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 our mind, but leaves no definite trace.

Sterne says that when he would realize 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 demoralizing 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 these 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 more 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 of 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. O, 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, use to hab right smart[21] meetins in
our yard, Sunday night. Massa Johnson preach to us. Den he said
couldn’t hab two meetins—we might go to church.”

“Why?”

“Gracious knows. I lubs to go to meetin allers—‘specially when dere
‘s good preaching—lubs to hab people talk good to me—likes to hab
people read to me, too. ‘Cause don’t b’long to church, no reason why
I shan’t.”

“Does your master like to have others read to you?”

“He won’t hinder—I an’t bound tell him when folks reads to me. I hab
_my_ soul to sabe—he hab _his_ soul to sabe. Our owners won’t stand
few minutes and read to us—dey tink it too great honor—dey’s bery
hard on us. Brack preachers sometimes talk good to us, and pray wid
us,—and _pray a heap for_ DEM _too_.

“I jest done hab great quarrel wid Dinah, down in de kitchen. I
tells Dinah, ‘De way you goes on spile all do women’s
character.’—She say she didn’t care, she do what she please wid
herself. Dinah, she slip away somehow from her first husband, and
hab ‘noder child by Sambo (he b’long to Massa D.); so she and her
first husband dey fall out somehow. Dese yer men, yer know, is so
queer, Missis, dey don’t neber like sich tings.

“Ye know, Missis, tings we lub, we don’t like hab anybody else hab
‘em. Such a ting as dat, Missis, tetch your heart so, ef you don’t
mind, ‘t will fret you almost to death. Ef my husband was to slip
away from me, Missis, dat ar way, it ud wake me right up. I’m brack,
but I wouldn’t do so to my husband, neider. What I hide behind de
curtain now, I can’t hide it behind de curtain when I stand before
God—de whole world know it den.

“Dinah’s (second) husband say what she do for her first husband
noting to him;—now, my husband don’t feel so. He say he wouldn’t do
as Daniel do—he wouldn’t buy tings for de oder children—dem as has
de children might buy de tings for dem. Well, so dere dey
is.—Dinah’s first husband come up wheneber he can, to see his
children,—and Sambo, he come up to see _his_ child, and gib Dinah
tings for it.

“You know, Missis, Massa hab no nigger but me and one yellow girl,
when he bought me and my four children. Well, den Massa, he want me
to breed; so he say, ‘Violet, you must take some nigger here in C.’

“Den I say, ‘No, Massa, I can’t take any here.’ Den he say, ‘You
_must_, Violet;’ ‘cause you see he want me breed for him; so he say
plenty young fellers here, but I say I can’t hab any ob dem. Well,
den, Missis, he go down Virginia, and he bring up two niggers,—and
dey was pretty ole men,—and Missis say, ‘One of dem’s for you,
Violet;’ but I say, ‘No, Missis, I can’t take one of dem, ‘cause I
don’t lub ‘em, and I can’t hab one I don’t lub.’ Den Massa, he say,
‘You _must take one of dese_—and _den, ef you can’t lub him, you
must find somebody else you can lub_.’ Den I say, ‘O, no, Massa! I
can’t do dat—_I can’t hab one ebery day_.’ Well, den, by-and-by,
Massa he buy tree more, and den Missis say, ‘Now, Violet, ones dem
is for you.’ I say, ‘I do’no—maybe I can’t lub one dem neider;’ but
she say, ‘You _must_ hab one ob dese.’ Well, so Sam and I we lib
along two year—he watchin my ways, and I watchin his ways.

“At last, one night, we was standin’ by de wood-pile togeder, and de
moon bery shine, and I do’no how ‘t was, Missis, he answer me, he
wan’t a wife, but he didn’t know where he get one. I say, plenty
girls in G. He say, ‘Yes—but maybe I shan’t find any I like so well
as you.’ Den I say maybe he wouldn’t like my ways, ‘cause I’se an
ole woman, and I hab four children by my first husband; and anybody
marry me, must be jest kind to dem children as dey was to me, else I
couldn’t lub him. Den he say, ‘Ef he had a woman ‘t had
children,’—mind you, he didn’t say me,—‘he would be jest as kind to
de children as he was to de moder, and dat’s ‘cordin to how she do
by him.’ Well, so we went on from one ting to anoder, till at last
we say we’d take one anoder, and so we’ve libed togeder eber
since—and I’s had four children by him—and he neber slip away from
me, nor I from him.”

“How are you married in your yard?”

“We jest _takes_ one anoder—we asks de white folks’ leave—and den
takes one anoder. Some folks, dey’s married by de book; but den,
what’s de use? Dere’s my fus husband, we’se married by de book, and
he sold way off to Florida, and I’s here. Dey wants to do what dey
please wid us, so dey don’t want us to be married. Dey don’t care
what we does, so we jest makes money for dem.

“My fus husband,—he young, and he _bery_ kind to me,—O, Missis, he
_bery kind indeed_. He set up all night and work, so as to make me
comfortable. O, we got ‘long bery well when I had him; but he sold
way off Florida, and, sence then, Missis, _I jest gone_ to noting.
Dese yer white people dey hab here, dey won’t ‘low us noting—noting
at all—jest gibs us food, and two suits a year—a broad stripe and a
narrow stripe; you’ll see ‘em, Missis.”—

And we did “see ‘em;” for Violet brought us the “narrow stripe,”
with a request that we would fit it for her. There was just enough
to cover her, but no hooks and eyes, cotton, or even lining; these
extras she must get as she can; and yet her master receives from our
host eight dollars per month for her services. We asked how she got
the “broad stripe” made up.

“O, Missis, my husband,—he working now out on de farm,—so he hab
‘lowance four pounds bacon and one peck of meal ebery week; so he
stinge heself, so as to gib me four pounds bacon to pay for making
my frock.” [Query.—Are there any husbands in refined circles who
would do more than this?]

Once, finding us all three busily writing, Violet stood for some
moments silently watching the mysterious motion of our pens, and
then, in a tone of deepest sadness, said,

“O! dat be great comfort, Missis. _You_ can write to _your_ friends
all ‘bout ebery ting, and so hab dem write to you. Our people can’t
do so. Wheder dey be ‘live or dead, we can’t neber know—_only
sometimes we hears dey be dead_.”

What more expressive comment on the cruel laws that forbid the slave to be taught to write!

The history of the serving-man is thus given:

George’s father and mother belonged to somebody in Florida. During
the war, two older sisters got on board an English vessel, and went
to Halifax. His mother was very anxious to go with them, and take
the whole family; but her husband persuaded her to wait until the
next ship sailed, when he thought he should be able to go too. By
this delay opportunity of escape was lost, and the whole family were
soon after sold for debt. George, one sister, and their mother, were
bought by the same man. He says, “My old boss cry powerful when she
(the mother) die; say he’d rather lost two thousand dollars. She was
part Indian—hair straight as yourn—and she was white as dat ar
pillow.” George married a woman in _another_ yard. He gave this
reason for it: “‘Cause, when a man sees his wife ‘bused, he can’t
help feelin’ it. When he _hears_ his wife’s ‘bused, ‘t an’t like as
how it is when he _sees_ it. Then I can fadge for her better than
when she’s in my own yard.” This wife was sold up country, but after
some years became “lame and sick—couldn’t do much—so her massa gabe
her her time, and paid her fare to G.”—[The sick and infirm are
always provided for, you know.]—“Hadn’t seen her for tree years,”
said George; “but soon as I heard of it, went right down,—hired a
house, and got some one to take care ob her,—and used to go to see
her ebery tree months.” He is a mechanic, and worked sometimes all
night to earn money to do this. His master asks twenty dollars per
month for his services, and allows him fifty cents per week for
clothes, etc. J. says, if he could only save, by working nights,
money enough to buy himself, he would get some one he could trust to
buy him; “den work hard as eber, till I could buy my children, den
I’d get away from dis yer.”—

“Where?”

“O! Philadelphia—New York—somewhere North.”

“Why, you’d freeze to death.”

“O, no, Missis! I can bear cold. I want to go _where I can belong to
myself_, and do as I want to.”

The following communication has been given to the writer by Captain Austin Bearse, ship-master in Boston. Mr. Bearse is a native of Barnstable, Cape Cod. He is well known to our Boston citizens and merchants.

I am a native of the State of Massachusetts. Between the years 1818
and 1830 I was, from time to time, mate on board of different
vessels engaged in the coasting trade on the coast of South
Carolina.

It is well known that many New England vessels are in the habit of
spending their winters on the southern coast in pursuit of this
business. Our vessels used to run up the rivers for the rough rice
and cotton of the plantations, which we took to Charleston.

We often carried gangs of slaves to the plantations, as they had
been ordered. These slaves were generally collected by slave-traders
in the slave-pens in Charleston,—brought there by various causes,
such as the death of owners and the division of estates, which threw
them into the market. Some were sent as punishment for
insubordination, or because the domestic establishment was too
large, or because persons moving to the North or West preferred
selling their slaves to the trouble of carrying them. We had on
board our vessels, from time to time, numbers of these
slaves,—sometimes two or three, and sometimes as high as seventy or
eighty. They were separated from their families and connections with
as little concern as calves and pigs are selected out of a lot of
domestic animals.

Our vessels used to lie in a place called Poor Man’s Hole, not far
from the city. We used to allow the relations and friends of the
slaves to come on board and stay all night with their friends,
before the vessel sailed.

In the morning it used to be my business to pull off the hatches and
warn them that it was time to separate; and the shrieks and
heart-rending cries at these times were enough to make anybody’s
heart ache.

In the year 1828, while mate of the brig Milton, from Boston, bound
to New Orleans, the following incident occurred, which I shall never
forget:

The traders brought on board four quadroon men in handcuffs, to be
stowed away for the New Orleans market. An old negro woman, more
than eighty years of age, came screaming after them, “My son, O, my
son, my son!” She seemed almost frantic, and when we had got more
than a mile out in the harbor we heard her screaming yet.

When we got into the Gulf Stream, I came to the men, and took off
their handcuffs. They were resolute fellows, and they told me that I
would see that they would never live to be slaves in New Orleans.
One of the men was a carpenter, and one a blacksmith. We brought
them into New Orleans, and consigned them over to the agent. The
agent told the captain afterwards that in forty-eight hours after
they came to New Orleans they were all dead men, having every one
killed themselves, as they said they should. One of them, I know,
was bought for a fireman on the steamer Post Boy, that went down to
the Balize. He jumped over, and was drowned.

The others,—one was sold to a blacksmith, and one to a carpenter.
The particulars of their death I didn’t know, only that the agent
told the captain that they were all dead.

There was a plantation at Coosahatchie, back of Charleston, S. C.,
kept by a widow lady, who owned eighty negroes. She sent to
Charleston, and bought a quadroon girl, very nearly white, for her
son. We carried her up. She was more delicate than our other slaves,
so that she was not put with them, but was carried up in the cabin.

I have been on the rice-plantations on the river, and seen the
cultivation of the rice. In the fall of the year, the plantation
hands, both men and women, work all the time above their knees in
water in the rice-ditches, pulling out the grass, to fit the ground
for sowing the rice. Hands sold here from the city, having been bred
mostly to house-labor, find this very severe. The plantations are so
deadly that white people cannot remain on them during the
summer-time, except at a risk of life. The proprietors and their
families are there only through the winter, and the slaves are left
in the summer entirely under the care of the overseers. Such
overseers as I saw were generally a brutal, gambling, drinking set.

I have seen slavery, in the course of my wanderings, in almost all
the countries in the world. I have been to Algiers, and seen slavery
there. I have seen slavery in Smyrna, among the Turks. I was in
Smyrna when our American consul ransomed a beautiful Greek girl in
the slave-market. I saw her come aboard the brig Suffolk, when she
came on board to be sent to America for her education. I have seen
slavery in the Spanish and French ports, though I have not been on
their plantations.

My opinion is that American slavery, as I have seen it in the
internal slave-trade, as I have seen it on the rice and sugar
plantations, and in the city of New Orleans, is _full as bad_ as
slavery in any country of the world, heathen or Christian. People
who go for visits or pleasure through the Southern States cannot
possibly know those things which can be seen of slavery by
ship-masters who run up into the back plantations of countries, and
who transport the slaves and produce of plantations.

In my past days the system of slavery was not much discussed. I saw
these things as others did, without interference. Because I no
longer think it right to see these things in silence, I trade no
more south of Mason & Dixon’s line.

AUSTIN BEARSE.

The following account was given to the writer by Lewis Hayden. Hayden was a fugitive slave, who escaped from Kentucky by the assistance of a young lady named Delia Webster, and a man named Calvin Fairbanks. Both were imprisoned. Lewis Hayden has earned his own character as a free citizen of Boston, where he can find an abundance of vouchers for his character.

I belonged to the Rev. Adam Runkin, a Presbyterian minister in
Lexington, Kentucky.

My mother was of mixed blood,—white and Indian. She married my
father when he was working in a bagging factory near by. After a
while my father’s owner moved off and took my father with him, which
broke up the marriage. She was a very handsome woman. My master kept
a large dairy, and she was the milk-woman. Lexington was a small
town in those days, and the dairy was in the town. Back of the
college was the Masonic lodge. A man who belonged to the lodge saw
my mother when she was about her work. He made proposals of a base
nature to her. When she would have nothing to say to him, he told
her that she need not be so independent, for if money could buy her
he would have her. My mother told old mistress, and begged that
master might not sell her. But he did sell her. My mother had a high
spirit, being part Indian. She would not consent to live with this
man, as he wished; and he sent her to prison, and had her flogged,
and punished her in various ways, so that at last she began to have
crazy turns. When I read in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” about Cassy, it put
me in mind of my mother, and I wanted to tell Mrs. S—— about her.
She tried to kill herself several times, once with a knife and once
by hanging. She had long, straight black hair, but after this it all
turned white, like an old person’s. When she had her raving turns
she always talked about her children. The jailer told the owner that
if he would let her go to her children, perhaps she would get quiet.
They let her out one time, and she came to the place where we were.
I might have been seven or eight years old,—don’t know my age
exactly. I was not at home when she came. I came in and found her in
one of the cabins near the kitchen. She sprung and caught my arms,
and seemed going to break them, and then said, “I’ll fix _you_ so
they’ll never get you!” I screamed, for I thought she was going to
kill me; they came in and took me away. They tied her, and carried
her off. Sometimes, when she was in her right mind, she used to tell
me what things they had done to her. At last her owner sold her, for
a small sum, to a man named Lackey. While with him she had another
husband and several children. After a while this husband either died
or was sold, I do not remember which. The man then sold her to
another person, named Bryant. My own father’s owner now came and
lived in the neighborhood of this man, and brought my mother with
him. He had had another wife and family of children where he had
been living. He and my mother came together again, and finished
their days together. My mother almost recovered her mind in her last
days.

I never saw anything in Kentucky which made me suppose that
ministers or professors of religion considered it any more wrong to
separate the families of slaves by sale than to separate any
domestic animals.

There may be ministers and professors of religion who think it is
wrong, but I never met with them. My master was a minister, and yet
he sold my mother, as I have related.

When he was going to leave Kentucky for Pennsylvania, he sold all my
brothers and sisters at auction. I stood by and saw them sold. When
I was just going up on to the block, he swapped me off for a pair of
carriage-horses. I looked at those horses with strange feelings. I
had indulged hopes that master would take me into Pennsylvania with
him, and I should get free. How I looked at those horses, and walked
round them, and thought for _them_ I was sold!

It was commonly reported that my master had said in the pulpit that
there was no more harm in separating a family of slaves than a
litter of pigs. I did not hear him say it, and so cannot say whether
this is true or not.

It may seem strange, but it is a fact,—I had more sympathy and kind
advice, in my efforts to get my freedom, from gamblers and such sort
of men, than Christians. Some of the gamblers were very kind to me:

I never knew a slave-trader that did not seem to think, in his
heart, that the trade was a bad one. I knew a great many of them,
such as Neal, McAnn, Cobb, Stone, Pulliam and Davis, &c. They were
like Haley,—they meant to repent when they got through.

Intelligent colored people in my circle of acquaintance, as a
general thing, _felt no security whatever for their family ties_.
Some, it is true, who belonged to rich families, felt some security,
but those of us who looked deeper, and knew how many were not rich
that seemed so, and saw how fast money slipped away, were always
miserable. The trader was all around, the slave-pens at hand, and we
did not know what time any of us might be in it. Then there were the
rice-swamps, and the sugar and cotton plantations; we had had them
held before us as terrors, by our masters and mistresses, all our
lives. We knew about them all; and when a friend was carried off,
why, it was the same as death, for we could not write or hear, and
never expected to see them again.

I have one child who is buried in Kentucky, and that grave is
pleasant to think of. I’ve got another that is sold nobody knows
where, and that I never can bear to think of.

LEWIS HAYDEN.

The next history is a long one, and part of it transpired in a most public manner, in the face of our whole community.

The history includes in it the whole account of that memorable capture of the Pearl, which produced such a sensation in Washington in the year 1848. The author, however, will preface it with a short history of a slave woman who had six children embarked in that ill-fated enterprise.

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Footnote 21:

_Right smart of_—that is, a great many of—an idiom of Anglo-Ethiopia.