 | Incidents in the life of a slave girl |  |
III.
THE SLAVES' NEW YEAR'S DAY.
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.
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
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.
| Incidents in the life of a slave girl | |