Part 9

Of the cruelties, in whipping, beating and murdering slaves, it has never been told nor described worse than is practised; and I have been told by overseers on plantations themselves, of what is _necessary_ in the discipline of a set of hands, first to _subdue_ them, and then to _keep them in subjection_. The first exhibition I had of slavery, was at Louisville in Kentucky, in the fall of 1837, and I shall never forget the nature of the scene before me; for it was the first time that this singular phenomenon was presented to my view, that in this land of _freedom_, where _liberty_ was engraven upon the escutcheon of every shield, and yet, not a stone upon the earth, but what was pressed by the bondsman’s foot; nor an inch of soil, but what was watered by tears, and the sweat of his brow, and whose very flesh too was torn and reeking from the chains and lash of the inhuman task-master. And who is doing all this? was the enquiry. It is KENTUCKY--the noble, proud and chivalrous _Kentucky_; whose sires and sons, on the battle fields of the revolution, poured out their blood like water, and when expiring in their last struggle, while their voice ceased in whispers, would breathe out the magic words, “LIBERTY or DEATH.” And it was thus with Kentucky, on the bloody fields of the second revolution. And on that day, her sons were in arms, struggling for their country’s rights and the extension of _American_ Freedom. And here was this singular phenomenon before me, of a proud and chivalrous people, offering up their oblations upon the altar of FREEDOM, and bearing in one hand the standard of LIBERTY, while in the other were forged chains for the bondman’s limbs, and the scourge for his back, and whose groans and shrieks were borne off upon the same breeze with their own shouts of LIBERTY or DEATH!! And this is no sketch of scenes drawn out with vivid colors of fancy; for it was stern living reality, and human language conveys no impressions and has not power to embellish them with ideal matter, for there was before me at almost every corner of the streets, that proud emblem of our nation’s greatness. It was the STARS and STRIPES calling upon the sons of Kentucky to again rally in defence of their country’s honor. And yet beneath the ample folds of this cherished emblem of FREEDOM were passing almost every moment the native born citizens of this proud State, driven to their daily task from the fear of the scourge and the lash. And more than that did I witness on a steamboat where was thrown out to the breeze our nation’s Flag, significant that the sons of Kentucky, her soldiers in arms, were there marching to and fro upon her deck and hurrying down to the plains of Mexico, to the field of battle and strife; while below them on the same boat, confined in chains like a pen of cattle, were their own _brothers_, upwards of an hundred citizens of this proud land, who were being dragged down to that bourne from whence none ever return--the great charnel house of American slavery, the low land and swamps of the Mississippi Valley. The next scene of interest that I saw was on a plantation a few miles above the city of New Orleans. I passed into the negro yard and the first slave I met was grinding corn with a double hand-mill like a common coffee-grinder. He was chained to a post and was literally naked. A plank lay within reach of his chain, the _soft_ side of which was his bed. His punishment was for running away, and he had been confined there to his mill seven weeks. In passing along to a shop, I found two negroes working at blacksmithing. Both were chained to the block, and were hampered with rings and chains on their legs. One of these was a heavy stout mulatto man, and on his right ancle was a ring of iron weighing from six to eight pounds. On the same leg near the knee was another ring weighing from four to six pounds, and a chain fastened from one ring to the other, making at least on this leg sixteen pounds of iron. The rings had worn and irritated the leg, and they were almost completely imbedded in the swollen flesh. From the knee to the top of the foot was one continued putrid running sore; and without exception the most loathsome and forbidding exhibition I ever witnessed. And yet he was at work preparing the heavy irons for a sugar mill. I asked him what he had those chains on for? He replied; “I run away, and by G--d I will again when I get these off and am well.” He had worn them eight weeks. The rings and chain on the other negro were not as large, nor was he much mutilated by them. The first was a noble fine looking mulatto man, with large head and prominent reflective faculties, and evidently with much force of character--presenting nothing of the African blood, except in the shade of his skin. He informed me that he came from Kentucky, and had been on the plantation seven years, and in that time he had seen the drivers kill eighteen boys. All slave men are called boys. Whether this was true or not, I had no other testimony except the circumstantial evidence which was around me on all sides, and I am sure this was sufficient to convince any one that an effort was being made to kill at least four more. In passing towards the sugar field, I found a negro setting on a block. A physician from Mobile, who was with me, spoke to him, and as he raised his head a swarm of flies started off, and looking on the right side of his head above the ear, I discovered the hair full of maggots, and the whole side was one mass of putrid matter. The skull was evidently broken in, as the matter which was running out indicated diseased bone. How he came in this condition I know not, yet the same effect would be produced by striking him with a heavy bludgeon or club. He was perfectly unconscious, and did not answer a question intelligibly, as he was insane. After this scene I was perfectly convinced that the negro in the shop had told the truth, that “eighteen boys had been killed on that plantation within seven years.”

And here I am aware that I shall be met with the usual reply--“that such acts as killing slaves are _improbable_, for it is so decidedly against the interest of the planter to allow his property to be destroyed in this manner.” I have myself before I learned to the contrary made the same reply; and yet one thing is sure, the reply does not make or prove these things false; and of their truth, I have the testimony of a large portion of the passengers, gentlemen and ladies, on the steamer “Allen Glover,” on her first trip down to New Orleans, in November, 1837. And I repeat that these cruelties are not isolated cases; for men and women are whipped to death, and murdered by inches, and shot down, as a common occurrence in the more Southern States. In proof of this, I was told, on a plantation about twelve miles below the city of New Orleans, by the overseer, that but very few plantations passed more than three or four years without having a slave killed by the driver. He said the season before the driver on this plantation killed the best boy they had. He was beating and kicking the boy, and finally the negro knocked him down. The driver rose up and shot him through the heart. He was a spirited boy from Kentucky, about twenty-three years old, and had been often beaten by the driver for the most trivial thing, and often without the least provocation. And he had borne the goads of the lash so long that his proud spirit broke loose in the fatal blow which he knew would send him to his grave in an instant. And while telling me this, the overseer pointed to the second plantation below, and said the driver about two months before killed a boy by shooting him. When these occurrences take place they are seldom known beyond the limits of the plantation; for it is _lawful_ to kill a negro if he raises his hand against a white man; and I can assure you that few ever make the attempt without being instantly killed.

A WOMAN WHIPPED TO DEATH.

A most brutal and inhuman case of whipping and murdering negroes was done by the driver on J. R.’s plantation, about forty miles from Natchez, in November, 1848. I will give the fiendish monster’s account of it in his own blasphemous language, while boasting of the deed to another driver. He said, “G--d d--n my soul, if I didn’t whip a woman last week until she childed right on the ground while I was whipping her; and a few days before I whipped another woman till I thought she was dead, but she revived a little and I told the niggers to carry her in the hut. The next day she sent for me, and when I went in she told me that she was going to die, and that I had killed her. I told her I was G--d d--n glad of it, and I was d--n sorry I hadn’t done it for her yesterday; and she died that night.” Yet this is all legalized, “moderate correction;” and doubtless will be considered as an “isolated case.”

The driver’s duty on a plantation is to see that the negroes are at work, and to do this he usually follows them into the field, and exercises a general supervision over their labor. His equipments are a heavy knife, a revolver pistol, and a large whip, the lash of which is about seven feet long. While in the field, if the negro does not work rapidly, or if he violates the rules of the plantation, this lash comes down upon him with a power and force that cuts through his clothes and tears his skin and flesh in shreds. These blows will often be repeated by a peculiar swing of the lash from right to left, every one of which will cut a hole where it hits like a scoop with a gouge.

THE “BREAK-DOWN WHIPPINGS.”

The “break-down whippings,” as they are termed on the plantations, are usually done by placing the slave with his face to a post in which is framed a cross bar. An iron collar or ring is put round his neck and fastened to the post. The arms are extended each way and fastened to the cross-bar by rings around the wrist. They are then stripped bare, and thus are whipped from twenty-five to fifty lashes and upwards, and sometimes as long as a man can continue to use the whip without being exhausted, and they often die there under the lash. If a slave is brought down from Kentucky or Virginia, and sold to a planter at the South, and it is understood that he has any pride, or occasionally assumes a degree of independence unbecoming a slave, or shows any reluctance against being driven beyond what is consistent and human, he is, as the drivers say, “getting too damned smart” and must have a small touch of the “Mississippi break-down;” and without any further ceremony he is put on to the post and whipped until the driver thinks he “will not be quite so _smart_.” And in many cases it is necessary to repeat this “break down” operation a number of times before the “smartness” will all pass out of them.

The change from Kentucky and Virginia slavery, to a large cotton or sugar plantation in the more Southern States, is as great almost as liberty and slavery, and there are many slaves taken from these States and sold far South, that can never be subdued only by death; and this they are sure to meet unless they give up their “smartness.” And in them is only seen exhibited the motto of every American citizen, “LIBERTY or DEATH.” They will never yield, for they have the feelings of an American, and the pride and spirit of their own _fathers_ who are among the most distinguished men of their native State. And this is _American_ slavery--one of our “cherished institutions!” and the forbidding of its further extension is now threatening the existence of this happy Union, and to deluge this land in blood!!

WOMAN WHIPPING ON THE PLANTATIONS.

The whipping of women on plantations is in a different manner. Their frock is turned up over their head, and they are made to lie down with their face to the ground, their arms extended and tied to a stake. A board is then taken which is prepared in shape like a shovel. The wide part is bored full of small holes, and with this they are beaten on the bare flesh, from twenty-five to two hundred blows. After these blows are repeated a few times the skin tears away, and the blood and flesh is forced through these holes with great force and flies several feet from them; and yet this is very _modest_ and “moderate correction.”

Females are required to do as much work on a plantation as men, and there are generally about thirty women to seventy men. The treatment of slave women is so severe, and their labor so hard, that very few children are raised on the sugar or cotton plantations; and if they are alive at birth they grow up feeble and puny, and from neglect and the want of proper cleanliness and care very few become men and women.

The relations and intimacy among slaves on plantations are managed with great care, and every thing that is allowed to exist between the men and women, is permitted with a view to degrade and brutalize them, and destroy all moral sense, as well as self-respect. A rule or regulation of any kind calculated to elevate the thoughts above the brute, or a disposition on the part of the slave to cultivate the moral sense, would be crushed at once, and an attempt on the part of a slave to do so would meet with the most severe and cruel punishment. Hence kindred ties, and parental affection, and the attachment between man and wife, are among the first things to be broken up, as the permission of such demonstrations would have a tendency to humanize the slave, and make him, under such circumstances, somewhat an object of sympathy. A connection among them as “man and wife,” in which the planter sometimes officiates in a mock ceremony of marriage, is allowed under certain rules, yet care is taken that such alliances do not continue for a long time. When they are broken up they are allowed to seek other companions for a short time. Thus they succeed in preventing anything like an affection, or attachment, or respect for an alliance in the character of “man and wife.”

The following extract of a letter from a highly respectable gentleman in Galveston, has been kindly furnished me, and a more truthful picture, to the life, cannot be drawn, and one too on which the good people of this country can look, and stand rebuked by the lesson of _moral sense_, which came up in the honesty of his soul from this poor slave, in view of the life which he would have entailed upon himself and kindred, had he fulfilled the marriage vow with poor Lucy. The occurrence took place in December, 1848--

“Bob had agreed to be married, and on the night of the wedding did not appear. His lady love came for him the next night after, and the matter was thoroughly discussed between them. She, poor thing, reproached him for his inconstancy with tears and sighs at a great rate. Bob finally said to her by way of comfort--‘Lucy what is de sense ob niggers marrying--it don’t mean any ting. When white folks marry, dey say matches made in heben--when nigger marry children all slaves--nigger dont own he wife--nigger woman dont own her husband--more misery, misery, all come ob nigger marrying.’”

Alas! too true. How often we laugh when we ought to be ashamed that our sensibilities are not more deeply shocked.

RESTRICTIONS UPON SLAVES.

The restrictions over the slave in New Orleans are exceedingly rigid and severe. At 8 o’clock in the evening a cannon is fired in the Place d’Armes, as a note of warning for all slaves to leave the streets and “turn in.” If they are caught out after this hour without a written pass from their masters, they are taken by the watch to the calaboose or city prison; and in the morning are whipped twenty-five lashes, and their master is obliged to pay three dollars to get them discharged. When the slaves become too “damned smart,” or for any thing which they may do, require punishment, the general practice with the slave owners is to send them to the calaboose, where they have all the shackles and preparations necessary to do up such _jobs_ in good _order_ and on _short_ notice. In doing this, also, the masters save themselves from the indignation of the slave, which would naturally become aroused if the punishment was inflicted by the hand of the master himself. The slave to be whipped is sent with a note to the calaboose, in which is money to pay for the _job_. If twenty-five cents is in the note he gets twenty-five lashes,--if fifty cents or a dollar he gets accordingly. And this whipping slaves at the calaboose at one cent a blow is a very lucrative business, and many a poor fellow comes away with scarcely a shred of skin on his back, and very often he does not know for what crime or for what purpose the whipping has been given him, unless it is because “he is getting too damned smart.” For the _crime_ of attempting to gain his liberty, for running away, a slave is punished more severely than for any thing that he may do where death is not the penalty. And very often for repeated acts of this kind, where the design is _only_ to whip him within “an inch of his life,” a mistake is made in the distance of an _inch_, and he is whipped within a quarter of an _inch_ and dies in a few moments. Next on the list of crime, a slave is punished for stealing almost as severely as for running away, and they are often whipped severely on mere suspicion of having stolen. For the punishment of slave women in New Orleans, for any crime, either theft or being “quite smart,” or for general correction, they are usually sent to the work house, and from here they are organized in chain gangs, and put in charge of a driver, and sent out to clean the markets and collect the dirt and rubbish in the streets. When a slave woman is sent to the work house by her master for punishment, he is obliged to pay twenty-five cents a day for the privilege of having her worked in the chain gang. In November, 1848, I saw a chain gang of forty-nine women and girls in Exchange street, cleaning away the rubbish, brick and dirt, that had accumulated in tearing down buildings for the purpose of extending the street through from Custom to Bienville streets. They were shoveling dirt and brick into large boxes, on each side of which were fastened long sticks extending each way far enough for handles. They would load the boxes and carry them some distance to be taken away by carts.

CHAIN-GANGS OF WOMEN.

These chain-gangs are formed by fastening together two women with a chain about ten feet long around the waist of each, and in this situation they are driven about the city day after day as street scavengers, and among them are often many fine appearing and delicate looking mulatto girls; yet they are here driven to the hard toil of shoveling dirt, and doing the heavy labor of a beast; while the proud and chivalrous southern gentleman will pass by and see these women thus degraded and brutalized, and never have thought or feeling of shame, nor a blush come over them, that such scenes are an outrage upon humanity, and a deep and damning disgrace to the civilized world. And yet here too, in this christian land, will _christian_ men and women, witness this more than savage brutality, and heed it less than they would if the women were dogs, while at the same time these pious _ladies_ will contribute money and means to civilize and christianize the poor heathen in some far distant land. And more than this, they will indite long prayers and repeat them time and again, that heaven would prosper the great cause which lies so near their heart, of turning the _brutal heathen_ from his _inhuman_ practices; and yet these same heathen, if they could promenade the streets of this city with these pious ladies, they would be shocked at sights of barbarity and cruelty, such as savages would never inflict, unless to punish their most deadly enemy. And here let me ask, in view of such scenes as are daily witnessed under the sanction of public authority; if there is any sense of propriety in men, or any regard for common decency, should not public opinion frown upon such men who make these regulations with a force that would drive them into the haunts of savages where they properly and _constitutionally_ belong.

SLAVES COMPELLED TO FIND WORK.

The treatment of slaves in New Orleans as a general thing is horrid in the extreme. There are many who are driven daily into the streets and obliged to find work, and at night return with their wages, and if they do not do it, are sent to the calaboose and whipped from fifty to an hundred lashes. There are also hundreds of slaves owned by Irish draymen, who are worked from fifteen to twenty hours a day, and do it continually for months in succession. The most severe and cruel master that ever had power over flesh and blood, is an unlearnt and ignorant Irishman, and in New Orleans, you cannot frighten a negro so badly by any thing that you may say or do, as to tell him you will sell him to an Irishman. They almost prefer death to an Irish master, and they certainly are the most unfeeling, inhuman monsters that can be found on earth. There are also a large number of slaves who are obliged to steal or beg their living, and yet are forced to work and give every farthing they earn to their masters. The sleeping pens also of the slaves generally are unfit for the meanest cur that runs the street; and yet in connection with all this, the practice of whipping, kicking and beating the slaves is so common that sympathy does not appear to be one of the attributes of the human soul. An instance of severity in punishment that came under my own observation, was inflicted on a mulatto girl about twenty-three years old. She was whipped by a negro trader, two hundred lashes and was literally cut to pieces. There was scarcely a particle of skin on her back, and her breasts were torn open in gashes and hung in shreds cut almost entirely from her body. Another mulatto girl I saw who had been beaten by a _lady_, one of the wealthy, _accomplished_ and fashionable women in the city. She knocked the girl down, stamped on her head and face and broke out two of her front teeth. She was blind with one eye, and her head and face was swollen as full as the skin could be pressed.

CHIVALROUS LADIES.

It is a very common thing to hear a _lady_ in New Orleans, boast of beating and whipping negro men and women, and they will do it with as much pride and manifestation of prowess, as though they had bearded a lion in his den; and yet the poor negro, when a lady attempts to whip him, is only obliged to stand and bear what comes upon him without daring to move or raise his hand. If he should be so uncourteous as to stir, or run away when a _lady_ was beating him, it is a _crime_ for which he is sent to the calaboose and is more severely whipped than for almost any thing that he may do. And yet such are the _ladies_ of New Orleans, and they are pious and _christian ladies_ too, and their hearts are BIG with sympathy for the poor heathen who are so degraded and suffering so much for the blessings of _civilization_.

SLAVE MARKET.