Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Whereas complaint upon oath has this day been made to us, two of the

  justices of the peace for the said State and county aforesaid, by Guilford Horn,

  of Edgecombe County, that a certain male slave belonging to him, named

  Harry, a carpenter by trade, about forty years old, five feet five inches high,

  or thereabouts; yellow complexion; stout built; with a scar on his left leg

  (from the cut of an axe); has very thick lips; eyes deep sunk in his head;

  forehead very square; tolerably loud voice; has lost one or two of his upper

  teeth; and has a very dark spot on his jaw, supposed to be a mark--hath

  absented himself from his master's service, and is supposed to be lurking about in

  this county, committing acts of felony or other misdeeds; these are, therefore,

  in the name of the State aforesaid, to command the said slave forthwith to sur-

  render himself, and return home to his said master; and we do hereby, by virtue

  of the Act of Assembly in such cases made and provided, intimate and declare,

  that if the said slave Harry doth not surrender himself and return home imme-

  diately after the publication of these presents, that any person or persons may

  kill and destroy the said slave by such means as he or they may think fit,

  without accusation or impeachment of any crime or offence for so doing, and

  without incurring any penalty or forfeiture thereby.

  Given under our hands and seals, this 29th day of June, 1850.

  James T. Miller, J. P. [Seal.]

  W. C. Bettencourt, J. P. [Seal.]

  One Hundred and Twenty-five Dollars Reward will be paid for the

  delivery of the said Harry to me at Tosnott Depot, Edgecombe County, or for

  his confinement in any jail in the State, so that I can get him; or One Hundred

  and Fifty Dollars will be given for his head.

  He was lately heard from in Newbern, where he called himself Henry Barnes

  (or Burns), and will be likely to continue the same name, or assume that of

  Copage or Farmer. He has a free mulatto woman for a wife, by the name of

  Sally Bozeman, who has lately removed to Wilmington, and lives in that part of

  the town called Texas, where he will likely be lurking.

  Masters of vessels are particularly cautioned against harbouring or concealing

  the said negro on board their vessels, as the full penalty of the law will be rigo-

  rously enforced.

  June 29th, 1850. Guilford Horn.

  There is an inkling of history and romance about the descrip-

  tion of this same Harry, who is thus publicly set up to be

  killed in any way that any of the negro-hunters of the swamps

  may think the most piquant and enlivening. It seems he is a

  carpenter--a powerfully-made man, whose thews and sinews

  might be a profitable acquisition to himself. It appears also

  that he has a wife, and the advertiser intimates that possibly he

  may be caught prowling about somewhere in her vicinity. This

  indicates sagacity in the writer, certainly. Married men gene-

  rally have a way of liking the society of their wives; and it

  strikes us, from what we know of the nature of carpenters here

  in New England, that Harry was not peculiar in this respect.

  Let us further notice the portrait of Harry:--“Eyes deep sunk

  in his head; forehead very square.” This picture reminds us of

  what a persecuting old ecclesiastic once said in the days of the

  Port-Royalists, of a certain truculent abbess, who stood obsti-

  nately to a certain course, in the face of the whole power,

  temporal and spiritual, of the Romish Church, in spite of fining,

  imprisoning, starving, whipping, beating, and other enlightening

  argumentative processes, not wholly peculiar, it seems, to that

  age. “You will never subdue that woman,” said the eccle-

  siastic, who was a phrenologist before his age; “she's got a

  square head, and I have always noticed that people with square

  heads never can be turned out of their course.” We think it

  very probable that Harry, with his “square head,” is just one of

  this sort. He is probably one of those articles which would be

  extremely valuable, if the owner could only get the use of him.

  His head is well enough, but he will use it for himself. It is of

  no use to anyone but the wearer; and the master seems to sym-

  bolise this state of things, by offering twenty-five dollars more

  for the head without the body, than he is willing to give for

  head, man, and all. Poor Harry! We wonder whether they have

  caught him yet; or whether the impenetrable thickets, the

  poisonous miasma, the deadly snakes, and the unwieldy alli-

  gators of the swamps, more humane than the slave-hunter, have

  interposed their uncouth and loathsome forms to guard the only

  fastness in Carolina where a slave can live in freedom.

  It is not, then, in mere poetic fiction that the humane and

  graceful pen of Longfellow has drawn the following picture:--

  In the dark fens of the Dismal Swamp

  The hunted negro lay; He saw the fire of the midnight camp,

  And heard at times the horse's tramp,

  And a bloodhound's distant bay. Where will-o'-the-wisps and glow-worms shine,

  In bulrush and in brake; Where waving mosses shroud the pine,

  And the cedar grows, and the poisonous vine

  Is spotted like the snake;

  Where hardly a human foot could pass,

  Or a human heart would dare,-- On the quaking turf of the green morass

  He crouched in the rank and tangled grass,

  Like a wild beast in his lair. A poor old slave! infirm and lame,

  Great scars deformed his face; On his forehead he bore the brand of shame,

  And the rags that hid his mangled frame

  Were the livery of disgrace. All things above were bright and fair,

  All things were glad and free; Lithe squirrels darted here and there,

  And wild birds filled the echoing air

  With songs of liberty! On him alone was the doom of pain,

  From the morning of his birth; On him alone the curse of Cain*

  Fell like the flail on the garnered grain,

  And struck him to the earth. The civilized world may and will ask, in what State this law

  has been drawn, and passed, and revised, and allowed to appear

  at the present day on the revised statute-book, and to be

  executed in the year of Our Lord 1850, as the above-cited

  extracts from its most respectable journals show. Is it some

  heathen, Kurdish tribe, some nest of pirates, some horde of

  barbarians, where destructive gods are worshipped, and libations

  to their honour poured from human skulls? The civilized world

  will not believe it, but it is actually a fact, that this law has

  been made, and is still kept in force, by men in every other

  respect than what relates to their slave code, as high-minded, as

  enlightened, as humane, as any men in Christendom; by citizens

  of a State which glories in the blood and hereditary Christian

  institutions of Scotland. Curiosity to know what sort of men

  the legislators of North Carolina might be, led the writer to

  examine with some attention the proceedings and debates of the

  convention of that State, called to amend its constitution, which

  assembled at Raleigh, June 4th, 1835. It is but justice to
>
  say that in these proceedings, in which all the different and

  perhaps conflicting interests of the various parts of the State

  were discussed, there was an exhibition of candour, fairness, and

  moderation, of gentlemanly honour and courtesy in the treat-

  ment of opposing claims, and of an overruling sense of the

  obligations of law and religion, which certainly have not always

  been equally conspicuous in the proceedings of deliberative

  bodies in such cases. It simply goes to show that one can

  judge nothing of the religion or of the humanity of individuals

  from what seems to us objectionable practice, where they have

  been educated under a system entirely incompatible with both.

  Such is the very equivocal character of what we call virtue.

  It could not be for a moment supposed that such men as

  Judge Ruffin, or many of the gentlemen who figure in the

  debates alluded to, would ever think of availing themselves of

  the savage permissions of such a law. But what then? It

  follows that the law is a direct permission, letting loose upon

  the defenceless slave that class of men who exist in every com-

  munity, who have no conscience, no honour, no shame; who are

  too far below public opinion to be restrained by that, and from

  whom accordingly this provision of the law takes away the only

  available restraint of their fiendish natures. Such men are not

  peculiar to the South. It is unhappily too notorious that they

  exist everywhere--in England, in New England, and the world

  over; but they can only arrive at full maturity in wickedness

  under a system where the law clothes them with absolute and

  irresponsible power.

  * This man was burned alive.

  † The old statute of 1741 had some features still more edifying. That provides

  that said “proclamation shall be published on a Sabbath day, at the door of

  every church or chapel, or for want of such, at the place where divine service shall

  be performed in the said county, by the parish clerk or reader, immediately after

  divine service.”--Potter's Revisal, i. 166. What a peculiar appropriateness there

  must have been in this proclamation, particularly after a sermon on the love of

  Christ, or an exposition of the text “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself!”

  * Be it further enacted, That when any slave shall be legally outlawed in any of

  Potter's Revisal, ch. 467, § 2.

  the counties within mentioned, the owner of which shall reside in

  one of the said counties, and the said slave shall be killed in conse-

  quence of such outlawry, the value of such slave shall be ascertained

  by a jury which shall be empanelled at the succeeding court of the

  county where the said slave was killed, and a certificate of such valuation shall

  be given by the clerk of the court to the owner of said slave, who shall be

  entitled to receive two-thirds of such valuation from the sheriff of the county

  wherein the slave was killed. (Extended to other counties in 1797.--Potter,

  ch. 480, § 1. Now obsolete.)

  * Gen. iv. 14: “And it shall come to pass that every one that findeth me shall

  slay me.”

  CHAPTER V.

  PROTECTIVE ACTS OF SOUTH CAROLINA AND LOUISIANA--THE

  IRON COLLAR OF LOUISIANA AND NORTH CAROLINA.

  Thus far by way of considering the protective Acts of North

  Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee.

  Certain miscellaneous protective Acts of various other States

  will now be cited, merely as specimens of the spirit of legislation.

  In South Carolina, the Act of 1740 punished the wilful,

  Stroud, p. 39. 2 Brevard's Digest, p.241.

  deliberate murder of a slave by disfranchisement, and

  by a fine of seven hundred pounds current money, or,

  in default of payment, imprisonment for seven years.

  But the wilful murder of a slave, in the sense contemplated in

  this law, is a crime which would not often occur. The kind of

  murder which was most frequent among masters or overseers was

  guarded against by another section of the same Act--how

  adequately the reader will judge for himself from the following

  quotation:--

  Stroud's Sketch, p. 40. 2 Brevard's Digest, 241. James' Digest, 392.

  If any person shall, on a sudden heat or passion, or by undue

  correction, kill his own slave, or the slave of any other person, he

  shall forfeit the sum of three hundred and fifty pounds current

  money.

  In 1821 the Act punishing the wilful murder of the slave only

  with fine or imprisonment was mainly repealed, and it was enacted

  that such crime should be punished by death; but the latter

  section, which relates to killing the slave in sudden heat or

  passion, or by undue correction, has been altered only by diminish-

  ing the pecuniary penalty to a fine of five hundred dollars,

  authorising also imprisonment for six months.

  The next protective statute to be noticed is the following from

  the Act of 1740, South Carolina:--

  In case any person shall wilfully cut out the tongue, put out the eye, * * *

  Stroud, p.240 2 Brevard's Digest, 241.

  or cruelly scald, burn, or deprive any slave of any limb or mem-

  ber, or shall inflict any other cruel punishment, other than by

  whipping or beating with a horsewhip, cow-skin, switch, or small

  stick, or by putting irons on, or confining or imprisoning such slave, every such

  person shall, for every such offence, forfeit the sum of one hundred pounds, current

  money.

  The language of this law, like many other of these protective

  enactments, is exceedingly suggestive. The first suggestion that

  occurs is, What sort of an institution, and what sort of a state of

  society is it, that called out a law worded like this? Laws are

  generally not made against practices that do not exist, and exist

  with some degree of frequency.

  The advocates of slavery are very fond of comparing it to

  the apprentice system of England and America. Let us suppose

  that in the British Parliament, or in a New England Legislature,

  the following law is proposed, under the title of “An Act for the

  Protection of Apprentices,” &c.:--

  In case any person shall wilfully cut out the tongue, put out the eye, or cruelly

  scald, burn, or deprive any apprentice of any limb or member, or shall inflict any

  other cruel punishment, other than by whipping or beating with a horsewhip,

  cow-skin, switch, or small stick, or by putting irons on, or confining or imprisoning

  such apprentice, every such person shall, for every such offence, forfeit the sum of

  one hundred pounds, current money.

  What a sensation such a proposed law would make in England

  may be best left for Englishmen to say; but in New England it

  would simply constitute the proposer a candidate for Bedlam.

  Yet that such a statute is necessary in South Carolina is evident

  enough, if we reflect that, because there is no such statute in

  Virginia, it has been decided that a wretch who perpetrates all

  these enormities on a slave cannot even be indicted for it, unless

  the slave dies.

  But let us look further. What is to be the pen
alty when

  any of these fiendish things are done?

  Why, the man forfeits a hundred pounds, current money.

  Surely he ought to pay as much as that for doing so very unne-

  cessary an act, when the Legislature bountifully allows him to

  inflict any torture which revengeful ingenuity could devise, by

  means of horsewhip, cowskin, switch, or small stick, or putting

  irons on, or confining and imprisoning. One would surely

  think that here was sufficient scope and variety of legalised

  means of torture to satisfy any ordinary appetite for vengeance.

  It would appear decidedly that any more piquant varieties of

  agony ought to be an extra charge. The advocates of slavery

  are fond of comparing the situation of the slave with that of the

  English labourer. We are not aware that the English labourer

  has been so unfortunate as to be protected by any enactment

  like this since the days of villeinage.

  Judge Stroud says that the same law, substantially, has been

  Stroud's Sketch,p.41.

  1 Mar. Digest, 654.

  adopted in Louisiana. It is true that the civil code

  of Louisiana thus expresses its humane inten-

  tions:--

  The slave is entirely subject to the will of his master, who may correct and

  chastise him, though not with unusual rigour, nor so as to maim or mutilate him,

  or to expose him to the danger of loss of life, or to cause his death.

  -- The expression “unusual rigour” is suggestive again. It

  will afford large latitude for a jury, in States where slaves are in

  the habit of dying under moderate correction; where outlawed

  slaves may be killed by any means which any person thinks fit;

  and where laws have to be specifically made against scalding,

  burning, cutting out the tongue, putting out the eye, &c. What

  will be thought unusual rigour? This is a question, certainly,

  upon which persons in States not so constituted can have no

  means of forming an opinion.

  In one of the newspaper extracts with which we prefaced our

  account, the following protective Act of Louisiana is alluded

  to as being particularly satisfactory and efficient. We give it

  as quoted by Judge Stroud in his Sketch, p. 58, giving his

  reference:--

  No master shall be compelled to sell his slave, but in one of two cases, to wit: