Slavery in the United States <br> Chapter 9

We present another picture by the same hand: "The little candidates for 'field honours' are useless articles on a plantation during the first five or six years of their existence. They are then to take their first lesson in the elementary part of their education. When they have learned their manual alphabet tolerably well, they are placed in the field to take a spell at cotton-picking. The first day in the field is their proudest day. The young negroes look forward to it with as much restlessness and impatience as schoolboys to a vacation. Black children are not put to work so young as many children of poor parents in the North. It is often the case, that the children of the domestic servants become pets in the house, and the playmates of the white children of the family.

No scene can be livelier or more interesting to a Northerner, than that which the negro quarters of a well-regulated plantation present on a Sabbath morning, just before church hours. In every cabin the men are shaving and dressing; the women, arrayed in their gay muslins, are arranging their frizzly hair, in which they take no little pride, or investigating the condition of their children; the old people, neatly clothed, are quietly conversing or smoking about the doors; and those of the younger portion who are not undergoing the infliction of the wash-tub, are enjoying themselves in the shade of the trees, or around some little pond, with as much zest as though slavery and freedom were synonymous terms. When all are dressed, and the hour arrives for worship, they lock up their cabins, and the whole population of the little village proceeds to the chapel, where divine service is performed, sometimes by an officiating clergyman, and often by the planter himself, if a church-member. The whole plantation is also frequently formed into a Sabbath class, which t is instructed by the planter or some member of his family; and often, such is the anxiety of the master that they should perfectly understand what they are taught, a hard matter in the present state of their intellect, that no means calculated to advance their progress are left untried. I was not long since shown a manuscript catechism, drawn up with great care and judgment by a distinguished planter, on a plan admirably adapted to the comprehension of the negroes."

"It is now popular to treat slaves with kindness; and those planters who are known to be inhumanly rigorous to their slaves, are scarcely countenanced by the more intelligent and humane portion of the community. Such instances, however, are very rare; but there are unprincipled men everywhere, who will give vent to their ill feelings and bad passions, not with less good-will upon the back of an indented apprentice, than upon that of a purchased slave. Private chapels are now introduced upon most of the plantations of the more wealthy, which are far from any church; Sabbath schools are instituted for the black children, and Bible classes for the parents, which are superintended by the planter, a chaplain, or some of the female members of the family.

"Nor are planters indifferent to the comfort of their gray-headed slaves. I have been much affected at beholding many exhibitions of their kindly feeling towards them. They always address them in a mild and pleasant manner—as 'Uncle,' or Aunty'—titles as peculiar to the old negro and negress, as ' boy' and ' girl,' to all under forty years of age. Some old Africans are allowed to spend their last years in their houses, without doing any kind of labour; these, if not too infirm, cultivate little patches of ground, on which they raise a few vegetables—for vegetables grow nearly all the year round in this climate—and make a little money to purchase a few extra comforts. They are also always receiving presents from their masters and mistresses, and the negroes on the estate, the latter of whom are extremely desirous of seeing the old people comfortable. A relation of the extra comforts which some planters allow their slaves, would hardly obtain credit at the North. But you must recollect that Southern planters are men—and men of feeling—generous and high-minded, and possessing as much of the ' milk of human kindness' as the sons of colder climes—although they may have been educated to regard that as right, which a different education has led Northerners to consider wrong."

To the foregoing testimonials may be added that of a sensible correspondent of the Albany Daily Advertiser, who, in a letter dated Oct. 2d, 1835, says:

"One of the peculiarities which we noticed in Washington, and indeed in its vicinity, was the universal employment of blacks as labourers and mechanics. I must confess, when I saw them engaged in respectable occupations, intrusted often with difficult employments, well dressed, and apparently happy in their labour, I could not but draw a most favourable conclusion as to their actual condition. The galling bonds, of which we hear so much from the sympathizing advocates of abolition, were not visible; and, as a race of men, these slaves were altogether in a decidedly better position than their idle, dissipated, and reckless brethren at the North.

"These persons have kind masters in the District of Columbia; they are taught to read and write, and they have had the gospel preached to them. This last consideration is an important one. Coleridge says that slavery may be one of the means of bringing the sons of Africa into a state of grace, and who knows but the hand of Providence has designed this? No abolitionist will contend that a heathen of Africa, wild, ignorant, and brutal, is happier in his lawless freedom than the Southern slave. Such a position would cover its advocate with ridicule. As happiness is comparative, therefore, it cannot be doubted that the Southern negro may thank God for having cast his lot in a place where his condition is so much better than it could be in his native land."

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Slavery in the United States <br> Chapter 9

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Slavery in the United States <br> Chapter 9

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