Dr. Flint owned a fine residence in town, several farms, and about
fifty slaves, besides hiring a number by the year.
Hiring-day at the south takes place on the 1st of January. On the 2d,
the slaves are expected to go to their new masters. On a farm, they
work until the corn and cotton are laid. They then have two holidays.
Some masters give them a good dinner under the trees. This over, they
work until Christmas eve. If no heavy charges are meantime brought
against them, they are given four or five holidays, whichever the
master or overseer may think proper. Then comes New Year’s eve; and
they gather together their little alls, or more properly speaking,
their little nothings, and wait anxiously for the dawning of day.
At the appointed hour the grounds are thronged with men, women, and
children, waiting, like criminals, to hear their doom pronounced. The
slave is sure to know who is the most humane, or cruel master, within
forty miles of him.
It is easy to find out, on that day, who clothes and feeds his slaves
well; for he is surrounded by a crowd, begging, “Please, massa, hire me
this year. I will work _very_ hard, massa.”
If a slave is unwilling to go with his new master, he is whipped, or
locked up in jail, until he consents to go, and promises not to run
away during the year. Should he chance to change his mind, thinking
it justifiable to violate an extorted promise, woe unto him if he is
caught! The whip is used till the blood flows at his feet; and his
stiffened limbs are put in chains, to be dragged in the field for days
and days!
If he lives until the next year, perhaps the same man will hire
him again, without even giving him an opportunity of going to the
hiring-ground. After those for hire are disposed of, those for sale are
called up.
O, you happy free women, contrast _your_ New Year’s day with that of
the poor bond-woman! With you it is a pleasant season, and the light of
the day is blessed. Friendly wishes meet you every where, and gifts are
showered upon you. Even hearts that have been estranged from you soften
at this season, and lips that have been silent echo back, “I wish you
a happy New Year.” Children bring their little offerings, and raise
their rosy lips for a caress. They are your own, and no hand but that
of death can take them from you.
But to the slave mother New Year’s day comes laden with peculiar
sorrows. She sits on her cold cabin floor, watching the children
who may all be torn from her the next morning; and often does she
wish that she and they might die before the day dawns. She may be an
ignorant creature, degraded by the system that has brutalized her from
childhood; but she has a mother’s instincts, and is capable of feeling
a mother’s agonies.
On one of these sale days, I saw a mother lead seven children to the
auction-block. She knew that _some_ of them would be taken from her;
but they took _all_. The children were sold to a slave-trader, and
their mother was bought by a man in her own town. Before night her
children were all far away. She begged the trader to tell her where
he intended to take them; this he refused to do. How _could_ he, when
he knew he would sell them, one by one, wherever he could command the
highest price? I met that mother in the street, and her wild, haggard
face lives to-day in my mind. She wrung her hands in anguish, and
exclaimed, “Gone! All gone! Why _don’t_ God kill me?” I had no words
wherewith to comfort her. Instances of this kind are of daily, yea, of
hourly occurrence.
Slaveholders have a method, peculiar to their institution, of getting
rid of _old_ slaves, whose lives have been worn out in their service. I
knew an old woman, who for seventy years faithfully served her master.
She had become almost helpless, from hard labor and disease. Her owners
moved to Alabama, and the old black woman was left to be sold to any
body who would give twenty dollars for her.