That our readers may know familiarly the horrors of the American
“Middle passage,” we extract from the report on the free colored
population of Ohio the case of Mary Brown. Let the dainty
sentimentalists, who tremble to approach the “delicate” subject, stand
off; but if there are any who wish to help their suffering fellow
creatures, let them come and look at the naked ugliness of _things as
they are_, till they feel something like an honest and _practical_
indignation against the whole system of man-driving.
“Mary Brown, another colored girl who was kidnapped in 1830, was the
daughter of free parents in Washington city. She lived with her
parents until the death of her mother; she was then seized and sold.
The following are the facts as she stated them. One day when near the
Potomac bridge, Mr. Humphreys, the sheriff, overtook her, and told her
that she must go with him.――She inquired of him, what for? He made no
reply, but told her to come along. He took her immediately to a slave
auction. Mary told Mr. Humphreys that she was free, but he
contradicted her, and the sale went on. The auctioneer soon found a
purchaser, and struck her off for three hundred and fifty dollars. Her
master was a Mississippi trader, and she was immediately taken to the
jail. After a few hours, Mary was handcuffed――chained to a man slave,
and started in a drove of about forty for New Orleans. Her handcuffs
made her wrists swell so that they were obliged to take them off at
night, and put fetters on her ankles. In the morning her handcuffs
were again put on. Thus they travelled for two weeks, wading rivers,
and whipped up all day, and beaten at night, if they did not get their
distance. Mary says that she frequently waded rivers in her chains
with water up to her waist. It was in October, and the weather cold
and frosty. After traveling thus twelve or fifteen days, her arms and
ankles became so swollen that she felt that she could go no farther.
Blisters would form on her feet as large as dollars, which at night
she would have to open, while all day the shackles would cut into her
lacerated wrists. They had no beds, and usually slept in barns, or out
on the naked ground――was in such misery when she lay down that she
could only lie and cry all night. Still they drove them on for another
week. Her spirits became so depressed, and she grieved so much about
leaving her friends, that she could not eat, and every time the trader
caught her crying, he would beat her, accompanying it with dreadful
curses. The trader would whip and curse any of them whom he found
praying. One evening he caught one of the men at prayer――he took him,
lashed him down to a parcel of rails, and beat him dreadfully. He told
Mary that if he caught her praying he would give her Hell!! (Mary was
a member of the Methodist Church in Washington.) There were a number
of pious people in the company, and at night when the driver found
them melancholy, and disposed to pray, he would have a fiddle brought,
and make them dance in their chains. It mattered not how sad or weary
they were, he would whip them until they _would_ do it.
“Mary at length became so weak that she could travel no further. Her
feeble frame, was exhausted and sunk beneath her accumulated
sufferings. She was seized with a burning fever, and the trader,
fearing he should lose her, carried her the remainder of the way in a
wagon.
“When they arrived at Natchez, they were all offered for sale, and as
Mary was still sick, she begged that she might be sold to a kind
master. She would sometimes make this request in presence of
purchasers――but was always insulted for it, and after they were gone,
the trader would punish her for such presumption. On one occasion he
tied her up by her hands, so that she could only touch the end of her
toes to the floor. This was soon after breakfast; he kept her thus
suspended, whipping her at intervals through the day――at evening he
took her down. She was so much bruised, that she could not lie down
for more than a week afterwards. He often beat and choked her for
another purpose, until she was obliged to yield to his desires.
“She was at length sold to a wealthy man of Vicksburg at four hundred
and fifty dollars, for a house servant. But he had another object in
view. He compelled her to gratify his licentious passions and had
children by her. This was the occasion of so much difficulty between
him and his wife, that he has now sent her up to Cincinnati to be
free.
“We have no reason to doubt the account of Mary as given above. The
person from whom we heard this took it down from her own lips. Her
manner of relating it was perfectly simple and artless, and is here
written out almost verbatim. We have also the testimony of a number of
individuals who knew her in Vicksburg; they have no doubt of her
integrity, and say that we may rely implicitly upon the truth of any
statement which she may make.”