The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus
Chapter 176 : "It may be that this will be considered censorious, and the proverbial generosity

"It may be that this will be considered censorious, and the proverbial generosity and hospitality of the south will be appealed to as a full confutation of it. The writer thinks he can appreciate southern kindness and hospitality. Having been born in Virginia, raised and educated in South Carolina and Kentucky, he is altogether southern in his feelings, and habits, and modes of familiar conversation. He can say of the south as Cowper said of England, 'With all thy faults I love thee still, my country.' And nothing but the abominations of slavery could have induced him willingly to forsake a land endeared to him by all the a.s.sociations of childhood and youth.

"Yet it is candid to admit that it is not all gold that glitters.

There is a fict.i.tious kindness and hospitality. The famous Robin Hood was kind and generous--no man more hospitable--he robbed the rich to supply the necessities of the poor. Others rob the poor to bestow gifts and lavish kindness and hospitality on their rich friends and neighbors. It is an easy matter for a man to appear kind and generous, when he bestows that which others have earned.

"I said, there is a fict.i.tious kindness and hospitality. I once knew a man who left his wife and children three days, without fire-wood, without bread-stuff and without shoes, while the ground was covered with snow--that he might indulge in his cups. And when I attempted to expostulate with him, he took the subject out of my hands, and expatiating on the evils of intemperance more eloquently than I could, concluded by warning me, _with tears_, to avoid the snares of the latter. He had tender feelings, yet a hard heart. I once knew a young lady of polished manners and accomplished education, who would weep with sympathy over the fict.i.tious woes exhibited in a novel. And waking from her reverie of grief, while her eye was yet wet with tears, would call her little waiter, and if she did not appear at the first call, would rap her head with her thimble till my head ached.

"I knew a man who was famed for kindly sympathies. He once took off his s.h.i.+rt and gave it to a poor white man. The same man hired a black man, and gave him for his _daily task_, through the winter, to feed the beasts, keep fires, and make one hundred rails: and in case of failure the lash was applied so freely, that, in the spring, his back was _one continued sore, from his shoulders to his waist_. Yet this man was a professor of religion, and famous for his tender sympathies to white men!"

OBJECTION IV.--'NORTHERN VISITORS AT THE SOUTH TESTIFY THAT THE SLAVES ARE NOT CRUELLY TREATED.'

ANSWER:--Their knowledge on this point must have been derived, either from the slaveholders and overseers themselves, or from the slaves, or from their own observation. If from the slaveholders, _their_ testimony has already been weighed and found wanting; if they derived it from the slaves, they can hardly be so simple as to suppose that the _guest, a.s.sociate and friend of the master_, would be likely to draw from his _slaves_ any other testimony respecting his treatment of them, than such as would please _him_. The great shrewdness and tact exhibited by slaves in _keeping themselves out of difficulty_, when close questioned by strangers as to their treatment, cannot fail to strike every accurate observer. The following remarks of CHIEF JUSTICE HENDERSON, a North Carolina slaveholder, in his decision (in 1830,) in the case of the State _versus_ Charity, 2 Devereaux's North Carolina Reports, 513, ill.u.s.trate the folly of arguing the good treatment of slaves from their own declarations, _while in the power of their masters_. In the case above cited, the Chief Justice, in refusing to permit a master to give in evidence, declarations made to him by his slave, says of masters and slaves generally--

"The master has an almost _absolute control_ over the body and _mind_ of his slave. The master's _will_ is the slave's _will_. All his acts, _all his sayings_, are made with a view to propitiate his master. His confessions are made, not from a love of truth, not from a sense of duty, not to speak a falsehood, but to _please his master_--and it is in vain that his master tells him to speak the truth and conceals from him how he wishes the question answered. The slave _will_ ascertain, or, which is the same thing, think that he has ascertained _the wishes of his master,_ and MOULD HIS ANSWER ACCORDINGLY. We therefore more often get the wishes of the master, or the slave's belief of his wishes, than the truth."

The following extract of a letter from the Hon. SETH M. GATES, member elect of the next Congress, furnishes a clue by which to interpret the looks, actions, and protestations of slaves, when in the presence of their masters' guests, and the pains sometimes taken by slaveholders, in teaching their slaves the art of _pretending_ that they are treated well, love their masters, are happy, &c. The letter is dated Leroy, Jan. 4, 1839.

"I have sent your letter to Rev. Joseph M. Sadd, Castile, Genesee county, who resided five years in a slave state, and left, disgusted with slavery. I trust he will give you some facts. I remember one fact, which his wife witnessed. A relative, where she boarded, returning to his plantation after a temporary absence, was not met by his servants with such demonstrations of joy as was their wont. He ordered his horse put out, took down his whip, ordered his servants to the barn, and gave them a most cruel beating, because they did not run out to meet him, and pretend great attachment to him. Mrs. Sadd had overheard the servants agreeing not to go out, before his return, as they said _they did not love him_--and this led her to watch his conduct to them. This man was a professor of religion!"

If these northern visitors derived their information that the slaves are _not_ cruelly treated from _their own observation_, it amounts to this, _they did not see_ cruelties inflicted on the slaves. To which we reply, that the preceding pages contain testimony from hundreds of witnesses, who testify that they _did see_ the cruelties whereof they affirm. Besides this, they contain the solemn declarations of scores of slaveholders themselves, in all parts of the slave states, that the slaves are cruelly treated. These declarations are moreover fully corroborated, by the laws of slave states, by a mult.i.tude of advertis.e.m.e.nts in their newspapers, describing runaway slaves, by their scars, brands, gashes, maimings, cropped ears, iron collars, chains, &c. &c.

Truly, after the foregoing array of facts and testimony, and after the objectors' forces have one after another filed off before them, now to march up a phalanx of northern _visitors_, is to beat a retreat.

'Visitors!' What insight do casual visitors get into the tempers and daily practices of those whom they visit, or of the treatment that their slaves receive at their hands, especially if these visitors are strangers, and from a region where there are no slaves, and which claims to be opposed to slavery? What opportunity has a stranger, and a temporary guest, to learn the every-day habits and caprices of his host? Oh, these northern visitors tell us they have visited scores of families at the south and never saw a master or mistress whip their slaves. Indeed! They have, doubtless, visited hundreds of families at the north--did they ever see, on such occasions, the father or mother whip their children? If so, they must a.s.sociate with very ill-bred persons. Because well-bred parents do not whip their children in the presence, or within the hearing of their guests are we to infer that they never do it _out_ of their sight and hearing? But perhaps the fact that these visitors do not _remember_ seeing slaveholders strike their slaves, merely proves, that they had so little feeling for them, that though they might be struck every day in their presence, yet as they were only slaves and 'n.i.g.g.e.rs,' it produced no effect upon them; consequently they have no impressions to recall. These visitors have also doubtless _rode_ with scores of slaveholders. Are they quite certain they ever saw them whip their _horses_? and can they recall the persons, times, places, and circ.u.mstances? But even if these visitors regarded the slaves with some kind feelings, when they first went to the south, yet being constantly with their oppressors, seeing them used as articles of property, accustomed to hear them charged with all kinds of misdemeanors, their ears filled with complaints of their laziness, carelessness, insolence, obstinacy, stupidity, thefts, elopements, &c. and at the same time, receiving themselves the most gratifying attentions and caresses from the same persons, who, while they make to them these representations of their slaves, are giving them airings in their coaches, making parties for them, taking them on excursions of pleasure, lavis.h.i.+ng upon them their choicest hospitalities, and urging them to protract indefinitely their stay--what more natural than for the flattered guest to admire such hospitable people, catch their spirit, and fully sympathize with their feelings toward their slaves, regarding with increased disgust and aversion those who can habitually tease and worry such loveliness and generosity[23]. After the visitor had been in contact with the slave-holding spirit long enough to have imbibed it, (no very tedious process,) a cuff, or even a kick administered to a slave, would not be likely to give him such a shock that his memory would long retain the traces of it. But lest we do these visitors injustice, we will suppose that they carried with them to the south humane feelings for the slave, and that those feelings remained unblunted; still, what opportunity could they have to witness the actual condition of the slaves? They come in contact with the house-servants only, and as a general thing, with none but the select ones of these, the _parlor_-servants; who generally differ as widely in their appearance and treatment from the cooks and scullions in the kitchen, as parlor furniture does from the kitchen utensils. Certain servants are a.s.signed to the parlor, just as certain articles of furniture are selected for it, _to be seen_--and it is no less ridiculous to infer that the kitchen scullions are clothed and treated like those servants who wait at the table, and are in the presence of guests, than to infer that the kitchen is set out with sofas, ottomans, piano-fortes, and full-length mirrors, because the parlor is. But the house-slaves are only a fraction of the whole number. The _field-hands_ const.i.tute the great ma.s.s of the slaves, and these the visitors rarely get a glimpse at. They are away at their work by day-break, and do not return to their huts till dark. Their huts are commonly at some distance from the master's mansion, and the fields in which they labor, generally much farther, and out of sight. If the visitor traverses the plantation, care is taken that he does not go alone; if he expresses a wish to see it, the horses are saddled, and the master or his son gallops the rounds with him; if he expresses a desire to see the slaves at work, his conductor will know _where_ to take him, and _when_, and _which_ of them to show; the overseer, too, knows quite too well the part he has to act on such occasions, to shock the uninitiated ears of the visitors with the shrieks of his victims. It is manifest that visitors can see only the least repulsive parts of slavery, inasmuch as it is wholly at the option of the master, what parts to show them; as a matter of necessity, he can see only the _outside_--and that, like the outside of doork.n.o.bs and andirons is furbished up to be _looked at_. So long as it is human nature to wear _the best side out_, so long the northern guests of southern slaveholders will see next to nothing of the reality of slavery. Those visitors may still keep up their autumnal migrations to the slave states, and, after a hasty survey of the tinsel hung before the curtain of slavery, without a single glance behind it, and at the paint and varnish that _cover up_ dead men's bones, and while those who have hoaxed them with their smooth stories and white-washed specimens of slavery, are t.i.ttering at their gullibility, they return in the spring on the same fool's-errand with their predecessors, retailing their lesson, and mouthing the praises of the masters, and the comforts of the slaves. They now become village umpires in all disputes about the condition of the slaves, and each thence forward ends all controversies with his oracular, "I've _seen_, and sure I ought to know."

[Footnote 23: Well saith the Scripture, "A gift blindeth the eyes." The slaves understand this, though the guest may not; they know very well that they have no sympathy to expect from their master's guests; that the good cheer of the "big house," and the attentions shown them, will generally commit them in their master's favor, and against themselves.

Messrs. Thome and Kimball, in their late work, state the following fact, in ill.u.s.tration of this feeling among the negro apprentices in Jamaica.

"The governor of one of the islands, shortly after his arrival, dined with one of the wealthiest proprietors. The next day one of the negroes of the estate said to another, "De new gubner been _poison'd_." "What dat you say?" inquired the other in astonishment, "De gubner been _poison'd_! Dah, now!--How him poisoned?" "_Him eat ma.s.sa's turtle soup last night_," said the shrewd negro. The other took his meaning at once; and his sympathy for the governor was turned into concern for himself, when he perceived that the poison was one from which he was likely to suffer more than his excellency."--_Emanc.i.p.ation in the West Indies_, p. 334.]

But all northern visitors at the south are not thus easily gulled.

Many of them, as the preceding pages show, have too much sense to be caught with chaff.

We may add here, that those cla.s.ses of visitors whose representations of the treatment of slaves are most influential in moulding the opinions of the free states, are ministers of the gospel, agents of benevolent societies, and teachers who have traveled and temporarily resided in the slave states--cla.s.ses of persons less likely than any others to witness cruelties, because slaveholders generally take more pains to keep such visitors in ignorance than others, because their vocations would furnish them fewer opportunities for witnessing them, and because they come in contact with a cla.s.s of society in which fewer atrocities are committed than in any other, and that too, under circ.u.mstances which make it almost impossible for them to witness those which are actually committed.

Of the numerous cla.s.ses of persons from the north who temporarily reside in the slave states, the mechanics who find employment on the _plantations_, are the only persons who are in circ.u.mstances to look "behind the scenes." Merchants, pedlars, venders of patents, drovers, speculators, and almost all descriptions of persons who go from the free states to the south to make money see little of slavery, except _upon the road_, at public inns, and in villages and cities.

Let not the reader infer from what has been said, that the _parlor_-slaves, chamber-maids, &c. in the slave states are not treated with cruelty--far from it. They often experience terrible inflictions; not generally so terrible or so frequent as the field-hands, and very rarely in the presence of guests[24]

House-slaves are for the most part treated far better than plantation-slaves, and those under the immediate direction of the master and mistress, than those under overseers and drivers. It is quite worthy of remark, that of the thousands of northern men who have visited the south, and are always lauding the kindness of slaveholders and the comfort of the slaves, protesting that they have never seen cruelties inflicted on them, &c. each perhaps, without exception, has some story to tell which reveals, better perhaps than the most barbarous butchery could do, a public sentiment toward slaves, showing that the most cruel inflictions must of necessity be the constant portion of the slaves.

[Footnote 24: Rev. JOSEPH M. SADD, a Presbyterian clergyman, in Castile, Genesee county, N.Y. recently from Missouri, where he has preached five years, in the midst of slaveholders, says, in a letter just received, speaking of the pains taken by slaveholders to conceal from the eyes of strangers and visitors, the cruelties which they inflict upon their slaves--

"It is difficult to be an eye-witness of these things; the master and mistress, almost invariably punish their slaves only in the presence of themselves and other slaves."]

Though facts of this kind lie thick in every corner, the reader will, we are sure, tolerate even a needless ill.u.s.tration, if told that it is from the pen of N.P. Rogers, Esq. of Concord, N.H. who, whatever he writes, though it be, as in this case, a mere hasty letter, always finds readers to the end.

"At a court session at Guilford, Stafford county, N.H. in August, 1837, the Hon. Daniel M. Durell, of Dover, formerly Chief Justice of the Common Pleas for that state, and a member of Congress, was charging the abolitionists, in presence of several gentlemen of the bar, at their boarding house, with exaggerations and misrepresentations of slave treatment at the south. 'One instance in particular,' he witnessed, he said, where he 'knew they misrepresented. It was in the Congregational meeting house at Dover.

He was pa.s.sing by, and saw a crowd entering and about the door; and on inquiry, found that _abolition was going on in there_. He stood in the entry for a moment, and found the Englishman, Thompson, was holding forth. The fellow was speaking of the treatment of slaves; and he said it was no uncommon thing for masters, when exasperated with the slave, to hang him up by the two thumbs, and flog him. I knew the fellow lied there,' said the judge, 'for I had traveled through the south, from Georgia north, and I never saw a single instance of the kind. The fellow said it was a common thing.' 'Did you see any _exasperated masters_, Judge,' said I, 'in your journey?' 'No sir,' said he, 'not an individual instance.' 'You hardly are able to convict Mr. Thompson of falsehood, then, Judge,' said I, 'if I understood you right. He spoke, as I understood you, of _exasperated masters_--and you say you did not see any. Mr. Thompson did not say it was common for masters in good humor to hang up their slaves.' The Judge did not perceive the materiality of the distinction. 'Oh, they misrepresent and lie about this treatment of the n.i.g.g.e.rs,' he continued. 'In going through all the states I visited, I do not now remember a single instance of cruel treatment. Indeed, I remember of seeing but one n.i.g.g.e.r struck, during my whole journey. There was one instance. We were riding in the stage, pretty early one morning, and we met a black fellow, driving a span of horses, and a load (I think he said) of hay. The fellow turned out before we got to him, clean down into the ditch, as far as he could get. He knew, you see, what to depend on, if he did not give the road.

Our driver, as we pa.s.sed the fellow, fetched him a smart crack with his whip across the chops. He did not make any noise, though I guess it hurt him some--he grinned.--Oh, no! these fellows exaggerate. The n.i.g.g.e.rs, as a general thing, are kindly treated. There may be exceptions, but I saw nothing of it.' (By the way, the Judge did not know there were any abolitionists present.) 'What did you _do_ to the driver, Judge,' said I, 'for striking that man?' 'Do,' said he, 'I did nothing to him, to be sure.' 'What did you _say_ to him, sir?' said I.

'Nothing,' he replied: 'I said nothing to him.' 'What did the other pa.s.sengers do?' said I. 'Nothing, sir,' said the Judge. 'The fellow turned out the white of his eye, but he did not make any noise.' 'Did the driver say any thing, Judge, when he struck the man?' 'Nothing,'

said the Judge, 'only he _d.a.m.ned him_, and told him he'd learn him to keep out of the reach of his whip.' 'Sir,' said I, 'if George Thompson had told this story, in the warmth of an anti-slavery speech, I should scarcely have credited it. I have attended many anti-slavery meetings, and I never heard an instance of such _cold-blooded, wanton, insolent_, DIABOLICAL cruelty as this; and, sir, if I live to attend another meeting, I shall relate this, and give Judge Durell's name as the witness of it.' An infliction of the most insolent character, entirely unprovoked, on a perfect stranger, who had showed the utmost civility, in giving all the road, and only could not get beyond the long reach of the driver's whip--and he a stage driver, a cla.s.s _generous_ next to the sailor, in the sober hour of morning--and _borne in silence_--and _told to show that the colored man of the south was kindly treated_--all evincing, to an unutterable extent, that the temper of the south toward the slave is merciless, even to _diabolism_--and that the north regards him with, if possible, a more fiendish indifference still!"

It seems but an act of simple justice to say, in conclusion, that many of the slaveholders from whom our northern visitors derive their information of the "good treatment" of the slave, may not design to deceive them. Such visitors are often, perhaps generally brought in contact with the better cla.s.s of slaveholders, whose slaves are really better fed, clothed, lodged, and housed; more moderately worked; more seldom whipped, and with less severity, than the slaves generally.

Those masters in speaking of the good condition of their slaves, and a.s.serting that they are treated _well_, use terms that are not _absolute_ but _comparative_: and it may be, and doubtless often is true that their stares are treated well _as slaves_, in comparison with the treatment received by slaves generally. So the overseers of such slaves, and the slaves themselves, may, without lying or designing to mislead, honestly give the same testimony. As the great body of slaves within their knowledge _fare worse_, it is not strange that, when speaking of the treatment on their own plantation, they should call it _good_.

OBJECTION V.--'IT IS FOR THE INTEREST OF THE MASTERS TO TREAT THEIR SLAVES WELL.'

So it is for the interest of the drunkard to quit his cups; for the glutton to curb his appet.i.te; for the debauchee to bridle his l.u.s.t; for the sluggard to be up betimes; for the spendthrift to be economical, and for all sinners to stop sinning. Even if it were for the interest of masters to treat their slaves well, he must be a novice who thinks _that_ a proof that the slaves _are_ well treated.

The whole history of man is a record of real interests sacrificed to present gratification. If all men's actions were consistent with their best interests, folly and sin would be words without meaning.

If the objector means that it is for the pecuniary interests of masters to treat their slaves well, and thence infers their good treatment, we reply, that though the love of money is strong, yet appet.i.te and l.u.s.t, pride, anger and revenge, the love of power and honor, are each an overmatch for it; and when either of them is roused by a sudden stimulant, the love of money worsted in the grapple with it. Look at the hourly lavish outlays of money to procure a momentary gratification for those pa.s.sions and appet.i.tes. As the desire for money is, in the main, merely a desire for the means of gratifying _other_ desires, or rather for one of the means, it must be the _servant_ not the sovereign of those desires, to whose gratification its only use is to minister. But even if the love of money were the strongest human pa.s.sion, who is simple enough to believe that it is all the time so powerfully excited, that no other pa.s.sion or appet.i.te can get the mastery over it? Who does not know that gusts of rage, revenge, jealousy and l.u.s.t drive it before them as a tempest tosses a feather?

The objector has forgotten his first lessons; they taught him that it is human nature to gratify the _uppermost_ pa.s.sion: and is _prudence_ the uppermost pa.s.sion with slaveholders, and self-restraint their great characteristic? The strongest feeling of any moment is the sovereign of that moment, and rules. Is a propensity to practice _economy_ the predominant feeling with slaveholders? Ridiculous!

Every northerner knows that slaveholders are proverbial for lavish expenditures, never higgling about the _price_ of a gratification.

Human pa.s.sions have not, like the tides, regular ebbs and flows, with their stationary, high and low water marks. They are a dominion convulsed with revolutions; coronations and dethronements in ceasless succession--each ruler a usurper and a despot. Love of money gets a s.n.a.t.c.h at the sceptre as well as the rest, not by hereditary right, but because, in the fluctuations of human feelings, a chance wave washes him up to the throne, and the next perhaps washes him off without time to nominate his successor. Since, then, as a matter of fact, a host of appet.i.tes and pa.s.sions do hourly get the better of love of money, what protection does the slave find in his master's _interest_, against the sweep of his pa.s.sions and appet.i.tes? Besides, a master can inflict upon his slave horrible cruelties without perceptibly injuring his health, or taking time from his labor, or lessening his value as property. Blows with a small stick give more acute pain, than with a large one. A club bruises, and benumbs the nerves, while a switch, neither breaking nor bruising the flesh, instead of blunting the sense of feeling, wakes up and stings to torture all the susceptibilities of pain. By this kind of infliction, more actual cruelty can be perpetrated in the giving of pain at the instant, than by the most horrible bruisings and lacerations; and that, too, with little comparative hazard to the slave's health, or to his value as property, and without loss of time from labor. Even giving to the objection all the force claimed for it, what protection is it to the slave? It _professes_ to s.h.i.+eld the slave from such treatment alone, as would either lay him aside from labor, or injure his health, and thus lessen his value as a working animal, making him a _damaged article_ in the market. Now, is nothing _bad treatment_ of a human being except that which produces these effects? Does the fact that a man's const.i.tution is not actually shattered, and his life shortened by his treatment, prove that he is treated well? Is no treatment cruel except what sprains muscles, or cuts sinews, or bursts blood vessels, or breaks bones, and thus lessens a man's value as a working animal?

A slave may get blows and kicks every hour in the day, without having his const.i.tution broken, or without suffering sensibly in his health, or flesh, or appet.i.te, or power to labor. Therefore, beaten and kicked as he is, he must be treated _well_, according to the objector, since the master's _interest_ does not suffer thereby.

Finally, the objector virtually maintains that all possible privations and inflictions suffered by slaves, that do not actually cripple their power to labor, and make them 'damaged merchandize,' are to be set down as 'good treatment,' and that nothing is _bad_ treatment except what produces these effects.

Thus we see that even if the slave were effectually s.h.i.+elded from all those inflictions, which, by lessening his value as property, would injure the interests of his master, he would still nave no protection against numberless and terrible cruelties. But we go further, and maintain that in respect to large cla.s.ses of slaves, it is for the _interest_ of their masters to treat them with barbarous inhumanity.

1. _Old slaves._ It would be for the interest of the masters to shorten their days.

2. _Worn out slaves._ Mult.i.tudes of slaves by being overworked, have their const.i.tutions broken in middle life. It would be _economical_ for masters to starve or flog such to death.

3. _The incurably diseased and maimed._ In all such cases it would be _cheaper_ for masters to buy poison than medicine.

4. _The blind, lunatics, and idiots_. As all such would be a tax on him, it would be for his interest to shorten their days.

5. _The deaf and dumb, and persons greatly deformed._ Such might or might not be serviceable to him; many of them at least would be a burden, and few men carry burdens when they can throw them off.

6. _Feeble infants._ As such would require much nursing, the time, trouble and expense necessary to raise them, would generally be more than they would be worth as _working animals_. How many such infants would be likely to be 'raised,' from _disinterested_ benevolence? To this it may be added that in the far south and south west, it is notoriously for the interest of the master not to 'raise' slaves at all. To buy slaves when nearly grown, from the northern slave states, would be _cheaper_ than to raise them. This is shown in the fact, that mothers with infants sell for less in those states than those without them. And when slave-traders purchase such in the upper country, it is notorious that they not unfrequently either sell their infants, or give them away. Therefore it would be for the _interest_ of the masters, throughout that region, to have all the new-born children left to perish. It would also be for their interest to make such arrangements as effectually to separate the s.e.xes, or if that were not done, so to overwork the females as to prevent childbearing.

7. _Incorrigible slaves_. On most of the large plantations, there are, more or less, incorrigible slaves,--that is, slaves who _will not_ be profitable to their masters--and from whom torture can extort little but defiance.[25] These are frequently slaves of uncommon minds, who feel so keenly the wrongs of slavery that their proud spirits spurn their chains and defy their tormentors.

[Footnote 25: Advertis.e.m.e.nts like the following are not unfrequent in the southern papers.

_From the Elizabeth (N.C.) Phenix, Jan. 5, 1839._ "The subscriber offers for sale his blacksmith NAT, 28 years of age, and _remarkably large and likely_. The only cause of my selling him is I CANNOT CONTROL HIM. _Hertford, Dec.5, 1838._ J. GORDON."]