Slave driver

“ Who is a negro-driver? One whose eyes dwell with delight on lacerated bodies of helpless men, women and children; whose soul feels diabolical raptures at the chains, and hand-cuffs, and cart-whips, for inflicting tortures on weeping mothers torn from helpless babes, and on husbands and wives torn asunder forever! ”

“ Droves of negroes, chained together in dozens and scores, and hand-cuffed, have been driven through our country in numbers far surpassing any previous year, and these vile slave-drivers and dealers are swarming like buzzards around a carrion. Through this county, you cannot pass a few miles in the great roads without having every feeling of humanity insulted and lacerated by this spectacle, nor can you go into any county or any neighborhood, scarcely, without seeing or hearing of some of these despicable creatures, called negro-drivers.
“Who is a negro-driver? ”

“ Each slave when his day's task was completed had at his own disposal such time as might remain. The driver commonly gave every full hand an equal area to be worked in the same way, and discriminated among them only in so far as varying conditions from plot to plot would permit the assignment of the stronger and swifter workmen to tracts where the work required was greater, and the others to plots where the labor was less. ”

“ And various other scenes that none but the hardest hearted could behold without dropping a tear of pity for the fate of the slave would present themselves probably you would see the slave bound in chains and the driver urging him onward while every step he takes is leading him farther and farther from his home and all that he holds dear. ”

“ The driver faithfully copies all the arrogance and insolence of the overseer from whom hé receives his commission; and as he is always among his gang, the aggravating weight of his authority is so much the heavier. He is but one of themselves; and the slaves are naturally more impatient of his rule, than they would be of the same dominion, exercised by one belonging to what they have been taught to regard as a superior race; and whom, being a freeman, they are ready to acknowledge as actually their superior. ”

“ It is under the inspection of drivers, who are appointed from among the slaves, at the will of the overseer, that the culture of a Carolina plantation is carried on. The overseers have learned too much of the airs and the luxurious indolence of their employers, to be willing to be riding about all day, in the hot sun, looking after the laborers. The slaves are divided into gangs, and each gang is put under the charge of a driver, who is generally selected for his cowardly and mean-spirited subserviency, and his readiness to tyrannize over and to betray his companions. ”

“ The driver who marks it out, has to remain on the ground until it is finished, and has no interest in over-measuring it; and if it should be systematically increased very much, there is danger of a general stampede to the “swamp”—a danger the slave can always hold before his master’s cupidity. ”

“ When the slave ceases to perspire, as he often does when taxed beyond his strength, he falls to the ground and becomes entirely helpless. It is then the duty of the driver to drag him into the shade of the standing cotton or cane, or of a neighboring tree, where he dashes buckets of water upon him, and uses other means of bringing out perspiration again, when he is ordered to his place, and compelled to continue his labor.
At Huff Power, when I first came to Epps', Tom, one of Roberts' negroes, was driver. ”

“ The faithful slave may be beaten and driven to death. The driver MUST BE BRUTALIZED.
Every day, on every street, you may see stupid, muscular boys and men jerking with all their might on the tender mouths of poor horses, only too willing to do their best. ”

“ The negroes, as I before told you, are divided into troops or gangs, as they are called; at the head of each gang is a driver, who stands over them, whip in hand, while they perform their daily task, who renders an account of each individual slave and his work every evening to the overseer, and receives from him directions for their next day's tasks. Each driver is allowed to inflict a dozen lashes upon any refractory slave in the field, and at the time of the offence ”

“ We might a done very well if de ole driver hadn' been so mean, but de least little thing we do he beat us for it, and put big chains 'round our ankles and make us work wid dem on 'til de blood be cut out all around our ankles. Some of de marsters have what dey call stockades and puts dere heads and feet and arms through holes in a big board out in de hot sun, but our old driver he had a bull pen, dats only thing like a jail he had. When a slave do anything he didn' like he takes 'em in dat bull pen and chains 'em down, face up to de sun and leaves 'em dere 'til dey nearly dies. ”

“ It must not be imagined, however, that there was not a single touch of humanity in the breasts of the cruel slave-drivers. Hard taskmasters though they undoubtedly were, some of them were wont to turn aside and look another way when any of the poor slaves sat down for a few minutes, overcome with exhaustion. ”

“ Massa Watt didn't have no overseer, but he have a nigger driver what am jus' as bad. He carry a long whip 'round the neck and I's seed him tie niggers to a tree and cowhide 'em till the blood run down onto the ground. Sometimes the women gits slothful and not able to do their part but they makes 'em do it anyway. They digs a hole, 'bout body deep, and makes them women lie face down in it and beats 'em nearly to death. That nigger driver beat the chillen for not keepin' their cotton row up with the lead man. ”

“ The advertisements for runaways, with which the Southern Papers are crowded, demonstrate the discontent of the Slaves, and their longings for freedom. The unwillingness of the Slaveholders to bring their Slaves to the North, during their Summer pilgrimages, testify their apprehensions on the subject. Happy, indeed! Who can describe the sufferings of parents, for ever bereft of their children; mothers robbed of their daughters; children torn from their parents; young women, and married women, exposed to the brutal lusts of Slave-drivers, masters, and overseers. Millions doomed to insult ”

“ How can we, as citizens of the United States, remain silent, unconcerned spectators of an American slave-trade within our borders, in our capital city, the boasted centre of free government,—a traffic, the wretched objects of which are bred for sale as regularly as horses and cattle, and whose treatment whilst on their way to market and when in the field of labor is scarcely upon a par with our beasts of burden. ”

“ Thus any person trading in any way in slaves, or aiding or abetting such traffic in any way, is considered a felon, and punished with fourteen years transportation, or to be kept at hard labour for five years; now these slave-factors are degraded to pickpockets and swindlers. ”

“ Fellow-citizens, this murderous traffic is, to-day, in active operation in this boasted republic. In the solitude of my spirit, I see clouds of dust raised on the highways of the South; I see the bleeding footsteps; I hear the doleful wail of fettered humanity, on the way to the slave-markets, where the victims are to be sold like horses, sheep, and swine, knocked off to the highest bidder. ”

“ Since the time when Clarkson, Wilberforce and Fox made the horrors of the slave trade understood, the slave captain, or slave jockey is spontaneously and almost universally regarded with dislike and horror. Even in the slave-holding States it is deemed disreputable to associate with a professed slave-trader, though few perhaps would think it any harm to bargain with him. This public feeling makes itself felt so strongly, that men engaged in what is called the African traffic, kept it a secret, if they could, even before the laws made it hazardous. ”

“ The slave traffic gave rise to an evil still greater—I mean the crime of kidnapping. If the horrors arising from the first were so great as I have described them, how shall I depict those of the other! Slaves only were the victims of the slave trade. ”

“ Built for speed, and manned by men who had seen service in voyages for legal plunder, these privateers were the ideal slavers. They went down the slave-coast flying any flag that pleased the fancy. If they fell in with a slaver of less force than their own they transferred her cargo to their own decks. If they met a small cruiser they cleared for action, and it is a matter of record that they made such a good fight, in many cases, that they beat off armed agents of the law. ”

“ The alert agents of the traffic move from place to place, alluring peasant girls and farmers' daughters from their homes, entrapping innocent victims at railway stations and public resorts. Not a few girls who go to the cities to seek their fortunes and fail are caught by these harpies. And remember, I am alluding now not to those who go astray because of incidental misfortunes of circumstance, condition, or blind trust in some unworthy lover, but only to those who are entrapped by the agents of the organized white slave traffic system. ”

“ Nor can the laws derive support from the manners of the people, if the power of moral sentiment be weakened by enjoying, under the permission of government, great facilities to commit offenses. The laws of the United States have denounced heavy penalties against the traffic in slaves, because such traffic is deemed unjust and inhuman. ”

“ Then, after they were under the influence of liquor, they would put chains upon them and carry them away with the very slaves the traders themselves a few hours before had sold.
As time went on, and the demand for slave labor increased, the men engaged in this cruel traffic became hardened to its cruelty and the West Coast of Africa became one vast hunting ground. Men and women were tracked and hunted as if they were wild beasts. It grew so bad at length that the conscience of the civilized world was aroused. Then, one by one, the nations of the world began to prohibit the traffic. ”

“ The indifference that has been manifested towards the evils of the traffic; the toleration of the domestic slave trade, by which the public conscience has been rendered callous; the extension of slave territory, in spite of the solemn remonstrances of the enlightened and patriotic portion of the people; and the refusal of the government to coöperate with the nations of Europe in their humane efforts, have tended to sustain the traffic, and place us in an anomalous position before the world. ”

“ A slaver was thus to be taken, because she was a slaver; just as it is better to shoot the wolf before he has killed the sheep than afterwards. If a vessel, therefore, was found on the African coast with slave-irons, water in sufficient quantity for a slave-cargo, with a slave-deck laid for packing slaves—somewhat as the carcases of sheep and pigs in a railway train, with the exception of the fresh air—she was seized and condemned before committing the overt act. ”

“ The difficulty of penetrating the disguises of crime is enhanced in the case of the slave-trade by the circumstance that a very considerable traffic, regarded as legitimate, has sprung up and is carried on with the same African coast from which human cargoes are collected. ”

“ The able bodied men and women were handcuffed and chained in a string. A few old grey headed people and the younger children were carried in a cart. The rest of us were driven along like cattle — men, women and children together. Three fellows on horseback, with the usual equipment of long whips, served at once, as guards and drivers.
I shall not attempt to describe our affliction. It would be but the repetition of an oft-told tale. Who has not read of slave-traders on the coast of Africa? Whose heart ‘has not ached at picturing the terrors and despair of the kidnapped victims? ”

“ But the inquiry is made, how far the laws against the slave trade, passed by Great Britain, the United States, and other nations, [5] were successful in suppressing the traffic.
As we have already intimated, the answer to this question opens a melancholy chapter in the history of human nature. But before entering upon it, we can not but pay a passing tribute to the noble philanthropy of Great Britain, and to the efforts of our ancestors to sweep from the earth the curse of the traffic in human beings. ”

“ There are not a few who are most unreasonably and cruelly overworked both by day and by night, especially such as fill the most arduous kinds of employments about railroads. The life of the Southern negro slave was paradisaic, compared to that of the miserable drudges who work in the stables of our horse railways. The conductors and drivers of our city cars and omnibuses are worked to death on a pay so meagre that stealing has become a kind of recognized necessity of their situation. How can these men go to church on Sundays, approach the sacraments, or enjoy an innocent holiday? ”

“ The traffic increased rapidly, owing largely to the fact that it was tremendously profitable to those depraved mortals who indulged in it, and because the people generally, until very recently, were ignorant of the fact that it was becoming so extensive. And even at this time, when a great deal has been said by the pulpit and the press about the horrors of the traffic, the public idea of just what is meant by the "white slave traffic" is confused and indefinite. ”

“ What is the slave trade, considered as a subject on which the law of nations can operate. Slavery exists, and has from all time existed, in Africa, and in many other countries. Where it exists, there will, of course, be an interior traffic in slaves, which the law of nations cannot touch. It is only on the transportation of negroes between two countries mutually tolerating slavery, that this operation is contended for. But this transportation is but an incident to the original sin of slavery. If humanity nerves the arm of the law, why is its force spent on the incident? ”