University of Virginia Library

IX.
SKETCHES OF NEIGHBORING SLAVEHOLDERS.

There was a planter in the country, not far from us,
whom I will call Mr. Litch. He was an ill-bred, uneducated
man, but very wealthy. He had six hundred
slaves, many of whom he did not know by sight.
His extensive plantation was managed by well-paid
overseers. There was a jail and a whipping post on
his grounds; and whatever cruelties were perpetrated
there, they passed without comment. He was so
effectually screened by his great wealth that he was
called to no account for his crimes, not even for
murder.

Various were the punishments resorted to. A favorite
one was to tie a rope round a man's body, and
suspend him from the ground. A fire was kindled
over him, from which was suspended a piece of fat
pork. As this cooked, the scalding drops of fat continually
fell on the bare flesh. On his own plantation,
he required very strict obedience to the eighth commandment.
But depredations on the neighbors were
allowable, provided the culprit managed to evade detection
or suspicion. If a neighbor brought a charge
of theft against any of his slaves, he was browbeaten
by the master, who assured him that his slaves had
enough of every thing at home, and had no inducement
to steal. No sooner was the neighbor's back
turned, than the accused was sought out, and whipped

for his lack of discretion. If a slave stole from him
even a pound of meat or a peck of corn, if detection
followed, he was put in chains and imprisoned, and so
kept till his form was attenuated by hunger and suffering.

A freshet once bore his wine cellar and meat house
miles away from the plantation. Some slaves followed,
and secured bits of meat and bottles of wine. Two
were detected; a ham and some liquor being found in
their huts. They were summoned by their master.
No words were used, but a club felled them to the
ground. A rough box was their coffin, and their
interment was a dog's burial. Nothing was said.

Murder was so common on his plantation that he
feared to be alone after nightfall. He might have
believed in ghosts.

His brother, if not equal in wealth, was at least
equal in cruelty. His bloodhounds were well trained.
Their pen was spacious, and a terror to the slaves.
They were let loose on a runaway, and, if they tracked
him, they literally tore the flesh from his bones. When
this slaveholder died, his shrieks and groans were so
frightful that they appalled his own friends. His last
words were, “I am going to hell; bury my money
with me.”

After death his eyes remained open. To press the
lids down, silver dollars were laid on them. These
were buried with him. From this circumstance, a
rumor went abroad that his coffin was filled with
money. Three times his grave was opened, and his
coffin taken out. The last time, his body was found
on the ground, and a flock of buzzards were pecking

at it. He was again interred, and a sentinel set over
his grave. The perpetrators were never discovered.

Cruelty is contagious in uncivilized communities.
Mr. Conant, a neighbor of Mr. Litch, returned from
town one evening in a partial state of intoxication.
His body servant gave him some offence. He was
divested of his clothes, except his shirt, whipped, and
tied to a large tree in front of the house. It was a
stormy night in winter. The wind blew bitterly cold,
and the boughs of the old tree crackled under falling
sleet. A member of the family, fearing he would
freeze to death, begged that he might be taken down;
but the master would not relent. He remained there
three hours; and, when he was cut down, he was
more dead than alive. Another slave, who stole a pig
from this master, to appease his hunger, was terribly
flogged. In desperation, he tried to run away. But
at the end of two miles, he was so faint with loss of
blood, he thought he was dying. He had a wife, and
he longed to see her once more. Too sick to walk,
he crept back that long distance on his hands and
knees. When he reached his master's, it was night.
He had not strength to rise and open the gate. He
moaned, and tried to call for help. I had a friend
living in the same family. At last his cry reached her.
She went out and found the prostrate man at the gate.
She ran back to the house for assistance, and two men
returned with her. They carried him in, and laid
him on the floor. The back of his shirt was one clot
of blood. By means of lard, my friend loosened it
from the raw flesh. She bandaged him, gave him cool
drink, and left him to rest. The master said he deserved

a hundred more lashes. When his own labor
was stolen from him, he had stolen food to appease his
hunger. This was his crime.

Another neighbor was a Mrs. Wade. At no hour
of the day was there cessation of the lash on her
premises. Her labors began with the dawn, and did
not cease till long after nightfall. The barn was her
particular place of torture. There she lashed the
slaves with the might of a man. An old slave of hers
once said to me, “It is hell in missis's house. 'Pears
I can never get out. Day and night I prays to die.”

The mistress died before the old woman, and, when
dying, entreated her husband not to permit any one
of her slaves to look on her after death. A slave who
had nursed her children, and had still a child in her
care, watched her chance, and stole with it in her
arms to the room where lay her dead mistress. She
gazed a while on her, then raised her hand and dealt
two blows on her face, saying, as she did so, “The
devil is got you now!” She forgot that the child was
looking on. She had just begun to talk; and she
said to her father, “I did see ma, and mammy did
strike ma, so,” striking her own face with her little
hand. The master was startled. He could not imagine
how the nurse could obtain access to the room
where the corpse lay; for he kept the door locked.
He questioned her. She confessed that what the child
had said was true, and told how she had procured the
key. She was sold to Georgia.

In my childhood I knew a valuable slave, named
Charity, and loved her, as all children did. Her young
mistress married, and took her to Louisiana. Her

little boy, James, was sold to a good sort of master.
He became involved in debt, and James was sold
again to a wealthy slaveholder, noted for his cruelty.
With this man he grew up to manhood, receiving the
treatment of a dog. After a severe whipping, to save
himself from further infliction of the lash, with which
he was threatened, he took to the woods. He was in
a most miserable condition — cut by the cowskin,
half naked, half starved, and without the means of
procuring a crust of bread.

Some weeks after his escape, he was captured, tied,
and carried back to his master's plantation. This
man considered punishment in his jail, on bread and
water, after receiving hundreds of lashes, too mild for
the poor slave's offence. Therefore he decided, after
the overseer should have whipped him to his satisfaction,
to have him placed between the screws of the
cotton gin, to stay as long as he had been in the woods.
This wretched creature was cut with the whip from
his head to his feet, then washed with strong brine, to
prevent the flesh from mortifying, and make it heal
sooner than it otherwise would. He was then put
into the cotton gin, which was screwed down, only
allowing him room to turn on his side when he could
not lie on his back. Every morning a slave was sent
with a piece of bread and bowl of water, which were
placed within reach of the poor fellow. The slave
was charged, under penalty of severe punishment, not
to speak to him.

Four days passed, and the slave continued to carry
the bread and water. On the second morning, he
found the bread gone, but the water untouched.

When he had been in the press four days and five
nights, the slave informed his master that the water
had not been used for four mornings, and that a horrible
stench came from the gin house. The overseer
was sent to examine into it. When the press was
unscrewed, the dead body was found partly eaten by
rats and vermin. Perhaps the rats that devoured his
bread had gnawed him before life was extinct. Poor
Charity! Grandmother and I often asked each other
how her affectionate heart would bear the news, if she
should ever hear of the murder of her son. We had
known her husband, and knew that James was like
him in manliness and intelligence. These were the
qualities that made it so hard for him to be a plantation
slave. They put him into a rough box, and
buried him with less feeling than would have been
manifested for an old house dog. Nobody asked any
questions. He was a slave; and the feeling was that
the master had a right to do what he pleased with his
own property. And what did he care for the value of
a slave? He had hundreds of them. When they
had finished their daily toil, they must hurry to eat
their little morsels, and be ready to extinguish their
pine knots before nine o'clock, when the overseer went
his patrol rounds. He entered every cabin, to see that
men and their wives had gone to bed together, lest the
men, from over-fatigue, should fall asleep in the chimney
corner, and remain there till the morning horn
called them to their daily task. Women are considered
of no value, unless they continually increase their
owner's stock. They are put on a par with animals.
This same master shot a woman through the head, who
had run away and been brought back to him. No
one called him to account for it. If a slave resisted
being whipped, the bloodhounds were unpacked, and
set upon him, to tear his flesh from his bones. The
master who did these things was highly educated, and
styled a perfect gentleman. He also boasted the name
and standing of a Christian, though Satan never had
a truer follower.

I could tell of more slaveholders as cruel as those I
have described. They are not exceptions to the general
rule. I do not say there are no humane slaveholders.
Such characters do exist, notwithstanding
the hardening influences around them. But they are
“like angels' visits — few and far between.”

I knew a young lady who was one of these rare
specimens. She was an orphan, and inherited as
slaves a woman and her six children. Their father
was a free man. They had a comfortable home of
their own, parents and children living together. The
mother and eldest daughter served their mistress
during the day, and at night returned to their dwelling,
which was on the premises. The young lady was
very pious, and there was some reality in her religion.
She taught her slaves to lead pure lives, and wished
them to enjoy the fruit of their own industry. Her
religion was not a garb put on for Sunday, and laid
aside till Sunday returned again. The eldest daughter
of the slave mother was promised in marriage to a
free man; and the day before the wedding this good
mistress emancipated her, in order that her marriage
might have the sanction of law.

Report said that this young lady cherished an unrequited

affection for a man who had resolved to
marry for wealth. In the course of time a rich uncle
of hers died. He left six thousand dollars to his two
sons by a colored woman, and the remainder of his
property to this orphan niece. The metal soon attracted
the magnet. The lady and her weighty purse
became his. She offered to manumit her slaves — telling
them that her marriage might make unexpected
changes in their destiny, and she wished to insure
their happiness. They refused to take their freedom,
saying that she had always been their best friend, and
they could not be so happy any where as with her. I
was not surprised. I had often seen them in their
comfortable home, and thought that the whole town
did not contain a happier family. They had never felt
slavery; and, when it was too late, they were convinced
of its reality.

When the new master claimed this family as his
property, the father became furious, and went to his
mistress for protection. “I can do nothing for you
now, Harry,” said she. “I no longer have the power
I had a week ago. I have succeeded in obtaining the
freedom of your wife; but I cannot obtain it for your
children.” The unhappy father swore that nobody
should take his children from him. He concealed
them in the woods for some days; but they were discovered
and taken. The father was put in jail, and
the two oldest boys sold to Georgia. One little girl,
too young to be of service to her master, was left with
the wretched mother. The other three were carried
to their master's plantation. The eldest soon became
a mother; and, when the slaveholder's wife looked at

the babe, she wept bitterly. She knew that her own
husband had violated the purity she had so carefully
inculcated. She had a second child by her master,
and then he sold her and his offspring to his brother.
She bore two children to the brother, and was sold
again. The next sister went crazy. The life she was
compelled to lead drove her mad. The third one
became the mother of five daughters. Before the
birth of the fourth the pious mistress died. To the
last, she rendered every kindness to the slaves that
her unfortunate circumstances permitted. She passed
away peacefully, glad to close her eyes on a life which
had been made so wretched by the man she loved.

This man squandered the fortune he had received,
and sought to retrieve his affairs by a second marriage;
but, having retired after a night of drunken debauch,
he was found dead in the morning. He was called a
good master; for he fed and clothed his slaves better
than most masters, and the lash was not heard on his
plantation so frequently as on many others. Had it
not been for slavery, he would have been a better man,
and his wife a happier woman.

No pen can give an adequate description of the all-pervading
corruption produced by slavery. The slave
girl is reared in an atmosphere of licentiousness and
fear. The lash and the foul talk of her master and
his sons are her teachers. When she is fourteen or
fifteen, her owner, or his sons, or the overseer, or perhaps
all of them, begin to bribe her with presents.
If these fail to accomplish their purpose, she is whipped
or starved into submission to their will. She may
have had religious principles inculcated by some pious

mother or grandmother, or some good mistress; she
may have a lover, whose good opinion and peace of
mind are dear to her heart; or the profligate men who
have power over her may be exceedingly odious to
her. But resistance is hopeless.

The slaveholder's sons are, of course, vitiated, even
while boys, by the unclean influences every where
around them. Nor do the master's daughters always
escape. Severe retributions sometimes come upon him
for the wrongs he does to the daughters of the slaves.
The white daughters early hear their parents quarrelling
about some female slave. Their curiosity is
excited, and they soon learn the cause. They are
attended by the young slave girls whom their father
has corrupted; and they hear such talk as should
never meet youthful ears, or any other ears. They
know that the women slaves are subject to their father's
authority in all things; and in some cases they
exercise the same authority over the men slaves. I
have myself seen the master of such a household whose
head was bowed down in shame; for it was known in
the neighborhood that his daughter had selected one
of the meanest slaves on his plantation to be the father
of his first grandchild. She did not make her advances
to her equals, nor even to her father's more
intelligent servants. She selected the most brutalized,
over whom her authority could be exercised with less
fear of exposure. Her father, half frantic with rage,
sought to revenge himself on the offending black man;

but his daughter, foreseeing the storm that would
arise, had given him free papers, and sent him out of
the state.

In such cases the infant is smothered, or sent where
it is never seen by any who know its history. But if
the white parent is the father, instead of the mother,
the offspring are unblushingly reared for the market.
If they are girls, I have indicated plainly enough what
will be their inevitable destiny.

You may believe what I say; for I write only that
whereof I know. I was twenty-one years in that cage
of obscene birds. I can testify, from my own experience
and observation, that slavery is a curse to the
whites as well as to the blacks. It makes the white
fathers cruel and sensual; the sons violent and licentious;
it contaminates the daughters, and makes the
wives wretched. And as for the colored race, it needs
an abler pen than mine to describe the extremity of
their sufferings, the depth of their degradation.

Yet few slaveholders seem to be aware of the widespread
moral ruin occasioned by this wicked system.
Their talk is of blighted cotton crops — not of the
blight on their children's souls.

If you want to be fully convinced of the abominations
of slavery, go on a southern plantation, and call
yourself a negro trader. Then there will be no concealment;
and you will see and hear things that will
seem to you impossible among human beings with
immortal souls.