Chapter IV: Part 4

From these houses downwards there is every grade of grog shops, to the lowest sipping of whiskey from a tin cup in negro pens, where slaves steal away and imitate the example of their masters in taking a few social glasses in view of participating in the common civilities and courtesies of fashionable life. The practice of drinking so often during the day, with almost every one, is such that eating and sleeping is of small account, and they are indulged in with very little regard to regularity except the meal at dinner. The hour for dining is usually from three to four, and this is the feast for fat things, and the only time at which much food is taken. Breakfast is usually coffee in abundance, and generally is taken in bed before rising. And after rising coffee is taken again with some light article, and this is done from eight o’clock in the morning and at any other time as they may happen to get from their beds before the hour for dinner. Tea is usually taken from seven to eight in the evening, and usually amounts to nothing in the consideration of the good _livers_ in New Orleans. The rounds and revels of dissipation are at their height from nine o’clock in the evening until two in the morning, by which time the devotees of pleasure and the great mass of the inhabitants have become fully surfeited with the things of this world, until they are overcome with the _load_ that is upon them, and one by one they pass away from their labors and repose for a few hours, when they return on the morrow refreshed and invigorated, and repeat the same round in the drama of “life in New Orleans.” From the low dens and grog shops, the miserable victim who crawls away in his poverty and rags, is caught up at first sight by the minions of the law, and hurried before the Recorder’s Court on “suspicion” of being a vagrant, and unless he can find some one to vouch for him he is thrown into the work house for sixty or ninety days, while the proud and _chivalrous_ southern gentleman who has been drinking, carousing, and fighting at the “Gem,” the “Verandah,” the “Orleans House,” or “Hewlett’s,” comes out next day as one of the bloods of the city. But follow for a short time these chivalrous knights, and you will see their steps as sure downwards as that hour succeeds hour, until they are found in the lowest “picayune groggery,” steeped in the very dregs of pollution and death. An illustration and graphic commentary upon a life in New Orleans, was exhibited before the Recorder’s Court in the fall of 1848, in the arrest under the vagrant law of “DANGEROUS and SUSPICIOUS,” in the person of one of those shocking and abandoned wrecks of the “noblest works of God,” a man of mind and genius who had fallen, and had become as he said of himself “like the gnarled oak shorn of its green boughs,” yet he had in his better days moved and revelled in the rounds of fashionable life, and having a ready and fluent speech, and flashings of caustic wit and good humor, it called around him warm and devoted friends, whose kindness was showered upon him in repeating glass after glass until he fell below the standard of a _gentleman_, and finally was cast off, and thus took a downward leap, and when he appears again it is as a “dangerous and suspicious person” before the bar of justice as a criminal. But the scene does not stop here, for that very authority before which he now stands arraigned on “suspicion,” sets the machinery in motion that takes the victim in at the “LICENSED PALACE,” and carries him along through every grade down to the lowest dens of degradation and misery, and finally brings him up before the same authority as the natural and legitimate fruit of that document to which its hand and seal is fixed as a license for these blighting and damning curses, these groggeries that fill up this city at every turn.

The following incident occurred before the Recorder, and is copied from a city paper.

“DANGEROUS AND SUSPICIOUS.”

“But where is the iron-bound prisoner? where?”--CAMPBELL.

A very haughty and gloomy-looking individual might be seen passing upwards from Baronne street Watchhouse, towards the Recorder’s office, yesterday morning, about nine o’clock. He was _one_ of the number who seemed to have undergone the Cæsarean operation at the hands of Madame Fortune, but who, more than any of the rest, seemed to have been ripped untimely from the womb of the circumstances by which he had been surrounded. There was a sullenness of manner about him, perfectly in keeping with the bitter sneer which sat enthroned on his cynical lip. His dark eye flashed indignation towards the officer in whose keeping he was, and every now and then, as he raised his iron-bound hands to heaven, he shut his teeth as though he could have crunched a bar of adamant into a pulp. Anon he shut his eyes, and opening them, there came the searching glance and the dark scowl, which seemed to ask, in the language of Shakspeare,

“Which of you has done this?
Thou canst not say I did it: never shake
Thy gory locks at me.”

The garb of the outer man was indicative of the severe storms which had passed over it--its looped and windowed raggedness told a tale of misery and wretchedness too often repeated by the numerous children of misfortune.

As the officer unloosened the handcuffs, preparatory to the old man’s being placed in the dock, for examination before the Recorder, not a muscle of his face, nay, of his frame, but was in motion. Shortly after being placed there, he burst into a flood of tears, and, in a paroxysm of the extremest agony, swooned into the arms of a fellow prisoner. After a few moments, however, he recovered his consciousness, and staring wildly round the Court, (as though he were among a horde of savages in the wild desert,) he exclaimed, after a manner which showed him to be well conversant with the drama:

“I did not faint--no, though a sickening pang
Tugg’d at my heart, and made the cold sweat creep,
Like ice-drops, o’er my body; yet, even then,
Did conscious innocence uphold my soul,
And turn’d the horrid words to senseless sounds,
That ought not to dismay.”

“Verulan Langdale!” said the crier of the court. The prisoner raised himself slowly up from his seat, and running his fingers through the grey and tangled locks, which fell scantily over a well formed forehead, bowed to the court, in token of his identity.

_Recorder._--You are charged with being a dangerous and suspicious person, following no honest occupation or calling for a livelihood. Have you any good citizen to vouch for you?

_Prisoner._--May it please the court, I know of none--the world knows me not--I am as you see me, the gnarled oak, shorn of its green boughs. I am like Othello--my occupation’s gone. I came here to look after a daughter, who eloped a long time ago with a merchant of this city who, dying, left her all his worldly effects, and she became rich. By chance, I heard she was in this city. She was--she is--but she is the occupant of the Lunatic Asylum, and she has rendered me well nigh fit to occupy the same cell. I have craved from those who have had charity--my wants were small and they were over supplied. I was going towards Ohio, where I have a son engaged in the profession of the law.

_Recorder._--May I ask you if you yourself have any profession on hand, and if you are an American citizen?

_Prisoner._--I recollect Wordsworth saying in one of his fine poems, when speaking of a foreigner in England--

From Indian blood you deem him sprung:
Ah, no! he spake the English tongue,
And bare a soldier’s name;
And when America was free
From battle and from jeopardy,
He cross the ocean came.

I bear a “soldier’s name”--I have held a commission in the British service, under the last but one of the Georges’. I have fought, long before I became an American citizen, under the stars and stripes, and have been but lately mustered out of the American service--I have ever thought and do think with Chateaubriand that--“The fairest crown of an old man is his silver hair, and the recollection of an honorable life.” Pronounce your sentence, if you think me dangerous and suspicious.

As the old man repeated the last sentence in a firm and energetic tone, he drew back the folds of his old woolen vest with the hands which had lately been in fetters, and pointing to some half dozen scars, said--

I don’t know how suspicious you may think me, but the enemies of my adopted country always declared me _dangerous_.

As he gave utterance to these words, a thrill of sensation passed through the crowd, which the Recorder did not ask to check. He himself turned aside to--peruse some other charge entered on the watch sheet. After a short pause, the Recorder, addressing the prisoner, told him he was at liberty to seek his son, and he hoped his search in that quarter would be more successful than it had been on another occasion.

_Prisoner._--I hope so.

It is unnecessary to say that the old veteran had funds liberally supplied him. A subscription was set on foot in court, to which the Recorder most liberally subscribed, and “words, cheery words,” fell upon his ear as he left the court, where, but a few moments before, he had stood, to all appearances, a vagrant of the worst class. He did not leave the dock without bowing to his fellow prisoners; then turning to the crowd who ushered him out, he looked again on those he left behind him, as though loth to leave his fellows in misfortune. It was a momentary gleam of commiseration, for it lit up the face with the sunshine of the soul, until the recollection of his past sufferings, awakening all the misanthropic feelings which lay lurking in his breast, found a vent in the language of the gifted Maturin:

“I was a blighted branch--the storm was on me--
And in my rifted core the winds of heaven
Sung wintry welcome, and made stern abode.
The mildewed moss upon my brown sere bark
Made verdure seem like blasting. Such was I.
The sun is on me now, the storm on thee.
Bear it as I have done.

Such oftentimes are the slender grounds on which our laws deprive men of one of the choicest blessings said to be ensured by our republican form of government--their liberty.

* * * * *

The life-drawn scene which is here presented in the person of the old man, is a sad tale of desolation and woe, with which the Recorder’s court and the work-house of this city is familiar; yet the subjects for such exhibitions are usually much younger, having been like the old man, “shorn of their green boughs” long before they could point to a head with “silver locks,” and claim for them the respect and reverence due to a ripe old age, even though clothed in rags.

VAGRANTS.

For a time, so great was the increase of the class of vagrants, that the common council was forced to pass a law requiring the police to arrest every such person on “suspicion” of having no regular calling, and if no one will vouch for his ability to gain an honest living, his doom is the work-house without further ceremony.

To be sick and die, and disposed of after death in New Orleans, is _more_ than a fearful scene to be presented for the contemplation of any one away from his kindred, his home and friends; and there is not a place in the wide world where a man would have so many fearful forebodings in passing these ordeals, from the sick chamber to the tomb, as would come upon him while alone, and in the silent watchings of the night he could feel his strength gradually giving away as the hour of his dissolution drew nigh. And when he takes his sick bed, in almost every individual, the impression is almost certain to come upon him that recovery is very doubtful; and every thing by which he is surrounded, and all the circumstances under which he is placed, have a strong tendency to make the impression change to certain conviction; and the longer he is sick the more clearly can he anticipate the day of his death. These convictions come upon him more firmly, from the fact that if he has been long in the city, he learns that it is the most sickly and dying place on earth. Hence he looks forward with dread and fear to the approach of the morrow. And what renders the sick room more fearful and terrific in this city to the stranger--to the individual without a family--to one alone and without kindred and near friends, is all that he requires, all his wants, and all that is done for him, come from those who have an eye single to his purse, and upon that the nurse, the attendants, and physician lay hold, as if “to the victor belong the spoils.” The charge per day for nursing is usually from two to four dollars, attending physician from four to eight dollars, and prescriptions for medicine at apothecaries, from ten to twenty dollars a week. Cupping and bleeding and incidental expenses at least twenty dollars more; and thus, if he can get through a course of sickness for less than one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars a week, he may think he has had his day under a very lucky star indeed. And then if he should die, whatever amount of means he may have, it will all be consumed, for every bill will be made out with special reference to the amount which he may possess. Such is the _fashion_ in this city, and few there are who do not follow it to the letter.

DEPOSITORIES OF THE DEAD.

The bodies of the dead are deposited in vaults or tombs, as they are called; yet all above ground, as it is impossible to dig a grave in consequence of meeting water within a few inches of the surface of the ground. There is, however, a ridge of land about three miles from the city which is occupied for a burial ground, where the poor and the slaves are put in holes about two feet deep, and this is called the “Potter’s Field.” The old French depository for the dead lies in rear of the centre of the city, on the skirt of the swamp, yet it is surrounded by dwellings, and may be considered as a _part_ of the city. And a more gloomy, deathly, and pestiferous place cannot be found within the range of the civilized globe. And why such arrangements for disposing of the dead should be permitted, is a matter of great astonishment to any one who can reason from cause to effect. For there immediately within the heart and centre of that city, above ground, inclosed only in brick walls, lay thousands and tens of thousands of bodies in every possible stage of decomposition that can be presented. And the odor from these vaults in hot weather is perceptible a great distance, and near by is almost suffocating. And such is the stench within the inclosures that it brings on the most deathly and horrid sickness. And yet this is in New Orleans, and there it lies, and I know of no more proper place for such an arrangement, so “divil take the hindmost,” as that is the rule by which all are governed. Consequently no matter what exists around them. These grounds are about a mile in length and fifty or sixty rods wide. They are divided into three parts, all of which are enclosed in a solid wall of brick masonry about ten feet wide and nine feet high. In these long ranges of walls are holes resembling an oven, just large enough to slide in one coffin. When the coffin is put in, the opening is filled up with brick laid in mortar, and a small marble slab is also put in, cut on purpose to the shape of the opening, on which is the name and age of the deceased, and any other device the friends may think proper to add. From the bottom of the wall close to the ground is the first opening or vault, and upwards one directly over the other are four, and thus in the whole surface of the side and cross walls, as thick as can be allowed, are these “holes in the wall,” as they are usually jokingly spoken of, making _graves_ for thousands and tens of thousands who are being constantly swept into them by the besom of destruction, made up from the malaria, the effluvia, from the swamps and city. And to render the _dose_ complete, the exhalation from this great charnel house, this mass of corruption and death, is mingling with the sirocco that is pouring in upon them from every point, and is drank down by the living mass who tread those streets as greedily as though it was the vital principle of their existence. These receptacles for the dead belong to the city, and each vault is rented for the term of twenty-five years for fifty dollars. At the expiration of that time, if not re-rented by the friends of the deceased, it is opened, and all that remains of what was once life and animation, bearing the impress and image of its maker, is scraped out, thrown together with the remains of hundreds of others, and burned up. And thus in ashes lie mingled in one common mass the rich and the poor, the proud and haughty aristocrat, and the low and humble plebian--the hard and iron frame of the daring mariner, and the lovely and beautiful form of the bright eyed and laughing girl.

The ground inclosed within the several walls is more than one hundred acres, and is divided into small plots, generally about ten feet long and five wide. On these are built single vaults or those large enough for five or six persons. Those belonging to individuals or families are never disturbed. There are some receptacles of this kind built on a larger plan, from thirty to forty feet square, and twenty to thirty feet high, and large enough to contain upwards of an hundred vaults. These are built by societies or military companies, and some of them are beautiful splendid structures. There are also some elegant family tombs built of the finest Italian marble and costing an immense sum. The most perfect and beautiful one in architectural structure and design, is said to have cost upwards of forty thousand dollars. It contains six vaults, three on each side of a niche, which is open on the front, and the walls on each side contain the vaults or openings just large enough to slide in a coffin. In the niche are arranged some of the most perfect specimens of Italian sculpture from the hands of the best artists of the age, representing the Savior, the Virgin Mary, and several other symbols of the Romish church. As a receptacle for the dead it is without exception the most imposing and forcible appeal to the heart of the living that can be contemplated. And while standing before it in all the perfection of art and science and the genius of man, an awe of awful sublimity steals over the soul, hushes every earthly thought, while those “silent and impressive lecturers,” the image of our Savior, surrounded by types of the heavenly hosts, and though presented by the cold and speechless marble, yet tell us in language too plain to be misunderstood, that all the desires and anticipations of the heart will end as a weary care, and when summed up in the substance and riches of this world they can never enter the portals of the tomb.

SLAVERY.

I come now to the subject of slavery as exhibited in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mississippi. And as an American citizen, in view of the Declaration of Independence, and the boasted genius of the institutions of my country, I would gladly crush every thought and banish every feeling of shame and disgrace that comes over me, while contemplating this blighting and damning curse of humiliation to every man who feels a pride in the glory and prosperity of his country. But when in the spirit of pride for FREEDOM and EQUALITY, to contemplate the horrors, the miseries, the cold blooded murders, that are the accumulated wrongs of man upon his fellow man in this land of LIBERTY, it banishes every aspiration of the human soul. Every noble impulse of love of country is buried in shame and deep humiliation. I have seen too much, and I have learned what I know, not from the idle tales of the demagogue, nor the preaching of wild fanaticism, nor from what have been charged as the _embellished_ stories of runaway slaves, but from having been an eye-witness, and having heard the groans and shrieks of the mangled and bleeding slave, while being murdered under the lash and blows of the most inhuman of all monsters, the drivers and traffickers in human flesh. That such things can be done and be tolerated in this enlightened age, and among a people claiming to be moral, _civilized_, and _christian_ too, is a mystery that will remain unexplained until the attributes of the human heart shall change. That fathers and mothers in this christian land can look around them and know what is the conduct and character of their sons, (in almost every instance pursuing a life of indolence and licentiousness,) and witness growing up around them _grand children_, sons and daughters of their slave women, and then see those same children of their own kindred blood sold as slaves and chattels in the market. And there are fathers too who will take their own children bearing the impress of themselves, and throw them into market like beasts of the stall. I know it will be said that such are few and far between and isolated cases. But such are not the facts. They are the scenes of every-day life, and they are the sons and daughters, and grandsons and grand-daughters of your Governors, your Judges, your Senators, and members of Congress; and also men in every condition of life. Ah, and more too--your Presidents and Vice Presidents of this _christian_ and _civilized_ land, this land of FREEDOM. And yet these distinguished men are the recipients of the tolerance and favor of LIBERTY-loving men, and voted for to be the guardians of our institutions. They are held up as _honest_ men, as patterns of piety, whose oblations are daily offered upon the altars of christianity!!

Of the impulses of such men I know nothing, and I cannot form any conception of the feelings of an American, of a Christian--of the one who gets his lessons from the Declaration of Independence, and of the other who learns his duty from him who taught the inspired precepts of the Gospel. That persons can thus act is an anomaly that cannot be explained by any principle that governs the human heart. But in this view, with the slaveholder, I know the force of habit--the influence of circumstances--the power of avarice--the desire of ease, all combined with custom, will sheath the heart in a bond harder and less impenetrable than the unyielding adamant. But while I know this I cannot offer an excuse for them; and there is no apology at this day and age which they can plead, that will screen an American citizen or a christian in sustaining these outrages upon the genius of our institutions--upon the spirit of the age--against morality, humanity, upon kindred ties, christianity and nature itself.

APOLOGIES FOR SLAVERY.

The assurance that is often given as an apology for slavery, that the slaves are contented and happy--that they are not abused, and are well provided for, is as basely false and untrue, as the system is infamous, horrid and cruel. For an individual to plead such an excuse for Southern Slavery, in view of occupying the place of a slave himself, even in its mildest form, I apprehend that such a man who knows any thing of slavery--of its abuses--its cruelties--its lashes and murders, his tongue would become palsied on his lips, and a shudder as stiffening as the chill of death would come over him at the prospect of a life of so much _pleasure_ and _happiness_, as he boldly asserts is the enjoyment of the slave. Put him there, and let him feel for one short month what he knows the slave feels, and then let him come out with an apology for such bondage, and tell of its blessings, its beauties and happiness. And I ask him in all sincerity, if he does not think the slave feels, when he is brought out to be sold, somewhat as he would, if he was forced to stand upon the same block, and hear the Auctioneer tell of his good qualities, his strength, his ingenuity, his powers of endurance, his unblemished character, and “fully guarantied against all the vices and maladies prescribed by law.” Let the experiment be tried with some of these apologists, and take them into the Arcade in the city of New Orleans and sell them at auction, and then let them be taken on to a Sugar or Cotton plantation in the same fields to work with the other _happy_ slaves, and go to his bed in the same long range of “_beautiful white cottages_,” that look so neat and _inviting_ as you pass down the Mississippi River. After he has been here a few years, nay, only through one season of growing cane or cotton, living upon their _good fare_, their daily _rations_ and doing their _daily task_, then let him come up, and tell how happy he has been, and what a curse _liberty_ is, and how much better slavery is than freedom. And yet, the reply to all this is, “oh, the negroes don’t know enough to realize anything better, and they cannot take care of themselves.” Ah, and why are they thus brutalized, and how does it happen that they know so little? Any one who knows any thing of Southern slavery, can explain these things, for they know that every part and parcel of the system, in every particular, is framed with direct design to brutalize, degrade, and deprave the slave. And they know too, that when a slave aspires to be a man, that it is a _crime_, and the charge is brought up against him, “_he is getting too damned smart_,” and for which is meted out upon his naked back the severest punishment that can be given by the lash, for the express purpose of breaking him down, and make him cower before his master like a dog. They have seen men with a whiter skin than themselves, and mulattoes too, but a shade darker, who were sons and grandsons of the first men in Kentucky and Virginia, and men who would consecrate talent and powers of intellect, and serve even in Southern bondage, as long as the Patriarch of old did, for a wife, if they could possess one. And do you not think such men can feel, and will they hug their chains, and tell you, when they are not under the fear of the lash, that they are contented and happy? And these apologists know too, that with American Slavery, as a condition of human bondage, there has never been, in any age, nor with any people, whether barbarous or civilized, any thing to compare in point of brutality, cruelty and extreme suffering, resulting from a combination of causes, that destroy life and shorten the days of its victims to an extent that legalizes murder; for it is a fact, proven by the acknowledgment of slave owners themselves, that of an hundred young men, taken from Kentucky and Virginia, put on Plantations in Louisiana and Mississippi, seven years will be the average of their lives. And this is produced by a change of climate, unwholesome food, over-working, miserable and filthy lodgings, and a general want of cleanliness in clothing and every thing they have.

FARE OF SLAVES ON PLANTATIONS.

A more loathsome and disgusting place cannot be imagined, than the huts in a negro yard of a plantation. They are generally about twenty feet square, and the hands on a plantation are divided into families, each of which occupies one of these pens. These families number from five to twenty, and the arrangements for sleeping are miserable in the extreme, and what is used for their beds is seldom if ever washed, or cleansed in any manner, and is used until rotted or worn into shreds. The same practice is pursued with their clothing. It consists of a coarse wrought fabric, of cotton and wool, and also of linen. The men wear pantaloons, and a heavy stout frock. The women who work in the field, wear only a long frock, without under clothes of any kind. These are put on and never changed or cleansed, or taken off night or day, until they are worn out. The provision for clothing the slaves, is usually one suit a year to each negro, and they are generally obliged to make this last or go without. But many cannot, and you will often see negroes with only the tattered and torn rags remaining on them, as evidence of a slight degree of modesty and shame, that is manifest in keeping them around him. And thus they live in the most filthy, degraded and beastly condition that can be conceived, and there is not a single provision of any kind, either in food, clothing or cleanliness, or for beds, or dwellings, or labor, but what is calculated to debilitate, exhaust and destroy the physical powers, and produce disease and death; and I make the assurance without the fear of contradiction, that there is scarcely a plantation in the whole range of the Sugar and Cotton growing districts, if examined by a competent board of health, that would not excite their astonishment, that human beings could live, even an average of seven years. In the first place, it will be found that many herds of slaves are kept on short rations, having allowed to each one, from three to three and a half pounds of meat a week, with only corn meal, which they wet with water, and roast on the fire. This is their regular daily food, and the meat is often the most loathsome, disgusting, rotten mass that can be imagined. On this point, I am aware it will also be said, there are but few, very few indeed, of such cases. But it is not true, and every produce dealer in the city of New Orleans, if he has not the fear of the planter before his eyes, will bear testimony to this fact, for I have seen it myself, and know that they sell thousands of packages, weighing from eight to ten hundred each, of smoked hams and sides of pork, that were so rotten that the bones had become loose and separated from the meat, and when they were opened for the examination of the Planter, the maggots would roll over the side of the cask upon the floor.

An instance of this kind I saw in the store of a produce dealer in the winter of 1837. A planter from Mississippi bought eleven casks of smoked meat from a merchant in Lafayette street, which he had purchased the day before for one and a half cents per pound. He sold it to the planter for one and three fourth cents, and when the casks were opened they were literally alive with maggots. After the purchase was made, the clerk, a fine honest New Jersey-man, being astonished at what he had done in selling such stuff to be eaten by human beings, for he knew that a dog in New Jersey could not be found but what would turn from it, asked the planter why he bought such food for his negroes? The planter replied, that it was pretty hard times and cotton was low, and the _boys_ do about as well on it as any. Now in view of this, I know it will be said again, that “such are rare cases;” but the reports of sales of meat in New Orleans tell a different account; for there are hundreds and thousands of such packages of rotten putrid meat sold to planters every year, and the negroes are obliged to eat it or starve, and at the same time the planters tell you “the boys do about as well on it.”

And yet in full knowledge of all these facts, we can find men who will speak of such things as trivial matters, and have some very _cogent_ apology to offer as an excuse to justify the outrage. But with many who practice this treatment with their slaves there is some show for excuse, and that is in their extreme ignorance; for there are a large number of planters, overseers, and drivers, who know nothing of the influence and effect of such food on the system, and that it has a tendency to produce disease and death. Hence for the reason the planters do not know their own interest, the loss to them annually by death is ten fold greater than the expense would be to give the slaves good comfortable quarters, with good wholesome fare, and treat them as human beings. But there are plantations on which these worst features are not found; yet in almost every case the slaves are over-worked, at least one-third beyond what is possible for the physical powers of any human being to endure. They are usually driven out soon as daylight, and often before, and work from fourteen to eighteen hours a day, and in the other part of the time, they are obliged to prepare their food, eat and sleep. This time of excessive hard work is only about _five_ months in the year, during the gathering of the crops. The other part of the season they are only worked from light in the morning until darkness at night. I know it is said they are obliged to work thus to save the crops from perishing. Very true. But why force such an immense crop into existence that will require so much labor to secure it? Cannot avarice be checked nor satisfied without working men and women into a premature grave? As well may it be said, that a farmer of the north is _obliged_ to work night and day to tend his crop of corn, having planted with his cultivator twenty acres in four days; consequently he is _obliged_ to work night and day for forty days to hoe and keep it in good condition that he may get a large yield. And in view of the condition of slaves on plantations generally, without taking into account the whipping, beating and cruelties that are imposed upon them, their treatment from beginning to end is an open violation and outrage upon the laws of animal life, and every thing by which they are surrounded is calculated directly to undermine the constitution and engender disease, and thus destroy them. And I make the assertion without the fear of contradiction from any apologist for slavery who knows any thing about it, from its great champion John C. Calhoun down to the most brutal driver that can be found, they cannot show one plantation in five hundred where the proper provisions necessary for the health and comfort of human beings are made. I know this to be a fact, and so does every man who has looked in upon a plantation in the sugar and cotton growing States of the South. And there is no excuse or apology with the planter for this, for he can do better if he would gamble less, drink and carouse less, and spend less money in sports and horse racing, and not trust these matters to overseers and drivers.

WHIPPING OF SLAVES.

Of the cruelties, in whipping, beating and murdering slaves, it has never been told nor described worse than is practised; and I have been told by overseers on plantations themselves, of what is _necessary_ in the discipline of a set of hands, first to _subdue_ them, and then to _keep them in subjection_. The first exhibition I had of slavery, was at Louisville in Kentucky, in the fall of 1837, and I shall never forget the nature of the scene before me; for it was the first time that this singular phenomenon was presented to my view, that in this land of _freedom_, where _liberty_ was engraven upon the escutcheon of every shield, and yet, not a stone upon the earth, but what was pressed by the bondsman’s foot; nor an inch of soil, but what was watered by tears, and the sweat of his brow, and whose very flesh too was torn and reeking from the chains and lash of the inhuman task-master. And who is doing all this? was the enquiry. It is KENTUCKY--the noble, proud and chivalrous _Kentucky_; whose sires and sons, on the battle fields of the revolution, poured out their blood like water, and when expiring in their last struggle, while their voice ceased in whispers, would breathe out the magic words, “LIBERTY or DEATH.” And it was thus with Kentucky, on the bloody fields of the second revolution. And on that day, her sons were in arms, struggling for their country’s rights and the extension of _American_ Freedom. And here was this singular phenomenon before me, of a proud and chivalrous people, offering up their oblations upon the altar of FREEDOM, and bearing in one hand the standard of LIBERTY, while in the other were forged chains for the bondman’s limbs, and the scourge for his back, and whose groans and shrieks were borne off upon the same breeze with their own shouts of LIBERTY or DEATH!! And this is no sketch of scenes drawn out with vivid colors of fancy; for it was stern living reality, and human language conveys no impressions and has not power to embellish them with ideal matter, for there was before me at almost every corner of the streets, that proud emblem of our nation’s greatness. It was the STARS and STRIPES calling upon the sons of Kentucky to again rally in defence of their country’s honor. And yet beneath the ample folds of this cherished emblem of FREEDOM were passing almost every moment the native born citizens of this proud State, driven to their daily task from the fear of the scourge and the lash. And more than that did I witness on a steamboat where was thrown out to the breeze our nation’s Flag, significant that the sons of Kentucky, her soldiers in arms, were there marching to and fro upon her deck and hurrying down to the plains of Mexico, to the field of battle and strife; while below them on the same boat, confined in chains like a pen of cattle, were their own _brothers_, upwards of an hundred citizens of this proud land, who were being dragged down to that bourne from whence none ever return--the great charnel house of American slavery, the low land and swamps of the Mississippi Valley. The next scene of interest that I saw was on a plantation a few miles above the city of New Orleans. I passed into the negro yard and the first slave I met was grinding corn with a double hand-mill like a common coffee-grinder. He was chained to a post and was literally naked. A plank lay within reach of his chain, the _soft_ side of which was his bed. His punishment was for running away, and he had been confined there to his mill seven weeks. In passing along to a shop, I found two negroes working at blacksmithing. Both were chained to the block, and were hampered with rings and chains on their legs. One of these was a heavy stout mulatto man, and on his right ancle was a ring of iron weighing from six to eight pounds. On the same leg near the knee was another ring weighing from four to six pounds, and a chain fastened from one ring to the other, making at least on this leg sixteen pounds of iron. The rings had worn and irritated the leg, and they were almost completely imbedded in the swollen flesh. From the knee to the top of the foot was one continued putrid running sore; and without exception the most loathsome and forbidding exhibition I ever witnessed. And yet he was at work preparing the heavy irons for a sugar mill. I asked him what he had those chains on for? He replied; “I run away, and by G--d I will again when I get these off and am well.” He had worn them eight weeks. The rings and chain on the other negro were not as large, nor was he much mutilated by them. The first was a noble fine looking mulatto man, with large head and prominent reflective faculties, and evidently with much force of character--presenting nothing of the African blood, except in the shade of his skin. He informed me that he came from Kentucky, and had been on the plantation seven years, and in that time he had seen the drivers kill eighteen boys. All slave men are called boys. Whether this was true or not, I had no other testimony except the circumstantial evidence which was around me on all sides, and I am sure this was sufficient to convince any one that an effort was being made to kill at least four more. In passing towards the sugar field, I found a negro setting on a block. A physician from Mobile, who was with me, spoke to him, and as he raised his head a swarm of flies started off, and looking on the right side of his head above the ear, I discovered the hair full of maggots, and the whole side was one mass of putrid matter. The skull was evidently broken in, as the matter which was running out indicated diseased bone. How he came in this condition I know not, yet the same effect would be produced by striking him with a heavy bludgeon or club. He was perfectly unconscious, and did not answer a question intelligibly, as he was insane. After this scene I was perfectly convinced that the negro in the shop had told the truth, that “eighteen boys had been killed on that plantation within seven years.”

And here I am aware that I shall be met with the usual reply--“that such acts as killing slaves are _improbable_, for it is so decidedly against the interest of the planter to allow his property to be destroyed in this manner.” I have myself before I learned to the contrary made the same reply; and yet one thing is sure, the reply does not make or prove these things false; and of their truth, I have the testimony of a large portion of the passengers, gentlemen and ladies, on the steamer “Allen Glover,” on her first trip down to New Orleans, in November, 1837. And I repeat that these cruelties are not isolated cases; for men and women are whipped to death, and murdered by inches, and shot down, as a common occurrence in the more Southern States. In proof of this, I was told, on a plantation about twelve miles below the city of New Orleans, by the overseer, that but very few plantations passed more than three or four years without having a slave killed by the driver. He said the season before the driver on this plantation killed the best boy they had. He was beating and kicking the boy, and finally the negro knocked him down. The driver rose up and shot him through the heart. He was a spirited boy from Kentucky, about twenty-three years old, and had been often beaten by the driver for the most trivial thing, and often without the least provocation. And he had borne the goads of the lash so long that his proud spirit broke loose in the fatal blow which he knew would send him to his grave in an instant. And while telling me this, the overseer pointed to the second plantation below, and said the driver about two months before killed a boy by shooting him. When these occurrences take place they are seldom known beyond the limits of the plantation; for it is _lawful_ to kill a negro if he raises his hand against a white man; and I can assure you that few ever make the attempt without being instantly killed.

A WOMAN WHIPPED TO DEATH.

A most brutal and inhuman case of whipping and murdering negroes was done by the driver on J. R.’s plantation, about forty miles from Natchez, in November, 1848. I will give the fiendish monster’s account of it in his own blasphemous language, while boasting of the deed to another driver. He said, “G--d d--n my soul, if I didn’t whip a woman last week until she childed right on the ground while I was whipping her; and a few days before I whipped another woman till I thought she was dead, but she revived a little and I told the niggers to carry her in the hut. The next day she sent for me, and when I went in she told me that she was going to die, and that I had killed her. I told her I was G--d d--n glad of it, and I was d--n sorry I hadn’t done it for her yesterday; and she died that night.” Yet this is all legalized, “moderate correction;” and doubtless will be considered as an “isolated case.”

The driver’s duty on a plantation is to see that the negroes are at work, and to do this he usually follows them into the field, and exercises a general supervision over their labor. His equipments are a heavy knife, a revolver pistol, and a large whip, the lash of which is about seven feet long. While in the field, if the negro does not work rapidly, or if he violates the rules of the plantation, this lash comes down upon him with a power and force that cuts through his clothes and tears his skin and flesh in shreds. These blows will often be repeated by a peculiar swing of the lash from right to left, every one of which will cut a hole where it hits like a scoop with a gouge.

THE “BREAK-DOWN WHIPPINGS.”

The “break-down whippings,” as they are termed on the plantations, are usually done by placing the slave with his face to a post in which is framed a cross bar. An iron collar or ring is put round his neck and fastened to the post. The arms are extended each way and fastened to the cross-bar by rings around the wrist. They are then stripped bare, and thus are whipped from twenty-five to fifty lashes and upwards, and sometimes as long as a man can continue to use the whip without being exhausted, and they often die there under the lash. If a slave is brought down from Kentucky or Virginia, and sold to a planter at the South, and it is understood that he has any pride, or occasionally assumes a degree of independence unbecoming a slave, or shows any reluctance against being driven beyond what is consistent and human, he is, as the drivers say, “getting too damned smart” and must have a small touch of the “Mississippi break-down;” and without any further ceremony he is put on to the post and whipped until the driver thinks he “will not be quite so _smart_.” And in many cases it is necessary to repeat this “break down” operation a number of times before the “smartness” will all pass out of them.

The change from Kentucky and Virginia slavery, to a large cotton or sugar plantation in the more Southern States, is as great almost as liberty and slavery, and there are many slaves taken from these States and sold far South, that can never be subdued only by death; and this they are sure to meet unless they give up their “smartness.” And in them is only seen exhibited the motto of every American citizen, “LIBERTY or DEATH.” They will never yield, for they have the feelings of an American, and the pride and spirit of their own _fathers_ who are among the most distinguished men of their native State. And this is _American_ slavery--one of our “cherished institutions!” and the forbidding of its further extension is now threatening the existence of this happy Union, and to deluge this land in blood!!

WOMAN WHIPPING ON THE PLANTATIONS.

The whipping of women on plantations is in a different manner. Their frock is turned up over their head, and they are made to lie down with their face to the ground, their arms extended and tied to a stake. A board is then taken which is prepared in shape like a shovel. The wide part is bored full of small holes, and with this they are beaten on the bare flesh, from twenty-five to two hundred blows. After these blows are repeated a few times the skin tears away, and the blood and flesh is forced through these holes with great force and flies several feet from them; and yet this is very _modest_ and “moderate correction.”

Females are required to do as much work on a plantation as men, and there are generally about thirty women to seventy men. The treatment of slave women is so severe, and their labor so hard, that very few children are raised on the sugar or cotton plantations; and if they are alive at birth they grow up feeble and puny, and from neglect and the want of proper cleanliness and care very few become men and women.

The relations and intimacy among slaves on plantations are managed with great care, and every thing that is allowed to exist between the men and women, is permitted with a view to degrade and brutalize them, and destroy all moral sense, as well as self-respect. A rule or regulation of any kind calculated to elevate the thoughts above the brute, or a disposition on the part of the slave to cultivate the moral sense, would be crushed at once, and an attempt on the part of a slave to do so would meet with the most severe and cruel punishment. Hence kindred ties, and parental affection, and the attachment between man and wife, are among the first things to be broken up, as the permission of such demonstrations would have a tendency to humanize the slave, and make him, under such circumstances, somewhat an object of sympathy. A connection among them as “man and wife,” in which the planter sometimes officiates in a mock ceremony of marriage, is allowed under certain rules, yet care is taken that such alliances do not continue for a long time. When they are broken up they are allowed to seek other companions for a short time. Thus they succeed in preventing anything like an affection, or attachment, or respect for an alliance in the character of “man and wife.”

The following extract of a letter from a highly respectable gentleman in Galveston, has been kindly furnished me, and a more truthful picture, to the life, cannot be drawn, and one too on which the good people of this country can look, and stand rebuked by the lesson of _moral sense_, which came up in the honesty of his soul from this poor slave, in view of the life which he would have entailed upon himself and kindred, had he fulfilled the marriage vow with poor Lucy. The occurrence took place in December, 1848--

“Bob had agreed to be married, and on the night of the wedding did
not appear. His lady love came for him the next night after, and
the matter was thoroughly discussed between them. She, poor thing,
reproached him for his inconstancy with tears and sighs at a great
rate. Bob finally said to her by way of comfort--‘Lucy what is de
sense ob niggers marrying--it don’t mean any ting. When white folks
marry, dey say matches made in heben--when nigger marry children
all slaves--nigger dont own he wife--nigger woman dont own her
husband--more misery, misery, all come ob nigger marrying.’”

Alas! too true. How often we laugh when we ought to be ashamed that our sensibilities are not more deeply shocked.

RESTRICTIONS UPON SLAVES.