The Anti-Slavery Examiner
Chapter 139 : Philemon Bliss, Esq., a lawyer of Elyria, Ohio, who lived in Florida in 1834 and 1835.

Philemon Bliss, Esq., a lawyer of Elyria, Ohio, who lived in Florida in 1834 and 1835.

"During the cotton-picking season they usually labor in the field during the whole of the daylight, and then spend a good part of the night in ginning and baling. The labor required is very frequently excessive, and speedily impairs the const.i.tution."

Hon. R.J. Turnbull of South Carolina, a slaveholder, speaking of the harvesting of cotton, says:

"_All the pregnant women_ even, on the plantation, and weak and _sickly_ negroes incapable of other labour, are then _in requisition_."

HOURS OF LABOR AND REST.

Asa A. Stone, theological student, a cla.s.sical teacher near Natchez, Miss., 1835.

"It is a general rule on all regular plantations, that the slaves be in the field as _soon as it is light enough for them to see to work_, and remain there until it is _so dark that they cannot see_."

Mr. Cornelius Johnson, of Farmington, Ohio, who lived in Mississippi a part of 1837 and 1838.

"It is the common rule for the slaves to be kept at work _fifteen hours in the day_, and in the time of picking cotton a certain number of pounds is required of each. If this amount is not brought in at night, the slave is whipped, and the number of pounds lacking is added to the next day's job; this course is often repeated from day to day."

W.C. Gildersleeve, Esq., Wilkesbarre, Penn, a native of Georgia. "It was customary for the overseers to call out the gangs _long before day_, say three o'clock, in the winter, while dressing out the crops; such work as could be done by fire light (pitch pine was abundant,) was provided."

Mr. William Leftwich, a native of Virginia and son of a slaveholder--he has recently removed to Delhi, Hamilton County, Ohio.

"_From dawn till dark_, the slaves are required to bend to their work."

Mr. Nehemiah Caulkins, Waterford, Conn., a resident in North Carolina eleven winters.

"The slaves are obliged to work _from daylight till dark_, as long as they can see."

Mr. Eleazar Powel, Chippewa, Beaver county, Penn., who lived in Mississippi in 1836 and 1837.

"The slaves had to cook and eat their breakfast and be in the field by _daylight, and continue there till dark_."

Philemon Bliss, Esq., a lawyer in Elyria, Ohio, who resided in Florida in 1834 and 1835.

"The slaves commence labor _by daylight_ in the morning, and do not leave the field _till dark_ in the evening."

"Travels in Louisiana," page 87.

"Both in summer and winter the slave must _be in the field by the first dawning of day_."

Mr. Henry E. Knapp, member of a Christian church in Farmington, Ohio, who lived in Mississippi in 1837 and 1838.

"The slaves were made to work, from _as soon as they could see_ in the morning, till as late as they could see at night. Sometimes they were made to work till nine o'clock at night, in such work as they could do, as burning cotton stalks, &c."

A New Orleans paper, dated March 23, 1826, says: "To judge from the activity reigning in the cotton presses of the suburbs of St. Mary, and the _late hours_ during which their slaves work, the cotton trade was never more brisk."

Mr. GEORGE W. WESTGATE, a member of the Congregational Church at Quincy, Illinois, who lived in the south western slaves states a number of years says, "the slaves are driven to the field in the morning _about four o'clock_, the general calculation is to get them at work by daylight; the time for breakfast is between nine and ten o'clock, this meal is sometimes eaten '_bite and work_,' others allow fifteen minutes, and this is the only rest the slave has while in the field. I have never known a case of stopping for an hour, in Louisiana; in Mississippi the rule is milder, though entirely subject to the will of the master. On cotton plantations, in cotton picking time, that is from October to Christmas, each hand has a certain quant.i.ty to pick, and is flogged if his task is not accomplished; their tasks are such as to keep them all the while busy."

The preceding testimony under this head has sole reference to the actual labor of the slaves _in the field_. In order to determine how many hours are left for sleep, we must take into the account, the time spent in going to and from the field, which is often at a distance of one, two and sometimes three miles; also the time necessary for pounding, or grinding their corn, and preparing, overnight, their food for the next day; also the preparation of tools, getting fuel and preparing it, making fires and cooking their suppers, if they have any, the occasional mending and was.h.i.+ng of their clothes, &c. Besides this, as everyone knows who has lived on a southern plantation, many little errands and _ch.o.r.es_ are to be done for their masters and mistresses, old and young, which have acc.u.mulated during the day and been kept in reserve till the slaves return from the field at night.

To this we may add that the slaves are _social_ beings, and that during the day, silence is generally enforced by the whip of the overseer or driver.[3] When they return at night, their pent up social feelings will seek vent, it is a law of nature, and though the body may be greatly worn with toil, this law cannot be wholly stifled.

Sharers of the same woes, they are drawn together by strong affinities, and seek the society and sympathy of their fellows; even "_tired_ nature" will joyfully forego for a time needful rest, to minister to a want of its being equally permanent and imperative as the want of sleep, and as much more profound, as the yearnings of the higher nature surpa.s.s the instincts of its animal appendage.

[Footnote 3: We do not mean that they are not suffered to _speak_, but, that, as conversation would be a hindrance to labour, they are generally permitted to indulge in it but little.]

All these things make drafts upon _time_. To show how much of the slave's time, which is absolutely indispensable for rest and sleep, is necessarily spent in various labors after his return from the field at night, we subjoin a few testimonies.

Mr. CORNELIUS JOHNSON, Farmington, Ohio, who lived in Mississippi in the years 1837 and 38, says:

"On all the plantations where I was acquainted, the slaves were kept in the field till dark; after which, those who had to grind their own corn, had that to attend to, get their supper, attend to other family affairs of their own and of their master, such as bringing water, was.h.i.+ng, clothes, &c. &c., and be in the field as soon as it was sufficiently light to commence work in the morning."

Mr. GEORGE W. WESTGATE, of Quincy, Illinois, who has spent several years in the south western slave states, says:

"Their time, after full dark until four o'clock in the morning is their own; this fact alone would seem to say they have sufficient rest, but there are other things to be considered; much of their making, mending and was.h.i.+ng of clothes, preparing and cooking food, hauling and chopping wood, fixing and preparing tools, and a variety of little nameless jobs must be done between those hours."

PHILEMON BLISS, Esq. of Elyria, Ohio, who resided in Florida in 1834 and 5, gives the following testimony:

"After having finished their field labors, they are occupied till nine or ten o'clock in doing _ch.o.r.es_, such as grinding corn, (as all the corn in the vicinity is ground by hand,) chopping wood, taking care of horses, mules, &c., and a thousand things necessary to be done on a large plantation. If any extra job is to be done, it must not hinder the 'n.i.g.g.e.rs' from their work, but must be done in the night."

W.C. GILDERSLEEVE, Esq., a native of Georgia, an elder of the Presbyterian Church at Wilkes-barre, Pa. says:

"The corn is ground in a handmill by the slave _after his task is done_--generally there is but one mill on the plantation, and as but one can grind at a time, the mill is going sometimes _very late at night_."

We now present another cla.s.s of facts and testimony, showing that the slaves engaged in raising the large staples, are _overworked_.

In September, 1831, the writer of this had an interview with JAMES G.

BIRNEY, Esq., who then resided in Kentucky, having removed with his family from Alabama the year before. A few hours before that interview, and on the morning of the same day, Mr. B. had spent a couple of hours with Hon. Henry Clay, at his residence, near Lexington. Mr. Birney remarked, that Mr. Clay had just told him, he had lately been led to mistrust certain estimates as to the increase of the slave population in the far south west--estimates which he had presented, I think, in a speech before the Colonization Society. He now believed, that the births among the slaves in that quarter were _not equal to the deaths_--and that, of course, the slave population, independent of immigration from the slave-selling states, was _not sustaining itself_.

Among other facts stated by Mr. Clay, was the following, which we copy _verbatim_ from the original memorandum, made at the time by Mr.

Birney, with which he has kindly furnished us.

"Sept. 16, 1834.--Hon. H. Clay, in a conversation at his own house, on the subject of slavery, informed me, that Hon. Outerbridge Horsey, formerly a senator in Congress from the state of Delaware, and the owner of a sugar plantation in Louisiana, declared to him, that his overseer worked his hands so closely, that one of the women brought forth a child whilst engaged in the labors of the field.

"Also, that a few years since, he was at a brick yard in the environs of New Orleans, in which one hundred hands were employed; among them were from _twenty to thirty young women_, in the prime of life. He was told by the proprietor, that there had _not been a child born among them for the last two or three years, although they all had husbands_."