Chapter 7

In traveling, one day, from Petersburg to Richmond, Virginia, I heard cries of distress at a distance, on the road. I rode up, and found two white men, beating a slave. One of them had hold of a rope, which was passed under the bottom of a fence; the other end was fastened around the neck of the slave, who was thrown flat on the ground, on his face, with his back bared. The other was beating him furiously with a large hickory.

A slaveholder in Henrico County, Virginia, had a slave who used frequently to work for my father. One morning he came into the field with his back completely _cut up_, and mangled from his head to his heels. The man was so stiff and sore he could scarcely walk. This same person got offended with another of his slaves, knocked him down, and struck out one of his eyes with a maul. The eyes of several of his slaves were injured by similar violence.

In Richmond, Virginia, a company occupied as a dwelling a large warehouse. They got angry with a negro lad, one of their slaves, took him into the cellar, tied his hands with a rope, bored a hole though the floor, and passed the rope up through it. Some of the family drew up the boy, while others whipped. This they continued until the boy died. The warehouse was owned by a Mr. Whitlock, on the scite of one formerly owned by a Mr. Philpot.

Joseph Chilton, a resident of Campbell County, Virginia, purchased a quart of tanners' oil, for the purpose, as he said, of putting it on one of his negro's heads, that he had sometime previous pitched or tarred over, for running away.

In the town of Lynchburg, Virginia, there was a negro man put in prison, charged with having pillaged some packages of goods, which he, as head man of a boat, received at Richmond, to be delivered at Lynchburg. The goods belonged to A.B. Nichols, of Liberty, Bedford County, Virginia. He came to Lynchburg, and desired the jailor to permit him to whip the negro, to make him confess, as there was _no proof against him_. Mr. Williams, (I think that is his name,) a pious Methodist man, a great stickler for law and good order, professedly a great friend to the black man, delivered the negro into the hands of Nichols. Nichols told me that he took the slave, tied his wrists together, then drew his arms down so far below his knees as to permit a staff to pass above the arms under the knees, thereby placing the slave in a situation that he could not move hand or foot. He then commenced his bloody work, and continued, at intervals, until 500 blows were inflicted. I received this statement from Nichols himself, who was, by the way, a _son of the land of "steady habits_," where there are many like him, if we may judge from their writings, sayings, and doings."

PRIVATIONS OF THE SLAVES.

I. FOOD.

We begin with the _food_ of the slaves, because if they are ill treated in this respect we may be sure that they will be ill treated in other respects, and generally in a greater degree. For a man habitually to stint his dependents in their food, is the extreme of meanness and cruelty, and the greatest evidence he can give of utter indifference to their comfort. The father who stints his children or domestics, or the master his apprentices, or the employer his laborers, or the officer his soldiers, or the captain his crew, when able to furnish them with sufficient food, is every where looked upon as unfeeling and cruel. All mankind agree to call such a character inhuman. If any thing can move a hard heart, it is the appeal of hunger. The Arab robber whose whole life is a prowl for plunder, will freely divide his camel's milk with the hungry stranger who halts at his tent door, though he may have just waylaid him and stripped him of his money. Even savages take pity on hunger. Who ever went famishing from an Indian's wigwam? As much as hunger craves, is the Indian's free gift even to an enemy. The necessity for food is such a universal want, so constant, manifest and imperative, that the heart is more touched with pity by the plea of hunger, and more ready to supply that want than any other. He who can habitually inflict on others the pain of hunger by giving them insufficient food, can habitually inflict on them any other pain. He can kick and cuff and flog and brand them, put them in irons or the stocks, can overwork them, deprive them of sleep, lacerate their backs, make them work without clothing, and sleep without covering.

Other cruelties may be perpetrated in hot blood and the acts regretted as soon as done--the feeling that prompts them is not a permanent state of mind, but a violent impulse stung up by sudden provocation. But he who habitually withholds from his dependents sufficient sustenance, can plead no such palliation. The fact itself shows, that his permanent state of mind toward them is a brutal indifference to their wants and sufferings--A state of mind which will naturally, necessarily, show itself in innumerable privations and inflictions upon them, when it can be done with impunity.

If, therefore, we find upon examination, that the slaveholders do not furnish their slaves with sufficient food, and do thus habitually inflict upon them the pain of hunger, we have a clue furnished to their treatment in other respects, and may fairly infer habitual and severe privations and inflictions; not merely from the fact that men are quick to feel for those who suffer from hunger, and perhaps more ready to relieve that want than any other; but also, because it is more for the interest of the slaveholder to supply that want than any other; consequently, if the slave suffer in this respect, he must as the general rule, suffer _more_ in other respects.

We now proceed to show that the slaves have insufficient food. This will be shown first from the express declarations of slaveholders, and other competent witnesses who are, or have been residents of slave states, that the slaves generally are _under-fed._ And then, by the laws of slave states, and by the testimony of slaveholders and others, the _kind, quantity_, and _quality,_ of their allowance will be given, and the reader left to judge for himself whether the slave _must_ not be a sufferer.

THE SLAVES SUFFER FROM HUNGER--DECLARATIONS OF SLAVE-HOLDERS AND OTHERS

Hon. Alexander Smyth, a slave holder, and for ten years, Member of Congress from Virginia, in his speech on the Missouri question. Jan 28th, 1820.

"By confining the slaves to the Southern states, where crops are raised for exportation, and bread and meat are purchased, you _doom them to scarcity and hunger._ It is proposed to hem in the blacks where they are ILL FED."

Rev. George Whitefield, in his letter, to the slave holders of Md. Va. N.C. S.C. and Ga. published in Georgia, just one hundred years ago, 1739.

"My blood has frequently run cold within me, to think how many of your slaves _have not sufficient food to eat;_ they are scarcely permitted to _pick up the crumbs,_ that fall from their master's table."

Rev. John Rankin, of Ripley, Ohio, a native of Tennessee, and for same years a preacher in slave states.

"Thousands of the slaves are pressed with the gnawings of cruel hunger during their whole lives."

Report of the Gradual Emancipation Society, of North Carolina, 1826. Signed Moses Swain, President, and William Swain, Secretary.

Speaking of the condition of slaves, in the eastern part of that state, the report says,--"The master puts the unfortunate wretches upon short allowances, scarcely sufficient for their sustenance, so that a _great part_ of them go _half starved_ much of the time."

Mr. Asa A. Stone, a Theological Student, who resided near Natchez, Miss., in 1834-5.

"On almost every plantation, the hands suffer more or less from hunger at some seasons of almost every year. There is always a _good deal of suffering_ from hunger. On many plantations, and particularly in Louisiana, the slaves are in a condition of _almost utter famishment,_ during a great portion of the year."

Thomas Clay, Esq., of Georgia, a Slaveholder.

"From various causes this [the slave's allowance of food] is _often_ not adequate to the support of a laboring man."

Mr. Tobias Boudinot, St Albans, Ohio, a member of the Methodist Church. Mr. B. for some years navigated the Mississippi.

"The slaves down the Mississippi, are _half-starved,_ the boats, when they stop at night, are constantly boarded by slaves, begging for something to eat."

President Edwards, the younger, in a sermon before the Conn. Abolition Society, 1791.

"The slaves are supplied with barely enough to keep them from _starving._"

Rev. Horace Moulton, a Methodist Clergyman of Marlboro' Mass., who lived five years in Georgia.

"As a general thing on the plantations, the slaves suffer extremely for the want of food."

Rev. George Bourne, late editor of the Protestant Vindicator, N.Y., who was seven years pastor of a church in Virginia.

"The slaves are deprived of _needful_ sustenance."

2. KINDS OF FOOD.

Hon. Robert Turnbull, a slaveholder of Charleston, South Carolina.

"The subsistence of the slaves consists, from March until August, of corn ground into grits, or meal, made into what is called _hominy_, or baked into corn bread. The other six months, they are fed upon the sweet potatoe. Meat, when given, is only by way of _indulgence or favor._"

Mr. Eleazar Powell, Chippewa, Beaver Co., Penn., who resided in Mississippi, in 1836-7.

"The food of the slaves was generally corn bread, and _sometimes_ meat or molasses."

Reuben G. Macy, a member of the Society of Friends, Hudson, N.Y., who resided in South Carolina.

"The slaves had no food allowed them besides _corn,_ excepting at Christmas, when they had beef."

Mr. William Leftwich, a native of Virginia, and recently of Madison Co., Alabama, now member, of the Presbyterian Church, Delhi, Ohio.

"On my uncle's plantation, the food of the slaves, was corn-pone and a small allowance of meat."

WILLIAM LADD, Esq., of Minot, Me., president of the American Peace Society, and formerly a slaveholder of Florida, gives the following testimony as to the allowance of food to slaves.

"The usual food of the slaves was _corn_, with a modicum of salt. In some cases the master allowed no salt, but the slaves boiled the sea water for salt in their little pots. For about eight days near Christmas, i.e., from the Saturday evening before, to the Sunday evening after Christmas day, they were allowed some _meat_. They always with one single exception ground their corn in a hand-mill, and cooked their food themselves."

Extract of a letter from Rev. D.C. EASTMAN, a preacher of the Methodist Episcopal church, in Fayette county, Ohio.

"In March, 1838, Mr. Thomas Larrimer, a deacon of the Presbyterian church in Bloomingbury, Fayette county, Ohio, Mr. G.S. Fullerton, merchant, and member of the same church, and Mr. William A. Ustick, an elder of the same church, spent a night with a Mr. Shepherd, about 30 miles North of Charleston, S.C., on the Monk's corner road. He owned five families of negroes, who, he said, were fed from the same meal and meat tubs as himself, but that 90 out of a 100 of all the slaves in that county _saw meat but once a year_, which was on Christmas holidays."

As an illustration of the inhuman experiments sometimes tried upon slaves, in respect to the _kind_ as well as the quality and quantity of their food, we solicit the attention of the reader to the testimony of the late General Wade Hampton, of South Carolina. General Hampton was for some time commander in chief of the army on the Canada frontier during the last war, and at the time of his death, about three years since, was the largest slaveholder in the United States. The General's testimony is contained in the following extract of a letter, just received from a distinguished clergyman in the west, extensively known both as a preacher and a writer. His name is with the executive committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society.

"You refer in your letter to a statement made to you while in this place, respecting the late General Wade Hampton, of South Carolina, and task me to write out for you the circumstances of the case--considering them well calculated to illustrate two points in the history of slavery: 1st, That the habit of slaveholding dreadfully blunts the feelings toward the slave, producing such insensibility that his sufferings and death are regarded with indifference. 2d, That the slave often has insufficient food, both in quantity and quality.

"I received my information from a lady in the west of high respectability and great moral worth,--but think it best to withhold her name, although the statement was not made in confidence.

"My informant stated that she sat at dinner once in company with General Wade Hampton, and several others; that the conversation turned upon the treatment of their servants, &c.; when the General undertook to entertain the company with the relation of an experiment he had made in the feeding of his slaves on cotton seed. He said that he first mingled one-fourth cotton seed with three-fourths corn, on which they seemed to thrive tolerably well; that he then had measured out to them equal quantities of each, which did not seem to produce any important change; afterwards he increased the quantity of cotton seed to three-fourths, mingled with one-fourth corn, and then he declared, with an oath, that 'they died like rotten sheep!!' It is but justice to the lady to state that she spoke of his conduct with the utmost indignation; and she mentioned also that he received no countenance from the company present, but that all seemed to look at each other with astonishment. I give it to you just as I received it from one who was present, and whose character for veracity is unquestionable.

"It is proper to add that I had previously formed an acquaintance with Dr. Witherspoon, now of Alabama, if alive; whose former residence was in South Carolina; from whom I received a particular account of the manner of feeding and treating slaves on the plantations of General Wade Hampton, and others in the same part of the State; and certainly no one could listen to the recital without concluding that such masters and overseers as he described must have hearts like the nether millstone. The cotton seed experiment I had heard of before also, as having been made in other parts of the south; consequently, I was prepared to receive as true the above statement, even if I had not been so well acquainted with the high character of my informant."

2. QUANTITY OF FOOD

The legal allowance of food for slaves in North Carolina, is in the words of the law, "a quart of corn per day." See Haywood's Manual, 525. The legal allowance in Louisiana is more, a barrel [flour barrel] of corn, (in the ear,) or its equivalent in other grain, and a pint of salt a month. In the other slave states the amount of food for the slaves is left to the option of the master.

Thos. Clay, Esq., of Georgia, a slave holder, in his address before the Georgia Presbytery, 1833.

"The quantity allowed by custom is _a peck of corn a week_!"

The Maryland Journal, and Baltimore Advertiser, May 30, 1788.

"_A single peck of corn a week, or the like measure of rice_, is the _ordinary_ quantity of provision for a _hard-working_ slave; to which a small quantity of meat is occasionally, though _rarely_, added."

W.C. Gildersleeve, Esq., a native of Georgia, and Elder in the Presbyterian Church, Wilksbarre, Penn.

"The weekly allowance to grown slaves on this plantation, where I was best acquainted, was _one peck of corn_."

Wm. Ladd, of Minot, Maine, formerly a slaveholder in Florida.

"The usual allowance of food was _one quart of corn a day_, to a full task hand, with a modicum of salt; kind masters allowed _a peck of corn a week_; some masters allowed no salt."

Mr. Jarvis Brewster, in his "Exposition of the treatment of slaves in the Southern States," published in N. Jersey, 1815.

"The allowance of provisions for the slaves, is _one peck of corn, in the grain, per week_."

Rev. Horace Moulton, a Methodist Clergyman of Marlboro, Mass., who lived five years in Georgia.

"In Georgia the planters give each slave only _one peck of their gourd seed corn per week_, with a small quantity of salt."

Mr. F.C. Macy, Nantucket, Mass., who resided in Georgia in 1820.

"The food of the slaves was three pecks of potatos a week during the potato season, and _one peck of corn_, during the remainder of the year."

Mr. Nehemiah Caulkins, a member of the Baptist Church in Waterford, Conn., who resided in North Carolina, eleven winters.

"The subsistence of the slaves, consists of _seven quarts of meal_ or _eight quarts of small rice for one week!_"

William Savery, late of Philadelphia, an eminent Minister of the Society of Friends, who travelled extensively in the slave states, on a Religious Visitation, speaking of the subsistence of the slaves, says, in his published Journal,

"_A peck of corn_ is their (the slaves,) miserable subsistence _for a week_."

The late John Parrish, of Philadelphia, another highly respected Minister of the Society of Friends, who traversed the South, on a similar mission, in 1804 and 5, says in his "Remarks on the slavery of Blacks;"

"They allow them but _one peck of meal_, for a whole week, in some of the Southern states."

Richard Macy, Hudson, N.Y. a Member of the Society of Friends, who has resided in Georgia.

"Their usual allowance of food was one peck of corn per week, which was dealt out to them every first day of the week. They had nothing allowed them besides the corn, except one quarter of beef at Christmas."

Rev. C.S. Renshaw, of Quincy, Ill., (the testimony of a Virginian).

"The slaves are generally allowanced: a pint of corn meal and a salt herring is the allowance, or in lieu of the herring a "dab" of fat meat of about the same value. I have known the sour milk, and clauber to be served out to the hands, when there was an abundance of milk on the plantation. This is a luxury not often afforded."

Testimony of Mr. George W. Westgate, member of the Congregational Church, of Quincy, Illinois. Mr. W. has been engaged in the low country trade for twelve years, more than half of each year, principally on the Mississippi, and its tributary streams in the south-western slave states.

"_Feeding is not sufficient_,--let facts speak. On the coast, i.e. Natchez and the Gulf of Mexico, the allowance was one barrel of ears of corn, and a pint of salt per month. They may cook this in what manner they please, but it must be done after dark; they have no day light to prepare it by. Some few planters, but only a few, let them prepare their corn on Saturday afternoon. Planters, overseers, and negroes, have told me, that in _pinching times_, i.e. when corn is high, they did not get near that quantity. In Miss., I know some planters who allowed their hands three and a half pounds of meat per week, when it was cheap. Many prepare their corn on the Sabbath, when they are not worked on that day, which however is frequently the case on sugar plantations. There are very many masters on "the coast" who will not suffer their slaves to come to the boats, because they steal molasses to barter for meat; indeed they generally trade more or less with stolen property. But it is impossible to find out what and when, as their articles of barter are of such trifling importance. They would often come on board our boats to beg a bone, and would tell how badly they were fed, that they were almost starved; many a time I have set up all night, to prevent them from stealing something to eat."

3. QUALITY OF FOOD.

Having ascertained the kind and quantity of food allowed to the slaves, it is important to know something of its _quality_, that we may judge of the amount of sustenance which it contains. For, if their provisions are of an inferior quality, or in a damaged state, their power to sustain labor must be greatly diminished.

Thomas Clay, Esq. of Georgia, from an address to the Georgia Presbytery, 1834, speaking of the quality of the corn given to the slaves, says,

"There is _often a defect here_."

Rev. Horace Moulton, a Methodist clergyman at Marlboro, Mass. and five years a resident of Georgia.

"The food, or 'feed' of slaves is generally of the _poorest_ kind."

The "Western Medical Reformer," in an article on the diseases peculiar to negroes, by a Kentucky physician, says of the diet of the slaves;

"They live on a coarse, _crude, unwholesome diet_."

Professor A.G. Smith, of the New York Medical College; formerly a physician in Louisville, Kentucky.

I have myself known numerous instances of large families of _badly fed_ negroes swept off by a prevailing epidemic; and it is well known to many intelligent planters in the south, that the best method of preventing that horrible malady, _Chachexia Africana_, is to feed the negroes with _nutritious_ food.

4. NUMBER AND TIME OF MEALS EACH DAY.

In determining whether or not the slaves suffer for want of food, the number of hours intervening, and the labor performed between their meals, and the number of meals each day, should be taken into consideration.

Philemon Bliss, Esq., a lawyer in Elyria, Ohio, and member of the Presbyterian church, who lived in Florida, in 1834, and 1835.

"The slaves go to the field in the morning; they carry with them corn meal wet with water, and at _noon_ build a fire on the ground and bake it in the ashes. After the labors of the day are over, they take their _second_ meal of ash-cake."

President Edwards, the younger.

"The slaves eat _twice_ during the day."

Mr. Eleazar Powell, Chippewa, Beaver county, Penn., who resided in Mississippi in 1836 and 1837.

"The slaves received _two_ meals during the day. Those who have their food cooked for them get their breakfast about eleven o'clock, and their other meal _after night_."

Mr. Nehemiah Caulkins, Waterford, Conn., who spent eleven winters in North Carolina.

"The _breakfast_ of the slaves was generally about _ten or eleven_ o'clock."

Rev. Phineas Smith, Centreville, N.Y., who has lived at the south some years.

"The slaves have usually _two_ meals a day, viz: at eleven o'clock and at night."

Rev. C.S. Renshaw, Quincy, Illinois--the testimony of a Virginian.

"The slaves have _two_ meals a day. They breakfast at from ten to eleven, A.M., and eat their supper at from six to nine or ten at night, as the season and crops may be."

The preceding testimony establishes the following points.

1st. That the slaves are allowed, in general, _no meat_. This appears from the fact, that in the _only_ slave states which regulate the slaves' rations _by law_, (North Carolina and Louisiana,) the _legal ration_ contains _no meat_. Besides, the late Hon. R.J. Turnbull, one of the largest planters in South Carolina, says expressly, "meat, when given, is only by the way of indulgence or favor." It is shown also by the direct testimony recorded above, of slaveholders and others, in all parts of the slaveholding south and west, that the general allowance on plantations is corn or meal and salt merely. To this there are doubtless many exceptions, but they are _only_ exceptions; the number of slaveholders who furnish meat for their _field-hands_, is small, in comparison with the number of those who do not. The house slaves, that is, the cooks, chambermaids, waiters, &c., generally get some meat every day; the remainder bits and bones of their masters' tables. But that the great body of the slaves, those that compose the field gangs, whose labor and exposure, and consequent exhaustion, are vastly greater than those of house slaves, toiling as they do from day light till dark, in the fogs of the early morning, under the scorchings of mid-day, and amid the damps of evening, are _in general_ provided with _no meat_, is abundantly established by the preceding testimony.