rhode Island_, _Connecticut_. The four latter are called the New England States, _Maine_ being a new territory or State lying to the North and going on to the British territory of _New Brunswick_. After Connecticut, going on to the Southward, come _New York_, _New Jersey_, _Pennsylvania_, _Delaware_ and _Maryland_. These five are called the _Middle States_. Then come, on to the Southward, _Virginia_, _North Carolina_, _South Carolina_, _Georgia_ and the _Floridas_. These are called the Southern States. Then, going back to the North again, _Vermont_ lies in at the back of the four New England States, on the western side of a long ridge of mountains. At the back of Pennsylvania are the States of _Ohio_, _Indiana_, and the district of the ill-fated creatures that have followed Mr. BIRKBECK, called the _Illinois_. At the back of _Virginia_ is _Kentucky_, at the back of North Carolina is _Tennessee_, at the back of _South Carolina_ and Georgia and _Florida_ are _Alabama_, _Mississippi_ and _Louisiana_. Some of these are not yet recognised as independent States. Now then, all to the South of _Maryland_, front and back, containing ten States, and, I believe, _Indiana_ into the bargain. However, all to the South of _Maryland_ is real unmodified, unmitigated, unrestrained Slavery; and this is that part of the United States which produces tobacco, cotton, sugar, and rice. This is the rich part of the United States; twice as extensive as all the rest; continually growing in population and cultivation; and, as Mr. TORREY observes, containing a larger portion of personal slavery, than any other part of the globe.

4. So much for the _Geography_ of the subject. Now, as to the _Governments_, this is the state of the case. The _United States_ (with the exception of a small spot to be mentioned by and by) extend from Canada and New Brunswick, which lie to the North, to the Gulf of Mexico on the South, seeing that the Floridas are now to make part of this territory. They extend to the west, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. Great part of this western territory is, as yet, wholly uninhabited by white people. But, the Country is inhabited more or less thickly from the North to the South on the side of the Atlantic, and the space between the utmost points is about seventeen hundred miles. This territory is divided into _States_, each of which is independent of all the rest. Each has its Chief Magistrate, its Legislature, its Judiciary, and its own Code of Laws. It raises its own internal taxes; has its own Militia; and is, in fact, an independent State, with the following exceptions; namely, that it has nothing to do, and can have no particular connexion, with any Foreign Nation; can make no laws with regard to external commerce; can make neither peace nor war; and is bound to join the other States in case of war or peace. These matters are all left to the _Congress_, which is composed of a President, a Senate, and a House of Representatives. This body manages the affairs of the whole Country as far as relates to peace and war, and as far as relates to external Commerce, and to all connexions with Foreign Nations.

5. So that the Congress can make no Law touching the internal economy and jurisdiction of any of the States, each of which, may pass what laws it pleases, so that those laws do not contravene the common compact, contained in the document, or, act of Congress, usually denominated the _Constitution of the United States_. Now, that compact does by no means prohibit the existence of Slavery; but, on the contrary, _expressly recognises its legality_; and this was one of the _conditions_, upon which the Union was founded.

6. As to the several States, Slavery did exist in all, except, perhaps, _Indiana_ and _Ohio_; and, I believe, there also. I mean that it existed without any _modification by law_. That is to say, Slaves and the children of Slaves were as much a white man's property as horses and the young ones of horses. In _Maryland_ (we are now going towards the North) there is now a mitigation of some sort; also in _Delaware_, _Pennsylvania_, _New Jersey_, _New York_, _Vermont_, and the _New England_, States. I do not know whether an _absolute abolition_ has taken place in any State; though I believe it has. In the State of _New York_ the law made all free that were born after a certain period; and after another certain period, those born slaves were to become free. I cannot take upon me to say exactly how the thing stands with regard to these States; but I believe, that if you bring your slave into a State with you, he does not become free by that act of yours; and that, if he escape from you and go into one of these States, he may be lawfully seized as a slave and taken away. _Delaware_ State and _Maryland_, which lie to the South of _Pennsylvania_ and join on to _Virginia_, appear, as the reader will find, to be the principal theatre of the Slave Trade, though, as will be seen, the villains who carry on the traffic have the audacity to carry it on even in the City of _Philadelphia_.

7. So much for the States. Now, which is very material to observe, the _Congress_, that is to say, the _Government of the Union_, has had allotted to it a _territorial jurisdiction_, exclusive of all the States. This spot is on the _Potomac River_, which divides _Maryland_ from _Virginia_. The territory thus allotted is a piece of land ten miles square, in the centre of which is the City of Washington. Now, we shall find this spot to be the very focus of the Slave Trade. The reader will see, in paragraph 46. an account of a drove of chained Negroes marching under the _Capitol_ of this very City; and Mr. TORREY gives an account of Members of Congress standing at the threshold of the building, viewing, on their march by, a troop of manacled slaves, one of whom raised up his manacled hands towards the building, while he sang, what Mr. TORREY calls the favourite National Song, "_Hail Columbia, happy Land! Hail the freest of the free!_" This spot is called the _district of Columbia_; and on this spot, Mr. TORREY tells us Slaves were employed when he was there, to re-erect the building burned down by the British. Yea, Slaves employed to raise up the magnificent Temple of Freedom!

8. With this sketch before him, the reader will enter on this public spirited, humane, and highly meritorious gentleman's book with a tolerable chance of pretty clearly understanding the state of the matter as a whole. The book will Speak for itself; and it will have this effect, amongst others, as far as it go, namely, to convince us, that we ought not to be incessantly railing against West India Slave Holders, while we see Slavery existing to such an extent, and the Slave Trade carried on with such shocking cruelty, in a Country which, throughout the world is famed for its _freedom_. There are acts recorded in this book; acts committed with perfect impunity; that West India Slave Holders would be put to death for attempting; a fact which, amongst thousands of others that might be cited, proves, that there is no tyranny equal to that, which is practised under the names and forms of liberty.

9. The Congress of America have passed a resolution to authorize their Ambassador to negociate with our Government for the sending out of a joint squadron of Observation to the coast of Africa, to prevent a violation of the treaties relative to the Slave Trade. I trust that our government will not tax the blood and bones of Englishmen for any such purpose, while Negroes, free as well as enslaved, can be killed with impunity in the United States, and while a trade in the bodies of slaves actually forms a part of the internal commerce of that Country, the magazines of which commerce are in the very spot where the Congress holds its sittings.

10. I do not bring any accusation against the people of the United States generally, and particularly to the North of Maryland. It has required great virtue and self denial to do what has been done in the middle and Northern States, in order to get rid of this stain upon the Country. In the parts where I have lived, and where there is any thing of Slavery remaining, I have always observed great gentleness and goodness in the owners towards their slaves, whom they treat with great kindness and care, and whom they feed and clothe exceedingly well. But, while I have always heard them lamenting the existence of Slavery in their Country, I cannot be so unjust, I cannot act so unnatural a part, as to conclude that _our own West India Planters_ must be cruel and brutal; seeing that Slavery exists to so great an extent in America, notwithstanding the very prevalent and strong disposition to do it away. How great must be the difficulty to accomplish this, let the reader judge; and how foolish, then, must the Government of this Country be, if it think to accomplish any thing similar to it, merely, because the thing is called for by a set of visionaries, or, what is worse, by a set of hypocrites, who, by an appeal to the best feelings of the popular heart, knowing all the while that they are misleading the understanding, endeavour to gratify their own selfish ambition!

WM. COBBETT.

_Kensington, 18 Sept. 1821._

AMERICAN SLAVE-TRADE.

11. Many schemes have been proposed for alleviating the miseries and evils produced by the enslavement of the African race in the United States. Possessors of slaves, as well as others, have investigated the subject with great industry and anxiety; and all agree that something ought to be done. The suggestion of an infallible remedy is useless, if it be impossible to attain or apply it. Exportation to Africa, (the country to which the wisdom of their Creator has adapted their colour and faculties;) separate colonization on the public lands; employment on national canals, roads, &c. have been recommended. These projects are most certainly impracticable, except partially:--because their completion would require the _voluntary_ estrangement by its legal holders, of an immense quantity and value of what is generally though erroneously termed _property_--human liberty.[1] And in the present moral and intellectual condition of the slaves, the result would be perhaps of doubtful benefit.

12. In examining this subject, I shall endeavour to be temperate, and to avoid indulging in the use of reprehensive acrimonious modes of expression.

13. Without the most distant inclination to aggravate the feelings of any individual, but because "we ought not to shrink from the investigation of truth, however unpopular, nor conceal it whatever the profession of it may cost,"[2] a concise sketch will be presented, of the facts and incidents which have prompted this address. The peculiar connexion with which some of these occurrences succeeded each other, was certainly extraordinary, and to those who are not incredulous, may seem astonishing.

14. The first opportunity that ever occurred to me, of viewing a slave plantation, was furnished by a journey during the summer of 1815, from Pittsburg to the city of Washington. In the course of my route I travelled through part of Virginia, west of the Blue Ridge, by way of Winchester, and through part of Maryland by way of Fredericktown, on the east side.

15. My first contemplation of the magnificent edifice,[3] towering over the surrounding clusters of huts, and the extensive fields, impressed an idea of their similarity to the castles of European princes, dukes, lords, barons, &c. with the cottages of their tenants. But a closer consideration led me to this unavoidable conclusion: that these splendid fabrics are virtually the palaces of hereditary absolute monarchs;--that the labourers and people over whom they reign, are their lawful subjects or vassals--constituting _kingdoms in miniature_;--with this difference from eastern monarchies, that the king here, instead of receiving merely a revenue from his subjects, has _legitimate_ power (if he is disposed to avail himself of it) to exercise the most unlimited and tyrannical despotism[4] over their persons, and to extort the _whole_ of the products of their industry, except what may be indispensable to prevent starvation.

16. It is not my intention by any means, to intimate that every possessor of slaves must necessarily be a Nero, but that, if he chooses to be one, there exists no earthly political power to prevent him. Excess of power, like other unnatural stimulants, exerts a deleterious and an intoxicating influence upon the human mind, which but few possess the capacity and firmness to withstand. In tracing the endless catalogues of kings, presented in history, how seldom is the eye dazzled with transport at the name of an Alfred! There are, undoubtedly, Alfreds, among these numerous _states_; but as long as the diffusion of the humanizing principles of pure religion, and the auxiliary lights of natural, moral, and political philosophy, continues to be limited to its present boundaries, it is feared the number of Alfreds will remain comparatively small.

17. The rod of a tyrant wielded over a few, is infinitely more terrible, than when the number of its victims is great, and detached over a wide extent of country.[5]

18. Mr. Jefferson, in his Note on this subject, exclaims, "I tremble for my country, when I reflect that God is just, and that his justice cannot sleep for ever." The late Professor Barton, in his work on Botany, while treating on the article of _rice_, and its cultivation by uncompensated slaves, expresses a similar sentiment: "Shall we never learn (says he) to be just to our fellow creatures? Shall we blindly pursue the imaginary advantages of the moment, and neglect the still but solemn voice of God, until

"--------Vengeance in the lurid air Lifts her red arm expos'd and bare?"

19. Without offering an opinion on the propriety of the expression of Mr. Jefferson, I must add, that _I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just_, and that his justice is ever active and continually executing its commission! The truth of this may be easily recognised by any observer, who has not been familiarized to the constant presence of slavery, from infancy. Indeed, the possessors of slaves, with whom I have conversed, while travelling through several slave districts, frequently acknowledged that they "_have inherited a curse from their ancestors, and that it would be better for the country if the slaves were all out of it_." And with respect to the _red arm of vengeance, exposed and bare_, it must often menace those neighbourhoods, whence the citizens frequently write to their friends in the _north_, that, "it is high time to leave a country where one cannot go to bed in the evening, without the apprehension of being massacred before morning!" I have been assured by citizens having personal knowledge of the fact, that the rage of the slaves is such, in some districts, and especially near Savannah, that their masters and overseers are obliged to retreat to some secure place during the night, or employ armed sentinels. Four slaves were executed but a few months since, in Maryland, for destroying the life of their master's brother, while he was in the act of inflicting corporeal punishment upon them. A citizen of Philadelphia very lately related to me the most shocking heart-rending instance of ferocious vengeance that can be possibly conceived: It very forcibly exemplifies the infatuation and temerity of subjecting those, to whom our persons must necessarily be frequently accessible, to a state of the most savage moral debasement, and then of tampering with their furious untamed passions. A female slave having been flogged by her mistress, watched for an opportunity to indulge her resentment, which she executed in a manner too horrible to describe, and which it is not deemed prudent to specify.

20. Many instances have existed, where slaves, in a state of enraged desperation, have involved their masters and themselves, of course, in mutual destruction. A gentleman of high respectability lately informed me, that he personally knew a master of slaves who retreated every night into an upper room, the entrance into which was by a trap door, and kept an axe by his side for defence!

21. Does not self-preservation, as well as the obligations of religious duty and brotherly love, enjoin the education and civilization of our sable heathen neighbours in our own dwellings, equally as imperatively as of our tawny ones in the wilderness, and of both, on this side of the Atlantic, as well as on the other?[6]

22. While at a public house, in Fredericktown, there came into the bar-room (on Sunday) a decently dressed white man, of quite a light complexion, in company with one who was totally black. After they went away, the landlord observed that the white man was a slave. I asked him, with some surprise, how that could be possible? To which he replied, that he was a descendant, by female ancestry, of an African slave. He also stated, that not far from Fredericktown, there was a slave estate, on which there were several white females of as fair and elegant appearance as white ladies in general, held in legal bondage as slaves. These facts demonstrate that the peculiar hue, with which it has pleased God to paint the surface of the body of an African, is not the only circumstance which reconciles to the conscience of the European, (white man) the act of depriving him of his liberty and the fruits of his labour. Hence it appears to be a melancholy truth, that man, in a morbid state of intellect, (which I consider to be the case with every individual, whose rule of action is not founded upon wisdom and virtue,) voluntarily and almost invariably, confounds right with might, and when stimulated by avarice, frequently hesitates not to _bind and sell_ his wife, his children, or his brother! I have received direct information from a gentleman who witnessed the fact, that in one of the slave states, a white man, having married one of his female slaves, after she had borne him several children, sold the whole of them together as he would a drove of cattle; and it is said such instances are frequent. A _gentleman_ brought with him from the southward to _Philadelphia_, (the city of brotherly love,) his half brother, the son of his father by a slave, and attempted to sell him! He was happily prevented from executing his sacrilegious design by the interposition of a respectable citizen, who also procured the legal restoration of freedom to the darker _faced_ brother.