TRUTH STRANGER THAN FICTION
"Is the poor privilege to turn the key
Upon the captive, freedom? He's as far
From the enjoyment of the earth and air
Who watches o'er the chains, as they who wear."
DURING certain seasons of the year, all tropical climates are
subject to epidemics of a most destructive nature. The
inhabitants of New Orleans look with as much certainty for the
appearance of the yellow-fever, small-pox, or cholera, in the hot
season, as the Londoner does for fog in the month of November. In
the summer of 1831, the people of New Orleans were visited with
one of these epidemics. It appeared in a form unusually repulsive
and deadly. It seized persons who were in health, without any
premonition. Sometimes death was the immediate consequence. The
disorder began in the brain, by an oppressive pain accompanied or
followed by fever. The patient was devoured with burning thirst.
The stomach, distracted by pains, in vain sought relief in efforts
to disburden itself. Fiery veins streaked the eye; the face was
inflamed, and dyed of a dark dull red colour; the ears from time
to time rang painfully. Now mucous secretions surcharged the
tongue, and took away the power of speech; now the sick one
spoke, but in speaking had a foresight of death. When the violence
of the disease approached the heart, the gums were blackened. The
sleep, broken, troubled by convulsions, or by frightful visions,
was worse than the waking hours; and when the reason
sank under a delirium which had its seat in the brain, repose
utterly forsook the patient's couch. The progress of the heat
within was marked by yellowish spots, which spread over the
surface of the body. If, then, a happy crisis came not, all hope
was gone. Soon the breath infected the air with a fetid odour, the
lips were glazed, despair painted itself in the eyes, and sobs,
with long intervals of silence, formed the only language. From
each side of the mouth spread foam, tinged with black and burnt
blood. Blue streaks mingled with the yellow all over the frame.
All remedies were useless. This was the Yellow Fever. The
disorder spread alarm and confusion throughout the city. On an
average, more than 400 died daily. In the midst of disorder and
confusion, death heaped victims on victims. Friend followed
friend in quick succession. The sick were avoided from the fear
of contagion, and for the same reason the dead were left
unburied. Nearly 2000 dead bodies lay uncovered in the
burial-ground, with only here and there a little lime thrown
over them, to prevent the air becoming infected.
The Negro, whose home is in a hot climate, was not proof against
the disease. Many plantations had to suspend their work for want
of slaves to take the places of those carried off by the fever.
Henry Morton and wife were among the thirteen thousand swept away
by the raging disorder that year. Like too many, Morton had been
dealing extensively in lands and stocks; and though apparently in
good circumstances was, in reality, deeply involved in debt.
Althesa, although as white as most white women in a southern
clime, was, as we already know, born a slave. By the laws of all
the Southern States the children follow the condition of the
mother. If the mother is free the children are free; if a slave,
they are slaves. Morton was unacquainted with the laws
of the land; and although he had married Althesa, it was a
marriage which the law did not recognise; and therefore she whom
he thought to be his wife was, in fact, nothing more than his
slave. What would have been his feelings had he known this, and
also known that his two daughters, Ellen and Jane, were his
slaves? Yet such was the fact. After the disappearance of the
disease with which Henry Morton had so suddenly been removed, his
brother went to New Orleans to give what aid he could in settling
up the affairs. James Morton, on his arrival in New Orleans, felt
proud of his nieces, and promised them a home with his own family
in Vermont; little dreaming that his brother had married a slave
woman, and that his nieces were slaves. The girls themselves had
never heard that their mother had been a slave, and therefore knew
nothing of the danger hanging over their heads. An inventory of
the property was made out by James Morton, and placed in the
hands of the creditors; and the young ladies, with their uncle,
were about leaving the city to reside for a few days on the banks
of Lake Pontchartrain, where they could enjoy a fresh air that
the city could not afford. But just as they were about taking the
train, an officer arrested the whole party; the young ladies as
slaves, and the uncle upon the charge of attempting to conceal the
property of his deceased brother. Morton was overwhelmed with
horror at the idea of his nieces being claimed as slaves, and
asked for time, that he might save them from such a fate. He even
offered to mortgage his little farm in Vermont for the amount
which young slave women of their ages would fetch. But the
creditors pleaded that they were "an extra article," and would
sell for more than common slaves; and must, therefore, be sold at
auction. They were given up, but neither ate nor slept,
nor separated from each other, till they were taken into the New
Orleans slave market, where they were offered to the highest
bidder. There they stood, trembling, blushing, and weeping;
compelled to listen to the grossest language, and shrinking from
the rude hands that examined the graceful proportions of their
beautiful frames.
After a fierce contest between the bidders, the young ladies were
sold, one for 2,300 dollars, and the other for 3,000 dollars. We
need not add that had those young girls been sold for mere house
servants or field hands, they would not have brought one half the
sums they did. The fact that they were the grand-daughters of
Thomas Jefferson, no doubt, increased their value in the market.
Here were two of the softer sex, accustomed to the fondest
indulgence, surrounded by all the refinements of life, and with
all the timidity that such a life could produce, bartered away
like cattle in Smithfield market. Ellen, the eldest, was sold to
an old gentleman, who purchased her, as he said, for a
housekeeper. The girl was taken to his residence, nine miles from
the city. She soon, however, knew for what purpose she had been
bought; and an educated and cultivated mind and taste, which made
her see and understand how great was her degradation, now armed
her hand with the ready means of death. The morning after her
arrival, she was found in her chamber, a corpse. She had taken
poison. Jane was purchased by a dashing young man, who had just
come into the possession of a large fortune. The very appearance
of the young Southerner pointed him out as an unprincipled
profligate; and the young girl needed no one to tell her of her
impending doom. The young maid of fifteen was immediately removed
to his country seat, near the junction of the
Mississippi river with the sea. This was a most singular spot,
remote, in a dense forest spreading over the summit of a cliff
that rose abruptly to a great height above the sea; but so grand
in its situation, in the desolate sublimity which reigned around,
in the reverential murmur of the waves that washed its base, that,
though picturesque, it was a forest prison. Here the young lady
saw no one, except an old Negress who acted as her servant. The
smiles with which the young man met her were indignantly spurned.
But she was the property of another, and could hope for justice
and mercy only through him.
Jane, though only in her fifteenth year, had become strongly
attached to Volney Lapuc, a young Frenchman, a student in her
father's office. The poverty of the young man, and the youthful
age of the girl, had caused their feelings to be kept from the
young lady's parents. At the death of his master, Volney had
returned to his widowed mother at Mobile, and knew nothing of the
misfortune that had befallen his mistress, until he received a
letter from her. But how could he ever obtain a sight of her,
even if he wished, locked up as she was in her master's mansion?
After several days of what her master termed "obstinacy" on her
part, the young girl was placed in an upper chamber, and told
that that would be her home, until she should yield to her
master's wishes. There she remained more than a fortnight, and
with the exception of a daily visit from her master, she saw no
one but the old Negress who waited upon her. One bright moonlight
evening as she was seated at the window, she perceived the figure
of a man beneath her window. At first, she thought it was her
master; but the tall figure of the stranger soon convinced her
that it was another. Yes, it was Volney! He had no sooner
received her letter, than he set out for New Orleans;
and finding on his arrival there, that his mistress had been
taken away, resolved to follow her. There he was; but how could
she communicate with him? She dared not trust the old Negress with
her secret, for fear that it might reach her master. Jane wrote a
hasty note and threw it out of the window, which was eagerly
picked up by the young man, and he soon disappeared in the woods.
Night passed away in dreariness to her, and the next morning she
viewed the spot beneath her window with the hope of seeing the
footsteps of him who had stood there the previous night. Evening
returned, and with it the hope of again seeing the man she loved.
In this she was not disappointed; for daylight had scarcely
disappeared, and the moon once more rising through the tops of
the tall trees, when the young man was seen in the same place as
on the previous night. He had in his hand a rope ladder. As soon
as Jane saw this, she took the sheets from her bed, tore them
into strings, tied them together, and let one end down the side of
the house. A moment more, and one end of the rope ladder was in
her hand, and she fastened it inside the room. Soon the young
maiden was seen descending, and the enthusiastic lover, with his
arms extended, waiting to receive his mistress. The planter had
been out on an hunting excursion, and returning home, saw his
victim as her lover was receiving her in his arms. At this moment
the sharp sound of a rifle was heard, and the young man fell
weltering in his blood, at the feet of his mistress. Jane fell
senseless by his side. For many days she had a confused
consciousness of some great agony, but knew not where she was, or
by whom surrounded. The slow recovery of her reason settled into
the most intense melancholy, which gained at length the
compassion even of her cruel master. The beautiful
bright eyes, always pleading in expression, were now so
heart-piercing in their sadness, that he could not endure their
gaze. In a few days the poor girl died of a broken heart, and was
buried at night at the back of the garden by the Negroes; and no
one wept at the grave of her who had been so carefully cherished,
and so tenderly beloved.
This, reader, is an unvarnished narrative of one doomed by the
laws of the Southern States to be a slave. It tells not only its
own story of grief, but speaks of a thousand wrongs and woes
beside, which never see the light; all the more bitter and
dreadful, because no help can relieve, no sympathy can mitigate,
and no hope can cheer.