such services:--
Dollars.
For each day employed in hunting or trailing 2 50c.
For catching each slave 10 For going over ten miles and catching slaves 20
If sent for, the above prices will be exacted in cash. The subscriber resides
one mile and a half south of Dadeville, Ala.
B. Black.
Dadaville, Sept. 1, 1852. 1-tf.
The reader will see by the printer's sign at the bottom that it
is a season advertisement, and, therefore, would meet the eye of
the child week after week. The paper from which we have cut
this contains among its extracts passages from Dickens's “House-
hold Words,” from Professor Felton's article in the “Christian
Examiner” on the relation of the sexes, and a most beautiful and
chivalrous appeal from the eloquent senator Soule on the legal
rights of women. Let us now ask, since this paper is devoted
to education, what sort of an educational influence such ad-
vertisements have? And, of course, such an establishment is
not kept up without patronage. Where there are negro-hunters
advertising in a paper, there are also negro-hunts, and there are
dogs being trained to hunt; and all this process goes on before
the eyes of children; and what sort of an education is it?
The writer has received an account of the way in which dogs
are trained for this business. The information has been com-
municated to the gentleman who writes it by a negro man, who,
having been always accustomed to see it done, described it with
as little sense of there being anything out of the way in it as if
the dogs had been trained to catch raccoons. It came to the
writer in a recent letter from the South:--
The way to train 'em (says the man) is to take these yer pups--any kind
o' pups will do--fox-hounds, bull-dogs, most any; but take the pups, and keep
'em shut up, and don't let 'em never see a nigger till they get big enough to be
larned. When the pups gits old enough to be set on to things, then make 'em
run after a nigger; and when they cotches him, give 'em meat. Tell the nigger
to run as hard as he can, and git up in a tree, so as to larn the dogs to tree 'em;
then take the shoe of a nigger, and larn 'em to find the nigger it belongs to; then
a rag of his clothes; and so on. Allers be carful to tree the nigger, and teach
the dog to wait and bark under the tree till you come up and give him his meat.
See also the following advertisement from the Ouachita
Register, a newspaper dated “Monroe, La., Tuesday evening,
June 1, 1852.”
[title]NEGRO DOGS.
The undersigned would respectfully inform the citizens of Ouachita and
adjacent parishes, that he has located about 2½ miles east of John White's, on
the road leading from Monroe to Bastrop, and that he has a fine pack of Dogs
for catching negroes. Persons wishing negroes caught will do well to gave him
a call. He can always be found at his stand when not engaged in hunting,
and even then information of his whereabouts can always be had of some one on
the premises.
Terms.--Five dollars per day and found, when there is no track pointed out.
When the track is shown, twenty-five dollars will be charged for catching the
negro.
M. C. Goff.
Monroe, Feb. 17, 1852. 15-3m.
Now, do not all the scenes likely to be enacted under this
head form a fine education for the children of a Christian
nation? and can we wonder if children so formed see no cruelty
in slavery? Can children realise that creatures who are thus
hunted are the children of one heavenly Father with them-
selves?
But suppose the boy grows up to be a man, and attends the
courts of justice, and hears intelligent, learned men declaring
from the bench that “the mere beating of a slave, unac-
companied by any circumstances of cruelty, or an attempt to
kill, is no breach of the peace of the State.” Suppose he hears
it decided in the same place that no insult or outrage upon any
property value. Suppose he hears, as he would in Virginia,
that it is the policy of the law to protect the master even in
inflicting cruel, malicious, and excessive punishment upon the
slave. Suppose a slave is murdered and he hears the lawyers
arguing that it cannot be considered a murder, because the
slave, in law, is not considered a human being; and then sup-
pose the case is appealed to a superior court, and he hears the
judge expending his forces on a long and eloquent dissertation
to prove that the slave is a human being; at least, that he is as
much so as a lunatic, an idiot, or an unborn child, and that,
therefore, he can be murdered. (See Judge Clarke's speech, on
p. 175.) Suppose he sees that all the administration of law
with regard to the slave proceeds on the idea that he is abso-
lutely nothing more than a bale of merchandise. Suppose he
hears such language as this, which occurs in the reasonings of
the Brazealle case, and which is a fair sample of the manner in
which such subjects are ordinarily discussed. “The slave has
no more political capacity, no more right to purchase, hold, or
transfer property, than the mule in his plough; he is in himself
but a mere chattel--the subject of absolute ownership.” Sup-
pose he sees on the statute-book such sentences as these, from
the civil code of Louisiana:--
Art. 2500. The latent defects of slaves and animals are divided into two
classes--vices of body, and vices of character.
Art. 2501. The vices of body are distinguished into absolute and relative.
Art. 2502. The absolute vices of slaves are leprosy, madness, and epilepsy.
Art. 2503. The absolute vices of horses and mules, are short wind, glanders,
and founder.
The influence of this language is made all the stronger on
the young mind from the fact that it is not the language of
contempt, or of passion, but of calm, matter-of-fact, legal
statement.
What effect must be produced on the mind of the young man
when he comes to see that, however atrocious and however well-
proved be the murder of a slave, the murderer uniformly escapes;
and that, though the cases where the slave has fallen a victim
to passions of the white are so multiplied, yet the fact of an
execution for such a crime is yet almost unknown in the
country? Does not all this tend to produce exactly that
estimate of the value of negro life and happiness which
Frederic Douglass says was expressed by a common proverb
among the white boys where he was brought up: “It's worth
sixpence to kill a nigger, and sixpence more to bury him?”
We see the public sentiment which has been formed by this
kind of education exhibited by the following paragraph from
the Cambridge Democrat, Md., Oct. 27, 1852. That paper
quotes the following from the Woodville Republican, of Missis-
sippi. It seems a Mr. Joshua Johns had killed a slave, and
had been sentenced therefore to the penitent
iary for two years.
The Republican thus laments his hard lot:--
This cause resulted in the conviction of Johns, and his sentence to the Peni-
tentiary for two years. Although every member of the jury, together with the
bar, and the public generally, signed a petition to the governor for young Johns'
pardon, yet there was no fault to find with the verdict of the jury. The extreme
youth of Johns, and the circumstances in which the killing occurred, enlisted
universal sympathy in his favour. There is no doubt that the negro had pro-
voked him to the deed by the use of insolent language; but how often must it be
told that words are no justification for blows? There are many persons--and we
regret to say it--who think they have the same right to shoot a negro, if he insults
them, or even runs from them, that they have to shoot down a dog but there are
laws for the protection of the slave as well as the master, and the sooner the
error above alluded to is removed, the better will it be for both parties.
The unfortunate youth who has now entailed upon himself the penalty of the
law, we doubt not, had no idea that there existed such penalty; and even if he
was aware of the fact, the repeated insults and taunts of the negro go far to
mitigate the crime. Johns was defended by I. D. Gildart, Esq., who probably
did all that could have been effected in his defence.
The Democrat adds:
We learn from Mr. Curry, deputy sheriff, of Wilkinson County, that Johns has
been pardoned by the governor. We are gratified to hear it.
This error above alluded to, of thinking it is as innocent to
shoot down a negro as a dog, is one, we fairly admit, for which
young Johns ought not to be very severely blamed. He has
been educated in a system of things of which this opinion is
the inevitable result; and he, individually, is far less guilty
for it than are those men who support the system of laws, and
keep up the educational influences, which lead young Southern
men directly to this conclusion. Johns may be, for aught we
know, as generous-hearted and as just naturally as any young
man living; but the horrible system under which he has been
educated has rendered him incapable of distinguishing what
either generosity or justice is, as applied to the negro.
The public sentiment of the slave-states is the sentiment of
men who have been thus educated, and in all that concerns the
negro it is utterly blunted and paralysed. What would seem
to them injustice and horrible wrong in the case of white
persons, is the coolest matter of course in relation to slaves.
As this educational influence descends from generation to
generation, the moral sense becomes more and more blunted, and
the power of discriminating right from wrong, in what relates
to the subject race, more and more enfeebled.
Thus, if we read the writings of distinguished men who were
slave-holders about the time of our American revolution, what
clear views do we find expressed of the injustice of slavery, what
strong language of reprobation do we find applied to it!
Nothing more forcible could possibly be said in relation to its
evils than by quoting the language of such men as Washington,
Jefferson, and Patrick Henry. In those days there were no men
of that high class of mind who thought of such a thing as
defending slavery on principle; now there are an abundance
of the most distinguished men, North and South, statesmen,
civilians, men of letters, even clergymen, who, in various degrees,
palliate it, apologise for or openly defend it. And what is the
cause of this, except that educational influences have corrupted
public sentiment, and deprived them of the power of just judg-
ment? The public opinion even of free America, with regard to
slavery, is behind that of all other civilised nations.
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.
They do, in effect, place the negro below the range of humanity,
and on a level with brutes, and then graduate all their ideas of
humanity accordingly.
They would not needlessly kick or abuse a dog or a negro.
They may pet a dog, and they often do a negro. Men have been
found who fancied having their horses elegantly lodged in marble
stables, and to eat out of sculptured managers, but they thought
them horses still; and, with all the indulgences with which
good-natured masters sometimes surround the slave, he is to
them but a negro still, and not a man.
In what has been said in this chapter, and in what appears
incidentally in all the facts cited throughout this volume, there
is abundant proof that, notwithstanding there be frequent and
most noble instances of generosity towards the negro, and
although the sentiment of honourable men and the voice of
Christian charity does everywhere protest against what it feels to
be inhumanity, yet the popular sentiment engendered by the
system must necessarily fall deplorably short of giving anything
like sufficient protection to the rights of the slave. It will
appear in the succeeding chapters, as it must already have
appeared to reflecting minds, that the whole course of educa-
tional influence upon the mind of the slave-master is such as to
deaden his mind to those appeals which come from the negro as
a fellow-man and a brother.
CHAPTER III.
SEPARATION OF FAMILIES.
“What must the difference be,” said Dr. Worthington, with startling energy,
“between Isabel and her servants? To her it is loss of position, fortune, the fair
hopes of life, perhaps even health; for she must inevitably break down under the
unaecustomed labour and privations she will have to undergo. But to them it is
merely a change of masters!”
“Yes, for the neighbours won't allow any of the families to be separated.”
“Of course not. We read of such things in novels sometimes. But I have yet
to see it in real life, except in rare cases, or where the slave has been guilty of
some misdemeanour, or crime, for which, in the North, he would have been impri-
soned, perhaps for life.”
-- by J. Thornton Randolph, p. 39. * * * * * * *
“But they're going to sell us all to Georgia, I say. How are we to escape
that?”
“Spec dare some mistake in dat,” replied Uncle Peter stoutly. “I nebber
knew of sich a ting in dese parts, 'cept where some niggar 'd been berry bad.”
By such graphic touches as the above does Mr. Thornton
Randolph represent to us the patriarchal stability and secu-
rity of the slave population in the Old Dominion. Such a thing
as a slave being sold out of the State has never been heard of by
Dr. S. Worthington, except in rare case for some crime; and
old Uncle Peter never heard of such a thing in his life.
Are these representations true?
The worst abuse of the system of slavery is it
s outrage upon
the family; and, as the writer views the subject, it is one which
is more notorious and undeniable than any other.
Yet it is upon this point that the most stringent and earnest
denial has been made to the representations of “Uncle Tom's
Cabin,” either indirectly, as by the romance-writer above, or
more directly in the assertions of newspapers, both at the North
and at the South. When made at the North, they indicate, to
say the least, very great ignorance of the subject; when made
at the South, they certainly do very great injustice to the
general character of the Southerner for truth and honesty. All
sections of country have faults peculiar to themselves. The
fault of the South, as a general thing, has not been cowardly
evasion and deception. It was with utter surprise that the
author read the following sentences in an article in Fraser's
Magazine, professing to come from a South Carolinian:--
Mrs. Stowe's favourite illustration of the master's power to the injury of the
slave is the separation of families. We are told of infants of ten months old being
sold from the arms of their mothers, and of men whose habit it is to raise children,
to sell away from their mother as soon as they are old enough to be separated.
Were our views of this feature of slavery derived from Mrs. Stowe's book, we
should regard the families of slaves as utterly unsettled and vagrant.
And again--
We feel confident that, if statistics could be had to throw light upon this sub-
ject, we should find that there is less separation of families among the negroes than
occurs with almost any other class of persons.
As the author of the article, however, is evidently a man of
honour, and expresses many most noble and praiseworthy senti-
ments, it cannot be supposed that these statements were put
forth with any view to misrepresent or to deceive. They are
only to be regarded as evidences of the facility with which a
sanguine mind often overlooks the most glaring facts that make
against a favourite idea or theory, or which are unfavourable in
their bearings on one's own country or family. Thus the citi-
zens of some place notoriously unhealthy will come to believe,