Chapter 20

Jeremiah Woodward, Gonchland, Co. Va. in the "Richmond Va. Whig," Jan. 30, 1838.

"200 DOLLARS REWARD for Nelson, has a _scar_ on his forehead occasioned by a _burn_, and one on his lower lip and one about the knee."

Samuel Rawlins, Gwinet Co. Ga. in the "Columbus Sentinel," Nov. 29, 1838.

"Ranaway, a negro man and his wife, named Nat and Priscilla, he has a small _scar_ on his left cheek, _two stiff fingers_ on his right hand with a _running sore_ on them; his wife has a _scar_ on her left arm, and one _upper tooth out_."

The reader perceives that we have under this head, as under previous ones, given to the testimony of the slaveholders themselves, under their own names, a precedence over that of all other witnesses. We now ask the reader's attention to the testimonies which follow. They are endorsed by responsible names--men who 'speak what they know, and testify what they have seen'--testimonies which show, that the slaveholders who wrote the preceding advertisements, describing the work of their own hands, in branding with hot irons, maiming, mutilating, cropping, shooting, knocking out the teeth and eyes of their slaves, breaking their bones, &c., have manifested, _as far as they have gone_ in the description, a commendable fidelity to truth.

It is probable that some of the scars and maimings in the preceding advertisements were the result of accidents; and some _may be_ the result of violence inflicted by the slaves upon each other. Without arguing that point, we say, these are the _facts_; whoever reads and ponders them, will need no argument to convince him, that the proposition which they have been employed to sustain, _cannot be shaken_. That any considerable portion of them were _accidental_, is totally improbable, from the nature of the case; and is in most instances disproved by the advertisements themselves. That they have not been produced by assaults of the slaves upon each other, is manifest from the fact, that injuries of that character inflicted by the slaves upon each other, are, as all who are familiar with the habits and condition of slaves well know, exceedingly rare; and of necessity must be so, from the constant action upon them of the strongest dissuasives from such acts that can operate on human nature.

Advertisements similar to the preceding may at any time be gathered by scores from the daily and weekly newspapers of the slave states. Before presenting the reader with further testimony in proof of the proposition at the head of this part of our subject, we remark, that some of the tortures enumerated under this and the preceding heads, are not in all cases inflicted by slaveholders as _punishments_, but sometimes merely as preventives of escape, for the greater security of their 'property'. Iron collars, chains, &c. are put upon slaves when they are driven or transported from one part of the country to another, in order to keep them from running away. Similar measures are often resorted to upon plantations. When the master or owner suspects a slave of plotting an escape, an iron collar with long 'horns,' or a bar of iron, or a ball and chain, are often fastened upon him, for the double purpose of retarding his flight, should he attempt it, and of serving as an easy means of detection.

Another inhuman method of _marking_ slaves, so that they may be easily described and detected when they escape, is called _cropping_. In the preceding advertisements, the reader will perceive a number of cases, in which the runaway is described as '_cropt_,' or a '_notch cut_ in the ear, or a part or the whole of the ear _cut off_,' &c.

Two years and a half since, the writer of this saw a letter, then just received by Mr. Lewis Tappan, of New York, containing a negro's ear cut off close to the head. The writer of the letter, who signed himself Thomas Oglethorpe, Montgomery, Alabama, sent it to Mr. Tappan as 'a specimen of a negro's ears,' and desired him to add it to his 'collection.'

Another method of _marking_ slaves, is by drawing out or breaking off one or two _front teeth_--commonly the upper ones, as the mark would in that case be the more obvious. An instance of this kind the reader will recall in the testimony of Sarah M. Grimké, page 30, and of which she had _personal_ knowledge; being well acquainted both with the inhuman master, (a distinguished citizen of South Carolina,) by whose order the brutal deed was done, and with the poor young girl whose mouth was thus barbarously mutilated, to furnish a convenient mark by which to describe her in case of her elopement, as she had frequently run away.

The case stated by Miss G. serves to unravel what, to one uninitiated, seems quite a mystery: i.e. the frequency with which, in the advertisements of runaway slaves published in southern papers, they are described as having _one or two front teeth out_. Scores of such advertisements are in southern papers now on our table. We will furnish the reader with a dozen or two.

Jesse Debruhl, sheriff, Richland District, "Columbia (S.C.) Telescope," Feb. 24, 1839.

"Committed to jail, Ned, about 25 years of age, has lost his _two upper front teeth_."

Mr. John Hunt, Black Water Bay, "Pensacola (Ga.) Gazette," October 14, 1837.

"100 DOLLARS REWARD, for Perry, _one under front tooth_ missing, aged 23 years."

Mr. John Frederick, Branchville, Orangeburgh District, S.C. "Charleston (S.C.) Courier," June 12, 1837.

"10 DOLLARS REWARD, for Mary, _one or two upper teeth_ out, about 25 years old."

Mr. Egbert A. Raworth, eight miles west of Nashville on the Charlotte road "Daily Republican Banner," Nashville, Tennessee, April 30, 1938.

"Ranaway, Myal, 23 years old, one of his _fore teeth out_."

Benjamin Russel, Deputy sheriff Bibb Co. Ga. "Macon (Ga.) Telegraph," Dec. 25, 1837.

"Brought to jail John, 23 years old, _one fore tooth out_."

F. Wisner, Master of the Work House, "Charleston (S.C.) Courier." Oct. 17, 1837.

"Committed to the Charleston Work House Tom, _two of his upper front teeth out_, about 30 years of age."

Mr. S. Neyle, "Savannah (Ga.) Republican," July 3, 1837.

"Ranaway Peter, has lost _two front teeth_ in the upper jaw."

Mr. John McMurrain, near Columbus, "Georgia Messenger," Aug. 2, 1838.

"Ranaway, a boy named Moses, some of his _front teeth out_."

Mr. John Kennedy, Stewart Co. La. "New Orleans Bee," April 7, 1837.

"Ranaway, Sally, her _fore teeth out_."

Mr. A.J. Hutchings, near Florence, Ala. "North Alabamian," August 25, 1838

"Ranaway, George Winston, two of his _upper fore teeth out_ immediately in front."

Mr. James Purdon, 33 Commons street, N.O. "New Orleans Bee," Feb. 13, 1838.

"Ranaway, Jackson, has lost _one of his front teeth_."

Mr. Robert Calvert, in the "Arkansas State Gazette," August 22, 1838.

"Ranaway, Jack, 25 years old, has lost _one of his fore teeth_."

Mr. A.G.A. Beazley, in the Memphis Gazette, March 18, 1838.

"Ranaway, Abraham, 20 or 22 years of age, _his front teeth out_."

Mr. Samuel Townsend, in the "Huntsville [Ala.] Democrat," May 24, 1837.

"Ranaway, Dick, 18 or 20 years of age, _has one front tooth out_."

Mr. Philip A. Dew, in the "Virginia Herald," of May 24, 1837.

"Ranaway, Washington, about 25 years of age, has _an upper front tooth out_."

J.G. Dunlap, "Georgia Constitutionalist," April 24, 1838.

"Ranaway, negro woman Abbe, _upper front teeth out_."

John Thomas, "Southern Argus," August 7, 1838.

"Ranaway, Lewis, 25 or 26 years old, _one or two of his front teeth out_."

M.E.W. Gilbert, in the "Columbus [Ga.] Enquirer," Oct. 5. 1837.

"50 DOLLARS REWARD, for Prince, 25 or 26 years old, _one or two teeth out_ in front on the upper jaw."

Publisher of the "Charleston Mercury," Aug. 31, 1838.

"Ranaway, Seller Saunders, _one fore tooth out_, about 22 years of age."

Mr. Byrd M. Grace, in the "Macon [Ga.] Telegraph," Oct. 16, 1383.

"Ranaway, Warren, about 25 or 26 years old, has lost _some of his front teeth_."

Mr. George W. Barnes, in the "Milledgeville [Ga.] Journal," May 22, 1837.

"Ranaway, Henry, about 23 years old, has one of his _upper front teeth out_."

D. Herring, Warden of Baltimore Jail, in "Baltimore Chronicle," Oct. 6, 1837.

"Committed to jail Elizabeth Steward, 17 or 18 years old, has _one of her front teeth out_."

Mr. J.L. Colborn, in the "Huntsville [Ala.] Democrat," July 4, 1837.

"Ranaway Liley, 26 years of age, _one fore tooth gone_."

Samuel Harman Jr. in the "New Orleans Bee," Oct. 12, 1838.

"50 DOLLARS REWARD, for Adolphe, 28 years old, _two of his front teeth_ are missing."

Were it necessary, we might easily add to the preceding list, _hundreds_. The reader will remark that all the slaves, whose ages are given, are _young_--not one has arrived at middle age; consequently it can hardly be supposed that they have lost their teeth either from age or decay. The probability that their teeth were taken out by force, is increased by the fact of their being _front teeth_ in almost every case, and from the fact that the loss of no _other_ is mentioned in the advertisements. It is well known that the front teeth are not generally the first to fail. Further, it is notorious that the teeth of the slaves are remarkably sound and serviceable, that they decay far less, and at a much later period of life than the teeth of the whites: owing partly, no doubt, to original constitution; but more probably to their diet, habits, and mode of life.

As an illustration of the horrible mutilations _sometimes_ suffered by them in the breaking and tearing out of their teeth, we insert the following, from the New Orleans Bee of May 31, 1837.

$10 REWARD.--Ranaway, Friday, May 12, JULIA, a negress, EIGHTEEN OR TWENTY YEARS OLD. SHE HAS LOST HER UPPER TEETH, and the under ones ARE ALL BROKEN. Said reward will be paid to whoever will bring her to her master, No. 172 Barracks-street, or lodge her in the jail.

The following is contained in the same paper.

Ranaway, NELSON, 27 years old,--"ALL HIS TEETH ARE MISSING."

This advertisement is signed by "S. ELFER," Faubourg Marigny.

We now call the attention of the reader to a mass of testimony in support of our general proposition.

GEORGE B. RIPLEY, Esq. of Norwich, Connecticut, has furnished the following statement, in a letter dated Dec. 12, 1838.

"GURDON CHAPMAN, Esq., a respectable merchant of our city, one of our county commissioners,--last spring a member of our state legislature,--and whose character for veracity is above suspicion, about a year since visited the county of Nansemond, Virginia, for the purpose of buying a cargo of corn. He purchased a large quantity of Mr. ----, with whose family he spent a week or ten days; after he returned, he related to me and several other citizens the following facts. In order to prepare the corn for market by the time agreed upon, the slaves were worked as hard as they would bear, from daybreak until 9 or 10 o'clock at night. They were called directly from their bunks in the morning to their work, without a morsel of food until noon, when they took their breakfast and dinner, consisting of bacon and corn bread. The quantity of meat was not one tenth of what the same number of northern laborers usually have at a meal. They were allowed but fifteen minutes to take this meal, at the expiration of this time the horn was blown. The rigor with which they enforce punctuality to its call, may be imagined from the fact, that a little boy only nine years old was whipped so severely by the driver, that in many places the whip cut through his clothes (which were of cotton,) for tardiness of not over three minutes. They then worked without intermission until 9 or 10 at night; after which they prepared and ate their second meal, as scanty as the first. An aged slave, who was remarkable for his industry and fidelity, was working with all his might on the threshing floor; amidst the clatter of the shelling and winnowing machines the master spoke to him, but he did not hear; he presently gave him several severe cuts with the raw hide, saying, at the same time, 'damn you, if you cannot hear I'll see if you can feel.' One morning the master rose from breakfast and whipped most cruelly, with a raw hide, a nice girl who was waiting on the table, for not opening a _west_ window when he had told her to open an east one. The number of slaves was only forty, and yet the lash was in constant use. The bodies of all of them were literally covered with old scars.

"Not one of the slaves attended church on the Sabbath. The social relations were scarcely recognised among them, and they lived in a state of promiscuous concubinage. The master said he took pains to breed from his best stock--the whiter the progeny the higher they would sell for house servants. When asked by Mr. C. if he did not fear his slaves would run away if he whipped them so much, he replied, they know too well what they must suffer if they are taken--and then said, 'I'll tell you how I treat my runaway niggers. I had a big nigger that ran away the second time; as soon as I got track of him I took three good fellows and went in pursuit, and found him in the night, some miles distant, in a corn-house; we took him and ironed him hand and foot, and carted him home. The next morning we tied him to a tree, and whipped him until there was not a sound place on his back. I then tied his ankles and hoisted him up to a _limb_--feet up and head down--we then whipped him, until the damned nigger smoked so that I thought he would take fire and burn up. We then took him down; and to make sure that he should not run away the third time, I run my knife in back of the ankles, and _cut off the large cords_,--and then I ought to have put some lead into the wounds, but I forgot it'

"The truth of the above is from unquestionable authority; and you may publish or suppress it, as shall best subserve the cause of God and humanity."

EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM STEPHAN SEWALL, Esq., Winthrop, Maine, dated Jan. 12th, 1839. Mr. S. is a member of the Congregational church in Winthrop, and late agent of the Winthrop Manufacturing company.

"Being somewhat acquainted with slavery, by a residence of about five years in Alabama, and having witnessed many acts of slaveholding cruelty, I will mention one or two that came under my eye; and one of excessive cruelty mentioned to me at the time, by the gentleman (now dead,) that interfered in behalf of the slave.

"I was witness to such cruelties by an overseer to a slave, that he twice attempted to drown himself, to get out of his power: this was on a raft of slaves, in the Mobile river. I saw an owner take his runaway slave, tie a rope round him, then get on his horse, give the slave and horse a cut the whip, and run the poor creature barefooted, very fast, over rough ground, where small black jack oaks had been cut up, leaving the sharp stumps, on which the slave would frequently fall; then the master would drag him as long as he could himself hold out; then stop, and whip him up on his feet again--then proceed as before. This continued until he got out of my sight, which was about half a mile. But what further cruelties this wretched man, (whose passion was so excited that he could scarcely utter a word when he took the slave into his own power,) inflicted upon his poor victim, the day of judgment will unfold.

"I have seen slaves severely whipped on plantations, but this _is an every day occurrence_, and comes under the head of general treatment.

"I have known the case of a husband compelled to whip his wife. This I did not witness, though not two rods from the cabin at the time.

"I will now mention the case of cruelty before referred to. In 1820 or 21, while the public works were going forward on Dauphin Island, Mobile Bay, a contractor, engaged on the works, beat one of his slaves so severely that the poor creature had no longer power to writhe under his suffering: he then took out his knife, and began to _cut his flesh in strips, from his hips down_. At this moment, the gentleman referred to, who was also a contractor, shocked at such inhumanity, stepped forward, between the wretch and his victim, and exclaimed, 'If you touch that slave again you do it at the peril of your life.' The slaveholder raved at him for interfering between him and his slave; but he was obliged to drop his victim, fearing the arm of my friend--whose stature and physical powers were extraordinary."

EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM MRS. MARY COWLES, a member of the Presbyterian church at Geneva, Ashtabula county, Ohio, dated 12th, mo. 18th, 1838. Mrs. Cowles is a daughter of Mr. James Colwell of Brook county, Virginia, near West Liberty.

"In the year 1809, I think, when I was twenty-one years old, a man in the vicinity where I resided, in Brooke co. Va. near West Liberty, by the name of Morgan, had a little slave girl about six years old, who had a habit or rather a natural infirmity common to children of that age. On this account her master and mistress would pinch her ears with hot tongs, and throw hot embers on her legs. Not being able to accomplish their object by these means, they at last resorted to a method too indelicate, and too horrible to describe in detail. Suffice it to say, it soon put an end to her life in the most excruciating manner. If further testimony to authenticate what I have stated is necessary, I refer you to Dr. Robert Mitchel who then resided in the vicinity, but now lives at Indiana, Pennsylvania, above Pittsburgh."

MARY COWLES.

TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM LADD, Esq., now of Minot, Maine, formerly a slaveholder in Florida. Mr. Ladd is now the President of the American Peace Society. In a letter dated November 29, 1838, Mr. Ladd says:

"While I lived in Florida I knew a slaveholder whose name was Hutchinson, he had been a preacher and a member of the Senate of Georgia. He told me that he dared not keep a gun in his house, because he was so passionate; and that he had _been the death of three or four men_. I understood him to mean _slaves_. One of his slaves, a girl, once came to my house. She had run away from him at Indian river. The cords of one of her hands were so much contracted that her hand was useless. It was said that he had thrust her hand into the fire while he was in a fit of passion, and held it there, and this was the effect. My wife had hid the girl, when Hutchinson came for her. Out of compassion for the poor slave, I offered him more than she was worth, which he refused. We afterward let the girl escape, and I do not know what became of her, but I believe he never got her again. It was currently reported of Hutchinson, that he once knocked down a _new_ negro (one recently from Africa) who was clearing up land, and who complained of the cold, as it was mid-winter. The slave was stunned with the blow. Hutchinson, supposing he had the 'sulks,' applied fire to the side of the slave until it was so roasted that he said the slave was not worth curing, and ordered the other slaves to pile on brush, and he was consumed.

"A murder occurred at the settlement, (Musquito) while I lived there. An overseer from Georgia, who was employed by a Mr. Cormick, in a fit of jealousy shot a slave of Samuel Williams, the owner of the next plantation. He was apprehended, but afterward suffered to escape. This man told me that he had rather whip a negro than sit down to the best dinner. This man had, near his house, a contrivance like that which is used in armies where soldiers are punished with the picket; by this the slave was drawn up from the earth, by a cord passing round his wrists, so that his feet could just touch the ground. It somewhat resembled a New England well sweep, and was used when the slaves were flogged.

"The treatment of slaves at Musquito I consider much milder than that which I have witnessed in the United States. Florida was under the Spanish government while I lived there. There were about fifteen or twenty plantations at Musquito. I have an indistinct recollection of four or five slaves dying of the cold in Amelia Island. They belonged to Mr. Bunce of musquito. The compensation of the overseers was a certain portion of the crop."

GERRIT SMITH, Esq. of Peterboro, in a letter, dated Dec. 15, 1838, says:

"I have just been conversing with an inhabitant of this town, on the subject of the cruelties of slavery. My neighbors inform me that he is a man of veracity. The candid manner of his communication utterly forbade the suspicion that he was attempting to deceive me.

"My informant says that he resided in Louisiana and Alabama during a great part of the years 1819 and 1820:--that he frequently saw slaves whipped, never saw any killed; but often heard of their being killed:--that in several instances he had seen a slave receive, in the space of two hours, five hundred lashes--each stroke drawing blood. He adds that this severe whipping was always followed by the application of strong brine to the lacerated parts.

"My informant further says, that in the spring of 1819, he steered a boat from Louisville to New Orleans. Whilst stopping at a plantation on the east bank of the Mississippi, between Natchez and New Orleans, for the purpose of making sale of some of the articles with which the boat was freighted, he and his fellow boatmen saw a shockingly cruel punishment inflicted on a couple of slaves for the repeated offence of running away. Straw was spread over the whole of their backs, and, after being fastened by a band of the same material, was ignited, and left to burn, until entirely consumed. The agonies and screams of the sufferers he can never forget."

Dr. DAVID NELSON, late president of Marion College, Missouri, a native of Tennessee, and till forty years old a slaveholder, said in an Anti-Slavery address at Northampton, Mass. Jan. 1839--

"I have not attempted to harrow your feelings with stories of cruelty. I will, however, mention one or two among the many incidents that came under my observation as family physician. I was one day dressing a blister, and the mistress of the house sent a little black girl into the kitchen to bring me some warm water. She probably mistook her message; for she returned with a bowl full of boiling water; which her mistress no sooner perceived, than she thrust her hand into it, and held it there till it was half cooked."

Mr. HENRY H. LOOMIS, a member of the Presbyterian Theological Seminary in the city of New York, says, in a recent letter--

"The Rev. Mr. Hart, recently my pastor, in Otsego county, New York, and who has spent some time at the south as a teacher, stated to me that in the neighborhood in which he resided a slave was set to watch a turnip patch near an academy, in order to keep off the boys who occasionally trespassed on it. Attempting to repeat the trespass in presence of the slave, they were told that his 'master forbad it.' At this the boys were enraged, and hurled brickbats at the slave until his face and other parts were much injured and wounded--but nothing was said or done about it as an injury to the slave.

"He also said, that a slave from the same neighborhood was found out in the woods, with his arms and legs burned almost to a cinder, up as far as the elbow and knee joints; and there appeared to be but little more said or thought about it than if he had been a brute. It was supposed that his master was the cause of it--making him an example of punishment to the rest of the gang!"

The following is an extract of a letter dated March 5, 1839, from Mr. JOHN CLARKE, a highly respected citizen of Scriba, Oswego county, New York, and a member of the Presbyterian church.