The Anti-Slavery Examiner Volume III Part 19

TESTIMONY OF THE MARYVILLE (TENNESSEE) INTELLIGENCER, OF OCT. 4, 1835.

The Editor, in speaking of the sufferings of the slaves which are taken by the internal trade to the South West, says:

"Place yourself in imagination, for a moment, in their condition.

With _heavy galling chains_, riveted upon your person; _half-naked, half-starved_; your back _lacerated_ with the 'knotted Whip;'

traveling to a region where your _condition through time will be second only to the wretched creatures in h.e.l.l_.

"This depicting is not visionary. Would to G.o.d that it was."

TESTIMONY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN SYNOD OF KENTUCKY; _A large majority of whom are slaveholders._

"This system licenses and produces _great cruelty_.

"Mangling, imprisonment, starvation, every species of torture, may be inflicted upon him, (the slave,) and he has no redress.

"There are now in our whole land two millions of human beings, exposed, defenceless, to every insult, and every injury short of maiming or death, which their fellow men may choose to inflict. _They suffer all_ that can be inflicted by wanton caprice, by grasping avarice, by brutal l.u.s.t, by malignant spite, and by insane anger.

Their happiness is the sport of every whim, and the prey of every pa.s.sion that may, occasionally, or habitually, infest the master's bosom. If we could calculate the amount of wo endured by ill-treated slaves, it would overwhelm every compa.s.sionate heart--it would move even the obdurate to sympathy. There is also a vast sum of suffering inflicted upon the slave by humane masters, as a punishment for that idleness and misconduct which slavery naturally produces.

"_Brutal stripes_ and all the varied kinds of personal indignities, are not the only species of cruelty which slavery licenses."

TESTIMONY OF THE REV. N.H. HARDING, Pastor of the Presbyterian Church, in Oxford, North Carolina, a slaveholder.

"I am greatly surprised that you should in any form have been the apologist of a system so full of deadly poison to all holiness and benevolence as slavery, the concocted essence of fraud, selfishness, and cold hearted tyranny, and the fruitful parent of unnumbered evils, both to the oppressor and the oppressed, THE ONE THOUSANDTH PART OF WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN BROUGHT TO LIGHT."

MR. ASA A. STONE, a theological student, who lived near Natchez, (Mi.,) in 1834 and 5, sent the following with other testimony, to be published under his own name, in the N.Y. Evangelist, while he was still residing there.

"Floggings for all offences, including deficiencies in work, are _frightfully common_, and _most terribly severe._

"_Rubbing with salt and red pepper is very common after a severe whipping._"

TESTIMONY OF REV. PHINEAS SMITH, Centreville, Allegany Co., N.Y. who lived four years at the South.

"They are badly clothed, badly fed, wretchedly lodged, unmercifully whipped, from month to month, from year to year, from childhood to old age."

REV. JOSEPH M. SADD, Castile, Genessee CO. N.Y. who was till recently a preacher in Missouri, says,

"It is true that barbarous cruelties are inflicted upon them, such as terrible lacerations with the whip, and excruciating tortures are sometimes experienced from the thumb screw."

Extract of a letter from SARAH M. GRIMKe, dated 4th Month, 2nd, 1839

"If the following extracts from letters which I have received from South Carolina, will be of any use thou art at liberty to publish them. I need not say, that the names of the writers are withheld of necessity, because such sentiments if uttered at the south would peril their lives."

EXTRACTS

--South Carolina, 4th Month, 5th, 1835. "With regard to slavery I must confess, though we had heard a great deal on the subject, we found on coming South the _half_, the _worst_ half too, had not been told us; not that we have ourselves seen much oppression, though truly we have felt its deadening influence, but the accounts we have received from every tongue that n.o.bly dares to speak upon the subject, are indeed _deplorable_. To quote the language of a lady, who with true Southern hospitality, received us at her mansion. "The _northern_ people don't know anything of slavery at all, they think it is _perpetual bondage merely_, but of the _depth of degradation_ that that word involves, they have no conception; if they had any just idea of it, they would I am sure use every effort until an end was put to such a shocking system.'

"Another friend writing from South Carolina, and who sustains herself the legal relation of slaveholder, in a letter dated April 4th, 1838, says--'I have some time since, given you my views on the subject of slavery, which so much engrosses your attention. I would most willingly forget what I have seen and heard in my own family, with regard to the slaves. _I shudder when I think of it_, and increasingly feel that slavery is a curse since it leads to such _cruelty_.'"

PUNISHMENTS.

I. FLOGGINGS.

The slaves are terribly lacerated with whips, paddles, &c.; red pepper and salt are rubbed into their mangled flesh; hot brine and turpentine are poured into their gashes; and innumerable other tortures inflicted upon them.

We will in the first place, prove by a cloud of witnesses, that the slaves are whipped with such inhuman severity, as to lacerate and mangle their flesh in the most shocking manner, leaving permanent scars and ridges; after establis.h.i.+ng this, we will present a ma.s.s of testimony, concerning a great variety of other tortures. The testimony, for the most part, will be that of the slaveholders themselves, and in their own chosen words. A large portion of it will be taken from the advertis.e.m.e.nts, which they have published in their own newspapers, describing by the scars on their bodies made by the whip, their own runaway slaves. To copy these advertis.e.m.e.nts _entire_ would require a great amount of s.p.a.ce, and flood the reader with a vast ma.s.s of matter irrelevant to the _point_ before us; we shall therefore insert only so much of each, as will intelligibly set forth the precise point under consideration. In the column under the word "witnesses," will be found the name of the individual, who signs the advertis.e.m.e.nt, or for whom it is signed, with his or her place of residence, and the name and date of the paper, in which it appeared, and generally the name of the place where it is published. Opposite the name of each witness, will be an extract, from the advertis.e.m.e.nt, containing his or her testimony.

Mr. D. Judd, jailor, Davidson Co., Tennessee, in the "Nashville Banner," Dec. 10th, 1838.

"Committed to jail as a runaway, a negro woman named Martha, 17 or 18 years of age, has _numerous scars of the whip on her back_."

Mr. Robert Nicoll, Dauphin st. between Emmanuel and Conception st's, Mobile, Alabama, in the "Mobile Commercial Advertiser."

"Ten dollars reward for my woman Siby, _very much scarred about the neck and ears by whipping_."

Mr. Bryant Johnson, Fort Valley Houston Co., Georgia, in the "Standard of Union," Milledgeville Ga. Oct. 2, 1838. "Ranaway, a negro woman, named Maria, _some scars on her back occasioned by the whip_."

Mr. James T. De Jarnett, Vernon, Autauga Co., Alabama, in the "Pensacola Gazette," July 14, 1838.

"Stolen a negro woman, named Celia. On examining her back you will find marks _caused by the whip_."

Maurice Y. Garcia, Sheriff of the County of Jefferson, La., in the "New Orleans Bee," August, 14, 1838.

"Lodged in jail, a mulatto boy, _having large marks of the whip,_ on his shoulders and other parts of his body."

R.J. Bland, Sheriff of Claiborne Co, Miss., in the "Charleston (S.C.) Courier." August, 28, 1838.

"Was committed a negro boy, named Tom, is _much marked with the whip_."

Mr. James Noe, Red River Landing, La., in the "Sentinel," Vicksburg, Miss., August 22, 1837.

"Ranaway, a negro fellow named d.i.c.k--has _many scars on his back from being whipped."_