The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4 · Chapter 31Personal Narratives-Part III. (8)
This chapter is not translated yet. You are reading the original.
[Footnote 23": Well saith the Scripture, "A gift blindeth the eyes." The slaves understand this, though the guest may not; they know very well that they have no sympathy to expect from their master's guests; that the good cheer of the "big house," and the attentions shown them, will generally commit them in their master's favor, and against themselves. Messrs. Thome and Kimball, in their late work, state the following fact, in illustration of this feeling among the negro apprentices in Jamaica.
"The governor of one of the islands, shortly after his arrival, dined with one of the wealthiest proprietors. The next day one of the negroes of the estate said to another, "De new gubner been poison'd." "What dat you say?" inquired the other in astonishment, "De gubner been poison'd! Dah, now!—How him poisoned?" "Him eat massa's turtle soup last night," said the shrewd negro. The other took his meaning at once; and his sympathy for the governor was turned into concern for himself, when he perceived that the poison was one from which he was likely to suffer more than his excellency."—Emancipation in the West Indies, p. 334.]
But all northern visitors at the south are not thus easily gulled. Many of them, as the preceding pages show, have too much sense to be caught with chaff.
We may add here, that those classes of visitors whose representations of the treatment of slaves are most influential in moulding the opinions of the free states, are ministers of the gospel, agents of benevolent societies, and teachers who have traveled and temporarily resided in the slave states—classes of persons less likely than any others to witness cruelties, because slaveholders generally take more pains to keep such visitors in ignorance than others, because their vocations would furnish them fewer opportunities for witnessing them, and because they come in contact with a class of society in which fewer atrocities are committed than in any other, and that too, under circumstances which make it almost impossible for them to witness those which are actually committed.
Of the numerous classes of persons from the north who temporarily reside in the slave states, the mechanics who find employment on the plantations, are the only persons who are in circumstances to look "behind the scenes." Merchants, pedlars, venders of patents, drovers, speculators, and almost all descriptions of persons who go from the free states to the south to make money see little of slavery, except upon the road, at public inns, and in villages and cities.
Let not the reader infer from what has been said, that the parlor-slaves, chamber-maids, &c. in the slave states are not treated with cruelty—far from it. They often experience terrible inflictions; not generally so terrible or so frequent as the field-hands, and very rarely in the presence of guests[24] House-slaves are for the most part treated far better than plantation-slaves, and those under the immediate direction of the master and mistress, than those under overseers and drivers. It is quite worthy of remark, that of the thousands of northern men who have visited the south, and are always lauding the kindness of slaveholders and the comfort of the slaves, protesting that they have never seen cruelties inflicted on them, &c. each perhaps, without exception, has some story to tell which reveals, better perhaps than the most barbarous butchery could do, a public sentiment toward slaves, showing that the most cruel inflictions must of necessity be the constant portion of the slaves.
[Footnote 24: Rev. JOSEPH M. SADD, a Presbyterian clergyman, in Castile, Genesee county, N.Y. recently from Missouri, where he has preached five years, in the midst of slaveholders, says, in a letter just received, speaking of the pains taken by slaveholders to conceal from the eyes of strangers and visitors, the cruelties which they inflict upon their slaves—
"It is difficult to be an eye-witness of these things; the master and mistress, almost invariably punish their slaves only in the presence of themselves and other slaves."]
Though facts of this kind lie thick in every corner, the reader will, we are sure, tolerate even a needless illustration, if told that it is from the pen of N.P. Rogers, Esq. of Concord, N.H. who, whatever he writes, though it be, as in this case, a mere hasty letter, always finds readers to the end.
"At a court session at Guilford, Stafford county, N.H. in August, 1837, the Hon. Daniel M. Durell, of Dover, formerly Chief Justice of the Common Pleas for that state, and a member of Congress, was charging the abolitionists, in presence of several gentlemen of the bar, at their boarding house, with exaggerations and misrepresentations of slave treatment at the south. 'One instance in particular,' he witnessed, he said, where he 'knew they misrepresented. It was in the Congregational meeting house at Dover. He was passing by, and saw a crowd entering and about the door; and on inquiry, found that abolition was going on in there. He stood in the entry for a moment, and found the Englishman, Thompson, was holding forth. The fellow was speaking of the treatment of slaves; and he said it was no uncommon thing for masters, when exasperated with the slave, to hang him up by the two thumbs, and flog him. I knew the fellow lied there,' said the judge, 'for I had traveled through the south, from Georgia north, and I never saw a single instance of the kind. The fellow said it was a common thing.' 'Did you see any exasperated masters, Judge,' said I, 'in your journey?' 'No sir,' said he, 'not an individual instance.' 'You hardly are able to convict Mr. Thompson of falsehood, then, Judge,' said I, 'if I understood you right. He spoke, as I understood you, of exasperated masters—and you say you did not see any. Mr. Thompson did not say it was common for masters in good humor to hang up their slaves.' The Judge did not perceive the materiality of the distinction. 'Oh, they misrepresent and lie about this treatment of the niggers,' he continued. 'In going through all the states I visited, I do not now remember a single instance of cruel treatment. Indeed, I remember of seeing but one nigger struck, during my whole journey. There was one instance. We were riding in the stage, pretty early one morning, and we met a black fellow, driving a span of horses, and a load (I think he said) of hay. The fellow turned out before we got to him, clean down into the ditch, as far as he could get. He knew, you see, what to depend on, if he did not give the road. Our driver, as we passed the fellow, fetched him a smart crack with his whip across the chops. He did not make any noise, though I guess it hurt him some—he grinned.—Oh, no! these fellows exaggerate. The niggers, as a general thing, are kindly treated. There may be exceptions, but I saw nothing of it.' (By the way, the Judge did not know there were any abolitionists present.) 'What did you do to the driver, Judge,' said I, 'for striking that man?' 'Do,' said he, 'I did nothing to him, to be sure.' 'What did you say to him, sir?' said I. 'Nothing,' he replied: 'I said nothing to him.' 'What did the other passengers do?' said I. 'Nothing, sir,' said the Judge. 'The fellow turned out the white of his eye, but he did not make any noise.' 'Did the driver say any thing, Judge, when he struck the man?' 'Nothing,' said the Judge, 'only he damned him, and told him he'd learn him to keep out of the reach of his whip.' 'Sir,' said I, 'if George Thompson had told this story, in the warmth of an anti-slavery speech, I should scarcely have credited it. I have attended many anti-slavery meetings, and I never heard an instance of such cold-blooded, wanton, insolent, DIABOLICAL cruelty as this; and, sir, if I live to attend another meeting, I shall relate this, and give Judge Durell's name as the witness of it.' An infliction of the most insolent character, entirely unprovoked, on a perfect stranger, who had showed the utmost civility, in giving all the road, and only could not get beyond the long reach of the driver's whip—and he a stage driver, a class generous next to the sailor, in the sober hour of morning—and borne in silence—and told to show that the colored man of the south was kindly treated—all evincing, to an unutterable extent, that the temper of the south toward the slave is merciless, even to diabolism—and that the north regards him with, if possible, a more fiendish indifference still!"
It seems but an act of simple justice to say, in conclusion, that many of the slaveholders from whom our northern visitors derive their information of the "good treatment" of the slave, may not design to deceive them. Such visitors are often, perhaps generally brought in contact with the better class of slaveholders, whose slaves are really better fed, clothed, lodged, and housed; more moderately worked; more seldom whipped, and with less severity, than the slaves generally. Those masters in speaking of the good condition of their slaves, and asserting that they are treated well, use terms that are not absolute but comparative: and it may be, and doubtless often is true that their stares are treated well as slaves, in comparison with the treatment received by slaves generally. So the overseers of such slaves, and the slaves themselves, may, without lying or designing to mislead, honestly give the same testimony. As the great body of slaves within their knowledge fare worse, it is not strange that, when speaking of the treatment on their own plantation, they should call it good.
OBJECTION V.—'IT IS FOR THE INTEREST OF THE MASTERS TO TREAT THEIR SLAVES WELL.'
So it is for the interest of the drunkard to quit his cups; for the glutton to curb his appetite; for the debauchee to bridle his lust; for the sluggard to be up betimes; for the spendthrift to be economical, and for all sinners to stop sinning. Even if it were for the interest of masters to treat their slaves well, he must be a novice who thinks that a proof that the slaves are well treated. The whole history of man is a record of real interests sacrificed to present gratification. If all men's actions were consistent with their best interests, folly and sin would be words without meaning.
If the objector means that it is for the pecuniary interests of masters to treat their slaves well, and thence infers their good treatment, we reply, that though the love of money is strong, yet appetite and lust, pride, anger and revenge, the love of power and honor, are each an overmatch for it; and when either of them is roused by a sudden stimulant, the love of money worsted in the grapple with it. Look at the hourly lavish outlays of money to procure a momentary gratification for those passions and appetites. As the desire for money is, in the main, merely a desire for the means of gratifying other desires, or rather for one of the means, it must be the servant not the sovereign of those desires, to whose gratification its only use is to minister. But even if the love of money were the strongest human passion, who is simple enough to believe that it is all the time so powerfully excited, that no other passion or appetite can get the mastery over it? Who does not know that gusts of rage, revenge, jealousy and lust drive it before them as a tempest tosses a feather?
The objector has forgotten his first lessons; they taught him that it is human nature to gratify the uppermost passion: and is prudence the uppermost passion with slaveholders, and self-restraint their great characteristic? The strongest feeling of any moment is the sovereign of that moment, and rules. Is a propensity to practice economy the predominant feeling with slaveholders? Ridiculous! Every northerner knows that slaveholders are proverbial for lavish expenditures, never higgling about the price of a gratification. Human passions have not, like the tides, regular ebbs and flows, with their stationary, high and low water marks. They are a dominion convulsed with revolutions; coronations and dethronements in ceasless succession—each ruler a usurper and a despot. Love of money gets a snatch at the sceptre as well as the rest, not by hereditary right, but because, in the fluctuations of human feelings, a chance wave washes him up to the throne, and the next perhaps washes him off without time to nominate his successor. Since, then, as a matter of fact, a host of appetites and passions do hourly get the better of love of money, what protection does the slave find in his master's interest, against the sweep of his passions and appetites? Besides, a master can inflict upon his slave horrible cruelties without perceptibly injuring his health, or taking time from his labor, or lessening his value as property. Blows with a small stick give more acute pain, than with a large one. A club bruises, and benumbs the nerves, while a switch, neither breaking nor bruising the flesh, instead of blunting the sense of feeling, wakes up and stings to torture all the susceptibilities of pain. By this kind of infliction, more actual cruelty can be perpetrated in the giving of pain at the instant, than by the most horrible bruisings and lacerations; and that, too, with little comparative hazard to the slave's health, or to his value as property, and without loss of time from labor. Even giving to the objection all the force claimed for it, what protection is it to the slave? It professes to shield the slave from such treatment alone, as would either lay him aside from labor, or injure his health, and thus lessen his value as a working animal, making him a damaged article in the market. Now, is nothing bad treatment of a human being except that which produces these effects? Does the fact that a man's constitution is not actually shattered, and his life shortened by his treatment, prove that he is treated well? Is no treatment cruel except what sprains muscles, or cuts sinews, or bursts blood vessels, or breaks bones, and thus lessens a man's value as a working animal?
A slave may get blows and kicks every hour in the day, without having his constitution broken, or without suffering sensibly in his health, or flesh, or appetite, or power to labor. Therefore, beaten and kicked as he is, he must be treated well, according to the objector, since the master's interest does not suffer thereby.
Finally, the objector virtually maintains that all possible privations and inflictions suffered by slaves, that do not actually cripple their power to labor, and make them 'damaged merchandize,' are to be set down as 'good treatment,' and that nothing is bad treatment except what produces these effects.
Thus we see that even if the slave were effectually shielded from all those inflictions, which, by lessening his value as property, would injure the interests of his master, he would still nave no protection against numberless and terrible cruelties. But we go further, and maintain that in respect to large classes of slaves, it is for the interest of their masters to treat them with barbarous inhumanity.
1. Old slaves. It would be for the interest of the masters to shorten their days.
2. Worn out slaves. Multitudes of slaves by being overworked, have their constitutions broken in middle life. It would be economical for masters to starve or flog such to death.
3. The incurably diseased and maimed. In all such cases it would be cheaper for masters to buy poison than medicine.
4. The blind, lunatics, and idiots. As all such would be a tax on him, it would be for his interest to shorten their days.
5. The deaf and dumb, and persons greatly deformed. Such might or might not be serviceable to him; many of them at least would be a burden, and few men carry burdens when they can throw them off.
6. Feeble infants. As such would require much nursing, the time, trouble and expense necessary to raise them, would generally be more than they would be worth as working animals. How many such infants would be likely to be 'raised,' from disinterested benevolence? To this it may be added that in the far south and south west, it is notoriously for the interest of the master not to 'raise' slaves at all. To buy slaves when nearly grown, from the northern slave states, would be cheaper than to raise them. This is shown in the fact, that mothers with infants sell for less in those states than those without them. And when slave-traders purchase such in the upper country, it is notorious that they not unfrequently either sell their infants, or give them away. Therefore it would be for the interest of the masters, throughout that region, to have all the new-born children left to perish. It would also be for their interest to make such arrangements as effectually to separate the sexes, or if that were not done, so to overwork the females as to prevent childbearing.
7. Incorrigible slaves. On most of the large plantations, there are, more or less, incorrigible slaves,—that is, slaves who will not be profitable to their masters—and from whom torture can extort little but defiance.[25] These are frequently slaves of uncommon minds, who feel so keenly the wrongs of slavery that their proud spirits spurn their chains and defy their tormentors.
[Footnote 25: Advertisements like the following are not unfrequent in the southern papers.
From the Elizabeth (N.C.) Phenix, Jan. 5, 1839. "The subscriber offers for sale his blacksmith NAT, 28 years of age, and remarkably large and likely. The only cause of my selling him is I CANNOT CONTROL HIM. Hertford, Dec.5, 1838. J. GORDON."]
They have commonly great sway over the other slaves, their example is contagious, and their influence subversive of 'plantation discipline.' Consequently they must be made a warning to others. It is for the interest of the masters (at least they believe it to be) to put upon such slaves iron collars and chains, to brand and crop them; to disfigure, lacerate, starve and torture them—in a word, to inflict upon them such vengeance as shall strike terror into the other slaves. To this class may be added the incorrigibly thievish and indolent; it would be for the interest of the masters to treat them with such severity as would deter others from following their example.
7. Runaways. When a slave has once runaway from his master and is caught, he is thenceforward treated with severity. It is for the interest of the master to make an example of him, by the greatest privations and inflictions.
8. Hired slaves. It is for the interest of those who hire slaves to get as much out of them as they can; the temptation to overwork them is powerful. If it be said that the master could, in that case, recover damages, the answer is, that damages would not be recoverable in law unless actual injury—enough to impair the power of the slave to labor, be proved. And this ordinarily would be impossible, unless the slave has been worked so greatly beyond his strength as to produce some fatal derangement of the vital functions. Indeed, as all who are familiar with such cases in southern courts well know, the proof of actual injury to the slave, so as to lessen his value, is exceedingly difficult to make out, and every hirer of slaves can overwork them, give them insufficient food, clothing, and shelter, and inflict upon them nameless cruelties with entire impunity. We repeat then that it is for the interest of the hirer to push his slaves to their utmost strength, provided he does not drive them to such an extreme, that their constitutions actually give way under it, while in his hands. The supreme court of Maryland has decided that, 'There must be at least a diminution of the faculty of the slave for bodily labor to warrant an action by the master.'—1 Harris and Johnson's Reports, 4.
9. Slaves under overseers whose wages are proportioned to the crop which they raise. This is an arrangement common in the slave states, and in its practical operation is equivalent to a bounty on hard driving—a virtual premium offered to overseers to keep the slaves whipped up to the top of their strength. Even where the overseer has a fixed salary, irrespective of the value of the crop which he takes off, he is strongly tempted to overwork the slaves, as those overseers get the highest wages who can draw the largest income from a plantation with a given number of slaves; so that we may include in this last class of slaves, the majority of all those who are under overseers, whatever the terms on which those overseers are employed.
Another class of slaves may be mentioned; we refer to the slaves of masters who bet upon their crops. In the cotton and sugar region there is a fearful amount of this desperate gambling, in which, though money is the ostensible stake and forfeit, human life is the real one. The length to which this rivalry is carried at the south and south west, the multitude of planters who engage in it, and the recklessness of human life exhibited in driving the murderous game to its issue, cannot well be imagined by one who has not lived in the midst of it. Desire of gain is only one of the motives that stimulates them;—the eclat of having made the largest crop with a given number of hands, is also a powerful stimulant; the southern newspapers, at the crop season, chronicle carefully the "cotton brag," and the "crack cotton picking," and "unparalleled driving," &c. Even the editors of professedly religious papers, cheer on the méleé and sing the triumphs of the victor. Among these we recollect the celebrated Rev. J.N. Maffit, recently editor of a religious paper at Natchez, Miss. in which he took care to assign a prominent place, and capitals to "THE COTTON BRAG." The testimony of Mr. Bliss, page 38, details some of the particulars of this betting upon crops. All the preceding classes of slaves are in circumstances which make it "for the interest of their masters," or those who have the management of them, to treat them cruelly.
Besides the operation of the causes already specified, which make it for the interest of masters and overseers to treat cruelly certain classes of their slaves, a variety of others exist, which make it for their interest to treat cruelly the great body of their slaves. These causes are, the nature of certain kinds of products, the kind of labor required in cultivating and preparing them for market, the best times for such labor, the state of the market, fluctuations in prices, facilities for transportation, the weather, seasons, &c. &c. Some of the causes which operate to produce this are—
1. The early market. If the planter can get his crop into market early, he may save thousands which might be lost if it arrived later.
2. Changes in the market. A sudden rise in the market with the probability that it will be short, or a gradual fall with a probability that it will be long, is a strong temptation to the master to push his slaves to the utmost, that he may in the one case make all he can, by taking the tide at the flood, and in the other lose as little as may be, by taking it as early as possible in the ebb.
3. High prices. Whenever the slave-grown staples bring a high price, as is now the case with cotton, every slaveholder is tempted to overwork his slaves. By forcing them to do double work for a few weeks or months, while the price is up, he can afford to lose a number of them and to lessen the value of all by over-driving. A cotton planter with a hundred vigorous slaves, would have made a profitable speculation, if, during the years '34, 5, and 6, when the average price of cotton was 17 cents a pound, he had so overworked his slaves that half of them died upon his hands in '37, when cotton had fallen to six and eight cents. No wonder that the poor slaves pray that cotton and sugar may be cheap. The writer has frequently heard it declared by planters in the lower country, that, it is more profitable to drive the slaves to such over exertion as to use them up, in seven or eight years, than to give them only ordinary tasks and protract their lives to the ordinary period.[26]
[Footnote 26: The reader is referred to a variety of facts and testimony on this point on the 39th page of this work.]
4. Untimely seasons. When the winter encroaches on the spring, and makes late seed time, the first favorable weather is a temptation to overwork the slaves, too strong to be resisted by those who hold men as mere working animals. So when frosts set in early, and a great amount of work is to be done in a little time, or great loss suffered. So also after a long storm either in seed or crop time, when the weather becomes favorable, the same temptation presses, and in all these cases the master would save money by overdriving his slaves.
5. Periodical pressure of certain kinds of labor. The manufacture of sugar is an illustration. In a work entitled "Travels in Louisiana in 1802," translated from the French, by John Davis, is the following testimony under this head:—
"At the rolling of sugars, an interval of from two to three months, they (the slaves in Louisiana,) work both night and day. Abridged of their sleep, they scarcely retire to rest during the whole period" See page 81.
In an article on the agriculture of Louisiana, published in the second number of the "Western Review," is the following:—"The work is admitted to be severe for the hands, (slaves) requiring, when the process of making sugar is commenced, TO BE PRESSED NIGHT AND DAY."
It would be for the interest of the sugar planter greatly to overwork his slaves, during the annual process of sugar-making.
The severity of this periodical pressure, in preparing for market other staples of the slave states besides sugar, may be inferred from the following. Mr. Hammond, of South Carolina, in his speech in Congress, Feb. 1. 1836, (See National Intelligencer) said, "In the heat of the crop, the loss of one or two days, would inevitably ruin it."
6. Times of scarcity. Drought, long rain, frost, &c. are liable to cut off the corn crop, upon which the slaves are fed. If this happens when the staple which they raise is at a low price, it is for the interest of the master to put the slave on short rations, thus forcing him to suffer from hunger.
7. The raising of crops for exportation. In all those states where cotton and sugar are raised for exportation, it is, for the most part, more profitable to buy provisions for the slaves than to raise them. Where this is the case the slaveholders believe it to be for their interest to give their slaves less food, than their hunger craves, and they do generally give them insufficient sustenance.[27]
[Footnote 27: Hear the testimony of a slaveholder, on this subject, a member of Congress from Virginia, from 1817 to 1830, Hon. Alexander Smyth.
In the debate on the Missouri question in the U.S. Congress, 1819-20, the admission of Missouri to the Union, as a slave state, was urged, among other grounds, as a measure of humanity to the slaves of the south. Mr. Smyth, of Virginia said, "The plan of our opponents seems to be to confine the slave population to the southern states, to the countries where sugar, cotton, and tobacco are cultivated. But, sir, by confining the slaves to a part of the country where crops are raised for exportation, and the bread and meat are purchased, you doom them to scarcity and hunger. Is it not obvious that the way to render their situation more comfortable, is to allow them to be taken where there is not the same motive to force the slave to INCESSANT TOIL, that there is in the country where cotton, sugar, and tobacco, are raised for exportation. It is proposed to hem in the blacks where they are HARD WORKED and ILL FED, that they may be rendered unproductive and the race be prevented from increasing.... The proposed measure would be EXTREME CRUELTY to the blacks.... You would ... doom them to SCARCITY and HARD LABOR."—[Speech of Mr. Smyth, Jan. 28, 1820]—See National Intelligencer.
Those states where the crops are raised for exportation, and a large part of the provisions purchased, are, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Western Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, and, to a considerable extent, South Carolina. That this is the case in Louisiana, is shown by the following. "Corn, flour, and bread stuffs, generally are obtained from Kentucky, Ohio;" &c. See "Emigrants Guide through the Valley of the Mississippi," Page 275. That it is the case with Alabama, appears from the testimony of W. Jefferson Jones, Esq. a lawyer of high standing in Mobile. In a series of articles published by him in the Mobile Morning Chronicle, he says; (See that paper for Aug. 26, 1837.)