THE CURSE OF SLAVERY.
The demoralization which the institution entailed upon all classes in
the community in which it existed, was indeed fearful to contemplate;
and we may well say that slavery is the curse of curses. While it made
the victim a mere chattel, taking from him every characteristic of
manhood, it degraded the mind of the master, brutalized his feelings,
seared his conscience, and destroyed his moral sense.
Immorality to a great extent, pervaded every slaveholding city, town,
village, and dwelling in the South. Morality and virtue were always the
exceptions. The Southern clergy, backed by the churches, defended their
right to hold slaves to the last. Houses of religious worship and the
negro pen were often in sight of each other.
The Southern newspapers teemed with advertisements, which were a fair
index to this monstrous social evil.
Now that slavery is swept away, it may be interesting to see some
of these newspaper notices, in the light of the new dispensation of
freedom.
The New Orleans “True Delta” in 1853, graced its columns with the
following: “Mr. Joseph Jennings respectfully informs his friends and
the public, that, at the request of many of his acquaintances, he has
been induced to purchase from Mr. Osborn, of Missouri, the celebrated
dark bay horse “Star,” age five years, square trotter, and warranted
sound, with a new light-trotting buggy and harness; also the stout
mulatto girl “Sarah,” aged about twenty years, general house servant,
valued at nine hundred dollars, and guaranteed; will be raffled for
at four o’clock, P. M., February 1st, at any hotel selected by the
subscribers.
“The above is as represented, and those persons who may wish to engage
in the usual practice of raffling will, I assure them, be perfectly
satisfied with their destiny in this affair.
“Fifteen hundred chances, at one dollar each.
“The whole is valued at its just worth, fifteen hundred dollars.
“The raffle will be conducted by gentlemen selected by the interested
subscribers present. Five nights allowed to complete the raffle. Both
of above can be seen at my store, No. 78 Common Street, second door
from Camp, at from 9 o’clock, A. M., till half-past two, P. M.
“Highest throw takes the first choice; the lowest throw the remaining
prize, and the fortunate winners to pay twenty dollars each, for the
refreshments furnished for the occasion.”
The “Picayune,” of the same city, gives the following:
“$100 REWARD.--Run away from the plantation of the undersigned, the
negro man Shedrick, a preacher, five feet nine inches high, about
forty years old, but looking not over twenty-three, stamped N. E. on
the breast, and having both small toes cut off. He is of a very dark
complexion, with eyes small, but bright, and a look quite insolent.
He dresses good, and was arrested as a runaway at Donaldsonville,
some three years ago. The above reward will be paid for his arrest,
by addressing Messrs. Armant Brothers, St. James Parish, or A.
Miltenberger & Co., 30 Carondelet Street.”
A Savannah (Georgia) paper has the annexed notice.
“Committed to prison, three weeks ago, under suspicious circumstances,
a negro woman, who calls herself Phebe, or Phillis. Says she is free,
and lately from Beaufort District, South Carolina. Said woman is about
fifty years of age, stout in stature, mild-spoken, five feet four
inches high, and weighs about one hundred and forty pounds. Having made
diligent inquiry by letter, and from what I can learn, said woman is a
runaway. Any person owning said slave can get her by making application
to me, properly authenticated.”
The practice of capturing runaway slaves, with blood-hounds trained for
the purpose, during the days of slave rule in the South, is well known.
We give below one of the advertisements as it appeared in print at the
time.
“The undersigned, having an excellent pack of hounds for trailing and
catching runaway slaves, informs the public that his prices in future
will be as follows for such services:
For each day employed in hunting or trailing $2.50
For catching each slave 10.00
For going over ten miles, and catching slaves 20.00
“If sent for, the above prices will be exacted in cash. The
subscriber resides one mile and a half south of Dadeville, Ala.
“B. BLACK.”
Slavery so completely seared the conscience of the whites of the South,
that they had no feeling of compassion for the blacks, as the following
illustration will show. At St. Louis, in the year 1835, Francis
McIntosh, a free colored man, while defending himself from an attack of
white ruffians, one of the latter was killed. At once the colored man
was taken, chained to a tree, and burnt to death. One of the newspapers
at the time gave the following account of the inhuman affair:--
“All was silent as death while the executioners were piling wood around
their victim. He said not a word, until feeling that the flames had
seized upon him. He then uttered an awful howl, attempting to sing
and pray, then hung his head, and suffered in silence, except in
the following instance. After the flames had surrounded their prey,
his eyes burnt out of his head, and his mouth seemingly parched to
a cinder, some one in the crowd, more compassionate than the rest,
proposed to put an end to his misery by shooting him, when it was
replied, ‘That would be of no use, since he was already out of pain.’
‘No, no,’ said the wretch, ‘I am not, I am suffering as much as ever;
shoot me, shoot me.’ ‘No, no,’ said one of the fiends who was standing
about the sacrifice they were roasting, ‘he shall not be shot. I would
sooner slacken the fire, if it would increase his misery;’ and the man
who said this was, as we understand, an officer of justice!”
Lest this demonstration of “public opinion” should be regarded as a
sudden impulse merely, not an index of the settled tone of feeling in
that community, it is important to add, that the Hon. Luke E. Lawless,
Judge of the Circuit Court of Missouri, at a session of that court
in the city of St. Louis, some months after the burning of this man,
decided officially that since the burning of McIntosh was the act,
either directly or by countenance of a majority of the citizens, it
is “a case which transcends the jurisdiction” of the Grand Jury! Thus
the State of Missouri proclaimed to the world that the wretches who
perpetrated that unspeakably diabolical murder, and the thousands that
stood by consenting to it, were her representatives, and the Bench
sanctified it with the solemnity of a judicial decision.