/ SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA w: AND THE EX-SLAA*. G - \W OR, THE PORT ROYAL MISSION BY MRS. A. M. FRENCH, EDITEESS OP THE "BEAUTY OF HOLINESS." " Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these. ey brethren, ye have done it unto me." >••- [ \ NEW YOEK: WINCHELL M. FRENCH, 5 BEEKMAN STREET. mdccclxii. / V *►> <\ a PAOS Ihtrodcction ... '. Tii CHAPTER I.— PORT ROYAL. .' ledical Sea — Bay Point — Hilton Head— Coast — Africans — Guilt— Self-implicated — Country— Contrabands — Faces — Hawks — Sea Birds— Manhood — Excited stare.... 18 CHAPTER II.— THE FIRST CONTRABANDS. Plantation Boat — Consciousness of ungainly self— Sly, keen Observation — Secresy — First Congregation — Concealed Sorrow — Life drawn out , 17 CHAPTER III.— THE LAND OF TEARS. The Ship Atlantic — Feelings — Government— Kidnap — All easrer — Aground — Supper Song— White trash — Shoe Blacks and Rag Pickers— Whittier's Poem— At Port Royal 19 CHAPTER IV.— MEETING ON BOARD. Sketch of Addresses by E. L. Pierce and Rev. Mr. French— Shock of contact with V Slavery — Drivers — Evils remedied — Independence — Freedmen — Lash prohibited — • Setting upon a Barrel — Parents restrained — Military punishment — Untried mis- sion — Idle, roaming — Sensitive — Patronizing and real Friends — One interest — Doubt, dignity — The Acres of humanity— Excitement — Not adapted — Crushed Child — Cruel failures — Experience 25 CHAPTER V.— LANDING. Beaufort — Mist — Sandy streets — Foundations — Fires— Spirits — Desolation — Dr. Peck's home — Servants — Breakfast — -Dr. Edwards' descendant— Vegetation — Buildings — Thrift— Robin — Slavery's echoes— Ghosts — Cradle — Mistress — Wholesale dealer — Innocents — God silent — Watering place — Dress — Expenses — Wine 30 CHAPTER VI.— FIRST CONVERSE WITH EX-SLAVES. Reverence — Servant — Religious state — Silver — Daughter's sorrow — Field-hand — ■ Drudge — Desire to see Masters — Free — Trusting— God able — School — Sabbath- school — Patience — Liberating Power — Presentiments 34 CHAPTER VII.— BEAUFORT. Slaves and Souls of men— Merchants — Every ship-master — City of two centuries- Buildings — Gardens — Streets — Parades — Tide— Walls — Buildings— Suburbs — Monu- ments — Churches — Aristocracy — Quarters — Saint— Rags — Table — Visitors — Archi- tecture — Dark faces — -Turbans — Curses — Nonsense 37 CHAPTER VIII.— VEGETATION OF THIS LATITUDE. Spirit of Slavery — Trees — Weeds — Sand— Live-oaks — Cactus — Fragrance — Forests — No union — Beauty— Over-topping — Maples — Locusts— Respect of the Colored- Child's answer 41 CHAPTER IX.— GOVERNMENT'S TIME AND CLAIMS. Houesty — Government tables — Writing — Dignity — Chinking — Dishonor— Edifice — Inequalities — Hard pressure — Scheme — Ark — Miriams— Rewriting — Awful subject — Faithful pictures — Poverty 44 CHAPTER X.— CRUELTY REIGNS. Voice — Birds— Horses — Cows and dogs — Aged women— Neber had but one— Chil- dren — Babies — Field-hand women — The dying boy — Heavenly Father take dis, I praise him — White father— Tea— Rags — Clean — Lady of luxury— Dehumanizing — Birds — Theft — Honest table — Millennium and slavery — Woman and punishment — ■ Spirit of Washington — The murder — Massah's power over life — Loss of property a preventive ? 46 iii iv CONTENTS. CHAPTER XT.— THE MISSION TO PORT ROYAL. PAGB Discouragements— Elev:it,'d by oppressors— Lies— Sold by Christians— Obstacles im- mense— No God — The two angels— New trophies 62 CHAPTER NIL— THE VACANT HOMES. Sacred by events— Words— Reliefs— Sorrows— Tears 'nough to wash dis flo'— Tender fori -ltebellion— Occupied sadly in their behalf— No personal hatred- Sin and suffering joined— Reports of burning alive— Slavery a forbidden topic 54 CHAPTER XIII.— SLAVERY A SEALED BOOK. Sealed to many within its precincts— Aggravated cases — Inured to hide feelings — .Must tell strangers — Strangers deceived — The Senator's lady's story— Soldiers — Dark places — Law at South Carolina — Deception — Visitors — The padlock — From sun to sun — Sabbath — Reports of DeVesey's rebellion — Reading character — Tact — Indescribable— Sympathizing talk — Deaths — Proofs — Live but five years — Writers deceived 4 '. 66 CHAPTER XIV.— SLAVERY A VICE. Holds victims — Passions — Power gained by dollars at slave pens — Love of domineer- in- -Tights— Horrify— Picture of Congressman— Treat Negroes long whip- :e for artist — Contempt dreaded — Virtues shrivel into vices — Child urer — Victims — Life as nothing — Nation murderers or no slavery — Robbery — • Discomfort— Intermarriages of relatives — Forty innocents — Reason given C6 CHAPTER XV.— SLAVES nELD FROM NECESSITY. Kind opposed— Propitiating their demon— Both twilights— Massah broken-hearted— Mi : , test— Oder people— M ssus pray to die 'for do war— Die— Thomas Jef- 011 imploring— Daughters sold, Harem— Coerced to Africa— Dr. Nelson— Tears -Yi a —Trying support at the North— Periodicals— Music— Pleading- Bosom of God T4 CHAPTER XVI.— BOND AND FREE SERVANTS. Prison — Drive on in minutiae — Abortive efforts — Lash not effective power — Northern lady— Southern— Bride — Testimony— Murder no one's business— Shirking 79 CHAPTER XVII.— FREE LABOR. Remedy— Military— Cloudy future— Stating the case— Sudden development— Effects —Colored and White laborers — Begins at creation 82 CHAPTER XYIIL— HEART SERVICE. Sweetness of being freely served — Driving — Dignified to be ruled by slaves — Life- kin, of mind — Meanest services — Bind to the bar of God — Weary fellow- Ing — Scriptures — All imprecations — Thankfully beg — Slaves or life — Negroes? — Be their servants — Two cases— First blessings — Servants when free — Iuibruted Mistress — Whippings — Dr. Howe's account— Publicity S5 CHAPTER XIX.— SOUTHERN CHIVALRY. Curse glancing and falling— Heaven fuller— Woman— Barbaric nations — Chal- lenge to the world — Girls must marry — Affectionate race — Look admiration — No censure— Marr'u-d in matrimony — ("arther Soutb -Avarice — Facts— 'Lowed to drop hoe -Bring mud up from riber— Basia of slaveholders' dignity — Awful suffering— his hand— Government dash hopes 92 CHAPTER XX.— INCIDENTS IN SLAVE WOMAN'S LIFE. Case of the slave woman — Buried alive — Case of young girl — Mother dies— Mistress — Charities— Other punishments for the crime of not being able to work— Born in liel' 99 CHAPTER XXL— RESULTS TO POOR WOMAN. Where ?— Under clods of the valley— Few old women— Exceptions— Image of Jesus- Marks of death— Graves — Greenwood— Martyrs 108 CHAPTER XXII.— WOMAN AND CIVILIZATION. Fh>M labor in Women and Civilization impossible— Never seen — Show on Sunday — / (fference— Ambition— Perseverance — God hath arisen 105 CONTEXTS. CHAPTER XXIII— CRUSHED INTELLECTS. pagb Crushed by blow — neavy terror, stupefied— Instance— Noble driver — Suffering to serve others — Brain— Resurrection 108 CHAPTER XXIV.— THE INNER LIFE OF THE PIOUS. Transformed — Judges— Seal of God— Sanctified— Heart-breaking— Noble govern- ment — Not sex, or woman considered, but color — Women drivers — Work faster — Desire to suffer with them — The people blamed — Voters responsible Ill CHAPTER XXV— THE GENIUS OF SLAYEDOM. Treachery in everything— Spell— Wierd, confused feelings — Examine — Confusion as to all ownership— Illustration — Travellers — Lost power — Dishonesty recognized — Arabs 115 CHAPTER XXVI.— AVARICE OR POVERTY. Parsimoniousness — Poverty — Barbadoes — Jamaica — Account-books — Servants — Good days — Oaths— Ministers— Weighing 118 CHAPTER XXVII— EMBITTERED SPRINGS. Religion a torture — Manhood — Philosopher — Contempt — Hatred — Separations — Avenues 123 CHAPTER XXVIII.— THE APOSTLES OF SLAVERY. Preachers 'lowed nothing but for Massah — Dr. Nelson's Testimony — Worse than none — Curse — The owner — Minister — Dignity— Common sense — Mr. May's testi- mony — Dragging slave to death — .Minister and son — Cotered ministers — God in the soul — Humility - 126 CHAPTER XXIX.— PRAYERS OF THE EX-SLAVES. Effort to gam them — Force — Failure— Not suffered to lie down when sick— Voice — Mus' pray— Fort 133 CHAPTER XXX.— AMALGAMATION. Follower of slavery— Strangers— Oberlin— Races separate naturally— Col. Johnson —Fervor — No shadow of amalgamation — Incident— Purity — Fitness— Outrages — Bleaching ground ., 135 CHAPTER XXXI.— OUT OF LYING. Satanic— Harness shape of men — Live patriot — Cannibals — Call on Devil — Soldier's liberties— Child killed— Lincoln's portrait — Laugh 140 CHAPTER XXXII.— MANLINESS. Foundation— Shame — Principles — Covered with welts— Whip mother — Little girls — Crime of sleeping — Sees Jesus — Coming — Master — Listening — Nobility — Sale — Who the least ?— Disgraced ? — Nearer than angels 145 CHAPTER XXXIII.— ENERGY OF THE COLORED. Developed early — Hide in mud— Travellers— Superhuman — Thinking dangerous — Poisonous lizard — 'Spectable — Coat — Wits — Peter learning to read — Washington. 153 CHAPTER XXXIV.— NEGRO QUARTERS. All works belie the Negro— False light— Contemptible falsehood — Apartments- Great effort— Home— Pro-slavery visitor— Awful huts— Martyrs to Chastity— Tor- - ture — Furniture — Filth— Villainous darkness— Cast out — F. R. Association — Im- provements—Altar for lash 159 CHAPTER XXXV.— PREJUDICE AGAINST COLOR. Epithets— Impressible— Dr. Phillip — Thomas Pringle— Beauty— Grace— Create expec- tations — England — Victoria — Moral standing — Deacons in tow — Cruelty at Donelson 106 CHAPTER XXXVI.— THE SOUTHERNER. Character— Hospitality— System — Job— Paul— Less money — Gains — Yale College — Body-guard — Gives up— Gains— Ashamed of ancestors 172 CHAPTER XXXVII.— INNER AND OUTER LIFE. Anguish quivers — Real life — Corn burn up — Emotion — Life not regarded — Hedges — Unintentional reproof— Dea' sojer3 176 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXVIII.— THE TRUE DEBASEMENT. PAGE Not Belf-righteous— Miracle— Woman's Testimony— Unblushing calumnies— Why ex- citable— Adepts— Curst— Crazy— Not look sorry— True virtue 180 CHAPTER XXXIX.— HEART CHASTITY. Eniffma— All cities— Purity— Counterfeit— Amazed— Virtue and vice— A language— Jewels -Soul God's— Aunty— Docility— Broadway— Sweet letter— Weak— False Coloring— Carousal— Wine— Task and whip for chastity— Delicacy— Disgust 1S4 CHAPTER XL.— NORTHERN CHIVALRY. Opinion of Southern ladies— Standard— Concealed wounds— Wretched families— iniac— Broken-hearted— Praying for death— President Madison's sister— Devil- ish power— Delusions— Moral power— England's emancipating— Malignity— Pure homes— Foulest slander— Licentiousness North— Heart agonies— Washington's ig "4 CHAPTER XLI.— THE TASK-MASTERS. Gad-defying D.D.'s delegated— Law of South Carolina— 400 lashes— Wish for death —Will— Baptist minister— 14 pounds— Work— My physician— Warning— Lawful killing — 71 offences punished by death 206 CHAPTER XLII.— TRUTHFULNESS OF THE COLORED. Serene Congressman — Colored woman — nope come to bury me— Leave all with Jesus — Boy's caution — New Yorkers — Bostonians — Deep, mysterious — Men or books?.. 214 CHAPTER XLIII.— KNOWLEDGE OF THE COLORED. Case supposed— Toussaint— The chaplain— Quarrels— Exceptions— Sewell— 93 free- men doing the labor of 225 -1 aves— Britons— Resemblance of monkeys— Rosseau —Lawrence— Dr. Tiedeman— Blaumeubach— Watson— Oaths— Sabbath— Thieving. 213 CHAPTER XLIV.— SHALL THE BOND GO FREE? Wrong question— Deacon Davis— Is you loose?— Apprenticeship— Self-reliant— Bar- badoes— Notables 240 CHAPTER XL V.— APPRECIATION OF ALL MEN. Fondness — Popular heart — Caterers South— Merit— Humboldt — Wesley— Wilber- force— Aunt Mary— Moffat— Park 246 CHAPTER XLVI.— THE WASTE OF LIFE. Patrick nenry— Overseers— Life and labor — Death in basket — All dead— Womanhood. 255 CHAPTER XL VII.— INGRATITUDE. Instances of— Amo— Princess of Brunswick — Drs. Madden and Chamberlaine— 260 CHAPTER XLYIII— IS WOMAN WOMAN? Depression— Duped— Thousand-fold better than sang— A case — Sacrificing hands — Economy — Dr. Reed 266 CH \PTKR XLIX— ABSENTEES. Tyrants— D.D.'fl villainous course— Cotton— Virginian— Massah kill, torture— Suicides— Nation 272 CHAPTER L.— THE BITTERNESS OF SLAVERY. Channing— Temptation— Defying God— All drivers— Slavery doomed— Boys trained — Offieer— White trash 277 CHAPTER LI.— UNSANCTIFIED INDIGNATION. Government— Tyranny— Liberty— Pulpit— Blasted Manhood— Features of Times— Pharisees— John Brown— Colonization— Jay— Wilberforce— McAuley— Hay ti 2S4 CHAPTER IiII.— HUNTER'S PROCLAMATION. Rejoicing— Aunt— A man— Blessings on Hunter— Choristers— Land Transformed — Economy °04 CHAPTER LITE— CAPTURE AND PASSAGE. Afri.-a— Dance— Home— Gustavu< V;i a l ; nuy— Ellsworth— Baker— Lyon— Win- Uirop— Harlans— Lovejoys — Whittle! — Colored 809 INTRODUCTION Surely, there is a line of right somewhere ; surely, there are principles of right necessarily eternal, since God is; surely, these principles cannot change; surely, circum- stances, cannot reach or affect them; surely, there m "be laws enforcing those principles ; surely, af the princi- ples are eternal, the laws cannot change; surely, they must have the strength of the Administration, as a pledge of their execution ; surely, they must respect all beings alike, must apply to the minutest action. Surely, then, every action must be with, or against those laws, must com- pel their eternal approval, "or penalty, every action calling upon the laws of eternal justice for the "well done," or the penalty. Surely that award, must be as eternal, as the sin, and those laws. Surely a Mediator makes no escape from them. He is not the minister of sin. He only makes obedi- ence possible to us. He establishes, the law, dies ! that we be forgiven, cleared of its past records, cleansed, and com- pelled to break it no more, through the power that death provides. All this adds awful weight, and dignity, to that law, renders disobedience an eternal insult, not only to the law, but to that Mediator, that tenderest grace, that costliest sacrifice. So that disobedience is £n insult, not only to the law, which cannot forgive, over- look, or fail in penalty, but to that grace, that de that offering of soul for sin. Surely, then, God, his 1 , his sacrifice, cannot be slighted, without full penalty. Surely that penalty must be exacted alike of each rational being. Man must be left free to break that law, else no free obedience could he render, from his not being free, or able to disobey. Evidently, when he knows that there ia grace provided for him, and offered freely, and available, he is alone responsible for having that grace. Inevitably, then, he stands upon one, or the other side of this law, is this moment condemned or approved, and INTRODUCTION. every action at once ranges itself on one or the other of this law, and by it, he is this moment justified or c ' ! uned. God's own image is the sacredest thing upon earth, •nan was made in it. But man is free to show how . -ill treat that image, perfectly free, or he could not perfectly guilty. As he treats that man, that image • od, he treats God. Mortal cannot sever the oneness exists between God and his own. It is an indwelling but more, it is an actual oneness, in one vital, spiritual life. I is then driven forth, tasked, beaten, killed. God is sold, bought, defiled. There is no escape. God is in that man or that woman, and you cannot put him out. Hortal cannot sunder that one life, lie says, "Inasmuch c did it unto them, ye did it unto me." You do that to-day. Slaveholder, with its light you began anew to despoil God, or give freedom and liberty to that one. If he say voluntarily, being entirely free, u I will labor for you, for so much," and you accord freedom to him in every way, you are free from the penalty, the sin of compelling God. If you hold him, and pay him a thou- 1, yea, a million fold more, still you enslave God. It tot how you treat him, or how he feels, but do you hold him ? He may do very little, but do you compel him ? or virtually or by influence? For if, in addition to robbing the body, you rob the soul, or mind, how much M-orse. If you can so influence a human being as' to lead him to say, " I will be a slave ;" if you can in- fuse that influence, what robbery of God ! If that one actually prefer your service, you can make him legally . so that you can lift your hand to God, and say, "I < ipelj enslave, uo man. I do not enslave God in man. - i not insult God in his image, in the worst, nor in his actual presence, in the best." Is it not well to know what those laws actually require? You and I must LNTKODUCTION. IX stand alone, face to face, with these great truths, and facts, and God, and eteenity ! Is there not a safe side 1 This woek is a fruit of sorrow, of duty clear, of adverse temptations great, of responsibility eternal, of hope in self, or in man little, of faith in God, as a grain of mus- tard seed. It is put forth, in the prolonged absence in the service of his brother, country. Maker, of him who has been the dear staff of tliirty years, whose concurring convictions urge us on, in the work, whose judgment in regard to publishing different articles has saved our lite- rary life, from most worry, wear, and care. For witnesses of the truth of the facts, we refer to different members of the mission, of the military, and civilians. In but one case, have later developments thrown a shadow of doubt. That is of the Congressman, whose father, it seems it was, who feasted upon the Mondays' whippings. We could take you, gentle reader, to the spot where it, and nearly all these incidents, occurred. "With pain and shame have we recorded these things which, were the cause only removed, were better — or more honorably to our nation — forgotten. But something must arouse the ladies of the North, for if we can get the strong influence at the fire- side right, all will soon be done. The object in this writing, and in the cuts, is to make deep, vivid impres- sions. We regret that we have served the cause of the Colored, so poorly, but cannot dishonor our sense of duty, by saying we could have done better, under all the circumstances. Parts of the work, have been stereotyped two months, which is an age now, upon this question. Still, pro-slaveryism is rampant, and the balances unset- tled. Upon which shall preponderate, depends the future of this nation. Agonizing, may be our future remorse, in dark days, or in the dying ! of our nation, unless the sweet whisper of the spirit is " Tou did what you could." K INTRODUCTION. There is humanity, to appreciate, a great wrong, and that can be moved to compassion by a great anguish, by brave endurance, by perfect Christian patience ; there are, everywhere, hearts that revolt against tyranny, cruelty, oppression ; there is in noble man feeling for innocent childhood ; for tender woman ; there is sense of justice, of manhood. How can these principles, be mightily moved in the masses ? for the Colored % How can the minds of many who imagine they understand slavery, be disabused, and brought to protest against the crime ? Well intentioned, but faultering measures will not answer, now ; none but the strongest, sternest, unsel- fishest. How can the masses be brought up to the noble holy work ? Ah let them see slavery not in confused masses, odious from being so colossal, but in individuals, in facts — so we write, where even Elliot, Cheever, Stowe, Goodell, Jay, Douglass, have nobly written — sent home, by the Author of light, and love. The character of the candid man is not settled, or stereotyped. Best, noblest, philanthropists, may yet arise from the Border States, or even farther South, to bless their country ! and race. Wonderfully did God provide helpers for this precious mission. Some of the ablest of men in New York, Bos- ton, and Philadelphia, gave their best powers, energies, and time, to this work. Ministers plead for it, people wept, prayed, and gave, for it ; Government spread the strong, and now, most honored and prized, military power over it. They were required to be protective : they have been chivalrous, generous, brotherly. Caj>tain Eldridge, of the Atlantic, laid us under eternal tribute of gratitude for his gentlemanly care and kindness, seconded by Government officers. From our first introduction to the Military, we have received the utmost chivalric and gen- tlemanly attention from them. On our voyage, Lieut. West would come down, and, standing in the aisle be- INTRODUCTION. XI tween our state-rooms, would call out, "Ladies, ladies! it will never, never do ! for you to give up to sea-sickn so. You must come on deck. Come, come ! get read}', and come out, and I will help you on deck." After re- peated efforts, all finally reached the deck, where most took tea, engaged in conversation, reading, singing of many patriotic and Christian songs, then closing, with prayer, a pleasant evening, which had otherwise closed most sadly and unwholesomely in our rooms. The presence of Mrs. Senator Harlan was providential. Though recent sore bereavement, and delicate health, much influenced her noble husband, in consenting to spare her, still, her deep interest in the mission, excellent manners, and good sense, made her presence and pres- age, of great value in its feeble commencement. Of other beloved members of this mission we had spoken individually, taking Paul for a sanction of com- mendation, but, by request, we leave the pure white page, upon which all may read their humility and worth. The kindness and fostering care, since our arrival of that excellent and able man, General Stevens, could not be surpassed ; also so far as requisite of Generals Sherman, Saxton, and Com. Dupont. General Stevens, in his highly valued calls, was frequently attended by his lovely and most excellent lady, who, like her husband, ever mani- fested a deep interest. Nothing that was required to be done for our honor, comfort, or success, that his Aids : Pro- vost Marshal Belcher, or Commissary Gregory, and other noble officers, could do, has been omitted. In our feeble and persecuted mission, this attention we feel far more than we can express, and can only return our most ardent prayers. To appreciate this kindness, one must know all. The following list of the first company, who went out under the auspices of the "Freedman's Belief As- sociation," we give, regretting we have not later arrivals : Xll INTRODUCTION. E. L. Pierce, Special Agent of Treasury Department ; Eev. M. French, Agent of " National Freedman's Belief Association;" David Mack, Eev. Nathan It. Johnson, Samuel D. Philips, Eev. Isaac W. BrinkerhorT, William T. Clarke, George B. Peck, Daniel Bowe, Edmund Price, Frederick A. Eustis, John D. Lathrop, James E. Taylor, Drury F. Cooper, "William E. Park, Bobert N. Smith, Edward W. Hooper, Edward S. Philbrick, Henry II. Cowdery, Wm. C. Gannett, George H. Blake, Dr. James P. Greves, Prof. John C. Zachas, John T. Ashley, Dr. A. Judson Wakefield, James F. Sisson, George C. Fox, Isaac W. Cole, James W. E.. Hill, James H. Palmer, John H. Brown, Lyman Nolton, Albert Bellamy, David F. Thorpe, T. Edwin Buggies, James M. F. Howard, Francis E. Barnard, Dr. James Waldock, Bichard Soule, jr., Leonard Wesson, Dr. Chas. H. Brown, Ninian Nivin. Ladies. — Hon. Mrs. James Harlan, Mrs. Walter E. John- eon, Mrs. Elizabeth B. Hale, Mrs. Mary Nicholson, Miss Susan Walker, Miss Mary A. Donaldson, Miss Hannah Curtis, Miss Elizabeth Peck, Miss Mary A. Waldock, Miss E. H. Winsor, Miss M. Hale, Mrs. A. M. French. Thus far the mission is a perfect success. As to future waefare, in this holy cause, let us all Bay in the words of Eev. E. P. Lovejoy — whose auto- graph we here give — editor of the " Observer," Alton, 111., in his last address before martyrdom ! to the pro-slavery mobs, thirsting for his blood : " As I shall answer it, to my God, in the great day, I dare not abandon my senti- ments, or cease in all right ways to propagate them." SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. -»-•-•- CHAPTER I, POET ROYAL. Oh, for a world in principle as chaste As this is gross and selfish ; over which Custom and prejudice shall bear no sway, That governs all things here, shouldering aside The meek and modest Truth, and forcing her To seek a refuge from the tongue of Strife In nooks obscure, far from the ways of men ! Cowper After four days of sea and sky, with the medical treatment of the former, and the varying moods — all ending in smiles — of the latter, we arrived off Bay Point, a seeming thin line of white sand, curving out into the sea and looking as if the next wave would erase it.' Be- low, in the far distance, is Hilton Head, crowned with its fort, and looking in the distance like an immense brick- yard, with awnings stretched over parts of it. But now, six weeks later, it has a long pier extending into the river, a fine large hospital crowns the shore, and with 18 li SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. new buildings, and many more erecting, it looks quite freedom-like. Between these places is Fort Royal Inlet, the mouth of Broad Fiver. The semicircular coast looks from the ship, to be of three terrace lines. First above the blue waves is a bank of snow-white sand of several feet; next, a grey belt, composed of the bare and even trunks of the standing pines, of twice the height of the sand-shore ; and, above these, the green pine-tops, rising to twice the height of the trunks, in a clear feathery line, against the fiue sky ; an oppressive beauty, quiet, sameness, however, being the general effect of the whole. You look with strange feelings upon that coast. You think of the cargoes of poor Africans who have gazed upon it for the first time, as you now do, with not a hope, an aim, a friend, having already taken, in the awful hold of the slave-ship, their first lessons from the southern mission- aries, stealing even a false Christianity. You think of those poor fugitives who have, in so many ways, dared those guilty waters— guilty waters, we say, for every- thing, even nature itself, seems becoming guilty. Why else have the sea and the earth swallowed out of sight their tears and blood, conniving against them with man ? As you gaze, and gaze, and think, the weird Spirit of Slavery comes to greet you — a vitalized reality — and cooly takes possession of you, of mind, fancy, feeling, as if they were an old habitation, and hatints you, through every change, and every department of your residence. Just now, she is tauntingly singing in your ear, " Land of the free, and home of the brave," or " Hail Columbia, happy land." There steals over you the feeling that you are passing under a great cloud of accumulated wrongs, in which you seem mysteriously implicated, the vague feeling that you yourself have done something awful, I NOT INNOCENT — CONTRABANDS — KOBBEKY — GUILT. 15 somewhere in the dim past. You say, Who am I ? and assure yourself that, for twenty years, you have been in the head and front of the offending against slavery. But who lias done it ? My country. And is not my country myself ? But I could have done no more that I can see against it ! could I ? Let's see. You try to think of instances, once mountainous, in which you have suffered, in mind, estate, reputation, and more deeply in affections, in opposing this sin. But they are suddenly and strangely dim, in the dark overshadowing of the mighty wrong. You can scarcely recall them. " Yes," you admit, " I am a part of my country, and I in it, and with it, have done this. I! who had so long considered myself, with mine, almost martyrs to opposition to this awful wrong. We ! at last, not innocent ?" Yes, so it is. Every effort should have been far, far, more strenuous. Look at those poor "contrabands" in that boat! How plainly they show, that not an effort to crush the manhood, yea, the grace of God ! out of them, has been spared. And the awful robbery of all, except what the soul grasps and holds, in spite of the Master, can never, never, be compensated, for with many of them life is waning. The garment of invi- sibility seems dropping from all forms of cruelty. Slavery is written upon the dark line between every ripple, into which the bright protesting wave, after a moment's resistance, subsides. Slavery is written upon the shore, the trees, the sky, the air. You see it in the faces of these men coming on board. Is it because you look so queer, and excited, and guilty, that they do ? The enor- mous black hawks, with their screams, seem to be its very spirits. ISTo wonder they caw, caw, over this land — mean vultures, waiting for blood. You look for the beautiful white sea-birds, so constant in all your voyage ; they are now far away in the dis- 16 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. tance, just skimming the open sea that looks toward freedom. You wonder that good and true men dared to alight upon these shores when slavery was in full bloom. You do not wonder that, seeing they came and remained, they usually parted with their fancied manhood here. You seem tempted to lose confidence in man, in your- self, in God. How could he by whom every violet is individually clad, suffer such evils so long? ISTo wonder that the dwellers here could not speak anywhere upon any topic without babbling of slavery. The sprite would not let them, but threw, and threw, it into every caul- dron, stained every thought, and fancy, and feeling with it, by a decree men cannot pass. We have found it inconvenient enough for twenty years to be possessed of an abolition zeal ; but it was nothing to a slavery sprite, even under her broken reign. Our company, or the impressible, too, have an excited stare. Yes, they are all enduring those -peculiar feelings of which we have since heard so much, yet which words cannot paint. It seemed like passing into a land of horrid dark dreams, or dim memories of the agonies of centuries. Now, from this moment, every one must be more or less, a man. It is inevitable. These are positive influences, you mus* rise or sink under them. Every one's sense of right and wrong must here, be vitalized, or blighted. chapter n. THE FIRST CONTRABANDS. " He shall judge the poor of the people. He shall save the children of the needy and shall break in pieces the oppressor." — Psalm lxxii., 4. The first contrabands we saw, were six men, in a " plantation boat," alongside our good snip. " How differently" they do look from our Colored peo- ple !" said one. Yes. Intense endurance, long gazing after something that never came, shame, gloom, and despair, have left upon those poor faces their distinct and iron impress, over which the veil of hope is now thinly drawn. Be- sides, a vivid consciousness of ungainly self, of deficiency in dress, manners, and respectability of appearance, the bitter doom of the slave is now upon them. They do not look up, or converse among themselves, except by stealth, though long in waiting. Yet one can see in them, a sly, keen observation of everything, and that they are inured to pain and patience, also to self-control and secrecy, the eye being habitually dropped to conceal thought. Never, we may here premise, can we describe our feel- ings on seeing the first congregation of these poor ex- slaves. The deep lines of fatigue, and sternly concealed sorrow, the patient, compelled composure of face — the evidence of long, resolute efforts at pious resignation, still severely tested by the clouds hanging over their future — the loving, confiding, yet keenly scrutinizing 17 IS SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. gaze at the minister — the effort to look as if they did not wonder whether or not he would say anything about their liberty — the willingness to be comforted, yet the dire heaviness of soul — yet in some, deep trust and triumph in God, and dwelling in his pure love, was evi- dent — all these, with the appearance in most that the very life of their bodies, minds, and souls, had been drawn out of them, by extreme, hopeless toil — the know- ledge that I, or almost the same, my beloved country, had so, so ! wronged them : all these things overwhelmed the heart ; and when, at the close of an excellent sermon, we were asked to sing " There is rest for the weary." how did our soul praise God, that for them there is a heaven, not under the administration of man — a heaven of rest and bliss ineffable. CHAPTER III. THE LAND OF TEAE3. " Rob not the poor because he is poor ; neither oppress the afflicted in the gate ; for the Lord will plead their cause, and spoil the soul of those that spoil them."- -Proverbs xxii., 22, 23. P Our noble ship, the Atlantic, is now nearing South Carolina. "With what throngs of mingled feelings and solicitudes do we approach it! To hear, see, feel, all new, with this poor people, so late in bondage, now free, but with the imperfect, political sense of right, standard of duty, or at best, the inefficiency of this national govern- ment, hanging over them, as a dark cloud of possible enslavement. But surely a government cannot commit a crime for which it executes citizens, namely, enslaving the free, and as slaveholders have not now power over these people, who has ? Government % Who will say that gov- ernment holds them, except to protect them as citizens, to require of them, as of all citizens, subjection to law, and to military law, when necessary for their and the general weal, and to receive from their labor a compen- sation for providing for them ? Then, they are free, and must remain so, unless this government can kidnap, which cannot, of course, be thought of. Our Govern- ment will not defile itself with that villainous work. Never ! Never ! But we are at last, having parted with our noble At- lantic, and nobler Captain Eldridge, on board a transport that plies Beaufort River, expecting to be in Beaufort 19 '20 SLAYEET EST SOUTH CAKOLDTA AND THE EX-SLAVES. m tliree hours, and thus have time to prepare for the holy Morrow. All are eager, anxious for the work, and now, to get the best views of the plantations we are to pass, and whose land in the distance looks scarcely higher than the waves.- When, lo ! "aground !" So we pocket with various degrees of patience and charity, the mistake, or treachery, as many think it, and pay a high price for a " secesh " supper, and leave' the table with anything but dear remembrances, unless for the price. But darkness comes on. The third or fourth table laid in the only cabin, is cleared away, the boat, and the situ- ation is dis-cussed, at least, and in one knot sacred song commences. As we come to sing " His soul is marching on," members of our company look on with various shades of approval ; and sundry boat, and other officials, look dag- gers at us. But it is evident that the last believe, or at least fear, it is all true. Others hear with wonder, first among whom are " white trash," of whom we here see the first specimen, and compared with whom the shoeblacks and rag-pickers of New York are kings in manly bearing. They are listening, half scared, half gratified, half mysti- fied ; yet, seemingly for the first time, they wear a coun- tenance' that does not seem to ask pardon of every one for ever having been born, or even presuming to exist. Did slavery do nothing but so unman a large class of citi- zens, by crushing financial oppression, vigilant contempt, and blasting tyranny, that surely were reason enough, in every noble mind, for its being forever put away, at whatever cost. For what is money to manhood, in a repul >- lie % You never see such cringing Uriah Keeps, among the toilers of the North. Never ! But of these again. BOAT 80JJQ BY WHITTLES. 21 A minister, by request, read the following, from the nation's, yea, humanity's poet, Whittier, composed, per- haps, on these very waters : AT PORT ROYAL.— 1861. BY J. G. WHITTIER. The tent-lights glimmer on the land, The ship-lights on the sea ; The night-wind smooths with drifting sands Our track on lone Tybee. At last onr grating keels outslide, Our good boats forward swing ; And while we ride the land-locked tide, Our negroes row and sing. For dear the bondman holds his gifts Of music and of song ; The gold that kindly nature sifts Among his sands of wrong ; The power to make his toiling days And poor home-comforts please ; The quaint relief of mirth that plays With sorrow's minor keys. Another glow than sunset's fire Has filled the West with light, Where field and garner, barn and byre Are blazing through the night. The land is wild with fear and hate, The rout runs mad and fast From hand to hand, from gate to gate, The flaming brand is passed. 22 SLAVERY EST SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. The lurid glow falls strong across Dark faces broad with smiles ; Not theirs the terror, hate, and loss That fire yon blazing piles. With oar-strokes timing to then* song, They weave in simple lays The pathos of remembered wrong, The hope of better days, — . The triumph note that Miriam sung, The joy of uncaged birds ; Softening with Afric's mellow tongue, Their broken Saxon words. SONG OF THE NEGRO BOATMAN. Oh ! praise an' tanks 1 De Lord he come To set de people free ; An' massa tink it day ob doom, And we ob jubilee. De Lord dat heap de Red Sea waves, He jus' as 'trong as den ; He say de word : we las' night slaves, To-day, de Lord's free men. De yams will grow, de cotton blow, We'll hab de rice an' corn ; Oh 1 nebber you fear, if nebber you hear De driver blow his horn ! Ole massa on he trabbles gone, He leeb de land behind ; De Lord's breff blow him furder on, Like corn-shuck in de wind, DE PROMISE NEBER FAIL. 23 We own de hoe, we own de plow, We own de hands dat hold ; We sell de pig, we sell de cow, But nebber chile be sold. -De yam will grow, de cotton blow, We'll hab de rice an' corn ; Oh ! nebber yon fear, if nebber you hear De driver blow his horn 1 We pray de Lord he gib us signs Dat some day we be free ; De Norf wind tell it to de pines, De wild cluck to de sea ; We tink it when de church-bell ring, We dream it in de dream ; De rice-bird mean it when he sing, De eagle when he scream. De yam will grow, de cotton blow, We'll hab de rice an' corn ; Oh ! nebber you fear, if nebber you hear De driver blow his horn ! We know de promise nebber fail, An' nebber he de word ; So, like de 'postles in de jail, We waited for de Lord ; An' now he open ebery door, An' trow away de key ; He tink we lub him so before, We lub him better free. De yam will grow, de cotton blow, He'll gib de rice an' corn ; So nebber you fear, if nebber you hear De driver blow his horn ! 24: SLAVEKY IK SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. So sing our dusky gondoliers ; And with a secret pain, And smiles that seem akin to tears, We hear the wild refrain. We dare not share the negro's trust, Nor yet his hope deny ; We only know that God is just, And every wrong shall die. Rude seems the song ; each swarthy face, Flame-lighted, ruder still : We start to think that hapless race Must shape our good or ill • That laws of changeless justice bind Oppressor with oppressed ; And, close as sin and suffering joined, We march to fate abreast. Sing on, poor heart ! your chant shall be Our sign of blight or bloom — The Yala-song of Liberty, Or death-rune of our doom ! Atlantic Monthly. CHAPTER IV. MEETING ON BOARD. " For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord. I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him." — Psalii vii., 5. A lakge meeting was held, wherein E. L. Pierce, Esq., Government Agent, and Rev. M. French, Agent of the Freedman's Relief Association, addressed the band of fifty-four persons, who go out upon a nobler errand than that of the Mayflower. A nobler errand, we say, not nobler messengers ; for while they of the Mayflower went for themselves, their posterity, their principles, these, or some of them at least, came solely for others, and a despised, degraded, peeled race, too ; a race which, under the benign and unrestrained influence and power of the morality, the virtue, and the religion of American slavery, has sunk as low as man can sink man. Then, because so degraded, so stultified, so dismantled, they are most heartily and implacably hated ! All this we prove by facts in subsequent chapters. But surely the more sunken they are, the more nobis, God-like, is the work of serving them. To lose self in such a work and purpose, in a principle made dearer than self, or rather life, is surely true greatness. In such a work, no one who cannot stand alone for humanity, for principle, for God, can do anything. No one who must have the multitude with him, or a majority, or even com- 2 25 26 SLAVERY m SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. panionship, out of God, can stand with him ofi tins mount of transfiguration, or hear his voice in this Patmos. But to the meeting. Our first shock of actual contact with slavery, was on hearing Mr. Pierce say to those who were going to plantations : " You will find on each a driver, or head Colored man, who measures out to each Negro a peck of corn a week. You will act your best judgment about increasing it, and adding other food. ISTo marked change can be made at once, without probable injury to them. You will find they have no regular time for meals, each eating as he can. They will be found filthy, and some even vermined, and must have time given them, and be taught to take care of themselves. All these evils must be met and remedied in the most wise, kind, and quiet manner. New garments must be paid for in their labor, to cherish in them feelings of independence." lie hoped they went from the broadest humanity — a humanity not to be quenched by any repul- siveness, untidiness, or stubbornness in those they came to benefit. " You go to freedmen," said he, " to elevate, to purify and fit them for all the duties of American citi- zens. You go to be their friends, counsellors and protec- tors. The government is to be parental. The lash is prohibited. Some cases of discipline must arise, but shut- ting up, or setting upon a barrel, has been found sufficient, in all cases. Parents are to be led to punish their child- ren, when it is necessary, but in more cases to be restrained, as severity is all they know, or are used to. Any indignity to woman, by some few base soldiers, is to be zealously guarded against, and will meet, as we are assured, with the most condign punishment from military authorities here. Those who have been led astray, are not to be looked upon as those who have had more light and different influences." These, with a large number of ACUTE OBSERVERS — PATRONIZING AND REAL FRIENDS. 27 economical regulations, were dwelt upon with great talent, precision, and sympathy of heart. Rev. Mr. French, the next day, among other re- marks, said, " Ours is, indeed, a new, untried mission, the final results of which may decide the fate of the poor slaves, and through them, of the nation. To do our work, and do it properly, requires such wisdom as God only can give. You will find the Negroes of the planta- tions, in some cases, idle, and roaming about — husbands searching for -their wives, parents for their children, sold from them. All possible facilities must be afforded them in this sacred work. Order must be established, indus- try, tidiness in personal habits, as well as in their dark and miserable cabins, secured, and all, when age or health will allow it, must have immediate employment They will receive you as friends, but they will not only carefully weigh your words and actions, but they will try your spirit. They are sensitive, acute observers, and readily distinguish between a patronizing friend and a real one. To have an influence over them, you must first convince them that yours is a brother's hand and heart. Under the old system, there was a constant strife between master and slave, each guarding jealously their own inte- rests, productive of evil only to either party. " First prove to them that their interests are yours, and you will acquire power to elevate and improve them. They are more or less in doubt as to their future condition, and will inquire earnestly your opinions. You may not feel assured of their liberty by any action of the govern- ment as yet, still I believe He who overruleth all things, has now decreed them free, and free forever [applause], and that events will soon prove it. It is this conviction that gives warrant," dignity, as well as sacredness to our mission. 28 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. " Going, with this conviction, you can sow the good seed of knowledge and all improvement, in strong faith for a harvest. Obstacles, confusion and delays, or slowly mani- festing signs of improvement, will not discourage such laborers. Some have desired a lease of the land, and wanted the Negroes to cultivate them. "We desire a lease of the broad and long neglected acres of humanity, and the land thrown in, to develop this humanity. " You ask me if it will be well to assure them of their freedom. We should do all things as wisely as possible. It may be best to tell them, that we believe they are free, and that now they have an opportunity to prove to the world whether they are capable of self-government and support, and general respect, or not — that we have come to render them all possible aid — that the government and the North, generally, desire the experiment to be suc- cessful, but still, much will depend on their own efforts. " The former system led to involuntary overdraft upon the physical man. The excitement of free labor, if the people are what we believe they are, will require an increase of food, to avoid injury from overtasking. So peculiar and great is the work before us all, that a true f tness can be obtained for it only by divine grace, and in the field itself. Some of us may find that, though we have come with honest intent to do a good work, we nevertheless are not adapted to it, and had better retire and give place to others. To leave in such a case, should be regarded as honorable. " Under the slave system, the people having the evil of their natures developed, every look and act of their Master tended to impress them with a sense of inferiority and degradation. Let any parent pursue a similar course with a lovely and promising child, and it would not be long before that child, in its little crushed heart, would DISHEARTENED CHILD OPINIONS — FEELINGS RESPECTED. 29 assent to its own degradation, give way to the worst pas- sions, and seek the worst company. ~V\ r e have known some such sad, cruel failures on the part of parents. Watch for good, and when the tender plant appears, cherish it. Approve judiciously of every good thing. Chide for evil, sparingly and sympathizingly. Lead them to be encouraged, even from failures. Experience of any kind may always be turned to good account in some direction. " They have a religious experience deep in the heart, learned in the school of toil and sorrow, which possesses great value to them. Any lack of appreciation, or especially any contempt manifested toward their religious opinions or feelings, will wound very deeply. In some of the deep things of God, we may learn from some of them. We have come from different sections of the country, with differences, no doubt, in creeds, but it is hoped that we shall be so united in heart and effort, as to secure perfect unity in the mission, and the greatest pos- sible good to these poor people." CHAPTER Y. LANDING. Arriving at last at Beaufort, at twelve, on Saturday evening, Dr. Peck, an excellent Baptist minister, and who was the first missionary on the ground after the de- sertion of Beaufort, was soon on board, and exchanging salutations through the ceiling, he kindly invited us to his house on the following morning. Accordingly we were stirring early, and in the mist which dimmed the out- lines of encircling shores, and filled every space and corner of wharfs, street?, and porches, we commenced our wade through the sandy and narrow streets, like all in Beau- fort, except a very few blocks, minus sidewalks. Truly, " the ways " of these arch-rebels " were movable," their foundations sandy and slippery. We plod up the bank — for the original features of mother earth are not impu- dently obliterated here by gradings, as in Northern cities — we pass by old dwelling-houses, bakeries, etc., till we emerge upon an open street, with Beaufort River upon one hand, and tolerable residences upon the other. We pass where years ago there must have been fires, whose spirits yet exult upon arches, chimneys, steps, walls, and eyeless windows. AVhat desolation ! Not a person have we met, or even seen, excepting two frizzly headed white boys, peeping out of a bakery window into the mist. " Here is our home," said Dr. Peck, and we enter a house a century old, at least, with porches new, and one tier 80 DESCENDANT OF JONATHAN EDWARDS VEGETATION. 31 of rooms comparatively new, into the upper of which wo are ushered. This, with modern windows on three sides, the never-failing large wardrobe, the piano, bookshelves, solas, cheerful ancient lire upon the hearth, floor of snowy whiteness, and, far more, the genial Christian welcome, seems a refuge from dreariness. Soon the neat, turban- ned, and low courtesied servants came in, and laid break- fast, of fine coffee, mackerel, potatoes, and butter and bread. Our host, Dr. P., is of the most dignified and gen- tlemanly bearing, his fine blue eyes, ample forehead and snowy locks, and earnest expression, all speaking the great, tender Christian minister. His daughter, the great-great- great-grandchild of Dr. Jonathan Edwards, and of Thomas Hooper, and seeming worthy of her noble lineage, and three fellow-travellers, complete the circle. Our windows, on this sixth of March, look down upon orange and lemon- trees in full leaf, and their pure white buds just bursting, a large rose geranium, whose leaf covers our hand, olean- ders budding, roses in bloom, and much other shrubbery. Still, the aspect is that of sterility. Singular ! such growths out of a bed of sand, where poor grass and sickly weeds strive vainly for eminence. The outbuildings here, as everywhere, struck us as most decrepit, dozing in all manner of queer attitudes ; fences, poor at first, abused and aged. In short, all the never-failing signs of lack of thrift, and interest in slave laborers, everything askew and ill-placed. Dr. Peck, however, has been here some weeks, and given freshened appearances. Hark ! The scream of a bird smites our ear. " A robin," says one. " That can hardly be a robin, surely," said we, though aware of the fact that while the plumage of birds is finer, their notes are coarser, in these latitudes. " Yes. "What an excited harsh, note ! Can it be from our position on the bay-looking river, or is it from the 32 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. strange nervousness of our soul, or system, in tins land of horrid visions of cruelty and sin ? Yes ; it is a robin, our f vorite bird, — the second note proves it. But it seems screaming over the desolations here. Yes, it shrieks shivery, and the distant shores reecho it — the rising tide whispers it — the morning breezes sigh it — yonder pines talk mournfully of it— the wind, now strengthening, roars it. The ghosts of cruelty seem gliding about the room, and perching upon the book-shelves, sofas, piano, ward- robe, cradle. Yes, cradle, for that sacred thing is here ! It is high and elegant, and so provided that the stinging insects of slavedom should not reach one babe ; while another, because darker, is thrown by the Christian mis- tress into the irresponsible hands of the worst of men, under the influence of the worst passions, intensified and licensed by drink, avarice, and licentiousness, almost in- variably. The mistress, though she honors the worse wholesale dealer, scorns to speak to this man of all sin. But she throws these innocents, and helpless girls into his irresponsible power, and God is silent. It matters not that it is done by the hands of another ; she, the cause, is responsible, and scorns not to live upon such gains. Slavery does not and cannot anywhere exist without this, for no family will, or does, keep the increase. The mis- tress, too, must go to a watering-place, take a journey, have new furniture, or new dress, and her faithful, trem- bling, agonized servant's child must be sold to pay ex- penses ; and that, after she had voluntarily promised her, over and over, she would sell — " no mo' ! no mo' !" Or, perhaps, mean appetite calls, and " they sell a boy for a harlot, and a girl for wine," as is proven by yards, top- pling down houses, lanes, stables, and garrets, being almost literally paved with. wine bottles, which led an officer to remark, " These Southerners loved three things. Negroes, WINE — KELIGIOES MAGAZINES — EDITORS — MANHOOD. 33 wine, and religions magazines." But all the magazines we saw, built them np in the sin of slavery, by silence, and by conveying thereby the assurance, that they might be holy with it. What a disgrace to their editors were those magazines, kicking about the yards, cellars — or rather arched spaces under the houses — and gardens! What a work, for one who calls himself a man, and for eternity ! 2* CHAPTER YL FIRST CONVERSE WITH EX-SLAVES. He is one to whom Long patience hath such mild composure given, That patience now doth seem a thing of which He hath no need. "Wordsworth. Fire being now kindled in another chamber for us, we soon had our first privilege of speaking and listening to an ex-slave, as she came in, courtesying, to attend upon us. She seemed in good heart, tidy, and to have great reverence for the good doctor. Being asked of her re- ligious state, she immediately glided into conversation respecting her mistress, her sorrow at leaving Beaufort, her hatred of the North, her silver, her daughters, but, above all, the wonder, over and over, expressed that she herself had never been a field-hand, — "neber!" This marvel was on account of the great riches and expec- tations of her mistress. And the wonder, scarcely less, was, that she had not been a common drudge, but " a mos' 'spectable servant in a mos' 'spectable family," all whose honors and wealth seemed to add to her own dignity, — in short, to be her own. "You would be glad to see them?" said we, ani- matedly. " Oh, no, Missus! don't want to see them, neber, neber ! Ko, mo'!" "You feel free, then?" FIRST CONVERSE WITH EX-SLAVES. 35 " Oli ! Missus, we's trusting and praying the Lord Jesus Christ for dat. He is able — we knows he can — we can do no mo' but trust hiin. Oh, Missus, chil'en all go to school now — all ; and all go to Sabbath-school, ebery Sunday, ebery one Sunday. We's praise de Lord for what we do got, and trust him to be free." " What do you pray for about this war ?" " God bless ! God bless ! we must ask God first how to pray. Beliebers has no counsel in all dat judg- ment. You say : ' Lord, now show me de goodness, show me de meanness.' You pick and choose none for iudorment. If you don't born ob God, don't know. Mr. ■I O * Lincum hab de Christian heart. Presiden', dear presi- den" good man ob God ! Oh ! we pray for God, add to him knowledge, wisdom, guard him, crown him ! I lef ol' mas'rs all to de Lord. I know de Lord by his word. Whosoeber beliebs him, on de right hand ob him.'' " How do you pray for your old masters ?" " I ask de Lord : ' Lord ! look down 'pon de igno- rant dis'bedient servants. Grant thy blessing, dat dey may see dat dey hab done wickedness.' I lef dem all wid de Lord." '•Do you think they are awful sinners?" <: My dear missus," [raising his hands,] " all dat 'tween deir soul an 1 God ! I was wicked gen'ration, stealin', Ivin', dis'bedient, in de woods. You chain me to de t r ee — I bruise de tree. God hab mercy, I cry. Now I not sin ; I gentleman ! filled wid de Spirit ob God. — Walk in de spirit ob holiness now. Mas'r sell all, wife an' chil'en. Put de debil in me ! Nor food for eat for two days, work hard all de time. Say : ' Please gib me one pint ob corn! one pint!' No! I get to de cub- board, eat some. Congress say: 'Wicked nigger!'— 'Stealin' nigger!'" The testimony'of the superintend- ent and preacher was, that this was an excellent man and an excellent Christian. 3G SL AVERT IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLATES. This sentiment, reiterated from every one — from the de- vout with deepest uplifting of the heart and hands, and, even from the comparatively thoughtless, reverently, is most touching, and often brings tears. In short, were we obliged to describe the spirit of the ex-slaves by one text, it should be, — " We trust in the Lord Jehovah, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength." Poor crushed and peeled race! While they honor, serve, and reverence the good man, their eyes are unto the Lord, their expectation is from Him, and they look with such a chastened, patient quietness, upon everything that is doing, for or against them, as touches all hearts most deeply. The most devout seem to see a hand you cannot see, to hear a voice you cannot hear, to feel a liberating Power approaching you cannot feel. CHAPTER TIL BEATTFOET. " How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her : for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her , plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine. And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her, for no man buyeth their merchandise any more. The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyme wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner ves- sels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, And cinnamon, and odors, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men. And the fruits that thy soul lusted after, are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty, and goodly, are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all. The merchants of these things which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, And saying, Alas, alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls : For in one hour so great riches is come to naught. And every ship master, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off."— Rev. xviii. T, 8, 11-11. Ox the Atlantic coast in ever traitorous S. Carolina, is Beaufort, Biifort, or Bofort, as it is* variously called or 38 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. by the Colored, a name contracted from " Beautiful Fort," erected by the French, in the sixteenth century, on the Beaufort river, four miles below, toward Hilton Head. It is an ancient and drowsy town, or city, of over two centuries. Its business was mostly done on the river street. Its buildings, with porches and arbors, stand in military line and gravity, along the fine bank. Its old houses, sitting among the newer, in a gentle curve, upon these fair waters, like aged mothers, among pert, ele- gant and ambitous daughters, all seem in profound repose. Its alleys, walls, garden-walks, creep blindly along, feeling their way amid tangled shrubbery, neg- lected flower plants, and aged trees. Its streets, of either deep sand or tnrf, say, "It is impossible that real life, either in business or pleasure, ever animated them." The splendid parades and grand music of the military, the roll of drum, the universal gallop of the many mounted, officers, seem only to rouse the faintest and doziest of echoes, and to stir the still air for an instant. The tide creeps languidly, hesitatingly disputing territory with the broad shores of white sand, but, like freedom, always in the end, triumphant, and some houses seem, having started, to stand pondering whether or not to fall. Most public build- ings and walls show very imperfect building, and with suburbs, long neglect. In short, " slavery is written upon everything in such a look of shiftlessness," as a Philadel- phia lady remarked. Nearly all marble monuments in the churchyard, for instance, are covered with singular black mold, which need only be removed once a year, to be. kept away. Fences around graves, intended for orna- ment or defence, contain the dead limbs, trunks, rubbish, and leaves of years, and filled with weeds and rank, poi- sonous vines and briars, seem fit dwelling-places for rep- MERCHANTS WEEPING — AFPEARANCE OF BEAUFORT. 39 tiles ; but some have been carefully kept. Marble monu- ments, when composed of several pieces, are falling apart, and showing their hypocritical brick hearts, while a few scared flowers seem lifting their lone heads as if to apolo- gize. In the ancient churches, and graveyards surround- ing them, nearly everything slants at every possible angle. Nothing is quite upright, as if in punishment to man for not being so. Beaufort is, in short, a complete specimen of slaveholding aristocracy. The showy man- sion, the miserable slave " quarters," scarcely a place but has somewhere the tell-tale of poverty ; or if not of that, certainly of most contemptible avarice or ineffici- ency. For instance, one mansion, with costly empannel- led parlors, has back-floors slanting, back-stairs tottering, and " quarters " floorless, the deep white sand having become black and nauseous. Yet in this hideous place, every iota for the splendid table was cooked. The poor Colored woman, a saint of God, said, " I used to had to work till after de secon' crowing, den I would jes throw my bed on 'at kitchen table and sleep till mo/ light, cans' I have to do task fo' I get breakfast." To one who has seen the pile of black rags, the poor slave calls his bed, and can imagine it, upon the only kitchen table, com- ment is unnecessary. But of course visitors w r ere too well bred ever to look toward the kitchen, or take its odious breath. Impressions, upon entering church here, were the most shocking — a den of thieves — a den of thieves — rine cut up mo'. Neber had no chance to speak to nobody 'bout Massah, neber !" NEBEE CHANCE TO SPEAK 'BOUT MASSAII. 61 . The slave, too, conceals. lie is never off his guard, lie is perfectly skilled in hiding all emotions. The downcast eye, dull when he wills it, conceals his opinions, the hearty laugh his grief. His Master knows him not, except, possibly, as to what brute force will best subdue him. Nothing is more apparent now that the mask is thrown off, than that owners never under- stood their slaves. They were accomplished tragedians, the dullest of them, as will in many cases appear, in this work. But lest some think we err, and that Masters and visitors did understand them, we give from Southern Works, extracts from the official eepoet of the rebel- lion under Denmark Yesey, of Charleston. It says : " He was for twenty years a most faithful slave. He maintained such an irreproachable character, and en- joyed so much the confidence of the whites, that when he was accused of leading the rebellion, not only was the charge discredited, but he was not even arrested for several days after, and not till the proofs of his guilt had -become too strong to be doubted. JSTot a symptom of the volcauo raging within him had ever appeared, and on close investigation of his whole life, nothing could be adduced by witnesses but that once he had said, respecting his children, 'he wished he could see them free.' Yet for more than four years, the enterprise for the independence of the blacks had occupied his whole mind." That the Colored men cannot be understood when they will it otherwise, is further proven from the same Report. It goes on to say : " It is a remarkable fact, that the general good" char- acter of the leaders, except Gullah Jack, was such as rendered them objects least liable to suspicion. Their conduct had secured them not only the unlimited confi- dence of their owners, but they had been indulged." 62 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. "But," continues the Report, "not only were the leaders of good character, and very much indulged by their owners, hut this was very generally the case, with all who were convicted, many of them possessing the highest confidence of their owners, and not one re- puted of had character." We merely quote this from Southern records, as being more convincing to critics — not as more striking, than many instances we have found. Of course, no sensible slave would be so out of love with life, as to say to his Master, " I desire freedom." And the more he was plotting for it, the more loving and contented would he appear. So, in everything, long habit lias inured them to deception. Often, they act the opposite of what they feel, as it seems almost involuntarily. Their accuracy in reading character from the counte- nance and appearance is amazing. This has been their life-long study. The deep thought it engenders is taken for dullness. Then, many of them are hated, abused, sold for resembling their Master, with all the spirit of his family swelling and boiling within them. How, then, could visitors comprehend them, especially when on o;ood terms with their Masters? But the book of slavery has not only been sealed by ignorance, but by every device and misrepresentation which ages of experience, tact, learning, and talent, could devise. The Master must make money, that is indispen- sable, and anti-slavery notions would ruin his business. Therefore they must not, should not prevail, and of this, and to prejudice all against the Colored man and in favor of slavery, he never loses sight, never ! Even now, at Port Royal, the seals of the book of slavery have to be forced. If, for instance, persons approach the huts of the field hands, they are met at the BOOK SEALED HUTS LADIES FREE COLORED. 63 door by the whole family, who stand right before it, and with bows, courtesies, and docile actions and words, would beguile you from entering-. This, however, they have tact enough to make appear as a mere matter of course. When, by a kind remark, you assure them that they arp not responsible for their hard case, they receive it grate- fully, but still no way can you possibly open to enter the hut, until you say decidedly, " I will go in, if you please." Still, slavery is a sealed book, for though you have seen their wretchedness, you cannot tell it — words cannot do it. Most of our ladies at first, burst into tears, look around, and go out without speaking. Soon the whole abused, ragged group are around them ; with streaming eyes, they tell them " that they feel for them, that we have come to help them, and to teach them to be worthy of freedom, in all their habits." We tell them "that the government, and their friends who have long prayed and plead for them, are watching to see what they will now do ; whether what their Masters have long said is true, 'that they will be untidy, lazy, and improvident, will not work, and cannot take care of themselves.' " At which their eyes sparkle, and they say, " We can ! we'll show 'um !" We tell them how Colored people live at the North, have good houses, beautifully dressed and well- educated children and family prayers, and sit down at table three times daily, to eat all together, so happy!- all of which causes them to rejoice amazingly. They invariably and warmly accede to all you say ; and better still, when reform is made it is permanent, remarkably so. This is general testimony. And still further, slavery is a sealed book, over the vast multitudes who die under its awful rigors, and tortures. We cite one, of hundreds of proofs. " While attending the Baptist Triennial Convention at 64: SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. Richmond, Ya., in 1835," says Mr. C," " I had a con- versation with an officer of the Baptist clinrch in that city, at whose house I was a guest. I asked him if he did not apprehend that the slaves would eventually rise and exterminate their Masters ? ' Why,' said the gentle- man, ' I did use to apprehend such a catastrophe, but God has made a providential opening, a merciful safety valve, and now I do not feel alarmed, in the prospect of what is coming.' ' What do you mean,' said Mr. Choules, ' by Providence opening a merciful safety valve V ' Why,' said the gentleman, ' I will tell you. The slave-traders come from the cotton and sugar plantations of th'e South, and are willing to buy uj? more slaves than we can part with. We must keep a stock for the purpose of rearing slaves, but we part with the most valuable, and at the same time the most dangerous ; and the demand is very constant, and is likely to be so, for when they go to those Southern States, their average existence is ONLY FIYE YEARS !' " " The people, including church members, are not usually, though some are, better than their laws." f Still who, who shall open the seals of this awful book ? Would that hosts of able professional men from the North were here, to observe critically for themselves, the facts belonging to their various professions ; that being thus first convinced themselves, they might report more adequately. But slavery is a sealed book. You, having seen, can- not so report appearances but your auditors will get a lower opinion of these poor people than they deserve, or than you have. Nay, you cannot merely see them, and * Baptist minister, formerly of New Bedford, and of Buffalo, N.Y. f GroodelTs American Slave Code, pp. 133, 134. WHO ? OPEN THE 8EALS OF THE BOOK ? G5 for ever so long a time, without the same result. You must converse with them, take them off their guard, watch them when tested, and then, unless they are con- vinced your interest is deep, real, heartfelt, you will learn little of them. But to whom, to whom shall it be given to open the seals of this dire book ? Would our Lord enable us to do it, we would cheerfully sutler almost anything. Life itself looks as nothing to surrender, could we only show slavery to the ladies of the North as it is. But, alas ! all writers, even the ablest, the best, the most vehement against it, using the only and best lights they have, speak of those dear saints of God, so individually pure and dear to our heart, as a mere mass, or as a great body of debasement, and the natural inference of the mind una- voidably is, that they are so debased that it is, after all, little matter how they are used. So sealed up by long, and mean, and bitter obloquy from Masters is their true purity of heart and character. CHAPTEE XIY. SLAVERY A VICE. For lie that but conceives a crime, in thought, Contracts the danger of an actual fault ; Then what must he expect, that still proceeds To finish sin, and work up thoughts iu deeds. But does one declare the alleged facts of the forego- ing chapter, impossibilities ? Listen ! Slavery is a vice ! It seizes and grows upon one, and holds him victim, just like another vice, as intemperance. He vents all the pas- sions of the carnal heart upon his subjects. He glories in his mean power, procured under our benign government by mere dollars, at a slave pen. He requites himself by despotism here at home, for want of power, authority, and influence elsewhere. Said a talented officer, " it is not so mnch any profit of slavery, or what they get, or look for, from it, as a love of dominion, a glory in domineering over men, that these slaveholders consider, and are deter- mined to keep. But what provokes me," continued he, " is to see them put the poor whites below their slaves, in every way, and teach the Negroes to insult them, just for love of domineering." If, too, slavery is not a vice, why do many Masters cause debasement, whipping and torture, just in proportion as they become intoxicated or debased in other ways \ which is an admitted fact. B esides, if whole communities could be thrilled at bull- ; : s, gladiatorial shows, etc., cannot the most debased find gratification in the agonies of a hated race? a race, 60 WHITE TRASn CETJELTT — SECRECY — CONGRESSMAN. 67 too, whose wrongs and sorrows haunt their best mo- ments, and horrify their worst, and who, the more they are sinned against-, the more they are hated, by an immu- table law of mind? "But loss of property would prevent cruelty," one Bays. Then why does it not prevent all that is dear, yes life itself, being lost, yea, even the priceless soul, for the wine cup, gambling, or licentiousness ? Is not the gratifi- cation of vicious revenge too, or slander, often dearer than life, or character itself? Do you, doubter, not be- lieve cruelty exists in the human heart ? Certainly. And does any evil exist there, which' may not become a towering, tyrannical vice ? Does not all vice grow by exercise ? "What cruelty too, toward animals, has there been in all ages ? and can a man get as angry at a beast as at a man ? Can he hate a beast as he can hate a man ? Can the natural heart hate a wicked man as it can hate a Christian ? Did not God, therefore, obviously never de- sign one man to have unlimited power over another? And none dare bear witness, for if a slave is killed, other slaves dare not even talk of it among themselves, lest they suffer the same, that being the rule, especially as among those so degraded, there must be some traitors. But are you not convinced that one can find more grati- fication in cruelty than in gain ? A PICTURE. OF A CONGRESSMAN — rROOF. On a plantation, every Monday morning, the darkies are all assembled. They seem glad to see " Massah," flock round him closely as possible. He is going to -have a treat. These poor people after working from light until dark, upon a peck of corn, the week previous, have washed their poor clothes on Sunday morning, done all odd jobs, 68 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. got their wood for tlie week, bringing it home upon their heads, and are ready to commence the hopeless toil of another week. But Massah must have his gratification, and probably he apologizes to himself, or friends, that it will make the work go on better. So, behold the Con- gressman, elevated, his poor slaves all crowding close as possible to the stump or block, well knowing that severity in whipping increases with every moment's gratification. " Sambo, do you want to be whipped ?" " Yes, Massah," and on go cuts enough to lay one not used to it, prostrate. " That do, Sambo ?" " Yes, Massah." " Go, Sambo." " Good Massah, tank you, Massah.'^ " Jim, you want to be whipped ?" he cries to one strong enough to push away the rest and be first. "Yes, Massah." He gets a little more, and with his " Tank you, Massah," leaves. And so this dignified gentleman, who, perhaps, has kissed a lady's hand in "Washington, treated timid Con- gress freely, contemptuously ! goes on, until he whips every Negro, including women, and all children old enough to go afield, making every punishment more and more severe, until the last is nearly prostrated. Then the driver comes in for his share ; and one, a man of God, of whom his superintendent speaks very highly, calling him a con- sistent Christian, told me he had received one hundred and fifty lashes, at one time, with their awful whip, com- posed of three or five thongs, for nothing but not driving harder than -he possibly could. More of this man, soon. What a spectacle of the morally sublime was that driver, that man, as he stood before us ! What a chance for an artist to catch an expression, which would immortalize DREADED CONTEMPT — VICE — TOTAL ABSTINENCE. 09 him ! A beautiful, holy, expression of face is often seen when God cometh and dwelleth in man ; but it is usually one of joy, of triumph, of bliss, mostly. But here, it was all that, mingled with agony, a vivid appreciation of the wrong, the injustice of man, in a mind cleared, and inten- sified by religion, a holy consciousness of haying a man- hood, and a life that the lash, and the still moke dreaded shame and contempt could not touch ! and that the Mas- ter could not understand. All these, softened by perfect love, perfect patience, perfect soul chastening, sat in full simplicity upon that face. And some such face fastens the gaze in every meeting, and upon most plantations. But angels only could draw that expression. It is the smile of God, reflected, the smile he gives to those only who " have nothing, nothing ! but Jesus." "When slavery comes to be regarded as a vice, and is treated as such, then, will the testimonies of its advo- cates, and victims, be received for what they are actually worth. Then will the only cure of any vice, total absti- nence, be applied. That it is a vice will further appear, from the fact, that it vitiates the whole man. Qualities, which before were virtues, all shrivel into vices, under its wand. Frugality becomes avarice. System, order, punctuality, become tyr- anny, despotism, barbarity ; what were dignity, is bru- tal imperiousness, as well to the broken-hearted wife, in many cases as toward those for whom she vainly inter- cedes. Chastity, becomes beastly sensuality; self-respect, towering madness at any restraint, or, perchance, in serving lordly self in any and every way. Now add all this to the fact that the Master has often, never been re- strained, in one propensity, in youth, never governed, much less subdued, and you who know much of Southern society, know this is a fact, and know, too, from all testi- TO SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. many that young lads exercise perfect authority over all the Colored on many plantations. We have ourselves an instrument of torture, with which a lad of fourteen daily amused and "'ratified his premature tyranny, by torturing every child on the place, numbering between thirty and forty. But that some who hold the relation of slaveholder are not such in heart, but the direst victims of the sys- tem will appear in other chapters, prominent among whom, are the wives of these tyrants. That slavery is a vice, is further evident, from the fact that it absorbs, like all other cherished vices, the whole man. Property, reputation, true honor, life, soul, is each for a time swallowed up, lost sight of. The one daily o'ermastering passion, or vice rules. In the indulgence of this vice, so lost are some, that one is amazed at the utter waste of money, dignity, good name, family pride, life. The scenes that occur, where this vice is rampant, almost defy belief, and description, totally. That per- sons who sometimes appear manly, will so stoop, is almost incredible. The lives of poor slaves then are as nothing, or they will sacrifice one — which they can at any time legally do if he but lift his hand! to terrify the rest. It would absolutely be a comfort — since we have been told by such circumstantial and corroborative testimony of their barbarities — we say it would be a com- fort, to believe that they actually thought them not hu- man, so horrid were their cruelties, and sacrifice of life. But the government is now responsible. It has got to say, " I will not murder" or " I will." Nothing but the obliteration of the last jot of power, instanter, can save .the awful responsibility and its eternal consequences ! — ■ Nothing ! If it does not put an end at once to slavery, we are a nation of murderers, willful murderers ! And, if we NATIONAL MURDER INNOCENT ONLY AFTER ALL EFFORT. 71 say as a nation, "I will murder the innocent," whose helplessness should appeal to every manly heart, "one year, two or ten, or till it is convenient to stop," the soul- guilt is the same as if it were continued indefinitely. There is no escape. No Northern man, woman or child can wipe the mouth, and say, " I am clean," unless they each, after learning the facts, shall exert their very utmost energy to put away this horrid system. Anti-slavery laborers should everywhere be thicker and more earnest, and thoroughly prepared, than ever political laborers were. Then, it is a vice intensified by poverty, avarice, disap- pointment, remorse, constant failures. The vice is height- ened too by the provocations of grudging, irresponsible un- paid, abhorred labor, endless, and most aggravating, and perpetually recurring. The Master brings robbery, op- pression, agony to the slave ; the slave, just in propor- tion to his actual manhood, brings discomfort to the Mas- ter. How would you do, in his case, reader ? Besides, it is a vice in the hearts and power of a class, many of whom are acknowledged by acquaintances, and advocates, and friends, to be demented by intermarriages of near relatives, a practice strangely common in many parts of slavedom, and becoming more and more so. It must too, inevitably, become worse and worse yearly, unless the dire system is destroyed ; for while the temptations from many causes increase, the power to resist them diminishes with mental weakness, and will, until, if they remain a race of slaveholders, we shall have a race of actual fools, by the testimony of their own relatives, who are alarmed, as they have assured us. How much of the present course of the masses is to be attributed to this even now, it is impossible to say, for it is obvious, that let a North- ern man be never so wicked, he cannot somehow 72 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAYES. equal them in blind, self-assured impudence, and in not seeing or feeling sound obvious reasons, and moral claims and relations. "Where is the man in the whole South that compares with Jefferson or Patrick Henry ? And how evident that, as a whole, they ' are strong only in over- bearing, and bluster, and for all this we are all guilty. "We, and others, long wondered, and inquired why it could be that little innocent toddlers, of two and three years, should be whipped daily ? what motive there could be for such brutality. But slavery is a vice. Reader, can you imagine from thirty, to fifty, little innocents, coming up in agony to Mistress, or her son of thirteen, to get their morning torture. Yet all this is absolute fact, and so common, that the query was passed around why, why? it could be? One said, of one, "she got provoked at one and so sure as she did, after punish- ing that, she punished every child on the plantation" for they are all under the care of one Negress, too old to work, of seventy or eighty, and in one case one hundred. One, thought they believed it made them grow, and many other reasons were suggested ; but if slavery is a vice, it is explained. The love of oppression, and a de- based, carnal nature is gratified. But, farther, we must say, that the most plausible reason given was, that it broke their spirit effectually, and forever, so that they would not even dream of liberty. Now, let such a boy become a Congressman, and you have there one of the spirits that have caused this re- bellion, that have ever moulded compeers, in a way that is incredible, and never, never ! should have been tole- rated. And these are the men that this day seem to rule this nation, actually, though just now behind the curtain. These are the men that must be conciliated ! As well conciliate the evil one himself. These men are the per- SHALL SLAVERY BE DESTROYED ? — AT ONCE? 73 sons that must not be exasperated ; as well not exas- perate the raving maniac. But its exhibitions, as a vice, are almost endless. Shall it be destroyed ? at once ? Speak, ye who make rulers. CHAPTEE XY. SLAVES HELD FEOM NECESSITY. Who bears no trace of passion's evil force t Who shuns thy sting, horrible Remorse ? Who does not cast On the thronged pages of his memory's book At times, a sad and half-reluctant look, Regretful of the past ? Whittier. That slavery or oppression is a vice, is further proven from the fact, that those who are as kind to those under them, as they know how to be, or as kind as they have liberty of law ! to be in slavedom, are universally opposed to it. We challenge all investigation and proof to the contrary, on this point. But how shall we know that a given Mas- ter is kind ? Appearances are nothing, though never so good, and never so long continued. Testimony of slaves so long as they are under his power, is nothing ; for if you are on any terms with " Massah," such as even to permit you to stay upon the plantation, they will not trust you, sooner than they will him, with complaints. Their only hope is in propitiating their demon of a driver, or over- seer, for they know "Massah, he won't interfere, he won't let Nigger speak 'bout driver or 'bout oberseer. You can't tell him when you lick'd, 'thout get mo'." Then, to come at the truth, as to whether any one Mas- ter is kind, even to the very limited extent of his power, by law, and over the driver and the overseer, you must be invisibly present at the startings for work, before 74 DARE SPEAK — KIXD ONES NOT FOR SLAVERY. 75 light, or at the weighings and settlings up of tasks aftei dark in the lone place, far away from the plantation dwelling — for we cannot say "plantation mansions" since we have seen them — or, you must take them, as we did, when Massah being gone forever, as they fully believe, they dare speak. We do not say that in every case the Master does, not intend to be truthful. But, alas ! -what can he know unless present ? and where is the Master that will be present in both twilights of every day ? Or, where is the Master that dare interfere if he is, to the subversion of all plantation system, order, and success ? But of all, every one, of whom their people, now free to speak truthfully, assert that they were kind, wait a moment and listen ! and they invariably assert of them, " O, dey was not for slavery ! Dey did not believe in slavery !" One said, " O Missus, my Massah was the kindest, best man ! Bless you ; he not for slavery ! Oh, you ought to seen him walk 'at yard dere, with his hands crossed behind his back, and sigh, and sigh; and he speak so kind to you, and to de chiln, it make you cry. O ! he not for slavery ! h*e not for dis war. Oh, he de innocentest, best man. But, bless you, he couldn't do nothing, Missus was all for slavery. She not very hard ; not hab you cut up, like mos' of dem, but she tight 'bout work — very tight. She all. for slavery. Laws, Massah couldn't do nothing ; he heart mos' broke. Oh,, he good man ! good man !" Of another it was said : " Dat minister say ' he would not own slave ; if he hab so much gold, he walk on it for pavement.' He not for slavery ! But he wife, great for slavery ; she own all de slaves, he can't do nothing !" " I wonder he was not afraid to speak his mind so freely here." " Why, bless you, Missus, dey knew 'at Missus great 76 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. for slavery. Dey knew she hab own way. Dey didn't mind what lie bay. But he good man, good preacher." Three superior Colored women also testified to one- kind Master. They said : "We could hab libed wid Mas- sah and Missus foreber; dey kind. But 'twas de oder folks dere; de 'lations 'bout de house 'at make us have tight times wid work, get cut up. But Massah and Missus wa'nt hard, though he pretty tight for work. Sometimes give you task to take till dark, oder times get done long befo' night, 'bout dis time. O! he not hard; he not much for slavery, nor Missus eider. We could lib wid dem foreber, if 'twant fo' de oder folks dere. Dey all for slavery !" The only other case of a kind Missus, we heard of in conversation with the Colored on twent} -five plantations, and in town, was from a light, genteel Colored woman, and her companions. They said "Missus did all she thought she could, for we. She couldn't do no mo'. She not hard, she not for slavery. She pray and plead 'gainst dis war at first. Den she pray and pray ! God, to take her, fo' it cum. He did. He take her ! She die just ten days befo' the taking of Hilton Head. She just scape ail 'at confusion. Young Massah gone, we don't know where. She done all she could wid him, for we. Oh she was good Missus, good Christian." These owners, were the victims, not of slavery as a vice, dearer, than all else, but as a system. But docs one ask, " Why did they not free their slaves?" We answer, how could they in a land where Thomas Jefferson with all his power, and abilities, and efforts,- could not free his own children — as common report called them — but in his last will he himself " im- plores the legislature of Virginia, to confirm its bequests, witli permission to remain in the State where their fami- DK. NELSON "WEEPING OVER SLAVERY — POLICY. 77 lies and connections are, then, dying under the uncer- tainty wnether his requests would be granted, or his children sold into the rice swamps ! One of his daugh- ters, it seems, was afterward sold at auction, at the harem price ! And his grand-daughter was colonized, to Libe- ria 'coerced' perhaps by the 'cart whip. 5 A land of liberty for white people is it, when a Jefferson cannot bequeath liberty to his own children ! In Georgia, had he lived there the attempt would have been an ' offence' for which his estate would have been subjected to a fine of a thousand dollars, and each of his executors if accept- ing the trust to a thousand more."* So was it with Dr. Nelson, eminent for patriotism, learn- ing and piety, whose work upon Infidelity is one of the most efficient popular appeals that has ever appeared. The following is from one of his letters :f "I have resided in North Carolina more than forty years, and been intimately acquainted with the system, and I can scarcely even think of its operations without shedding tears. It causes me excessive grief to think of MY OWN POOR SLAVES, for wllOIll I HAVE FOR YEARS BEEN trying to find a free home. It strikes me with equal astonishment and horror to hear Northern people make light of slavery. Had they seen and known as much of it as I, they could not thus treat it, unless callous to the deepest woes and degradation of humanity, and dead both to the religion and philanthropy of the Gospel. But many of them are doing just what the hardest-hearted tyrants of the South most desire. Those tyrants would not, on any account, have them advocate, or even apolo- gize for slavery in an unqualified manner. This would * Goodell's American Slave Code, p. 375. f Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin. 73 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAYES. be bad policy with the North. I wonder that Gerritt Smith should understand slavery so much better than most of the Northern, people. How true was his remark, on a certain occasion, namely, that the South are laugh- ing in their sleeves, to think what dupes they make of most of the people at the North in regard to the real cha- racter of slavery ! Well did Mr. Smith remark that the system, carried out on its fundamental principle, would as soon enslave any laboring white man as an African. But, if it were not for the support of the North, the fabric of Hood would fall at once. And of all the efforts of public bodies at the North to sustain slavery, the Connec- ticut General Association has made the best one. I have never seen anything so well constructed in that line as their resolutions of June, 1836. The South certainly could not have asked anything more effectual. But, of all Northern periodicals, the 'New York Observer' must have the preference, as an efficient support of slavery. 1 am not sure but it does more than all the things com bined to keep the dreadful system alive. It is just the succor demanded by the South. Its abuse of the aboli- tionists is music in Southern ears, which operates as a charm." If Jefferson, and Dr. Nelson, then, could not free their slaves what could poor lone women do? Crushed for a life time beneath the awful car of slavery, acting up to the law of love, according to the light they had, weary of slavery, and sick of soul, this poor woman with one other of similar piety and bondage to cruel laws for whites! turned to the bosom of God and begged and begged for reception there by death, before the awful judgments, they saw impending should come. And God reached -down and " took them and drew them, from the great waters, and from the hands of strange children." CHAPTER XYI. BOND AND FREE SEEVANTS. Woe to all who grind Their brethren of a common Father down ! To all who plunder from the immortal mind, Its bright and glorious crown ! Had we to be pat in prison, or upon a plantation or town estate, with the government of fourteen or sixteen or more slaves, as was the usual number in these large houses, we should deliberately choose the former even were the sin, of slavery, left out of the question. To drive on in all the minutiae of house labor — to com- pel care, in unwilling, grudging, revengeful hearts, — and revenge in some, has rankled desperately, and deep and long, and just in proportion to their ability, wrongs, and apparent docility — to force matters to desirable results — to attend to the buying, and making, of all garments, and to the health, of inefficient mothers, their children, everything, or have all go to wreck — to direct and invigorate and bring to proper issue the abortive efforts of aimless, hope- less, ambitionless labor, were a task, such as mortal can scarcely conceive of, and God never imposed upon man, and which no man, having the feelings and principles of a gentleman could impose upon a wife, provided he knew a better way. Our little experience has already shown us, that were we to undertake this slave work, the lash must be the 79 80 SLAVERY EST SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVE3. mainspring — and from its very nature, it is a mainspring that cannot aid with constancy, power, effect. Never did we so pity ladies in any condition as such, obliged to meet the responsibilities of their station, with grudging servants, whose whole aim was to escape the curse, labor, and who were perfect adepts in the science of how not to do it. The Northern lady with her one, or two hired servants, competent, energetic, ambitious, is comparatively free from care, and lives often too easily. The Southerner with her fourteen, sixteen or more and the whole responsibility and care of all of them and their children, finds in each slave, weight enough to crush her. No wonder that they who can afford it, shut up house, and often a large part of the year. If we never believed their assertion, that "it was the mistress that was the slave," we do now, most cordially, from some weeks' experience with their servants. Oh why do men hold on to sin, the world over, just in proportion to its costliness its enervating, paralyzing, destroying power ? But so under the sanctions of human nature, it ever is. One would think, one week of the sorrows of the drunken, dishonest, or cruel man were enough to wean him forever. So, one would think that one week of irresponsible, aim- less unpaid labor were enough. It was enough for ns. Our servants being detailed by the military power, and rationed, obligation to the government seemed to forbid explicit bargaining. Their future freedom too, being still clothed with doubt, all was chaos, as before. Every domestic thing therefore, seemed in our beginning here, to come short, as far as servants were concerned, either in the conception, execution, or " punctual delivery," and the more help, the worse, so that our efficient ladies began to look npon domestic responsibilities, with discourage- ment. Everything here, too, is so ill adjusted. Your QUARTERS — THE EREDE— REMARK OF A SLAVEHOLDER. 81 kitchen or quarters being down six or eiglft steps, across a hot, sandy yard, up as many more steps into a small room, with either too hot a fire on the hearth, or none, and the sun pouring in at the door, servants who had either " forgot" or found it " onpossible," to do your Lidding, quarters too dirty after repeated scrapings, and scrubbing*, to sit down in, even did the room and the heat allow. Nothing remains, but to go into the "big house " and wait a time and go out and find some other " onpossibility " had intervened. One would think the young bride so situated, if conscience, or some other principle, did not forbid, would straightway follow Judas. A lady, a slaveholder, calmly said, " Before I "would have my daughters suffer what I have, in the care of my work, and servants, I would give up every slave I've got, lose every cent, and take my children and beg. But still slavery, is none of the business of you Northerners." Then murder is none of the business of him who sees it, and might interfere, and does not. But, it is a great mis- take, that because Southerners have so many house-ser- vants, they do not work so hard. They do, each and every one, has a harder time than one, North, who does all the work for a family, for their mistakes, dilemmas, shirkings, repinings, plannings, explainings, deliberations, commandings, resistings, domineerings, and all the fur- ther " ings," you can, or please to add, are a thousand fold more wearing and tiresome, than cheerful work. Beside so many " onpossibilities," etc., etc. But all this disappears when free labor comes, and shirking is out of mind. 4* CHAPTER XVII. FKEE LABOK. Come hither ye that press your beds of down, And sleep not : see him sweating- o'er his bread Before be eats it. 'Tis the primal curse, But ripened into mercy : mark the pledge Of cheerful clays, and nights without a groan. But here comes in the remedy, free labor ! free labor ! These servants have been chosen with care, and detailed for us, by the noble and chivalrous Military, who look with great, just, scrutiny, upon our efforts. "We give them presents ; still their relation to us, and to the government as well as their future, is a little cloudy v "We having come to befriend the Colored, must succeed with them ourselves. "We must not make a failure ! as we are doing. Something effective must be done, and we ask wisdom. In the course of the day, we find opportunity to say, to them, separately, about thus, " There is a great difference in the treatment of servants in the Xorth, and South, we never whip or drive, or in general, talk very much to them. "We wait until we are sure they understand us, and know how, and when, we want things done, we talk always very gently to them, and explain our wishes clearly, and kindly. Then, if they do not remember, or do not do what we tell them, we often just go and hire others, before they know it, because if they do not try to please us, we infer, that they do not like our service, and as we 82 CAPACITIF.S IMPROVING UXDER FREE LABOR — FREE HOMES. 83 do not warn trouble about it, we get otlicK and let them go." Immediately everything brightens. Capacities to hear, understand, remember, and accomplish, were sud- denly and wonderfully developed, and everything went far better. But the stimulus of free labor, must be used like strong medicines, cautiously. In our ignorance we applied too much, and did injury. Our slippery Simon, ran the right way too fast. Peter, in spite of warnings from the ladies, scrubbed so very hard and nicely, and lifted so much at boxes, that he fell sick — John, too, the reliable, was somewhat ill — James was too much of a legalist, and being a little deaf escaped sickness— Susan, too, was sick. These ailments were real as was also their regret, at not being able to do for us. Our ladies began to exclaim, " We shall kill our servants by our energetic Northern manners." " We have got to be careful of them." The impetus and enthusiasm of free labor, is so new, and the strange excitement such a tax upon their systems, that care must be used. Many will smile incredulously at this, but experience, under right influences and stimuli, will prove the truth of the assertion. Take a Colored laborer North or South and he accomplishes in a given half hour, less than a white. But in the day or week, circumstances being equal, he often does more, more qui- etly, and usually does it better. We appeal to facts well attested by those who have tried both races. However, our Simon, Peter and John are all doing well, and James is permitted to be absent. If any think we have too many servants, let them remember, that in this land, where two women yet grind at the mill, and cotton is carded and spun as it was cen- turies since, everything to be done begins with the crea- tion. 84: SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAYES. To our chambermaid we said — " I should think your Mistress used to talk to you, all the time about your work, did she not ?" " All de time, Missus." " Well we do not ; we tell once how we want things done, then, our servants remember and while they work, we often talk of other things, and they take more and more pains every day, to please us, and so learn to love to do things, just right. Would not that be pleasant ?" " Yes, Missus," said Phebe, her downcast eyes raised to ours with a new animation, and a most perceptible improvement, resulted. Still the fruits of slavery hang on every bough, and long — long — will. CHAPTER XVIII. HEART SERVICE. All our actions take ' Their hues from the complexion of the heart, As landscapes their variety from light. Baco>t. This, beloved reader, if a slaveholder, you have never, never known. The sweetness of being served by those who freely prefer you, to all others in the world. "We would rather encounter again, all the difficulties connected with hired servants of our whole life, than those with which we met in a few weeks only, iu connection with your former slaves. While not being hired, they had no especial new motive for serving us, so they were docile, but far less efficient than when hired. We are candid and truthful. Do you believe it ? The labor of driving a fellow-being through the world, is in- credible. To have every act done for you without inte- rest, is heart-sickening positively ! That they have ever thus served you, is fully proven to others, whether you believe it or not. But you think it dignified to own them. Yes! if it is dignified to be ruled by them, it is dignified to own them, or rather pretend to ; for you cannot own them without their ruling you ; causing you to run after them, scold them, be angered by them, made unhappy by them ; forever keeping you waiting, teasing, disappoint- ing, thwarting, annoying you ; leading you into all un- amiable and wretched and life-killing states of mind, and 86 86 SLAVERY ra" SOUTH CAROLINA. AND TIIE EX-SLAVES. causing you at last to imbrute yourselves, in punishing them, thus at their pleasure or revenge forcing you to the meanest of all services, at all times, and to the inevitable pangs of a guilty conscience. They can too, and do ! bind you to the bar of God, and to the terrible retributions of Eternity, by their awful imprecations of divine vengeance, for their wrongs — appeals which the God of the poor, the needy, and him that hath no helper, is pledged not to forget, and whom he first hears and avenges. Now, your hearts concede the truth of all the above, in most cases, at least. Oh, are you not weary? Will you not permit a fellow-sinner to plead with you? to help you? These evils are in the system, and insepar- able from it ; not originally in you. You cannot reverse that system, that sense of right, of manhood, or love of liberty while God is God, and man is man. Will you not read the Scriptures upon this point of op- pressing, turning aside the stranger from his right, rob- bing the poor ? Then must you see that all the impreca- tions of righteous judgment, of vengeance, of all who have ever suffered, under the system, you use and up- hold in all their privations, tortures and deaths, will fall upon you and yours. We surely are not superstitious. But truly, rather than have these imprecations resting upon our head and the heads of our children, we say before God, we would cheerfully beg our bread with them. Yea, thank- fully. Hath not God promised that he will hear the cry of the poor, the sighing of the needy, and that he will arise * to judgment, to save the meek, of the earth ? What has slavery done for you — what ? Pray look candidly at it. But yon say, I cannot work, and if I give up my slaves, I give up all. HARDENED SUDDENLY CUT OFF SHOCK OF WnirriNGS. 87 Yes, you may give up all, if you give them up. But if tou do not, you may, nud must, give up life. " For lie that being often reproved, hardeneth liis neck, sliall suddenly be cut off, and that without remedy." How often have you seen this verified ? How terribly now ! So you have the word of God, commanding you to give up your sin or your life. Oh, may God help and bless you. But should you give up all and be poor, all the North is before you, labor is most honorable, and is it not as honorable, in integrity, in purity, to sit at sewing, as, filled with sense of guilt, and under the censure of the whole humanitarian, just, and Christian world, to drive around, and chase up and clown, by day and night, a set of grudging, revengeful Negroes ? To be their servant when sick, and whenever they so will it ? Now, at the North, when servants do well, we get the benefit ; if they do not, there are those to take the drudgery of attending to them, while we go quietly about honorable duties. We are never laid under the awful worry and responsibility of deciding that a man or woman shall be punished. Money could not induce, nor power compel us to cause the worst, so to suffer by our individual order. Never, never ! Laws attend to all that, by ap- propriate officers and methods. vVe have no drudgery of serving servants, unless we choose it, freely. But, on the contrary, the most excellent help, usually. In two cases, we have had the services of most compe- tent girls two years, while neighbors were offering them hio-her wages. Yet for this long time, and until mar- riage in one case, and removal in another, intervened, were they heart and hand, with us. Of course, presents were not wanting, for we could not permit one to suffer by remaining with us ; still as we gave high wages, we did not think it right or proper under the circumstances, 88 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. to increase them. "We do not set ourselves up as a stand- ard, far from it ; others have done far, far better. But almost first, among the blessings of our life, have been, dear, excellent servants, who were ours indeed and in truth, and, because ours in perfect freedom to leave, ours in heart. The number of ways in which they saved our money, comfort, and credit, and showed interest, zeal and love for the family, was amazing, and so it has been in most other cases. We say these plain, humiliating things, with the hope of influencing some candid ladies. Our servants in South Carolina, so soon as they felt the spur, the animation, and the responsibility of free labor, began to improve, and now in eight weeks time, one does as much as two did, and does it better, and more easily, and has more spare time. They are far more respectful, more thoughtful, and with their present hilarity, four- fold more competent, of care-taking. Oh we do pity you, who have been born and reared under this system, who have never, never ! known the luxury of free service. But does one ask what we do with incompetent ser- vants ? We answer, First, we show them sweetly, and after a few days, or at most a few changes, they become com- petent. It is amazing how the feeblest intellect soon succeeds, under the stimulus of free labor. But, if they cannot or do not, there is ample and kind provision for them, and nobody is imbruted in the process. The blessings of free, competent, happy, honest labor may be yours ; will you have them ? We use the word imbruted above. We know it is very, very severe. But if it does not imbrute a lady to send one of her own sex to all the exposure, licentiousness, agony, of a public whipping, what can, what does ? Yet the system abso- lutely compels this, in many cases, for the lash is the PUBLIC WHIPPING — THEIR FATE EQUAL SODOM'S. 89 only force, and the mistress cannot use it, nor let per- fect chaos reign in her house. ! let's away with the fonl system. But it is duty to give one or move ac- count of these awful whipmngs. A slaveholder flogged a little slave girl, and put her feet in the stocks. She was found dead. A prominent lawyer, of a respectable family, was asked " whether the murderer of this little helpless child could not be indicted. 7 ' He coolly replied that " the slave was Mr. P.'s 'property, and if he chose to suffer the loss, no one else had any thing to do with it." (Vide Weld's " Slavery As It Is," p. 54.) The slave child was " property," and had only been used ! "It is believed that no record exists of a white man having been executed in the United States, simply for the murder of a slave" (MSS. by Judge Jay.) The subjoined account was written by the benevolent Dr. Howe, whose labors in behalf of the blind have ren- dered his name dear to humanity, and was sent in a letter to the Hon. Charles Sumner. If any one thinks it too painful to be perused, let him ask himself if God will hold those guiltless who suffer a system to continue, the details of which they cannot even read. That this describes a common scene in the calaboose, we shall by and by produce other witnesses to show. Dr. H. says : " I have passed ten days in ]STew Orleans, not unprofit- ably, I trust, in examining the public institutions — the schools, asylums, hospitals, prisons, etc. With, the excep- tion of the first, there is little hope of amelioration. I know not how much merit there may be in their system ; but I do know that, in the administration of the penal code, there are abominations which should bring down the fate of Sodom upon the city. If Howard or Mrs. Fry ever discovered so ill-administered a den of thieves as the 90 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. "New Orleans prison, they never described it. In the Negroes' apartment I saw much which made me blush that I was a white man, and which, for a moment, stirred up an evil spirit in. my animal nature. Entering a large paved court-yard, around which ran galleries filled with slaves of all ages, sexes, and colors, I heard the snap of a ^whip, every stroke of which sounded like the sharp crack of a pistol. I turned my head, and beheld a sight which absolutely chilled me to the marrow of my bones, and gave me, for the first time in my life, the sensation of my hair stiffening at the roots. There lay a black girl flat upon her face, on a board, her two thumbs tied, and fastened to one end, her feet tied, and drawn tightly to the other end, while a strap passed over the small of her back, and, fastened around the board, compressed her closely to it. Below the strap she was entirely naked. By her side, and six feet off, stood a huge Negro, with a long whip, which he applied with dreadful power and wonderful precision. Every stroke brought away a strip of skin, which clung to the lash, or fell quivering on the pavement, while the blood followed after it. The poor creature writhed and shrieked, and, in a voice which showed alike her fear of death and her dreadful agony, screamed to her Master, who stood at her head, " O, spare my life ! don't cut my soul out !" But still fell the hor- rid lash ; still strip after strip peeled off from the skin ; gash after gash was cut in her living flesh, until it became a livid and bloody mass of raw and quivering muscle. It was with the greatest difficulty I refrained from springing upon the torturer, and arresting his lash ; but, alas ! what could I do, but turn aside to hide my tears for the sufferer, and my blushes for humanity? This was in a public and regularly-organized prison ; the punishment was one recognized and authorized by the THE PUBLICITY OF PUNISIIMENT BRUTAL MASTER. 91 law. But think you the poor wretch had committed a heinous offence, and had been convicted thereof, and . tenced to the lash ? Not at all. She was brought by her Master to be whipped by the common executioner, without trial, judge or jury, just at his beck or nod, for some real or supposed offence, or to gratify his own whim or maTice. And he may bring her day after day, without cause assigned, provided only he pays the fee. Or, if he choose, he may have a private whipping-board on his own premises, and brutalize himself there. A shocking part of this horrid punishment was its publicity, as I have said ; it was in a court-yard surrounded by gal- leries, which were filled with Colored persons of all sexes — -runaway slaves, committed for some crime, or slaves up for sale. You would naturally suppose they crowded forward, and gazed, horror-stricken, at the brutal specta- cle below ; but they did not ; many of them hardly noticed it, and many were entirely indifferent to it. They went on in their childish pursuits, and some were laugh ing outright in the distant parts of the galleries ; so low can man, created in God's image, be sunk in brutality." CHAPTER XIX. SOUTHERN "CHIVALRY. 'Tis only change of pain, A bitter change, severer for severe, The day too short for my distress, and night, Even in the zenith of her dark domain, Is sunshine to the color of my fate. Youxg. From Adam, the curse of God glanced to the ground, "but it fell upon poor woman, and both her sorrow and conception, are multiplied. But will not grace at last triumph ? Will not heaven be fuller ? Never, never ! did we realize the curse, as in South Carolina, in the case of poor slave women. That there should he so much in poor woman's nature, that can be taken advantage of by barbaric natures, to torture, to kill, to debase her — debasement, surely, worse than death. If any one is troubled with doubts, as to future retribution, let him come here, and, without a word of argument, or even revelation, he will be a full believer in the fact, of future punishment, provided, he believes in the existence of a just God. To commence then, saying, what were it not for a just indignation, our heart would shrink from, yea, refuse say- ing but which, under such promptings, it says, and dares and challenges the whole world, to hear, and conjures it to censure, to 'disprove, or to remedy. It charges every man who has a mother, a sister, or who has, or hopes to have, one dearer still, to clo the one, or the other, by 92 CHARGE TO ALL — MEST MAURY — KEEN PENETRATION". 93 • every power lie possesses, and not only every man, luit every woman, every child. Yea, it not only challenj it begs you to look candidly at the caso. It begs with woman's tears ! Will you, reader, refuse ? Oh, no ! You are manly, you will not. In the name of God and humanity, then, we charge every man as far as lies within him, and no man knows what lies within him while in supine inaction, every man who deserves the name, to exert himself until he can say, before the womanhood of the world, yea, before God, I have done all I could ; all ! even to the offering of my life. To begin then. The young girls must marry. But, usually, mild means are effectual, in a most affectionate race, where we have seen a love that actually made us believe the sacred thing is yet in the world, in spite of the fashionable life we have been obliged to see. For these j^oor, broken-down slaves, the moment they see you have a real sympathy for them, will almost invariably say, " Oh, I must show Missus my wife, or my husband," and with a love, that graces few pompous halls, they run to different cabins and bring the homeliest of old men or women, gazing at them as if they were angels. You try hard to look a little admiration, too, for their comfort, but you are amazingly afraid their keen penetration, has read the opposite, or at least, the lack of it. This fre- quent practice, is prompted, evidently, only by the poor loving heart. So they bring their descendants, calling them their chil'n even past three " greats " in some instances. So that evidently from this, and numberless instances we could name, the Colored, are the most affectionate race living. Of course, a race that can so love, must be able to quarrel. But this is rare. But, never, in all the miserable cabins we have entered, 94 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLATES. and under all the different circn instances, in which we have seen them, even having husband and wife, both working together, for us, have we seen even a look be- tween them that implied censure of each other. Never ! But to proceed. The poor bride is cheated even of, or in, the cheap ceremony, and feels it keenly, as is shown by many thankfully embracing the first privilege of being married even amid the scorn of fellows, and surrounded by their adult children. In other cases they say, "Missus, de Lord marry us, we live togedder better, dan 'em white folks, married by priest, sights better." But instances are ' many, where they were made to believe that any man, who could read, could lawfully marry, and they say, " Missus, Tse married in de matri- mony, wid de book." But, in deepest anguish, when the heart is breaking over the sale of husband, or wife, they are often given tp know that the horrid farther South, will be the penalty of failing to select another. So does the cold, slimy hand of avarice lay its foulness upon the holiest, and the best. Now the thoughtlessness, the jolity, of youth is passed with the poor bride, and all the woman stirs, wakes, rises, in her soul. Now the true tyranny over her poor nature commences, and if they can suffer it,can'twe write it ? cannot you read it ? To facts, then. Going into a cabin, on a plantation, belonging to a man, who pretends to be a respectable citizen of a Northern city, our eyes were met by the large, brown, soft, tremulous, eyes, of a small sized, deli- cately formed, fine looking woman, holding an infant of a few days upon her lap. She was beautiful, evidently of a most refined nature, and with countenance of one of the best expressions we ever beheld. " NEBER STRONG " " NEBER TINE YOU DIE." 95 " You seem very weak indeed," said we. " Oh, yes, Missus, I never gets strong now, no mo' ! no mo' !" " That is a beautiful boy at your feet ; how many children have you 'P " Six, Missus, now. But I'se lost five." " What, not you ! so young !" " Yes, Missus, I'se lost five, and six libin'." " My poor woman ! what was the disease ?" " Oh, no disease, Missus, strainin' and workin' so hard in de fiel', sometimes dead born, all mash! some- times lib little while, neber ober tree or four weeks scarcely." " But surely, I should think after one such result, or two at least, their own interest would prevent such cruelty." " Oh, no ! Missus, dey neber tink you die, or chil'n die till gone." Oh that we could give the soft, plaintive, patient tone and manner in which all this was said, " softening our Saxon words, with Afric's mellow tongue." These words seem, in reading, as rude, but spoken, they are wonderfully soft, melting, and winning. She went on in that chastened way, as if past all complaining or vin- dictiveness. " You neber 'lowed to drop you hoe till labor 'pon yon, neber ! no matter how bad you feel, you neber 'lowed to stop till you go in bed, neber !" Incredible ! for those awful hoes are judged to weigh variously from six to nine, or even twelve pounds, as a Bostonian judged, of some, and the large handle is from six to eight feet long. " How awful ! But why not speak to the overseer or driver ?" " Oh, Missus ! 'at aint 'lowed, can't do 'at. Beside, if 96 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. lie not drive you 5 lie only get cut up 'self, can't do you no good." " Oh, it is awful ! But you can't hoe all the yeai round, then you can't always suffer so, can you ?" "Den, Missus, when can't hoe, hab to go into de riber and bring up de mud in baskets and tubs, to rich de land." " But you don't do that certainly when in such a situation ?" " Hab to do it, Missus, hab to do it to de very hou' you sick." Now ought not that man to strut well upon Broad- way, or Washington, or Chestnut streets, or at Newport or Saratoga? when he does it, at such expense? If he only have enough such women, how finely can he dress, and fawn to, and fascinate Northern ladies. He ought to be painted, with himself and all his estates, honors, titles, resting upon rows of such women, since they are the only basis, and foundation, of his dignity. Would you any more touch his hand, except in a work of necessity, or mercy, than a viper ? Would you soonei entertain him, at your table, as an honored guest, than the lowest prostitute ? Would you ? Slavery has been dignified as an awful sin long enough. It ought to be treated as it is, as the most despicable, of all meannesses. Seldom have we communed with a more delicate, beauti- ful, refined, mother than this, for it does actually seem that the adornments denied to the poor life, were in many cases here, put upon the soul — how we did love her! But we were prepared to hear of awful suffering at the last, from such labors, and inquired how it was. " Oh, Missus, awful ! I'se so awful sick, tree days and tree nights ! den dey hab to go to Beaufort for white doctor [after she had gone all the rounds of ignorant OBSTREPEROUSNESS FALSE PROMISES. 97 practice] and lie hab to use force, Missus, force, 'cause my poo' body so weak wid work in de fiel' ! couldn't do nothing." Strut ! slaveholder, strut ! show your obstreperousncss to those who lick your hands for mean paltry dollars, or rather for false promises'! You strut, at great expense! do it well, and so as to strike Northern sapheads, and steel hearts. " Then yon, so weak, surely could do nothing, or no work, at least, for a long time," said we to the poor, dear woman. " Hab to do it, Missus, whether can or not Hab to go in fiel' in tree or always fou' weeks and keep up w r id 'e men 'e very first day and all time, or else get cut up so awful !" Kiss the Northern lady's hand, slaveholder ! You have many such women, and can afford the expense of drives, and balls, and revels, and, if funds get low, you can just send and have that bright, beautiful boy, or that babe, or even that pure mother sold, and to the lowest villain that walks the earth, provided he can steal, cheat or gamble into money enough. Our laws, or rather suffrances, deliver over that beautiful refined woman to your, and his, merciless power. " Oh, my poor sister," said we, " soon I hope you will be free, and have a dear home of your own, with your beautiful children and that noble man, your husband, of whom the superintendent speaks so highly, as a laborer, a man, and a Christian." " Oh, he is a good man ! Missus," said she. And we left her, with her beautiful ejes swimming with tears of love, and hope. . "If" this government dashes those, and such hopes, God will blast it, and good men will curse it, and the heavenly host will cry amen! Allelujah ! 5 98 SLAYEET W SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. This is actually a sample of many cases, like in all respects, especially as to the extent, in time, and severity of suffering, and weakness, consequent, upon such incredible taxing of the poor body. CHAPTER XX. INCIDENTS IN SLATE WOMAN'S LIFE. But chiefly Thou Whom soft-eyed pity once led down from heaven To bleed for man, to teach him how to live, And 0, still harder lesson, how to die, Disdain not thou, to smooth the restless bed Of sickness and of pain. Lest some should doubt the foregoing or think we mis- take and that poor woman's wail of nature's agony would be heard, we insert some facts, which like all others in this work are proven. A poor slave woman of about twenty-five years, went to her Master and tremblingly told him she was unable to work in the field. He exclaimed, " it was all laziness, and he would cure her." In vain, now, she plead to go to work. She had committed the awful crime of tellino; of her illness, and must suffer the penalty. A large hole was dug, she was made to stand in it, to be buried alive, as she supposed. The heavy sand was filled in around her up to the shoulder-blades, and she left in the broiling sun, in intense agony. " Did they pack the earth around you ?" said the excel- lent Superintendent. " ISTo, Massah, it was no need. It was so heavy I to't I die ebery one minute." But not to dwell upon further minutiae too horrible for record here, she was left there six hours, suffered awfully 99 100 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAEOLIXA AND THE EX-SLAYES. for days, and then gave birth to a dead infant, her consti- tution, and spirits, broken forever. Her mistress, the severer of the two, was the daughter of a governor of South Carolina. Another instance, proving that these poor women have usually no hope, but awful danger in appealing to Massah, must suffice. A very young girl in the same situation, ventured to say to the overseer, " that it was impossible for her to work." She seemed to have little power to move, as if paralyzed. He instantly caught her, swearing, and thrust first her arms, then her head too, into a barrel, then he commenced beating her. "She soon was silent, begged no more, and he beat her until her poor body laid against the barrel like a piece of meat." She was then taken by her poor fellow-sufferers into a hut. It was evident she could not live any time, and her poor mother, a favorite, and very valuable, slave at the town estate, was slily sent for. She implored her Mistress to let her go, especially as it was Sabbath. Her Mistress refused, was inexorable when entreated. The poor mother fell upon her knees, and with tears and blessings, and prayers, begged " only to see the last of her poor daughter." She does not seem to have even implied a censure upon her Mistress for keeping such an overseer, as it was on her plantation it occurred. Her Mistress, noted for charity and piety, refused her, posi- tively, sharply, and very possibly partook the holy sacra- ment that afternoon. The poor slave mother went about her toil, not seeing her poor daughter, and, as we understood, though we cannot assert that, without attending her funeral. She worked on, and wept on, until in a few weeks she died of grief. Our informants said that "because the same over- seer had killed two of her children, before, and she didn't die, so, her Missus thought she wouldn't this time, but DEATH FEOJI GEIEF — HISTEESS OVERSEEE. 101 she saw the others before they died." It seems always to be a great surprise to these oppressors, when their slaves die, and always unexpected, For they live through so much that they seem to expect they will live through any, and everything. Doubtless this Mistress felt badly, especially as she lost three, or the same, in the operation. Probably her " charities" suffered a little also. But, nothing could be done with this overseer, he was such a favorite with his Master, brought in such good returns from his plantations, and the losses by deaths were only sworn over. He must not be spared and only sworn at awhile, threatened, and for these murders, he goes on irresponsible to any earthly power. For, if a slave is killed, how easy for him to swear that that slave resisted him, then, by the laws of South Carolina, he is exculpated. But even what poor laws they have are not enforced of late. Many other instances might be cited as, of poor women in the same situation being tied, or drawn up by the hands, whipt most cruelly, and subjected to many other agonies for the same offence — not being able to work — • told us by credible "White witnesses as well as equally truthful Colored ones. Of course, the suffering and weakness consequent were awful, as every one at all acquainted with the human system must know. These sufferings lasted for a week at times. But that children were also often born in the field, was true, and more or less common. A dear pious "Aunty" pointed out to us a fine little Colored girl, say- ing, " L born in de fiel', brought home wid mo/ler on de cart. Didn't die — de Lord good to 'em." But all who know the commonest truths respecting slavery know that this is sometimes the case. That such waste of life should be suffered is amazing, 102 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. but not more so, than most facts connected with slavery. Of course, if complaints were heard or indulged, indolent ones would take advantage, and who could judge who was and who was not able ? The evil is inherently in the sin of compelling unpaid labor, and can never be sepa- rated from slavery, so that, if that is right, all its neces- sities are. CHAPTER XXL RESULTS TO POOE WOMAN. Through suffering and sorrow thou hast past To show us what a woman true may be. In consequence of what is hinted at in the last two chapters, where are the poor women of the field hands — where ? Under the sweet clods of the valley ! The ago- nies undergone resulted in their death. Scarcely one in ten reach the age of fifty. This, many close observers have reported as a remarkable fact, others are doubtful of the number. You see some old women, usually one, two, or three jipon a plantation. But generally their work has not been in the field, or they came from Africa, and have better constitutions, have no children, or there is some peculiarity in their case. But you ask them, or use your judgment, and see how many young women, in their time have died ; and in those living, internal weaknesses are almost universal. Another cause of these weaknesses is, that when sick they are not permitted to lie down, lest they " get lazy," the one unpardonable crime with the laziest people on earth. This is an incredible number, but in a mere economic view, how characteristic of slavery ! But though the end of these poor women is awful mur- der upon the part of oppressors, how sweet is the thought, that they went so early home, to be " Forever with the Lord." And how deeply beautifully is the precious image of Jesus 103 104 SLAVERY IN SOUTH "CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. blended with the marks of death upon many that are left. Their dear illuminated countenances are engraved upon our heart, among its choicest images. Oh, how much of Christ was there in them ! how cmiet were they ! past all eagerness, past all regrets. Still in God, and looking down to see what you are doing with their fetters, or rather the fetters upon their poor body, almost as an angel might be supposed to do, leaving the impression that great eternity is almost here, and that it is of far more moment to us how we use them than it is to them. How beautifully this moss hangs from these live-oaks, over the graves of these poor people ! "Well does a "New York lady observe, " It is far more beautiful than anything in Greenwood." It is of ash color, hanging in beautiful fringe from every tree, and to within a yard of the ground ; with a soft rustling moan, both waved and breathed, a kind of sweet audible silence. Beneath, are the graves of these oppressed ones, folded in the cool, pure embrace of mother earth, where thev hear no more the voice of the oppressor. They have gone up to join the fel- lowship of all the noble pure spirits of martyrs! of Colored women who have given up life rather than chastity, of whom we and you have read and heard, and thousands of others, of whom no record exists, below that of the recording angel's, but which shall challenge the admira- tion of the holy, when every man's work shall be mani- fested of what sort it is. CHAPTER XXII. WOMAN AND CIVILIZATION". And down the happy future runs a flood Of prophesying light ; It shows an earth no longer stained with blood ; Blossom and fruit, where now we see the bud Of brotherhood and right. Lowel. There is not a spot upon the globe, where woman toils equally with man in the field, and they live in a civilized manner. It is impossible, utterly so. Even in brisk New England, with all her excellent domestic manage- ment, it requires the aid in care, if not in labor, of mostly the whole female part of the population, to live in a civi- lized and refined manner, and. most housekeepers every- where, have extra help. This being so, with all the conveniences, and excellent domestic training, tact and skill of the highest civilization, what must it be to those of little experience, and skill, and no teaching ? No. If our government cannot afford to let women confine their labors mostly to the house and garden, at least, it condemns four millions, still to live in a half- civilized manner; it condemns them whether it frees them or not, since it has the power to free them ; it condemns them to claw out their hominy from the pots with their poor fingers or with clam-shells, as is often done now, and other equally uncivilized practices. But some superintendents say " they finish their tasks by noon or even betore, as they begin by light." Yery 5* 105 106 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. well. If they do this, and the women work equally with the men, we are not the ones to insist that they shall thereafter do the work that should have occupied the en- tire day. No, they must live like beasts, all eating, dressing, living as they can, until the women are permitted to study household good, to get three regular meals, aud to make, wash, and iron, so that all can change their garments frequently. It is said, " many are willing to look miserably all the week, if they can only make a show on Sunday." But, what credit do they not deserve, for making a neat ap- pearance on Sunday, when laboring equally with men in the field all the week ? We often say to the superin- tendents, " We would make a difference, were it but of half an hour, between men's and women's toil, so as never, never! to have to feel or acknowledge, in after , years, that we had made no distinction between them in field work." But " present expediency," as usual, is against it, for present expediency never does, and never did, any- thing that will bear the light and the gaze of half a cen- tury thereafter. But it is the opinion of scores of good judges, upon the spot, with whom we have conversed that not in the whole world, is there to be found a people that show so much ambition and real effort for decent civilized life, as these same poor Negresses. When, in accordance with teachings, and the necessary tools being provided — not a broom, for instance, being found on whole plantations — the cabin is whitewashed, out, and inside, cleaned thoroughly, and chaos reduced to system, there seems to be no bounds to their appre- ciation and enjoyment of it, and they keep it so to a re- markable degree for persons so raised. All accord to ENJOYMENT OF SYSTEM AND NEATNESS — TASTE DEESS. 107 them a taste far, far, beyond their ability, in every de- partment of civilized life, and excess in taste for dress, and good style of living. Then, if Government makes them free, and gives them the chance, all they need and ask, though not all they deserve, and have earned, we shall soon have the highest civilization among them. If Government does not, she may have but very, very short opportunity together with the power. God hath arisen and is contending for the Colored man. Happy will it be, if our nation have THE POWER TO SEE IT, and to side WITH HIM FOR THEM. CHAPTER XXIII. CRUSHED INTELLECTS. But, bitterest of the ills beneath Whose load man totters down to death, Is that which plucks the regal crown Of freedom from his forehead down, And snatches from his powerless hand The sceptred sign of self-commancl. Whittier. One sees many poor Colored people who seem to have been crushed, in mind, by some great blow. It is per- fectly clear they are not what they once were. Some of them seem to contemplate, in dull, heavy, terror, some past event, the recollection of which fastens their gaze, and stupefies them. One such, we saw yesterday ; — a mother ; — an aged Colored woman, with very fine men- tal physique, but now seeming to dwell in almost stupid abstraction. Her husband, a very dignified, grey-bearded man, was speaking of slavery in answer to our queries. Her lips kept moving, lier dull eyes almost closed, but, as if peer- ing at something in the distance. As if suddenly noticing the moving of her lips, I said — " What did you say ?" " Two hundred lash ! two hundred lash !" was her only reply, entirely respectful, but with mental gaze fixed on the dim past, or upon some object contained in it. Her husband, with a look of tenderness, pain, and of consideration for her, immediately began as follows : " Ole Massah charged ou 1 son wid stealin' corn. He 103 TWO HUNDRED LASII PARENTIS HEROISM. 109 was innocent — but was so frightened clat lie ran 'way to de Main. Word com' to Massab, 't 'e was dere. Massah send me, 'cause be say be come wid bis fader, an' den be won't punish. I go. Dey tell him dere, ' not to come.' Beg bim ; tell him, ' Massab whip ; don't go.' I say, ' I tink's Massab won't.' He Come wid me ; he wou'dn't come wid no oder, but I brings bim. I say, ' Massab, for my sake, don't whip him, 'cause I, his own fader, bring bim.' Massab tie bim " " Tie bis bands an' feet, so," interrupted the poor mother, crossing her toil-worn and deformed hands, and shaking her head. " Onspeakable !" " onspeakable!" was all she could say. " He gib him two hundred lash," said the father, with that inured-to-endurance voice and manner, which is so melting. " Oh, how awful I felt, 'cause I, his fader, brought him ! but had to smile when Massah come roun' an' say — ' You did right, Massab.' Must do it, or git just de same, Missus. Must say it for self-preserva- tion ; but God know de heart ; he know cou'dn't help it, cou'dn't, no way." " I'se walkin' up an' down dis yard, tendin' baby, 'cause I'se nurse," said the poor mother ; " cou'dn't tell whedder on my head, or on my heels " [with a shudder], " to see my poor boy whip so awful." Can you bring this home to your own case, .parents ? Can you see that boy of yours thus tied, and raised from earth, and mangled, and you obliged to laugh and say, " he deserved it ; all right ?" One of many instances of heroism, was in the case of a very tall and strongly built Colored man, with an ex- ceedingly fine, manly expression of countenance, but upon which, as upon most, suffering, tenderness, and en- durance, were most strongly impressed. Said he : 110 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. " I was driver many years ; cou'dn't help it — had to do it. When task not done, dey all get whip'd. I, too, for um ; I'se had mo'n one thousand lashes in my time. Had to whip chil'n, too, so awful ; dey break plate, or fall 'sleep, waiting for do something, or for Massah, gi' 'um twenty, thirty, lashes. Massah say — ' you go barn, whip dis Nigger ;' I go ; know de poo' chil'n hain't done not'ing ; don't deserbe it. " So sorry for poor little chil'n, 'cause can't get away from Massah, no how! no way! neber ! So I. tells 'um : ' scream while I whip somet'ing else, wid all my might.' Massah hear ; t'inks it's dem. People knows 'twasn't. If dey tell, and Massah hears it, I gets fifty or mo' lash, awful ! But mus' try to save chil'n, eben if I did suffer so." "What a noble examine of suffering to save others ! And this is found in many Colored drivers. But not only do many show the devastating effect of awful shocks and hopeless agonies, but many also of blows upon the head. It is the universal testimony, that in- fants, so soon as they can handle a stick or the poker are at perfect liberty to strike their poor mammy over the head with it. " And," said one, " I neber dare make a sound as if it hurt me ; if I did, Missus would seize it, and lay me ober with all her might." Incredible ! say you. So is almost everything, connected with this, as other, awful sins. But such severe and protracted toil must have a dead- ening effect upon the brain, both from that part being an expansion of the spinal column, and from many other reasons. In short, nothing, short of the resurrec- tion, will obliterate the dire marks of their servitude, and abuse. CHAPTER XXIV. THE INNER LIFE OF THE BIOUS. On piety humanity is built ; And on humanity much happiness ; And yet still more, on piety itself, A soul in commerce with her God in heaven Feels not the tumults and the shocks of life, The whirls of passion, and the strokes of heart. Young. How rich, how unfathomable, how glorified is the inner life of these poor people ! How they seem to look out from that inner, spiritual, hidden existence, or nature, upon you ! All is for the time transformed, or rather seen in the light of eternity. They are your judges, your tests of sacrifice for God, for principle. They are yet field-hands — those women. "What of that ! The seal of death is upon -their faces ; yea, the seal of God, the sweet seal . of his ownership, his claiming, his coming. The power of man over them, will soon, and forever cease. Toil on, ye ransomed, ye sanctified ones ! Lift those awful burdens a little longer ; to-morrow ye shall be with God, to go no more out forever ! What though every lift seems to be the last, and " makes your heart all sink down," and " all fall within you." It is but a moment ! Jesus is at the door ! Yea, more, is he not dwelling in you, and with you ? He has come to receive you unto himself, that where he is, there you may be also. And he 111 112 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. walks with you through the last, long, toilsome, life- crushing days, or years. His holy image is upon your brow, more visible than the hated color of your skin. But while I thus" speak, your patience breaks my heart ! O ! were there more earthliness in you, we would not weep so ! Did you rave, or even complain, we could bear it better. But your meek giving up of everything in life, yea, of life itself, so quietly, so patiently, so grate- fully, breaks our heart. But do ye not die for a noble government ? Is it not an honorable government ? "Will not your last of life's summer's work put dollars into the treasury ? Will it not buy coaches, dresses, and entertainments ? Is it to be expected, that so noble a government, can, all at once, abolish field-labor in aged women ? Remem- ber, it is not sex merely that this noble government con- siders — not woman, as woman — else you should be shielded. • No, it is not the woman, but the color of her face, the accidents of her birth, training, education, and the tin- selry thrown around her, that this noble government considers. Can you not die for such a chivalrous government ? Can you not toil hard in the field, five and a* half, or six days in the week, until you thereby learn house- keeping ? Is it not fitting that the whole nation should turn wo- man-drivers just for a treat, or for economy, before it takes a farewell glance of the blessed institution % Beside, the Christianity of our great cities demands it. They send down their noblest sons to execute it. Those sons may never curse the day in which they fulfilled their noble requisitions, and they may. AGED WOMEN TOIL — WEEKS WOItK IN HALF DAY. 113 u Patience ! noble, pious ex-slave women ! the govern- ment is in debt !" It needs aged women to toil upon burning sands, and under fiery skies, to help it out ! " It will free you when it will cost nothing." Is not that magnanimous? Take your plate of hominy, and sit down as usual, as your unavoidably neglected children do, upon the floor, or in the ashes, a little longer. We are not the ones to ask you to set the table, when you have kept up with the strong man all day, in the field. Not we ! Other women under government's care, must have many personal servants, so you must pay for it, by doing all your week's work in half-a-day, and then you, and yours, are expected to be as clean at preaching as any one. Beside, "men, among your poor race, would be jealous, if you were not to do as much work as they do." This is gravely asserted by men ! men trained in the North ! and it will not do for this noble government too suddenly, to lead men to treat their wives with tenderness, " giving honor to them as to the weaker vessel," as God distinctly commands. How preposterous, that women especially at, and past middle life, are not to do the same work as men ! Some say they work faster. Yes, indeed ! So they do ; and so does a watch for a time, after the mainspring is broken. O bruised and crushed ones ! We have felt as if we desired to go out and take the hoe, and sink in the fur- row, and die with you. But no ! we will live and lay our daily tribute of poor woman's tears, upon your memory! and thus help the good to keep it green, so that you shall be inhabitants of two worlds at once. But, at last, where falls this censure" ? Hath not the present government gone to the utmost limit of its power ? 114 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. Have not the noble Saxton, Dupont, Sherman, Benham, Stevens, Hunter, the last preeminently ? Do not many censure our noble Secretaries of the Treasury and of War, that they have exceeded their power And has not Mr. Pierce, the government agent here, gone to the utmost of his instructions ? Has not Mr. French ? Do not our noble Superintendents do the same ? Where ? then, where ? falls this censure ? Upon the people ? They are responsible — whose voices should thunder through the ballot-boxes, and echo, and reecho, through the land, "We will have no woman-driving under our govern- ment !" They are the guilty, who should have elected the most anti-slavery men to the high offices of trust, at the expense, if need be, of every other or opposite con- sideration. CHAPTER XXV. THE GENIUS OF SLAVEDOM. Ah me ! from real happiness we stray By vice bewildered ; vice which always leads, However fair at first, to wilds of woe. Thomson. Treachery seems written upon everything in this land of deceit, slavery, and cruelty. It is in the soft air, in miasma ; in the cool, grateful evening breezes, in chills ; in the clear water, in warm nausea; in the smooth looking roads, in deep sand ; in every hedge, in unseen prickles ; and even in the dull oyster, in poison ; to the ]STortherner, at this time, at least. Slavery is here never put of your mind, we have the testimony of many to corroborate our own. It seems here to bind you in a spell, as an invisible power. Everything looks to have been stolen. You see a fine house, carriage, plantation. Your mind cannot dwell upon its beauty, but the thought that chokes, smothers, all others, is of the unrequited toil, the heart-breaking, it has cost. Even the innocent flowers blush, or deepen in color, that they have been planted in anguish, by the spoiled. But worse still, you come to feel that all " in that immense, micro- scopic realm of human life, down below human law," is tainted with injustice, extortion, theft. You even come to have a vague, wierd, confused, and most uncomfort- able feeling, that you yourself have been thieving, that your companions have, that the man, woman or child, 115 11G SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. you meet has been thieving ; that what is in their bundle, or basket, lias been stolen. Your distinctions of mine, and thine, become confused. You ask yourself, does this article actually belong to me ? Let's see where? when % how much ? did I pay for it ? Yes, it is mine. That fact is settled. But it has no more effect upon the muddled state of your mind, or clearing it, than dropping a pebble into a muddy stream. You cannot see a line equipage without wondering how it was obtained, and you involuntarily ask, " Is it, or that book or horse or furniture, any more his, than mine ?" In short, confusion invades everything, — you now have charity for Floyd, and his compeers, for you see, that under the long influ- ence of slavery, they actually mistook thine, for mine. For you argue, if all this damage is done a mind, which hates slavery, what must it be to one who hugs, yea, deifies it ? You strangely feel, that nothing is in the hands of its true owner, even if there is such a person, that nobody rightly owns anything, that nothing is valuable or worth much care. You are tempted to say, "the world is out of joint. Let the unjointed thing go on, while I catch what I need." You feel "nobody is honest and nothing has any permanence — nobody can be trusted if tempted enough." In short, the spirit of slavery strangely invades, blights, glooms, darkens everything. But all description fails of the actual reality, of this state. But, for an instance, to illustrate it, feebly. Your shoes are tight for so much walking, you go to see if there are looser in the Mission boxes. Yes. You j have a new and strange feeling, that if you set a price upon them, you shall steal, you go, and get the " com- mittee" to price them, grumbling all the time at your- self, that you have come to dare not to trust yourself. The committee come, and show the same spirit, that TTITEVISII SriRIT — DISnOXKSTY RECOGNIZED — ARABS. 117 haunts yon, by putting them too low. You think that is too low, and covetously say, "I should have priced them higher," pay for them, and go up stairs, saying to yourself, " I shall wear them out in the service of the mission, I get no pay, I might v as well have taken them without all this fuss." You are indignant at this thievish spirit, and cry down ! down ! but it will not down, or at least remain so, in this atmosphere, charged with theft, and you cry to the Strong, for strength. Under what an odious, ruinous influence is this to bring up children, lea vino- out of view, other most destructive tendencies. All this, and much more, which cannot be coined into words, is the universal and legitimate effect of contact with slavery. "Wonder ceases, that travellers under all these influences, lost all power to oppose it. God hath so constituted the human soul, that it cannot be opposites at the same time ; as dishonest, and unjust in one depart- ment of the soul, or even mind, and honest, and just, in another, however it may flatter itself to the contrary. The fact, that dishonesty was recognized and most strenuously guarded against, here, is most evident, proven by the barrels, and barrels, of old writings, scat- tered about deserted dwellings. Not a dollar's worth, it seems, could be bought or sold, but the most strong, and correct, legal writings were exchanged. Everything in business, was tied, doubled, and twisted, and locked. The writers seem to have been friends, by the letters, but as shy and suspicious of each other, as Arabs. Every- thing you see, here, shows that it was the opinion of these Southerners, that honesty does not exist in man. VED r %x XXVI. AVARICE OR POVERTY. lie turns with anxions heart and crippled hands, His bonds of debt, and mortgages of lands, Or views his coffers with suspicious eyes, Unlocks his gold, and counts it till he dies. Dr. Johnson. The parsimoniousness, so often asserted in these pages, would seem impossible at first, in gentlemen. But this disappears, as one sees the actual appearances hero. Poverty, Poverty, Poverty, is written upon everything, and stalks boldly abroad. All government stores cannot conceal it. It is proven that in the Barbadoes, slave labor costs seven per cent, more than free. This is pro- ven also in the whole history of Jamaica, where one-third of those rich plantations were deserted from utter poverty, and where a majority of the debts that had eaten up all owners, were of one hundred and more years' standing. Slaveholders are not able to be liberal, however it may seem at a glance, or whatever accounts may show. They were determined slavery should be profitable, and made the most desperate efforts to make it so, but in vain, gene- rally. The testimony of all appearances, account-books, persons — show that. Many ex-slaves assert that they did not get over six quarts for a peck of corn per week, and that without salt, or anything with it at all, in most cases. " The measure did not hoi' a peck, Missus," said one, " it was gone by middle of week." 118 ITEMS FROM ACCOUNT-BOOKS — SLATES — MTSEES. 119 " What did you do then ?" " Wo have to get corn by selling chickens and such." " What did yon get for a chicken ?" " Sixpence for some, for some less, for some mo'." " Then how much did yon have to pay for corn ?" " Dolla' a bushel, Missus." But lest some are not convinced, we give an exact copy of items from an account-book in possession of an officer, a mere sample of the whole : " Set one turkey-hen on 20 eggs. " three ' common hens,' 36 eggs. Peg sick one day, Moll one — two, gave them all 21 grains of calomel. 1 needle has been furnished to each grown person. 8 buttons to each woman. 12 " to each man. 1 needle to every two children." But if not poor, they were incorrigible misers, for eve- rything about the " quarters" shows the most economic planning and long usage. The servants too, who attended. these tyrants upon Sab- bath were sometimes the same who toiled hard all the week upon plantations, during every moment of light. As an instance of this, a gentleman well informed, and very moderately anti-slavery, at least, said : " The lady who occupied this house, had a plantation ten miles in the country. Her servant, after attending to her, and other labors, in the morning, had to walk into Beaufort ten miles, arrive before her mistress' carriage, to dress her, then to follow her to church, carrying her book, then pre- cede her home, wait upon her at table, undress her, and walk back to the plantation, and be ready to attend upon her there, making twenty miles walk beside all other labors." This was, we presume, one of her good days, 120 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. in which Missus, was peculiarly kind. Little did that woman think, she should end her illustrious career in a runaway, and that forced too, (for the inhabitants of Beaufort had bound themselves by dark oaths, taken in the Sanctuary and on the holy Sabbath — all to go when the federal army came, if any fled, and that he who broke this oath, should be shot in his tracks.) But slavery, like all other sin, is ever beguiling by fair promises. The young clerk can prove, that by sacrificing conscience he can become wealthy, or the thief, that such and such prizes will make him forever rich. But though that thief, clerk, slaveholder, never, or seldom dies rich, still the mirage glitters as before. Still, many'think the assertion, that slavery is profitable, can be proven by fig- ures which cannot lie. But the true fact is, slaveholders are poor, men would not live so, if they were not. No Northern farmers live so ; but their barren acres are crowned by a home, while not a home have we yet seen on all these rich lands. There are such, we are told, but we have seen but one house on twenty-five plantations, where we could think of remaining one night, unless duty, or necessity, absolutely required it, and then we should prefer a tent, were it possible, so old, ill-scented, and filthy are these houses. " Do you say you lost all your children ?" said we to a pious and very respectable-looking woman. " Yes, all gone." " Of what disease ?" " No disease, Missus. "Work so hard in house, lib so poor on peck ob corn, as Massah called it, but won't a peck." " Why I should think you, a cook, would get more." " No mo' ! Massah, or Missus, dey measures or weighs ebery bit you git, den you must have jest so many bus- CONTEMPTIBLE STOOPING DESPERATE ECONOMY. 121 cuit and everyting." This was said by tlie many pious, reliable servants of a minister, and, in one case, con- firmed by a local preacher, and is further confirmed, like all the facts stated in this work, by general corroborative testimony. " Den he whip us so, if break any ting or fail in work. Take away on' 'lowance ob corn. But must smile to visitors, say Massab so good, so kind ; say don't want anyting for eat, when you starving most, else get cut up so." " But driver whip field hands ; Massah — the minister— on'y whip we house women and men." " Mas- sab 'ligious ? JSTo more 'ligion dan dat grass." " Oh, he ! too bad, work too tight, too much ; but we pray he will be saved, don't want no hurt come to him, on'y pray ! pray he neber come 'gin ! and Jesus hear prayer, pro- mised to, won't let him come 'gin." These instances of measuring and weighing are from scores of evidences, of most desperate efforts, at economy, coming to light in every possible way. Now what Northern farmer — even where it is said " they have to sharpen sheeps' noses to enable them to get the grass, among the rocks" — would stoop to measure flour, and count the biscuit, as this Southern pompous minister-planter, and others did. But we forbear. We are convinced that their financial embarrassments, are one grand reason why masters so generally hate their slaves, and they hate him equally in return. But should you walk with him among them, you would see the low courtesy, the hearty smile, or that they would even kiss his hand, if they dare. But all this is to escape torture. But the Master is determined to adhere to slavery, and to make it pay, and every step, and year, is deeper, in the mire of debt in most cases. This is evident from account-books, from all the ideas, and habits, of the Negroes, and in all habits and appear- G 122 BLAVEKT IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. ances upon plantations. We, with others, thought at first this poverty-stricken appearance might be from avarice. But avarice could not be so universal. It must be poverty. Beside, this country is not richer than the Indies, which, under the influence of the same system, were fast becoming depopulated of whites, from absentee- ism, in consequence of debt. Still, there are said to be within ten miles of Beaufort some three, four, or five splendid residences, with appropriate surroundings, and the wonder never ceases to be told. Just imagine a per- son, asserting that " there actually is a fine house on an island near New York, Boston, or any Northern city, or village," and continue to assert it, as if it were almost incredible, and you have some idea of the difference be- tween liberty and slavery. If one is not convinced that tbe actual motive for this war, is, to cover up debts, and failures, in many cases, he need only go South to be fully convinced of it. In fact, they were bankrupt, owing millions in New York city alone. The immense interest on the money invested in slaves, and the many deaths of slaves, and especially infants, the vices, extravagance, pride and indolence, attending slavery must keep them poor, inevitably. CHAPTER XXYII. EMBITTERED SPRINGS. The heart laid waste by grief or scorn, Which only knoweth Its own deep woe, Is the only desert. There no spring is born Amid the sands ; in that no shady palm-tree groweth. Freiligrath. The wrongs heaped upon this helpless race, had seemed enough, had not their religion been made an instrument of torture. Had this one spring been left unfouled, they had not quite fainted in the dark, stifling desert of slavery. " I am exceedingly disappointed," said an emi- nent D.D. here, " in what I have considered the allevia- tion of slaverv." " TVhat strikes you as most remarkable ?" "The fact that to them religion was so dispoiled of its true character, and made such an instrument of oppres- sion and bitterness," said he. Then the possession of manhood — what a dignity, joy ; but with the slaves, more especially those gifted by nature — and many such there are — the robbery of this is the greatest bitterness. For a man or woman to know that they are imbruted, as far as Massah can do so — how agonizing ! To have an endless, inward whispering of taste, manhood, conscience, respecting what they ought to be, contrasted with what they are, must, especially to the ever self-conscious Negro — be most awful. 128 12-i SLAVERY IN" SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVE3. Tlie patronizing air, that many put on, or the fact that not a word or action of his, but must be weighed against his color and condition. Added to this, is the fact that most persons consider him inferior, and remarks of his, to which a philosopher would listen with interest, are considered weak and contemptible. But the bitterest clip, some think, is the knowledge that his Master has unlimited control over him — his body — his wife and his children ; and is subject to gusts of furious passion, and is yet amenable to no earthly power. All this keeps up an intolerable but unavailing struggle in his soul against such despotic tyranny. Eat others think the bitterness of their full cup, is the total contempt with which Massah regards them. And as impressions are received by the mind in some states, with awful vividness, and ever after stand out in colors of more than real life, so is the dis- gust with which Massah, and in most cases his family also, regarded them, so impressed upon them, that at the least allusion to it, the. whole face is distorted with shame and agony, — but not a particle of anger. This in most cases has been most touching, melting, to all hearts. " Massah touch a Nigger ! Ah ! you do' know nothing 'bout Massah. He no mo' touch a black Nigger than a black snake !" said an aged saint of God. " He say so, he hate us so awful ! You go work fo' light, work good, get task all done, come home, dark, so you hardly see way out of fielV " You come near Massah, you want to speak to him 'bout some things, he kick at you and scream, < You mean, good-for-nothing, black Nigger ! Will you speak to me? Go 'way, you old black cuss!' Oh, Missus, he never touch Nigger but with whip, not to save you life. ' Lazy Wretches,' he says, < I send you to Cuba.' " Most of them, too, not only know that they were hated, MASSAh's HATRED — SEPARATION OF FAMILIES. 125 but loathed, and never seen but with disgust, or heard, or thought of but with anger and malice. " Massah can't love no Nigger ! Come from Beaufort ! Neber glad to see you, he boot you t" This, added to the toils and sorrows, has seemed in some cases, the bitterest draught in the cup of slavery. But more who have conversed much with them, think, the separation of families the sorest grief; and we know, from universal testimony these cost many lives. But every power or faculty, of body or mind, becomes an avenue or spring of sorrow. Every family tie, every affection, passion, power, cf the soul, is a fount of agony and bitterness, and shall not the Most High eegaed it? CHAPTER XXVILT. THE APOSTLES OF SLAVEEY. Thus said the Lord unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name : I sent them not, neither spake unto them : they prophesy unto you a false vision, and divination, and a thing of naught, and a deceit of their heart. One said, speaking of preachers, "Some good, but couldn't preach as dey want to, must preach as Massah 'lowed; no furder ; no open Gospel! no furcler. If dey did, hab to alter preaching next time. Dey come 'gin, preach right oder way. Preach must be humble — obey Massah, do ebryting for Massah, and noting for self, else de Lord would not save your poor soul." But we give the testimony of Dr. Nelson, a slaveholder, the author of an able work on infidelity : " But nothing is equal to their harping upon the ' reli- gious privileges and instruction' of the slaves of the South. And nothing could be so false and injurious (to the cause of freedom and religion) as the impression they give on that subject. I say what I know when I speak in relation to this matter. I have been intimately ac- quainted with the religious opportunities of slaves — in the constant habit of hearing thk sermons which are preached to them. And I solemnly affirm, that, during the forty years of my residence and observation in this line, I never heard a single one of these sermons but what was taken up with the obligations and duties of slaves to their Masters. Indeed, I never heard a ser- 126 PREACHING WOBSE THAN NONE — MR. NELSON'S VIEW. 127 mon to slaves but what made cbediknce to Masters by the slaves the fundamental and supreme law of religion. Any candid and intelligent man can decide whether such preaching is not, as to religious purposes, worse THAN NONE AT ALL. " Again : it is wonderful how the credulity of the North is subjected to imposition in regard to the kind treatment of slaves. For myself, I can clear up the apparent con- tradictions found in writers who have resided at or visited the South. The ' majority of slaveholders,' say some, ' treat their slaves with kindness.' Now, this may be true in certain States and districts, setting aside all ques- tions of treatment, except such as refer to the body. And yet, while the ' majority of slaveholders' in a certain sec- tion may be kind, the majority of slaves in that section will be treated with cruelty. This is the truth in many such cases, that while there may be thirty men who may have but one slave apiece, and that a house-servant, a single man in their neighborhood may have a hundred slaves — all field-hands, half-fed, worked excessively, and whipped most cruelly. This is what I have often seen." A most reliable, intelligent, fine-looking Colored "mem- ber" said, " Our preacher curse. He curse God for doin' what he doin' in the war. We bless him all time ! But preacher will learn God yet ! You know 'e hymn says, ' When my faith is sharply tried, I find myself a learner yet.' " One who had evidently drank deep into the cup of sor- row, said : " We couldn't tell, no preacher, neber, how we suffer all dese long years. He know'd nothin' 'bout we." What a pastor ! ! The owner of that mansion upon which we now look, 128 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. so sure as he drank freely, which was often, went out upon his plantation, and had a chair brought into the yard, and regaled himself with seeing his slaves whipped, doubtless the next minister that sat at his splendid table simpered and smiled, and cried, " Cursed be Ca- naan," licking his hand, while he pierced his soul. But many not only taught by word, but deed. One such, used to preach pathetically, here, while he had a poor slave chained in his cellar for grieving because he had sold his wife. All keeping their people on a peck of corn, measuring and weighing out materials for dinner before going to church, and counting and measuring afterwards, so that the poor cook left the kitchen faint? as many told us, and " went to her hut to cook a little corn for self." "Why I could not tell within one biscuit," said we. " Dey could tell, Missus. Dey used to it ; you couldn't take bit, but dey know it, and whip you." And yet the pompousness and irritablity of those ministers could awe whole Assemblies, Conventions, Conferences, and cheat them out of common sense, to say nothing of religion. But we give a few facts : " ' I know a minister, a man of talents, and popular as a preacher, who took his Negro girl into a barn to whip her, and she was brought out a corpse? This is the testi- mony of Mr. Geo. A. Avery, of Rochester, ISTew York, who states further that the friends of the minister seemed to think it of ' little importance to his ministerial stand- -//.",/.' Of course he was not indicted ! This was in Vir- ginia. " A minister in South Carolina, a native of the North, had a stated Sabbath appointment to preach, about eight miles from his residence. He was in the habit of riding thither in his gig or sulkey, after a very swift trotting A SOUTH CAROLINA MINISTER AND HIS SLAVE. 129 horse, which lie always drove briskly. Behind him ran his Negro slave on foot, who was required to he at the place of appointment as soon as his Master, to take care of his horse. Sometimes he fell behind, and kept his Master waiting: for him a few minutes, for which he always received a reprimand, and was sometimes punished. On one occasion of this kind, after a sermon, the Master told the slave that he would take care to have him keep tip with him going home. So he tied him by the wrists, with a halter, to his gig behind, and drove rapidly home. The result was that, about two or three miles from home, the poor fellow's feet and legs failed him, and he was dragged on the ground all the rest of the way, by the wrists! Whether the Master knew it or not till he reached home, is not certain ; but on alighting and look- ng round, he exclaimed, ' "Well, I thought you would ^eep up with me this time !' so saying, he coolly walked nto ihe house. The servants came out and took up the poor sufferer for dead. After a time he revived a little, lingered for a day or two, and died! The facts were known all o^rer the neighborhood, but nothing was done 6* 130 SLAVERY tS SOUTH CAROLINA AXD THE EX-SLATES. about it ! The minister continued preaching as before ; and another slave of his, unable to labor or walk, was seen laid under a shed, near the house, where he would have starved, but for the food thrown over the fence to him by some mechanics working near by, and which he devoured ravenously. He was sent off to the plantation, and soon after died. "When that minister conies up to our General Assemblies, Annual Conferences, or May Anniversaries, he can, doubtless, tell us all about the ' innocent legal relation' of slaveowner, and how kindly the slaves are treated by their Masters ! We should not publish this narrative, which has never before appeared in print, had it not been told to us by an eye-witness, with whom we are well acquainted, and in whose state- ments we can implicitly confide — Mr. John "W. Hill, Green Point, near New York city. He saw the gig when it came up, with the slave dragging behind, and saw the minister alight and go in."* An instance in illustration of the standard of ministe- rial character is seen in a Preacher in Beaufort, who hav- ing sent his slaves out of hearing, into the basement, raved about the war and the North. His son said: " Father, it is of no use. We can and must see that the Lord is with them." The father jumped from his seat, and violently stamp- ing his feet, cried : " Get out of my house this instant, or I will shoot you" — suiting the action to the word — and the son was obliged to seek safety in flight. In short, one cannot become familiar with their history and course without agreeing with Parson Brownlow, in his awful but appropriate language, that they are, as a * Goodell's American Slave Code, pp. 216. COLORED AMBASSADORS — THEIR HUMILITY. 131 class, ^ infernal apostates" and " Judases ;" though as Judas repented, perhaps he should not be slandered by being classed with them. True, there were noble exceptions, so far as personal character was concerned. But they went on, in fellow- ship with these, and so by countenancing, became par- takers of their evil deeds. COLORED AMBASSADORS. The real spiritual benefit of these poor Colored people, instrumentally, seems to have been mostly derived from a sort of local preachers. Colored, and mostly slaves, but of deep spiritual experience, sound sense, and capacity to state Scripture facts, narratives, and doctrines, far better than most, who feed upon commentaries. True, the most of them could not read, still, some of them line hymns from memory with great accuracy, and fervor, and repeat Scripture most appropriately, and correctly. Their teach- ing shows clearly that it is God in the soul, that makes the religious teacher. One is amazed at their correctness and power. They say : " God tell me 'you go teach de people what I tell you ; I shall prosper you ; I teach you in de heart.' " They open their mouth in simple faith that God will fill it, and are not disappointed. How dear to God, must be their perfect humility, perfect trust, perfect love. "Richest by far is the heart's adoration, Dearest to God are the prayers of the poor. But they are remarkably humble, and seem almost pained if you call them preacher, saying quickly and qui- etly, " No, Massah, I not preacher, I talk to 'e people, 'at is all ; I not preach, only try for help 'e people." But 132 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLATES. there is in them a richness of imagination, a seeing of the invisible, a clear realization of eternal realities, which is indescribable, and powerful in effect, upon their audi- ences, and learning from the Bible alone, their standard of action, and experience is very high. But to speak of their conscientiousness, requires another chapter. CHAPTER XXIX. PKAYEKS OF THE EX-SLAVES. The prayers of the poor slaves, are proven to have had great value, in the minds of their Masters, in scores of ways. They argued, and begged, coaxed and threatened, broke up meetings, punished, to make them pray " fo' de confederates." It is proven to have been so from the fact that so many refer to it, as a known fact in so many inci- dental ways ; for instance — " Massah say, we pray for de war, say we shouldn't, inns' pray for de 'fed'rates. "VVe pray mo', pray harder. Den dey wouldn't let we hab meetin's, broke up de meetin's, but didn't broke our hearts, we pray mo' and mo', in de heart, night and day, and wait, and wait, for de Lord. Oh how we did pray for Pa Lincum ! all ou' people call him Pa Lincum. Oh we pray for de Lord to come, to hasten his work. Now he come, we save by de Lord. De Lord done it. "We all so happy now, all work good ; 'spect to work, used to it, and not'ing else. We so happy, we hear de firing at Hilton Head, and when we see de ships comin', we tink we 'mos' in heben." Such was the faith of these dear people, in the success of the North, that they rejoiced at the knowing that there was actual battle as if it were victory. Said an intelligent woman — " Some ou' people sick, all 'long, befo' 'at time, not suffered to lie down, must sit up all time, else Massah say you get lazy, sit up till you all so hot inside, all dried up, all life gone. Some, after cryin', O Lord how long ? so long, get 'scouraged, tink 123 131 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. de good time neber come, so say 'ey nrus' gib up, can't bear no mo', no mo', no way. Then cryin' and prayin' to God fo' 'em, I hear a voice in my soul — voice say ' which side I am on will prevail. You will see which side I am on,' an' I knew I would, an' I did. God did promise a Savior, de Savior did come. Vv r e knew ou' enemies should be ou' footstool. We love you all, but we praise God." A deeply pious ex-slave, said, " When I see de ships come to Hilton Head, I go into my little cabin, and fall down 'fore de Lord, and pray all night ; I neber stop all night. I pray dat God bless you, and gib you success ! Massah angry, but mus' pray for de comin' ob de Lord, an' his people." Another said, " I knew God would bless you, an' give victory, I feel it when I pray. Massah angry 'cause I pray for de North, can't help it, mus' pray for de whole worl'. Massah say, * No ! Pray for de 'fed'rates.' But I knew God would bless de North. I say to de boys, 'Work on, work on de fort, work good, boys, 'twont be long, dis fort wont do no good for rebels ; work on boys, God will soon set his people free.' " These are samples of scores of testimonies. CHAPTER XXX. AMALGAMATION". Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. AmalgamxVtion is tlie progeny, and sure follower, of slavery. In every clime and age it has accompanied it. It is ever sought, and practised by oppressors. Strangers, are lured to their ruin, for its profits. Yet pro-slavery men cry Amalgamation ! when they can produce no other prejudice. Now, where, in the free States, is there any amalgama- tion ? Where in the slave States is there not ? There, it stalks boldly forth; here, if in some very rare cases it appears, it hides, because of just sentiments. The Colored do not seek it, first, the world over. They wisely prefer their own people. There is not in the Cau- casean the warmth of soul, to adapt him to the African. There is not the Colored adaptation to him. Great efforts were made in Oberlin College, Ohio, for years, and in their most excellent society, to produce more association between Whites and Colored, for the elevation of the latter. But, it was found impossible, even uuder the liberal-minded and deeply-Christian influences there, and the great talent of many of the Africans who gradu- ated there. , "We have been to rehearsals preparatory to public con- 135 136 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. certs there, and seen tlie Colored most honored, both as singers and in preparatory business. They evidently felt quite at home, if not a little elevated, by their more expen- sive color. But the moment business was done, they as naturally drew apart from other pupils, iato companies by themselves, as water runs down hill. In relation to this, an excellent professor there said, "We have given up producing much association between the races here. "We have made every effort, thinking thereby to benefit the Colored. But it is of no use. They are always in circles by themselves, and we conclude, now, it is all right." So it ever is. "When did one find a Colored person in his way, or making himself sociable, in any place where he had not actual business ? So it is in South Carolina. The company of the Colored is far more sought by the Whites, than the opposite. When you see Colored men talking with soldiers, it is nearly always evident that it is the latter that make the effort to prolong it ; and so everywhere. It is only by constraint that they favor Amalgamation at first, and in almost every case where it has actually occurred, it has been the Whites that have made advances. It is far better that the races are distinct. The jnire African is often superior to the Mulatto in the South. It is robbery that the race should be cheated of their best specimens, as in slavery it ever is. But, if you would see Amalgamation, read the following, the legitimate and sad fruit of slavery : " Are we dealing in romance ? Come, then, and we will introduce you to a Vice-President of the United States — a very singular man, to be sure, though not sin' gular m being a slaveholder, nor singular in having beau- tiful Colored daughters, to be sought after — in some sort— MAIJKIAGE — VICE-PRESIDENT JOHNSON. 137 by white gentlemen ; but singular in giving hifl Colored daughters a good education, attending them in public as a father, and insisting that whoever admired and sought them should do so only in the way of honorable marriage ! The singularity of Colonel Richard M. Johnson attracted the nation's attention. lie was so very singular as to treat the mother of his Colored daughters as though she were his wife ; to give her the charge of his household ; a seat by his side at his table, addressing her as ' Mrs. Johnson' — to do all this, instead of selling her in the market, as some other great statesmen have sold the mothers of their Colored children. When 'Mrs. John- son' became religious and wished to unite with the Church, the good minister felt it his duty to tell her that there was an obstacle in the way — the scandal of her liv- ing as she did with Colonel Johnson. She immediately communicated the fact to the Colonel. ' You know, my dear,' said he, ' I have always been ready to marry you, whenever it could be done. I am ready now, and will call on your minister about it.' He did so, and requested the minister to marry them, after explaining the facts of the case. The good minister was now in a worse dilemma than before! What! marry Colonel Johnson to a Colored woman ! What could he say ? He could only say that the law would not permit such a marriage. ' Yery well,' retorted Colonel Johnson — who was not a Christian — ' if your Christian law of marriage will not permit me to many the woman of my choice, nor permit her to marry the man of her choice, it must even permit us to live together without marriage.' So saying he walked away, and that was the last that was said about the marriage. Whether the lady was received into the Church, we cannot tell."* * Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin. 13S SLAVERY EST SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. Nothing is more evident to those who actually know the Colored, than that while they respect, value, and re- vere, the good, they want little companionship with the Whites. The fervor, we repeat, of their natures, makes the friiriditv, the self-love of the masses most distateful to them. Then, too, they are most highly social, and even where they do not respect, as they should, their love for each other is wonderful. While they honor, and reverence, their teachers, while they are patient of any amount, of conversation, where they can do or get good, still, when all is done, they fall into their own circle or color for companionship. This fact amazed some of our most excellent teachers. They exclaimed, "They seem not to tire of our teaching, and to prize us more and more, but they seem, after all, to want little of our company." • This is precisely the testimony of Oberlin, to which we again refer. She has for twenty-eight years received the Colored freely to all her privileges and honors. She has even seemed to foster them most if possible. She thought the way to elevate them was to bring them into close association with her ablest, most excellent scholars and Christians. But, after years of trial, she has given up that the Colored must be allowed to follow their nature, which is to seek companionship with each other. Not the shadow of amalgamation has fallen there, while in slavery it has ruled the day. We have the personal testimony of Oberlin professors, upon this point, that the Colored and Whites go forward most harmoniously, and profitably, together as learners and laborers ; but that for companionship they turn to their own, particularly the Colored. There has not been a case of attachment, or at least engagement, between the races, in all the noble Colored scholars that college has XENIA COLLEGE CINCINNATI LABORER — INDEPENDENCE. 139 raised, and not a barrier has been apparent upon that point, as we can ascertain. AN INCIDENT. TVe were most amused, when in the care of the Xenia Female College. A devoted lady, from Cincinnati, was spending some days with us. As a meeting was going on in the Colored church near us, she frequently attended, and labored, in every way, for souls, most acceptably. She was cordially received, and in fine spirits about the meeting, but soon began to droop, as we had expected. We most deeply sympathized all along, but it was one of those cases that interference never helps, and cannot help. Soon she began to sav, "The meeting °;oes on flnelv, powerfully, but somehow they do not seem to need much help." Again, "They are polite, but actually I think they had as soon I were not there." This was the result we looked for, from all our experience, as we now comforted, her, by assuring her. And so it ever is, and will be. Religion sanctifies, but does not destroy nature. In all the institutions and churches where they have been re- ceived, and fostered, not an instance of marriage has occurred. The more pure and elevated the soul becomes, the more does it see the fitness of all things. "Who would so wrong either the White, or Colored, as to lead to unions that must be unhappy from nature's inflexible laws ? It is the privilege of each human being, to be himself, in purity. It is slavery alone that amalga- mates, that outrages nature, that confounds everything in one mass of corruption, that renders the South " the African bleaching ground." CHAPTER XXXI. OUT OF LYING. Falsehood puts on the face of simple truth, And masks i' the habit of plain honesty, When she in heart intends most villainy. The proficiency of these slaveholders, in lying, which we would not intrude upon the reader, but to show the necessary and legitimate work, and results, of slavery, the effect having been the same in every place, as Russia, Turkey, France, Great Britain, etc., etc., where it has existed, and to show how much credit can be given to tlieir assertions, which are as yet taken after all by the masses, as the expose of slavery, or the light it is seen in. "We say, their proficiency in lying, would seem Satanic, were that dignitary fool enough. For instance — though these lies are so odious, we are loth to have the repetition, defile this work, still as our object is to draw faithful pic- tures, for the best effects, we must not exclude this ugly weed, nor leave it in the background — to proceed, then, pious, tested, truthful servants said, "Massah told us 'at de Yankees would put us in harnesses made in de shape ob a man, and we would hab to go on all fours, hitched to great wagons filled with stone 'at bosses couldn't draw. I beiu' free to speak, now, 'cause this war, say to him : " ' 'At would be onpossible. We could not move um if a hoss couldn't draw um.' " ' But,' said Massah, ' dozen men will stand and whip 140 LYING MASTERS NEGRO PATROLS CANNIBALISM. 141 you, and, if you don't go ahead, they will pierce you with their bayonets, and kill vou.' " ' 'At would be wasting money, sure, for de man cost mo' dan de boss. Can't be possible !' " ' You'll see ; dey'll do it,' said Massah. " 'Dey all say de ^Northerners live in bar'ls and casks and sheds, in de street, der ehii'n born in urn, dey diet in um, dey hab nothing for eat but roots and sicli.' " But I say, ' dey send us most all we gets ; 'at ii strange again !' " ' Dey do 'at fo' ou' money, but dey hab nothing to wear.' " ' 'At strange too, when we get calicos and all cloths, from dem ! Can't be ! onpossible !' " ' Well they make it all out of ou' cotton. "We'll keep 'at now, den dey can't hab any ting, hab to go naked.' " For three weeks many poor slaves wandered in the woods, after our troops took possession. In other places they established a regular patrol of men, hiding their women and children. This was done under the belief, or at least, fear, of being shot, cut to pieces, roasted, and eaten by the Northerners, which their Masters had told them, was the way in which Yankees used Negroes, and though they did not fully believe it, still being so often reiterated and sworn to, they feared us somewhat. One said : " Masaah — a Congressman — swore 'at de Yankees would not come, and if dey did, de world would turn back, and we all be killed." " But," said she, " de war did come ! Massah gone ! Praise de Lord ! and it is jus' de same world. De sun rise dere, and set dere, jus' where it always did ! It's de same world, and de same Jesus !" 142 SLAVERY EST SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX- SLAVES. Evidently the oratorical talents of the Congressman had been finely used, for they had been exceedingly frightened. This amiable Congressman, in whipping his poor women, because " couldn't do task ;" " could not ;" " onpossible ;" would cry, " call upon the devil ! needn't call upon the Lord ! Call upon the devil ! I'll whip you till you do !" " But," said the poor woman, " couldn't call upon de debil, when poor body suffer so ! So hab to call upon de Lord, and hab to be whip mo' for 'at. Massah say soldiers kill we, eat we, carry we to Cuba, grind up our babies to make sugar in Cuba. I say : " ' Why, Massah, 'at would be flesh, and bone, and blood, and not sugar.' " < Well they'll do it— you'll see.' " But, Missus, we not 'fraid of de soldiers when dey come way up 'long 'at fence with deir great guns, and all deir tings all shining 1 so. We go rie;ht out to meet um, 'cause we fear de Lord. Dey put deir hands right out to shake. Oh ! den we so glad, so glad ! But, we didn't tink dey kill we, cause Massah hate um so awful ! We gib um best got for eat. When dey come 'gin, dey kill ou' chickens and pigs, and all, most, but we can't care, 'cause dey fights for we, and on' chil'n, dat we be free. Neber been in such peace, neber ! ISTeber tink we could : work ! nothing to work ! in such peace — no driving, no cutting up, no whip when done. We work mo', 'cause so peaceful — willing to work, for make some- thing. Oh, so glad, so glad ! for dis good time. Didn't know I live to see such time. Put all hopes on Jesus. Oh ! my poor chile whip, so swell all up, kill it. Oh ! my Lord ! Now times so good, don't know what to do, TIMES TOO GOOD MASSAII LINCOLN LOVE NEGRO. 143 too much ! too much ! "Work ! task done ! come home here, so peaceaUe, too comfortable ! 'bliged to praise de Lord ebery minute 1" Would that the reader could have seen her radiant face, her grateful, loving, pure, expression of countenance, her plate of hominy, her hut, her rags, and heard her praises ! Oh ! it was a sight for an angel ! " Massah not so hard," she continues. " Driver hard. But Massah no let you tell what driver do. He cut you up so, tie up ebry woman hands crossed so, stretch way up dere so, 'cause task not done, so hard ! so much, couldn't do it, couldn't ! onpossible. Whip mos' thirty on dis place ebery night. But Jesus been 'mongst we, for help we all dese long years. Oh, if it hadn't been for him, couldn't lived, couldn't !" A servant was speaking of Mr. Lincoln's being so awfully homely, when her employer, ,an officer, took out •a bill, saving, "he is not so very homely, see, there he is." The poor woman most modestly but fervently seized the bill, and kissed his portrait, exclaiming : " Good man ! good friend to ou' poo' people." But it was with dif- ficulty some could be made to believe he was not a Colored man, who went around, begging for jobs of rails to split, till he was made president. But never but once, did we see uncontrollable laughter, among the Colored, and that was when we said to them, " Your Massahs said they loved you." Then, we seeing how amused they were, and withdrawing inside the door, that they might freely enjoy the laugh, they went on, with ho ! ho ! ho's ! till all rang again. Then one would say, " Oh, yes, Massah love Nigger I" then the he ! he ! he's ! and ha ! ha ! ha's ! would be uproarious. Another would say, " Oh, yes ! he lub you ! he neber cut you up dere, and^dere, and dere," putting the hands on different parts 144 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAEOLEtTA AND THE EX-SLAVES. of the poor body. " Oh, yes ! be neber cut you up dere, lie lub you." Then another would say, " Oh, Massah lub Niggers !" and the general laugh would again be uncontrollable, and we presume, from their appearance, that that simple remark lasted for a subject, of merriment, for weeks. Yet these are the men, whose testimony has implicitly been received respecting the characters, labors, and the usage and happiness, and far worse, the degradation, of these poor creatures, isolated here from the whole world. President Lincoln was reported a mulatto, as was also his wife. An effigy of the new black president was drawn through the streets, and finally burned. The Colored say, " we knew it be a lie all de time, for de Lord 'sure ou' hearts 'at he be ou' friend, and 'at de Lord will deliber us out ob de hands of all his enemies." Repetition of these falsehoods is painful, and disgusting, but one cannot avoid giving it, in order to give a correct picture of these Southerners. But, to recount all their lies, would require a volume. Indeed, like all other liars, they injured their own cause, by them. The veil, too flimsy, only revealed the fear, avarice, and hypocrisy it was meant to conceal, and weaned those whom now they sought to concilitate. CHAPTER XXXU. MANLINESS. Say, what is honor ? 'Tis the finest sense Of justice which the human mind can frame, Intent each lurking frailty to disclaim, And guard the way of life from all offence Suffered or done. — Wordsworth. "Whekein consists manhood, gentle reader, can yon an- swer ? Surely it is not, in purse, social standing, a seat in Congress, or any one of the thousands other less seats, more or less dignified. Surely it is not in the shade of complexion, the education, the gracefulness of manner. "Wherein, then, does actual manhood, in its largest, no- blest sense, lie ? For however it may rise in splendor, it must have a base, an actual foundation. Is it in religion? Is it ? Is every one who is truly religions, manly ? Would it were so. He is far more manly than he would be without it. But does every Christian man treat his mother, or one in that more sacred relation, wife, even, in a way that can be called manly in all respects ? Would it were so ! No. The great majority of the world are ashamed of the actual manliness they have. How often would that son, most fervently have embraced, kissed, that aged and dear mother. How would he have said, " Forgive me, mother." How blessed had both been by those acts? How noble were they! How Christian! How would such nobleness smooth down to the grave that mother's thorny path ? Why could it not be done ? *l 1*5 146 8LAVEEY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. Why cannot you, reader, do equally, when prompted by all that is best, holiest, within you ? Why ? Is it not because you have not all manly principles? Ah, yes, there it is at last. It is manliness I Manliness in the principles ! Yes, a person is manly, whatever is his complexion, just in proportion to his principles, and his energy in carrying them out. But here, chaos, meets us, again. What one principle is the leading one, the noblest? You say, " In man it is reverence for right, for justice, for woman, for God." Well, we will not argue that point. Take your defini- tion. Then, in the following cases, who is the man, not to say gentleman, Christian, as we might, justly, but who is the man ? You shall give in the decision. !Not we. In Brooklyn, a large audience is listening to thrilling words. " I saw," says the noble advocate of freedom, " I saw a Colored man who was literally covered with large welts from his head to his heels." What was his offence? Header, put close thought, ingenuity, upon the rack, and imagine, and answer, What could have caused a manly, civilized person to inflict such blows ? What ? Hear it : He would not whip his own mother ! That was his crime. lie would die, but he would not whip her who bore him. Was that manly ? Which, in that case, was the man, the civilized man? the cultivated, the Christian man ? Another case we give. It is of a little girl. Few know of her existence. But in her one lone little heart, is shut up a rich world of womanhood. But, he who stole her, at her birth — stole, we say, for no one dare lift his hand to God, and say, " Thou madest a slave." No ! she came from his hands free. This man, because he could do it, stole her, seized her, and ever since, he has regarded her as a thing ! a thing that had hands, and feet, and could SWEET VISIONS OF THE TOOR SLAVE GIRL. 147 therefore be used instead of his own, or some one whom he could honestly hire. She, too, can suffer. " Good !" he cries, " that gives me power over her. Good ! she shall serve me ; she has no rights." But while waiting in an ante-room, overcome by fatigue from tasks to which her little frame is unequal, she commits the crime of nodding. Oh, how she starts ! Visions of awful whippings, rush upon her, she raises her little hands and thanks God, for waking lier before Massah saw her. She rubs her poor little hands and her face, and eyes, and' stands upon her feet, for fear the awful crime of yielding to nature's ex- haustion should subject to horrid mangling her little body. Yes, now she is quite awake. Now she can surely sit a moment and rest, and be ready to spring to her feet if she hears Massah coming. With little heart glowing with gratitude for her safety, and this privilege, she sits down to rest, just for a moment, for in this house, one person wanting her so early, another, so late, little sleep, and hard toil have exhausted her delicate little body. But in an instant she is gone ! asleep ! She sees the Savior, folding little ones to his breast. Ah, she is advancing, advancing, toward him. She, too, will soon, soon ! be in his arms. Yes, some sweet influence in that holy place, draws her toward the dear bosom of the Man of Sorrows ! soon that throbbing head will be upon his dear bosom. When lo! a stunning agony passes through her frame. She is upon the floor, and looking mildly up, her poor eyes rest upon her infuriated Master. He fol- lows the blow that levelled her, with kicks, upon those tender limbs. In vain the little hands, and streaming eyes are raised, for forgiveness. There is not a feeling in his unmanly soul that can be touched, by that mute appeal, for she dare not utter one word, she has learned better. 148 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. He calls the driver ; and a powerful Negro, six feet tall, and strong and with a most determined look, appears. " Here, Massah !" " Take this imp away to the barn, and give her twenty- five lashes ! Now lay it on well. ' I'll see if she can't keep awake !" " Yes, Massah." The driver has no particular knowledge of the child, no particular interest in her — she is only a little " Nigger." He takes her away promptly. Oh, righteous God, why is innocence permitted such agony as that little heart now Buffers on her way to torture? He walks fiercely on before her. Her imbruted Master watches them from the veranda, and enjoys, even in anticipation, the feast, that her torture spreads, so familiar, that he can see it mentally where he is. They get into the barn. The driver turns and looks upon her. What is she to him more than any other child? But he is a man. Now if he does not obey, his own agony, must pay for it. Massah is listen- ins: to resale himself with the sound of the blows, and the assurance of the agony that is so familiar to him. Reader, you are capable, by nature, of becoming just such a person, under the influence of slavery. The noble driver says: "Poor ting, she can ncber, neber get away from Massah. Men, dogs, guns, nature's barriers, are all Vainst her. I will shield her 'is once. The chil'n will tell, likely. Massah will hear it ; I shall be cut in pieces by his lash, under his eye. Yes, it will likely be so. Yes ! but I will shield her 'is one time ; I can suffer it easier 'an she." All this passes in the instant through his soul, even under that fierce face, while he is reaching the place of torture. " Now," he says to the frightened girl, " now you MEN, DOGS, GUNS — NOBLE DRIVER — SALE — MANHOOD. 149 screnm while I whip dis, or something that will sound, like it was yon," and the deception is carried ont. She falls upon her knees, and thanks him, and screams at the right time, and laughs, gratefully, in the interval, and is taken to her poor bed, in his strong arms. Massah seeing this, thinks it all right, and so it is, when he does not find it out. When he does, he superintends the torture of the driver himself; and one such told me, " When Massah did fin' it out, 'e punishment was awful, onspeakable," and that he thus shielded children over, and over, with, full expectation of it, and his words were amply corroborated. His was one of the finest expressions of countenance we ever saw. Kow, reader, can you see, by imagination, these two men. Which had character ? manliness ? But one more fact. A walking creature, that calls himself a man, has a girl for sale — for he is honorable, and must pay gamb- ling, and other such bills. He advertises : " Kegroes for Sale. — A negro woman, $4 years of age, and her two children, one eight and the other three years old. Said negroes will be sold separately or together, as desired. The woman is a good seamstress. She will be sold low for cash, or exchanged for groceries. For terms, apply to " Matthew Bliss & Co., 1 Front Levee." — Nt,io Orleans Bee. The day arrives, the young -woman is brought forth, placed upon the block. She tries not to look beautiful, but dares not look sad. A company approaches, con- taining many smoking, vulgarly strutting, spitting, swear- ing, creatures, fancying themselves men, and thinking to add more to their manhood by the influence of purchasing 150 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. tins slave. They walk up, and examine her poor face, count teeth, feel limbs and chest, all which are accom- panied by remarks appropriate to their morals. Now some would think she was the despisable one in this crowd, but where is the crime, the disgrace, the contemp- tible, unmanly, conduct, the base insult to womanhood ? "Who is the barbarian, who is the low beast in every- thing, but mere outward form, and immortal soul, which soul is robbed, too, and will quail, when the judgment is set, and the books are opened ? But who now is disgraced, the poor slave of those more than contemptible men ? We say, she is not disgraced, though so awfully wronged. No one man can disgrace another, forcibly. True dishonor only can be, by our own action. By what we stoop to be, or to do, only is our character actually lowered. But, of the two, this woman and her purchaser, whom does this action dishonor most ? Suppose you had to be one of the two, absolutely, and there was no escape ! reader, which would you prefer to be ? "Which would you, in the presence of all the pure, of Jesus be ? Which would you be willing to look back, from all, all ! eternity upon having been ? On which side, in all these cases, is the civilization? the respectability? the manliness? Now, where is respectability, in slavery ? The poor slave obeys his Master involuntarily, and only so far as he prefers that to death. He obeys him merely with his body, which is not the man, except as it becomes so, in the bestial man. While he does that, he ! is often, in most holy communion, reading his Eedeemer face to face. His study is God ! God revealed to man, and more and more clearly revealed, just in proportion to his ac- IXSULT TO WOMAN WHO DISHOHOKED? GOD THE STUDY. 151 tual needs and hungerings, and liis actual and constant hanging upon him alone. He conies nearer to Jesus than the angels ; for there is a song that none but the redeemed can sing. There is a place for them next the throne. But, while he is thus in communion with all the holy, yea with God, and merely in body serving his Master, what is that so-called Master obeying? How can we turn to the revolting picture. We will not, fully. But lie is a voluntary slave to every mean passion — passions which the least child can call up, to rule him, to his utter misery here, his utter disgust at himself, in lucid mo- ments, and eternal death. That there are noble exceptions does not weigh any- thing against these general and awful facts. But in all these cases, where is the civilization? the manhood ? the Christianity ? In short, travel through slavedom, you see the Negro subject to the White; but to whom, to what! to what! is that Master, that Mistress, in most cases, subject? But we must give one more illustration of mauliness, a sketch of a speech made by Prince Lambkin, an ex- slave, on Sabbath, August 10, 1862, in Fernandina, Florida, on the occasion of a visit of Gen. Saxton. "The Lord send on me so much trouble. I was in the world, in the horrible pit, and when my hands were tied. I was whipped, and I could hold up no longer, just sinking, the Lord he reach out his hand and save me. Let us all pray. The Lord send deliverance, if we pray. I don't 'spect my liberty will do me much good. Slavery has worn me out. There ain't much left for me and you, my brethren ; but liberty will do the rising generation good. Our children must wwk for it — must fight for it. 0, my brethren, I haven't got only half my body here. My wife and child are with 152 PRINCE LAMBKIN, the rebels. It make me feel so bad. I work hard, I earn my bread ; but 0, my brethren and sisters, I can't eat it ! It don't taste good, for I don't know my family has a mouthful. Rebels all so wicked, I fear my family starve. I can't eat, (with great emotion,) but, brethren, I thank God I live to see this day. And I do so much bless the Lord, and am thankful to him that he send his true ministers, who preach to us the full Gospel so as we never heard it afore in all our lives. It do my soul good. I love this Gospel, and the Lord bless these faithful servants for evermore. 0, thank God, I live to see this day and the old flag ! Once that old flag, just like as Saul, persecuted us ; it was our enemy. We loved the Lord ; we were good people, but our masters were wicked. They swear, and drink, and gamble, and sell us, and the flag be their friend and our enemy. Now it get converted, and it become good, like the apostle, and he go and bless the same people, and do them good he persecuted. So, my brethren, the old flag is convert- ed now. It looks sweet now. It protects us now. I love to look at it now, it looks so smiling ! And, as the general was saying, if we would fight ; why now I could fight. They say ' we have got no country. We don't want any home.' Why, my brethren, we got a home over in the promised land ; and, by the grace of God, I mean to hold out faithful. And, my brethren, we must all pray for the general and all the officers who have come down to help us. They ain't fighting for them- selves. They are fighting for us, and we must pray the Lord to have them in his keeping. And the soldiers ; they get sick, and many of them die for us. 0, they be so kind. We must all pray the Lord to bless the sol- diers, and give them all the crown of life. And, my brethren, I feel like fighting for the old flag ; don't you ? I mean to fight ; and if the flag, which now be our friend, go down, we will all go down with her." CHAPTER XXXIII. ENERGY OP THE COLORED. Whatsoever thy hand fmdeth to do, do it with thy might. ' What are we sent on earth for ? say, to toil ; Nor seek to leave thy tending of the vines, For all the heat o' the day, till it declines, And death's mild curfew shall from work assoil. God did anoint thee with his odorous oil, To wrestle, not to reign." Mrs. Browning. To prove that they excel in energ) T , it is only needful to point to the whole and individual testimony of the military in all reports, letters, and documents in which their noble, brave, energetic, patient course has been referred to, to show that the energy of the Colored un- der sufficient stimulus is amazing. They will put forth most patient and long-continued effort for an object they much desire, and consider attainable. And this energy seems more natural, or at least developed earlier than in most races. One, or two, instances we give. A Colored woman said to us : "After de rebels run off, dey come stealing back, to get deir slaves. Dey come sweeping round dis house, scouring de place, to hunt um, to care um to the Main. Some dey caught, 'cause come so quick. Dese little chil'n — of about five and seven years, we think — ran down hide in de mud, 'cause tide is out. Men come 'roun right here — within ten feet of um — but didn't see um, all 154 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. but faces cobered up. Dey git in, but dey couldn't git out, hab to dig um up." Where are the white children, of the same age, that would have done this ? Their aged parents, the rebels did not want. Another instance. Two of our ladies, in visiting a plantation, said to a woman, in the presence of two little ones, just fairly able to walk : " Why do you not wash their clothes ?" " Missus, it is onpossible, haint got no soap, nor a thing to put on 'em while I does it." " Well, you must have some sent you ; but you can surely wash their faces." Soon, the ladies returned, and were electrified with laughter, to see the little todlers, both stooping over a basin, and rubbing their faces most energetically with their own little hands, fully determined to be clean, and this, at an age, when white children would be screaming in nurse's arms. Superhuman efforts, too, to escape from slavery, show great energy, their only other encourage- ment being faith that God would help them. In one instance, to save his wife, a man crawled two miles upon his knees amongst deadly enemies and pickets thickly placed, and was successful. Some crossed Broad Eiver, three miles wide, upon boards, exclaiming, when arriving: "God brought we ober dis Jordan, into de good land ob liberty ;" or, " God provide de way ;" " God give we de boat ;" " I ask him, he say he will, and he did, he keep we." A most excellent chambermaid said, "she came from de Main mor'n thirty miles through rebels," most deadly in pursuing, and killing the Colored. She came on foot, and with only another girl, for company. " How did you dare start ?" said we. TRUST IN GOD — POISONOUS LIZARD — ENERGY — TASTE. 155 " Why, Missus, I'se a member — church member — and I ask de Lord to bring me safe, and he say he would, and he did. Nobody spoke to we, nor hurt we, nor scared we. De Lord brought we." Many of them do much work by moonlight, to get necessaries, and respectable dress. But upon the hardest plantations, they are not allowed a garden, of any extent. We suppose this is for fear of leading them to think of comforts, and that, leading to seeking their liberty, for what other reason could there be ? when so much land goes to waste around their huts. In a church, upon a large plantation where the Master would not afford them a floor for it, and where, while listening to a sermon, a poisonous lizard sprang upon our lap, then glided away among the naked feet of the dear little Colored boys, a pulpit not being furnished, the poor slaves had twisted withes, and wound them with the grey moss, and by great effort, had made a pulpit that was beautiful. Windows, too, could not be furnished, but rude, door-like shutters opened in the places of windows. This is but a sample of the poverty-stricken appearances, everywhere, and this, when the law gives the master fifteen shillings per day damages, if the slave is disabled from work, by another, not under his employ. For so does the love of flogging prevail, that slaves are often stript in the roads and whipt, and, as the white man's oath alone can be taken, this is done with impunity, except in rare cases. But, the energy of the Colored is further shown in their herculean efforts to make a 'spectable appearance, with little means, and in most ingenious and excellent mend- ing of injured articles ; all pronounce their work remark- able. An instance : A Colored man had a coat presented, 156 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. about two sizes too small. "Wliat was to be done ? Most people in that class, would have let it be strained out. Not so, this woman. But as the coat was of a bright snuff-color, she obtained some dark-blue cloth, and put into each seam, of the body of the coat, a piece, some three inches wide at the centre, and tapering regularly to both ends of the seam. It was beautiful, so neatly done, with such a look of completeness, and a good fit. One said — " If a New York tailor was here, he might get a hint that would be of great value to him." We merely give this as an illustration, of their ingenuity and energy. The fact is, everything comfortable has had to come by their wits, even with extra work, in some way, and if those wits are well developed, in more than one way, it is the fault of oppression. Our Peter said, his " Massah awful scared, said ' Peter, Hilton Head is taken, de Yankees are coming, we go in de carriage, we run fo' life. You take de slaves into de swamp, and camp out dare and take care ob urn. You understand, Peter V " ' Yes, Massah.' " ' You take um way, and take care on um V " ' Yes, Massah,' said the meek Peter. " "When Massah gone, I take care on em, I brings dem all cross de land, den cros de riber, den to Beaufort, to dis land ob freedom. I get um most all over — one hundred and fifty in all— in de night, de last load come on de boat when sun two hou's high in de morning. Pick- ets shooting at we, few yards off. But I not 'fraid, 'cause de Lord he help us." Hundreds of instances of such energy might be re- corded. Many, it might not answer to name, until the war is over. THKKE HUNDRED READING AT POUT EOTAL. 157 LEARNING TO HEAD How sadly isolated are these poor people ! Of the world, the world of man, the world of love, of sweet homes, of Christians, of philanthropists, of scholars, of sufferers to spread the kingdom of Christ ; the world of those in deepest devotion to God — of all these, how little do the j know. What volumes upon all these points are yet to be opened to them ; and how anxious they are to peruse them ! There is nothing, about which they manifest such desire, and intense eagerness, invariably almost, as read- ing and writing. They say far more about this than even freedom. This seemed singular at first, but it seems to contain freedom, in their minds. And they do learn. One lady said she taught the alphabet to a whole school in one hour, and when they came the next day, all, ex- cepting two adults, knew every letter. A large number at Port Royal, some think three hundred, some more, now read the word of God. All are anxious, even those whose eyes are dimwith age. And what is most encouraging, is that every one, as soon as he learns a let- ter, becomes a teacher to one who is ignorant. Every Colored man carries his spelling-book in his pocket, and groups are seen in all imaginable places, and attitudes, even in groups on street corners, conning their books, and assisting each other. When we visit them, mothers bring the spelling-books at once, to show us bow far their children have gone ; and the interest continually increases. Old people, child- ren, and grand-children, all are seen reading out of one book, and all seem equally ambitious and animated. If you have a spare moment, in visiting a plantation after their tasks are done, you have only to commence teach.- 153 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. ing one person, old or young, and in a single minute you are surrounded by an eager group, kneeling, standing, leaning in any position unwearied, so as to get eyes upon the book, and whom no occurrence diverts, for one instant, from your instruction. And when you must leave, they say, "O! Missus, please read us one hymn befo' you go ;" or, if they are writing, even if it be with a stick in the sand — " Make us one mo' letter, please Missus." Such eagerness and constancy must soon be rewarded by good scholarship. A minister from Washington City says : " The intense desire of the Negroes to learn to read, is beyond anything I have ever witnessed elsewhere, and their progress is fully equal to that which you will find among any other class of learners. I was giving a lesson the other day at the Navy Yard, wdiere the class had but an hour at noon both for their dinner and their lesson. One of the men, not satisfied with having spelled out and read the lesson given him tbe preceding day, had actually mastered four lessons in advance. Overflowing with de- light, and perfectly chuckling over his success, he said at the close, ' Wal, now, Massah, I reckon I'll git larnin', won't I V Another, not satisfied w T ith spelling out the words, looking on the book, wished me to hear him with- out the book, and I found he had the whole lesson per- fectly. " Our Alexandria school is greatly successful. During my last hour there, they answered questions with such fluency I was driven from card to card — we teach by large cards hung upon the wall — from capitals to small letters, from punctuation marks to figures till I was at my wit's end to find something they could not answer on our elementary cards." CHAPTER XXXIY. NEGRO QUARTERS. And meekly still the martyrs go, To keep with pain their solemn bridal. Massey. There is no work extant respecting the Negro, but misrepresents him. Not one ! Not even the works of those most warmly enlisted in his favor, do him justice, or speak truly respecting him, at least, as he is, in America. Not one. The reason is obvious. The only light in which he could be seen, was that cast by slavery, for no other power had access, real access, to them. Many travellers, and others, may have imagined, they had access, saw things, as they were, but it will yet be universally acknowledged that this was not so, and that, however candid, and open appearances were, they saw in these dark places, merely, but just what the Masters chose, they should see, and nothing more. They heard just what tales the poor Colored, knew it was for their whole skin, and length of days, that they should tell, whatever appearances were. The " greenness " of the traveller, or transient resident, who imagines that a Negro would dare be sulky, or sad, in appearance, or otherwise than jovial, wants a name, or, that the Negro, would dare act himself, in any one way, freely. All this, is said now to prepare the way for the refuta- tion, of that awfully mean and contemptible falsehood, that has been rung, and rung, through the world, by 160 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. those whose life's study, and science, it was, to prejudice the world against the Negro, " that they herd together like beasts." This is a falsehood, to express the mean- ness of which, no adjective is sufficient. It is not so ! Let the world hear. Let the warmest friends of the poor Colored, so long inlposed upon, know, it is not so. They do not so herd together. But in their poor huts, without a window, without a chimney, without a floor, without a decent chair, or table, from the misers, to whom every day's work of theirs, is worth fifteen shillings* — which can be collected by law, if one is disabled — without any of these things, they have yet partitions that divide their huts, probably twenty or twenty-five feet square, into three apartments, so that they do not " herd together " so much, as persons in many other cases. These partitions are. most rude, but they are there, invariably. They consist of puncheon usually, or trees split instead of sawed, and inclose just the length of the bed, a sort of berth. The door is hung by wooden hinges, in this land of poverty, or old soles of shoes, but it is there. The poor hut is the work of the slave, and usually, out of labor hours. Perhaps when a Master is " oncommon good," he gives the poor man a day or two, with the help of a mechanic. But we never heard of this, but the opposite. So, that, these decencies cost the poor Negro great toil, usually, but the toil is given, the decencies are had. So one of the refuges of lies, one of the falsehoods, under which slaveholders have hid them- selves, is exposed. We call every one, who has been to South Carolina, the deepest dark, of the dark land of slavedom, to witness the truth of our assertion, that, invariably, however rude or cheap the hut, there are * Goodell. HUTS OF TIIKEE AFAHTMKNTS — THE IUtO-SLAVERY MAN. 161 tlirce apartments in it, however small. "We do not say that there is none not so, but in entering hundreds, we saw none. The slaveholder, has long seen, that nothing, so recon- ciled the Northerner to slavery, as the impression that the Negroes were almost beasts, and therefore, it was little matter, comparatively, what they suffered. Now the entire opposite, of all this, is the fact. Never, have we seen such effort to make poor rags shield the form, never such effort to live decently, even though it w r as with scarcely a bodily comfort. But these quarters are horrid. We have been in those, which having no floor, because boards could not be afforded, or gotten, had been swept out until the ground was like a dish, and the poor inmates, said, that in rainy times, the water stood, so that they were wet to the knees, in spite of all effort to prevent it. One woman had suffered terribly from this exposure. Yet very near, there was high ground, unused, and a competent mechanic certainly could have moved the whole structure in a few hours. But wisdom has been denied these poor slaveholders. This fact strikes one, momentarily, everywhere, upon their plantations. But every, every failure, has gone to make the sufferings of the poor slaves more and more acute. A pro-slavery man was visiting Beaufort. The minis- ter whose guest he was did not argue much, but simply took him out upon an ordinary plantation. When he came to the huts, he raised his hands in horror, exclaim- ing, " You do not say the slaves lived here !" "I do." " What liars ! were their Masters ! What liars ! Why I would not put a hog in such a place. I cannot believe 1G2 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. my own eyes !" said the man, with many other epithets. But common epithets, and facts, were far better forgot- ten, so only the cause be removed. For that we labor. Suffice it to say, the minister had to preach to this man charity for the ignorance, training, and prejudices, of the slaveholder ever after. Said a minister, ." If one is possessed of a pro-slavery devil, let him come here, and it will be cast out, without a word." Yet in these awful huts lived many of whom it is true, that " they shall be mine, saith God, in the day when I make up my jewels." They lived, toiled, suffered, died here, but not alone, not alone, praise God ! The Man of Sorrows walked with them through these fires, through these floods, through these agonies, through these tortures, through death. O ! the body, the poor body, how crushed ; the soul, how triumphant ! Many, many go up from these dark huts to join the great army of martyrs. Many have died under the lash rather than tell falsehoods ! saying, " Must sabe soul ! couldn't sabe body." Many, rather than part with chastity! many, or some, rather than whip their parents or wives. The simple, heart-rending story, of those only, of them who survived, is told ; the great majority have no earthly record. And it was not be- cause their Masters were brutes, or at least, originally so, it was a fruit inseparable from the tree, slavery. Those Masters did not intend, usually, to kill, but to torture to the very extreme of endurance ; to crush the manhood out of them, and terrify all the rest into surrender of their manhood. But the means failed. The submission was only external. The Colored man rose, in God, far, above his tormentor, and felt that the real man was out of his reach. Still torture, — Ah ! torture ! of the poor, poor body, was just as hard for him to bear as for you and me, reader. DESOLATION AROUND QUARTERS — FURNITURE — POVERTY. 163 Nothing is seen growing around the Negro quarters on most plantations. Nor even is there a stump or block of wood, or anything where one could sit a moment. An old leech, or crib, would be a beauty, anything, that took away the look of desolation. Nothing but sand, poor weeds, and a few rags. Nothing but the great hoes stand- ing against the hut, yet land enough wasted around many of them to support a family, with intelligent labor. But the poor slave cannot have a good garden without learn- ing to think. But thinking is dangerous ; and one thought mav brimj; on another, until he will think of freedom. So, as raising chickens, admits of no improve- ment, inspires no new thought, that is the only thing he is allowed to do, on some plantations. The only furniture inside the hut is a washtub, in which water is carried on the head often from long distances ; hominy -pots, ever stewing in the ashes, boards propped up so as to form a kind of table, evidently not used or washed for weeks, some few dishes on a shelf against the wall, or on the table or floor, some children eating gar- den beans from small wooden buckets, a bench, and sort of berth, where a heap of rags shows it is used as a bed, and sometimes one or two old chairs, and some boxes. How we did often regret, that lack of time forbade us to show them, and have these poor rags washed, sewed together, tilled with moss, everywhere hanging from the trees, or with prairie grass, since straw, in this land of poverty, could not be atforded. But field-work, no soap, no water, no kettles, tubs, fires, or wood, would seem to make it impossible. Indeed to keep away all ideas, espe- cially new ones, of personal comfort, evidently has been the aim. Then the filth, no boundary between the ashes of some chimneyless huts and the deep dirt upon the floor or bare earth, passes all description. "Wood chips, 164: SLAVERY IN SOUTH. CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. kindlers, always in the hut, mixed with rags and dirt that had not been moved for weeks certainly, for the poor women were formerly in the field during every moment of light usually. They seem to have not the least idea that any one will enter, and it is evident and proven, that, in the time of their Masters, no white per- son ever did. In short, the most perfect absence of all apj)earanee of comfort. Yet some, during all this time, lived tidily as possible; swept their poor huts with pine bushes by moon-light, and the space of ground around them. But in these huts the villainous darkness has long reigned, only darting behind boxes, and piles of rags, when the poor door was opened, then resuming its sway. But it will now be cast out. Windows and furniture are now being provided by the Freedman's Belief Association, so that a pattern hut may be erected and furnished on each plantation, for some aged couple, who will keep it nicely — and there will be no failure there — in order to stimulate all others. Already the great improvements in furniture, and neatness, and habits, that have been made, through the efforts of the noble Superintendents and ladies of the Mission, are amazing; and soon, under freedom, steam-mills will convert the large wasting pine logs into boards, which now it is almost an utter impossi- bility to obtain. Comfortable dwellings will rise ; and how will these good Colored people bless, by their kind- ness, their true piety, excellent dispositions, their know- ledge of farming, and their capacities and hearts for labor, whoever shall have the care of these lands until they have their dues out of them. There could not be a more delightful position, provided they were hired and paid honestly, though it were very little. They seem as much to belong here as the palmettoes. The land would mourn without them, and be desolate under any other OPINIONS OF TnOSE WHO HAD CARE THE FRFF BOB. 1H5 labor. No one, who has had the care of plantations, could think of parting -with the majority of them, hut 'would consider it an insufferable deprivation. But this subject requires an entire chapter. We visited a plantation yesterday, now for two weeks under the care of Mr. Fox of New York, and found two cabins whitewashed, clean and comfortable, and the in- mates neat, and happy as birds. Such a sight nevei greeted us in Negro quarters before. But now (six weeks later), on many plantations, it is common. They say " the free hoe flies easy, and quick ; before we work for lick, now, for wife and chil'n." They say, " we do not care what work we do, or how much. We will do any- thing, and we thank God for it, for work, and for we see dis good day, and for dis good chance. De Lord, is try- in«- us, to see what we will do, wid freedom." Indeed such are the improvements, already under the labors of those under the auspices of the Freedman's Be- lief Association, that many masters would scarcely know their former " quarters," or people. Still, never can their dwellings be homes, until the women are allowed to devote their time mostly to them. This is a vital point. Their readiness and zeal, in present improve- ments, prove that this will be done to good effect, and with taste rarely equalled among persons of that class. How will this land smile under freedom ! Free, manly men, going forth in the mornings, to labor, leaving good, neat, well-filled, and well-kept dwellings, and returning to all home-comforts, and the family altar instead of the lash. Then will the products be, as in the West Indies, vastly increased under free labor. Then will all see, that not the curse of God rests upon the land— as under slavery, was most painfully evident to all — but His bless- ing, that maketh rieh and addeth no sorrow. CHAPTEK XXXV. PREJUDICE AGAINST COLOR. The poor slave knows men, Christians, only by tales of cruelty and despotic power, every effort being made by lying Masters to induce him to shrink from contact with the world. Of religion, too, beyond his experience, he knows little except that it is made by odious teachers to engrave the bondage, deeper than the lash striving to write it, upon his soul, in its most susceptible moments. Yet something within, which is divine, says that this teaching is all unjust, untrue. Still, they have had no real pastors, but those of their own color, equally crushed and suffering. "All other ministers must preach as ' Massah low'd,' and we had no open Gospel," say they. But they will have true apostles. There are those who will be willing, glad, to labor with them, when, to do so, aright, is not to rush into death. There are Ash- muns, and Drummonds, and Wilkinses, and Wesleys. And these must and will, labor for them in the Gospel. This is necessary. For, just in proportion to his degra- dation, does the Negro despise his own race. This is one of the direst wounds of slavery. So often, and so long, has he heard his race called " Nigger," with just such a pre- fix as avarice, hatred, revenge, or meaner passions, sug- gested. But the prevailing epithet has been so long one expressive of contempt, and disgust, so constantly falling upon the bare hearts, of a most impressible race, that upon the least occasion, those feelings appear, and to be 166 ODIOUS APPELLATIONS TESTIMONIALS OF TRAVF.LLEIIS. 107 called a "black Nigger" embodies all that is odious — so that just in the ratio of their degradation, are they depend- ent for instruction, upon the Whites, especially in the slave States. We scorn to plead with the Whites on the question of color, but for the comfort, and benefit of the Colored, we insert the following : " On my late tour, in August, 1825," says Dr. Philip, " I first came in contact with the Bechuanas. I have Beldom seen a finer race of people ; the men are generally well made, and had an elegant carriage ; and many of the females were slender, and extremely graceful. I could see at once, from their step and air, that they had never been in slavery. They had an air of dignity and inde- pendence in their manners, which formed a striking con- trast to the crouching and servile appearance of the slave."* On visiting a family of this tribe, Dr. Philip observes : " I had in my train a young man who was a native of Lattakoo ; and when they found out there was a person in our company who understood their language, they were quite in raptures. I think I never saw two finer fig- ures than the father and the eldest son. They were both above six feet ; and their limbs were admirably propor- tioned. The father had a most elegant carriage, and was tall and thin ; the son, a lad about 18 years of age, was equally well proportioned, and had one of the finest open countenances that can possibly be imagined. The second son was inferior in stature, but he had a fine coun- tenance also ; and, while they indulged in all their native freedom, animated by the conversation of my Bechuana, or began to tell the story of their misfortunes, expressing the consternation with which they were seized when they saw their children and parents killed by an invisible wea- * Philip's " African Researches." 1CS SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. p.on, and their cattle taken from them, they became elo- quent in their address ; their countenances, their eyes, their every gesture, spoke to the eyes and to the heart."* "Teysho, chief counsellor of Mateebe, Kiug of the Wankeets of South Africa, is a handsome man," says the same writer ; " and the ladies who were with him were fine looking women, and had an air of superiority about them." f We have the testimony of another recent traveller, and resident for some time in South Africa. Thomas Prin- gle, in speaking of the Bechuana, or great Kafir family, says: " Some of them were very handsome. One man of the Tamaha tribe, was, I think, the finest specimen of the human figure I ever beheld in any country — fully six feet in height, and graceful as an Apollo. A female of the same party, the wife of a chief, was also a beautiful creature, with features of the most handsome and delicate European mould.'''' % It has often been asserted, that independently of the woolly hair and the dark complexion of the Negroes, there are sufficient differences between them and the rest of mankind, to mark them as a very peculiar tribe. This may be the case to some extent. Yet from the foregoing remarks of accredited travellers, it is evident that the principal differences are not so constant as may generally be imagined. Many Negroes, we have been informed, strike Europeans as being remarkably beautiful. This would not be the case if they deviated much from the European standard of beauty. Slaves in the Colonies, brought from the east coast of intertropical Africa, and from Congo, are often destitute of those peculiarities, * Philip's " African Researches". f Idem. | Fringle's "Sketches of South Africa." EXPECTATIONS — NORTHERN LADIES. 1G9 which, in our eyes, constitute ugliness and deformity. "In looking over a congregation of Blacks," observe Sturge and Harvey, " it is not difficult to lose the impres- sion of their color. There is among them the same diver- sity of countenance and complexion, as among Euro- peans ; and it is only doing violence to one's own feelings, to suppose for a moment that they are not made of the same blood as ourselves."* Most here, love the pious Colored, tenderly; true, we did not kiss them, as was asserted, not one of them, for we would not, by so doing, create an expectation in them, and thus put it in the power of other white ladies to slight them. In short, in all our dealings with them, we tried not to prepare the way, for those whose black is not of the face, to wound them. We imagine their impres- sion of us, was that the Northern ladies' manners were NOT AS AFFECTIONATE, toward them, AS THOSE OF THEIR broken-hearted Mistresses. ]STow, if one is so ignorant and narrow-minded that he decides upon another by the color of his skin, and loves him accordingly, let him once fairly own it, to himself. The admission will do him good. He could not have associated with some of the fathers of the Christian Church, its ablest divines, with Euclid, etc., etc., because, forsooth, they were Colored. A really intelligent, large-minded man judges of character, much by the expression of countenance, and here, will you compare the Colored, man, with the White. "Walk Broadway, or "Washington, or Chestnut street, and once have your mind upon the expression of countenance of the persons you meet, and see how you are affected at the contrast of Colored with White. Ah, we are coming upon better times, when better tests of excellence will be * Sturge and Harvey's " West Indies." 8 170 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. used, and required. England is reaching it, for though the most barbarous laws respecting the Colored, in this land, were passed under her government, perhaps in her parliament, in 1705, she now glories in honoring the African. Yes, she often does it, just to show her superiority to us, in cultivation, and large-mindedness and just sentiments. As an instance of this, the truly. Royal Victoria, among the very select number of guests at the nuptials of her daughter, not comprising a score, beside the royal family, had one full African lady. It is well known that the English love to bring the Colored in company with Americans into their houses, as guests. At least some credible travellers so assert. But it is well known that just in proportion to the low- ness and vulgarity of a writer, is he prepared to spew forth his low prejudices against color, and vice versa. Investigate this, we pray you, reader. Observe the MORAL STANDING OF THOSE WHO LOVE, AND THOSE WHO HATE, the Colored man. That, is all we ask. "We have editors, who equal the lowest slavedealer, who ever cracked a whip, both in prejudice, and low cunning, and, we presume, in other respects, their real characters are precisely similar, and they would, doubtless, hold with them, the very sweetest converse, and mutual communion of black souls. These writers have merely mistaken, in the seat in which they sit ; their meanness is the same, precisely. Should you, or I, stay in that climate too long, and permit the Sun to look upon us too freely, these noble, honorable, men [?] would think the slave-gang, slave-ship, or rice-swamp, exactly appropriate to us. But, seriously, will you, candid, noble minded reader, take one walk, not for dollars, or new bonnets, but to watch the expression of countenances, and decide for yourself where the superiority, ae a whole, lies ? WRITERS OF SAME QUALITIES AS SELLERS OF BABIES. 171 We do not wrong, nor prejudge, these writers. "We leave it to the intelligent reader, whether it is not the same qualities, which would have made them good drivers, etc., of women, good sellers of babies, that pre- pare them to drive on the community toward bestiality, by administering most adroitly to the lowest of prejudices, passions, instincts, thus acquiring a most loathsome popularity, having even deacons, and class leaders, in tow. But one v thing is sure, no man, who loves the HUMAN FAMILY, CAN ENDURE THEIR WRITINGS. This popu- larity may put money in their purse, and momentary power into their hands, but will leave stench enough around their sepulchres to nauseate the centuries coming, yea, to sicken every really noble, intelligent man, that shall arise, nntil this polluted earth is purified by fire, and the new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness, shall come. But, how sick, is the soul, at seeing that no writer, no ! not the bravest, best, realizes what slavery actually is, what the Negro is. Scores of best writers should have seen all, at Port Royal under the first smile of liberty there, and returning with glowing hearts and words, moved mightily the. masses. Surely, then government had acted to the saving national honor, and pnrity, and the precious lives of tens of thousands of noble soldiers. Surely, this curse, slavery, had been lifted, instead of settling down more sternly, plunging us into deeper oppression. Surely, when Fort Donelson was taken, poor patriotic Negroes had not been delivered over to torture from Masters. Surely the rebels had not been invigorated, by our weak, cringing measures. Surely the nation had not settled down in warfare to the barbarity of the rebels. -When the Lord maketh requisition for blood, he forgetteth not the cry of the humble. CHAPTER XXXVI. THE SOUTHERNER. Oh, how unsufferable is the weight Of sin ; how miserable is their state, The silence of whose secret sin conceals The smart ; till justice to revenge appeals. Quakles. It will not be denied that the Southerner is brave, gene- rous, hospitable, warm-hearted. He seems formed to be the noble, honorable gentleman, frank, and faithful to a friend. There is but one thing that spoils him, one thing that gives too tight a coat, and eminence upon a tree with an uncomfortable cravat, to his hospitality ; that is, pro- vided, his visitor is manly and out-spoken. There is but one thing that arrays him in antagonism to the philanthropic world, one thing that sets his hand against every man's hand, and thus, transforms his brother into an enemy. There is but one thing that makes him a traitor, a presump- tive, heir of perdition. That is slavery. How sad, even if he become happy, and rich, and honorable, were it to pay snch a price for it. But when the contrary is the effect, how intolerable. How sad at death, to leave an appella- tion to his name, that shocks the world, as does the word slaveholder. The Southerner too, is certainly better, than the sys- tem, under which he lives. He does not, as a general thing, become such a swine in sensuality — we beg pardon of the swine — as his opportunities allow. lie restrains himself more than Job did, because he has so much more 172 TI1E SOITTUERNER AND PAUL — VIRGINIA EXPORTS. 173 within him to restrain. lie makes more resolutions to be kind, amiable, and good, than St. Paul himself did. His is a life-long light against himself, his home, his country, his slaves, the world, and he lies down at last, the most weary and soul-sick of mortals, to die. And what does he gain? He gains the mean glory of tyrannizing over others by the mere paying of dollars, a thing in which lie can be equalled by the most base and contemptible of men. lie gains less money than if investing none in Negroes, he hired them honestly, and sold no babies. "We know whereof we affirm. We know that Virginia exports $12,000,000 in babies, or slaves per year. Still, is not Virginia the poorest of States, considering her age and advantages ? Then, think of the intolerable meanness, of living upon such profits, of having babies sold to buy your bread and butter, and tobacco and whiskey, with- out which stimuli, the thing could not be done. He gains the privilege of locking and barring, and bolting, and arming, and terror, and sleepless nights. He gains domestic anguish, and heart contempt, in life and after death. He gains strife with the whole world, in which, it is sure to have the last word. He gains certain con- demnation in the millennium. He gains the companion- ship of the very meanest men of the North, men whom without slavery, he would scorn. He gains sighs, around his habitation and grave, which sadly say, " he's in per- dition." He gains all the imprecations of all, who in agony, and death, have called for vengeance upon oppres- sors. He gains disquiet, terror, death of soul. Yea, be- fore that dire event he gains the knowledge and consci- ousness that he is actually brutalized. How does that graduate of Yale College feel in his lucid moments about dropping the hot pitch from burning pine-knots into the quivering flesh of poor helpless dependents, to say the 174: SLAVERY IN" SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. least, merely because they are sick and cannot work. "We have his name, but we will not stain it, hoping others may yet honor it. How does that man, his companion, feel, who being afraid to ride about without a body guard of two Negroes, yet has them strip the lone stranger, the travelling Co- lored man, and flog him unmercifully, merely for hap- pening — mayhap in weighing his internal sorrows — to forget to bow low enough, in passing him. This is a fact. He has such stripped, tied to a tree, and whipt severely, merely for not being obsequious enough though he bowed most respectfully. And the laws allow him to kill him* with impunity, provided he makes the least resistance. But the Southerner gains poverty eventually in himself or children, unless he have sense enough just at the right moment to sell and get into a free State, which is some- times, but rarely, the case. Finally he gains an early death. "We were credibly informed, over and over, that few slaveholders live till past middle life. All its ripe and holy decline, and long, beautiful and quiet evening, they lose. This known fact, death the gain of stn, is attributed by good judges to worry, excitement, but mostly to dissi- pation. But, suppose he gives it up ? He gains what words cannot express, of peace, quiet, conscious honesty, accre- dited honesty, the hearty approbation of the good, frater- nity, with all men, except a few slavedealers, and petty despots, and their avaricious, or contemptible, abettors. He gains a name, of which his descendants will not be ashamed, in the millennium, or in heaven. He gains honor, comfort, good conscience, union with the good of earth, and, the heart being pure, heaven. Now let none * Goodell's "American Slave Code." ASHAMED TO OWN SLAVEHOLDER ANCESTORS. 175 say the idea of descendants being asliamed of ancestors being slaveholders, is a forced idea. They are so now, in the North, in England, Prussia, Russia, yes, even in France, and in all the Orient. "We have seen persons of wealth, standing, and pro-slavery, also, in this city, evade, in every way, owning the fact that their ancestors were slaveholders, within one week, and must not this inevit- ably increase, as righteousness shall fill the earth ? More- over, wealth, gotten by slavery, it seems impossible to ] 10 ]d — go let it be given, while so doing will bring honor, not dishonor. For " wealth gotten by deceit, is soon wasted." Children are censured for not holding that, which God hath cursed, " both in the basket and in the field." CHAPTEK xxxyn. INNER AJSTD OUTER LIFE. Our real life in Christ concealed Deep in the Father's bosom lies. The distinction between the outer and inner life, is very, very, obvious here. The heavy hoe is in the hand of the poor, failing, "body — the hand of the soul is upon the crown of life. The throe of anguish quivers through the frame — the glow of irrepressible love to God and the Lamb thrills through the soul ! They say, " Oh, Missus, I'se worked in de fiel' till I'se so hot inside !" or, " till all burn up inside ;" or " till heart fall all clown inside t" But it is evident that these pangs do not touch their "real life, in Christ concealed." They glide quickly into talk of Jesus, as naturally indeed as the face of the suffering babe turns to its mother's bosom. If their Master is alluded to, a shade of remembrance of how he despised them, passes over their countenance, for that is still, and ever, the most vivid earthly picture before their minds. Then, with heavenly expression, they almost invariably say, " Oh ! Missus, he was a hard Massah ; a hard Massah ! work from befo' light, leave here when stars shining; work till can't hardly see to get home, then wliipt so awful, if you not done task. Hands stretch 'bove you' head so — raising the poor hands— ITS CHRISTIAN ENDURANCE — INDIGNATION. 177 whipt so awful, ebry one 'at not done task, whipt thirty or forty on dis place ebery evening, and couldn't do no mo', no mo' ! Lie down while corn cook, fall 'sleep on dis flo' — hominy all burn up. Grind 'fo' light and make mo', or, try borrow. Sometimes couldn't lend — darsn't. Go widout till night, den if you couldn't do task, whipt 'gain." Oh that we could give the plaintive, tremulous, voice, and the manner with wdiich this was said. But, as we commenced to say, the burden of talk among the pious ones " 'bout Massah," is, " don't wish him any ebil. Hope he won't want for not'ing." At this exhibition of Christian endurance and forgiveness, our indignation glowing through all former recital of wrongs endured, finds vent in tears of approbation, and praise to the grace given. But not observing our emotion, as much as one not acquainted with the human heart under the constant pressure of great griefs would suppose — for they have learned not to place too much reliance upon the moods of the Whites — quietly, but without the least disrespect, they go on, " Wish Massah may repent. Oh, I pray, I pray he will be saved ! He may hab forgibness ; I pray God for it !" " Yojli would like to see him ?" " Oh, Missus, neber, no mo', neber in dis w r orl' ! "We pray he neber come back no mo' for 'buse we; neber hab dominion ober we, no mo', no mo' ! But not wish him any ebil. Only come back no mo'. Want to die in peace, in peace ! ou' Missus ! an' no peace for Nigger where Massah is, he hate us so ; he call you ' black cuss !' ' black Nigger !' say ' he sell you, he whip you pieces, he kill you !' " " But he would not dare kill you." " Laws, Missus, you don't know Massah." 8* 178 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. " But men on other plantations would interfere." " Oil ! Missus, dey doesn't know ! If Massah shoot Nigger, dey don't know, don't care for black Nigger, , don't interfere. Laws, Missus, dem people in Beaufort all relations ; dey don't care for Nigger. Dey aint goin' to make one 'oder mad for we !" i It is as evident as the light of day, that Colored men in this region thought " Massah " had authority over life. It leaks out in scores of ways, in their conversation. There doubtless were exceptions both in persons and plantations. But it is well known that legally, any, any Master is in effect ever safe in taking life.* But suppose a Master was kind, he must have an overseer, and a driver. Suppose a Negro is shot, is the whole work of the plantation to stop until the Master can go away into the world — for we seem out of it here — to get another overseer ; or cannot the overseer make his own represen- tation ? Could it be presumed that such a man would not lie ? To know how isolated most plantations are, one must be here, and then he will readily see, that the most awful deeds could be easily covered. Hedges are so high, and thick, that you ride miles without a glimpse of plantations, except through gateways. Moreover, all are guilty, more or less, if there is any reliance to be put in human testimony. But the suffering, the agont ! is transient, the joy, eternal. The presence of the one, is just as real as the other, to their minds. Hence their answers almost invariably convey an unintentional reproof. They see the Invisible, so clearly, that light must shine through all their answers. Could our Congressmen see, and hear many of them talk, how differently would they regard them. How would they see that God hath, indeed, * GoodelFs " American Slave Code." ARDENT FEELING FOB SOLDIERS. 179 arisen for their help, and that in dealing with them, they are dealing with Him ; for w inasmuch as ye hare done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me," he solemnly declares, and the opposite. "When spoken to respecting their freedom, they say : " On' trust is in Jesus," in a way to make one weep, common as that saying is. How wonderfully is he with them — inspiring the deepest gratitude for the least kind word, or even look, and a gratitude increasing daily. They are little moved by anything that occurs around them, excepting when " ou' sojers killed, dat come to fight for we." Then they say, " my poor heart 'most broke for dem dea' sojers, and deir moders. Don't you think, Missus, dey will be saved, dyin' in dis holy war, fightin' for poo' we, even if dey not members ?" " God is merciful," we say. " Oh, pray for the poor wounded, not Christians, that they may this moment seek and find the Savior." " Oh, I does, Missus, ebry minute, ebry minute," and some of them have spent the whole night in prayer for the North. Going unexpectedly to the quarters of our help one evening, we heard them, in the garret, in united prayer, though they had been in at worship with us. One said : " Oh, Lord, hab mercy on ole Massahs. Oh, Lord, dey are at defiance wid God and man. Oh, shake dem ober de brink ob hell, but neber let um drop 1" CHAPTEK XXXYIH. THE TRUE DEBASEMENT. The Colored people do not incline to magnify their sufferings, even were that possible ; nor yet their patience, in a self-righteous, or self-flattering manner. But rather in genuine humility and love, they magnify every kindness ever received, even the least, especially from " Massah," from whom it ever seems a perfect miracle ; and it is spoken of in their first remarks to you, as a wonder of goodness. Said such a woman, light-skinned, gentle and amiable evidently, whom we overtook, with a basket of wood upon her head, in reply to a remark from us — " My Massah oncommon good. He neber 'quire me to do anyting but wash and iron; when dat done ebery week, time my own." " How many children have you ?" " I got twelve chil'en, Missus." " You must have felt awfully to have them all slaves." " Yes, but den Massah bery kind. He neber whip me, neber." This fact, spoken of as such a marvel — her apathy respecting her children, and her evidently superior love for her Master, were more startling and heart-rending than the terrible tales of punishment with which most abound. " Can a mother forget her sucking child," said we inwardly, " that she should not have compassion upon the son of her womb ?" Yes, slavery, and love, in poor 180 LOVE IN SLAVE WOMAN'S HEART FOR BASE MASTER. 181 woman's heart, for an un womanizing Master^ can cause her to do even that. " Her children are her Master's," is a common, un- blushing remark. Yes, even made, at times, with apparent respect, on account of her honors, and surroundings. Ala?, poor victims of the basest passions, of the lowest of men! sure to end in being victims to his hate, then to his foul calumnies traducing her in every way, for a debasement low as himself! and which he forcibly produced. Is there, can there be, another such meanness out of perdition? Besides, a man cannot drive one woman afield, and re- spect another deeply and truly. If one can override the laws of his State, and country, he cannot fully ignore the immutable laws of God, written upon his own soul. Therefore to be in heart an actual and successful .slave- holder, he must sink in soul, to the level of those, whom he so debases. Nor can he prevent this result, until he can dethrone God, and change eternal right to wrong. It is, doubtless, this sense of debasement, in spite of all argu- ments, pleas, theories to the contrary, that renders so many Masters and Mistresses so miserable, so excitable in regard to slavery, and so revengeful. So hard doth our holy, benevolent God make it, for a mortal to drive him awav, and to take hold on death. All the slave- holder's power "is intensified by the influence of religion upon the poor slaves, who are taught by slavery apos- tles, that their soul's salvation depends upon obedience to their Masters, acting so irresponsibly in these dark places. So, obliged to obey implicitly, and by deceit and sin, to adapt themselves to unrestrained natures of so many contradictions, they become adepts in duplicity. But the warmest love is often felt for the base Master by the poor injured woman, ever ending, of course, in sure heart- breaking, and the foulest slander from him. Of course he. 182 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. is far more agreeable to her than the black man, who shares his honors, and whom this poor woman calls hus- band; but whom he kicks and cuffs around with un- wonted satisfaction, even for him, because of that very fact. The children of this woman are often pets, until, by showing such decided resemblance to her Master, as to provoke to the utmost, persecution, from his family, they lead to his exposure, and their sale. From such circumstances, it seems the universal con- clusion of this keen, discerning race, that little connubial happiness existed among their oppressors. In short, it is as evident that those oppressors felt that they were rest- ing under a curse, as that they lived. They would not see it, or confess it, but could not escape its presence, or its baneful blight. Said one of these poor women, " If I didn't know Jesus Christ, I go crazy all dese years ! If he is not in our help, it is not'ing. Jesus is my trust. He keep heart right. If I do right, Jesus take me. When he send for me, if I can on'y meet him, I satisfied. Distress and hard labor drive me to Christ. So heart-broken tired, heart all fall down inside ! I go hide me in de grave-yard" — with a shudder — " to rest ; hide 'mong de dead. No woman could carry de hoe as I could, when dis Massah buy me. He broke me down wid work in fiel' ebery day till baby born. Trust I hab no mo'. link hab no mo'. Aint 'bliged now ; young women's '«bliged." But the debase- ment, SO FAR AS OWNERS ARE CONCERNED, is too horrid to dwell upon. " If dey praise God, if dey had one speck ob Jesus, dey would do we better. Sell baby ! make woman work in de fiel' till last minute ; dat girl born in de fiel', bring home on cart, not die, God keep um ! God good ! God help ! O 'ts past awful. My two chil'n dead. Glad ! OBERSEERS GIRLS MCSNT LOOK SORRY. 1S3 glad ! when dead, 'cause you can't speak when oberseer lick urn so ; can't talk, him liab own w T ay. Massah not hear you. Some drivers an' oberseers make girls mean to save lick, an' dey mus'n't eben look sorry, but glad. Some can bear it, some can't, so get mo' task, an' mo' lick. None fall dead on cotton fiel' or dis plantation } 'nough on oder do, on dis island. Prime people on dis place, all works well." Now, reader, what do you think of the virtue of the Northern lady, or any lady that will say one word in favor of slavery, or be displeased when it is named, and is opposed to agitation about it ? Is she so ignorant as not to know all these evils ? Impossible. What then do you think of her actual, inner soul virtue, who can coolly hand over the poor Colored girl to such a fate ? Who can honor the perpetrator, or one of his class, as such, and advocate slavery, which she knows has its whole root in these sins, and its increase from these awful wrongs? And yet she would be considered amiable, virtuous, pious. But great allowance must be made for ignorance ; still, how long will that, be excusable ? CHAPTER XXXIX. HEART CHASTITY. Cast my heart's gold into a furnace flame, And if it come not thence, refined and pure, I'll be a bankrupt to thy hope, and heaven Shall shut its gates upon me. Mrs. Sigourney. The Colored women, are an enigma in one respect. They have many of them been victims to brutal treat- ment, in their most vital being, chastity. But it is im- possible to believe it, while conversing with them. Im- possible ! So all testify here. For ourself, we may be pardoned for saying, that we have been closely associated with ladies in different States, and in all the great cities, North, as well as in Canada. "We, too, only extol the great work, to which our Lord deigned to call us, when we say, they were among the very best ladies of all those places, and, we solemnly aver, and those ladies will rejoice to hear it, that never, have we conversed with a more genuinely modest set of women, than those dark daughters of the South. Never. As we said, they are a puzzle to us. Such immaculate purity as there seems to be in their inner soul. Now some will curl the lip in scorn, or laugh derisively, and say, " Ah ! what credu- lity ! It was all put on, the counterfeit, modest mien, of the magdalen." Ear from it. That mien, we can pierce with words, as easily as possible, when it is duty. This is, innately, or by grace, a part of the very being of these 184 PUZZLING INVESTIGATIONS — THE IMPRESS OF VIRTUE. 185 poor -women. We had many, in our mission, ladies of superior abilities, long used to labor in the eities, and cer- tainly capable of approaching any one properly. But their experience accorded with our own. We could question a magdalen where necessary, which is, very, very rarely, but these Colored women never ! Never ! The fact is, these women have not parted with true deli- cacy, true virtue. That is evident, whatever they may have suffered. There is no great gulf between them, and the pure, as there ever is, with the voluntarily fallen. We do not explain all this, cannot, even to ourself. We only state facts, which all the pure, conversant with them, will corroborate. As you meet and converse, with one, and another, and another, of these pious, refined Negresses — for they have a refinement of soul you rarely see equalled — you invol- untarily say inwardly, "This one has never become familiar with vice ;" and so on, and on, until the number is so great, as to make it impossible that all have escaped. Then you are more amazed. You would ask them, you think you will, as you want to know and promote only the truth, and from the best of motives, you would get the most correct idea of them, and of what slavery actu- ally is. But you can no more ask them, how they have fared, than your own mother. You review if, think you are failing to get knowledge, that the cause, the truth, righteousness, demand that you get, that you may ad- vance appreciation, purity, and holiness. You resolve to do better next time. But the impassable barrier is before you, high, and pure, and beautiful. But one thing, is absolutely certain. Yice, cannot put on the impress of virtue, as these dear dark sisters wear it. Impossible. Yirtue, and vice, have each, a language written upon the countenance, the latter on many who 186 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. little suspect it. But virtue, is vividly written upon these. How winning they are ! What an expression of purity, endurance, love, tenderness, patience, and, a quiet defiance of earth's wickednesses, and griefs, that it makes you weep, to see. Oh, ye jewels of our Lord! How doth he love you ! The writer had long been privileged to feel that she was about as dear, to our Adorable Savior, as most of those, with whom she worshipped, but, when she listened to you, in those poor huts, in their shades, in the sacred groves of the dead, she felt that you were nearer the heart of our precious Jesus, than was she. You have been tried to the uttermost, and not found wanting. In lome instances, those who would have wronged you have quailed before that purity, that quiet, strong, trust in God. In many cases, how many we know not, it has been given you, as a shield. In others, your fellows, have died martyrs to purity. Yet contemptible Whites, who have nothing but color to value themselves upon, and others in ignorance of actual facts, write you all down, as debased, and de- graded — favorite words with those beauties — and feel themselves elevated in the process, and the higher, still, the lower they can put you, when you have a Christ- ianity, a purity, they never dreamed of, and greater than aught else earth has ever yet shown us. Oh, ye jewels of my Lord ! most of those that despise you, despise him, also, our dear Divine Master. Is it not enough for a ser- vant, that he be as his Lord ? For his dear home with you, is in your soul ; and he gives no one power over the soul if it use its utmost energy, to avoid the contact, and resist the power of sin, and cleave to him for purity. The whole matter of slavery is often a great GTRANGE POWER OVER OTHERS — TEST AND VICTORY. 187 trial of faith. That God permits one, to exercise such power over another's body. But the soul is his own, and cannot be stained, in fact, but by its own consent. If the soul actually wills it, he will cleanse it, whiter than snow, and keep it so, all his own, a garden, inclosed ; a spring, shut up ; a fountain, sealed ; all pure, all to him- self. So it evidently is with many ; still many, alas ! have fallen to the level of their tempters ; but never, in one case, did they refer to or hint at it. It is only in the third person, or what " they," or others, suffer of which they can speak, and then, it is the pious, and who con- fide fully in your deep heart-sympathy for them, and in your just appreciation of their subjection. Doubtless, we say, many sink to real debasement. But many, many ! will sooner die, than sin, and some way, almost miraculous, is sometimes made, for their es- cape. One poor Aunty said : " Oberseer raise me wid a pole high as 'at corn-house, wid clothes ober head, fo' take away my shame, so I be mean. He did, Missus, but" — clasping her thin hands above her poor head — " but Jesus keep me, O, bless Jesus ! lie keep me ! Bless Jesus ! Ebery lady ough' to praise Jesus, for me." No effort, or means, that all ingenuity and learning and talent of man, and of ages, have invented, to destroy re- spect for the Negro, in the North, has been wanting, up- on the part of slaveholders and their abettors, far meaner than they. For, in proportion as men despise them, are they content that they remain slaves, and all effort, for their emancipation, is paralyzed* Astonishing!! that their, word has so long been taken. So, they have made apparent docility, of poor slaves, to appear as eagerness, because they supposed that 188 SLAVERY m SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLATES. would nauseate, moee than any other lie. Appearances here, are explained, in this chapter. "We say our heart is breaking over their woes, and our government's inefficiency. It seems to be to most, in this nation, as nothing, that the present race should fade away and die under these awful evils, provided, in some future age, freedom may come to their descendants. To prove how deeply our soul is stung with their wrongs, and agonies, we may be pardoned for saying that we cannot see company since returning. It makes us weep, to see our ladies so tenderly cared for, so prized, so pampered, while their dark sisters so suffer. So the most beautiful sights are blighted, and actually turned into anguish. But this, we name, only to induce the same feelings in you. Going out, with mind intent on mercy-errands, we met the bright, beautiful, cherished throng upon Broadway. In contrast, the dark but beautiful ones we had left, were instantly before us, with their wrongs, toils, agonies. Tears gushed, and gushed, until weeping ruled the hour; and, that we were observed, seemed of little moment, amid these stern griefs. Giving up errands, we sobbed, and sobbed our way down to 320,* where we could do a work for them. But as Saturday evening approached, we were obliged to go to a milliner's, and, having in a measure become calmed, we went in — when in came the happy milliner-girls, and taking from their work-boxes bonnet after bonnet, they bestowed upon each a fond, ad- miring gaze, as they placed them in the store boxes. Then, rising, first upon one tip-toe, then, upon the other, while rolling up the ribbon, they peered out of the full win- dows, upon the passers-by, as full of life, of joy, of expec- tation, as any lady in the city. And these are the girls, * Building occupied by the Freedmau's Relief Association. HEART AGONY LUXURY AND TYRANNY — DAUGHTER. 189 whoso lot is compared to our poor dark sisters, suffering all of toil and indignity that man can heap upon them. They ohserved our heart-agony, and looked as if to say, " Poor woman, she has lost some one, in this war," and tripped away. In the evening, we were obliged by sickness of a friend, to go into a most sumptuous chamber. There, is the beau- tiful sick daughter, so luxuriously couched, and attended, everything in the city, laid under tribute, for her comfort. Again, then we contrasted the hard lot, of our poor dark sisters, who, in the most weak, and agonized, states, are not permitted to lie down, not even upon the floor, or ground, " lest they get lazy," and were entirely overcome once more. This, is the history of one afternoon. This day a sweet letter came from our precious, only daughter, and her doating husband. They " are to hold a reception for their parishioners, and mother must be there." No ; mother cannot go, does not want to go, does not want to see that daughter, who has been a chief blessing of her life, as thousands know. No ! mother does not want even to see that daughter, after four months' separation. Her heart is so sore, that she had rather hide and weep, over her suffering dark sisters, and brethren, and her country's sins, and try to labor for them. Weak ! do you say ? We would be weaker than infancy, if thereby, we might only touch your heart, for when the hearts of the masses, are properly moved, the powers that be, must feel, and act, and work is clone. Sister, who reads this, you would feel so too, or more, could you see slavery and its dear victims, as it is, as we have. But so long, so able, so persistent, have been the efforts of Southern Congressmen, and all others in the interest of avery, that they have thrown a false coloring over 190 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. the whole system; and Northern writers and speakers write and speak under the influence of that coloring, and while they lead you to hate slavery, they innocently lead you to despise the Colored ; to you, therefore, seeming as a great moving, mass of darkness, and impurity ; to us, mothers, sisters, brothers. Then there are those in our midst, who actually think, they have seen matters upon planta- tions, as they were ; when, so far from it, even the mistresses of those plantations, knew little, or nothing, of the dark deeds there committed. The Master, too, who mayhap, would be comparatively kind, knows what the overseer does, only by his own report, and he knows not what the driver does, only by his report. So that, when the exact truth is at last reached, it is Sambo or Quimbo, unre- strained — for, if the poor slave tells on them, they nearly kill him — who govern the poor victims. Massah, too, in the far South, was out upon a carousal, nearly all night, and must sleep much of the day, in nine cases out of ten, as we were assured, by those who knew, and Mistress, too, without her wine, is too dispirited, and with it, is too inspirited, to care for them properly. Beside, who but the driver can bear that tropical sun? and can he carry forward the work without the lash ? when the lash is the only propelling power ? Certainly not. So Sambo, or Quimbo, must have unlimited power. There is no escape from it, but to let everything go to wreck upon plantations, or have free labor. Yet Christians, Christians ! North, can shield those who coerce poor woman to every brutality, or to daily torture inconceivable. Oh, if they could die ! If masters would kill them ! But no, it is torture, torture ! torture L scientifically used, torture ! the one science of slavedom. Yet many are martyrs. They can die, but they cannot sin and sink to the level of their masters, overseers, or drivers. MARTYRS TO CHASTITY — TRUE DELICACY RETRIBUTION. 191 We say it, before high heaven, and an outraged world of ladies, that the martyrs to chastity now upon earth, are our dark women of the South. Oh ! could, you. hear as we heard a dear saint of God say, " O ! Missus, dey makes our women mean, to save mo' task, and to save de awful whipping," and adding, with their plaintive, melting, tone, " an' 'ey mustn't show 'ey feel bad, but make um tink 'ey glad. O ! 'ts past awful ! past awful ! Some can 'dure it, some can't, so dey gets all time mo' and mo' task, and mo' and mo' lick. When oberseer come 'gin, you task all done, he say, ' not done gpod, you go way be lick,' hab to go." As she said this, too delicate to glance at our face, though glowing with indignation, she gazed down the beautiful river into the pure blue distance, as one who pondered, and pondered, long, and deeply, and looked for a great future, a great retribution ! Yet, with charac- teristic refinement, she soon bade us good evening, with- out looking up, started in the direction we were gazing, and our eyes never again met. We shall meet at the judgment, and you will be there, reader, and answer for your part in opposing this awful, inexpressible iniquity. Our saying, Lord ! Lord ! I felt so, and so, had such, and such, visions, and joys, will be nothing, there, if he shall say, " I was sick, and in prison, and ye came not unto me. I was a stranger, and naked, and ye clothed me not, ye took me not in. You did not do unto the least of these, as ye would that others should do unto you, so ye did it not to me." Now what would you have others do, were you in slavery ? You know ! perfectly ! and can never say to the Judge " I did not know." We say again, that in the ardent labors of a score of years, we have never seen their refinement of soul sur- passed, and are they not Christ's ? Then, do you not do to 192 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. him, as you do to them ? Oh, could we touch the heart, of the Christian North, yea, even of the ladies, deeply ! how joyfully would we lay down our life ! Could we so startle, and awaken, all of the woman in every lady's heart, that in the closet, over the cradle, or rising in some sacred hour of silent night, she would raise her right hand to heaven, and vow in the name, and strength, of Him that liveth and was dead, and is alive forevermore, that she would leave nothing ! nothing ! ! in her power, un- done to dethrone this demon ! Could we do this, we would suffer anything. Oh, what can be done, to rouse the indignation of the virtuous, against this perpetual insult to their sex ? For there is virtue. There are thousands, who, rather than see a servant suffer what is the daily doom of poor, poor slave women, would interpose their own lives to protect them. Why, then, should the mere fact, that they are a few hundred miles farther away, quench this just anger ? And even supposing slaveholders can, by a long or short influence, lower one, so as to entice others, does not that make the sin, the debasement, a thousandfold more odious ? You say, " there is this sin in the North." "We answer, " show us a case," clearly involuntary, and if the law does not reach it,. the whole power of the citizens, yea, of Northern ladies, will. Let it be known, that servants of a family, are forcibly detained, and coerced to this sin, and the whole community would be frantic. But what, oh, what % can make the North feel equally for slaves ? Different reports, are, doubtless, one cause of indiffe- rence. Thousands get impressions from slaveholders, who will no more injure their business than rumsellers. Many see the Colored man through their medium, which misrepresents and blackens his whole character. It is not enough, that he is robbed of every right, and loaded BELTED, TO INHERIT DT80UST CAKE IN DRESS. 1P3 with every wrong, he must also be so belied, as to in- herit the disgust of the world. True, there are some words freely, disgustingly used, as " breed." But how have they always heard it used ? So, do some English, use the word " delivered " in the same way. Yet it is no lack of refinement in them. Then, their dress, too, is often but the nether garment, and. skirt. But, by most scrupulous care only the poor arms are exposed, while a waist, of all manner of mendings, saves the form, effectually. Inva- riably these women assert that they have no gown ; some- times they show you a lawn, or something equally ten- der, which has been given them by " the Association," and which they are " 'bliged to save fo' Sunday." Further, not a word, or indication of low conversation, can be drawn, or beguiled out of them. Not a low sen- suous laugh is known ! Never ! It is as evident, in every way, that their converse in little circles is chaste, as that the sun shines, and it is only the intensity of their suffer- ings, that ever leads one to speak the least plainly to Missus. 9 CHAPTEK XL. NOETHEKN CHIVALKY. For 'tis a sight that angel ones above May stoop to gaze on, from the bowers of bliss ; When innocence upon the breast of love, Is cradled in a sinful world like this. Mrs. Welby. What opinion can Northern pro-slavery men have of Southern ladies ? Can they think tlieni delicate, high- principled, virtuous ? or do they think they nestle, with all possible satisfaction, in the foul nest of slavery ? Are their own tastes, or associations, such, as that they think ladies, after all, care little for virtue ? Or, do they pre- tend to doubt the vitiating nature of slavery ? Do they presume, that universal testimony, even that of slave- holders themselves, is untrue, and that the mass, there, live chastely % Such ignorance cannot be supposed, for an instant. Then, there can be but one other conclusion, or rather two: first, that they believe the Southern ladies care nothing for it, or, in other words, are not vir- tuous ; or, second, that they themselves care not what those ladies suffer. But the true fact is, that those well informed and rRO-SLAYEKY as a class, care little for any one, or anything, beyond certain plans, interests, pride of success, fleeting influence, or mean dollars, of their own. For, they know, that there are thousands of homes made utterly wretched, and desolate, by the awful curse, sla- very. Perhaps they would say, " These ladies ought not to be made wretched by it." That shows the standard of 194 OPINIONS OF THE NORTH OF SOUTHERN LADIES. 105 their own virtue, and extends most dubious compliments to their Companions, and associates. In short they show the man. Bat the anti-slavery part of the North, with ourself, have a far better opinion of the Southern ladies. We believe they are, as a whole, genuinely refined, truly virtuous, and, of course, made as unhappy by vice, as any living. To the chivalrous, of the North, we appeal in their be- half! Is there not a nobility, a manliness, a Christianity, in the North, that can, and will help them ? that will ex- tend a strong hand, and now, while it has the power, will pluck slavery away True, they would not own, that they suffer awfully, from its ruinous effects upon fathers, brothers, sons, husbands. "What lady would 3 willingly ? But is a wound concealed, a wound too deep for words, the less dangerous, or deadly, in its blight ? Is there less probability of its terminating fatally ? Such a wound must be quickly healed or so terminate. So it often does. You cannot converse with them, or their reliable servants, without seeing it. Yea more, you cannot use common sense even a very little, without seeing it, provided you believe, universal testi- mony, respecting the morals of most men there. Now, what were it to be killed, instantly, to being tor- tured to the very extreme of endurance, daily, and hourly, for long weary years after years ; to pray and pray for death, and yet it never come ? This is no fancy, no coloring, no attempt to make out a case against slaveholders : we have not words to paint up to the life. We speak from facts, and dare not hope, to make the impression they demand. Could we do that, we might m£>ve some, yes, even Congressmen, to raise the right hand, and solemnly vow that slavery should be no more, by their consent. 196 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAKOLrNA AND THE EX-SLAVES. But do any doubt that the most utter debasement pre- vails, in slavedom ? And can it exist in a family, with- out the chaste part, being wretched ? Can all, all ! be concealed from that pure, virtuous wife ? Can it be con- cealed from those indulged, and proud daughters ? over all whose beauty, and happiness, is coming a dire blight? Can it escape the searching glance of that pure little girl, of ten, or twelve? who is just opening her sad eyes to the knowledge, of what is in the world, of what pa is ? Oh, have you the feelings of a man, and will you not seize that insane father, and pluck the instrument of torture, — slavery, from his furious grasp? Would you not pluck the power of being intemperate from your own brother? and is not slavery a vice, equally benumbing, and blind- ing ? That man were noble, were a husband, a father, without the .vice of " oppression, which maketh a wise man mad." Wre6t slavery from him, and he will soon be reasonable. He will " return, to bless his household." lie will bless you in heaven 1 In our mission-house at Beaufort, was a poor maniac, once lovely, and cherished, the wife of a rebel well known there, made mad by oppression, by domestic tyranny. It was heart-rending to hear her dwell flightily upon the sweetness of the first few months of her married life, of her untiring, determined, efforts to win and woo back, that youthful husband. But the tide was too strong, though he often and bravely resisted it, and a mean pride, one of the progeny of slavery, at last came in, and drove away all restraint, and her reason with it. lie often, and often, had whipped her, as she said, most severely, for being a woman. But, it was all forgiven, all borne, with scarcely a complaint, for the intense love, she bore him. She, in all these dark hours, said it was wine that mocked him, maddened him. Every eifort to make home attrac- THE MANIAC — THE FATHER'S FINE 60N — A KEFUGE. 197 tive was intensified, an hundred fold, if possible, and at intervals, she had hope. But every facility for debase- ment, was in his presence continually. Overpowered, captive to sin, and pride, he drove her from the house, and revelled, to his heart's content. It was slavery, in its influence upon him, his relatives, his associates, that did all this. It was slavery's facilities for all sin, that ruined him. And he is a type of a class of men, a large class, take the whole South, together. True, there are most noble exceptions, but will you throw, or rather, leave, your countrymen in such a cur- rent, because 6ome can breast it ? But, a man must have something to do, and he will, and if it be not good, must be evil. Father, would you put your fine young son, under the influence of slavery ? for the best plantation of the South? yea, for him to inherit, with slavery's blights, the whole South ? Not, if you deserve the sacred name of father. See, the poor broken, bleeding-hearted wife, and mother, obliged to see her rival in a skvc, and that for long, long, weary years. See her, a servant to that slave, for her children's sake, and all, because her husband is a brute. Did not the grave open for many, many, such, this land would be filled with lunatics. To pray for death, is most common, fob ladies at the South. We were shocked to find it so common. Ah ! there is a virtue even there, in womanhood, in spite of all the mists of ignorance, prejudice, and customs, of slavedom, that makes the cold grave a sweet refuge from its foulness. Ignorance and prejudice, we say, for those Southern ladies who do not travel North, know as little of what its people actually are, as of the inhabitants of the moon. Did they, and were they possessed, of the proper spirit, they would take that infant son, and seek a refuge in > 198 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA ANT) THE EX-SLAVES. some Northern farmer's pure home, and there, toiling, if need be, they would bring him up to honor, purity, eternal life, instead of seeing him, become a drivelling, besotted brute. "What good motner, did she actually know all, delicate, unused to toil as she may be, would not do it, to save his body from ruin by slavery, and his soul from eternal death ? There are thousands who would break away, but igno- rance enchains them. No free pulpit, have they, or pas- tor. No press, or mail, is free. NoJdnd, able, hand is outstretched, that is permitted to reach them. Do you say, " Would they leave their husbands ?" Those hus- bands have left them, in all that is sacred. Are we too severe? Read the following: "We Southern ladies ARE CALLED WIVES, BUT WE ARE ONLY MISTRESSES OF seraglios," said a sister of President Madison to the Rev. George Bourne, then a Presbyterian minister in Virginia.* Now, one who would prefer that post, to being an assist- ant in a Northern farmer's family, is not virtuous — that IS EVIDENT. Temptation comes over one, sometimes, that men, voters, Congressmen, think that there is actually no such thing as virtue, deep, real virtue, and chastity, and of ne- cessity where it is outraged, no heart-breaking, in woman. There are those who would lead them to feel ' so, espe- cially, 'tis said, at Washington. But those men know, that yonder among their precious babes, is one, who if they should become vicious, would die. She might not reproach, she might not weep, as mortal knew, but that vile worm, would cut the stem of life, and the sweet grave would soon close over her. Why ? Because she has true virtue of soul. The world, yea, hundreds of worlds, * Goedcll's " American Slave Code." VIRTUE SELLING AT THE FOUNT OF LIFE — CHIVALRY. 199 would not compensate her heart, for that dear husband's virtue. All this, they know, and praise their Creator for. Then, why cannot they believe, and feel, too, that there are just such ladies at the South, and, who see their adored husbands, victims to slavery's temptations, whose poor hearts are made to stand still, with agony, then flut- ter as if to escape, day after day, night after night, until they stand still forever ? Now, we have not a word to say to those whose unfortunate surroundings have con- vinced them, that virtue is a shanv But to those who believe it sits at the fount of life, in chaste woman, and holds its key, we ask, " What will you do for our sisters' agonies?" Rend ! oh, rend away! the cause of them, and when their tyrants come to their right minds, and to see, and feel, correctly, they will bless you. True, those women would sooner die than own that they believe their husbands vicious. But, does not this depth of concealed torture, appeal to your chivalrous aid all the more ? Some, we know, become devilish, pursuing the poor helpless, tempter, and dire victim of their lords, with every possible cruelty. Some few, become stoical, reck- less of everything, yea, even of virtue itself in those around them. Is not that more awful than death ? More to be dreaded than any other possible result ? More to be opposed, by your manly efforts ? Will you not rise in your might, manhood, chivalry, religion, and say, " This shall not be 2" And for how short a time God shall give you the power, so to say, no mortal knoweth. But, you ask, " Would you have us thrust the power of government between those wives, and their husbands, and to protect the one from the other?" Certainly. Pre- cisely as you would, and do, thrust your power between, to shield wives in this city from the vice of intemperance 200 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. iii I heir lords. Precisely so. For what exists government, if not to protect the- weak ? And where is there a case of equal clearness, urgency, and appeal ? Now, it must be, that Congress labors under one of three delusions — 1st. That all testimony respecting the viscious lives of most Southerners, or rather slave- holders, is false ; or, 2d. That there is not in the hearts of Southern women the virtue to suffer excru- ciatingly from it, even to heart-breaking, and death ; or, 3d. That they are indifferent to what they suffer, since they do not wrest the maddening cause away, when they have the full power and right to do so. One of these conclusions, is inevitable. One of these things is true of the present Congress. Which is it? Or, do they claim to be adhering to a line of policy ? Lines of policy, alas ! have guided our Ship of State to where it now is. The only true policy is right- eousness. True, it was policy, self-preservation, that led England to emancipate. Yet it was an enlightened, clear-eyed, Christian policy. She could not have done it without the aid of holy, philanthropic men. No man, or nation, can take a self-preserving course, merely because it is best. He must also have moral power to do it. That power is now offered Congress, and its members individually know, that they cannot look the final j udgment in the face ! and deny it, quibble as they may. It is a military necessity, and any Congress of able generals would declare it such, and it would doubtless be used as such, but for the same cringing to slavery that has nearly ruined us. Whether this power will be offered, or available soon again, no mortal can know. It would have been of little use for Pharaoh to have proclaimed emancipation at the bottom of the lied Sea. So, this may be the only England's difficultttes in emancipating. 201 moment, the only lucid interval, in which all must be done. How did difficulties seem to multiply, in the way of England's emancipating, until the very moment that she passed the act. Then, how soon light dawned, and they all rolled away. Satan always struggles, rends, in being cast out. But the struggling, rending, scares timid operators, and all the promised benefits are lost, and he remains, to torment the victim at his leisure. Not content with debasing, by every power they can command, the poor dark victims, they then malign them BY EVERY LIE THAT CAN BE INVENTED. How mean ! HoW utterly contemptible ! But, not only so ; they make their wife, the mother of their children ! equally odious, by re- presenting that she does not care ; and this they reiterate and reiterate in so many sly and accidental ways that the foul lie comes to seem as truth, even to themselves ; and their meaner Northern advocate wipes his mouth, and says, " Oh, those Southern women do not care !" Poor victims to every insult that can be invented, and then not even left alone to suffer, but must entertain company of the very same grade, of their tyrant husbands, to beguile time and keep away reflection. They must, too, know, and that often, that the Northern youth is taking his first lessons in crime under their roof. Yet they are power- less, and pride, compels them to conceal all. How can those Congressmen return to their pure, quiet homes, and leave the bondage and the bane resting upon other ladies just as pure, upon other babes born with equal claims ? but who, under slavery, have not a right, not one, unimpaired. No ! not even the right to their parents. Father is a beast. Mother is a withered fading flower, lovely, in the withering, but powerless, for the needs of the poor child. Home is a slave-driving peat 9* 202 SLAVERY IN SOUTIT CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAYES. School, the comfort, joy, honor, of the oppressed North- ern child, exists not. Society, of any variety, is out of the question. What can the poor child do, but find what pleasure, in sensual and idle pursuits, he may ? and, with unlimited power over all the Colored, how certain is his ruin. But is there not a Chivalry in the North, that will arise in its might, and manliness, and say, " This shall not be ! Women South shall not be so oppressed V True, there are those, who come only to look at the fancied profits, and forget all other considerations. But them we call not women, though they stand in her sacred place. Real womanhood would say, " Let us have poverty, if need be, with purity." And, this, even if all these theories of money-making were correct, which how- ever are not. Will God permit a people to enrich them- selves, by selling innocent children ? See Virginia, with her yearly export of $12,000,000 in fathers, mothers, and babies. How utterly blasted with poverty. How totally behind all the free States around her, that have nothing of her age, and natural advantages. Yet, when, ever, existed a more energetically-proud and competent people, a people better prepared to make slavery profitable at every sacrifice, if it could be made so ? So that all argu- ment in favor of slavery from pecuniary advantage, falls totally and forever. But the foulest slander upon the ladies, is, that thky care not eor all this, impurity. And to show the most utter meanness of enslavers, this slander comes from their own husbands, who have sunk so incredibly low, that they can glory in saying, " My wife doesn't care." " She's willing enough." Incredible ! that such baseness can exist. It is never seen, out of slavedom. But even the swearing, gutter-drunkard, is at once ' MEAN SLANDER UPON WIVES — ORDER OF GOD. 203 erect in indignation at the least slur cast upon bis wife's virtue. We would not defile our pen, or page, with repelling this foul slander, were it not for this one fact ; and, that by the persistent misrepresentation of their husbands, the belief is actually caused in the North, that the wives and mothers of the South care little or nothing, for all this utter debasement. And in all this, their false apostles help on, and reap its rewards. Now, it is in the power of Congress to wrest away with one noble act, the whole cause. It is ! do we say ? It was. Perhaps the power is even now departing. It will depart, if not used. Tuis is the inflexible order of God, in all his moral realm. The time was, when all those slaveholders could see, and hate slavery. They can no more do either now than the inebriate can hate his cups. " But," one says, " have you not licentiousness in the North ?" Alas ! we have, but not under our care ! Not, in our houses ! The Northern lady is not involved in the guilt, knows it not, usually, has not to see it, hourly, to feed, clothe, nurse, in sickness, the poor, hated, but most deeply wronged victim ; feeling awfully, that she ought not to suffer it, ought to leave the roof, if no other protest "will answer. But with eyes blinded, powers enfeebled, energies withered, she remains, "keeper of a seraglio," as the poor sister of President Madison said, "we Southern women are." But what moments of agony must a woman undergo, before she can make this charge in company, yea, this admission, to herself. "What one refinement of cruelty, is wanting to the horrid system, of slavery ? and shall we sit quietly by its side and foster it? when we have power to crush it, and call ourselves civilized % 204 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. And this, too, when it is proven by even Southern statistics over and over, past all mistake, as in Helper's " Impending Crisis," that it brings blasting poverty ? Why then can it not be put away forever ? The North would be a unit in that work. We heard an able reliable minister of this city say he would himself go into the ranks, as a common soldier, under an act of emancipation. So would thousands of just such noble men. But we need not say, " put away slavery forever." For the poor vic- tims once free, from its power, would not go under it again. As Sewell, affirms, over, and over, the planters of the West Indies declare, " that free labor is preferable on every account." Even Henry Clay, convinced of this, in his speech before the Colonization Society, in 1829, said : " It is believed that nowhere, in the farming portion of the United States, would slave labor be generally employed, if the proprietor were not tempted to raise slaves, by the high price of the Southern market which keeps it up in his own. Then, what possible plea, unless it intends, to stoop to that detestable meanness, can be found for not declaring- l emancipation, at once, by this chivalrous government ? Now, Congressmen, do you believe that most Southern ladies are virtuous ? Certainly, you say. Then do you believa that such a woman in such circumstances, must eithe? fail, sicken, pine away, die, or become a fury, or a stone 1 You know, one of these, must be the case, inevi- tably. Will you then rescue these noble women ? Will you prevent those lovely ones, coming upon the stage, from suffering the same ? Yea, will you save those men, and their ions? — for we are told by those who know, that few live past middle age. Their vices, and night carousals, and driL.xi, kill them. Kemember, too, that of the actual THE FLORIDA 6IA.VEU0LDEB8 NO MARBIAGE. 205 fruits of Southern life we have hitherto known little, just what determined pro-slaveryists have revealed. Nor yet are these poor masters, beside domestic woes, without their dire heart agonies. As illustration : The "Florida slaveholder" before mentioned, with his princely fortune, his educated and accomplished heirs, the children of his parental affection, his only ones, but — under the " persecuting " ban of the " Colonization Society," " the pulpit " — Northern and Southern — and the " legislation " approved by them — outcasts, unable to testify in a Court, against a white man ; liable to be colonized to Liberia under force of "flagellations" and untold " enormities ;" or even to be kidnapped and enslaved ! — the Florida slaveholder, we say, with such a family around his board, presents another specimen of the liberty and human rights enjoyed by the slaveholder 1 to say nothing of happiness. Another slaveholder of fortune, lived with a quadroon woman, without marriage, of course, for the laws would not permit it. His daughters were elegant, beautiful, and nearly white. They were free, as was also their mother ; but they were subject to the vexations that harass "free people of color." The father sought for them respectable connections in life, and nothing but the laws forbidding such marriages stood in the way; for they were much admired, members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and one of them was loved and wooed by a white member of the same church, and a slaveholder ; but the law stood ; n the way of their marriage 1 What pain, shame, remorse, must such parents ever feel in the presence of those children. How small the pain of poverty in comparison, or of losses, or even loss of friends, or of life. Nothing but guilt can bring such anguish. Well might Y/ashington say, " the first wish of his heart, was to see slavery abolished." CHAPTER XLI. THE TASKMASTERS. There walks Judas, he who sold Yesterday his Lord for gold ; Sold God's presence in his heart For a proud step in the mart. J. R. Lowell. All the disgusting assumption of power, by the pre- tended slave-owner, who blasphemously claims God to be altogether such an one as himself, since he is asserted by God-defying D.D.'s to be the author of the lovely system — may be delegated to any one, or any number, of sub- demons, to the basest of all men, the overseers and even to his children, who each, for the time, has unlimited power, not only over his services, but his life, any one of whom can clear himself of any legal punishment, by his own oath ! Was such folly and madness ever enacted out of a country where slavery reigned ? Did it ever fail of beins; enacted in it ? For instance. "In South Carolina and Louisiana there are enact- ments, that ' Whereas many cruelties may he committed on slaves hecause no white person may he present to give evidence of the same, unless some method he provided for the hctter discovery of the offence? etc. i Be it enacted? etc. The only remedy provided is, that ' when no white person shall be present,' or, being present, shall refuse to testify, ' the owner or other person having charge of such slave [who shall have ' suffered in life, limb, member,' 206 % GOD MAKE A WAT FOR FREEDOM 207 etc.] shall be deemed guilty and punished,' ' unless such, owner or other person, etc., can make the contrary ap- pear by good and sufficient evidence, or shall, by his OWN OATH, CLEAR AND EXCULPATE HIMSELF ;' and the Court may administer the oath and ' acquit the of- fender, if clear proof of the offence be not made by two witnesses at least.' "* " Judge Stroud considers this ' a modification of the former law, not for the protection of the slave, but for THE ESPECIAL BENEFIT OF A CRUEL MASTER OR OVERSEER."f One who had evidently drank deep into the cup of sor- row said : " We couldn't tell how we suffer all dese long years, but God knows ; he sees all tings. We leave all 'at wid him."- How tamely do these words read ! Yet how thrilling were they as spoken ! We try, in all cases, to give their exact words, and the facts are invariably corroborated by other testimony. " When we see Massah comin' — wish we could die, but couldn't till Jesus call. We all cry, and cry to God ; he hear, he make a way for freedom." One said, and several others taken separately con- firmed it: " My brother was whipped four hundred and fifty lashes. Oberseer give three hundred ; couldn't do no more ; Mas- sah give the rest ; and when taken into 'at cabin, dere, he hab convulsions so 'at he shake de whole cabin ; — sick foil' months." " What did he do ?" " He hab care ob milk ; Mistress put it in baby's tea, and it sour and curdle, and when Massah talk, he say ' he didn't put it in de tea.' " * Brevard's "Dig.," p. 242. f Stroud's " Sketches," etc., p. 76. 208 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. " What did you do when he was being whipped?" we asked, knowing that it is harder to be absent, and know that something awful is suffered by a friend, than to look on, hard as that is. " Why, I stan' in dat cabin do' and hoi' my head so," pressing her poor hands upon each side of her head. " But," she continued, " you mus' smile whenMassah see you, else you get just same ; and when eber you whipped, you untied, you must look right up in Massah's face and smile ; and when white men come roun' you must smile and say, ' You happy !' and ' Massah so good,' else you get whipt so awful, so awful !"* " Sometimes," said another, " dinner not cook good. "We gone 'way to get a mouthful of corn-cake cook for self ; driver come, say, ' You must go up and be whip- ped !' Have to go ; didn't want to live, but couldn't * As proof of the multifarious forms of craelty to the slaves, as well as degradation it has brought on the whites, we give an extract of a letter addressed to Rev. Mr. French by a very distinguished gentleman, who was both a large slaveholder and planter, in South Carolina : " , S. C, March 23, 1858. " There is an abiding prejudice in South Carolina against enlightening the minds of colored people, and against free people of color, living in the State. It seems to be believed, that the more ignorant the slave is, the better he is satisfied ; therefore the Legislature has been endeavoring ever since 18f>0. to prevent the liberation of slaves in the State, and to prevent their being educated. Hence the law is, that no slave shall be set free, except by Act of the Legislature ; and if otherwise, it is liable to be seized by any person, even a stranger, and made their own property ; and if any person shall teach a slave to read or write, upon conviction thereof, they shall be heavily fined and imprisoned, and receive fifty lashes on their bare back; and that if any free person of color shall enter this State, they shall be taken up, and sold, and turned into bondage. So that you can see the policy of the State, that it is in opposition to enlightening the colored miud. " GRINDING AT THE MILL — TO FIEL' VoitE DAY. 209 die ! We all nothin' to put in ou' head, but a little corn — no Bait, nor nothin.' " Scarcely an ex-slave has come under close observation here, who has not scars, welts, brands, and tales of woe too awful to be written. We went with some to their mill, where for long weary years all the grinding had been done, and with two, turning at their utmost speed, it required five minutes to get a teacup full of meal. They were never allowed to grind after light in the morn- ing, so the hundred and more slaves had to take their turn, and grind in the evening, and then cook sufficient to last till the next evening. " Too tired, ma'am, sometimes for cook it ; den hab to go widout all next day, or fall sleep so tired ; corn burn all up. Must go by light into fiel', beg mouthful here and dere ; couldn't sometimes." On another plantation, a pious woman, the precision and circumstantiality alone, of whose remarks were full proof of their truth, but which were corroborated, said, " We had to go to fiel' 'fore day, to get to work by light. Corn in basket, couldn't cook it, couldn't get it ready, llab to go to pond, drink wid mules and alligators. Leave corn cookin' in 'e morning, sometimes burned up, sometimes raw, sometimes, cook'd — couldn't stop. Had to fulfill tasks, or be cut up ; had to fill our poor mother's basket too, to keep weight, so, she not be whipt and chirns too sometimes." One said, "Massah gib task mo' 'an can do. You whipt. To-moiTOw finish 'at task, and do de oder for de day. If not done, whip' g'in. I Baptist minister, an' follow de people, doin' good, thirty-three years. My broder not get task done. Massah hab weight tied to his foot, iron, fourteen pounds ! Den he hab to hoe one acre rice in day, with 'at weight on, all eat in 1 Den no 210 SLAVEKY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX- SLAVES. food, 'fraid to offer- spoonful hominy — 'fraid not 'nough for self; — hard to 'fuse; but hab to, so tired — go to sleep, water dry out, corn all burn up ! Now so peaceful, work in peace ; so happy ! De Loed is tkyin' us to see WHAT WE WILL DO, WED FREEDOM. We WOl'ks, its de Cal- c'lation. Work, ordinance ob God. Can't be Christian widout it. Now work quicker, better, so peaceful, so comfortable ! Not 'bliged to cut ou' wood on Sunday, now Massah gone !" " What could you do upon a plantation ?" said we, to a woman of eighty. " Oh, I min' de chil'n." " You ! How many did you mind ?" " Thirty, ma'am." " Why I could not take care of two !' " Oh, dey gits no care only so's to grow, dat's all, and big ones takes care little ones." It seems if a child is two years older than another, he is considered " big," at whatever age. Poor mothers among field-hands, and in many other cases, never have the privilege of attending their children, till in the utter exhaustion of evening. One physician, an aristocrat, of Beaufort, said to a slaveholder, " Why do not you go ont upon your planta- tions, and see how those Negroes died ? You know they are dead, why not inquire ?" "I have an energetic, good overseer," he replied, " and he states the case. It will not do, you know, to interfere." " Ought you not to know of what they died your- self?" " How can I be running all the time over my planta- tions." " Well, I tell you as a friend, and as a physician, they WARNED TO A DAY OF TESTING DEATHS FROM CRUELTY. 211 were whipped to death, and the smell was such, one could hardly go into the room before they died." " I do wish men would mind their own business ! Now you have got a piece of my mind." " I do ! It is my business ; and I warn you, and I cite you to a day of testing. It will come to you, even in this world. You will repent of this, before you die." That man's house is now occupied by anti-slavery laborers. Oh, could the ministry, Congress, editors, but see and hear these things from the glowing lips of wit- nesses, how would they labor for freedom ! The book of slavery is open, why is it not read by workers, and philosophers \ From Weld's able work, " Slavery as it is," take a few specimens. On page 47 are four cases, related by Rev. William T. Allan, son of a slaveholding D.D. in Ala- bama. (1.) " A man near Courtland, Ala., of the name of Thompson, recently shot a negro woman through the head, and put the pistol so close that her hair was singed. He did it in consequence of some difficulty in his deal- ings with her as a concubine." (2.) " Two men, of the name of Wilson, found a fine-looking negro man at Dan- dridge's Quarter, without a pass, and flogged him so that he died in a short time. They w T ere not punished." (3.) " Col. Blocker's overseer attempted to flog a negro. He refused to be flogged, whereupon the overseer seized an axe, and cleft his skull. The Colonel justifted it." (4.) " One Jones whipped a woman to death ! for grab- bing a potatoe hill." Compare these four cases with the slave laws already cited. The second and fourth, being deaths by whipping, would pass, probably, as cases of " death under moderate correction." The third, Col. Blocker's overseer, would be justified by a Court of law as readily as by the 212 SLAVERY LN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVE8. Colonel. The slave was "resisting" or "offering to resist " the overseer, and was therefore an outlaw. The first case is not quite as clear. If the concubine " resisted " or "offered to resist" Mr. Thompson's advances, whether revengeful or lustful, she came, plainly, into the same legal predicament, and was lawfully killed ! For " the legal relation " must be maintained ! Others, being in search of runaway negroes, surprised them in their camp, and fired their guns toward them as they were running away, to induce them to stop. One of the negroes was, however, killed by a random shot. Decision : " The firing of the defendant in the manner stated was rash and incautious." Slave hunts, with muskets and bloodhounds, are too horribly frequent, by the testimony of the South- ern journals, to admit of any doubt on this subject. And so are advertisements of runaway slaves by their owners, with offers of reward for them, "dead or alive!" or " FOR KTLLING THEM," Or for " EVIDENCE OF THEIR BEING killed I"* Of such slave hunts the inquirer may find ample details in Weld's " Slavery as it is," pp. 21, 97, 102, 108, 155, 180. " In Virginia, by the Revised Code (of 1819), thero are seventy-one offences for which the penalty is death * But lest some may still doubt that in all Slavedom, a man is justified both by law and public sentiment, in procuring the mdrder of slaves, we give a few instances. "About the 1st of March last, the negro man Ransom left me, without the least provocation whatever. I will give $20 for said negro, if taken, dead or alive." Bryant Johnson. Macon Telegraph, Georgia, May 28, 18^8. " Ranaway, my negro man Richard. A reward of $25 will be paid for bis apprehension, dead or alive. Satisfactory proof will only be re- quired of his having been killed." Durant H. Rhodes. Wilmington j&dvertiser, July 13, 18U8. "$100 will be paid to any person who may apprehend a negro man named Alfred. The same reward will be paid for satisfactory evidence of his having been killed. He has one or more sears on one of bis hands, caused" by his having been shot." The Citizens of Onslow. Wd- mington (iV. C.) Advertiser, July 13, 1838. THE WORD SLAVERY TNDECENT CLAIMS TO PROTECTION. 213 when committed by slaves, and imprisonment when com- mitted by whites." * The very word slavery should be inadmissible in good society. Like the odious word brothel, tbe same, in reality, it should be spoken only with most aversion, and by a stern compulsion, never justified, but by great neces- sity. Still, slavery is far the foulest word, for it holds the idea of the compulsion of most of a large class. Yea more, the compulsion of the weak, the defenceless. Yea more, of the dependent, the possessed, or claimed, in a way to constitute in all honorable minds a claim to protection. Yet at the basest of calls, the oppressor, as a general fact, walks through all these, his obligations, as a foul swine, through beds of pure lilies. How have we and others, wished that Congress could take one tour here. If expense were considered, it would be economy, for it would stop all debate. For if one could see what we have seen, and then advocate slavery, he would be as much meaner than the common slaveholder, as the calm looker-on is meaner than the drunken fighter that mauls his innocent victim. But it could not, would not be if slavery as it exists here, were understood, its meanness, cannot be fully pictured. * Jay's " Inquiry," p. 134. CHAPTEK XLIL TRUTHFULNESS IN THE COLORED. Will not God impart his light To them that ask it ? Freely ; 'tis his joy, His glory, and his nature to impart; But to the proud, uncandid, insincere, Or negligent inquirer, not a spark. Cowper. In most cases in conversation with the Colored, the answer was tlie perfect opposite of what they knew we expected, and in all cases diverged, but with the utmost politeness. Speaking to an aged Colored woman, a house- servant of one of the amiable, serene Southern Congress- men, we said, " We all trust you are free, now, from the chains, and agonies of slavery." With a countenance in which was reflected the smile of heaven, she said, " My dear Missus, no one but the Lord, can do 'at good thing fo' we. Jesus, Jesus ! is on' whole trust, for all 'at, for everything." " The rebels seem to have no heart to fight," said we. " Oh, Missus, de prayers of de poo' Colored people, make um run as 'ey did. God say he will hear 'e poor. lie do. We pray," raising her poor hands, " O, we pray fo' 'e dea' sogers to come ! to prosper ! We pray wid every vein of ou' heart. Oh, we prays all night 'at Jesus may conquer." " The Lord is surely on the side of the oppressed,'' said we. 214 HOPE TOU OOME TO BURY ME — HOME FOR SOUL. 215 " Do Lord lie burst 'e chains, 'at we all live in love, and peace, work in peace, work de ordinance of God. Can't serve him widout work good, all works good here, all I not a lazy, good-for-nothing people, on 'is place ! Not one." " We all watch you, and feel so thankful, to hear your noble Superintendents speak so warmly of you, as being so faithful, and industrious." " De Lord is trying us, Missus, to see what we will do, to improve 'is good time ob freedom. Gets ou' rights now, suffer none. Neber, neber, did see such good time ! Didn't think it possible, eber!" " How did you feel," we said to one, " when you heard of the North taking Hilton Head?" " Hold up my poor hands, so, and say, 'Jesus done it! Jesus done it !' when I hear of de victory." To an aged saint, whom all loved, and Superinten- dent highly praised, we said, " We wish we could do more, every M-ay, for you all." " Oh, Missus, Jesus will thank you, I can't 'nougk ! So glad, so glad, you come. Hope you come to bury me ! Children all sold, all gone, broke my heart. Got nobody but Jesus ! Can't do no mo' now but pray." " How do you feel about this war ?" " Oh, I so affected when it commence. Grieve so, so many die. God speak to my soul 'at ' he 'bout to break 'e chain, and set his people free.' Thank him for dis chance ! all who open 'is good door, God bless urn !" To one, we said, " You doubtless feel great hopes of freedom ?" "I just try to save my immortal soul ; I let 'e things of 'is worl' go. I likes liberty, I want 'at. But I mcst HAVE ETERNAL HOME, FOR MY POO' SOUL. 'At is what I think of." 216 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. Another said, " I want when I get to heaben, not be a stranger 'ere. I wants to live for 'at, and all rny chil'n, and chil'n's child'n." The fact of their candid answers, being so often the opposite of what they see that you expect, seems a little trying to them. Their saying so quietly of their wrongs, which rouse your indignation, " I leave all 'at with God, Missus," whose righteousness in their case, must yet be vindicated, melts the soul. As instances of can- did answers : Approaching a plantation house, where one of our Superintendents had been recently put in charge, a beautiful colored boy came out to conduct us in. " Is this the plantation of which Mr. S has charge ?" " It is, Missus ; but he is absent." " Sorry he is not at home. He is a good man. You all like him, I presume." " Oh, yes, Missus," said both, the boy and a Colored girl, now out upon the steps to greet us. " Yes, we are very glad you have got so good a man to protect you." " We are very glad, Missus," responded both voices. Turning to the boy, who had been so ready in his praise, we said, " Mr. S is going to take excellent care of you, isn't he ?" " I can't tell 'at, ma'am." This, was spoken in so manly and truthful, yet so wary and discriminating a manner, all tinged so deeply, with his consciousness, of the possibilities of his future, in the power of others, yet of an inner existence above, and apart, from all the outer, that we had to turn hastily to hide our emotion. Indeed, talking with these dear people, has a wonder- ful tendency to make one look suddenly at book on the ENKEGETIO AEORERS SUBDUING INFLUENCE PUZZLED. 217 mantel, at some ancient article, or out of a window. It has been amusing to sec some of our excellent, educated, efficient, New Yorkers, or Bostonians, with all their the- ories, and plans, and their up-and-energy airs, pass gra- dually under this softening and subduing influence. Sometimes they turn with a puzzled look, and eyes not parched, and say slily, " There is, after all, something very deep in these poor people ;" or, " I do not see through them, entirely, after all ;" or, " Did you ever hear such natural eloquence, and depth ?" This, is par- ticularly the case, with those whose piety inhabits only in the upper tier of their residence. They feel a respect unlooked for, and an interest to hear more, and more, from them, springs up, and it would not be a marvel, if many fine scholars find that a man, in his lowest outward estate, is, after all, greater than any book, and that when the Divine presence shines through every feature, and word, it must be mighty, and felt, though that feeling may be, with any possible shade of dislike, or of love. This influence may not be understood, but its ennobling power is there, and is recognized. And in exact propor- tion, to the lack of an answering experience, the discri- minating beholder, is more, or less puzzled. But this candor, in conversation, together with deep thought, or " studying out 'e thing," as they call it, and the enlightenment of the Spirit in the pmus, all give to their answers a wonderful originality, and zest, which make ordinary, polite conversation, so termed, seem oppressively tame and vapid. 10 CHAPTER XLIII. KNOWLEDGE OF THE COLORED. Who made the heart, 'tis He alone Decidedly can try us : He knows each chord — its various tone, Each spring — its various bias : Then at the balance let's be mute, We never can adjust it : What's done we partly may compute, But know not what's resisted. Burns. We aver that a man may live here for years and know nothing of slavery, nothing of the true Negro character as a whole. He, for instance, looks out upon a plantation ; he sees stealing out and in those miserable huts equally miserable-looking beings, especially if seen at a distance. The sight is repulsive, and human nature hates ugly ap- pearances. He beholds it, from month to month, the same. If, in the army, he sees the worst side, of the worst, of those poor people. Were he a Lord Bacon, he would go in, and converse with them, for the sake of reading this open book of primitive, undisguised, human mind. He would bring his theories to the proof, as the anatomist does his, with the unconscious human body. Had he the mind of a Newton, he would learn God, in his revelations to these men. But how much cultiva- tion does it require to appreciate ! Suppose one at a dis- tance of a mile from New York city, with only cases of 218 OBSERVATION — MILITARY RULE — LIBERAL MINDS. 219 delinquency or criminality *to attend to, what opinion would he have of our city ? What military dictatorship would he not advise ? But let him go in, and become acquainted, and how would his estimation of the city he changed ? So, let one from a distant camp observe these people, have the mere toil of military rule of them, of providing for them, in masses, and he knows no more of them in one year, than in one day. Or, suppose he lakes the representations of one, two, or three, from casual ob- servation, we say he can never know the Negro character thus. Why does he not converse freely with the masses ? call them out and know what is in them ? How is he los- ing opportunities, for which sages have sighed in vain ! If he have prejudices against them, such, as to prevent this converse Avith them, his narrow mind, of course, can never understand them. But to show the fact, that this utter ignorance of them exists, we give remarks of those of high qualities and positions. In reference to arming them, one says: " They will never fight, they will throw down their guns, and run right into the arms of their Masters." Another, of the same opportunities for observation, replies : " No, they will massacre every man of them." One says, " They will never stand fire." Another, " They will fight like tigers." Yet these are all men of equal parts, and opportunities. But all are mistaken, as one week's familiar converse with them would prove to them, for all history of them proves it. They will fight, we aver — and we challenge disproof — like tigers, for the freedom of their children, their wives, themselves. They will scarcely take a life, from revenge. "We could prove this by abundant illus- trations. They speak of having certain overseers, who they all say 220 6LAYEEY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. have caused the deaths of scores of Negroes, whom they name and tell all particulars of — arrested, and their crimes proven, when a Colored man's oath can betaken; but they never, never ! speak of revenge. In the " Memoirs of La Croix," a French officer, and therefore not partial to them, it is said of the Colored soldiers under Toussaint L'Ouverture, " that it was re- markable to see the Africans, half naked, with musket and sabre, giving an example of the severest discipline. They went out for a campaign,- with nothing to eat but maize, established themselves in towns, without touching anything, exposed for sale in the shops, nor pillaging the farmers who brought things to market. Supple and trem- bling before their officers, respectful to citizens, they seemed only to wish to obey the instinct for liberty, which was inspired in them by Toussaint."* And never were greater or more frequent and constant feats of valor performed, in the whole history of nations, than in Hayti, under that most able general. Only con- quered at last, by being immensely outnumbered, and confiding in the honor of the French. But the just his- tory, of all that noble contest for liberty is yet to be writ- ten, and it will be. Still, the Negro is most adapted to peace and to agriculture, though it is the testimony of accurate observers that never did they see persons so de- lighted with handling tools, and the wonders of mecha- nism. One chaplain says, they would work steadily for that mere pleasure, for hours, so delighted were they with saws, planes, chisels, etc. " They work well," says a Superintendent, and all reite- rate the -same. " Three cases of trouble I have had," said he. "They had difficulty among themselves, and came to me quite excited. I said to them, 'I cannot * See La Croix's " Memoirs." AMUSING CONTRADICTIONS ACCUSATIONS — SERVANTS. 221 hear you until you arc cool. Go away, and stay until you are.' In every case," continued he, " they settled it among themselves. One came, and said, ' Massali, I could not sleep last night, because I had spoke wrong. Will you forgive me for speaking wrong to the fore- man V — driver formerly — I said ; This pleases me most of aH. Now I know you will be good.' " This is substantially the report we get from all planta- tions. Not a Superintendent scarcely but is in most ex- cellent heart, hale and happy. Though some say that money would not induce them to stay in those desolate places, still, when they see the wrongs, and needs, and ambitions, of the Colored, they do it gladly for their sake. • One is living in a barn. He says his presence saved them from awful wrongs from some unprincipled soldiers. They plead for a white man, to guide and protect them, under their disabilities, the work of slavery. They are uni- versally kind, giving them many presents, etc., etc., and obedient. They usually get their tasks done between three and four p. m., and are very ambitious then, to work in their gardens, and read. Bur it is amusing to watch the expressions of the haters of the Negro race. They will run on, that " they will not work," " w T ill not provide," " will not live de- cently," " will steal," etc., etc. But fear not, having been allowed to spin out this whole thread, they almost inva- riably add, " But I have a servant, or servants, that are exceptions to the whole of them — the best, absolutely, the best, most agreeable, most capable, most complete, servant I ever had, without an exception. I must get them North somehow, for I don't see howl shall ever live without them. I believe the majority of the blacks," he goes on, " will steal, but I can trust mine to any ex- 222 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. tent. I never look after any tiling." " And we can say the same, of some," we add. Now this, given almost word for word, but spoken with deeper meaning, than can be put into words, is the testi- mony of almost every one, South, with whom we have conversed, among all civil and military officers, civilians, and their relatives, and they have been scores. This, too, nearly all accounts, from all camps, corroborate. Still, these same persons will go right on and say, " What can be done with them if they are suddenly made free ?" If they are asked, What can be done with yours ? " Oh, he is, or they are, exceptions." So are ours, we say ; so almost every one's servant, or servants, prove exceptions. And if all who want help North, and South, under freedom, get " exceptions," the rest will be easily provided for. The fact is, when the Negro wants to do, he is of all most competent, and the invariable testimony is, that he always wants to do, if he gets pay for it. And the same genius that is fruitful in finding " onpossibilities," in the way, in slavery, is equally fruitful in finding expedients, when free, and paid. So, on one plantation, in Jamaica, according to Sewell and others, " 93 ! free Colored men, worked a plantation that had always required 225 ! slaves, and produced from it 52 more hogsheads of sugar," and instances of the like increase, might be multiplied, to almost any extent. But, as to domestic qualities, only one Superintendent says, '* The Negroes care little about their wives, and children." Most others say, " they love them equally with the Whites." Others say, " they love them far, far, better." So that no one's opinion should be taken alone. Take a person not genuinely anti-slavery, with a dislike to the PROSPERITY WITH APPRENTICED SLAVES IMPOSSLBLE. 223 Colored, and such, we regret to say, there are among lis, at Port Royal, and put him over a number, he having much power, and he will almost surely come to criticise them more, and more, and, of course, that becomes mutual. When, if he hired the same persons, and paid them weekly, he would prize them very highly, at least. To illustrate. Let a man have one hundred working emigrants, or day laborers, of any city, out upon a planta- tion, and suppos'e they were accustomed to, and attached to it. Let him merely give them rations, miserable cabins, dubious, and unsatisfactory promises, respecting pay. Then let him treat them with the love that lfts conversa- tion, with you, would lead you to expect, and how, think you, would he succeed, with them ? But, on the other hand, let the same man hire them knowing that they could leave his employ any day, or moment, and, always speak to them, and treat with them, under that know- ledge, and how totally different would be the result. Here is just the difference between any apprenticeship, or gradual emancipation, and free labor. And shall this noble nation actually enslave, for the present, by eman- cipating gradually ? Forbid it, ye noble voters ! In you we confide, for true nobility. But in fact, the Colored, here, have had far less liberty to go and come, than under their former masters. For instance, most were per- mitted to go from one plantation to another, or into Beau- fort, upon the Sabbath. This, is prohibited not only by military necessity, but also, usually, by Superintendents. Poor race, there seems no end to their disabilities. But they submit, very cheerfully, in general, saying, " We must all 'spect to suffer, and to lose ou' privileges, during 'is confusion. It's all for ou' liberty and ou' country, and we must, bear ebery ting for 'at." But while one sees that the poor Colored are looked at 224 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. with prejudice, to say the least, by most, he must remem- ber that this has ever invariably been the fate of an oppressed race. Witness our own ancestors, not ten cen- turies since, made by every surrounding people to seem tenfold worse heathen, than they actually were, and that, surely, was bad enough. THE ENSLAVED BRITONS. , The Romans might have found an image of their own ancestors in, the representation they have given of ours. And we may form not an imperfect idea what our ances- tors were, at the time Julius Csesar invaded Britain, by the present condition of some of the African tribes. In them we may perceive, as in a mirror, the features of our progenitors ; and by our own history, we may learn the extent to which such tribes may be elevated by means favorable to their improvement.*" When the inhabitants of a free country are heard jus- tifying the injuries inflicted upon the natives of Africa, or opposing the introduction of liberal institutions among any portion of them, on the vulgar ground that they are an inferior class of beings to themselves, it is but fair to remind them, that there was a period, when Cicero con- sidered THEIR OWN ANCESTORS AS UNFIT TO BE EMPLOYED even as slaves in the house of a Eoman citizen. "Seated one day in the house of a friend at Cape Town," says Dr. Philip, " with a bust of Cicero on my right hand, and one of Sir Isaac Newton on the left, I accidentally opened a booh on the table at that passage in Cicero's letter to Atticus, in which the philosopher speaks so contemptuously of the natives of Great Bri- * Dr. Philip. CICEEo's AND CJESAE's OPINIONS OF BEITOXS FOE SLATES. 225 aim* Struck with, the curious coincidence, arising from the circumstances in which I then found myself placed, pointing to the bust of Cicero, and then to that of Sir Isaac Newton, 1 could not help exclaiming, ' Hear what that man says of that man's country !' ' Were it not so indubitably recorded on the page of history, we should hardly be willing to believe that there was a time when our ancestors, the ancient Britons, went nearly without clothing,, painted their bodies in fantas- tic fashion, offered up human victims to uncouth idols, and lived in hollow trees, or rude habitations, which we should now consider unfit for cattle. Making all due allowance for the different state of the world, it is much to be questioned whether they made more rapid advances than have been effected by many African nations, and that they were really sunk into the lowest degree of bar- barism is unquestionable. Cicero relates that the ugliest and most stupid slaves in Borne came from England ! Moreover, he urges his friend Atticus "not to buy slaves from Britain, on account of their stupidity ,'and their inaptitude to learn music and other accomplishments." With Caesar's opinion of our ancestors, we are, per- haps, some of us not sufficiently acquainted. He describes the Britons generally, as a nation of very barbarous man- ners : " Most of the people of the interior," he says, " never sow corn, but live upon milk and flesh, and are clothed with skins." In another place he remarks, " In * " Britannici belli exitus expectatur : constat eniin aditus insula? esse munitos niirificis molibus : etiani illud jam cognituin est, neque argenti scrnpulum esse ulluin in ilia insula, neque ullam spem praedse nisi ex mancipiis : ex quibus nullos puto, te Uteris aut mu- sicis eruditos expectare."— Ejpist. Ad. Atticum, 1. iv., Epist. 16. 10* 226 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. their domestic and social habits, the Britons are as de- graded as the most savage nations. Tliey are clothed with skins ; wear the hair of their heads unshaven and long, but shave the rest of their bodies, except their up- per lip, and stain themselves a blue color with woad, which gives them a horrible aspect in battle."* " Let us not then the Negro Slave despise, • Just such our sires appeared in Caesar's eyes." Should we not laugh at Tacitus or Pliny, if, from the circumstances thus related, they had condemned the British Islands to an eternity of Boeotian darkness — to be the officina of hereditary bondage and transmitted help- lessness ? Yet this is the sort of reasoning employed by the perpetrators and apologists of Negro slavery. Alas, for Christian guilt ! can it be equalled by any Pagan crime ? "We think unmoved of millions of our race, Swept from thy soil by cruelties prolonged ; Another clime then ravaged to replace The wretched Indians ; — Africa now wronged To fill the void where millions lately thronged." In an estimate formed by De. Johnson of what man- kind have lost or gained by European conquest, having ' adverted to the cruelties which have been committed, * Quoted by Dr. Brichard, who also, after much research, ima- gines " the ancient Britons were nearly on a level with the New Zealanders or Tahitiaus of the present day, or perhaps not very su- perior to the Australians." — Researches, III., ]82. At page 181 of the same volume, Dr. Prichard also remarks, " Of all Pagau nations the Gauls and Britons appear to have had the most san- guinary rites. They may well*be compared in this respect with the Ashanti, Dahomehs, and other nations of Western Africa." de. Johnson's estimate — oppressors' motives. 227 and the manner in which the laws of religion have been outrageously violated, he adds, "Europeans have scarcely visited any coast, but to gratify avarice and extend cor- ruption ; to arrogate dominion without right, and prac- tise cruelty without incentive ;" and he then gives it as his opinion, that " it would have been happy for the op- pressed, and still more happy for the invaders, that their designs had slept in their own bosoms." The direst study of mankind is man. The system of oppression under which the African race suffer so grievously, renders it imperative on their op- pressors to allege some reasons, as plausible as they are able, in their own defence. That slave merchants, who traffic in human flesh, and Negro drivers, who use their lellow-creatures worse than cattle, should attempt to justify their conduct by depressing the African to a level with the brute, is what might reasonably be ex- pected. Thus do the oppressors of their fellow-men satisfy their consciences by pretending to believe that the unfortunate Negro is a brute, or at best, only a connect- ing link between the brute creation and Man. They desire to degrade him below the standard of humanity, attempting to deface all title to the Divine image from his mind ; thus do they reconcile the cruel hardships under which' the victims of their oppression are still doomed to groan, maintaining that Negroes make a decided ap- proach toward the native inferiority of the monkey tribe — that they are endowed by the Creator with the noble gift of reason in a 'very inferior degree, when com- pared with the more favored inhabitants of Europe. Two descriptions of men have come to this conclusion. The first are those who have had to contend with the passions and vices of the Negro in his purely Pagan state, and who have applied no other instrument to elicit 228 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. the virtues they have demanded than the stimulus of the whip and the stern voice of authority. "Who can won- der that they have failed ? They have expected " to reap where they have not sown," and " to gather where nothing has been strewn." They have required moral ends, without the application of moral means ; and their failure, therefore, leaves the question of the capacity of the Negro untouched, and proves nothing but their own folly. In the second class may be included our minute philosophers who take the gauge of intellectual capacity entirely in the support of slavery. TuAT VERY LITTLE IMPORTANCE CAN BE ATTACHED to the allegation of an external resemblance between the Negro and inferior animals, may be clearly inferred from the fact, that the same remark has been made, even by intel- ligent travellers, respecting particular people of other varieties of the human race. Regnard concludes his description of the Laplanders with these words : " voila la description de ce petit animal qu'on appelle Lapon, et Ton peut dire qu'il n'y en a point, apres le singe, qui approche plus l'homme." An Esquimaux, who was brought to London by Cartwright, when he first saw a monkey, asked, " Is that an Esquimaux ?" His compan- ion adds, " I must confess, that both the color and con- tour of the animal's countenance had considerable re- semblance to the people of their nation." 1ST. del Techo calls the Caaiguas of South America, " tarn simiis simi- les, quam hominibus ;" and J. R. Forster, in the obser- vations of his journey round the world, asserts, "the in- habitants of the island of Mallicollo, of all the people whom I have seen, have the nearest relationship to the monkeys." "Whether we investigate the physical or the moral nature of Man, we recognize at every step the limited POOR COMPLIMENT TO MEN — DR. LAWRENCE^ OPINION. 229 extent of our knowledge. That the greatest ignorance > has prevailed on this subject, even in modern times, and among men of reputed learning and acuteness, is evinced by the strange notion very strenuously asserted by Monboddo and Rosseau, and firmly believed by some, that Man and the monkey, or at least the ourang-ou- tang, belong to the same species, and are not otherwise distinguished from each other, than by circumstances which can be accounted for, by the different physical and moral agencies to which they have been exposed. The former of these writers even supposes that the human race once possessed tails ! and he says " the ourang-ou- tangs are proved to be of our species, by marks of hu- manity that are incontestible ;" a poor compliment to Man, indeed. " The completely unsupported assertions of Mon- boddo and Rousseau," says Dr. Lawrence, " only show that they were equally unacquainted with the structure and functions of men and monkeys ; not conversant with zoology and physiology, and therefore entirely destitute of the principles on which alone a sound judgment can be formed concerning the natural capabilities and des- tiny of animals, as well as the laws according to which certain changes of character, certain departures from the original stock, may take place." " The peculiar characteristics of Man," continues the above writer, "appear to me so very strong, that I not only deem him a distinct species, but also put him into a separate order by himself. His physical and moral attri- butes place him at a much greater distance from all other orders of mammalia, than those are from each other respectively." Sturge and Harvey state, that " a gentleman of great intelligence, long resident in Antigua, remarked to them, 230 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. that the features of the Negroes had altered within his memory, which he attributed to their elevation by edu- cation and religious instruction." " Perhaps it is that the features' become more agreeable, in proportion as people recede from the eifeets and influence of slavery." As an illustration of the remarkable effects of educa- tion in altering the features of Man, and entirely chang- ing the expression of his countenance, we have one cir- cumstance on record which is very conclusive. I allude to the singular case of Kaspar Hauser, who was confined in a dungeon in a state of entire ignorance, till he was about eighteen years of age. His biographer, Anselm Von Fuerbach, President of the Bavarian Court of Ap- peal, whose authority may be strictly relied upon, re- lates, " that on Kaspar's being thrown adrift in the world, when he was first discovered by the inhabitants of JSTuremburg, his face was very vulgar : when in a state of tranquillity, it was almost without any expres- sion ; and its lower features being somewhat prominent, gave him a brutish appearance. His weeping was only an ugly contortion of the mouth, and the staring look of his blue, but clear bright eyes, had also an expression of brutish obtuseness." Von Fuerbach expressed a wish at this period, that Kaspar's portrait might be taken by a skillful painter, because he felt assured that his features would soon alter. His wish was not gratified, but his prediction was soon fulfilled. The effect of education produced a wonderful alteration in his whole counte- nance ; indeed, the formation of his face altered in a few months almost entirely ; his countenance gained expres- sion and animation, and the prominent lower features of his face receded more and more, so that his earlier physi- ognomy could scarcely any longer be recognized.* * Life of Kaspar Hauser. INFLUENCE OF CIVILIZATION UFON FEATURES. 231 The alteration "and improvement of the features, under the influence of the civilizing process, is elucidated by so many indubitable facts, that it is unnecessary to dwell longer upon this subject. If the operation of this in- fluence could be applied more thoroughly and universally, it would cause a nearer approximation to each other, be- tween the European and the African, and must tend, in a great measure, to obliterate those distinctions, on which the untenable theories of diversity of origin have been founded, and which have been adduced in favor of Negro Slavery. Dr. Philip, from the facts which have come under his observation, says, he has no hesitation in giving it as his opinion, that the complexion, the form of the countenance, and even the shape of the head, are much affected by the circumstances under which human beings are placed at an early age. In corroboration of the opinion here advanced, he says, " I have had the sat- isfaction to remark at our Missionary stations, what ap- peared to me an improvement, not only in the counte- nance, but even in the shape of the head, for three suc- cessive generations." If, as travellers inform us, many Africans differ from Europeans in little else than color, the peculiar construc- tion of the head, on the faith of which, some would class them as a distinct species, appears to be by no means a constant character. Dr. Knox, who has entered minutely into the study of Man, says, that in consider- ing the lower specimens of humanity, too much import- ance has been attached to the cranium and the science of cranioscopy ; for it is not in the skull, says he, but in the outer covering of the body or skeleton, that na- ture has placed the great marks of difference. " Strip off the integuments of Yenus, and compare her with a Bush Woman, and the difference would be seen to be 232 SLAVERY IN SOOTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. very slight." Dr. Knox, it may be observed, after con- siderable research, arrives at this important conclusion, " that there is an impassable gulf between the higher order of animals and the Negro." I am not very partial to phrenology, but if quantity of brain and mental superiority have a connection with each other, we have a high authority, that of Dr. Tiedeman, an eminent German, for believing that no inferiority exists in this respect, for he asserts that in quantity of brain they equal the fair races. Dr. Tiedeman communicated a paper to the British Royal Society, detailing the com- parative examination of the brains of a number of Ne- groes — size, weight, conformation, etc., demonstrating that no material difference exists, between them and the brain? of the White races. Professor Blumenbach, the great German physiologist, bestowed much labor and research on the question of Ne- gro capacity. He collected a large number of skulls, and also a numerous library of the works of persons of Afri- can blood or descent. He is, perhaps, the greatest autho- rity, in favor of the identity of species and equality of intel- lect of the Black and White races. It is to Blumenbach, that we are indebted for the most complete body of infor- mation on this subject, which he illustrated most success- fully by his unrivalled collection of the cranire of different nations from all parts of the globe. His admirable work " On the Varieties of the Human Species," contains a short sketch of the various formations of the skull in dif- ferent nations ; but he has treated the subject at greater length, and with more minute detail, in his " Decades Craniorum," in which the craniae themselves are repre- sented of their natural size. From the results of the observations of Blumenbach and •others, it appear, then, that there is no characteristic THE ANCIENT FINS INI50-GERMANS — DR. CHALMERS. 233 whatever in the organization of the skull or brain of the Negro which affords a presumption of inferior endowment either of the intellectual or moral faculties. If it be asserted that the African nations are inferior to the rest of mankind, from historical facts, because they may be thought not to have contributed their share to the advancement of human arts and science, the Mandingoes may be instanced as a people evidently susceptible of high mental culture and civilization. They have not, indeed, contributed much toward the advancement of human arts and science, but they have evinced them- selves willing and able to profit by these advantages when introduced among them. The civilization of many Afri- can nations is much superior to that of the aborigines of Europe, during the ages which preceded the conquests made by the Goths and Swedes in the North, and by the Eomans in the Southern part. The old Finnish inhabi- tants of Scandinavia had long, as it has been proved by the learned investigations of Kims, the religion of fetishes, and a vocabulary as scanty as that of the most barbarous Africans. They had lived from ages immemorial with- out laws, or government, or social union ; every indi- vidual in all things the supreme arbiter of his own actions ; and they displayed as little capability of emerg- ing from the squalid sloth of their rude and merely ani- mal existence. "When conquered by a people of In do- German origin, who brought with them from the East the rudiments of mental culture, they emerged more slowly from their pristine barbarism than many of the native African nations have since done. Even at the present day, there are hordes in various parts of northern Asia, whose heads have the form belonging to the Tar- tars, to the Sclavonians, and other Europeans, but who are below many of the African tribes in civilization. 234 SLAVERY IN SOUTH CAROLINA AND THE EX-SLAVES. '•The Christian philosopher," says Dr. Chalmers, "sees in every man, a partaker of his own nature, and a brother of his own species. He contemplates the human mind in the generality of its great elements. He enters upon a wide field of benevolence, and disdains the geographical barriers by which little men would shut out one half of the species from the kind offices of the other. Let man's localities be what they may, it is enough for his large and noble heart, that he is bone of the same bone." A powerful argument may yet be adduced, which ap- pears to us conclusive of the whole question relating to man's unity of origin, and that is, the testimony of the sacred Scriptures, which ascribe one origin to the whole human family. Our Scriptures have not left us to de- termine the title of any tribe to the full honors of human- ity by accidental circumstances. One passage affirms, that " God hath made of one blood all the nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth ;" that they are of one family, of one origin, of one common nature : the other, that our Savior became incarnate, "that he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man." * " Behold then," says the pious Richard Watson, " the foundation of the fraternity of our race, however colored and however scattered. Essential distinctions of inferi- ority and superiority had been, in almost every part of the Gentile world, adopted as the palliation or the justi- fication of the wrongs inflicted by man on man ; but against this notion, Christianity, from its first promulga- tion, has lifted up its voice. God hath made the varied tribes of men ' of one blood.' Dost thou wrong a human being ? He is thy brother. Art thou his murderer by war, private malice, or a wearing and exhausting oppres- sion ? ' The voice of thy brother's blood crieth to God * " Tribute to the Negro." CHRIST, BROTHER BY HUMANITY, TO EYERY HAN. 235 from the ground.' Dost thou, because of some accidental circumstances of rank, opulence, and power