relieve the other, and Nalle was seen about Troy no more until he
returned a free man by purchase from his master. Harriet also
disappeared, and the crowd dispersed. How she came to be in Troy that
day, is entirely unknown to our citizens; and where she hid herself
after the rescue, is equally a mystery. But her struggle was in the
sight of a thousand, perhaps of five thousand spectators.
This woman of whom you have been reading is poor, and partially disabled
from her injuries; yet she supports cheerfully and uncomplainingly
herself and her old parents, and always has several poor children in her
house, who are dependent entirely upon her exertions. At present she has
three of these children for whom she is providing, while their parents
are working to pay back money borrowed to bring them on. She also
maintains by her exertions among the good people of Auburn, two schools
of freedmen at the South, providing them teachers and sending them
clothes and books. She never asks for anything for herself, but she does
ask the charity of the public for "her people."
For them her tears will fall,
For them her prayers ascend;
To them her toils and cares be given,
Till toils and cares will end.
If any persons are disposed to aid her in her benevolent efforts, they
may send donations to Rev. S. M. Hopkins, Professor in the Auburn
Theological Seminary, who will make such disposition of the funds sent
as may be designated by the donors.
[Illustration: Decoration]
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The Wabash
APPENDIX.
A few circumstances having come out in conversation with Harriet, they
are added here, as they may be of interest to the reader.
On asking Harriet particularly as to the age of her mother, she
answered, "Well, I'll tell you, Missis. Twenty-three years ago, in
Maryland, I paid a lawyer $5 to look up the will of my mother's first
master. He looked back sixty years, and said it was time to give up. I
told him to go back furder. He went back sixty-five years, and there he
found the will--giving the girl Ritty to his grand-daughter (Mary
Patterson), to serve her and her offspring till she was forty-five years
of age. This grand-daughter died soon after, unmarried; and as there was
no provision for Ritty, in case of her death, she was actually
emancipated at that time. But no one informed her of the fact, and she
and her dear children remained in bondage till emancipated by the
courage and determination of this heroic daughter and sister. The old
woman must then, it seems, be ninety-eight years of age, and the old man
has probably numbered as many years. And yet these old people, living
out beyond the toll-gate, on the South Street road, Auburn, come in
every Sunday--more than a mile--to the Central Church. To be sure, deep
slumbers settle down upon them as soon as they are seated, which
continue undisturbed till the congregation is dismissed; but they have
done their best, and who can doubt that they receive a blessing.
Immediately after this they go to class-meeting at the Methodist Church.
Then they wait for a third service, and after that start out home
again."
On asking Harriet where they got anything to eat on Sunday, she said, in
her quiet way, "Oh! de ole folks nebber eats anyting on _Sunday_,
Missis! We nebber has no food to get for dem on Sunday. Dey always
fasts; and dey nebber eats anyting on Fridays. Good Friday, an' five
Fridays hand gwine from Good Friday, my fader nebber eats or drinks, all
day--fasting for de five bleeding wounds ob Jesus. All the oder Fridays
ob de year he nebber eats till de sun goes down; den he takes a little
tea an' a piece ob bread." "But is he a Roman Catholic, Harriet?" "Oh
no, Misses; he does it for _conscience;_ we was taught to do so down
South. He says if he denies himself for the sufferings of his Lord an'
Master, Jesus will sustain him."
It has been mentioned that Harriet never asks anything for herself, but
whenever her people were in trouble, or she felt impelled to go South to
guide to freedom friend or brother, or father and mother, if she had not
time to work for the money, she was persistent till she got it from
somebody. When she received one of her _intimations_ that the old people
were in trouble, and it was time for her to go to them, she asked the
Lord where she should go for the money. She was in some way, as she
supposed, directed to the office of a certain gentleman in New York.
When she left the house of her friends to go there, she said, "I'm gwine
to Mr. ----'s office, an' I ain't gwine to lebe there, an' I ain't gwine
to eat or drink till I git enough money to take me down after the ole
people."
She went into this gentleman's office.
"What do you want, Harriet?" was the first greeting.
"I want some money, sir."
"You do? How much do you want?"
"I want twenty dollars, sir."
"_Twenty dollars?_ Who told you to come here for twenty dollars?"
"De Lord tole me, sir."
"Well, I guess the Lord's mistaken this time."
"I guess he isn't, sir. Anyhow I'm gwine to sit here till I git it."
So she sat down and went to sleep. All the morning and all the afternoon
she sat there still, sleeping and rousing up--sometimes finding the
office full of gentlemen--sometimes finding herself alone. Many
fugitives were passing through New York at that time, and those who came
in supposed that she was one of them, tired out and resting. Sometimes
she would be roused up with the words, "Come, Harriet, you had better
go. There's no money for you here." "No, sir. I'm not gwine till I git
my twenty dollars."
She does not know all that happened, for deep sleep fell upon her; but
probably her story was whispered about, and she roused at last to find
herself the happy possessor of _sixty dollars_, which had been raised
among those who came into the office. She went on her way rejoicing, to
bring her old parents from the land of bondage. She found that her
father was to be tried the next Monday, for helping off slaves; so, as
she says, she "removed his trial to a higher court," and hurried him off
to Canada. One more little incident, which, it is hoped, may not be
offensive to the young lady to whom it alludes, may be mentioned here,
showing Harriet's extreme delicacy in asking anything for herself. Last
winter ('67 and '68), as we all know, the snow was very deep for months,
and Harriet and the old people were completely snowed-in in their little
home. The old man was laid up with rheumatism, and Harriet could not
leave home for a long time to procure supplies of corn, if she could
have made her way into the city. At length, stern necessity compelled
her to plunge through the drifts to the city, and she appeared at the
house of one of her firm and fast friends, and was directed to the room
of one of the young ladies. She began to walk up and down, as she always
does when in trouble. At length she said, "Miss Annie?" "What, Harriet?"
A long pause; then again, "Miss Annie?" "Well, what _is_ it, Harriet?"
This was repeated four times, when the young lady, looking up, saw her
eyes filled with tears. She then insisted on knowing what she wanted.
And with a great effort, she said, "Miss Annie, could you lend me a
quarter till Monday? I never asked it before." Kind friends immediately
supplied all the wants of the family, but on Monday Harriet appeared
with the quarter she had borrowed.
But though so timid for herself, she is bold enough when the wants of
her race are concerned. Even now, while friends are trying to raise the
means to publish this little book for her, _she_ is going around with
the greatest zeal and interest to raise a subscription for her
Freedmen's Fair. She called on Hon. Wm. H. Seward, the other day, for a
subscription to this object. He said, "Harriet, you have worked for
others long enough. It is time you should think of yourself. If you ask
for a donation for _yourself_, I will give it to you; but I will not
help you to rob yourself for others."
Harriet's charity for all the human race is unbounded. It embraces even
the slaveholder--it sympathizes even with Jeff. Davis, and rejoices at
his departure to other lands, with some prospect of peace for the
future. She says, "I tink dar's many a slaveholder'll git to Heaven. Dey
don't know no better. Dey acts up to de light dey hab. You take dat
sweet little child (pointing to a lonely baby)--'pears more like an
angel dan anyting else--take her down dere, let her nebber know nothing
'bout niggers but they was made to be whipped, an' she'll grow up to use
the whip on 'em jus' like de rest. No, Missus, its because dey don't
know no better." May God give the people to whom the story of this woman
shall come, a like charity, so that through their kindness the last days
of her stormy and troubled life may be calm and peaceful.
[Illustration: Decoration]
WOMAN-WHIPPING,
ETHICALLY AND ESTHETICALLY CONSIDERED.
BY S. M. HOPKINS,
PROFESSOR IN THE AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY.
ESSAY ON WOMAN-WHIPPING.
The subject of the preceding memoir appears to have retained all her
life a feeling recollection of the effects of the whip in the hands of
her youthful mistress. Considering the vigor and frequency of the
application, this is not strange. Infinite cuffs and thwacks, more or
less, pass into oblivion; but a flogging with a raw-hide is not easily
forgotten. A slave's experience of the whip, however, was not confined
to his or to _her_ early days. A slave race must be controlled by fear
and pain: and the discipline, it was naturally thought, could not begin
too early. From childhood to old age they were liable to stripes, for
any reason or for no reason. If the slave was guilty of no fault, he
might be whipped, as appears from the preceding narrative, merely to
impress him with a salutary sense of the master's right and disposition
to whip.
A Northern man, born and bred under the influences of freedom and the
protection of law, and made acquainted with slavery in its old palmy
days, can never forget his sensations at his first sight of a
slave-whipping. The utmost he has ever seen in the way of corporal
punishment has been the switching of some obstreperous child by
competent authority; a discipline administered with prudence and
moderation; drawing no blood and leaving no scar. He now sees an adult
person stripped to the skin, his arms tied at their utmost stretch above
his head, or across some object which binds him into a posture the best
adapted to feel the full force of each blow. The instrument of suffering
is not a birch twig or a ferule, but a twisted raw-hide, or heavy "black
snake;" either of them highly effective weapons in the hands of a stout
executioner. Our Northern novice stands horror-stricken and paralyzed
for a moment; but at the second or third blow, and the piteous scream of
_Oh Lord! Massa!_ which follows, he digs his fingers into his ears, and
rushes to the furthest corner of his tent or dwelling, to escape the
scene. Even if he _could_ have endured the sight and sound a while
longer, he dared not. The horror in his face, and perhaps the
irrepressible word or act of interference was too sure to bring upon
himself the vengeance due to a "d--d Abolitionist." The little knot of
Southern _habitués_ look on with critical inspection, squirting
tobacco-juice, with their hands in their pockets.
If the subject is a woman, the interest rises higher, and the crowd
would be greater. There is a refinement of cruelty in the whipping of a
woman which used to stimulate agreeably the dull sensibilities of a
Southern mob. A dish of torture had to be peppered very high to please
the palates of those epicures in brutality. The helplessness and terror
of the victim, the exposure of her person, the opportunity for coarse
jests at her expense, all combined to make it a scene of rare enjoyment.
How the "chivalric" mind can endure the loss of such gratifications it
is difficult to conceive. The Romans were weaned from crucifixions and
gladiatorial combats very gradually. The process of ameliorating
criminal law and humanizing public sentiment went on for more than two
centuries. It was full four hundred years after the epoch of our
redemption when the monk Telemachus threw himself between the hired
swordsmen, whom a Christian audience was applauding, and laid down his
own life to wind up the spectacle. But the bloody morsel has been
snatched from the mouths of the "chivalry" at one clutch. No wonder
their mortification vents itself in weeping and wailing, and knashing
of teeth, and in such miscellaneous atrocities as their "Ku-Klux-Klans"
can venture to inflict on helpless freedmen and radicals.[2]
A recent Southern paper (the _Virginia Advertiser_) finds a providential
provision for the enslavement of the negro race in the thickness of
their skulls, enabling them to bear without injury the blows inflicted
in sudden rage by their masters; a suggestive confession, by the way, of
the influence of slavery on the tempers of the slaveholders. The whole
race must be prepared, it seems, for blows on the head with whatever
weapon came to hand! But admitting the thickness of the skulls, it
appears from an incident in the preceding pages, as well as from other
known instances, that the inventive genius of the slave-whipping
chivalry contrived to baffle the humane designs of Providence--a negro
skull well padded with wool might bear without injury the blow of a
boot-jack or a hammer, and yet prove insufficient to resist the impact
of a musket-ball or a ten-pound weight. It is of no avail to plate a
vessel with six inches of iron, if she is to be pounded with bolts that
can mash an eight-inch armor. Apparently, Divine Providence stopped
short of the necessary security for the predestined slave race. It
should have arranged for a progressive thickening of the negro cranium
to meet the increase of violence on the part of the master; until at
length slavery might be encountered with a difficulty like that which
besets naval gunnery, viz., what would be the result if an infrangible
African skull should be beaten by an irresistable Caucasian club?
But even this Virginia _laudator temporis acti_, this melancholy mourner
at the tomb of defunct slavery, does not allege any such Providential
thickening of the negro cuticle as to amount to a satisfactory anæthesis
against whipping. It has never been proven that a Virginia paddle or a
Georgia raw-hide well applied did not make the blood spirt as freely
through a black skin as through a white one; nor has any Southern savant
of the Nott and Gliddon school shown that there was not the same
_relative_ delicacy of organization in the slave woman as in the free. A
black woman was, relatively to the black man, the more delicate subject
for the whip; something more sensitive to the shame of stripping, more
liable to terror, and of rather softer fiber; so that the lash went
deeper both into soul and sense than in the case of her sable brother.
And this fact made the black woman a very suitable subject for the whip
in the hands of the Southern lady. To succeed in slave-whipping as in
any other fine art, the Horatian canon must be regarded, which requires
us to take a subject suited to our strength. It would have been
unreasonable, in ordinary cases, to expect a "dark-eyed daughter of the
South" to flog handsomely a stalwart negro man; she sometimes did it,
after he had been well tied up. But the slave girl was exactly suited to
her flagellating capacities. A good many women, North as well as South,
manifest a tendency to become tyrants in their own households, and love
to bully their servants. But this is an evil of a mitigated nature in
Northern society. The stupidest "help" in the kitchen knows she is safe
from any other lash than her mistress' tongue, and is commonly an adept
at the business of answering back again.
But the Southern mistress was a domestic devil with horns and claws;
selfish, insolent, accustomed to be waited on for everything. She grew
up with the instinct of tyranny--to punish violently the least neglect
or disobedience in her servants. The variable temper of girlhood, not
ugly unless thwarted, became in the "Southern matron" a chronic fury.
She was her own "overseer," and, like that out-door functionary, had her
own scepter, which she did not bear in vain. The raw-hide lay upon the
shelf within easy reach, and her arm was vigorous with exercise. The
breaking of a plate, the spilling of a cup, the misplacing of a pin in
her dress, or any other misadventure in the chapter of accidents, was
promptly illustrated with numerous cuts. The lash well laid on the
shoulders of a black _femme-de-chambre_, or screaming child, was an
agreeable titillation of the nervous sensibilities of the languid
creole; a headache, or a heartache, transferred itself through the
medium of the raw-hide to the back of Phillis or Araminta. They no doubt
whipped sometimes, like Mr. Squeers, for the mere fun of the thing. It
is an exquisite pleasure to a cowardly nature to have some creature to
torment; and there is this nemesis about cruelty that it engenders an
appetite which, like that for alcoholic stimulents, for ever demands
increased indulgence. It was the vindictive woman's nature in the South
that protracted and gave added ferocity to the rebellion. These
woman-whipping wives and mothers it was who hounded on the masculine
chivalry to the work of exterminating the "accursed Yankees," and thus
made their own punishment so much sorer than it need have been.
The mention of these amiable Southern characteristics cannot fail to
recall that highly suggestive scene of the Malebolge, with the
illustration of Gustave Doré, in which the tempters and destroyers of
women are seen scourged with Whips, in the hands of demons; especially
when we remember that the whipping of slave women to make them consent
to their own dishonor, was one of the usages of the patriarchal
chivalry. There is not a scene in which the imaginings of Dante have
been better seconded by the pencil of the great French artist: the
flying wretches hurrying in opposite directions, as the crowds in the
Jubilee year trampled each other, going and returning across the St.
Angelo Bridge; among them the bat-winged fiends with whips, lashing
right and left! In the throng are female figures: women who in life
tortured and corrupted other women. What terror in face and attitude!
How desperately they grapple with the rocks to lift themselves out of
reach of the scourge! And these two demons in the foreground! What an
absolute idealization of muscular ferocity! Every sinewy line in their
cantour displays the force of a fallen demi-god; their very tails curl
with delight in their ministry of vengeance.
Ahi; come facen levar le berze,
Alle prime percosse, e gia nessuno,
Le second aspettava ne le terze!
Ah! how they make them skip! There is Legree and Tom Gordon, and Madame
de Schlangenbad, from Louisiana, and Mrs. Crawley (_née_ Sharp) from
South Carolina, squirming under the torture! A very instructive, if not
agreeable exhibition!
But this fury in celestial Southern bosoms was merely institutional. Dip
the gentlest nature into the element of irresponsible power, and it
becomes in time covered over with a foul incrustation of cruelty. Those
beastly Roman ladies of Juvenal's time, who could order a slave woman to
be whipped to death without condescending to give any other reason than
their _sic volo, sic jubeo_, were not naturally worse than others. Take
any Roman or Southern girl of ten years of age, put a whip in her hands,
and a helpless slave child at her mercy; let her see nothing but
brutality to inferiors all around her, and by the time she is ready to
be married, she can hold up her thumb to the standing gladiator in the
arena, or beg her lover to bring her back from Bull Run a ring from the
bones of some Yankee soldier. It is a publicly known private fact,
illustrative of the influence of slavery on the female character, that
when a certain Northern clergyman applied to her father for the hand of
a celebrated Maryland heiress, the reply was, "You are quite welcome to
her! but I think it only fair to tell you that if I were going to storm
hell, I should put her in the advance."
There is every reason to hope, therefore, that the Southern character,
both male and female, will become gradually ameliorated by the changed
condition under which it will hereafter be formed. It is a common error,
one in which the Southern people themselves share, that there is
something in their climate to nurse and to justify their "high spirit,"
_anglicé_ their quarrelsomeness and brutality of temper. It is very
pleasant to lay off upon Nature or Providence what belongs only to will
or institutions. A man indulges in violent passions with little
restraint or remorse, so long as he can persuade himself he is merely
what certain positive natural laws make him. What an opiate for a
conscience defiled with lust and blood, to think that this is only
natural to the "sunny South." But in fact, the people of warm,
temperate, and tropical regions are most commonly gentle of mood; the
climate acts as an anodyne, and soothes them into a peaceful equilibrium
of the passions. The negroes of the Southern States are not passionate
or vindictive--well for their late masters and present persecutors that
they are not! What they may become from the treatment they are
experiencing from those preternatural and predestinated fools, is
another question.
The only reason the "chivalry" are bad-tempered and quarrelsome, is
found in that despotism in which they have been nursed, and which
associates the idea of personal dignity with an instant resort to
violence at any contradiction. But for slavery, the people of
Mississippi would have been no more addicted to street fights, dueling,
midnight assassinations, etc., than the people of Massachusetts. That
the former have any advantage in respect to courage, has been
sufficiently disproved by the rebellion. Whether the ex-Confederate
ladies may or may not be able to "fire the Southern heart" for another
attempt to overthrow the Government, it will at least never be done
under the persuasion that one Southerner is equal to five or any other
number above unity, of Yankees.
The traditions of slavery, indeed, will remain to keep alive among the
late slaveholding caste, the insolent and unchristian temper on which
they have prided themselves. But having no more helpless dependants to
storm at and abuse, their valor will needs submit to gradual
modifications. Some degree of self-government will become a necessity.
It may require several generations; but _institutions_ ceasing to
corrupt them, the loss of wealth, the necessity of work and a new Gospel
of peace, better than their old slaveholding Christianity, will
gradually educate them into a law-abiding, orderly, and virtuous people.
The Southern woman will of course share early in this beneficent
change--no longer perverted into a she-devil by the possession of
unrestrained power, and paying just wages to servants, who, if not
suited with their work, can leave without having to run off; her gentler
virtues will have a chance to assert themselves. Her striking qualities
will subside into a charming vivacity of temper. She will become a
gracious and pious mater-familias; she will perhaps in time learn to
apply to her own children a portion of that discipline of which her
slaves enjoyed a monopoly. In short, there neither is nor ever was any
reason, slavery excepted, why the Southern whites should not possess a
character for industry, peacefulness, and religion, equal to that of
the rural districts of New York and New England.