"When I was about twelve years of age I lived at Marietta, in this
state: I knew little of slaves, as there were few or none, at that
time, in the part of Virginia opposite that place. But I remember
seeing a slave who had run away from some place beyond my knowledge at
that time: he had an iron collar round his neck, to which was a strap
of iron rivetted to the collar, on each side, passing over the top of
the head; and another strap, from the back side to the top of the
first--thus inclosing the head on three sides. I looked on while the
blacksmith severed the collar with a file, which, I think, took him
more than an hour."
Rev. JOHN DUDLEY, Mount Morris, Michigan, resided as a teacher at the
missionary station, among the Choctaws, in Mississippi, during the
years 1830 and 31. In a letter just received Mr. Dudley says:--
"During the time I was on missionary ground, which was in 1830 and 31,
I was frequently at the residence of the agent, who was a
slaveholder.--I never knew of his treating his own slaves with
cruelty; but the poor fellows who were escaping, and lodged with him
when detected, found no clemency. I once saw there a fetter for '_the
d----d runaways_,' the weight of which can be judged by its size. It
was at least three inches wide, half an inch thick, and something over
a foot long. At this time I saw a poor fellow compelled to work in the
field, at 'logging,' with such a galling fetter on his ankles. To
prevent it from wearing his ankles, a string was tied to the centre,
by which the victim suspended it when he walked, with one hand, and
with the other carried his burden. Whenever he lifted, the fetter
rested on his bare ankles. If he lost his balance and made a misstep,
which must very often occur in lifting and rolling logs, the torture
of his fetter was severe. Thus he was doomed to work while wearing the
torturing iron, day after day, and at night he was confined in the
runaways' jail. Some time after this, I saw the same dejected,
heart-broken creature obliged to wait on the other hands, who were
husking corn. The privilege of sitting with the others was too much
for him to enjoy; he was made to hobble from house to barn and barn to
house, to carry food and drink for the rest. He passed round the end
of the house where I was sitting with the agent: he seemed to take no
notice of me, but fixed his eyes on his tormentor till he passed quite
by us."
Mr. ALFRED WILKINSON, member of the Baptist Church in Skeneateles,
N.Y. and an assessor of that town, testifies as follows :--
"I stayed in New Orleans three weeks: during that time there used to
pass by where I stayed a number of slaves, each with an iron band
around his ankle, a chain attached to it, and an eighteen pound ball
at the end. They were employed in wheeling dirt with a wheelbarrow;
they would put the ball into the barrow when they moved.--I recollect
one day, that I counted nineteen of them, sometimes there were not as
many; they were driven by a slave, with a long lash, as if they were
beasts. These, I learned, were runaway slaves from the plantations
above New Orleans.
"There was also a negro woman, that used daily to come to the market
with milk; she had an iron band around her neck, with three rods
projecting from it, about sixteen inches long, crooked at the ends."
For the fact which follows we are indebted to Mr. SAMUEL HALL, a
teacher in Marietta College, Ohio. We quote his letter.
"Mr. Curtis, a journeyman cabinet-maker, of Marietta, relates the
following, of which he was an eye witness. Mr. Curtis is every way
worthy of credit.
"In September, 1837, at 'Milligan's Bend,' in the Mississippi river, I
saw a negro with an iron band around his head, locked behind with a
padlock. In the front, where it passed the mouth, there was a
projection inward of an inch and a half, which entered the mouth.
"The overseer told me, he was so addicted to running away, it did not
do any good to whip him for it. He said he kept this gag constantly on
him, and intended to do so as long as he was on the plantation: so
that, if he ran away, he could not eat, and would starve to death. The
slave asked for drink in my presence; and the overseer made him lie
down on his back, and turned water on his face two or three feet high,
in order to torment him, as he could not swallow a drop.--The slave
then asked permission to go to the river; which being granted, he
thrust his face and head entirely under the water, that being the only
way he could drink with his gag on. The gag was taken off when he took
his food, and then replaced afterwards."
EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM MRS. SOPHIA LITTLE, of Newport, Rhode Island,
daughter of Hon. Asher Robbins, senator in Congress for that state.
"There was lately found, in the hold of a vessel engaged in the
southern trade, by a person who was clearing it out, an iron collar,
with three horns projecting from it. It seems that a young female
slave, on whose slender neck was riveted this fiendish instrument of
torture, ran away from her tyrant, and begged the captain to bring her
off with him. This the captain refused to do; but unriveted the collar
from her neck, and threw it away in the hold of the vessel. The collar
is now at the anti-slavery office, Providence. To the truth of these
facts Mr. William H. Reed, a gentleman of the highest moral character,
is ready to vouch.
"Mr. Reed is in possession of many facts of cruelty witnessed by
persons of veracity; but these witnesses are not willing to give their
names. One case in particular he mentioned. Speaking with a certain
captain, of the state of the slaves at the south, the captain
contended that their punishments were often very _lenient_; and, as an
instance of their excellent clemency, mentioned, that in one instance,
not wishing to whip a slave, they sent him to a blacksmith, and had an
iron band fastened around him, with three long projections reaching
above his head; and this he wore some time."
EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM MR. JONATHON F. BALDWIN, of Lorain county,
Ohio. Mr. B. was formerly a merchant in Massillon, Ohio, and an elder
in the Presbyterian Church there.
"Dear Brother,--In conversation with Judge Lyman, of Litchfield
county, Connecticut, last June, he stated to me, that several years
since he was in Columbia, South Carolina, and observing a colored man
lying on the floor of a blacksmith's shop, as he was passing it, his
curiosity led him in. He learned the man was a slave and rather
unmanageable. Several men were attempting to detach from his ankle an
iron which had been bent around it.
"The iron was a piece of a flat bar of the ordinary size from the
forge hammer, and bent around the ankle, the ends meeting, and forming
a hoop of about the diameter of the leg. There was one or more strings
attached to the iron and extending up around his neck, evidently so to
suspend it as to prevent its galling by its weight when at work, yet
it had galled or griped till the leg had swollen out beyond the iron
and inflamed and suppurated, so that the leg for a considerable
distance above and below the iron, was a mass of putrefaction, the
most loathsome of any wound he had ever witnessed on any living
creature. The slave lay on his back on the floor, with his leg on an
anvil which sat also on the floor, one man had a chisel used for
splitting iron, and another struck it with a sledge, to drive it
between the ends of the hoop and separate it so that it might be taken
off. Mr. Lyman said that the man swung the sledge over his shoulders
as if splitting iron, and struck many blows before he succeeded in
parting the ends of the iron at all, the bar was so large and
stubborn--at length they spread it as far as they could without
driving the chisel so low as to ruin the leg. The slave, a man of
twenty-five years, perhaps, whose countenance was the index of a mind
ill adapted to the degradations of slavery, never uttered a word or a
groan in all the process, but the copious flow of sweat from every
pore, the dreadful contractions and distortions of every muscle in his
body, showed clearly the great amount of his sufferings; and all this
while, such was the diseased state of the limb, that at every blow,
the bloody, corrupted matter gushed out in all directions several
feet, in such profusion as literally to cover a large area around the
anvil. After various other fruitless attempts to spread the iron, they
concluded it was necessary to weaken by filing before it could be got
off which he left them attempting to do."
Mr. WILLIAM DROWN, a well known citizen of Rhode Island, formerly of
Providence, who has traveled in nearly all the slave states, thus
testifies in a recent letter:
"I recollect seeing large gangs of slaves, generally a considerable
number in each gang, being chained, passing westward over the
mountains from Maryland, Virginia, &c. to the Ohio. On that river I
have frequently seen flat boats loaded with them, and their keepers
armed with pistols and dirks to guard them.
"At New Orleans I recollect seeing gangs of slaves that were driven
out every day, the Sabbath not excepted, to work on the streets.
These had heavy chains to connect two or more together, and some had
iron collars and yokes, &c. The noise as they walked, or worked in
their chains, was truly dreadful!"
Rev. THOMAS SAVAGE, pastor of the Congregational Church at Bedford,
New Hampshire, who was for some years a resident of Mississippi and
Louisiana, gives the following fact, in a letter dated January 9,
1839.
"In 1819, while employed as an instructor at Second Creek, near
Natchez, Mississippi, I resided on a plantation where I witnessed the
following circumstance. One of the slaves was in the habit of running
away. He had been repeatedly taken, and repeatedly whipped, with
great severity, but to no purpose. He would still seize the first
opportunity to escape from the plantation. At last his owner
declared, I'll fix him, I'll put a stop to his running away. He
accordingly took him to a blacksmith, and had an _iron head-frame_
made for him, which may be called lock-jaw, from the use that was made
of it. It had a lock and key, and was so constructed, that when on the
head and locked, the slave could not open his mouth to take food, and
the design was to prevent his running away. But the device proved
unavailing. He was soon missing, and whether by his own desperate
effort, or the aid of others, contrived to sustain himself with food;
but he was at last taken, and if my memory serves me, his life was
soon terminated by the cruel treatment to which he was subjected."
The Western Luminary, a religious paper published at Lexington,
Kentucky, in an editorial article, in the summer of 1833, says:
"A few weeks since we gave an account of a company of men, women and
children, part of whom were manacled, passing through our streets.
Last week, a number of slaves were driven through the main street of
our city, among whom were a number manacled together, two abreast, all
connected by, and supporting a _heavy iron chain_, which extended the
whole length of the line."