Slaves

“ To one not accustomed to such scenes as slavery presents, the condition of the slaves is impressively shocking. In the course of my walks, I was every where witness to their wretchedness. Like the brute creatures of the north, they are driven about at the pleasure of all who meet them: half naked and half starved, they drag out a pitiful existence, apparently almost unconscious of what they suffer. ”

“ My feelings are always outraged when I hear them speak of "kind masters,"—"Christian masters,"—"the mildest form of slavery,"—"well fed and clothed slaves," as extenuations of slavery; I am satisfied they either mean to pervert the truth, or they do not know what they say. The being of slavery, its soul and body, lives and moves in the chattel principle, the property principle, the bill of sale principle; the cart-whip, starvation, and nakedness, are its inevitable consequences to a greater or less extent, warring with the dispositions of men. ”

“ O the ineffable meanness of the slave system! Instead of our being set free, a far different fate awaited us ; and here you behold, reader, the closing scene of the kindest treatment which a man can bestow upon his slaves. ”

“ Well, better so, I thought, than that they should be slaves. I knew the doom that awaited my fair baby in slavery, and I determined to save her from it, or perish in the attempt. I went to make this vow at the graves of my poor parents, in the burying-ground of the slaves. "There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary be at rest. There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor; the servant is free from his master." ”

“ The slaveholders felt that when slavery was denounced among themselves, it was not so bad; but let one of the slaves get loose, let him summon the people of Britain, and make known to them the conduct of the slaveholders toward their slaves, and it cuts them to the quick, and produces a sensation such as would be produced by nothing else. ”

“ The immediate emancipation of all the slaves, would doubtless be attended with consequences, both upon themselves and the whites, vastly more terrible and distressing, than all the horrours of slavery. ”

“ The heart-rending incidents, related in the foregoing chapter, led me, thus early, to inquire into the nature and history of slavery. Why am I a slave? Why are some people slaves, and others masters? Was there ever a time this was not so? ”

“ Impart to the Slaves the consciousness of personal rights, and the means of asserting them; give the Slaves a power of appealing to the laws; and you awaken in them a sense of the dignity of their nature, you call into life a new set of most dangerous emotions ”

“ When the holders of slaves assert that they are, as a general thing, humanely treated, what do they mean? Not that they would consider such treatment humane if given to themselves and their children,—no, indeed!—but it is humane for slaves. ”

“ In other words, our society includes a great mass of slaves, who must be fed, clothed, housed and amused as slaves, and that their daily necessity compels them to make the slave-wares whose use is the perpetuation of their slavery. ”

“ You will be struck with this in reading what is said to slaves, that in several cases, the train of thought proceeds directly from their condition and its duties, to the most sublime and beautiful truths of salvation. How divinely wise did these exhortations to slaves appear to me, that morning, in contrast with the spirit of the Northern abolitionist, and his talk about "Bunker Hill," "'76," and his "grandfather's old gun over the mantel-piece," and his injunctions to slaves as to the duty of stealing, and even murdering, if necessary, to effect their liberty. ”

“ By these laws, a pious and benevolent master, who has inherited a hundred slaves, and who would gladly deliver them from bondage, or, at least, alleviate, by every means in his power, the miseries of their condition, is compelled, against every feeling of his heart, not only to hold them in servitude, but to keep them in absolute ignorance. ”

“ But of these four hundred thousand slave-holders, only about eight thousand owned more than fifty slaves each, and it was this mere handful who lived in splendid homes, surrounded with luxury, beauty, and refinement. ”

“ The presence of these slaves, who have been lost, for want of your instruction, and by means of your oppression, shall make you dart deeper into the flames, to avoid their just reproaches, and seek out for an asylum, in the hidden corners of perdition. ”

“ If their slaves rebel, and will not bear their yoke and submit to the labour that is enjoined them, they are treated as wild beasts that cannot be kept in order, neither by a prison nor by their chains, and are at last put to death. ”

“ The first slaves brought here, were prisoners taken in war among the African tribes, and, according to the universal custom among all savage nations, these prisoners had, by the fortune and rules of war, forfeited life and liberty, and were at the mercy of their captors to be killed, sold into slavery, or retained for their pleasure or service, just as passion, interest or caprice might rule them. ”

“ But slaves, that once conceive the glowing thought
Of freedom, in that hope itself possess
All that the contest calls for; spirit, strength,
The scorn of danger, and united hearts;
The surest presage of the good they seek. ”

“ Hence, the propriety of manumitting slaves is, to say the least, doubtful, unless they are colonized. Every man of truth and candor, who is acquainted with the condition of slaves and free negroes, North and South, must admit, that the conditions of slaves is better, than that of free negroes. ”

“ There are now by estimation three millions of slaves. Say one half of these are either too old or too young to have the strength or the intelligence to escape. A million and a half are left; five hundred thousand of these will have attachments to their own parents or children, or to their masters, too strong to be broken; or they may be so degraded as to be contented with bondage; for their contentment is always one of the measures of their degradation. ”

“ Indeed, slaves were regarded so much in the light of mere animals by masters, and masters so much as demi-gods, or superior beings, by slaves, that no possible rivalry, jealousy, or misgivings could subsist between them ”

“ And because some monsters in the south, though they are few and far between, treat their slaves with inhumanity, just as some husbands, parents and masters in the north, and everywhere else, treat their wives, children and apprentices, with cruelty, these sage abolitionists generalize the conclusions from those insulated cases that such are the universal treatment of the slaves, and, in their meetings, they report accordingly. ”

“ This is just what I have thought when I have seen slaves at work—they seem to go through the motions of labour without putting strength into them. They keep their powers in reserve for their own use at night, perhaps. ”

“ They always carry slaves through our land, but the strictest account is exacted of their manner of procuring them before they are suffered to pass. Sometimes indeed we sold slaves to them, but they were only prisoners of war, or such among us as had been convicted of kidnapping, or adultery, and some other crimes which we esteemed heinous. ”

“ Fugitive slaves were rare then, and as a fugitive slave lecturer, I had the advantage of being a "bran new fact"—the first one out. ”

“ Still, from all appearances, they are as careful to keep their slaves from running off as common sinners are—their slaves are fed, clothed, whipped, worked, robbed and used up precisely as are the slaves of the most notorious publicans. ”

“ I was sometimes tempted to think that the more slaves there were employed, the more disorder appeared. I am persuaded that one or two hired servants, in a well-regulated family, would preserve more neatness, order, and comfort, than treble the number of slaves. ”

“ I have, since my settling in the North, heard many persons, in speaking of slavery as they have seen it in cities, towns, &c., where it exists in its mildest form, apologizing for it, holding it forth to the world as a great benefit to the black man. They say the slaves are nicely fed, clothed, and taken care of in a very comfortable manner. ”

“ Now suppose all the owners of slaves in our land should be suddenly and simultaneously convicted of sin, and moved to repentance in a similar manner, and should say to their slaves, 'God forbid that we should longer call you our property, or place you on a level with our cattle, or defraud you of your just dues, or sell you or your wives or children to others, or deny you the means of instruction, or lacerate your bodies! ”

“ A faithful slave, having grown up with his master's rising family, obtained his freedom as a reward for his fidelity, and was entrusted with the management of the property; realizing some money, he became the owner of slaves himself, from among whom he selected his wife, and to all of whom he showed the greatest consideration. ”

“ They all buy and sell slaves. “Parents will sell their children for three or four blankets or a few dollars, and have no compunction of conscience for the use they may be put to in the future. When one tribe goes to war with another, all the prisoners taken by either tribe are called and used as slaves. ”

“ If there breathe on earth a slave,
Are ye truly free and brave?
If ye do not feel the chain,
When it works a brother's pain,
Are ye not base slaves indeed,
Slaves unworthy to be freed? ”

“ Slaves were prohibited to carry anus, offensive or defensive, or to go off the plantations of their masters without a written pass, or to lift hand against a Christian even in self-defense. Runaways who refused to be apprehended might be lawfully killed. The condition of slavery was imposed upon all servants, whether negroes, Moors, mulattoes, or Indians, brought into the colony by sea or land, whether converted to Christianity or not, provided they were not of Christian parentage or country, or Turks or Moors in amity with his majesty. ”

“ Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire of escaping from them: they love their servitude, as the comrades of Ulysses loved their brutish condition.2 If then there are slaves by nature, it is because there have been slaves against nature. ”

“ A peculiar form of slavery existed, in accordance with which an indigent family could bind itself to supply one or more slaves perpetually to some lord, the individual in servitude being changed every few years. ”

“ The slave-holders are neither more nor less than men, some of whom are good, and very many are bad. My master and this gentleman, were certainly of the number of the good; but the contrast between them and some others that I have seen, was, unhappily for many of the slaves, very great. I shall, hereafter, refer to this gentleman, at whose house I now was ”

“ The slave, on the contrary, depressed by his unfortunate situation, has a servile gait, and neither speaks nor walks without casting down his eyes. The slaves which are brought from the interior, are smaller, less robust, and worse shaped than the free Negroes. Those who live near the sea, are of the same size as their masters. ”

“ They formed a part of a number of persons, who, born free, were captured and reduced to slavery. They had come here, not as slaves, but as free; and we are asked first to make them slaves, and then give them up to the Spaniards. ”

“ By inevitable necessity, the slaves, as a body, must remain on the soil of their bondage. Only exceptional cases of removal can occur. They are the laborers of the South; and no State will, or can, or is bound, to remove its laborers. ”

“ Slaves often were used as grain grinders, ploughmen, sowers, haywards, woodwards, shepherds, goatherds, swineherds, oxherds, cowherds, dairymaids, and barnmen. Slaves had no legal rights. A lord could kill his slave at will. ”

“ Their perseverance in so bad a custom is styled honor. The slaves thus obtained are immediately exchanged away in commerce, that the winner may get rid of the scandal of his victory." The two classes now enumerated comprehend those that may be called the Voluntary Slaves, and they are distinguished from those denominated Involuntary Slaves, who were forced, without any previous condition or choice, into a situation, which, as it tended to degrade a part of the human species, and to class it with the brutal, must have been, of all situations, the most wretched and insupportable. ”

“ My opinion is that American slavery, as I have seen it in the internal slave-trade, as I have seen it on the rice and sugar plantations, and in the city of New Orleans, is full as bad as slavery in any country of the world, heathen or Christian. People who go for visits or pleasure through the Southern States cannot possibly know those things which can be seen of slavery by ship-masters who run up into the back plantations of countries, and who transport the slaves and produce of plantations. ”

“ OUR fellow-countrymen in chains!
Slaves, in a land of light and law!
Slaves, crouching on the very plains
Where rolled the storm of Freedom's war! ”

“ It is the literal, unvarnished truth, that the crack of the lash, and the shrieking of the slaves, can be heard from dark till bed time, on Epps' plantation, any day almost during the entire period of the cotton-picking season. ”

“ But that the great body of the slaves, those that compose the field gangs, whose labor and exposure, and consequent exhaustion, are vastly greater than those of house slaves, toiling as they do from day light till dark, in the fogs of the early morning, under the scorchings of mid-day, and amid the damps of evening, are in general provided with no meat, is abundantly established by the preceding testimony. ”

“ If the ancestors of the present three millions of slaves had never been brought here,—if their descendants had never been propagated here, for the supposed value of their services, their places would have been supplied by white laborers,—by men of the Caucasian race,—by freemen. ”