Volume III Part 41 (1/2)
”At length I arrived at the dwelling of a planter of my acquaintance, with whom I pa.s.sed the night. At about eight o'clock in the evening I heard the barking of several dogs, mingled with the most agonizing cries that I ever heard from any human being. Soon after the gentleman came in, and began to apologize, by saying that two of his runaway slaves had just been brought home; and as he had previously tried every species of punishment upon them without effect, he knew not what else to add, except to set his blood hounds upon them. 'And,'
continued he, 'one of them has been so badly bitten that he has been trying to die. I am only sorry that he did not; for then I should not have been further troubled with him. If he lives I intend to send him to Natchez or to New Orleans, to work with the ball and chain.'
”From this last remark I understood that private individuals have the right of thus subjecting their unmanageable slaves. I have since seen numbers of these 'ball and chain' men, both in Natchez and New Orleans, but I do not know whether there were any among them except the state convicts.
”As the summer was drawing towards a close, and the yellow fever beginning to prevail in town, I went to reside some months in the country. This was the cotton picking season, during which, the planters say, there is a greater necessity for flogging than at any other time. And I can a.s.sure you, that as I have sat in my window night after night, while the cotton was being weighed, I have heard the crack of the whip, without much intermission, for a whole hour, from no less than three plantations, some of which were a full mile distant.
”I found that the slaves were kept in the field from daylight until dark; and then, if they had not gathered what the master or overseer thought sufficient, they were subjected to the lash.
”Many by such treatment are induced to run away and take up their lodging in the woods. I do not say that all who run away are thus closely pressed, but I do know that many are; and I have known no less than a dozen desert at a time from the same plantation, in consequence of the overseer's forcing them to work to the extent of their power, and then whipping them for not having done more.
”But suppose that they run away--what is to become of them in the forest? If they cannot steal they must perish of hunger--if the nights are cold, their feet will be frozen; for if they make a fire they may be discovered, and be shot at. If they attempt to leave the country, their chance of success is about nothing. They must return, be whipped--if old offenders, wear the collar, perhaps be branded, and fare worse than before.
”Do you believe it, sir, not six months since, I saw a number of my _Christian_ neighbors packing up provisions, as I supposed for a deer hunt; but as I was about offering myself to the party, I learned that their powder and b.a.l.l.s were destined to a very different purpose: it was, in short, the design of the party to bring home a number of runaway slaves, or to shoot them if they should not be able to get possession of them in any other way.
”You will ask, Is not this murder? Call it, sir, by what name you please, such are the facts:--many are shot every year, and that too while the masters say they treat their slaves well.
”But let me turn your attention to another species of cruelty. About a year since I knew a certain slave who had deserted his master, to be caught, and for the first time fastened to the stocks. In those same stocks, from which at midnight I have heard cries of distress, while the master slept, and was dreaming, perhaps, of drinking wine and of discussing the price of cotton. On the next morning he was chained in an immovable posture, and branded in both cheeks with red hot stamps of iron. Such are the tender mercies of men who love wealth, and are determined to obtain it at any price.
”Suffer me to add another to the list of enormities, and I will not offend you with more.
”There was, some time since, brought to trial in this town a planter residing about fifteen miles distant, for whipping his slave to death.
You will suppose, of course, that he was punished. No, sir, he was acquitted, although there could be no doubt of the fact. I heard the tale of murder from a man who was acquainted with all the circ.u.mstances. 'I was,' said he, 'pa.s.sing along the road near the burying-ground of the plantation, about nine o'clock at night, when I saw several lights gleaming through the woods; and as I approached, in order to see what was doing, I beheld the coroner of Natchez, with a number of men, standing around the body of a young female, which by the torches seemed almost perfectly white. On inquiry I learned that the master had so unmercifully beaten this girl that she died under the operation: and that also he had so severely punished another of his slaves that he was but just alive.'”
We here rest the case for the present, so far as respects the presentation of facts showing the condition of the slaves, and proceed to consider the main objections which are usually employed to weaken such testimony, or wholly to set it aside. But before we enter upon the examination of specific objections, and introductory to them, we remark,--
1. That the system of slavery must be a system of horrible cruelty, follows of necessity, from the fact that two millions seven hundred thousand human beings _are held by force_, and used as articles of property. Nothing but a heavy yoke, and an iron one, could possibly keep so many necks in the dust. That must be a constant and mighty pressure which holds so still such a vast army; nothing could do it but the daily experience of severities, and the ceaseless dread and certainty of the most terrible inflictions if they should dare to toss in their chains.
2. Were there nothing else to prove it a system of monstrous cruelty, the fact that FEAR is the only motive with which the slave is plied during his whole existence, would be sufficient to brand it with execration as the grand tormentor of man. The slave's _susceptibility of pain_ is the sole fulcrum on which slavery works the lever that moves him. In this it plants all its stings; here it sinks its hot irons; cuts its deep gashes; flings its burning embers, and dashes its boiling brine and liquid fire: into this it strikes its cold flesh hooks, grappling irons, and instruments of nameless torture; and by it drags him shrieking to the end of his pilgrimage. The fact that the master inflicts pain upon the slave not merely as an _end_ to gratify pa.s.sion, but constantly as a _means_ of extorting labor, is enough of itself to show that the system of slavery is unmixed cruelty.
3. That the slaves must suffer frequent and terrible inflictions, follows inevitably from the _character of those who direct their labor_. Whatever may be the character of the slaveholders themselves, all agree that the overseers are, as a cla.s.s, most abandoned, brutal, and desperate men. This is so well known and believed that any testimony to prove it seems needless. The testimony of Mr. WIRT, late Attorney General of the United States, a Virginian and a slaveholder, is as follows. In his life of Patrick Henry, p. 36, speaking of the different cla.s.ses of society in Virginia, he says,--”Last and lowest a feculum, of beings called 'overseers'--_the most abject, degraded, unprincipled race_, always cap in hand to the dons who employ them, and furnis.h.i.+ng materials for the exercise of their _pride, insolence, and spirit of domination_.”
Rev. PHINEAS SMITH, of Centreville, New-York, who has resided some years at the south, says of overseers--
”It need hardly be added that overseers are in general ignorant, _unprincipled and cruel_, and in such low repute that they are not permitted to come to the tables of their employers; yet they have the constant control of all the human cattle that belong to the master.
”These men are continually advancing from their low station to the higher one of masters. These changes bring into the possession of power a cla.s.s of men of whose mental and moral qualities I have already spoken.”
Rev. HORACE MOULTON, Marlboro', Ma.s.sachusetts, who lived in Georgia several years, says of them,--
”The overseers are _generally loose in their morals_; it is the object of masters to employ those whom they think will get the most work out of their hands,--hence those who _whip and torment the slaves the most_ are in many instances called the best overseers. The masters think those whom the slaves fear the most are the best. Quite a portion of the masters employ their own slaves as overseers, or rather they are called drivers; these are more subject to the will of the masters than the white overseers are; some of them are as lordly as an Austrian prince, and sometimes more cruel even than the whites.”
That the overseers are, as a body, sensual, brutal, and violent men is _proverbial_. The tender mercies of such men _must be cruel_.
4. The _owners.h.i.+p_ of human beings necessarily presupposes an utter disregard of their happiness. He who a.s.sumes it monopolizes their _whole capital_, leaves them no stock on which to trade, and out of which to _make_ happiness. Whatever is the master's gain is the slave's loss, a loss wrested from him by the master, for the express purpose of making it _his own gain_; this is the master's constant employment--forcing the slave to toil--violently wringing from him all he has and all he gets, and using it as his own;--like the vile bird that never builds its nest from materials of its own gathering, but either drives other birds from theirs and takes possession of them, or tears them in pieces to get the means of constructing their own. This daily practice of forcibly robbing others, and habitually living on the plunder, cannot but beget in the mind the _habit_ of regarding the interests and happiness of those whom it robs, as of no sort of consequence in comparison with its own; consequently whenever those interests and this happiness are in the way of its own gratification, they will be sacrificed without scruple. He who cannot see this would be unable to _feel_ it, if it were seen.
OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.
Objection I--”SUCH CRUELTIES ARE INCREDIBLE.”
The enormities inflicted by slaveholders upon their slaves will never be discredited except by those who overlook the simple fact, that he who holds human beings as his bona fide property, _regards_ them as property, and not as _persons;_ this is his permanent state of mind toward them. He does not contemplate slaves as human beings, consequently does not _treat_ them as such; and with entire indifference sees them suffer privations and writhe under blows, which, if inflicted upon whites, would fill him with horror and indignation. He regards that as good treatment of slaves, which would seem to him insufferable abuse if practiced upon others; and would denounce that as a monstrous outrage and horrible cruelty, if perpretated upon white men and women, which he sees every day meted out to black slaves, without perhaps ever thinking it cruel.