1 1 the Society of Friends, who traveled extensively him all the severity of in the slave states. We copy it from a "Me- is capable of bearing." punishment the human body moir of JOHN WOOLMAN, chiefly extracted from a President Edwards, the Younger, in a sermon Journal of his Life and Travels." It was published in Philadelphia, by the "Society of Friends." "The following reflections, were written in 1757, while he was traveling on a religious account among slaveholders." "Many of the white people in these provinces, take little or no care of negro marriages; and when negroes marry, after their own way, some make so little account of those marriages, that, executors at vendue. wives, by selling far asunder; which is common when estates are sold by "Many whose labor is heavy, being followed at their business in the field by a man with a whip, hired for that purpose,-have, in common, little else allowed them but one peck of Indian corn and some salt for one week, with a few potatoes. (The potatoes they commonly raise by their labor on the first day of the week.) The correction ensuing on their disobedience to over seers, or slothfulness in business, is often very severe, and sometimes desperate. Men and women have many times scarce clothes enough to hide their nakedness and boys and girls, ten and twelve years old, are often quite naked among their masters' children. Some use endeavors to instruct those (negro children) they have in reading; but in common, this is not only neglected, but disapproved."-p. 12. TESTIMONY OF THE MARYLAND JOURNAL AND BAL TIMORE ADVERTISER, OF MAY 30, 1788. before the Connecticut Abolition Society, 1791,/ says: "From these drivers, for every imagined, as well as real neglect or want of exertion, they receive the lash-the smack of which is all day) long in the ears of those who are on the planta. dexterity and severity, as not only to lacerate the tion or in the vicinity; and it is used with such skin, but to tear out small portions of the flesh at almost every stroke. "This is the general treatment of the slaves. But some have an arm or a leg brok. many individuals suffer still more severely.) eyes beaten out : Many, many are knocked down; some have their en, or chopped off; and many, for a very small, or for no crime at all, have been beaten to death, merely to gratify the fury of an enraged master or overseer." Extract from an oration, delivered at Balti. more, July 4, 1791, by GEORGE BUCHANAN, M. D., member of the American Philosophical Society. misery inhabits their cabins, and pursues them in Their situation (the slaves') is insupportable; the field. Inhumanly beaten, they often fall sacrifices to the turbulent tempers of their masters! Who is there, unless inured to savage cruelties, that can hear of the inhuman punishments daily feeling for them? inflicted upon the unfortunate blacks, without Can a man who calls himself a Christian, coolly and deliberately tie up, thumb. screw, torture with pincers, and beat unmercifully a poor slave, for perhaps a trifling neglect of duty?-p. 14. TESTIMONY OF HON. JOHN RANDOLPH, OF ROANOKE A SLAVEHOLDER. "In the ordinary course of the business of the * country, the punishment of relations frequently happens on the same farm, and in view of each other: the father often sees his beloved son-the says: In one of his Congressional speeches, Mr. R. son his venerable sire-the mother her much this infernal traffic, and the wretched victims of "Avarice alone can drive, as it does drive, loved daughter-the daughter her affectionate it, like so many post-horses whipped to death in a ⚫parent-the husband sees the wife of his bosom, mail coach. Ambition has its cover-sluts in the and she the husband of her affection, cruelly bound up without delicacy or mercy, and without daring to interpose in each other's behalf, and punished with all the extremity of incensed rage, and all the rigor of unrelenting severity. Let us reverse the case, and suppose it ours: ALL IS SI LENT HORROR!" pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war; but where are the trophies of avarice? The hand-cuff, the manacle, the blood-stained cowhide!" MAJOR STODDARD, of the United States' army, who took possession of Louisiana in behalf of the United States, under the cession of 1804, in his Sketches of Louisiana, page 332, says: "The feelings of humanity are outraged-the most odious tyranny exercised in a land of freeplenty. dom, and hunger and nakedness prevail amidst Cruel, and even unusual pun * * * ishments are daily inflicted on these wretched Though only the third of the following series of resolutions is directly relevant to the subject now under consideration, we insert the other resolutions, both because they are explanatory of | The crack of his whip resounds afar, like that of the third, and also serve to reveal the public sen. an angry cartman beating his horses. The blood timent of Indiana, at the date of the resolutions. As a large majority of the citizens of Indiana at that time, were natives of slave states, they well knew the actual condition of the slaves. 1. "RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY, by the Legislative Council and House of Representatives of Indiana Territory, that a suspension of the sixth article of compact between the United States and the territories and states north west of the river Ohio, passed the 13th day of January, 1783, for the term of ten years, would be highly advantageous to the territory, and meet the approbation of at least nine-tenths of the good citizens of the same. 2. "RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY, that the abstract question of liberty and slavery, is not considered as involved in a suspension of the said article, inasmuch as the number of slaves in the United States would not be augmented by the measure. 3. "RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY, that the suspension of the said article would be equally advanta. geous to the territory, to the states from whence the negroes would be brought, and to the negroes themselves. The states which are overburthened with negroes, would be benefited by disposing of the negroes which they cannot comfortably support; and THE NEGRO HIMSELF WOULD EX. CHANGE A SCANTY PITTANCE OF THE COARSEST FOOD, for a plentiful and nourishing diet; and a situation which admits not the most distant prospect of emancipation, for one which presents no con. siderable obstacle to his wishes. * * 4. " RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY, that a copy of these resolutions be delivered to the delegate to Congress from this territory, and that he be, and he hereby is, instructed to use his best endeavors to obtain a suspension of the said article. J. B. THOMAS, President pro tem. of the Legislative Council. "Forwarded to the Speaker of the United States' Senate, by WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, Gover. nor."-American State Papers, vol. 1, p. 467. MONSIEUR C. C. ROBIN, who resided in Louisiana from 1802 to 1806, and published a volume containing the results of his observations there, thus speaks of the condition of the slaves : "While they are at labor, the manager, the master, or the driver has commonly the whip in hand to strike the idle. But those of the negroes who are judged guilty of serious faults, are punished twenty, twenty-five, forty, fifty, or one hundred lashes. The manner of this cruel execution is as follows: four stakes are driven down, making a long square; the culprit is extended naked between these stakes, face downwards; his hands and his feet are bound separately, with strong cords, to each of the stakes, so far apart that his arms and legs, stretched in the form of St. Andrew's cross, give the the poor wretch no chance of stirring. Then the executioner, who is ordinarily a negro, armed with the long whip of a coachman, strikes upon the reins and thighs. flows, the long wounds cross each other, strips of hand refuses to trace the bloody picture, to re- ments as rigorously as the men-not even preg. "The women are subjected to these punishnancy exempts them; in that case, before bindground to accommodate the enlarged form of the ing them to the stakes, a hole is made in the victim. "It is remarkable that the white creole women are ordinarily more inexorable than the men. ces which they impose, betoken only apathetic inTheir slow and languid gait, and the trifling servidolence; but should the slave not promptly obey, should he even fail to divine the meaning of their gestures, or looks, in an instant they are armed with a formidable whip; it is no longer the arm which cannot sustain the weight of a shawl or a reticule-it is no longer the form selves order the punishment of one of these poor which but feebly sustains itself. They themcreatures, and with a dry eye see their victim bound to four stakes; they count the blows, and raise a voice of menace, if the arm that strikes relaxes, or if the blood does not flow in sufficient abundance. Their sensibility changed to fury must needs feed itself for a while on the hideous spectacle; they must, as if to revive themselves, hear the piercing shrieks, and see the flow of fresh blood; there are some of them who, in their frantic rage, pinch and bite their victims. "It is by no means wonderful that the laws spected by the generality of such masters. I designed to protect the slave, should be little repeople the miserable overcoat which is their due; have seen some masters pay those unfortunate but others give them nothing at all, and do not even leave them the hours and Sundays granted barous masters leave them, during the winter, in to them by law. I have seen some of those bara state of revolting nudity, even contrary to their own true interests, for they thus weaken and shorten the lives upon which repose the whole of negroes obliged to conceal their nakedness with their own fortunes. I have seen some of those the long moss of the country. The sad melancholy of these wretches, depicted upon their countenances, the flight of some, and the death of others, do not reclaim their masters; they wreak they can no longer exercise upon the others." upon those who remain, the vengeance which journal, published nearly a quarter of a century WHITMAN MEAD, Esq. of New York, in his ago, under date of "SAVANNAH, January 28, 1817. "To one not accustomed to such scenes as slavery presents, the condition of the slaves is impressively shocking. In the course of my walks, I was every where witness to their wretch-African is an abused, a monstrously outraged edness. Like the brute creatures of the north, creature." -See Minutes of the American Conven. they are driven about at the pleasure of all who meet them: half naked and half starved, they drag out a pitiful existence, apparently almost unconscious of what they suffer. A threat accompanies every command, and a bastinado is the usual reward of disobedience." TESTIMONY OF REV. JOHN RANKIN, A native of Tennessee, educated there, and for a number of years a preacher in slave states-now pastor of a church in Ripley, Ohio. "Many poor slaves are stripped naked, stretched and tied across barrels, or large bags, and tortured with the lash during hours, and even whole days, until their flesh is mangled to the very bones. Others are stripped and hung up by the arms, their feet are tied together, and the end of a heavy piece of timber is put between their legs in order to stretch their bodies, and so prepare them for the torturing lash-and in this situation they are often whipped until their bodies are covered with blood and mangled flesh-and in order to add the greatest keenness to their sufferings, their wounds are washed with liquid salt! And some of the miserable creatures are permitted to hang in that position until they actually expire; some die under the lash, others linger about for a time, and at length die of their wounds, and many survive, and endure again similar torture. These bloody scenes are constantly exhibiting in every slaveholding country -thousands of whips are every day stained in African blood! Even the poor females are not permitted to escape these shocking cruelties." Rankin's Letters, pages 57, 58. tion, convened in Baltimore, Oct. 25, 1826. FROM NILES' BALTIMORE REGISTER FOR 1829, VOL. 35, p. 4. "Dealing in slaves has become a large business. Establishments are made at several places in Maryland and Virginia, at which they are sold like cattle. These places of deposit are strongly built, and well supplied with iron thumb-screws and gags, and ornamented with cowskins and other whips-often times bloody." JUDGE RUFFIN, of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, in one of his judicial decisions, says"The slave, to remain a slave, must feel that there is NO APPEAL FROM HIS MASTER. No man can anticipate the provocations which the slave would give, nor the consequent wrath of the master, prompting him to BLOODY VEN. GEANCE on the turbulent traitor, a vengeance generally practiced with impunity, by reason of its PRIVACY." See Wheeler's Law of Slavery p. 247. MR. MOORE, OF VIRGINIA, in his speech before the Legislature of that state, Jan. 15, 1832, says: "It must be confessed, that although the treatment of our slaves is in the general, as mild and humane as it can be, that it must always happen, that there will be found hundreds of individuals, who, owing either to the natural fe. rocity of their dispositions, or to the effects of intemperance, will be guilty of cruelty and bar barity towards their slaves, which is almost in. tolerable, and at which humanity revolts." TESTIMONY OF B. SWAIN, ESQ., OF NORTH CAROLINA. 66 brother in Vir These letters were published fifteen years ago. They were addressed to ginia, who was a slaveholder. a TESTIMONY OF THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SO CIETY. "We have heard of slavery as it exists in Asia, and Africa, and Turkey-we have heard of the feudal slavery under which the peasantry of Europe have groaned from the days of Alaric until now, but excepting only the horrible system of the West India Islands, we have never heard of slavery in any country, ancient or modern, Pagan, Mohammedan, or Christian! so terrible in its character, as the slavery which exists in these United States." - Seventh Report American Colonization Society, 1824. TESTIMONY OF THE GRADUAL EMANCIPATION SOCIE TY OF NORTH CAROLINA. Signed by Moses Swain, President, and William Swain, Secretary. Let any man of spirit and feeling, for a moment cast his thoughts over this land of slaverythink of the nakedness of some, the hungry yearnings of others, the flowing tears and heaving sighs of parting relations, the wailings and wo, the bloody cut of the keen lash, and the frightful scream that rends the very skies and all this to gratify ambition, lust, pride, avarice, vanity, and other depraved feelings of the human heart.... THE WORST IS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN. Were all the miseries, the horrors of slavery, to burst at once into view, a peal of seven-fold thunder could scarce strike greater alarm."-See " Swain's Address," 1830. TESTIMONY OF DR. JAMES C. FINLEY, Son of Dr. Finley, one of the founders of the Col. onization Society, and brother of R. S. Finley, agent of the American Colonization Society. Dr. J. C. Finley was formerly one of the editors of the Western Medical Journal, at Cincin. nati, and is well known in the west as utterly hostile to immediate abolition. "In the eastern part of the state, the slaves considerably outnumber the free population. Their situation is there wretched beyond description. Impoverished by the mismanagement which we have already attempted to describe, the master, unable to support his own grandeur and maintain his slaves, puts the unfortunate wretches upon short allowances, scarcely sufficient for their sustenance, so that a great part of them go half naked and half starved much of the time. Generally, throughout the state, the ❘ but I also fear that they will have the effect of "In almost the last conversation I had with you before I left Cincinnati, I promised to give you some account of some scenes of atrocious cruelty towards slaves, which I witnessed while I lived at the south. I almost regret having made the promise, for not only are they so atrocious that you will with difficulty believe them, driving you into that cbolitionism, upon the borders of which you have been so long hesitating. The people of the north are ignorant of the horrors of slavery of the atrocities which it commits upon the unprotected slave. * * * "I do not know that any thing could be gain. ed by particularizing the scenes of horrible barbarity, which fell under my observation during my short residence in one of the wealthiest, most intelligent, and most moral parts of Georgia. Their number and atrocity are such, that I am confident they would gain credit with none but abolitionists. Every thing will be conveyed in the remark, that in a state of society calculated to foster the worst passions of our nature, the slave derives no protection either from law or public opinion, and that ALL the cruelties which the Russians are reported to have acted towards the Poles, after their late subjugation, ARE SCENES OF EVERY DAY OCCURRENCE in the southern states. This statement, incredible as it may seem, falls short, very far short of the truth." The foregoing is extracted from a letter writ. ten by Dr. Finley to Rev. Asa Mahan, his former pastor, then of Cincinnati, now President of Oberlin Seminary. TESTIMONY OF REV. WILLIAM ALLAN, OF ILLINOIS, Son of a Slaveholder, Rev. Dr. Allan of Hunts ville, Ala. "At our house it is so common to hear their (the slaves') screams, that we think nothing of it: and lest any one should think that in general the slaves are well treated, let me be distinctly understood:-cruelty is the rule, and kindness the exception." Extract of a letter dated July 2d, 1834, from Mr. NATHAN COLE, of St. Louis, Missouri, to Arthur Tappan, Esq. of this city: " I am not an advocate of the immediate and unconditional emancipation of the slaves of our country, yet no man has ever yet depicted the wretchedness of the situation of the slaves in colors too dark for the truth.... I know that many good people are not aware of the treatment to which slaves are usually subjected, nor have they any just idea of the extent of the evil." TESTIMONY OF REV. JAMES A. THOME, A native of Kentucky-Son of Arthur Thome Esq., till recently a Slaveholder. " Slavery is the parent of more suffering than has flowed from any one source since the date of its existence. Such sufferings too! Suffer ings inconceivable and innumerable-unmingled wretchedness from the ties of nature rudely broken and destroyed, the acutest bodily tortures, groans, tears and blood-lying for ever in weariness and painfulness, in watchings, in hunger and in thirst, in cold and nakedness. "Brethren of the North, be not deceived. These sufferings still exist, and despite the ef. forts of their cruel authors to hush them down, and confine them within the precincts of their own plantations, they will ever and anon, strug gle up and reach the ear of humanity."-Mr. Thome's Speech at New York, May, 1834. "Mangling, imprisonment, starvation, every species of torture, may be inflicted upon him, (the slave,) and he has no redress. "There are now in our whole land two millions of human beings, exposed, defenceless, to every insult, and every injury short of maiming or death, which their fellow-men may choose to inflict. They suffer all that can be inflicted by wanton caprice, by grasping avarice, by brutal lust, by malignant spite, and by insane anger. Their happiness is the sport of every whim, and the prey of every passion that may, occasionally, or habitually, infest the master's bosom. If we could calculate the amount of wo endured by ill-treated slaves, it would overwhelm every compassionate heart-it would move even the obdurate to sympathy. There is also a vast sum of suffering inflicted upon the slave by humane masters, as a punishment for that idleness and misconduct which slavery naturally produces. * * "Brutal stripes and all the varied kinds of personal indignities, are not the only species of cruelty which slavery licenses." * * TESTIMONY OF REV. PHINEAS SMITH, Centreville, though we had heard a great deal on the subAllegany, Co., N. Y. who lived four years at the south. "They are badly clothed, badly fed, wretchedly lodged, unmercifully whipped, from month to month, from year to year, from childhood to old age." REV. JOSEPH M. SADD, Castile, Genessee Co. N. Y. who was till recently a preacher in Mis. souri, says, " It is true that barbarous cruelties are inflict. ed upon them, such as terrible lacerations with the whip, and excruciating tortures are sometimes experienced from the thumb screw." Extract of a letter from SARAH M. GRIMKE, dated 4th Month, 2nd, 1839. "If the following extracts from letters which I have received from South Carolina, will be of any use thou art at liberty to publish them. I need not say, that the names of the writers are withheld of necessity, because such sentiments if uttered at the south would peril their lives. ject, we found on coming South the half, the worst half too, had not beentold us; not that we truly we have felt its deadening influence, but have ourselves seen much oppression, though the accounts we have received from every tongue that nobly dares to speak upon the subject, are indeed deplorable. To quote the language of a lady, who with true Southern hospitality, received us at her mansion. "The northern people don't know anything of slavery at all, they think it is perpetual bondage merely, but of the depth of degradation that that word involves, they have no conception; if they had any just idea of it, they would I am sure use every effort until an end was put to such a shocking system.' "Another friend writing from South Carolina, and who sustains herself the legal relation of slaveholder, in a letter dated April 4th, 1838, says I have some time since, given you my views on the subject of slavery, which so much engrosses your attention. I would most willing. ly forget what I have seen and heard in my own family, with regard to the slaves. I shudder when I think of it, and increasingly feel that slavery is a curse since it leads to such cruelty." PUNISHMENTS. I. FLOGGINGS. The slaves are terribly lacerated with whips, | scars on their bodies made by the whip, their paddles, &c.; red pepper and salt are rubbed own runaway slaves. To copy these advertiseinto their mangled flesh; hot brine and turpen- ments entire would require a great amount of tine are poured into their gashes; and innumerable other tortures inflicted upon them. We will in the first place, prove by a cloud of witnesses, that the slaves are whipped with such inhuman severity, as to lacerate and mangle their flesh in the most shocking manner, leaving permanent scars and ridges; after establishing this, we will present a mass of testimony, concerning a great variety of other tortures. The testimony, for the most part, will be that of the slaveholders themselves, and in their own chosen words. A large portion of it will be taken from the advertisements, which they have published in their own newspapers, describing by the WITNESSES. Mr. D. Judd, jailor, Davidson Co., space, and flood the reader with a vast mass of matter irrelevant to the point before us; wè shall therefore insert only so much of each, as will intelligibly set forth the precise point under consideration. In the column under the word "witnesses," will be found the name of the individual, who signs the advertisement, or for whom it is signed, with his or her place of residence, and the name and date of the paper, in which it appeared, and generally the name of the place where it is published. Opposite the name of each witness, will be an extract, from the advertisement, containing his or her testimony. TESTIMONY. Tennessee, in the " Nashville Banner," Martha, 17 or 18 years of age, has numerous scars of the Dec. 10th, 1838. Mr. Robert Nicoll, Dauphin st. be "Committed to jail as a runaway, a negro woman named whip on her back." "Ten dollars reward for my woman Siby, very much scarred tween Emmanuel and Conception st's, about the neck and ears by whipping." Mobile, Alabama, in the "Mobile Commercial Advertiser." Mr. Bryant Johnson, Fort Valley, Houston Co., Georgia, in the "Standard of Union," Milledgeville Ga. Oct. 2, 1838. Mr. James T. De Jarnett, Vernon, "Ranaway, a negro woman, named Maria, some scars on her back occasioned by the whip." "Stolen a negro woman, named Celia. On examining her Autauga Co., Alabama, in the "Pensa- back you will find marke caused by the whip." |