Volume III Part 19 (1/2)
TESTIMONY OF THE MARYVILLE (TENNESSEE) INTELLIGENCER, OF OCT. 4, 1835.
The Editor, in speaking of the sufferings of the slaves which are taken by the internal trade to the South West, says:
”Place yourself in imagination, for a moment, in their condition.
With _heavy galling chains_, riveted upon your person; _half-naked, half-starved_; your back _lacerated_ with the 'knotted Whip;'
traveling to a region where your _condition through time will be second only to the wretched creatures in h.e.l.l_.
”This depicting is not visionary. Would to G.o.d that it was.”
TESTIMONY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN SYNOD OF KENTUCKY; _A large majority of whom are slaveholders._
”This system licenses and produces _great cruelty_.
”Mangling, imprisonment, starvation, every species of torture, may be inflicted upon him, (the slave,) and he has no redress.
”There are now in our whole land two millions of human beings, exposed, defenceless, to every insult, and every injury short of maiming or death, which their fellow men may choose to inflict. _They suffer all_ that can be inflicted by wanton caprice, by grasping avarice, by brutal l.u.s.t, by malignant spite, and by insane anger.
Their happiness is the sport of every whim, and the prey of every pa.s.sion that may, occasionally, or habitually, infest the master's bosom. If we could calculate the amount of wo endured by ill-treated slaves, it would overwhelm every compa.s.sionate heart--it would move even the obdurate to sympathy. There is also a vast sum of suffering inflicted upon the slave by humane masters, as a punishment for that idleness and misconduct which slavery naturally produces.
”_Brutal stripes_ and all the varied kinds of personal indignities, are not the only species of cruelty which slavery licenses.”
TESTIMONY OF THE REV. N.H. HARDING, Pastor of the Presbyterian Church, in Oxford, North Carolina, a slaveholder.
”I am greatly surprised that you should in any form have been the apologist of a system so full of deadly poison to all holiness and benevolence as slavery, the concocted essence of fraud, selfishness, and cold hearted tyranny, and the fruitful parent of unnumbered evils, both to the oppressor and the oppressed, THE ONE THOUSANDTH PART OF WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN BROUGHT TO LIGHT.”
MR. ASA A. STONE, a theological student, who lived near Natchez, (Mi.,) in 1834 and 5, sent the following with other testimony, to be published under his own name, in the N.Y. Evangelist, while he was still residing there.
”Floggings for all offences, including deficiencies in work, are _frightfully common_, and _most terribly severe._
”_Rubbing with salt and red pepper is very common after a severe whipping._”
TESTIMONY OF REV. PHINEAS SMITH, Centreville, Allegany Co., N.Y. who lived four years at the South.
”They are badly clothed, badly fed, wretchedly lodged, unmercifully whipped, from month to month, from year to year, from childhood to old age.”
REV. JOSEPH M. SADD, Castile, Genessee CO. N.Y. who was till recently a preacher in Missouri, says,
”It is true that barbarous cruelties are inflicted upon them, such as terrible lacerations with the whip, and excruciating tortures are sometimes experienced from the thumb screw.”
Extract of a letter from SARAH M. GRIMKe, dated 4th Month, 2nd, 1839