There is no place in the world in open day light, where every shade
of modesty and common decency is so entirely disregarded, as in these
slave Auctions and slave pens, in charge of traders and speculators.
And they are without exception the most thoroughly schooled in all that
can annihilate every sense of propriety and self respect. Although they
are generally wealthy and _respectable_, and usually men of families,
yet they herd in with the slave women that they have in market, like
beasts of the field, and in this have no concealment or regard for
public observation, or of the ultimate consequences in filling up the
slave market with their own children. And this wanton intercourse
with slave women is general on plantations, and in small towns and
villages, among planters, overseers and drivers, and also among young
men of every class and condition in life. It is also a uniform practice
with the planters in the lower slave states, when called upon by
those to whom they extend their hospitalities, to offer them a bed
companion from among their slaves. And in doing this they only treat
their friends with the common civilities of the day. And Southern
gentlemen will often take with them when travelling a slave woman for a
companion, and do it with as little regard to concealment in the matter
as though she was his wife, in occupying the same state room on steam
boats and at public houses. As excuse for such things, I am aware of
the same old argument--“that these instances are rare occurrences, and
only practiced by a few men of no account.” But I repeat the assurance,
and I give it from what I have seen, and have learned from reputable
sources, and the acknowledgements of slave holders and traders
themselves, that these things are a part of the _social system_ against
which the moral sense of community has never raised its voice.
As an instance of this kind, the following is in character. In the fall
of 1848, while the steamer Dove, was on her passage from Louisville
to New Orleans, a negro trader was on board with sixteen slaves, nine
cows, and two horses. He was an old trader, and had acquired a large
property--was a _gentleman_ and _respectable_, and had a wife and
several beautiful daughters in Louisville, Kentucky, where he resided.
But, trader-like, he herded in with his negro women for bed companions
during the whole voyage, as openly and as shameless as though he was
only conforming to the most chaste and refined sentiments of the
travelling public.
Another of those _isolated_ cases of southern _refinement_ was
witnessed in the steamer “New Orleans,” on her upward trip in Dec.
1848. A _gentleman_ (of course,) had with him for a travelling
companion a fine looking mulatto girl, who occupied the same state
room with him, and this intimacy was known to the captain and officers
of the boat, and all the passengers. I refer to these things thus
particular as evidence, the truth which can easily be ascertained
that there _are_ at least _isolated_ cases of these outrages, and I
again repeat the assurance that these demonstrations are among the
_legalized_ practices of every day life in the slave States; for
certainly whatever is so common, must by all the rules of common law be
legal!!