ON the fourth morning, the Patriot landed at Grand Gulf, a beautiful
town on the left bank of the Mississippi. Among the numerous passengers
who came on board at Rodney was another slave-trader, with nine human
chattels which he was conveying to the Southern market. The passengers,
both ladies and gentlemen, were startled at seeing among the new lot
of slaves a woman so white as not to be distinguishable from the other
white women on board. She had in her arms a child so white that no one
would suppose a drop of African blood flowed through its blue veins.
No one could behold that mother with her helpless babe, without feeling
that God would punish the oppressor. There she sat, with an expressive
and intellectual forehead, and a countenance full of dignity and
heroism, her dark golden locks rolled back from her almost snow-white
forehead and floating over her swelling bosom. The tears that stood in
her mild blue eyes showed that she was brooding over sorrows and wrongs
that filled her bleeding heart.
The hearts of the passers-by grew softer, while gazing upon that young
mother as she pressed sweet kisses on the sad, smiling lips of the
infant that lay in her lap. The small, dimpled hands of the innocent
creature were slyly hid in the warm bosom on which the little one
nestled. The blood of some proud Southerner, no doubt, flowed through
the veins of that child.
When the boat arrived at Natches, a rather good-looking,
genteel-appearing man came on board to purchase a servant. This
individual introduced himself to Jennings as the Rev. James Wilson. The
slave-trader conducted the preacher to the deck-cabin, where he kept
his slaves, and the man of God, after having some questions answered,
selected Agnes as the one best suited to his service.
It seemed as if poor Marion's heart would break when she found that she
was to be separated from her mother. The preacher, however, appeared to
be but little moved by their sorrow, and took his newly-purchased victim
on shore. Agnes begged him to buy her daughter, but he refused, on the
ground that he had no use for her.
During the remainder of the passage, Marion wept bitterly.
After a run of a few hours, the boat stopped at Baton Rouge, where an
additional number of passengers were taken on board, among whom were
a number of persons who had been attending the races at that place.
Gambling and drinking were now the order of the day.
The next morning, at ten o'clock, the boat arrived at New Orleans, where
the passengers went to their hotels and homes, and the negroes to the
slave-pens.
Lizzie, the white slave-mother, of whom we have already spoken, created
as much of a sensation by the fairness of her complexion and the
alabaster whiteness of her child, when being conveyed on shore at New
Orleans, as she had done when brought on board at Grand Gulf. Every one
that saw her felt that slavery in the Southern States was not confined
to the negro. Many had been taught to think that slavery was a benefit
rather than an injury, and those who were not opposed to the institution
before, now felt that if whites were to become its victims, it was time
at least that some security should be thrown around the Anglo-Saxon to
save him from this servile and degraded position.