An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans. Lydia Maria Child

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СКАЧАТЬ forty feet long, was stretched between the two ranks, to which short chains were joined, connected with the hand-cuffs. Behind them were about thirty women, tied hand to hand. Every countenance wore a solemn sadness; and the dismal silence of despair was only broken by the sound of two violins. Yes—as if to add insult to injury, the foremost couple were furnished with a violin a-piece; the second couple were ornamented with cockades; while near the centre our national standard was carried by hands literally in chains. I may have mistaken some of the punctilios of the arrangement, for my very soul was sick. My landlady was sister to the man who owned the drove; and from her I learned that he had, a few days previous, bought a negro-woman, who refused to go with him. A blow on the side of her head with the butt of his whip, soon brought her to the ground; he then tied her, and carried her off. Besides those I saw, about thirty negroes, destined for the New-Orleans market, were shut up in the Paris jail, for safe-keeping."

      But Washington is the great emporium of the internal slave-trade! The United States jail is a perfect storehouse for slave merchants; and some of the taverns may be seen so crowded with negro captives that they have scarcely room to stretch themselves on the floor to sleep. Judge Morrel, in his charge to the grand jury at Washington, in 1816, earnestly called their attention to this subject. He said, "the frequency with which the streets of the city had been crowded with manacled captives, sometimes even on the Sabbath, could not fail to shock the feelings of all humane persons; that it was repugnant to the spirit of our political institutions, and the rights of man; and he believed it was calculated to impair the public morals, by familiarizing scenes of cruelty to the minds of youth."

      A free man of color is in constant danger of being seized and carried off by these slave-dealers. Mr. Cooper, a Representative in Congress from Delaware, told Dr. Torrey, of Philadelphia, that he was often afraid to send his servants out in the evening, lest they should be encountered by kidnappers. Wherever these notorious slave-jockeys appear in our Southern States, the free people of color hide themselves, as they are obliged to do on the coast of Africa.

      The following is the testimony of Dr. Torrey, of Philadelphia, published in 1817:

      "To enumerate all the horrid and aggravating instances of man-stealing, which are known to have occurred in the State of Delaware, within the recollection of many of the citizens of that State, would require a volume. In many cases, whole families of free colored people have been attacked in the night, beaten nearly to death with clubs, gagged and bound, and dragged into distant and hopeless captivity, leaving no traces behind, except the blood from their wounds.

      "During the last winter, the house of a free black family was broken open, and its defenceless inhabitants treated in the manner just mentioned, except, that the mother escaped from their merciless grasp, while on their way to the State of Maryland. The plunderers, of whom there were nearly half a dozen, conveyed their prey upon horses; and the woman being placed on one of the horses, behind, improved an opportunity, as they were passing a house, and sprang off. Not daring to pursue her, they proceeded on, leaving her youngest child a little farther along, by the side of the road, in expectation, it is supposed, that its cries would attract the mother; but she prudently waited until morning, and recovered it again in safety.

      "I consider myself more fully warranted in particularizing this fact, from the circumstances of having been at Newcastle, at the time that the woman was brought with her child, before the grand jury, for examination; and of having seen several of the persons against whom bills of indictment were found, on the charge of being engaged in the perpetration of the outrage; and also that one or two of them were the same who were accused of assisting in seizing and carrying off another woman and child whom I discovered at Washington. A monster in human shape, was detected in the city of Philadelphia, pursuing the occupation of courting and marrying mulatto women, and selling them as slaves. In his last attempt of this kind, the fact having come to the knowledge of the African population of this city, a mob was immediately collected, and he was only saved from being torn in atoms, by being deposited in the city prison. They have lately invented a method of attaining their object, through the instrumentality of the laws:—Having selected a suitable free colored person, to make a pitch upon, the kidnapper employs a confederate, to ascertain the distinguishing marks of his body; he then claims and obtains him as a slave, before a magistrate, by describing those marks, and proving the truth of his assertions, by his well-instructed accomplice.

      "From the best information that I have had opportunities to collect, in travelling by various routes through the States of Delaware and Maryland, I am fully convinced that there are, at this time, within the jurisdiction of the United States, several thousands of legally free people of color, toiling under the yoke of involuntary servitude, and transmitting the same fate to their posterity! If the probability of this fact could be authenticated to the recognition of the Congress of the United States, it is presumed that its members, as agents of the constitution, and guardians of the public liberty, would, without hesitation, devise means for the restoration of those unhappy victims of violence and avarice, to their freedom and constitutional personal rights. The work, both from its nature and magnitude, is impracticable to individuals, or benevolent societies; besides, it is perfectly a national business, and claims national interference, equally with the captivity of our sailors in Algiers."

It may indeed be said, in palliation of the internal slave-trade, that the horrors of the middle passage are avoided. But still the amount of misery is very great. Husbands and wives, parents and children, are rudely torn from each other;—there can be no doubt of this fact: advertisements are very common, in which a mother and her children are offered either in a lot, or separately, as may suit the purchaser. In one of these advertisements, I observed it stated that the youngest child was about a year old.[H]

[H] In Niles's Register, vol. xxxv, page 4, I find the following: "Dealing in slaves has become a large business. Establishments are made at several places in Maryland and Virginia, at which they are sold like cattle. These places are strongly built, and well supplied with thumbscrews, gags, cowskins and other whips, oftentimes bloody. But the laws permit the traffic, and it is suffered."

The captives are driven by the whip, through toilsome journeys, under a burning sun; their limbs fettered; with nothing before them but the prospect of toil more severe than that to which they have been accustomed.[I]

[I] In the sugar-growing States the condition of the negro is much more pitiable than where cotton is the staple commodity.

      The disgrace of such scenes in the capital of our republic cannot be otherwise than painful to every patriotic mind; while they furnish materials for the most pungent satire to other nations. A United States senator declared that the sight of a drove of slaves was so insupportable that he always avoided it when he could; and an intelligent Scotchman said, when he first entered Chesapeake Bay, and cast his eye along our coast, the sight of the slaves brought his heart into his throat. How can we help feeling a sense of shame, when we read Moore's contemptuous couplet,

      "The fustian flag that proudly waves,

       In splendid mockery, o'er a land of slaves?"

      The lines would be harmless enough, if they were false; the sting lies in their truth.

      Finally, I have described some of the horrors of the slave-trade, because when our constitution was formed, the government pledged itself not to abolish this traffic until 1808. We began our career of freedom by granting a twenty years' lease of iniquity—twenty years of allowed invasion of other men's rights—twenty years of bloodshed, violence, and fraud! And this will be told in our annals—this will be heard of to the end of time!

      While the slave-trade was allowed, the South could use it to advance СКАЧАТЬ