January 5
Bark,
Southerner,
“
52
February 7
Ship,
Nathan Hooper,
“
51
“ 21
“
Dumbarton,
“
22
March 27
Sloop,
Palmetto,
Charleston,
36
“ 4
“
Jewess,
Norfolk, Va.
34
April 24
“
Pahnetto,
Charleston,
8
“ 25
Bark,
Abbott Lord,
New Orleans,
36
May 15
Ship,
Charles,
“
2
June 12
Sloop,
Pampero,
“
4
July 3
“
Palmetto,
Charleston,
1
“ 6
“
Herald,
Norfolk, Va.
7
“ 6
“
Maryland,
Arquia Creek, Va.
4
Septmb. 14
“
North Carolina,
Norfolk, Va.
15
“ 23
Ship,
America,
New Orleans,
1
October 15
“
Brandywine,
“
6
“ 18
Sloop,
Isabel,
Charleston,
1
“ 28
Schooner,
Maryland,
“
12
“ 29
“
H. M. Gambrill,
Savannah,
11
Novem. 1
Ship,
Jane Henderson,
New Orleans,
18
“ 6
Sloop,
Palmetto,
Charleston,
3
If we look back to the advertisements we shall see that the traders take only the younger ones, between the ages of ten and thirty. But this is only one port, and only one mode of exporting; for multitudes of them are sent in coffles over land; and yet Mr. J. Thornton Randolph represents the negroes of Virginia as living in pastoral security, smoking their pipes under their own vines and fig-trees, the venerable patriarch of the flock declaring that “he nebber hab hear such a thing as a nigger sold to Georgia all his life, unless dat nigger did something berry bad.”
An affecting picture of the consequences of this traffic upon both master and slave is drawn by the committee of the volume from which we have quoted.
The writer cannot conclude this chapter better than by the language which they have used: —
This system bears with extreme severity upon the slave. It subjects him to a perpetual fear of being sold to the “soul-driver,” which to the slave is the realisation of all conceivable woes and horrors, more dreaded than death. An awful apprehension of this fate haunts the poor sufferer by day and night, from his cradle to his grave. SUSPENSE hangs like a thunder-cloud over his head. He knows that there is not a passing hour, whether he wakes or sleeps, which may not be THE LAST that he shall spend with his wife and children. Every day or week some acquaintance is snatched from his side, and thus the consciousness of his own danger is kept continually awake. “Surely my turn will come next,” is his harrowing conviction; for he knows that he was reared for this, as the ox for the yoke, or the sheep for the slaughter. In this aspect, the slave’s condition is truly indescribable. Suspense, even when it relates to an event of no great moment, and “endureth but for a night,” is hard to bear. But when it broods over all, absolutely all that is dear, chilling the present with its deep shade, and casting its awful gloom over the future, it must break the heart! Such is the suspense under which every slave in the breeding State lives. It poisons all his little lot of bliss. If a father, he cannot go forth to his toil without bidding a mental farewell to his wife and children. He cannot return, weary and worn, from the field, with any certainty that he shall not find his home robbed and desolate. Nor can he seek his bed of straw and rags without the frightful misgiving that his wife may be torn from his arms before morning. Should a white stranger approach his master’s mansion, he fears that the soul-driver has come, and awaits in terror the overseer’s mandate, “You are sold; follow that man.” There is no being on earth whom the slaves of the breeding States regard with so much horror as the trader. He is to them what the prowling kidnapper is to their less wretched brethren in the wilds of Africa. The master knows this, and that there is no punishment so effectual to secure labour, or deter from misconduct, as the threat of being delivered to the soul-driver.*
Another consequence of this system is the prevalence of licentiousness. This is indeed one of the foul features of slavery everywhere; but it is especially prevalent and indiscriminate where slave-breeding is conducted as a business. It grows directly out of the system, and is inseparable from it. * * * The pecuniary inducement to general pollution must be very strong, since the larger the slave increase the greater the master’s gains, and especially since the mixed blood demands a considerable higher price than the pure black.
The remainder of the extract contains specifications too dreadful to be quoted. We can only refer the reader to the volume, .
The poets of America, true to the holy soul of their divine art, have shed over some of the horrid realities of this trade the pathetic light of poetry. Longfellow and Whittier have told us, in verses beautiful as strung pearls, yet sorrowful as a mother’s tears, some of the incidents of this unnatural and ghastly traffic. For the sake of a common humanity, let us hope that the first extract describes no common event.
THE QUADROON GIRL.
The Slaver in the broad lagoon
Lay moored with idle sail;
He waited for the rising moon,
And for the evening gale.
Under the shore his boat was tied,
And all her listless crew
Watched the grey alligator slide
Into the still bayou.
Odours of orange-flowers and spice
Reached them, from time to time,
Like airs that breathe from Paradise
Upon a world of crime.
The Planter, under his roof of thatch,
Smoked thoughtfully and slow;
The Slaver’s thumb was on the latch,
He seemed in haste to go.
He said, “My ship at anchor rides
In yonder broad lagoon;
I only wait the evening tides,
And the rising of the moon.”
Before them, with her face upraised,
In timid attitude,
Like one half curious, half amazed,
A Quadroon maiden stood.
Her eyes were large and full of light,
Her arms and neck were bare;
No garment she wore save a kirtle bright,
And her own long raven hair.
And on her lips there played a smile
As holy, meek, and faint,
As lights in some cathedral aisle
The features of a saint.
“The soil is barren, the farm is old,”
The thoughtful Planter said;
Then looked upon the Slaver’s gold,
And then upon the maid.
His heart within him was at strife
With such accursed gains;
For he knew whose passions gave her life,
Whose blood ran in her veins.
But the voice of nature was too weak
;
He took the glittering gold!
Then pale as death grew the maiden’s cheek
Her hands as icy cold.
The Slaver led her from the door,
He led her by the hand,
To be his slave and paramour
In a strange and distant land!
THE FAREWELL
OF A VIRGINIA SLAVE MOTHER TO HER DAUGHTERS, SOLD INTO SOUTHERN BONDAGE.
GONE, gone — sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings,
Where the noisome insect stings
Where the fever demon strews
Poison with the falling dews,
Where the sickly sunbeams glare
Through the hot and misty air —
Gone, gone — sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia’s hills and waters —
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
Gone, gone — sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
There no mother’s eye is near them,
There no mother’s ear can hear them;
Never, when the torturing lash
Seams their back with many a gash,
Shall a mother’s kindness bless them,
Or a mother’s arms caress them.
Gone, gone,&c.
Gone, gone — sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
Oh, when weary, sad, and slow,
From the fields at night they go,
Faint with toil, and racked with pain,
To their cheerless homes again —
There no brother’s voice shall greet them,
There no father’s welcome meet them.
Gone, gone,&c.
Gone, gone — sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
From the tree whose shadow lay
On their childhood’s place of play;
From the cool spring where they drank;
Rock, and hill, and rivulet bank;
From the solemn house of prayer,
And the holy counsels there —
Gone, gone, &c.
Gone, gone — sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone;
Toiling through the weary day,
And at night the spoiler’s prey.
Oh, that they had earlier died,
Sleeping calmly, side by side,
Where the tyrant’s power is o’er,
And the fetter galls no more!
Gone, gone, &c.
Gone, gone — sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
By the holy love He beareth,
By the bruised reed He spareth,
Oh, may He, to whom alone
All their cruel wrongs are known,
Still their hope and refuge prove,
With a more than mother’s love!
Gone, gone, &c.
JOHN G. WHITTIER.
The following extract from a letter of Dr. Bailey, in the Era, 1847, presents a view of this subject more creditable to some Virginia families. May the number that refuse to part with slaves, except by emancipation, increase!
The sale of slaves to the South is carried to a great extent. The slaveholders do not, as far as I can learn, raise them for that special purpose. But, here is a man with a score of slaves, located on an exhausted plantation. It must furnish support for all; but, while they increase, its capacity of supply decreases. The result is, he must emancipate or sell. But he has fallen into debt, and he sells to relieve himself from debt, and also from an excess of mouths. Or, he requires money to educate his children; or, his negroes are sold under execution. From these and other causes, large numbers of slaves are continually disappearing from the State, so that the next census will undoubtedly show a marked diminution of the slave population.
The season for this trade is generally from November to April; and some estimate that the average number of slaves passing the southern railroad weekly, during that period of six months, is at least 200. A slave-trader told me that he had known 100 pass in a single night. But this is only one route. Large numbers were sent off westwardly, and also by sea, coastwise. The Davises, in Petersburg, are the great slave-dealers. They are Jews, who came to that place many years ago as poor peddlers; and, I am informed, are members of a family which has its representatives in Philadelphia, New York, &c. These men are always in the market, giving the highest price for slaves. During the summer and fall they buy them up at low prices, trim, shave, wash them, fatten them so that they may look sleek, and sell them to great profit. It might not be unprofitable to inquire how much Northern capital, and what firms in some of the Northern cities, are connected with this detestable business.
There are many planters here who cannot be persuaded to sell their slaves. They have far more than they can find work for, and could at any time obtain a high price for them. The temptation is strong, for they want more money and fewer dependants. But they resist it, and nothing can induce them to part with a single slave, though they know that they would be greatly the gainers in a pecuniary sense were they to sell one-half of them. Such men are too good to be slave-holders. Would that they might see it their duty to go one step further, and become emancipators! The majority of this class of planters are religious men, and this is the class to which generally are to be referred the various cases of emancipation by will, of which from time to time we hear accounts.
CHAPTER V.
SELECT INCIDENTS OF LAWFUL TRADE, OR FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION.
THE atrocious and sacrilegious system of breeding human beings for sale, and trading them like cattle in the market, fails to produce the impression on the mind that it ought to produce, because it is lost in generalities.
It is like the account of a great battle, in which we learn, in round numbers, that ten thousand were killed and wounded, and throw the paper by without a thought.
So, when we read of sixty or eighty thousand human beings being raised yearly and sold in the market, it passes through the mind, but leaves no definite trace.
Sterne says that when he would realise the miseries of captivity, he had to turn his mind from the idea of hundreds of thousands languishing in dungeons, and bring before himself the picture of one poor, solitary captive pining in his cell. In like manner, we cannot give any idea of the horribly cruel and demoralising effect of this trade, except by presenting facts in detail, each fact being a specimen of a class of facts.
For a specimen of the public sentiment, and the kind of morals and manners which this breeding and trading system produces, both in slaves and in their owners, the writer gives the following extracts from a recent letter of a friend in one of the Southern States.
DEAR MRS. S — , The sable goddess who presides over our bed and wash-stand is such a queer specimen of her race, that I would give a good deal to have you see her. Her whole appearance, as she goes giggling and curtseying about, is perfectly comical, and would lead a stranger to think her really deficient in intellect. This is, however, by no means the case. During our two months’ acquaintance with her, we have seen many indications of sterling good sense, that would do credit to many a white person with ten times her advantages.
She is disposed to be very communicative; seems to feel that she has a claim upon our sympathy, in the very fact that we come from the North; and we could undoubtedly gain no little knowledge of the practical workings of the “peculiar institution,” if we thought proper to hold any protracted conversation with her. This, however, would insure a visit from the authorities, requesting us to leave town in the next train of cars; so we are forced to content ourselves with gleaning a few items now and then, taking care to appear quite indifferent to her story, and to cut it short by despatching her on some trifling errand; being equally careful, however, to note down her peculiar expressions as soon as she has disappeared. A copy of thes
e I have thought you would like to see, especially as illustrating the views of the marriage institution, which is a necessary result of the great human property relation system.
A Southern lady, who thinks “negro sentiment” very much exaggerated in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” assures us that domestic attachments cannot be very strong where one man will have two or three wives and families on as many different plantations (!) And the lady of our hotel tells us of her cook having received a message from her husband, that he has another wife, and she may get another husband, with perfect indifference; simply expressing a hope that “she won’t find another here during the next month, as she must then be sent to her owner, in Georgia, and would be unwilling to go.” And yet, both of these ladies are quite religious, and highly resent any insinuation that the moral character of the slaves is not far above that of the free negroes at the North.
With Violet’s story, I will also enclose that one of our waiters, in which I think you will be interested.
Violet’s father and mother both died, as she says, “‘fore I had any sense,” leaving eleven children; all scattered. “To sabe my life, Missis, couldn’t tell dis yer night where one of dem is. Massa lib in Charleston. My first husband — when we was young — nice man; he had seven children; den he sold off to Florida — neber hear from him ‘gain. Ole folks die. Oh, dat’s be my boderation, Missis — when ole people be dead, den we be scattered all ‘bout. Den I sold up here — now hab ‘noder husband — hab four children up here. I lib bery easy when my young husband ‘libe — and we had children bery fast. But now dese yer ones tight fellers. Massa don’t ‘low us to raise noting; no pig, no goat, no dog, no noting; won’t allow us raise a bit of corn. We has to do jist de best we can. Dey don’t gib us a single grain but jist two homespun frocks — no coat ‘t all.
“Can’t go to meetin’, ‘cause, Missis, get dis work done — den get dinner. In summer, I goes ebery Sunday ebening; but dese yer short days, time done get dinner dishes washed, den time get supper. Gen’lly goes Baptist church.”
“Do your people usually go there?”
“Dere bees tree shares ob dem; Methodist gang, Baptist gang, ‘Piscopal gang. Last summer, used to hab right smart* meetins in our yard, Sunday night. Massa Johnson preach to us. Den he said couldn’t hab two meetins; we might go to church.”
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 699