NOTE. The Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society, while tendering their grate. ful acknowledgments, in the name of American Abolitionists, and in behalf of the slave, to those who have furnished for this publication the result of their residence and travel in the slave states of this Union, announce their determination to publish, from time to time, as they may have the materials and the funds, TRACTS, containing well authenticated facts, testimony, personal narratives, &c. fully setting forth the condition of American slaves. In order that they may be furnished with the requisite materials, they invite all who have had personal knowledge of the condition of slaves in any of the states of this Union, to forward their testimony with their names and residences. To prevent imposition, it is indispensable that persons forwarding testimony, who are not personally known to any of the Executive Committee, or to the Secretaries or Editors of the American AntiSlavery Society, should furnish references to some person or persons of respectability, with whom, if necessary, the Committee may communicate respecting the writer. Facts and testimony respecting the condition of slaves, in all respects, are desired; their food, (kinds, quality, and quantity,) clothing, lodging, dwellings, hours of labor and rest, kinds of labor, with the mode of exaction, supervision, &c.-the number and time of meals each day, treatment when sick, regulations respecting their social intercourse, marriage and domestic ties, the system of torture to which they are subjected, with its various modes; and in detail, their intellectual and moral condition. Great care should be observed in the statement of facts. Well-weighed testimony and well-authenticated facts, with a responsible name, the Committee carnestly desire and call for. Thousands of persons in the free states have ample knowledge on this subject, derived from their own observation in the midst of slavery. Will such hold their peace? That which maketh manifest is light; he who keepeth his candle under a bushel at such a time and in such a cause as this, forges fetters for himself, as well as for the slave. Let no one withhold his testimony because others have already testified to similar facts. The value of testimony is by no means to be measured by the novelty of the horrors which it describes. Corroborative testimony, -facts, similar to those established by the testimony of others,-is highly valuable. Who that can give it and has a heart of flesh, will refuse to the slave so small a boon? Communications may be addressed to Theodore D. Weld, 143 Nassau-street, New York. New York, May, 1839. INTRODUCTION.-7-10 Twenty-seven hundred thousand free born citizens of PERSONAL NARRATIVES-PART I. pp. 10-27. NARRATIVE OF NEHEMIAH CAULKINS, 102; North Carolina slavery, 11; Methodist preaching slavedriver, Galloway, 12: Women at child-birth, 12: Slaves at labor, 12: Clothing of slaves, 13; Allowance of provisions, 13; Slave-fetters, 13; Cruelties to slaves, 13, 14, 15, Burying a slave alive, 15; Licentiousness of Slave holders, 15, 16; Rev. Thomas P. Hunt, with his "hands tied," 16; Preachers' cringe to slavery, 15; Nakedness of slaves, 16; Slave-huts, 16; Means of subsistence for NARRRATIVE OF REV. HORACE MOULTON, 17; Labor of the slaves, 18; Tasks, 18; Whipping posts, 18; Food, 18; Houses, 19; Clothing, 19; Punishments, 19, 20; Scenes of horror, 20; Constables, savage and brutal, 20; Patrols, 20; Cruelties at night, 20, 21; Paddle-torturing, 20; Cat-hauling, 21; Branding with hot iron, 21; Murder with impunity, 21: Iron collars, yokes, clogs, and bells, 21. ment of slaves, 22; Converted slave, 22; Professor of reli- gion, near death, tortured his slave for visiting his com- panion, 33; Counterpart of James Williams' description of Larrimore's wife, 23; Head of runaway slave on a pole, 23; Governor of North Carolina left his sick slave to per- ish, 23; Cruelty to Women slaves, 34; Christian slave a TESTIMONY OF Rev. JOHN GRAHAM, 55; Twenty-seven TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM POE, 26; Harris whipped a girl to death, 26; Captain of the U. S. Navy murdered his boy, was tried and acquitted, 26; Overseer burut a slave, 26; Cruelties to slaves, 26 PRIVATIONS OF THE SLAVES, pp. 27, 44, FOOD, 28-31; Suffering from hunger, 28; Rations in the U. S. Army, &c, 32; Prison rations, 33-34; Testimo- ny, 34, 35; LABOR, 35; Slaves are overworked, 35; Wit- nesses, 35, 36; Henry Clay, 37; Child-bearing, preventel, 37; Dr. Channing, 38; Sacrifice of a set of hands every seven years, 38; Testimony, 39; Laws of Georgia, Louis- jana, Maryland, South Carolina, and Virginia, 39; CLOTHING, 40; Witnesses, 40, 41; Advertisements, 41; Testimony, 41; Field-hands, 41; Nudity of slaves, 42; John Randolph's legacy to Essex and Hetty, 42; DWELLINGS, 42; Witnesses, 43; Slaves are wretchedly sheltered and lodged, 43; TREATMENT OF THE PERSONAL NARRATIVES, PART II, pp 45–57. TESTIMONY OF THH REV. WILLIAM T. ALLAN. 45; Woman delivered of a dead chiid, being whipped, 46; Slaves shot by Hilton, 46; Cruelties to slaves, 46; Whip- ping post, 46; Assaults, and maimings, 46, 47; Mur- ders, 47; Puryear, "the Devil," 47; Overseers always armed, 44; Licentiousness of Overseers, 47; "Bend your backs," 47; Mrs. H., a Presbyterian, desirous to cut Arthur Tappan's throat, 47; Clothing, Huts, and Herding of slaves, 47; Iron yokes with prongs, 47; Marriage un. known among slaves, 46; Presbyterian minister at Hunts- TESTIMONY OF LEMUEL SAPINGTON, 49; Nakedness of slaves, 49; Traffic in slaves, 49. TESTIMONY OF MRS. LOWRY, 50; Long, a professor of religion killed three men, 50; Salt water applied to wounds to keep them from putrefaction, 50. TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM C. GILDERSLEEVE, 50; Acts f TESTIMONY OF HIRAM WHITE, 51; Woman with a child chained to her neck, 51; Amalgamation, and mulatto TESTIMONY OF JOHN M. NELSON, 51; Rev. Conrad Speece influenced Alexander Nelson when dying not to emancipate his slaves, 52; George Bourne opposed slavery in TESTIMONY OF ANGELINA GRIMKE WELD, 52; House- same room, 53; Tread-mills, 53; Slaveholding religion, 54; Slave-driving mistress prayed for the divine blessing upon her whipping of an aged woman, 54; Girl killed with impunity, 54; Jewish law, 54; Barbarities, 54; Medical attendance upon slaves, 55; Young man beaten to epilepsy and insanity, 55; Mistresses flog their slaves, 55; Blood- slaves, 55; All Comfort of slaves disregarded, 56; Severance of companion lovers, 56; Separation of parents and children, 56; Slave espionage, 57; Sufferings of slaves, 57; Horrors TESTIMONY OF CRUELTY INFLICTED UPON SLAVES, 57; Colonization Society, 60; Emancipation Society of North PUNISHMENTS, 62-72; Floggings, 62; Witnesses and SLAVE DRIVING, 69; Droves of slaves, 70. CRUELTY TO SLAVES, 70; Slaves like Stock without a shelter, 71; "Six pound paddle," 71. TORTURES OF SLAVES Iron collars, chains, fetters, and hand-cuffs, 72-76: Advertisements for fugitive slaves, 73: Testimony, 72, 73: Iron head-frame, 76: Chain coffles, 76; Droves of human cattle,' 76: Washington, the Na- tional s'ave market, 70: Testimony of James K. Pauld- ing, Secretary of the Navy; Literary fraud and pretended prophecy by Mr. Paulding, 77: Brandings, Maimings, and Gun-shot wounds, 87: Witnesses and Testimony, 77-82: Mr. Sevier, senator of the U. S. 79: Judge Hitchcock, of Mobile, 79: Commendable fidelity to truth in the advertise- ments of slaveholders, 82: Thomas Aylethorpe cut off a slave's ear, and sent it to Lewis Tappan, 98: Advertise- mants for runaway slaves with their teeth muti- lated, 83, 84; Excessive cruelty to slaves, 85: Slaves burned alive, 86: Mr. Turner, a slave-butcher, 87: Slaves roasted and flogged, 87: Cruelties common, 88: Fugitive slaves, 88: Slaves forced to eat tobacco worms, mony, 89: Slave driven to death, 89: Coroner's inquest o Harvey's murdered female slave, 89: Man-stealing en- couraged by law, 90: Trial for a murdered slave, 90: Fe male slave whipped to death, and during the torture deliv- ered of a dead infant, 90: Slaves murdered, 90, 91, 92: Slave driven to death, 92: Slaves killed with impunity, 92: George, a slave, chopped piece-meal, and burnt by 115; Incredulity discreditable to intelligence, 115; Abuse of power in the state, and churches. 115; Legal restraints, 116; deprived of safeguards of law, 116; Mutual aversion be American slaveholders possess absolute power, 116; Slaves tween the oppressor and the slave, 116; Cruelty the product of arbitrary power, 117; Testimony of Thomas Jefferson, 117; Judge Tucker, 117; Presbyterian Synod of South Carolina, and Georgia, 117; General William H. Harrison, 117; President Edwards, 118; Montesquieu, 118; Wilber- CLOTHING, 95; Nudity of slaves, 95. WORK, 95; Cotton-picking, 96; Mothers of slaves, 96; Presbyterian minister killed his slave, 96; Methodist co- lored preacher hung, 96; Licentiousness, 97; Slave-traffic, 97; Night in a Slaveholder's house, 97; Twelve slaves ing of runaways slaves, 97; Amalgamation, 97. TESTIMONY OF REUBEN C. MACY, AND RICHARD MACY, 98. Whipping of slaves, 98, 99; Testimony of Eleazer Powel, 99; Overseer of Hinds Stuart, shot a slave for opposing the torture of his female companion, 100. TESTIMONY OF Rev. WILLIAM SCALES, 100. Three slaves murdered with impunity, 100; Separation of lovers, par- TESTIMONY OF Jos. IDE, 101. Mrs. T. a Presbyterian kind woman- killer, 101; Female slave whipped to death, 101; Food, 101; Nakedness of slaves, 101; Old man flogged after praying for his tyrant, 101; Slave-huts not as comfort- TESTIMONY OF REV. PHINEAS SMITH, 101. Texas, 102; Suit for the value of slave property,' 102; Anson Jones, Ambassador from Texas, 102; No trial or punishment for the murder of slaves, 102; Slave-hunting in Texas, 102; Suffering drives the slaves to despair and suicide, 102; TESTIMONY OF PHIL'N. BLISS, 102. Ignorance of northern citizens respecting slavery, 102 Betting upon crops, 103; Ex- tent and cruelty of the punishment of slaves, 103; Slavehold- ers excuse their cruelties by the example of Preachers, and professors of religion, and Northern citizens, 104; Novel torture, eulogized by a professor of religion, 104; Whips as cominon as the plough, 104; Ladies use cowhides, with TESTIMONY OF REV. WM. A. CHAPIN, 105. Slave-labor, 105; Starvation of slaves, 105; Slaves lacerated, without clothing, and without food, 105. TESSTIMONY OF T. M. MACY, 105. Cotton plantations on St. Simon's Island, 105; Cultivntion of rice, 106; No time for relaxation, 106; Sabbath a nominal rest, 106; Clothing, TESTIMONY OF F. C. MACY, 106. Slave cabins, 106; Food, 106; Whipping every day, 106; Treatment of slaves as OBJECTION II." Slaveholders protest that they treat their slaves well." 121 Not testimony but opinion, 122; Good treatment' of slaves,' 123; Novel form of cruelty, 125. kindness, and generosity, 125; Hospitality and benevolence OBJECTION III" Slaveholders are proverbial for their OBJECTION IV.-" Northern visitors at the south testify that the slaves are not cruelly treated, 128. Testimony, OBJECTION V." It is for the interest of the masters to treat their slaves well," 132; Testimony, 133. Rev. J. N Maffitt, 134; Masters interest to treat cruelly the great body of the slaves, 134, 135; Various classes of slaves, 135, 136; Hired slaves, 136; Advertisements, 136, 137. OBJECTION VI:-"Slaves multiply; a proof that they are not inhumanly treated, and are in a comfortable condition, 139. Testimony," 139; Martin Van Buren, 139; Foreign slave trade, 139; 'Beware of Kidnappers,' 140; ' Citizens sold as slaves,' 141; Kidnapping at New Orleans, 141; Slave OBJECTION VII.-" Public opinion is a protection to the slave, 143." Decision of the Supreme Court of North and South Carolina, 143; Protection of slaves,' 143; Mischiev- ous effects of public opinion' concerning slavery, 144; Laws of different states, 144; Heart of slaveholders, 143; Reasons for enacting the laws concerning cruelties to slaves, 147; Moderate correction,' 148; Hypocrisy and malignity of slave laws, 148; Testimony of slaves excluded, 149; Capital crimes for slaves, 149; Slaveholding brutali- ty,' worse than that of Caligula, 149; Public opinion destroys fundamental rights, 150; Character of slaveholders' adver- tisements, 152; Public opinion is diabolical, 152, 154; Brutal indecency, 154; Murder of slaves by law, 155, 156 ; Judge Lawless, 157; Slave-hunting, 159, 160; Health of slaves, 161; Acclimation of slaves, 162; Liberty of Slaves 162; Kidnapping of free citizens. 162; Law of Louisiana, 163; FRIEND's, memorial, 164; Domestic slavery, 164; Ad- TESTIMONY OF A CLERGYMAN, 107. Natchez, 107; Lie CONDITION OF SLAVES, 108. Slavery is unmixed cruelty, 108; Fear the only motive of slaves, 109; Pain is the means, not the end of slave-driving, 109; Characters of Slave drivers and Overseers, brutal, sentual, and violent, ty, 169; Butchering dead slaves, 169; South Carolina Medical college, 169; Charleston Medical Infirmary, 172; Advertisements, 172, 173; Slave murders, 173; John Ran dolph, 173; Charleston slave auctions, 174; Never lose a day's work,' 174; Stocks, 175; Slave-breeding, 175; Lynch law, 175; Slaves murdered 176; Slavery among Christians, 176, 180; Licentiousness encouraged by preachers, 180; Fine old preacher who dealt in slaves,' 180; Cruelty to slaves by professors of religion, 181; Slave-breeding, 182; Daniel O'Connel, and Andrew Stevenson, 182; Virginia a negro raising menagerie, 182 · Legistature of Virginia, 182; Colonization Society, 183 Inter-state slave traffic, 184; Bat- OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED:-PAGE 120--210. I. Such cruelties are incredible, 110. Slaves deemed to worse treated than quadrupeds, 111, 112; Contrast between the usage of slaves and animals, 112; Testimony, 112; Northern incredulity discreditable to consistency, 112; Religious persecutions, 113; Recent Lynchings,' and Riots, in the United States, 113; Many outrageous Felonies perpe- trated with impunity, 113; Large faith of the objectors who 'can't believe,' 114; 'Doe faces,' and' Dough faces,' 114; Slave-drivers acknowledge their own enormities, 114; ATLANTIC SLAVEHOLDING REGION, 206. Georgia, 206; Slave plantations in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, North Carolina, 209; Trading with Negroes, 209; Conclu Horse-racing, 186; Ignorance of slaveholders, 187: 'Slave- INTRODUCTION. Two millions seven hundred thousand persons in these States are in this condition. They were made slaves and are held such by force, and by being put in fear, and this for no crime! Reader, what have you to say of such treatment? Is it right, just, benevolent? Suppose I should seize you, rob you of your liberty, drive you into the field, and make you work without pay as long as you live, would that be justice and kindness, or monstrous injustice and cruelty? Now; every body knows that the slaveholders do these things to the slaves every day, and yet it is stoutly af firmed that they treat them well and kindly, and that their tender regard for their slaves restrains the masters from inflicting cruelties upon them. We shall go into no metaphysics to show the absurdity of this pretence. The man who robs you every day, is, forsooth, quite too tender READER, you are empannelled as a juror to try a plain case and bring in an honest verdict. The question at issue is not one of law, but of fact-"What is the actual condition of the slaves in the United States ?" A plainer case never went to a jury. Look at it. TWENTYSEVEN HUNDRED THOUSAND PERSONS in this country, men, women, and children, are in SLAVERY. Is slavery, as a condition for human beings, good, bad, or indifferent? We submit the question without argument. You have common sense, and conscience, and a human heart;-pronounce upon it. You have a wife, or a husband, a child, a father, a mother, a brother or a sistermake the case your own, make it theirs, and bring in your verdict. The case of Human Rights against Slavery has been adjudicated in the court of conscience times innumerable. The same verdict has always been rendered-" Guil-hearted ever to cuff or kick you! True, he can ty;" the same sentence has always been pronounced, "Let it be accursed;" and human nature, with her million echoes, has rung it round the world in every language under heaven, “Let | it be accursed. Let it be accursed." His heart is false to human nature, who will not say "Amen." There is not a man on earth who does not be. lieve that slavery is a curse. Human beings may be inconsistent, but human nature is true to herself. She has uttered her testimony against slavery with a shriek ever since the monster was begotten; and till it perishes amidst the execrations of the universe, she will traverse the world on its track, dealing her bolts upon its head, and dashing against it her condemning brand. We repeat it, every man knows that slavery is a curse. Whoever denies this, his lips libel his heart. Try him; clank the chains in his ears, and tell him they are for him. Give him an hour to prepare his wife and children for a life of slavery. Bid him make haste and get ready their necks for the yoke, and their wrists for the coffle chains, then look at his pale lips and trembling knees, and you have nature's testimony against slavery. snatch your money, but he does it gently lest he should hurt you. He can empty your pockets without qualms, but if your stomach is empty, it cuts him to the quick. He can make you work a life time without pay, but loves you too well to let you go hungry. He fleeces you of your rights with a relish, but is shocked if you work bareheaded in summer, or in winter without warm stockings. He can make you go without your liberty, but never without a shirt. He can crush, in you, all hope of bettering your condition, by vowing that you shall die his slave, but though he can coolly torture your feelings, he is too compassionate to lacerate your back-he can break your heart, but he is very tender of your skin. He can strip you of all protection and thus expose you to all outrages, but if you are exposed to the weather, half clad and half sheltered, how yearn his tender bowels! What! slaveholders talk of treating men well, and yet not only rob them of all they get, and as fast as they get it, but rob them of themselves, also; their very hands and feet, all their muscles, and limbs, and senses, their bodies and minds, their time and liberty and earnings, their free speech and rights of con science, their right to acquire knowledge, and property, and reputation;-and yet they, who plunder them of all these, would fain make us believe that their soft hearts ooze out so lovingly toward their slaves that they always keep them well housed and well clad, never push them too hard in the field, never make their dear backs smart, nor let their dear stomachs get empty. But there is no end to these absurdities. Are slaveholders dunces, or do they take all the rest of the world to be, that they think to bandage our eyes with such thin gauzes? Protesting their kind regard for those whom they hourly plunder of all they have and all they get! What! when they have seized their victims, and annihilated all their rights, still claim to be the special guardians of their happiness! Plunderers of their liberty, yet the careful suppliers of their wants? Robbers of their earnings, yet watchful sentinels round their interests, and kind providers of their comforts? Filching all their time, yet granting generous donations for rest and sleep? Stealing the use of their muscles, yet thoughtful of their ease? Putting them under driv. ers, yet careful that they are not hard-pushed? Too humane forsooth to stint the stomachs of their slaves, yet force their minds to starve, and brandish over them pains and penalties, if they dare to reach forth for the smallest crumb of knowledge, even a letter of the alphabet! the altars of their gods. The Romans lauded their own mild treatment of their bondmen, while they branded their names on their flesh with hot irons, and when old, threw them into their fish ponds, or like Cato "the Just," starved them to death. It is the boast of the Turks that they treat their slaves as though they were their chil. dren, yet their common name for them is "dogs," and for the merest trifles, their feet are bastinadoed to a jelly, or their heads clipped off with the scimetar. The Portuguese pride themselves on their gentle bearing toward their slaves, yet the streets of Rio Janeiro are filled with naked men and women yoked in pairs to carts and wagons, and whipped by drivers like beasts of burden. Slaveholders, the world over, have sung the praises of their tender mercies towards their ? slaves. Even the wretches that plied the African slave trade, tried to rebut Clarkson's proofs of their cruelties, by speeches, affidavits, and pub. lished pamphlets, setting forth the accommoda. tions of the "middle passage," and their kind attentions to the comfort of those whom they had stolen from their homes, and kept stowed away under hatches, during a voyage of four thousand miles. So, according to the testimony of the autocrat of the Russias, he exercises greatclemency towards the Poles, though he exiles* them by thousands to the snows of Siberia, and tramples them down by millions, at home. Who It is no marvel that slaveholders are always discredits the atrocities perpetrated by Ovando in talking of their kind treatment of their slaves. Hispaniola, Pizarro in Peru, and Cortez in MexiThe only marvel is, that men of sense can be co,-because they filled the ears of the Spanish gulled by such professions. Despots always insist Court with protestations of their benignant rule? that they are merciful. The greatest tyrants that While they were yoking the enslaved natives ever dripped with blood have assumed the titles like beasts to the draught, working them to death of "most gracious," "most clement," "most by thousands in their mines, hunting them with merciful," &c., and have ordered their crouching bloodhounds, torturing them on racks, and vassals to accost them thus. When did not vice broiling them on beds of coals, their representalay claim to those virtues which are the opposites tions to the mother country teemed with eulogies of its habitual crimes? The guilty, according to of their parental sway! The bloody atrocities of their own showing, are always innocent, and Philip II., in the expulsion of his Moorish subcowards brave, and drunkards sober, and harlots jects, are matters of imperishable history. Who chaste, and pickpockets honest to a fault. Every disbelieves or doubts them? And yet his courbody understands this. When a man's tongue tiers magnified his virtues and chanted his cle. grows thick, and he begins to hiccough and walk mency and his mercy, while the wail of a million cross-legged, we expect him, as a matter of course, victims, smitten down by a tempest of fire and to protest that he is not drunk; so when a man is slaughter let loose at his bidding, rose above the always singing the praises of his own honesty, we Te Deums that thundered from all Spain's cathe instinctively watch his movements and look out drals. When Louis XIV. revoked the edict of for our pocket-books. Whoever is simple enough Nantz, and proclaimed two millions of his subto be hoaxed by such professions, should never be jects free plunder for persecution,-when from trusted in the streets without somebody to take the English channel to the Pyrennees the mancare of him. Human nature works out in slave- gled bodies of the Protestants were dragged on holders just as it does in other men, and in Ame-reeking hurdles by a shouting populace, he claimrican slaveholders just as in English, French, ed to be "the father of his people,” and wrote Turkish, Algerine, Roman and Grecian. The himself "His most Christian Majesty." Spartans boasted of their kindness to their slaves, But we will not anticipate topics, the fuil diswhile they whipped them to death by thousands atcussion of which more naturally follows than |