The price paid for a healthy Quadroon girl, from the age of twelve to
fourteen, ranges from one thousand to two thousand dollars, according
as the purchaser may fancy them, and as they are regarded to present
the beauty and charms of a Quadroon. Connections of this kind, not
only between those who purchase them, but those who hire them, often
continue for years, and frequently become such, that an attachment
and even an affection grows up, as strong and as enduring as was ever
witnessed between man and wife. And many instances of these connections
have been known, where a man, after living with a girl for a number
of years, will turn her off for the purpose of being married; and yet
when he is so, and has a family around him, his attachment still
continues to the being in whom he has so long confided, and whose
heart he knows to be as warm and as devoted to him as is her love
of life. In view of this, he drags out a miserable and disconsolate
existence; and the discarded and broken hearted Quadroon, on whose
brow is a tinge of yellow shade that will forever doom her to unending
disgrace, sinks away into a lone and premature grave, a poor forgotten
and wretched slave, and never more to be remembered only by him whose
heart has melted into hers, in the true spirit of unending affection.
Not only such scenes as these are frequently witnessed, but instances
often occur, when a man has discarded one of these girls and has been
married, he is forced to purchase her for the purpose of selling her
again, and binding the one to whom he sells her, that he will take her
away from the city, so that he may never meet her and that she shall
never return. He is obliged to do this, in consequence of her affection
for him, and also his attachment to her. When these girls, while being
kept as mistresses, have children, they are usually sent back to their
master, who either hires them boarded with some negro woman, or “turns
them into the _yard_” with his other slaves, until the child is old
enough to be left from its mother. Thus the father of this child--the
_lawyer_, the _gentleman_, or the _merchant_, or whatever he may
be--has the pleasure as well as the _gratifying reflection_ that his
_kindred_ will not become extinct, and that his blood will continue to
course in the veins of another human being through the next generation,
and also he can remember with the _pride_ of a father, that when the
mother of his child has lost her charms, there is another beautiful
_Quadroon girl_ to take her place who has been cast off as a worthless
and useless _thing_. And this is, almost without exception, the course
that is forced upon them by a long established custom. When they are of
no account in this way, they usually hire their time, at a low rate,
from three to five dollars a month, and resort to various means to
support themselves. Some will keep houses of assignation, and others
will rent a house, with rooms furnished, and rent them to men who
keep a bed companion, and board them. While others will rent a house,
and hire negro girls, slaves of the lowest class, who will steal away
from their pens, and come in and spend the night. They will also agree
with “negro traders” to send in a number of girls from their slave
pens. These are the lowest grade of brothels in New Orleans, and there
are hundreds of them scattered through every street and lane in the
city. And yet with these women are a large number of men, boarding and
lodging, who are seen in the morning, creeping out through some back
lane or alley. And follow these same men, and you will meet them in
the Saloon of the “St. Charles;” and in all the rounds of dissipation
and pleasure, they appear as well dressed and as intelligent and
accomplished in their manners and conversation, as any person you
meet with in the city. Many, and doubtless most of these persons are
here from necessity, in not being able to meet expenses that would
accrue in any other boarding place; and also, a large portion of these
men who are found in these dens are those who come in from the North
to “seek their fortunes,” and as I have before said of them, when
failing to obtain employment, join in some catch-penny concern, in
the way of “Peter Funks,” or gambling on a small scale, and borrowing
of some acquaintance on account of respectable connections, succeed
in obtaining a small pittance to pay for board and accommodations at
a negro brothel. And I repeat again, young man, keep away from this
city. Banish every idea that may come up, of the great advantages and
facilities that you may think are found here for making money and soon
a fortune, for they are no part nor beginning of things in New Orleans.