WERE SOME STATES ENGAGED IN BREEDING AND RAISING NEGROES FOR SALE?
As we now have a somewhat definite idea as to the amount of the
domestic slave trade the next questions which naturally claim our
attention are: Were some States consciously and purposely engaged in
breeding and raising negroes for the Southern market, and also, what
were the sources of supply for the trade? The former of these queries
is, no doubt, the most controverted and difficult part of our subject.
The testimony of travellers and common opinion generally seems to have
been in the affirmative. A quotation or two will suffice to show the
trend: The Duke of Saxe Weimar says, "Many owners of slaves in the
States of Maryland and Virginia have ... nurseries for slaves whence
the planters of Louisiana, Mississippi and other Southern States draw
their supplies."[190]
In a "Narrative of a Visit to the American Churches," the writer, in
speaking of the accumulation of negroes in the Gulf States, says:
"Slaves are generally bred in some States as cattle for the Southern
market."[191] And the Rev. Philo Tower, writing about twenty years
later draws a more vivid picture. "Not only in Virginia," he says, "but
also in Maryland, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri, as
much attention is paid to the breeding and growth of negroes as to that
of horses and mules.... It is a common thing for planters to command
their girls and women (married or not) to have children; and I am told
a great many negro girls are sold off, simply and mainly because they
did not have children."[192]
Undoubtedly some planters in all the slave States resorted to
questionable means of increasing their slave stock, but that it was a
general custom to multiply negroes in order to have them to sell is
very improbable.
Many of these travellers show prejudice. We have wondered, therefore,
whether it were too much to assume that they had more thought for the
effect their narrative would produce in the North or in England than
for its truth. Is it not probable that foreigners may have got their
information about breeding slaves when in the free States rather than
actual evidence of such an industry where the industry was supposed
to be carried on? It seems, at any rate, more than probable that
the exceptional cases which they found were made to appear as the
general rule. Then, too, the very fact that some States sold great
numbers of slaves was sufficient evidence to some, no doubt, that they
were engaged in the business of raising them for sale. It seems very
natural that this should be inferred. Consequently travellers reported
that certain sections were engaged in breeding and raising slaves for
market. They made the accusation that the so-called "breeding States"
were in the slave-breeding business for profit. But was it profitable?
If not, why were they in this business?
A negro above eighteen years of age would bring on an average about
$300 in the selling States from 1815 to, say, 1845. Sometimes he would
bring a little more, sometimes less.[193] Between the age of ten and
the time of sale we will suppose the slave paid for his keeping. But
before that time he would be too small to work. There was always some
defective stock which could not be sold;[194] this, taken in connection
with the fact that all negroes did not live to be ten years of age,
probably not more than half,[195] we shall be under the necessity of
deducting about one-half of the $300 on this account. This will leave
$150 or $15 per year for the possible expense of raising him. A bushel
of corn a month would have been about $8 per year for corn; fifty
pounds for meat $4. It is not likely he could have been clothed for
less than $3, and the $15 is gone, with nothing left for incidentals.
We think the above a very fair estimate.[196] In 1829 the average
price of negroes in Virginia was estimated at only $150 each.[197]
Why did not the border slave States raise hogs instead of negroes?
Bacon was at a good price during that period.[198]
The fact is the negroes probably increased without any consideration
for their master's wishes in the matter. A planter could stop raising
hogs whenever he might choose, but it seemed to be hardly within the
province of the master to limit the increase of his negroes. And the
better they were treated evidently the faster the increase. A man who
had one or two hundred negroes, and had scruples about selling them,
unless he should be able to add to his landed estate as they increased
was in a bad predicament. It seems some such men had the welfare of
their negroes at heart and used every means to keep them. Andrews tells
of one:
"A gentleman," he says, "in one of the poorer counties of Virginia has
nearly 200 slaves whom he employs upon a second rate plantation of
8,000 or 10,000 acres, and who constantly brought him into debt, at
length he found it necessary to purchase a smaller plantation of good
land in another county which he continues to cultivate for no other
purpose than to support his negroes."[199]
Sometimes men who were in prosperous circumstances would buy land as
fast as their slaves increased and settle them upon it.[200]
Slaves were seldom sold until they were over ten years of age,[201]
consequently if it were true that the border States made a business
of breeding and raising them for sale we should naturally expect to
find in these States a much greater proportion under ten than in the
buying States. To determine the truth of this we shall have recourse
to the Census Reports. The States of Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky and
North Carolina, in 1830, had, in round numbers 984,000 slaves, of which
349,000 were under ten years of age, and 635,000 over. This shows that
in these States there were 182 over ten years of age to every 100
under ten. Taking an equal number of the principal cotton-growing and
slave-buying States, say, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee,
we find that they had 346,000 over ten and 196,000 under ten,[202]
consequently for every 176 of the former they had 100 of the latter.
Therefore, at this time, the principal so-called "slave-breeding"
States had a smaller number of slaves under ten years than an equal
number of buying States. The numbers, it will be seen, differ as the
ratios 100-182 and 100-176.
In 1840 there were in the Southern States about 2,486,000 slaves,
of whom about 844,000 were under ten years of age, on an average,
therefore, of 100 under ten to every 194 over. Taking each State
separately we find that Virginia had just an average, having 100 of the
former to 194 of the latter; Maryland, 100 to every 203; Delaware, 100
to 218; District of Columbia, 100 to 280; Kentucky, 100 to 179; North
Carolina, 100 to 176; Missouri, 100 to 172; South Carolina, 100 to 205;
Louisiana, 100 to 267; Mississippi, 100 to 206; Florida, 100 to 220;
Georgia, 100 to 188; Arkansas, 100 to 195; Tennessee, 100 to 170 and
Alabama, 100 to 190.[203] Thus it is shown that the buying States of
Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee each had more children in proportion to
their slave population than Virginia; and that Maryland and Delaware
had about the same proportion as the buying States of Mississippi,
Florida and Arkansas. It would hardly be fair, however, to compare the
District of Columbia with Louisiana.
In 1860 we find that the proportion of slave children under ten years
of age is much less in all the States than in 1840.[204] In Virginia,
at this time, there were 100 under ten years to 227 over that age;
Delaware 100 to 233; Maryland, 100 to 229; Kentucky, 100 to 204; South
Carolina, 100 to 224; North Carolina, 100 to 202; Missouri, 100 to
190; Georgia, 100 to 221; Louisiana, 100 to 285; Mississippi, 100 to
242; Texas, 100 to 209; Arkansas, 100 to 219; Tennessee, 100 to 200;
Alabama, 100 to 221 and Florida 100 to 224.[205] This schedule shows
that the buying States which had a greater number of slave children in
proportion to their slave population in 1860, than Virginia, Maryland
and Delaware, were Georgia, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama, Texas, and
Florida.
It is noticeable in both schedules that the State of Louisiana is an
exception. The proportion of children there was much less than in the
other States. This is probably due to the strenuous work on sugar
plantations. It is also noticeable that the Western States had the
greatest proportional number of children, which is to be accounted
for by the healthfulness of the climate and by its being a rich and
prosperous farming section, where negroes were well fed and probably
free from the malarial ailments of some other sections. The conditions,
therefore, were very favorable to the prolific negro race.
We think it would be only natural that one should expect to have found
in Virginia and Maryland, which have had to bear the brunt of the
accusation of breeding slaves, the greatest proportion of children; not
only because of the reiterated accusations, but also on account of the
exportation of adult slaves from these States, which had the tendency
to heighten the proportion of children in these States and lessen it in
the States to which slaves were carried.
With regard to slave breeding, Shaffner, a native of Virginia, says:
"From our own personal observation, since we were capable of studying
the progress of human affairs, we are of opinion that there is less
increase of the slaves of the so-called 'breeding States,' than of the
more Southern of Gulf States.[206] "We doubt if there exists in America
a slave owner that encourages the breeding of slaves for the purpose of
selling them. Nor do we believe that any man would be permitted to live
in any of the Southern States that did intentionally breed slaves with
the object of selling them.[207]
Southerners generally have denied the accusation. When Andrew
Stevenson, of Virginia, was minister to England, he was, upon one
occasion, taunted by Daniel O'Connell with belonging to a State that
was noted for breeding slaves for the South. He indignantly denied the
charge.[208] And in 1839 the editor of the "Cincinnati Gazette" was
much abused for asserting that Virginia bred slaves as a matter of
pecuniary gain.[209]
Nehemiah Adams, a clergyman, went South in the early fifties biased
against slavery, but says, "the charge of vilely multiplying negroes in
Virginia is one of those exaggerations of which the subject is full,
and is reduced to this: that Virginia being an old State fully stocked,
the surplus black population naturally flows off where their numbers
are less."[210]
It would seem that these States are not only practically freed from the
charge of multiplying slaves and raising them for market as a business,
but that, as a rule, they did not sell their slaves unless compelled
to do so by pecuniary or other embarrassments.
Probably many planters were as conscientious about their slaves as
Jefferson appears to have been. In a letter he says:
"I cannot decide to sell my lands. I have sold too much of them
already, and they are the only sure provision for my children, nor
would I willingly sell the slaves as long as their remains any prospect
of paying my debts with their labor."[211]
It seems that he was finally compelled to sell some of them.[212]
Madison parted with some of his best land to feed the increasing
numbers of negroes, but admitted to Harriet Martineau that the
week before she visited him he had been obliged to sell a dozen of
them.[213] And Estwick Evans, who made a long tour of the country in
1818, says, "I know it to be a case, that slave holders, generally,
deprecate the practice of buying and selling slaves."[214] No doubt,
the planters were always glad to get rid of unruly and good-for-nothing
negroes, and these were pretty sure to fall into the hands of
traders.[215] The slave traders had agents spread over the States,
where slaves were less profitable to their owners, in readiness to
take advantage of every opportunity to secure the slaves that might in
any way be for sale. They would, even when an opportunity occurred,
kidnap the free negroes. They also sought to buy up slaves as if for
local and domestic use and then would disappear with them.[216] And it
was a common occurrence for plantations and negroes to be advertised
for sale. In one issue of the "Charleston Courier" in the winter of
1835 were advertised several plantations and about 1,200 negroes for
sale.[217] At such sales negro traders and speculators from far and
near were sure to be on hand attracted by the prospect of making good
bargains.[218]
Probably we could not better close this chapter than with a quotation
from Dr. Baily, who was editor of the "National Era," a moderate
antislavery paper. It appears to us that he correctly and concisely
sums up the whole matter:
"The sale of slaves to the South," he says, "is carried on to a great
extent. The slave holders do not, so far as I can learn, raise them
for that special purpose. But here is a man with a score of slaves,
located on an exhausted plantation. It must furnish support for all;
but while they increase, its capacity of supply decreases. The result
is he must emancipate or sell. But he has fallen into debt, and he
sells to relieve himself of debt and also from the excess of mouths.
Or he requires money to educate his children; or his negroes are sold
under execution. From these and other causes, large numbers of slaves
are continually disappearing from the State....
"The Davises in Petersburg are the great slave dealers. They are Jews,
who came to that place many years ago as poor peddlers.... These men
are always in the market, giving the highest price for slaves. During
the summer and fall they buy them up at low prices, trim, shave, wash
them, fatten them so that they may look sleek and sell them to great
profit....
"There are many planters who cannot be persuaded to sell their slaves.
They have far more than they can find work for, and could at any time
obtain a high price for them. The temptation is strong for they want
more money and fewer dependents. But they resist it, and nothing can
induce them to part with a single slave, though they know that they
would be greatly the gainers in a pecuniary sense, were they to sell
one-half of them."[219]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 190: Bernard, Duke of Saxe Weimar, Travels Through North
America, 1825-26, Vol. II., p. 63.]
[Footnote 191: Reed and Matheson: Visit to the Am. Churches, Vol. II.,
p. 173.]
[Footnote 192: Tower: Slavery Unmasked, p. 53. Note.--"The following
story was told me by one conversant with the facts as they occurred on
Mr. J.'s plantation, containing about 100 slaves. One day the owner
ordered all the women into the barn; he followed them whip in hand,
and told them he meant to flog them all to death; they, as a matter
of course, began to cry out, 'What have I done, Massa?' 'What have I
done, Massa?' He replied: 'Damn you, I will let you know what you have
done; you don't breed. I have not had a young one from you for several
months.' They promptly told him they could not breed while they had to
work in the rice ditches."
Slavery Unmasked was published in 1856. Exactly the same story as
above, almost verbatim, is found in "Interesting Memoirs and Documents
Relating to American Slavery." published in 1846. The fact that this
story is told in different books published ten years apart indicates
that such instances were very rare. It seemed strange that each
writer should claim to have received the story from a friend, or "one
conversant with the facts," for one seems to have copied directly from
the other. It was no doubt mere hearsay with both writers.
Others on slave breeding are: Buckingham: Slave States of America, Vol.
I., p. 182; Miss Martineau: Society in America, Vol. II., p. 41. Jay;
Miscellaneous Writings, p. 457. Abdy: Journal of a Residence in the
United States, Vol. II., p. 90. Rankin: Letters on American Slavery, p.
35. Candler: A Summary View of America, p. 277. Kemble: Journal of a
Residence on a Georgian Plantation, pp. 60, 122.]
[Footnote 193: Proceedings and Debates of the Virginia State
Constitutional Convention, 1829-30, p. 178. Dew: Debates in Virginia
Legislature, 1831-2. Pro-Slavery Argument, p. 358. Andrews: Domestic
Slave Trade, p. 77.]
[Footnote 194: Chambers: Am. Slavery and C. Laws, p. 148.]
[Footnote 195: Kemble: Journal of a Residence on a Georgia Plantation,
pp. 190, 191, 199, 204, 214, 215. We get from these that out of about
74 born 42 died very young.]
[Footnote 196: Stuart: Three Years in North America, Vol. II., p. 103.
He says it cost $35 per year to feed and clothe an adult negro a year.
Must cost half that much for a young one.]
[Footnote 197: Proceedings and Debates of Virginia State Con.
Convention, 1829-30, p. 178.]
[Footnote 198: Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, Vol. VI., p. 473.]
[Footnote 199: Andrews: Slavery and the Domestic Slave Trade, p. 119.]
[Footnote 200: Chambers: Am. Slavery and Color, p. 194.]
[Footnote 201: Ibid., p. 148.]
[Footnote 202: Census of 1830.]
[Footnote 203: Census of 1840.]
[Footnote 204: We do not know why unless it is because slaves being
higher more care was taken of them, which as a consequence caused them
to live longer.]
[Footnote 205: For data upon which these arguments are based see Census
Reports of 1830, 1840, and 1860.]
[Footnote 206: Shaffner: The War in America, p. 256.]
[Footnote 207: Ibid., p. 296.]
[Footnote 208: Annual Report of Am. and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society,
1850, p. 108.]
[Footnote 209: Ibid.]
[Footnote 210: Nehemiah Adams: Southern View of Slavery, p. 78.]
[Footnote 211: Ford: Jefferson's Works. Vol. VI., pp. 416-417.]
[Footnote 212: Ford: Jeff. Works. Vol. VI., p. 214.]
[Footnote 213: Martineau: Retrospect of Western Travel, Vol. II., p. 5.]
[Footnote 214: Evans: A Pedestrious Tour, p. 216.]
[Footnote 215: Olmsted: Seaboard Slave States, p. 392.]
[Footnote 216: Reed and Matheson: Narrative of a Visit to the American
Churches, Vol. II., p. 173.]
[Footnote 217: Charleston Courier (S.C.), Feb. 12, 1835.]
[Footnote 218: Sequel to Mrs. Kemble's Journal, p. 1. (Yale) Slavery
Pamphlet, Vol. XVII. De Bow's Review, Vol. XXIV., p. 595. Liberator,
Sept. 7, 1860; also May 6, 1853.]
[Footnote 219: National Era, June 10, 1847.]