Volume II Part 6 (1/2)
When sufficient time has elapsed for doing this, the hound is put upon his track. The blacks are compelled to worry them until they make them their implacable enemies: and it is common to meet with dogs which will take no notice of whites, though entire strangers, but will suffer no blacks beside the house servants to enter the yard.”]
From the foregoing evidence on the part of slaveholders themselves, we gather the following facts:
1. That perfect obedience is required of the slave--that he is made to feel that there is no appeal from his master.
2. That the authority of the master is only maintained by fear--a ”_reign of terror_.”
3. That ”the economy of slavery is to _get all you can_ from the slave, and give him in return as little as will barely support him in a working condition.”
4. That runaway slaves may be shot down with impunity by any white person.
5. That masters offer rewards for ”_killing_” their slaves, ”_so that they may see them_!”
6. That slaves are branded with hot irons, and very much scarred with the whip.
7. That _iron collars_, with projecting p.r.o.ngs, rendering it almost impossible for the wearer to lie down, are fastened upon the _necks of women_.
8. That the LASH is the MAIN SUPPORT of the slaveholder's authority: but, that the _stocks_ are ”a powerful auxiliary” to his government.
9. That runaway slaves are chased with dogs--men hunted like beasts of prey.
Such is American Slavery in practice.
The testimony thus far adduced is only that of the slaveholder and wrong-doer himself: the admission of men who have a direct interest in keeping out of sight the horrors of their system. It is besides no voluntary admission. Having ”framed iniquity by law,” it is out of their power to hide it. For the recovery of their runaway property, they are compelled to advertise in the public journals, and that it may be identified, they are under the necessity of describing the marks of the whip on the backs of women, the iron collars about the neck--the gun-shot wounds, and the traces of the branding-iron. Such testimony must, in the nature of things, be partial and incomplete. But for a full revelation of the secrets of the prison-house, we must look to the slave himself. The Inquisitors of Goa and Madrid never disclosed the peculiar atrocities of their ”hall of horrors.” It was the escaping heretic, with his swollen and disjointed limbs, and bearing about him the scars of rack and fire, who exposed them to the gaze and abhorrence of Christendom.
The following pages contain the simple and unvarnished story of an AMERICAN SLAVE,--of one, whose situation, in the first place, as a favorite servant in an aristocratic family in Virginia; and afterwards as the sole and confidential driver on a large plantation in Alabama, afforded him rare and peculiar advantages for accurate observation of the practical workings of the system. His intelligence, evident candor, and grateful remembrance of those kindnesses, which in a land of Slavery, made his cup of suffering less bitter; the perfect accordance of his statements, (made at different times, and to different individuals),[B] one with another, as well as those statements themselves, all afford strong confirmation of the truth and accuracy of his story. There seems to have been no effort, on his part to make his picture of Slavery one of entire darkness--he details every thing of a mitigating character which fell under his observation; and even the cruel deception of his master has not rendered him unmindful of his early kindness.
[Footnote B: The reader is referred to JOHN G. WHITTIER, of Philadelphia, or to the following gentlemen, who have heard the whole, or a part of his story, from his own lips: Emmor Kimber, of Kimberton, Pa., Lindley Coates, of Lancaster Co., do.; James Mott, of Philadelphia, Lewis Tappan, Elizur Wright Jun., Rev. Dr. Follen, and James G. Birney, of New York. The latter gentleman, who was a few years ago, a citizen of Alabama, a.s.sures us that the statements made to him by James Williams, were such as he had every reason to believe, from his own knowledge of slavery in that State.]
The editor is fully aware that he has not been able to present this affecting narrative in the simplicity and vivid freshness with which it fell from the lips of the narrator. He has, however, as closely as possible, copied his manner, and in many instances his precise language.
THE SLAVE HAS SPOKEN FOR HIMSELF. Acting merely as his amanuensis, he has carefully abstained from comments of his own.[A]
[Footnote A: As the narrator was unable to read or write, it is quite possible that the orthography of some of the names of individuals mentioned in his story may not be entirely correct. For instance, the name of his master may have been either Larrimer, or Larrrimore.]
The picture here presented to the people of the free states, is, in many respects, a novel one. We all know something of Virginia and Kentucky Slavery. We have heard of the internal slave trade--the pangs of separation--the slave s.h.i.+p with its ”cargo of despair” bound for the New-Orleans market--the weary journey of the chained Coffle to the cotton country. But here, in a great measure, we have lost sight of the victims of avarice and l.u.s.t. We have not studied the dreadful economy of the cotton plantation, and know but little of the secrets of its unlimited despotism.
But in this narrative the scenes of the plantation rise before us, with a distinctness which approaches reality. We hear the sound of the horn at daybreak, calling the sick and the weary to toil unrequited. Woman, in her appealing delicacy and suffering, about to become a mother, is fainting under the lash, or sinking exhausted beside her cotton row. We hear the prayer for mercy answered with sneers and curses. We look on the instruments of torture, and the corpses of murdered men. We see the dogs, reeking hot from the chase, with their jaws foul with human blood.
We see the meek and aged Christian scarred with the lash, and bowed down with toil, offering the supplication of a broken heart to his Father in Heaven, for the forgiveness of his brutal enemy. We hear, and from our inmost hearts repeat the affecting interrogatory of the aged slave, _”How long, Oh Lord! how long!”_
The editor has written out the details of this painful narrative with feelings of sorrow. If there be any who feel a morbid satisfaction in dwelling upon the history of outrage and cruelty, he at least is not one of them. His taste and habits incline him rather to look to the pure and beautiful in our nature--the sunniest side of humanity--its kindly sympathies--its holy affections--its charities and its love. But, it is because he has seen that all which is thus beautiful and excellent in mind and heart, perishes in the atmosphere of slavery: it is because humanity in the slave sinks down to a level with the brute and in the master gives place to the attributes of a fiend--that he has not felt at liberty to decline the task. He cannot sympathize with that abstract and delicate philanthropy, which hesitates to bring itself in contact with the sufferer, and which shrinks from the effort of searching out the extent of his afflictions. The emblem of Practical Philanthropy is the Samaritan stooping over the wounded Jew. It must be no fastidious hand which administers the oil and the wine, and binds up the unsightly gashes.
Believing, as he does, that this narrative is one of truth; that it presents an unexaggerated picture of Slavery as it exists on the cotton plantations of the South and West, he would particularly invite to its perusal, those individuals, and especially those professing Christians at the North, who have ventured to claim for such a system, the sanction and approval of the Religion of Jesus Christ. In view of the facts here presented, let these men seriously inquire of themselves, whether in advancing such a claim, they are not uttering a higher and more audacious blasphemy than any which ever fell from the pens of Voltaire and Paine. As if to cover them with confusion, and leave them utterly without excuse for thus libelling the character of a just G.o.d, these developments are making, and the veil rising, which for long years of sinful apathy has rested upon the abominations of American Slavery.
Light is breaking into it's dungeons, disclosing the wreck of buried intellect--of hearts broken--of human affections outraged--of souls ruined. The world will see it as G.o.d has always seen it; and when He shall at length make inquisition for blood, and His vengeance kindle over the habitations of cruelty, with a destruction more terrible than that of Sodom and Gomorrah, His righteous dealing will be justified of man, and His name glorified among the nations, and there will be a voice of rejoicing in Earth and in Heaven. ALLELUIA!--THE PROMISE IS FULFILLED!--FOR THE SIGHING OF THE POOR AND THE OPPRESSION OF THE NEEDY, G.o.d HATH RISEN!
It is the earnest desire of the Editor, that this narrative may be the means, under G.o.d, of awakening in the hearts of all who read it, a sympathy for the oppressed which shall manifest itself in immediate, active, self-sacrificing exertion for their deliverance; and, while it excites abhorrence of his crimes, call forth pity for the oppressor. May it have the effect to prevent the avowed and a.s.sociated friends of the slave, from giving such an undue importance to their own trials and grievances, as to forget in a great measure the sorrows of the slave.
Let its cry of wo, coming up from the plantations of the South, suppress every feeling of selfishness in our hearts. Let our regret and indignation at the denial of the right of pet.i.tion, be felt only because we are thereby prevented from pleading in the Halls of Congress for the ”suffering and the dumb.” And let the fact, that we are shut out from half the territory of our country, be lamented only because it prevents us from bearing personally to the land of Slavery, the messages of hope for the slave, and of rebuke and warning for the oppressor.
_New-York, 24th 1st mo._, 1838.