The restrictions over the slave in New Orleans are exceedingly rigid
and severe. At 8 o’clock in the evening a cannon is fired in the Place
d’Armes, as a note of warning for all slaves to leave the streets and
“turn in.” If they are caught out after this hour without a written
pass from their masters, they are taken by the watch to the calaboose
or city prison; and in the morning are whipped twenty-five lashes, and
their master is obliged to pay three dollars to get them discharged.
When the slaves become too “damned smart,” or for any thing which they
may do, require punishment, the general practice with the slave owners
is to send them to the calaboose, where they have all the shackles and
preparations necessary to do up such _jobs_ in good _order_ and on
_short_ notice. In doing this, also, the masters save themselves from
the indignation of the slave, which would naturally become aroused if
the punishment was inflicted by the hand of the master himself. The
slave to be whipped is sent with a note to the calaboose, in which is
money to pay for the _job_. If twenty-five cents is in the note he gets
twenty-five lashes,--if fifty cents or a dollar he gets accordingly.
And this whipping slaves at the calaboose at one cent a blow is a very
lucrative business, and many a poor fellow comes away with scarcely a
shred of skin on his back, and very often he does not know for what
crime or for what purpose the whipping has been given him, unless
it is because “he is getting too damned smart.” For the _crime_ of
attempting to gain his liberty, for running away, a slave is punished
more severely than for any thing that he may do where death is not
the penalty. And very often for repeated acts of this kind, where the
design is _only_ to whip him within “an inch of his life,” a mistake is
made in the distance of an _inch_, and he is whipped within a quarter
of an _inch_ and dies in a few moments. Next on the list of crime, a
slave is punished for stealing almost as severely as for running away,
and they are often whipped severely on mere suspicion of having stolen.
For the punishment of slave women in New Orleans, for any crime,
either theft or being “quite smart,” or for general correction, they
are usually sent to the work house, and from here they are organized
in chain gangs, and put in charge of a driver, and sent out to clean
the markets and collect the dirt and rubbish in the streets. When a
slave woman is sent to the work house by her master for punishment,
he is obliged to pay twenty-five cents a day for the privilege of
having her worked in the chain gang. In November, 1848, I saw a chain
gang of forty-nine women and girls in Exchange street, cleaning away
the rubbish, brick and dirt, that had accumulated in tearing down
buildings for the purpose of extending the street through from Custom
to Bienville streets. They were shoveling dirt and brick into large
boxes, on each side of which were fastened long sticks extending each
way far enough for handles. They would load the boxes and carry them
some distance to be taken away by carts.