SOUTHERN CLASSES--CRUELTY TO SLAVES.
Sandhillers--Dirt-eating--Dipping--Their Mode of
Living--Patois--Rain-book--Wife-trade--Coming in to see the
Cars--Superstition--Marriage of Kinsfolks--Hardshell Sermon--Causes
which lead to the Degradation of this Class--Efforts to Reconcile the
Poor Whites to the Peculiar Institution--The Slaveholding Class--The
Middle Class--Northern Isms--Incident at a Methodist Minister's
House--Question asked a Candidate for Licensure--Reason of Southern
Hatred toward the North--Letter to Mr. Jackman--Barbarities and
Cruelties of Slavery--Mulattoes--Old Cole--Child Born at
Whipping-post--Advertisement of a Keeper of Bloodhounds--Getting Rid
of Free Blacks--The Doom of Slavery--Methodist Church South.
The sojourner in the Slave States is struck with the wretched and degraded
appearance of a class of people called by the slaveholders, "poor white
folks," and "the tallow-faced gentry," from their pallid complexion. They
live in wretched hovels, dress slatternly, and are exceedingly filthy in
their habits. Many of them are clay or dirt-eaters, which is said to cause
their peculiar complexion. Their children, at a very early age, form this
filthy and disgusting habit; and mere infants may be found with their
mouths filled with dirt. The mud with which they daub the interstices
between the logs of their rude domicils, must be frequently renewed, as
the occupants pick it all out in a very short time, and eat it. This
pernicious practice induces disease. The complexion becomes pale, similar
to that occasioned by chronic ague and fever.
Akin to this is the practice of snuff-dipping, which is not confined
exclusively to females of the poor white caste, though scarcely one in
fifty of this class is exempt from the disgusting habit. The method is
this: The female snuff-dipper takes a short stick, and wetting it with her
saliva, dips it into her snuff-box, and then rubs the gathered dust all
about her mouth, and into the interstices of her teeth, where she allows
it to remain until its strength has been fully absorbed. Others hold the
stick thus loaded with snuff in the cheek, _a la quid_ of tobacco, and
suck it with a decided relish, while engaged in their ordinary
avocations; while others simply fill the mouth with the snuff, and
imitate, to all intents and purposes, the chewing propensities of the men.
In the absence of snuff, tobacco in the plug or leaf is invariably
resorted to as a substitute. Oriental betel-chewing, and the Japanese
fashion of blacking the teeth of married ladies, are the height of
elegance compared with snuff-dipping. The habit leads to a speedy decay of
the teeth, and to nervous disorders of every kind. Those who indulge in it
become haggard at a very early age.
The _Petersburg_ (Va.) _Express_ estimates the number of women in that
State as one hundred and twenty-five thousand, one hundred thousand of
whom are snuff-dippers. Every five of these will use a two-ounce paper of
snuff per day; that is, to the hundred thousand dippers, two thousand five
hundred pounds a day, amounting, in one year, to the enormous quantity of
nine hundred and twelve thousand pounds. This practice prevails generally,
it says, among the poor whites, though some females of the higher classes
are guilty of it.
The poor whites obtain their subsistence, as far as practicable, in the
primitive aboriginal mode, viz., by hunting and fishing. When these
methods fail to afford a supply, they cultivate a truck-patch, and some of
them raise a bale or two of cotton, with the proceeds of the sale of which
they buy whiskey, tobacco, and a few necessary articles. When all other
methods fail, they resort to stealing, to which many of them are addicted
from choice, as well as from necessity. They are exceeding slovenly in
their habits, cleanliness being a rare virtue. Indolence is a prevailing
vice, and its lamentable effects are everywhere visible. They fully obey
the scriptural injunction, take no thought for the morrow. A present
supply, sufficient to satisfy nature's most urgent demands, being
obtained, their care ceases, and they relapse into listless inactivity.
They herd together upon the poor sand-hills, the refuse land of the
country, which the rich slaveholder will not purchase, for which reason,
they are sometimes called sand-hillers, and here they live, and their
children, and their children's children, through successive generations,
in the same deplorable condition of wretchedness and degradation.
They are exceedingly ignorant; not one adult in fifty can write; not one
in twenty can read. They can scarcely be said to speak the English
language, using a patois which is scarcely intelligible. An old lady thus
related an incident of which her daughter "_Sal_" was the heroine. "My
darter Sal yisterday sot the lather to the damsel tree, and clim up, and
knocked some of the nicest saftest damsels I ever seed in my born days." I
once called to make some inquiry about the road, at a small log tenement,
inhabited by a sand-hiller and family. A sheet was hanging upon the wall,
containing the portraits of the Presidents of the United States. I
remarked to the lady of the house that those were, I believed, the
pictures of the Presidents.
"Yes!" she replied; "they is, and I've hearn tell of 'em a long time. They
must be gittin' mighty old, ef some of 'em aint dead. That top one," she
continued, "is Gineral Washington. I've hearn of him ever sence I was a
gal. He must be gittin' up in years, ef he aint dead. Him and Gineral
Jackson fit the British and Tories at New Orleans, and whipped 'em, too."
She seemed to pride herself greatly on her historical knowledge.
One of these geniuses once informed me of a peculiar kind of book "he'd
hearn tell on," that the Yankees had. He had forgotten its name, but thus
described it: "It told the day of the week the month come in on. It told
when we was a gwine to have rain, and what kind of wether we was gwine to
have in gineral. May-be they call it a rain-book."
I replied that I had heard of the book, and I believed that it was called
an Almanac.
"You've said it now," remarked the man. "It's a alminick, and I'd give
half I's wuth to have one. I'd no when to take a umberell, and if I
haddent nary one, I'd no when I could go a huntin' without gittin' wet."
Two of these semi-savages had resolved to remove to the West, in hope of
bettering their condition. One wished to remove to Arkansas, the other to
Texas. The wife of the former wished to go to Texas, the latter to
Arkansas. The husbands were desirous of gratifying their spouses, but
could devise no plan that seemed likely to prove satisfactory, till one
day when hunting, finding game scarce, they sat down upon a log, when the
following dialogue took place:
"Kit, I'm sort o' pestered about Dilsie. She swars to Rackensack she'll
go, and no whar else. I allers had a hankerin' arter Texas. Plague take
Rackensack, I say! Ef a man war thar, the ager and the airthquakes ed
shake him out on it quicker en nothin'."
"When a woman's set on a gwine anywhar, they're a gwine. It's jest no use
to talk. I've coaxed Minnie more'n a little to go long with me to
Arkansas, and the more I coax, the more she wont go."
"Well, Kit, 'sposen we swap women."
"Well, Sam, what trade'll ye gin?"
"Oh! a gentleman's trade, of course!"
"Shucks, Sam! 'sposen I had a young filly, and you a old mar, ye wouldn't
ax an even trade, would ye?"
"No; it 'ud be too hard. I tell you what I'll do, Kit. Here's a shot-gun
that's wuth ten dollars, ef it's wuth a red. I'll give it and that ar
b'ar-skin hangin' on the side of my shanty, to boot, and say it's a
trade."
"Nuff sed, ef the women's agreed."
Home they went, and stated the case to the women, who, _after due
deliberation_, acceded to the proposition, having also made a satisfactory
arrangement about the children, and they all soon went on their way
rejoicing to their respective destinations in that
"American's haven of eternal rest,
Found a little farther West."
On the Sabbath after the completion of the Memphis and Charleston
railroad, a large number of the sand-hillers came to Iuka Springs, to
witness the passing of the cars. Arriving too early, they visited a church
where divine service was progressing. Whilst the minister was in the midst
of his sermon, the locomotive whistle sounded, when a stampede took place
to the railroad. The exodus left the parson almost alone in his glory.
The passing train caused the most extravagant expressions and gestures of
wonder and astonishment by these rude observers. It was an era in their
life.
Once while standing on the railroad-track, I observed a crowd of these
people coming to see the "_elephant_." They came so near, that I overheard
their conversation. One young lass, of sweet sixteen, with slattern dress
and dishevelled hair, looking up the road, which was visible for a great
distance, thus expressed her astonishment at what she saw: "O, dad! what a
long piece of iron!" Soon the whistle sounded; this they had never heard
before, and came to the conclusion that it was a dinner-horn. As soon as
the cars came in sight, they scattered like frightened sheep, some on one
side of the road, and some on the other. Nor did they halt till they had
placed fifty yards at least between them and the track.
Superstition prevails amongst them to a fearful extent. Almost every hut
has a horse-shoe nailed above the door, or on the threshold, to keep out
witches. In sickness, charms and incantations are used to drive away
disease. Their physicians are chiefly what are termed faith-doctors, who
are said to work miraculous cures. They are strong believers in luck. If a
rabbit cross their path, they will turn round to change their luck. If, on
setting out on a journey, an owl hoot on the left hand, they will return
and set out anew. If the new moon is seen through brush, or on the left
hand, it is a bad omen. They will have trouble during the lunar month.
When the whippoorwill is first heard in the spring, they turn head over
heels thrice, to prevent back-ache during the year. Dreams are harbingers
of joy or wo. To dream of snakes, is ominous. To dream of seeing a coffin,
or conversing with the dead, is a sign of approaching dissolution, and
many have no doubt perished through terror, occasioned by such dreams.
Fortune-tellers are rife amongst them--those sages whose comprehensive
view knows the past, the present, and the future. They seek unto familiar
spirits, that peep and mutter, for the living to the dead.
They have many deformed, and blind, and deaf among them, in consequence of
the intermarriage of relatives. Cousins often marry, and occasionally they
marry within the degrees of consanguinity prohibited by the law of God.
Perhaps this divine law forbids the marriage of cousins when it declares,
"Thou shalt not marry any that is near of kin." The sad effects on
posterity, both mentally and physically, lead to the conviction that if
the law of God does not condemn it, physiological law does.
These sand-hillers do not (when no serious preventive occurs) fail to
attend the elections, where the highest bidder obtains their vote.
Sometimes their vote will command cash, and sometimes only whiskey. It is
sad to witness the elective franchise, that highest and most glorious
badge of a freeman, thus prostituted.
The proverb holds good--Like people, like priest. Their ministers are
ignorant, ranting fanatics. They despise literature, and every Sabbath
fulminate censures upon an educated ministry. The following is a specimen
of their preaching. Mr. V---- is a Hard-shell Baptist, or, as they term
themselves, "Primitive Baptists." Entering the pulpit on a warm morning in
July, he will take off his coat and vest, roll up his sleeves, and then
begin:
MY BRETHERING AND SISTERN--I air a ignorant man, follered the plough
all my life, and never rubbed agin nary college. As I said afore, I'm
ignorant, and I thank God for it. (Brother Jones responds, "Passon,
yer ort to be very thankful, fur yer very ignorant.") Well, I'm agin
all high larnt fellers what preaches grammar and Greek fur a thousand
dollars a year. They preaches fur the money, and they gits it, and
that's all they'll git. They've got so high larnt they contradicts
Scripter, what plainly tells us that the sun rises and sets. They seys
it don't, but that the yerth whirls round, like clay to the seal. What
ud cum of the water in the wells ef it did. Wodent it all spill out,
and leave 'em dry, and whar ed we be? I may say to them, as the
sarpent said unto David, much learning hath made thee mad.
When I preaches, I never takes a tex till I goes inter the pulpit;
then I preaches a plain sarment, what even women can understand. I
never premedertates, but what is given to me in that same hour, that I
sez. Now I'm a gwine ter open the Bible, and the first verse I sees,
I'm a gwine to take it for a tex. (Suiting the action to the word, he
opened the Bible, and commenced reading and spelling together.) Man is
f-e-a-r-f-u-l-l-y--fearfully--and
w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l-l-y--wonderfully--m-a-d-e--mad.--"Man is fearfully
and wonderfully made." (Pronounced _mad_.) Well, it's a quar tex, but
I said I's a gwine to preach from it, and I'm a gwine to do it. In the
fust place, I'll divide my sarment into three heads. Fust and
foremost, I show you that a man will git mad. 2d. That sometimes he'll
git fearfully mad; and thirdly and lastly, when thar's lots of things
to vex and pester him, he'll git fearfully and wonderfully mad. And in
the application I'll show you that good men sometimes gits mad, for
the Posle David hisself, who rote the tex, got mad, and called all men
liars, and cussed his enemies, wishen' 'em to go down quick into hell;
and Noah, he got tite, and cussed his nigger boy Ham, just like some
drunken masters now cusses their niggers. But Noah and David repented;
and all on us what gits mad must repent, or the devil'll git us.
Thus he ranted, to the great edification of his hearers, who regard him as
a perfect Boanerges, to which title his stentorian voice would truly
entitle him. This exordium will serve as a specimen of the "sarment," as
it continued in the same strain to the end of the peroration.
Where there is no vision, the people perish. Such blind leaders of the
blind are liable, with their infatuated followers, to fall into a ditch
worse than Bunyan's Slough of Despond. This minister had undoubtedly run
when he was not sent, though he "had hearn a call; a audible voice had,
while he was a shucken corn, said unto him, Preach." Though God does not
need men's learning, yet he has as little use for their ignorance.
Learning is the handmaid of religion, but must not be substituted in its
stead.
The causes which induce this "wilderness of mind" are patent to all who
make even a cursory examination. There is a tendency in the poor to ape
the manners of the rich. Those having slaves to labour in their stead,
toil not physically; hence labour falls into disrepute, and the poorer
classes, having no slaves to work for them, and not choosing to submit to
the degradation of labour, incur all the evils resulting from idleness and
poverty. Ignorance and vice of every kind soon ensue, and a general apathy
prevails, which destroys in a great measure all mental and physical
vigour.
The slaveholders buy up all the fertile lands to be cultivated by their
slaves; hence the poor are crowded out, and if they remain in the vicinity
of the place of their nativity, they must occupy the poor tracts whose
sterility does not excite the cupidity of their rich neighbours. The
slaveholders' motto is, "Let us buy more negroes to raise more cotton, to
buy more negroes, and so on _ad infinitum_." To raise more cotton they
must also buy more land. Small farmers are induced to sell out to them,
and move further west. For this reason, the white population of the
fertile sections of the older slave States is constantly on the decrease,
while the slave population is as constantly increasing. Thus the
slaveholder often acquires many square miles of land, and hundreds of
human chattels. He is, as it were, set alone in the earth. Priding himself
upon his wealth, he will not send his princely sons to the same school
with the poor white trash; he either sends them to some distant college or
seminary, or employs a private teacher exclusively for his children. The
poor whites in the neighbourhood, even should they desire to educate their
children, have no means to pay for their tuition. Compelled to live on
poor or worn-out lands, honest toil considered degrading, and forced to
submit to many inconveniences and disabilities (all the offices of honour
and profit being monopolized by the slaveholders,) through the workings of
the "peculiar institution," they find it utterly impossible to educate
their offspring, even in the rudiments of their mother tongue. As the
power of slavery increases, their condition waxes worse and worse.
The slaveocracy becomes more exacting. Laws are passed by the legislature
compelling non-slaveholders to patrol the country nightly, to prevent
insurrections by the negroes. They denounce the law, but coercion is
resorted to, and the poor whites are forced to obey. When their masters
call for them, they must leave their labour, by day or by night, patrol
the country, follow the bloodhounds, arrest the fugitive slave, and do all
other dirty work which their tyrants demand. If they refuse to obey, they
are denounced as abolitionists, and are in danger of death at the hands of
Judge Lynch, the mildest punishment they can hope for being a coat of tar
and feathers.
The house-negroes feel themselves several degrees above the poor whites,
as they, from their opportunities for observation amongst the higher
classes, are possessed of greater information and less rusticity than this
less favoured class. The poor whites have no love for the institution of
slavery. They regard it as the instrument of inflicting upon them many
wrongs, and depriving them of many rights. They dare not express their
sentiments to the slaveholders, who hold them completely under their
power. A. G. Brown, United States Senator from Mississippi, to reconcile
the poor whites to the peculiar institution, used the following arguments
in a speech at Iuka Springs, Mississippi. He stated, that if the slaves
were liberated, and suffered to remain in the country, the rich would have
money to enable them to go to some other clime, and that the poor whites
would be compelled to remain amongst the negroes, who would steal their
property, and destroy their lives; and if slavery were abolished, and the
negroes removed and colonized, the rich would take the poor whites for
slaves, in their stead, and reduce them to the condition of the Irish and
Dutch in the North, whose condition he represented to be one of cruel
bondage. These statements had some effect upon his auditors, who
believed, from sad experience, that the rich could oppress the poor as
they chose, and might, in the contingency specified, reduce them to
slavery. Labour is considered so degrading, that any argument, based upon
making labour compulsory on their part, has its weight. Even the beggar
despises work. A sturdy beggar asked alms at a house at which I was
lodging. As he appeared to be a man of great physical strength, he was
advised to go to work, and thus provide for his wants. "Work!" said he, in
disgust; "niggers do the work in this country"--and retired highly
insulted.
This people form a distinct class, distinguished by as many
characteristics from the middle and higher classes of Southern society, as
the Jews are from the nations amongst whom they sojourn. The causes which
brought about their reduction to their present state of semi-barbarism,
must be removed, ere they can rise to the condition whence they have
fallen. They must rise upon the ruins of slavery. When the peculiar
institution is abolished, then, and not till then, will their disabilities
be removed, and they be in reality what they are nominally--freemen.
Slaveholders and their families form a distinct class, characterized by
idleness, vanity, licentiousness, profanity, dissipation, and tyranny.
There are glorious exceptions, it is true, but those are the
distinguishing traits of the class. The middle class is the virtuous class
of the South. They are industrious, frugal, hospitable, simple in their
habits, plain and unostentatious in their manners. Some of this class are
small slaveholders, but the great majority own none. The gross vices of
the higher class are not found among them. They labour regardless of the
sneers of their aristocratic neighbours. Senator Hammond, of South
Carolina, may call them mudsills; they regard it not, but pursue the even
tenor of their way. The slow, unmoving finger of scorn may be pointed at
them by the sons of pride, yet they refuse to eat the bread of idleness,
and labour with their _own hands_, that they may provide things honest in
the sight of all men. Equidistant from poverty and riches, they enjoy the
golden mean, and immunity from the temptations incident to the extremes of
abject poverty and great riches.
In the slave States all those born north of the "nigger line," are
denominated Yankees. This is applied as a term of reproach. When a
southerner is angry with a man of northern nativity, he does not fail to
stigmatize him as a Yankee. The slaveholders manifest considerable
antipathy against the Yankees, which has been increasing during the last
ten years. In 1858, the Legislature of Mississippi passed resolutions
recommending non-intercourse with the "Abolition States," and requesting
the people not to patronize natives of those States residing amongst them,
and especially to discountenance Yankee ministers and teachers. In the
educational notice of Memphis Synodical College, at La Grange, Tennessee,
it is expressly stated that the Faculty are of southern birth and
education. The principals of the Female Seminaries at Corinth and Iuka,
Mississippi, give notice that no Yankee teachers will be employed in those
institutions. While on a visit at the house of a Methodist clergyman,
quite a number of ministers, returning from Conference, called to tarry
for the night. During the evening, one of them, learning that I was
"_Yankee born_," thus interrogated me: "Why is it, sir, that all kinds of
delusions originate in the North, such as Millerism, Mormonism,
Spirit-rappings, and Abolitionism?" To which I replied: "The North
originates everything. All the text-books used in southern schools, all
the books on law, physic, and divinity, are written and published north of
Mason & Dixon's line. The South does not even print Bibles. The magnetic
telegraph, the locomotive, Lucifer matches, and even the cotton-gin, are
all northern inventions. The South, sir, has not sense enough to invent a
decent humbug. These humbugs once originated, the South is always well
represented by believers in them. I have known more men to go from this
county (Shelby county, Tennessee) to the Mormons, than I have known to go
from the whole State of Ohio."
When I had thus spoken, my inquisitor was nonplussed, and the laugh went
against him.
When a candidate before the Presbytery of Chickasaw, in Mississippi, for
licensure, one of the members of Presbytery, learning that I was a
"Yankee," asked me the following questions, and received the following
answers:
"Mr. Aughey, when will the day of judgment take place?"
"The Millerites have stated that the 30th of June next will be the
judgment-day. As for myself, I have had no revelation on the subject, and
expect none."
"Do you believe that any one can call the spirits?"
"I do, sir."
"What! believe that the spirits can be called?"
"I do, sir."
"I will vote, then, against your licensure, if you have fallen into this
heresy of the land of your nativity."
Another then said:
"Brother Aughey, please explain yourself. I know you do not believe in
spirit-rapping."
"I do not, sir, though I believe, as I stated, that any one may call the
spirits; but I do not believe that they will come in answer to the call."
A lady once remarked to me that she did not believe that a northern man
would ever become fully reconciled to the institution of slavery, and that
his influence and sentiments, whatever might be his profession of
attachment to the peculiar institution, would be against it. The cause of
the general opposition to northern men is their opposition to slavery.
Their testimony is against its abominations and barbarities, and hence the
wish to impair the credibility of the witnesses.
An illustration of the working of the institution may be found in the
following letter:
KOSCIUSKO, ATTALA COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI,
December 25, 1861.
MR. WILLIAM JACKMAN:
DEAR SIR--Your last kind and truly welcome letter came to hand in due
course of mail. I owe you an apology for delaying an answer so long.
My apparent neglect was occasioned by no want of respect for you; but
in consequence of the disturbed state of the country, and difficulty
of communication with the North, I feared my reply would never reach
you. Now, however, by directing "_via_ Norfolk and flag of truce,"
letters are sent across the lines to the North. In your letter you
desired me, from this stand-point, to give you my observations of the
workings of the peculiar institution, and an expression of my views as
to its consistency with the eternal principles of rectitude and
justice. In reply, I will give you a plain narrative of facts.
On my advent to the South, I was at first struck with the fact that
the busy hum of labour had in some measure ceased. What labour I did
observe progressing, was done with little skill, and mainly by
negroes. I called upon the Rev. Dr. R. J. Breckinridge, to whom I had
a letter of introduction, who treated me with the greatest kindness,
inviting me to make his house my home when I visited that section of
country. On leaving his house, he gave me some directions as to the
road I must travel to reach a certain point. "You will pass," said he,
"a blacksmith's shop, where a one-eyed man is at work--my property."
The phrase, "my property," I had never before heard applied to a human
being, and though I had never been taught to regard the relation of
master and slave as a sinful relation, yet it grated harshly upon my
ears to hear a human being, a tradesman, called a chattel; but it
grated much more harshly, a week after this, to hear the groans of two
such chattels, as they underwent a severe flagellation, while chained
to the whipping-post, because they had, by half an hour, overstayed
their time with their families on an adjoining plantation.
The next peculiar abomination of the peculiar institution which I
observed, was the licentiousness engendered by it. Mr. D. T----, of
Madison county, Kentucky, had a white family of children, and a black,
or rather mulatto family. As his white daughters married, he gave each
a mulatto half-sister, as a waiting-girl, or body-servant. Mr.
K.----, of Winchester, Kentucky, had a mulatto daughter, and he was
also the father of her child, thus re-enacting Lot's sin. Dr. C----,
of Tishomingo county, Mississippi, has a negro concubine, and a white
servant to wait on her. Mr. B.----, of Marshall county, Mississippi,
lived with his white wife till he had grandchildren, some of whom came
to school to me, when he repudiated his white wife, and attached
himself to a very homely old African, who superintends his household,
and rules his other slaves with rigour. Mr. S----, of Tishomingo
county, Mississippi, has a negro concubine, and a large family of
mulatto children. He once brought this woman to church in Rienzi, to
the great indignation of the white ladies, who removed to a
respectable distance from her.
I preached recently to a large congregation of slaves, the third of
whom were as white as myself. Some of them had red hair and blue eyes.
If there are any marked characteristics of their masters' families,
the mulatto slaves are possessed of these characteristics. I refer to
physical peculiarities, such as large mouths, humped shoulders, and
peculiar expressions of countenance. I asked a gentleman how it
happened that some of his slaves had red hair. He replied that he had
a red-headed overseer for several years.
I never knew a pious overseer--never! There may be many, but I never
saw one. Overseers, as a class, are worse than slaveholders
themselves. They are cruel, brutal, licentious, dissipated, and
profane. They always carry a loaded whip, a revolver, and a
Bowie-knife. These men have the control of women, whom they often whip
to death. Mr. P----, who resided near Holly Springs, had a negro woman
whipped to death while I was at his house during a session of
Presbytery. Mr. C----, of Waterford, Mississippi, had a woman whipped
to death by his overseer. But such cruel scourgings are of daily
occurrence. Colonel H----, a member of my church, told me yesterday
that he ordered a boy, who he supposed was _feigning_ sickness, to the
whipping-post, but that he had not advanced ten steps toward it, when
he fell dead!--and the servant was free from his master. During our
conversation, a girl passed. "There is a girl," said he, "who does not
look very white in the face, owing to exposure; but when I strip her
to whip her, I find that she has a skin as fair as my wife." Mrs.
F---- recently whipped a boy to death within half a mile of my
residence. A jury of inquest returned a verdict that he came to his
death by cruelty; but nothing more was done. Mrs. M---- and her
daughter, of Holly Springs, abused a girl repeatedly. She showed her
bruises to some of my acquaintances, and they believed them fatal. She
soon after died. Mr. S----, a member of my church, has several maimed
negroes from abuse on the part of the overseer.
I am residing on the banks of the Yock-a-nookany, which means
"meandering," when translated from the Indian tongue. In this vicinity
there are large plantations, cultivated by hundreds of negroes. The
white population is sparse. Every night the negroes are brought to a
judgment-seat. The overseer presides. If they have not laboured to
suit him, or if their task is unfulfilled, they are chained to a post,
and severely whipped. The victims are invariably stripped; to what
extent, is at the option of the overseer. In Louisiana, women,
preparatory to whipping, are often stripped to a state of perfect
nudity. Old Mr. C----, of Waterford, Mississippi, punished his negroes
_by slitting the soles of their feet with his Bowie-knife_! One man he
put into a cotton-press, and turned the screw till life was extinct.
He stated that he only intended to alarm the man, but carried the joke
too far. I have heard women thus plead, in piteous accents, when
chained to the whipping-post, and stripped: "O, my God, master! don't
whip me! I was sick! indeed I was sick! I had a chill, and the fever
is on me now! I haven't tasted a morsel to-day! You know I works when
I is well! O for God's sake don't whip a poor sick nigger! My poor
chile's sick too! Missis thinks it's a dyin'! O master, for the love
of God, don't cut a poor distressed woman wid your whip! I'll try to
do better, ef you'll only let me off this once!" These piteous
plaints only rouse the ire of their cruel task-masters, who sometimes
knock them down in the midst of their pleadings. I have known an
instance of a woman giving birth to a child at the whipping-post. The
fright and pain brought on premature labour.
One beautiful Sabbath morning I stood on the levee at Baton Rouge,
Louisiana, and counted twenty-seven sugar-houses in full blast. I
found that the negroes were compelled to labour eighteen hours per
day, and were not permitted to rest on the Sabbath during the rolling
season. The negroes on most plantations have a truck-patch, which they
cultivate on the Sabbath. I have pointed out the sin of thus labouring
on the Sabbath, but they plead necessity; their children, they state,
must suffer from hunger if they did not cultivate their truck-patch,
and their masters would not give them time on any other day.
Negroes, by law, are prohibited from learning to read. This law was
not strictly enforced in Tennessee and some other States till within
a few years past. I had charge of a Sabbath-school for the instruction
of blacks in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1853. This school was put down by
the strong arm of the law in a short time after my connection with it
ceased. In Mississippi, a man who taught slaves to read or write would
be sent to the penitentiary instanter. The popular plea for this
wickedness is, that if they were taught to read, they would read
abolition documents; and if they were taught to write, they would
write themselves passes, and pass northward to Canada.
Such advertisements as the following often greet the eye.
"_Kansas War._--The undersind taks this method of makkin it noan that
he has got a pack of the best nigger hounds in the South. My hounds is
well trand, and I has had much experience a huntin niggers, having
follered it for the last fiften year. I will go anywhar that I'm sent
for, and will ketch niggers at the follerin raits.
"My raits fur ketchin runaway niggers $10 per hed, ef they's found in
the beat whar thar master lives; $15 if they's found in the county,
and $50 if they's tuck out on the county.
"N. B.--Pay is due when the nigger is tuck. Planters ort to send fur
me as soon as thar niggers runs away, while thar trak is fresh."
Every night the woods resound with the deep-mouthed baying of the
bloodhounds. The slaves are said by some to love their masters; but it
requires the terrors of bloodhounds and the fugitive slave law to keep
them in bondage. You in the North are compelled to act the part of the
bloodhounds here, and catch the fugitives for the planters of the
South. Free negroes are sold into bondage for the most trivial
offences. Slaveholders declare that the presence of free persons of
colour exerts a pernicious influence upon their slaves, rendering them
discontented with their condition, and inspiring a desire for freedom.
They therefore are very desirous of getting rid of these persons,
either by banishing them from the State or enslaving them. The
legislature of Mississippi has passed a law for their expulsion, and
other States have followed in the wake. The Governor of Missouri has
vetoed the law for the expulsion of free persons of colour, passed by
the legislature of that State because of its unconstitutionality.
Were I to recount all the abominations of the peculiar institution,
and the wrongs inflicted upon the African race, that have come under
my observation, they would fill a large volume. Slavery is guilty of
six abominations; yea, seven may justly be charged upon it. It is said
that the negro is lazy, and will not work except by compulsion. I have
known negroes who have purchased their freedom by the payment of a
large sum, and afterward made not only a good living, but a fortune
beside. It is said Judge W---- of South Carolina gave his servants the
use of his plantation, upon condition that they would support his
family; and that in three years he was compelled to take the
management himself, as they did not make a comfortable living for
themselves and the Judge's family. In reply, it might be said that the
negroes had not a fair trial, as no one had any property he could call
his own, and they were thrown into a sort of Fourierite society,
having all things in common. In this state of things, while some would
work, others would be idle. White men do not succeed in such
communities, and for this reason it was no fair test of the industrial
energies of Judge W----'s slaves.
The question is often asked, is slavery sinful in itself? My
observation has been extensive, embracing eight slave States, and I
have never yet seen any example of slavery that I did not deem sinful.
If slavery is not sinful in itself, I must have always seen it out of
itself. I have observed its workings during eleven years, amongst a
professedly Christian people, and cannot do otherwise than pronounce
it an unmitigated curse. It is a curse to the white man, it is a curse
to the black man. That God will curse it, and blot it out of existence
ere long, is my firm conviction. The elements of its abolition exist;
God speed the time when they will be fully developed, and this mother
of abominations driven from the land of the free! The development of
the eternal principles of justice and rectitude will abolish this
hoary monster of fraud and oppression. Slavery subverts all the rights
of man. It divests him of citizenship, of liberty, of the pursuit of
happiness, of his children, of his wife, of his property, of
intellectual culture, reserving to him only the rights of the horse
and ass, and reducing him to the same chattel condition with them. Not
a single right does the State law grant him above that of the
mule--no, not one. The chastity of the slave has no legal protection.
The Methodist Church South is expunging from the discipline everything
inimical to the peculiar institution, whilst I observe that the Church
North is adding to her testimony and deliverances against the sin of
slaveholding. The Church South refused to abide by the rules of the
Church, and hence the guilt of the schism lies with her, and you are
henceforth free from any guilt in conniving at the sin which the
founder of your church, the illustrious Wesley, regarded as the "sum
of all villany."
Remember me kindly to Mrs. Jackman and family. Hoping to hear from
you soon, I beg leave to subscribe myself,
Yours fraternally,
JOHN H. AUGHEY.
To Mr. William Jackman,
Amsterdam, Jefferson Co., Ohio.