We will now enter more definitely into an examination of that terrible institution which practically justifies the African slave-trade by holding on to its victims and substituting in its stead an inter-state slave-trade in moral turpitude fully equaling it; which, in a land of free institutions, holds in galling chains more than three millions of our dear fellow creatures; annually robs a hundred thousand American mothers of their babes; and despoils one hundred thousand children every year of that precious freedom which is their birthright and reduces them to a level with unreasoning beasts. Our task will be painful, but let us proceed.
1. Slaves are denied an education. I think it is universally admitted that education and slavery are utterly incompatible, and that total ignorance of letters and general imbecility of intellect are essential to its successful continuance, and indeed, its very existence in any country. Hence in the United States, where millions of dollars are annually expended for schools and colleges, and where it is almost universally believed that a sound education is conducive to good morals, the spread of civilization, the preservation of liberty and the progress of Christianity, even here nothing is done for the education of slaves. While millions of free children are annually gathered into schools and diligently instructed, the children of slaves, although equally capable, are permitted to grow up without the least attention to their mental culture. But this, though bad enough, is not the worst. If slaves were at liberty to follow out their own inclinations, they might many of them, even without encouragement or help, acquire a respectable education. But the laws punish the slave with great severity who, with any motive or under any circumstances, may attempt to learn to read or write, and also any person who may teach him.
Some of the laws and opinions relating to the education of slaves, (free negroes generally included) will now be cited. “Virginia Revised Code of 1819. That all meetings or assemblages of slaves or free negroes, or free negroes and mulattoes mixing and associating with such slaves at any meeting house or houses &c., in the night; or at any school or schools for teaching them reading or writing either in the day or night, under whatsoever pretext, shall be deemed and considered an UNLAWFUL ASSEMBLY; and any justice of a county wherein such assemblage shall be, shall issue his warrant, directed to any sworn officer or officers, authorizing him or them to enter the house or houses where such unlawful assemblages may be, for the purpose of apprehending or dispersing such slaves, and to inflict corporal punishment on the offender or offenders, at the discretion of any justice of the peace not exceeding twenty lashes.” (Goodell’s American Slave Code.)
No person in Virginia is allowed to open a school for the instruction of colored persons or to teach them to read and write under a penalty of $100 and six months imprisonment. It may be thought that these laws are not now enforced and stand as a dead letter upon the statute book. But the following cool item of news published in the Richmond Examiner under date of May 12th, 1853, will satisfy any one that they are enforced.
“Breaking up a Negro School.—The officers at Norfolk made a descent on Tuesday upon a negro school, kept in the neighborhood of the Stone Bridge, by a Mrs. Douglass and her daughter, and the teachers, together with their sable pupils, were taken before his Honor. They acknowledged their guilt, but pleaded ignorance of the law, and were discharged, on a promise to do so no more; a very convenient way of getting out of the scrape. The law of this State imposes a fine of one hundred dollars, and imprisonment for six months, for such offenses; is positive, and allows no discretion in the committing magistrate.”
If a free negro in North Carolina attempt to teach a slave to read, or if he give to a slave a religious tract, a spelling book or the bible, he may be imprisoned or take thirty-nine lashes! If a white person attempt to teach a slave the laws subject him to a fine of $200 for each offense.
“In Georgia, if a white teach a free negro or a slave to write he is fined $500, and imprisoned at the discretion of the Court; if the offender be a colored man, bond or free, he may be fined or whipped at the discretion of the Court. This law was enacted in 1829.” (Jay’s Inquiry.)
“In Louisiana the penalty for teaching slaves to read and write is one year’s imprisonment.”
“In North Carolina, the patrols were ordered to search every negro house for books or prints of every kind. Bibles and hymn books were particularly mentioned.” (Goodell.)
“We have,” said Mr. Berry in the Va. House of Delegates, “as far as possible closed every avenue by which light may enter their minds. If we could extinguish the capacity to see the light, our work would be completed; they would then be on a level with the beasts of the field and we would be safe! I am not certain that we would not do it, if we could find out the process, and that on the plea of necessity.”
When Frederick Douglass was a slave and belonged to Mr. Auld, his mistress, who had been lately married, manifested toward him true womanly kindness and commenced to teach him the art of reading. “But when my master heard of it,” says Douglass in his Narrative, “he at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe to teach a slave to read. To use his own words further he said, ‘If you give a nigger an inch he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master—to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best negro in the world. Now, said he, if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself,) how to read there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself it would do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy.’”
Is not that a terrible institution which can only be sustained by enchaining the immortal mind and withholding entirely the advantages of education? Think of it. A slave’s soul, as is often the case, is possessed with an unquenchable passion for improvement. He has a mind in constant unrest—active, elastic, aspiring. A benevolent friend engages to instruct him at night in the rudiments of learning, but while engaged in this good work the law seizes them, and hurries the slave to the whipping-post and the friend to prison. Twenty, thirty or forty lashes on the bare back are rather poor encouragement to the student, and a heavy fine and long imprisonment with felons hard pay for a teacher. But slavery makes it a crime to learn to read even the bible, and a penitentiary offense to teach a slave the alphabet!
The object of this is plainly declared by Mr. Berry of Va., viz: to close every avenue of light from the slave’s mind—to debase him as low as possible—and thus put resistance out of his power—that he may become a docile and profitable chattel.
These laws are a bold defiance of the Almighty who constructed the marvelous powers of the human mind for improvement and activity and who revealed in written language his word for the comfort and guidance of all his creatures. They interpose a barrier between the slave and his Maker and thus hinder his salvation. Even convicts in prison are taught to read the scriptures, and in this respect slavery is more severe with its victims than justice is with the worst criminals.
2. Slavery does not recognize the matrimonial connections of slaves. As slaves are to be put as nearly as possible upon a level with “other property” the slave code with singular meanness, but perfect consistency, refuses to the slave a lawful marriage, subjects him to conditions which are inconsistent with that sacred relation, and exposes slave wives to the unbridled lust of masters and overseers!
“With the consent of their masters slaves may marry * * * but whilst in a state of slavery it cannot produce any civil effect, because slaves are deprived of all civil rights.” (Judge Mathews.)
“A slave cannot even contract matrimony, the association which takes place among slaves and is called marriage, being properly designated by the word contubernium, a relation which has no sanctity, and to which no civil rights are attached.” (Judge Stroud.)
“A slave has never maintained an action against the violator of his bed.” (Daniel Dulany, Att’y Gen. Md.)
“Slaves were not entitled to the conditions of matrimony, and therefore they had no relief in cases of adultery.” (Dr. Taylor.)
“Marriage is a civil ordinance they cannot enjoy. Our laws do not recognize this relation as existing among them, and of course, do not enforce by any sanction, the observance of its duties. Indeed, until slavery waxeth old and tendeth to decay, there cannot be any legal recognition of the marriage rite, or the enforcement of its consequent duties. For all the regulations on this subject would limit the master’s absolute right of property in the slaves. In his disposal of them he could no longer be at liberty to consult merely his own interests. He could no longer separate the wife and the husband to suit the convenience or interest of the purchaser.” (Address of the Synod of Ky.)
The laws intend to make slaves absolute property, and hence no relation is legalized which would detract from the value of that property. The interest of the owner alone is consulted. These laws, horrible as they appear, are entirely consistent with chattel slavery. And the general practice upon these laws comes up fully to their spirit. Whenever the convenience, interest or passion of a master requires it, slaves are sold and scattered abroad without the slightest regard to those dear and sacred connections, which they regard, and which God, no doubt, regards as marriage. In newspaper advertisements for runaway slaves it is frequently stated that the fugitive property was bought at a certain place “where he has a wife,” and the probability is that he is “lurking about that place.” An advertisement in a New Orleans paper, after describing the slave Charles, as “six feet high,” “copper color,” rather “pleasing appearance,” adds, in order that the pursuers may have some clue to his whereabouts, “it is more than probable that he will make his way to Tennessee, as he has a wife now living there.”
Another advertises the runaway “Ned,” of “copper color, full forehead.” “Ned,” continues the notice, “was purchased in Richmond of Mr. Goodin, and has a wife in that vicinity.”
Another describes a runaway woman, and suggests that she may be lurking about “in the country where her husband is owned.”
These are very natural suggestions. A husband, though a slave, and bound to his wife by no legal tie, is not unfrequently to the slave wife all that husband means, and if that wife escape from her unfeeling oppressors, who have carried her away to a distant State, it is quite natural that she should bend her steps toward the partner of her bosom, and subject herself to incredible hardships and dangers that she might see his face once more, and unburden to him her sorrow-ladened heart.
And that wife, though a slave, unprotected by the laws, driven by the shameful lash, insulted, disgraced and neglected, is a wife still. And when “Ned,” as he is called, runs away, it is quite natural that he should, impelled by a husband’s love, seek out the hut where years before he had been suddenly separated from her. These advertisements for husbands who are supposed to be “lurking about” in search of their wives, and of wives hunting for their husbands, tell a sad tale. What husband or wife can read them without deep sorrow?
The following statement from the pen of an eye witness will illustrate scenes which are being enacted continually in the prosecution of the inter-state slave trade.
“As I went on board the steamboat I noticed eight colored men, handcuffed and chained together in pairs, four women and eight or ten children of the apparent ages of from four to ten years, all standing together in the bow of the boat, in charge of a man standing near them. * * * Coming near them, I perceived they were all greatly agitated; and, on inquiry I found they were all slaves, who had been born and raised in North Carolina and had just been sold to a speculator, who was now taking them to the Charleston market. Upon the shore there was a number of colored persons, women and children, awaiting the departure of the boat; and my attention was particularly attracted by two colored females of uncommonly respectable appearance, neatly attired, who stood together, a little distance from the crowd, and upon whose countenance was depicted the keenest sorrow. As the last bell was tolling, I saw the tears gushing from their eyes, and they raised their neat cotton aprons and wiped their faces under the cutting anguish of severed affection. They were the wives of two of the men in chains. There, too, were mothers and sisters, weeping at the departure of their sons and brothers; and there, too, were fathers, taking the last look of their wives and children. My whole attention was directed to those on shore, as they seemed to stand in solemn and submissive silence, occasionally giving utterance to the intensity of their feelings by a sigh or a stifled groan. As the boat was loosed from her moorings, they cast a distressed, lingering look to those on board, and turned away in silence. My eye now turned to those in the boat; and although I had tried to control my feelings amidst my sympathies for those on shore, I could conceal them no longer, and I found myself literally ‘weeping with those that wept.’ I stood near them, and when one of the husbands saw his wife upon the shore wave her hand for the last time, in token of her affection, his manly efforts to restrain his feelings gave way, and fixing his watery eyes upon her, he exclaimed, ‘This is the most distressing thing of all! My dear wife and children, farewell!’ The husband of the other wife stood weeping in silence, and with his manacled hands raised to his face, as he looked upon her for the last time. Of the poor women on board; three of them had husbands whom they left behind. One of them had three children, another had two, and the third had none. These husbands and fathers were among the throng upon the shore, witnessing the departure of their wives and children, and as they took their leave of them, they were sitting together upon the floor of the boat sobbing in silence, but giving utterance to no complaint. But the distressing scene was not yet ended. Sailing down the Cape Fear river twenty-five miles, we touched at the little village of Smithport, on the south side of the river. It was at this place that one of these slaves lived, and here was his wife and five children; and while at work on Monday last, his purchaser took him away from his family, carried him in chains to Wilmington, where he had since remained in jail. As we approached the wharf, a flood of tears gushed from his eyes, and anguish seemed to have pierced his heart. The boat stopped but a moment, and as she left, he bid farewell to some of his acquaintances whom he saw upon the shore, exclaiming, ‘Boys, I wish you well; tell Molly (meaning his wife) and the children I wish them well, and hope God will bless them.’ At that moment he espied his wife on the stoop of a house some rods from the shore, and with one hand which was not in the handcuffs, he pulled off his old hat, and waving it toward her, exclaimed, ‘Farewell!’ As he saw by the waving of her apron that she recognized him, he leaned back upon the railing, and with a faltering voice repeated, ‘Farewell, forever.’ After a moment’s silence, conflicting passions seemed to tear open his heart, and he exclaimed, ‘What have I done that I should suffer this doom? Oh, my wife and children, I want to live no longer!’ and then the big tear rolled down his cheek, which he wiped away with the palm of his unchained hand, looked once more upon the mother of his five children, and the turning of the boat hid her face from him forever.”
“I shall never forget the scene which took place in the city of St. Louis while I was yet in slavery. A man and his wife, both slaves, were brought from the country to the city for sale. They were taken to the rooms of Austin & Savage, auctioneers. Several slave speculators, who are always to be found at auctions where slaves are to be sold, were present. The man was first put up and sold to the highest bidder. The wife was next ordered to ascend the platform. I was present. She slowly obeyed the order. The auctioneer commenced, and soon several hundred dollars were bid. My eyes were intensely fixed on the face of the woman, whose cheeks were wet with tears. But a conversation between the slave and his new master soon arrested my attention. I drew near them to listen. The slave was begging his new master to purchase his wife. Said he, ‘Master, if you will only buy Fanny I know you will get the worth of your money. She is a good cook, a good washer, and her mistress liked her very much. If you will only buy her how happy I will be!’ The new master replied that he did not want her, but, if she sold cheap, he would purchase her. I watched the countenance of the man while the different persons were bidding on his wife. When his new master bid you could see the smile on his countenance, and the tears stop, but as another would, you could see the countenance change, and the tears start afresh. * * But this suspense did not last long. The wife was struck off to the highest bidder, who proved to be not the owner of her husband. As soon as they became aware that they were to be separated, they both burst into tears; and as she descended from the auction stand, the husband walking up to her and taking her by the hand, said, ‘Well, Fanny we are to part forever on earth. You have been a good wife to me. I did all I could to get my new master to buy you but he did not want you. I hope you will try to meet me in heaven. I shall try to meet you there.’ The wife made no reply but her sobs and cries told too well her own feelings.” (Narrative of William Brown.)
