Volume III Part 11 (1/2)
The preceding testimony of Mr. Clay, is strongly corroborated by advertis.e.m.e.nts of slaves, by Courts of Probate, and by executors administering upon the estates of deceased persons. Some of those advertis.e.m.e.nts for the sale of slaves, contain the names, ages, accustomed employment, &c., of all the slaves upon the plantation of the deceased. These catalogues show large numbers of young men and women, almost all of them between twenty and thirty-eight years old; and yet the number of young children is _astonis.h.i.+ngly small_. We have laid aside many lists of this kind, in looking over the newspapers of the slaveholding states; but the two following are all we can lay our hands on at present. One is in the ”Planter's Intelligencer,”
Alexandria, La., March 22, 1837, containing one hundred and thirty slaves; and the other in the New Orleans Bee, a few days later, April 8, 1837, containing fifty-one slaves. The former is a ”Probate sale”
of the slaves belonging to the estate of Mr. Charles S. Lee, deceased, and is advertised by G.W. Keeton, Judge of the Parish of Concordia, La. The s.e.x, name, and age of each slave are contained in the advertis.e.m.e.nt which fills two columns. The following are some of the particulars.
The whole number of slaves is _one hundred and thirty_. Of these, _only three are over forty years old_. There are _thirty-five females_ between the ages of _sixteen and thirty-three_, and yet there are only THIRTEEN children under the age of _thirteen years!_
It is impossible satisfactorily to account for such a fact, on any other supposition, than that these thirty-five females were so overworked, or underfed, or both, as to prevent child-bearing.
The other advertis.e.m.e.nt is that of a ”Probate sale,” ordered by the Court of the Parish of Jefferson--including the slaves of Mr. William Gormley. The whole number of slaves is fifty-one; the s.e.x, age, and accustomed labors of each are given. The oldest of these slaves is but _thirty-nine years old_: of the females, _thirteen_ are between the ages of sixteen and thirty-two, and the oldest female is but _thirty-eight_--and yet there are but _two children under eight years old!_
Another proof that the slaves in the south-western states are over-worked, is the fact, that so few of them live to old age. A large majority of them are _old_ at middle age, and few live beyond fifty-five. In one of the preceding advertis.e.m.e.nts, out of one hundred and thirty slaves, only _three_ are over forty years old! In the other, out of fifty-one slaves, only _two_ are over _thirty-five_; the oldest is but thirty-nine, and the way in which he is designated in the advertis.e.m.e.nt, is an additional proof, that what to others is ”middle age,” is to the slaves in the south-west ”old age:” he is advertised as ”_old_ Jeffrey.”
But the proof that the slave population of the south-west is so over-worked that it cannot _supply its own waste_, does not rest upon mere inferential evidence. The Agricultural Society of Baton Rouge, La., in its report, published in 1829, furnishes a labored estimate of the amount of expenditure necessarily incurred in conducting ”a well-regulated sugar estate.” In this estimate, the annual net loss of slaves, over and above the supply by propagation, is set down at TWO AND A HALF PER CENT! The late Hon. Josiah S. Johnson, a member of Congress from Louisiana, addressed a letter to the Secretary of the United States' Treasury, in 1830, containing a similar estimate, apparently made with great care, and going into minute details. Many items in this estimate differ from the preceding; but the estimate of the annual _decrease_ of the slaves on a plantation was the same--TWO AND A HALF PER CENT!
The following testimony of Rev. Dr. Channing, of Boston, who resided some time in Virginia, shows that the over-working of slaves, to such an extent as to abridge life, and cause a decrease of population, is not confined to the far south and south-west.
”I heard of an estate managed by an individual who was considered as singularly successful, and who was able to govern the slaves without the use of the whip. I was anxious to see him, and trusted that some discovery had been made favorable to humanity. I asked him how he was able to dispense with corporal punishment. He replied to me, with a very determined look, 'The slaves know that the work _must_ be done, and that it is better to do it without punishment than with it.' In other words, the certainty and dread of chastis.e.m.e.nt were so impressed on them, that they never incurred it.
”I then found that the slaves on this well-managed estate, _decreased_ in number. I asked the cause. He replied, with perfect frankness and ease, 'The gang is not large enough for the estate.' In other words, they were not equal to the work of the plantation, and, yet were _made to do it_, though with the certainty of abridging life.
”On this plantation the huts were uncommonly convenient. There was an unusual air of neatness. A superficial observer would have called the slaves happy. Yet they were living under a severe, subduing discipline, and were _over-worked_ to a degree that _shortened life_.”--_Channing on Slavery_, page 162, first edition.
PHILEMON BLISS, Esq., a lawyer of Elyria, Ohio, who spent some time in Florida, gives the following testimony to the over-working of the slaves:
”It is not uncommon for hands, in hurrying times, beside working all day, to labor half the night. This is usually the case on sugar plantations, during the sugar-boiling season; and on cotton, during its gathering. Beside the regular task of picking cotton, averaging of the short staple, when the crop is good, 100 pounds a day to the hand, the ginning (extracting the seed,) and baling was done in the night.
Said Mr. ---- to me, while conversing upon the customary labor of slaves, 'I work my n.i.g.g.e.rs in a hurrying time till 11 or 12 o'clock at night, and have them up by four in the morning.'
”Beside the common inducement, the desire of gain, to make a large crop, the desire is increased by that spirit of gambling, so common at the south. It is very common to _bet_ on the issue of a crop. A.
lays a wager that, from a given number of hands, he will make more cotton than B. The wager is accepted, and then begins the contest; and who bears the burden of it? How many tears, yea, how many broken const.i.tutions, and premature deaths, have been the effect of this spirit? From the desperate energy of purpose with which the gambler pursues his object, from the pa.s.sions which the practice calls into exercise, we might conjecture many. Such is the fact. In Middle Florida, a _broken-winded_ negro is more common than a _broken-winded_ horse; though usually, when they are declared unsound, or when their const.i.tution is so broken that their recovery is despaired of, they are exported to New Orleans, to drag out the remainder of their days in the cane-field and sugar house. I would not insinuate that all planters gamble upon their crops; but I mention the practice as one of the common inducements to 'push n.i.g.g.e.rs.' Neither would I a.s.sert that all planters drive the hands to the injury of their health. I give it as a _general_ rule in the district of Middle Florida, and I have no reason to think that negroes are driven worse there than in other fertile sections. People there told me that the situation of the slaves was far better than in Mississippi and Louisiana. And from comparing the crops with those made in the latter states, and for other reasons, I am convinced of the truth of their statements.”
DR. DEMMING, a gentleman of high respectability, residing in Ashland, Richland county, Ohio, stated to Professor Wright, of New York city,
”That during a recent tour at the south, while ascending the Ohio river, on the steamboat Fame, he had an opportunity of conversing with a Mr. d.i.c.kinson, a resident of Pittsburg, in company with a number of cotton-planters and slave-dealers, from Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi, Mr. d.i.c.kinson stated as a fact, that the sugar planters upon the sugar coast in Louisiana had ascertained, that, as it was usually necessary to employ about _twice_ the amount of labor during the boiling season, that was required during the season of raising, they could, by excessive driving, day and night, during the boiling season, accomplish the whole labor _with one set of hands_. By pursuing this plan, they could afford _to sacrifice a set of hands once in seven years!_ He further stated that this horrible system was now practised to a considerable extent! The correctness of this statement was substantially admitted by the slaveholders then on board.”
The late MR. SAMUEL BLACKWELL, a highly respected citizen of Jersey city, opposite the city of New York, and a member of the Presbyterian church, visited many of the sugar plantations in Louisiana a few years since: and having for many years been the owner of an extensive sugar refinery in England, and subsequently in this country, he had not only every facility afforded him by the planters, for personal inspection of all parts of the process of sugar-making, but received from them the most unreserved communications, as to their management of their slaves. Mr. B., after his return, frequently made the following statement to gentlemen of his acquaintance,--”That the planters generally declared to him, that they were _obliged_ so to over-work their slaves during the sugar-making season, (from eight to ten weeks,) as to use _them up_ in seven or eight years. For, said they, after the process is commenced, it must be pushed without cessation, night and day; and we cannot afford to keep a sufficient number of slaves to do the _extra_ work at the time of sugar-making, as we could not profitably employ them the rest of the year.”
It is not only true of the sugar planters, but of the slaveholders generally throughout the far south and south west, that they believe it for their interest to wear out the slaves by excessive toil in eight or ten years after they put them into the field.[4]
[Footnote 4: Alexander Jones. Esq., a large planter in West Feliciana, Louisiana, published a communication in the ”North Carolina True American,” Nov. 25, 1838, in which, speaking of the horses employed in the mills on the plantations for ginning cotton, he says, they ”are much whipped and jaded;” and adds, ”In fact, this service is so severe on horses, as to shorten their lives in many instances, if not actually kill them in gear.”
Those who work one kind of their ”live stock” so as to ”shorten their lives,” or ”kill them in gear” would not stick at doing the same thing to another kind.]
REV. DOCTOR REED, of London, who went through Kentucky, Virginia and Maryland in the summer of 1834, gives the following testimony:
”I was told confidently and from _excellent authority_, that recently at a meeting of planters in South Carolina, the question was seriously discussed whether the slave is more profitable to the owner, if well fed, well clothed, and worked lightly, or if made the most of _at once_, and exhausted in some eight years. The decision was in favor of the last alternative. That decision will perhaps make many shudder.