Chapter 14

The sufferings to which slaves are subjected by separations of various kinds, cannot be imagined by those unacquainted with the working out of the system behind the curtain. Take the following instances.

Chambermaids and seamstresses often sleep in their mistresses' apartments, but with no bedding at all. I know an instance of a woman who has been married eleven years, and yet has never been allowed to sleep out of her mistress's chamber.--This is a _great_ hardship to slaves. When we consider that house slaves are rarely allowed social intercourse during _the day_, as their work generally _separates_ them; the barbarity of such an arrangement is obvious. It is peculiarly a hardship in the above case, as the husband of the woman does not "belong" to her "owner;" and because he is subject to dreadful attacks of illness, and can have but little attention from his wife in the _day_. And yet her mistress, who is an old lady, gives her the highest character as a faithful servant, and told a friend of mine, that she was "entirely dependent upon her for _all_ her comforts; she dressed and undressed her, gave her all her food, and was so _necessary_ to her that she could not do without her." I may add, that this couple are tenderly attached to each other.

I also know an instance in which the husband was a slave and the wife was free: during the illness of the former, the latter was _allowed_ to come and nurse him; she was obliged to leave the work by which she had made a living, and come to stay with her husband, and thus lost weeks of her time, or he would have suffered for want of proper attention; and yet his "owner" made her no compensation for her services. He had long been a faithful and a favorite slave, and his owner was a woman very benevolent to the poor whites.--She went a great deal among these, as a visiting commissioner of the Ladies' Benevolent Society, and was in the constant habit of _paying the relatives of the poor whites_ for nursing _their_ husbands, fathers, and other relations; because she thought it very hard, when their time was taken up, so that they could not earn their daily bread, that they should be left to suffer. Now, such is the stupifying influence of the "_chattel_ principle" on the minds of slaveholders, that I do not suppose it ever occurred to her that this poor _colored_ wife ought to be paid for her services, and particularly as she was spending her time and strength in taking care of her "_property_." She no doubt only thought how kind she was, to _allow_ her to come and stay so long in her yard; for, let it be kept in mind, that slaveholders have unlimited power to separate husbands and wives, parents and children, however and whenever they please; and if this mistress had chosen to do it, she could have debarred this woman from all intercourse with her husband, by forbidding her to enter her premises.

Persons who own plantations and yet live in cities, often take children from their parents as soon as they are weaned, and send them into the country; because they do not want the time of the mother taken up by attendance upon her own children, it being too valuable to the mistress. As a _favor_, she is, in some cases, permitted to go to see them once a year. So, on the other hand, if field slaves happen to have children of an age suitable to the convenience of the master, they are taken from their parents and brought to the city. Parents are almost never consulted as to the disposition to be made of their children; they have as little control over them, as have domestic animals over the disposal of their young. Every natural and social feeling and affection are violated with indifference; slaves are treated as though they did not possess them.

Another way in which the feelings of slaves are trifled with and often deeply wounded, is by changing their names; if, at the time they are brought into a family, there is another slave of the same name; or if the owner happens, for some other reason, not to like the name of the new comer. I have known slaves very much grieved at having the names of their children thus changed, when they had been called after a dear relation. Indeed it would be utterly impossible to recount the multitude of ways in which the _heart_ of the slave is continually lacerated by the total disregard of his feelings as a social being and a human creature.

The slave suffers also greatly from being continually watched. The system of espionage which is constantly kept up over slaves is the most worrying and intolerable that can be imagined. Many mistresses are, in fact, during the absence of their husbands, really their drivers; and the pleasure of returning to their families often, on the part of the husband, is entirely destroyed by the complaints preferred against the slaves when he comes home to his meals.

A mistress of my acquaintance asked her servant boy, one day, what was the reason she could not get him to do his work whilst his master was away, and said to him, "Your master works a great deal harder than you do; he is at his office all day, and often has to study his law cases at night." "Master," said the boy, "is working for himself, and for you, ma'am, but I am working for _him_". The mistress turned and remarked to a friend, that she was so struck with the truth of the remark, that she could not say a word to him. But I forbear--the sufferings of the slaves are not only innumerable, but they are _indescribable_. I may paint the agony of kindred torn from each other's arms, to meet no more in time; I may depict the inflictions of the blood-stained lash, but I cannot describe the daily, hourly, ceaseless torture, endured by the heart that is constantly trampled under the foot of despotic power. This is a part of the horrors of slavery which, I believe, no one has ever attempted to delineate; I wonder not at it, it mocks all power of language. Who can describe the anguish of that mind which feels itself impaled upon the iron of arbitrary power--its living, writhing, helpless victim! every human susceptibility tortured, its sympathies torn, and stung, and bleeding--always feeling the death-weapon in its heart, and yet not so deep as to _kill_ that humanity which is made the curse of Its existence.

In the course of my testimony I have entered somewhat into the _minutiae_ of slavery, because this is a part of the subject often overlooked, and cannot be appreciated by any but those who have been witnesses, and entered into sympathy with the slaves as human beings. Slaveholders think nothing of them, because they regard their slaves as _property_, the mere instruments of their convenience and pleasure. _One who is a slaveholder at heart never recognises a human being in a slave_.

As thou hast asked me to testify respecting the _physical condition_ of the slaves merely, I say nothing of the awful neglect of their _minds and souls_ and the systematic effort to imbrute them. A wrong and an impiety, in comparison with which all the other unutterable wrongs of slavery are but as the dust of the balance.

ANGELINA G. WELD.

GENERAL TESTIMONY

TO THE CRUELTIES INFLICTED UPON SLAVES.

Before presenting to the reader particular details of the cruelties inflicted upon American slaves, we will present in brief the well-weighed declarations of slaveholders and other residents of slave states, testifying that the slaves are treated with barbarous inhumanity. All _details_ and particulars will be drawn out under their appropriate heads. We propose in this place to present testimony of a _general character_--the solemn declarations of slaveholders and others, that the slaves are treated with great cruelty.

To discredit the testimony of witnesses who insist upon convicting themselves, would be an anomalous scepticism.

To show that American slavery has _always_ had one uniform character of diabolical cruelty, we will go back one hundred years, and prove it by unimpeachable witnesses, who have given their deliberate testimony to its horrid barbarity, from 1739 to 1839.

TESTIMONY OF REV. GEORGE WHITEFIELD.

In a letter written by him in Georgia, and addressed to the slaveholders of Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia, in 1739.--See Benezet's "Caution to Great Britain and her Colonies."

"As I lately passed through your provinces on my way hither, I was sensibly touched with a fellow-feeling of the miseries of the poor negroes.

"Sure I am, it is sinful to use them as bad, nay worse than if they were brutes; and whatever particular _exceptions_ there may be, (as I would charitably hope there are _some_,) I fear the _generality_ of you that own negroes _are liable to such a charge_. Not to mention what numbers have been given up to the inhuman usage of cruel _taskmasters_, who by their unrelenting scourges, have ploughed their backs and made long furrows, and at length brought them to the grave!

"_The blood of them, spilt for these many years, in your respective provinces, will ascend up to heaven against you!_" The following is the testimony of the celebrated JOHN WOOLMAN, an eminent minister of the Society of Friends, who traveled extensively in the slave state. We copy it from a "Memoir of JOHN WOOLMAN, chiefly extracted from a Journal of his Life and Travels." It was published in Philadelphia, by the "Society of Friends."

"The following reflections, were written in 1757, while he was traveling on a religious account among slaveholders."

"Many of the white people in these provinces, take little or no care of negro marriages; and when negroes marry, after their own way, some make so little account of those marriages, that, with views of outward interest, they often part men from their wives, by selling them far asunder; which is common when estates are sold by executors at vendue.

"Many whose labor is heavy, being followed at their business in the field by a man with a whip, hired for that purpose,--have, in common, little else allowed them but _one peck_ of Indian corn and some salt for one week, with a few potatoes. (The potatoes they commonly raise by their labor on the first day of the week.) The correction ensuing on their disobedience to overseers, or slothfulness in business, is often _very severe_, and sometimes _desperate_. Men and women have many times _scarce clothes enough to hide their nakedness_--and boys and girls, ten and twelve years old, are often _quite naked_ among their masters' children. Some use endeavors to instruct those (negro children) they have in reading; but in common, this is not only neglected, but disapproved."--p. 12.

TESTIMONY OF THE 'MARYLAND JOURNAL AND BALTIMORE ADVERTISER,' OF MAY 30, 1788.

"In the ordinary course of the business of the country, the punishment of relations frequently happens on the same farm, and in view of each other: the father often sees his beloved son--the son his venerable sire--the mother her much loved daughter--the daughter her affectionate parent--the husband sees the wife of his bosom, and she the husband of her affection, _cruelly bound up_ without delicacy or mercy, and without daring to interpose in each other's behalf, and punished with all the _extremity of incensed rage, and all the rigor of unrelenting severity_. Let us reverse the case, and suppose it ours: ALL IS SILENT HORROR!"

TESTIMONY OF THE HON. WILLIAM PINCKNEY, OF MARYLAND.

In a speech before the Maryland House of Delegates, in 1789, Mr. P. calls slavery in that state, "a speaking picture of _abominable oppression_;" and adds: "It will not do thus to ... act like _unrelenting tyrants_, perpetually sermonizing it with liberty as our text, and actual _oppression_ for our commentary. Is she [Maryland] not ... the foster mother of _petty despots_,--the patron of _wanton oppression?_"

Extract from a speech of Mr. RICE, in the Convention for forming the Constitution of Kentucky, in 1790:

"The master may, and _often does, inflict upon him all the severity of punishment the human body is capable of bearing."_

President Edwards, the Younger, in a sermon before the Connecticut Abolition Society, 1791, says:

"From these drivers, for every imagined, as well as real neglect or want of exertion, they receive the lash--the smack of which is all day long in the ears of those who are on the plantation or in the vicinity; and it is used with such dexterity and severity, as not only to lacerate the skin, but to tear out small portions of the flesh at almost every stroke.

"This is the general treatment of the slaves. But many individuals suffer still more severely. _Many, many are knocked down; some have their eyes beaten out: some have an arm or a leg broken, or chopped off_; and many, for a very small, or for no crime at all, have been beaten to death, merely to gratify the fury of an enraged master or overseer."

Extract from an oration, delivered at Baltimore, July 4, 1797, by GEORGE BUCHANAN, M.D., member of the American Philosophical Society.

Their situation (the slaves') is _insupportable_; misery inhabits their cabins, and pursues them in the field. Inhumanly beaten, they _often_ fall sacrifices to the turbulent tempers of their masters! Who is there, unless inured to savage cruelties, that can hear of the inhuman punishments _daily inflicted_ upon the unfortunate blacks, without feeling for them? Can a man who calls himself a Christian, coolly and deliberately tie up, _thumb-screw, torture with pincers_, and beat unmercifully a poor slave, for perhaps a trifling neglect of duty?--p. 14.

TESTIMONY OF HON. JOHN RANDOLPH, OF ROANOKE--A SLAVEHOLDER.

In one of his Congressional speeches, Mr. R. says: "Avarice alone can drive, as it does drive, this _infernal_ traffic, and the wretched victims of it, like so many post-horses _whipped to death_ in a mail coach. Ambition has its cover-sluts in the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war; but where are the trophies of avarice? _The hand-cuff; the manacle, the blood-stained cowhide!_"

MAJOR STODDARD, of the United States' army, who took possession of Louisiana in behalf of the United States, under the cession of 1804, in his Sketches of Louisiana, page 332, says:

"The feelings of humanity are outraged--the most odious tyranny exercised in a land of freedom, and hunger and nakedness prevail amidst plenty. * * * Cruel, and even unusual punishments are daily inflicted on these wretched creatures, enfeebled with hunger, labor and the lash. The scenes of misery and distress constantly witnessed along the coast of the Delta, [of the Mississippi,] the wounds and lacerations occasioned by demoralized masters and overseers, torture the feelings of the passing stranger, and wring blood from the heart."

Though only the third of the following series of resolutions is directly relevant to the subject now under consideration, we insert the other resolutions, both because they are explanatory of the third, and also serve to reveal the public sentiment of Indiana, at the date of the resolutions. As a large majority of the citizens of Indiana at that time, were _natives of slave states_, they well knew the actual condition of the slaves.

1. "RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY, by the Legislative Council and House of Representatives of Indiana Territory, that a suspension of the sixth article of compact between the United States and the territories and states north west of the river Ohio, passed the 13th day of January, 1783, for the term of ten years, would be highly advantageous to the territory, and meet the approbation of at least nine-tenths of the good citizens of the same."

2. "RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY, that the abstract question of liberty and slavery, is not considered as involved in a suspension of the said article, inasmuch as the number of slaves in the United States would not be augmented by the measure."

3. "RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY, that the suspension of the said article would be equally advantageous to the territory, to the states from whence the negroes would be brought, and _to the negroes themselves._ The states which are overburthened with negroes which they cannot comfortably support; * * and THE NEGRO HIMSELF WOULD EXCHANGE A SCANTY PITTANCE OF THE COARSEST FOOD, for a plentiful and nourishing diet; and a situation which admits not the most distant prospect of emancipation, for one which presents no considerable obstacle to his wishes."

4. "RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY, that a copy of these resolutions be delivered to the delegate to Congress from this territory, and that he be, and he hereby is, instructed to use his best endeavors to obtain a suspension of the said article."

J.B. THOMAS, _Speaker of the House of Representatives._

PIERRE MINARD, _President pro tem. of the Legislative Council. Vincennes, Dec._ 20, 1806.

"Forwarded to the Speaker the United States' Senate, by WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, Governor"--_American State Papers_ vol 1. p. 467.

MONSIEUR C.C. ROBIN, who resided in Louisiana from 1802 to 1806, and published a volume containing the results of his observations there, thus speaks of the condition of the slaves:

"While they are at labor, the manager, the master, or the driver has commonly the whip in hand to strike the idle. But those of the negroes who are judged guilty of serious faults, are punished twenty, twenty-five, forty, fifty, or one hundred lashes. The manner of this cruel execution is as follows: four stakes are driven down, making a long square; the culprit is extended naked between these stakes, face downwards; his hands and his feet are bound separately, with strong cords, to each of the stakes, so far apart that his arms and legs, stretched in the form of St. Andrew's cross, give the poor wretch no chance of stirring. Then the executioner, who is ordinarily a negro, armed with the long whip of a coachman, strikes upon the reins and thighs. The crack of his whip resounds afar, like that of an angry cartman beating his horses. The blood flows, the long wounds cross each other, strips of skin are raised without softening either the hand of the executioner or the heart of the master, who cries 'sting him harder.'

"The reader is moved; so am I: my agitated hand refuses to trace the bloody picture, to recount how many times the piercing cry of pain has interrupted my silent occupations; how many times I have shuddered at the faces of those barbarous masters, where I saw inscribed the number of victims sacrificed to their ferocity.

"The women are subjected to these punishments as rigorously as the men--not even pregnancy exempts them; in that case, before binding them to the stakes, a hole is made in the ground to accommodate the enlarged form of the victim.

"It is remarkable that the white creole women are ordinarily more inexorable than the men. Their slow and languid gait, and the trifling services which they impose, betoken only apathetic indolence; but should the slave not promptly obey, should he even fail to divine the meaning of their gestures, or looks, in an instant they are armed with a formidable whip; it is no longer the arm which cannot sustain the weight of a shawl or a reticule--it is no longer the form which but feebly sustains itself. They themselves order the punishment of one of these poor creatures, and with a dry eye see their victim bound to four stakes; they count the blows, and raise a voice of menace, if the arm that strikes relaxes, or if the blood does not flow in sufficient abundance. Their sensibility changed to fury must needs feed itself for a while on the hideous spectacle; they must, as if to revive themselves, hear the piercing shrieks, and see the flow of fresh blood; there are some of them who, in their frantic rage, pinch and bite their victims.

"It is by no means wonderful that the laws designed to protect the slave, should be little respected by the generality of such masters. I have seen some masters pay those unfortunate people the miserable overcoat which is their due; but others give them nothing at all, and do not even leave them the hours and Sundays granted to them by law. I have seen some of those barbarous masters leave them, during the winter, in a state of revolting nudity, even contrary to their own true interests, for they thus weaken and shorten the lives upon which repose the whole of their own fortunes. I have seen some of those negroes obliged to conceal their nakedness with the long moss of the country. The sad melancholy of these wretches, depicted upon their countenances, the flight of some, and the death of others, do not reclaim their masters; they wreak upon those who remain, the vengeance which they can no longer exercise upon the others."

WHITMAN MEAD, Esq. of New York, in his journal, published nearly a quarter of a century ago, under date of

"SAVANNAH, January 28, 1817.

"To one not accustomed to such scenes as slavery presents, the condition of the slaves is _impressively shocking._ In the course of my walks, I was every where witness to their wretchedness. Like the brute creatures of the north, they are driven about at the pleasure of all who meet them: _half naked and half starved_, they drag out a pitiful existence, apparently almost unconscious of what they suffer. A threat accompanies every command, and a bastinado is the usual reward of disobedience."

TESTIMONY OF REV. JOHN RANKIN,

_A native of Tennessee, educated there, and for a number of years a preacher in slave states--now pastor of a church in Ripley, Ohio._

"Many poor slaves are stripped naked, stretched and tied across barrels, or large bags, _and tortured with the lash during hours, and even whole days, until their flesh is mangled to the very bones_. Others are stripped and hung up by the arms, their feet are tied together, and the end of a heavy piece of timber is put between their legs in order to stretch their bodies, and so prepare them for the torturing lash--and in this situation they are often whipped until their bodies are covered _with blood and mangled flesh_--and in order to add the greatest keenness to their sufferings, their wounds are washed with _liquid salt_! And some of the miserable creatures are permitted to hang in that position until they actually _expire_; some die under the lash, others linger about for a time, and at length die of their wounds, and many survive, and endure again similar torture. These bloody scenes are _constantly exhibiting in every slave holding country--thousands of whips are every day stained in African blood_! Even the poor _females_ are not permitted to escape these shocking cruelties."--_Rankin's Letters._

These letters were published fifteen years ago.--They were addressed to a brother in Virginia, who was a slaveholder.

TESTIMONY OF THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY.

"We have heard of slavery as it exists in Asia, and Africa, and Turkey--we have heard of the feudal slavery under which the peasantry of Europe have groaned from the days of Alaric until now, but excepting only the horrible system of the West India Islands, we have never heard of slavery in any country, ancient or modern, Pagan, Mohammedan, or _Christian! so terrible in its character_, as the slavery which exists in these United States."--_Seventh Report American Colonization Society,_ 1824.

TESTIMONY OF THE GRADUAL EMANCIPATION SOCIETY OF NORTH CAROLINA.

_Signed by Moses Swain, President, and William Swain, Secretary._