Volume III Part 13 (1/2)

The following is an extract from the Will of the late celebrated John Randolph of Virginia.

”To my old and faithful servants, Ess.e.x and his wife Hetty, I give and bequeath a pair of strong shoes, a suit of clothes and a blanket each, to be paid them annually; also an annual hat to Ess.e.x.”

No Virginia slaveholder has ever had a better name as a ”kind master,”

and ”good provider” for his slaves, than John Randolph. Ess.e.x and Hetty were _favorite_ servants, and the memory of the long uncompensated services of those ”old and faithful servants,” seems to have touched their master's heart. Now as this master was _John Randolph_, and as those servants were ”faithful,” and favorite servants, advanced in years, and worn out in his service, and as their allowance was, in their master's eyes, of sufficient moment to const.i.tute a paragraph in his last _will and testament_, it is fair to infer that it would be _very liberal_, far better than the ordinary allowance for slaves.

Now we leave the reader to judge what must be the _usual_ allowance of clothing to common field slaves in the hands of common masters, when Ess.e.x and Hetty, the ”old” and ”faithful” slaves of John Randolph, were provided, in his last will and testament, with but _one_ suit of clothes annually, with but _one blanket_ each for bedding, with no _stockings_, nor _socks_, nor _cloaks_, nor overcoats, nor _handkerchiefs_, nor _towels_, and with no _change_ either of under or outside garments!

IV. DWELLINGS.

THE SLAVES ARE WRETCHEDLY SHELTERED AND LODGED.

Mr. Stephen E. Maltby. Inspector of provisions, Skaneateles, N.Y. who has lived in Alabama.

”The huts where the slaves slept, generally contained but _one_ apartment, and that _without floor_.”

Mr. George A. Avery, elder of the 4th Presbyterian Church, Rochester, N.Y. who lived four years in Virginia.

”Amongst all the negro cabins which I saw in Va., _I cannot call to mind one_ in which there was any other floor than the _earth_; any thing that a northern laborer, or mechanic, white or colored, would call a _bed_, nor a solitary _part.i.tion_, to separate the s.e.xes.”

William Ladd, Esq., Minot, Maine. President of the American Peace Society, formerly a slaveholder in Florida.

”The dwellings of the slaves were palmetto huts, built by themselves of stakes and poles, thatched with the palmetto leaf. The door, when they had any, was generally of the same materials, sometimes boards found on the beach. They had _no floors_, no separate apartments, except the guinea negroes had sometimes a small inclosure for their 'G.o.d house.' These huts the slaves built themselves after task and on Sundays.”

Rev. Joseph M. Sadd, Pastor Pres. Church, Castile, Greene Co., N.Y., who lived in Missouri five years previous to 1837.

”The slaves live _generally_ in _miserable huts_, which are _without floors_, and have a single apartment only, where both s.e.xes are herded promiscuously together.”

Mr. George W. Westgate, member of the Congregational Church in Quincy, Illinois, who has spent a number of years in slave states.

”On old plantations, the negro quarters are of frame and clapboards, seldom affording a comfortable shelter from wind or rain; their size varies from 8 by 10, to 10 by 12, feet, and six or eight feet high; sometimes there is a hole cut for a window, but I never saw a sash, or gla.s.s in any. In the new country, and in the woods, the quarters are generally built of logs, of similar dimensions.”

Mr. Cornelius Johnson, a member of a Christian Church in Farmington, Ohio. Mr. J. lived in Mississippi in 1837-8.

”Their houses were commonly built of logs, sometimes they were framed, often they had no floor, some of them have two apartments, commonly but one; each of those apartments contained a family. Sometimes these families consisted of a man and his wife and children, while in other instances persons of both s.e.xes, were thrown together without any regard to family relations.h.i.+p.”

The Western Medical Reformer, in an article on the Cachexia Africana by a Kentucky physician, thus speaks of the huts of the slaves.

”They are _crowded_ together in a _small hut_, and sometimes having an imperfect, and sometimes no floor, and seldom raised from the ground, ill ventilated, and surrounded with filth.”

Mr. William Leftwich, a native of Virginia, but has resided most of his life in Madison, Co. Alabama.