not the case; and to convince you of this, I need but read a paragraph from the Gazette which I hold in my hand. "It appears that by a resolution of the City Council, published in the Savannah Republican of the 10th instant, that all the free male negroes shall be required to level a part of the line of fortifications in Farm-street, and to do such other work on the street as shall be pointed out by the street and lane committee,' and moreover, that in case of refusal or neglect, of any such free male negroes, to work as required by the resolution, the marshal, be, and he is hereby required, to commit the same to jail, to be confined there one day for each day, he or they may be required to work.'" In calling your attention, gentlemen, to this subject, it is not with a view to convince you of slavery being inconsistent with the principles on which American Freedom and Independence rest, nor to impress you with the injustice or criminality of the same. I am aware that I stand in the presence of men, as firmly attached to these principles as myself, and who as well understand them. I, therefore, have not spoken for the information of the present company; nor with a view to produce any impression in this room. My object is this: being aware that a report of our proceedings will go before the public, I think it proper publicly to protest, and in so doing, I but consider myself the organ of the sentiments of this respectable meeting, and, therefore, I may say, that on this occasion, WE publicly protest against holding our fellow men in slavery, or depriving them of any of those rights which the white population enjoy; that we consider it as a violation of the principles of justice, and inconsistent with the Declaration of Independence. That it is the greatest of all robberies, as it takes from them the most valuable of all treasures, life excepted: for, next to life nothing is so valuable as liberty, and he is the most dishonest who robs a fellow being of this treasure. The article I read to you says, "that when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security." Apply this to the coloured people, on whom this is as completely accomplished as ever was contemplated by the old government with respect to this country. If then it be right, and the duty of an oppressed people, to do themselves justice, surely justice requires that the country should restore them to the enjoyment of those blessings of which, under the sanction of oppressive laws, they have been deprived. Nor can the government of this country act up to the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, nor redeem the pledge given by the brave veterans who signed that instrument, unless they adopt measures which shall lead finally to the complete emancipation of the whole population of the country. THE NEGRO BOY'S TALE. By Mrs. Opie. "Haste, hoist the sails! fair blows the wind, Jamaica, sultry land, adieu!-- The sailors gladly haste on board, Soon is Trevannion's voice obey'd, And instant at her father's word, His menials seek the absent maid. But where was loitering Anna found? Mute, list'ning to a Negro's prayer, Who knew that sorrow's plaintive sound Could always gain her ready ear; *In the state of New York, by a law passed in 1817, slavery ceases on the 4th of July, 1827. It is much to be regretted that the state of Delaware has not followed or anticipated the example, or instituted a course similar to that adopted by Pennsylvania, in the year 1780. Who knew, to sooth the slave's distress Was gentle Anna's dearest joy. 'Missa,' poor Zambo cried, 'sweet land Dey tell me dat you go to see, 'Ah! dearest missa, you so kind, 'Oh! ven no slave, a boat I buy. 'Oh, I should know it quick like tink, It is long time since last ve meet, 'O missa! long, how long me feel 'Poor slaves!-but I had best forget, Ah! sure 'tis false! But yet if no, Ven I again my moder see, Such joy I at her sight vould show Dat she vould think it must be me. Den, kindest missa, be my friend; Yet dat indeed you long become; But now one greatest favour lend,O find me chance to see my home! And ven I'm in my moder's arms, And tell de vonders I have known, I'll say, Most best of all de charms Vas she who feels for negro's woe And she shall learn for you dat prayer 'Dey teach to me to make me good; Though men who sons from moders tear She'll think, teach goodness never could. 'Dey say me should to oders do 'Yon cocoa-nut no smooth as silk, Ah missa! smiling in your tear, I see you know what I'd impart; De cocoa husk de skin I vear, De milk vidin de Zambo's heart. 'Dat heart love you, and dat good land Vere every negro slave be free,- 'No doubt dat ship she never send 'O missa's God! dat country bless!' (Here Anna's colour went and came; But saints might share the pure dis tress. For Anna blushed at other's shame.) 'But, missa, say; shall I vid you To dat sweet England now depart; Once more mine own good country view, And press my moder on my heart?" Then on his knees poor Zambo fell, While Anna tried to speak in vain: The expecting boy she could not tell He'd ne'er his mother see again. But, while she stood in mournful thought, Nearer and nearer voices came; But woe betdes an N-timed suit; 11% tamper woured by her delay, ***ade his cold be mute, bor Gate with fruitives hopes betray. 'I know, the cried, "I cannot free The numerous slaves that round me Dine But one poor negro's friend to be, Might (blessed chance!) might now be mine,' But vainly Anna wept and prayed, And his indignant grief to tame, came, The whip is raised-the lash des cends- And Anna hears the sufferer's groan; But while the air with shrieks she rends, The signal's given-the ship sails on. Anna, I mourn thy virtuous woe; At sight of Zambo's silent corse:— The orphan from his mother torn, And pining for his native shore,— Poor tortured slave-poor wretch forlorn Can I his early death deplore? I pity those who live, and groan: Columbia countless Zambo sees;For swell'd with many a wretch's moan Is Western India's sultry breeze. The fiend-delighting trade arrest, THE African Observer. EIGHTH MONTH, 1827. NEGRO SLAVERY. (Continued from page 108.) The slave, both in the British West Indies and in the United States, is liable to be mortgaged or leased, at the will of the master. Under the circumstances in which a large majority of the West Indian proprietors are placed, the liability to be mortgaged for the security of a master's debts, is an important article in the mass of evils incident to the condition of the slave. Lucrative as the business of sugar making has been supposed to be, and large as the profits originally were, it is a well established fact, that the estates of the planters are now, with few exceptions, deeply indebted to European capitalists. The large amount of capital* required to a successful prosecution of this business, and the fluctuations of the market, added to physical misfortune and the misconduct of agents, conspire to render the culti * B. Edwards estimates the amount of capital requisite to establish a sugar plantation of a sufficient extent to be conducted to advantage, at thirty thousand pounds sterling. VOL. 1-17 وو vation of the cane, by the agency of extorted labour, a deep, and generally a losing, game of chance. "That his estate is unmortgaged," observes Stephens, "is, and always has been considered, in the West Indies, a rare distinction of the sugar planter; to owe more to his mortgagees than his estate is worth, is his ordinary case." "An English mortgage,' says Edwards, "is a marketable security, which a West Indian mortgage is not. In England, if a mortgagee calls for his money, other persons are ready to advance it; but this seldom happens in respect to property in the West Indies." But it is well known, that securities, if considered sufficient, are always marketable. If, therefore, West Indian mortgages are not readily converted into cash, the difficulty must be owing to the character and supposed insufficiency of the security. In England, government loans are easily negociated, because the interest is regularly paid, though the expectation that the principal will ever be refunded, has long been given up. mit him, the creditor, equally unknow When the possessor of slaves is a mortgagor in possession, whose debtsing and unknown to the slave, holds are as great as the value of the property, the evil must operate in a twofold manner on the poor dependent slave. The forbearance of the credi tor must be purchased, if possible, by the regular remittance of the interest, and hence the labour of the slaves, and their supply of food, must be graduated according to the scale of the master's necessities; and, if redemption is hopeless, his interest will prompt him to look at immediate returns, rather than the eventual in him as an integrant part of a doubtful security, from which he cannot be readily separated. The mortgaged slave can, therefore, have little inducement to cultivate either his physical or intellectual powers, or to exercise any other care, than to slide down the stream of life, with as little attention as possible to the future. The literal observance of the precept, take no thought for the morrow, is the natural result of his situation; for to him, it is emphatically true, that suf crease of the estate. Experience sufficient to the day is the evil thereof. Although the situation of the planters in the slave holding states, is not exactly similar to that of their West Indian brethren, yet exemption from embarrassment and debt, is by no means, their general lot; and, therefore, the evils resulting from this incident of slavery, may be considered as a part of the system in this republic. Among us it probably is not the cause of much positive suffering on the part of the slaves, but inasmuch as it adds to the difficulty of emanci ficiently attests the propensity of the human mind, to defer, as long as possible, the period of bankruptcy; even when the delay must inevitably render the failure more deep and disgraceful. A cloud of West Indian authorities might be cited to prove, that the labour of the slaves is frequently extorted, by the terror of the lash, and under the pressure of hunger, not for the benefit of the ostensible owner, but to procrastinate the foreclosure of the mortgage, a fate which neither stripes nor starvation can finally pre-pation, and, therefore, operates as a vent. But even when the condition of the master is not thus desperate, a mortgage of the slaves for the security of his debts, presents an insuperable barrier between the slave and his highest earthly hope. If, under these circumstances, an active and industri ous slave should find means to enlarge his hard earned peculium, to the value of his own bones and sinews, they are pledged above the power of redemption, to a creditor beyond the Atlantic. Though the master or overseer, to whom his faithfulness may be an ample support to his claim of freedom, should be willing or desirous to manu check to negro improvement, we may be permitted to desire that this part of the system may be revised and improved. A slave cannot be a party before a judicial tribunal, in any action against his master, however great may be the injury received.* * An action for the recovery of freedom, though an apparent exception to this rule, is not strictly one, the person held as a slave, and claiming his freedom, becomes by presumption of law, a freeman; and a suit is intended to try the question, whether the person held is, or is not legally a slave. This plain principle of common law |