spot; and such shricks and crying for mercy! Again he acknowledged, and again they were defeated in finding, and the same reason given as before. Some were for whipping again, others thought he would not survive another, and they ceased. About two months after, the trunk was found, and it was then ascertained who the thief was: and the poor fellow, after being nearly beat to death, and twice made to lie about it, was as innocent as I was." The following statements are furnished by Major HORACE NYE, of Putnam, Muskingum county, Ohio. "In the summer of 1837, Mr. JOHN H. MOOREHEAD, 2 partner of mine, descended the Mississippi with several boat loads of flour. He told me that floating in a place in the Mississippi, where he could see for miles a head, he perceived a concourse of people on the bank, that for at least a mile and a half above he saw them, and heard the screams of some person, and for a great distance, the crack of a whip, he run near the shore, and saw them whipping a black man, who was on the ground, and at that time nearly unable to scream, but the whip continued to be plied without intermission, as long as he was in sight, gay from one mile and a half, to two miles be. low-he probably saw and heard them for one hour in all. He expressed the opinion that the man could not survive. "About four weeks since I had a conversation with Mr. Porter, a respectable citizen of Morgan county, of this state, of about fifty years of age. He told me that he formerly traveled about five years in the southern states, and that on one occasion he stopped at a private house, to stay all night; (I think it was in Virginia,) while he was conversing with the man, his wife came in, and complained that the wench had broken some article in the kitchen, and that she must be whipped. He took the woman into the door yard, stripped her clothes down to her hips-tied her hands together, and drawing them up to a limb, so that she could just touch the ground, took a very large cowskin whip, and commenced flogging; he said that every stroke at first raised the skin, and immediately the blood came through; this he continued, until the blood stood in a puddle at her feet. He then turned to my informant and said, Well, Yankee, what do you think of that?" Extract of a leTTER FROM MR. W. DUSTIN, a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and, when the letter was written, 1835, a student of Marietta College, Ohio. "I find by looking over my journal that the murdering, which I spoke of yesterday, took place about the first of June, 1834. "Without commenting upon this act of cruel. ty, or giving vent to my own feelings, I will sim. ply give you a statement of the fact, as known from personal observation. "Dr. K. a man of wealth, and a practising physician in the county of Yazoo, state of Mississippi, personally known to me, having lived in the same neighborhood more than twelve months, after having scourged one of his negroes for running away, declared with an oath, that if he ran away again, he would kill him. The negr so soon as an opportunity offered, ran away again He was caught and brought back. Again b was scourged, until his flesh, mangled and tor and thick mingled with the clotted blood, rolle from his back. He became apparently insensible and beneath the heaviest stroke would scarcel utter a groan. The master got tired, laid down his whip and nailed the negro's ear to a tree; in this condition, nailed fast to the rugged wood, he remained all night! "Suffice it to say, in the conclusion, that the next day he was found DEAD! "Well, what did they do with the master? The sum total of it is this: He was taken before a magistrate and gave bonds, for his appearance at the next court. Well, to be sure he had plen ty of cash, so he paid up his bonds and moved away, and there the matter ended. "If the above fact will be of any service to you in exhibiting to the world the condition the unfortunate negroes, you are at liberty to make use of it in any way you think best. Yours, fraternally, M. DUSTIN. Mr. ALFRED WILKINSON, a member of the Bap tist Church in Skeneateles, N. Y. and the as sessor of that town, has furnished the following: "I went down the Mississippi in December, 1808, and saw twelve or fourteen negroes punish. ed, on one plantation, by stretching them on a Ladder and tying them to it; then stripping off the clothes, and whipping them on the naked fles with a heavy whip, the lash seven or eight feet long: most of the strokes cut the skin. I under stood they were whipped for not doing the tasks allotted to them." FROM THE PHILANTHROPIST, Cincinnati, Ohio, Feb. 26, 1839. "A very intelligent lady, the widow of a highly respectable preacher of the gospel, of the Pres byterian Church, formerly a resident of a free state, and a colonizationist, and a strong antiabolitionist, who, arthough an enemy to slavery, was opposed to abolition on the ground that it was for carrying things too rapidly, and without regard to circumstances, and especially who be lieved that abolitionists exaggerated with regard to the evils of slavery, and used to say that such men ought to go to slave states and see for themselves, to be convinced that they did the slaveHear her testimony. holders injustice, has gone and seen for herself. Kentucky, Dec. 25, 1835. "Dear Mrs. W.-I am still in the land of op. pression and cruelty, but hope soon to breathe the air of a free state. My soul is sick of slavery, and I rejoice that my time is nearly expired; but the scenes that I have witnessed have made an impression that never can be effaced, and have inspired me with the determination to unite my feeble efforts with those who are laboring to suppress this horrid system. I am now an abolitionist. You will cease to be surprised at this, when I inform you, that I have just seen a poor slave who was beaten by his inhuman master until he could neither walk nor stand. I saw him from iny window carried from the barn where he had been whipped) to the cabin, by two negro men; and he now lies there, and if he recovers, will be a sufferer for months, and probably for life. You will doubtless suppose that he committed some great crime; but it was not so. He was called upon by a young man (the son of his master,) to do something, and not moving as quickly as his young master wished him to do, he drove him to the barn, knocked him down, and jumped upon him, stamped, and then cowhided him until he was almost dead. This is not the first act of cruelty that I have seen, though it is the worst; and I am convinced that those who have described the cruelties of slaveholders, have not exaggerated." EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM GERRIT SMITH, Esq., of Peterboro', N. Y. PETERBORO', December 1, 1838. To the Editor of the Union Herald: "My dear Sir:-You will be happy to hear, that the two fugitive slaves, to whom in the brotherly love of your heart, you gave the use of your horse, are still making undisturbed progress to. wards the monarchical land whither republican slaves escape for the enjoyment of liberty. They had eaten their breakfast, and were seated in my wagon, before day-dawn, this morning. 64 Fugitive slaves have before taken my house in their way, but never any, whose lips and persons made so forcible an appeal to my sensibilities, and kindled in me so much abhorrence of the hell. concocted system of American slavery. face to him, he would hit her across the face either with the butt end or small end of the whip to make her turn her back round square to the lash, that he might get a fair blow at her. "Mr. Say had noticed several wounds on her person, chiefly bruises. "Captain Porter, keeper of the work-house, into which Milly had been received, thought the injurics on her person very bad-some of them appeared to be burns-some bruises or stripes, as of a cow-hide." LETTER OF REV. JOHN RANKIN, of Ripley, Ohio, to the Editor of the Philanthropist. RIPLEY, Feb. 20, 1839. "Some time since, a member of the Presbyterian Church of Ebenezer, Brown county, Ohio, landed his boat at a point on the Mississippi. He saw some disturbance among the colored people on the bank. He stepped up, to see what was the matter. A black man was stretched naked on the ground; his hands were tied to a stake, and one held each foot. He was doomed to receive fifty lashes; but by the time the overseer had given him twenty-five with his great whip, the blood was standing round the wretched victim in little puddles. It appeared just as if it had rained blood.-Another observer stepped up, and advised to defer the other twenty-five to another time, lest the slave might die; and he was releas ed, to receive the balance when he should have so recruited as to be able to bear it and live. The offence was, coming one hour too late to work." Mr. RANKIN, who is a native of Tennessee, in his letters on slavery, published fifteen years since, says: "The fugitives exhibited their bare backs to myself and a number of my neighbors. Williams' back is comparatively scarred. But, I speak with. in bounds, when I say, that one-third to one-half of the whole surface of the back and shoulders "A respectable gentleman, who is now a citi. of poor Scott, consists of scars and wales result-zen of Flemingsburg, Fleming county, Kentucky, ing from innumerable gashes. His natural com- when in the state of South Carolina, was invited plexion being yellow and the callous places be- by a slaveholder, to walk with him and take a ing nearly black, his back and shoulders remind view of his farm. He complied with the invita you of a spotted animal." tion thus given, and in their walk they came to the place where the slaves were at work, and found the overseer whipping one of them very severely for not keeping pace with his fellowsin vain the poor fellow alleged that he was sick, and could not work. The master seemed to The LOUISVILLE REEPORTR (Kentucky,) Jan. 15, 1839, contains the report of a trial for inhuman treatment of a female slave. The following is some of the testimony given in court. think all was well enough, hence he and the gen- Extract of a letter from a MEMBER OF CONGRESS, to the Editor of the New York American, dated Washington, Feb. 18, 1839. The name of the "Dr. CONSTANT testified that he saw Mrs. Max. well at the kitchen door, whipping the negro severely, without being particular whether she struck her in the face or not. The negro was lacerated by the whip, and the blood flowing. Soon after, on going down the steps, he saw quantities of blood on them, and on returning, saw them again. She had been thinly clad-barefooted in very cold weather. Sometimes she had shoes sometimes not. In the beginning of the winter she had linsey dresses, since then, calico ones. During the last four months, had noticed many scars on her person. At one time had one of her "Three days ago, the inhabitants in the vicinieyes tied up for a week. During the last three ty of the new Patent Building were alarmed by months seemed declining, and had become stupi- an outcry in the street, which proved to be that fied. Mr. Winters was passing along the street, of a slave who had just been knocked down with heard cries, looked up through the window that was hoisted, saw the boy whipping her, as much as forty or fifty licks, while he staid. The girl was stripped down to the hips. The whip seem. ed to be a cow-hide. Whenever she turned her writer is with the Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society. a brick-bat by his pursuing master. Prostrate on the ground, with a large gash in his head, the poor slave was receiving the blows of his master on one side, and the kicks of his master's son on the other. His cries brought a few individuals to the spot; but no one dared to interfere, save to | bound-his hands below his knees, and a stick exclaim-You will kill him-which was met by the response, "He is mine, and I have a right to do what I please with him." The heart-rending scene was closed from public view by dragging the poor bruised and wounded slave from the pub. lic street into his master's stable. What followed is not known. The outcries were heard by members of Congress and others at the distance of near a quarter of a mile from the scene. "And now, perhaps, you will ask, is not the city aroused by this flagrant cruelty and breach of the peace? I answer-not at all. Every thing is quiet. If the occurrence is mentioned at all, it is spoken of in whispers." From the Mobile Examiner, August 1, 1837. 66 POLICE REPORT-MAYOR'S OFFICE. Saturday morning, August 12, 1837. "His Honor the Mayor presiding. "Mr. MILLER, of the foundry, brought to the office this morning a small negro girl aged about eight or ten years, whom he had taken into his house some time during the previous night. She had crawled under the window of his bed room to screen herself from the night air, and to find a warmer shelter than the open canopy of heaven afforded. Of all objects of pity that have lately come to our view, this poor little girl most needs the protection of authority, and the sympathies of the charitable. From the cruelty of her master and mistress, she has been whipped, worked and starved, until she is now a breathing skeleton, hardly able to stand upon her feet. "The back of the poor little sufferer, (which we ourselves saw,) was actually cut into strings, and so perfectly was the flesh worn from her limbs, by the wretched treatment she had received, that every joint showed distinctly its crevices and protuberances through the skin. Her little lips chung closely over her teeth-her cheeks were sunken and her head narrowed, and when her eyes were closed, the lids resembled film more than flesh or skin. "We would desire of our northern friends such as choose to publish to the world their own version of the case we have related, not to forget to add, in conclusion, that the owner of this little girl is a foreigner, speaks against slavery as an institution, and reads his Bible to his wife, with the view of finding proofs for his opinions." Rev. WILLIAM SCALES, of Lyndon, Vermont, gives the following testimony in a recent letter: "I had a class-mate at the Andover Theological Seminary, who spent a season at the south, -in Georgia, I think-who related the following fact in an address before the Seminary. It occasioned very deep sensation on the part of opponents. The gentleman was Mr. Julius C. Anthony, of Taunton, Mass. He graduated at the Seminary in 1835. I do not know where he is now settled. I have no doubt of the fact, as he was an eye-witness of it. The man with whom he resided had a very athletic slave-a valuable fellow-a blacksmith. On a certain day a small strap of leather was missing. The man's little son accused this slave of stealing it. He denied the charge, while the boy most confidently asserted it. The slave was brought out into the yard and crossing his knees, so that he would lie upon A few days after, that he stole the Rev. D. C. EASTMAN, a minister of the Metho. dist Episcopal church at Bloomingburg, Fayette county, Ohio, has just forwarded a letter, from which the following is an extract: "GEORGE ROEBUCK, an old and respectable farmer, near Bloomingburg, Fayette county, Ohio, a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, says, that almost forty-three years ago, he saw in Bath county, Virginia, a slave girl with a sore between the shoulders of the size and shape of a smoothing iron. The girl was owned' by one M'Neil. A slaveholder who boarded at M'Neil's stated that Mrs. M'Neil had placed the aforesaid iron when hot, between the girl's shoul ders, and produced the sore. "Roebuck was once at this M'Neil's father's, and whilst the old man was at morning prayer, he heard the son plying the whip upon a slave out of doors. "ELI WEST, of Concord township, Fayette county, Ohio, formerly of North Carolina, a farmer and an exhorter in the Methodist Protestant church, says, that many years since he went to live with an uncle who owned about fifty negroes. Soon after his arrival, his uncle ordered his waiting boy, who was naked, to be tied-his hands to a horse rack, and his feet together, with a rail passed between his legs, and held down by a person at each end. In this position he was whipped, from neck to feet, till covered with blood; after which he was salted. "His uncle's slaves received one quart of corn each day, and that only, and were allowed one hour each day to cook and eat it. They had no meat but once in the year. Such was the general usage in that country. "West, after this, lived one year with Esquire Starky and mother. They had two hundred Mr. SAMUEL HALL, a teacher in Marietta College, Ohio, and formerly secretary of the Colonization society in that village, has recently communicated the facts which follow. We quote from his letter. slaves, who received the usual treatment of starv-¡ church, were with Deacon Larrimer on this jouration, nakedness, and the cowhide. They had one ney, and are witnesses to the preceding facts. likely negro woman who bore no children. For this neglect, her mistress had her back made naked and a severe whipping inflicted. But as she continued barren, she was sold to the negro buyers.' "THOMAS LARRIMER, a deacon in the Presby. terian church at Bloomingburg, Fayette county, Ohio, and a respectable farmer, says, that in April, 1837, as he was going down the Mississippi river, about fifty miles below Natchez, he saw ahead, on the left side of the river, a colored person tied to a post, and a man with a driver's whip, the lash about eight or ten feet long. With this the man commenced, with much deliberation, to whip, with much apparent force, and continued till he got out of sight. "When coming up the river forty or fifty miles below Vicksburg, a Judge Owens came on board the steamboat. He was owner of a cotton plantation below there, and on being told of the above whipping, he said that slaves were often whipped to death for great offences, such as stealing, &c.-but that when death followed, the overseers were generally severely reproved! "About the same time, he spent a night at Mr. Casey's, three miles from Columbia, South Carolina. Whilst there they heard him giving orders as to what was to be done, and amongst other things, 'That nigger must be buried.' On inquiry, he learnt that a gentleman traveling with a servant, had a short time previous called there, and said his servant had just been taken ill, and he should be under the necessity of leaving him. He did so. The slave became worse, and Casey called in a physician, who pronounced it an old case, and said that he must shortly die. The slave said, if that was the case he would now tell the truth. He had been attacked, a long time since, with a difficulty in the side-his master swore he would have his own out of him,' and started off to sell him, with a threat to kill him if he told he had been sick, more than a few days. They saw them making a rough plank box to bury him in. "In March, 1833, twenty-five or thirty miles south of Columbia, on the great road through Sumpterville district, they saw a large company of female slaves carrying rails and building fence. Three of them were far advanced in pregnancy. "In the month of January, 1838, he put up with a drove of mules and horses, at one Adams', on the Drovers' road, near the south border of Kentucky. His son-in-law, who had lived in the south, was there. In conversation about picking cotton, he said, 'some hands cannot get the sleight of it. I have a girl who to-day has done as good a day's work at grubbing as any man, but I could not make her a hand at cotton-picking. I whipped her, and if I did it once I did it five hundred times, but I found she could not; so I put her to carrying rails with the men. After a few days I found her shoulders were so raw that every rail was bloody as she laid it down. I asked her if she would not rather pick cotton than carry rails. 'No,' said she, 'I don't get whipped now."" WILLIAM A. USTICK, an elder of the Presbyterian church at Bloomingburg, and Mr. G. S. Fullerton, a merchant and member of the same "The following horrid flagellation was witnessed in part, till his soul was sick, by MR. GLIDDEN, an inhabitant of Marietta, Ohio, who went down the Mississippi river, with a boat load of produce in the autumn of 1837; it took place at what is called Matthews' or Ma. theses Bend' in December, 1837. Mr. G. is worthy of credit. "A negro was tied up, and flogged until the blood ran down and filled his shoes, so that when he raised either foot and set it down again, the blood would run over their tops. I could not look on any longer, but turned away in horror; the whipping was continued to the number of 500 lashes, as I understood; a quart of spirits of turpentine was then applied to his lacerated body. The same negro came down to my boat, to get some apples, and was so weak from his wounds and loss of blood, that he could not get up the bank, but fell to the ground. The crime for which the negro was whipped, was that of telling the other negroes, that the overseer had lain with his wife." Mr. Hall adds : "The following statement is made by a He is young man from Western Virginia. a member of the Presbyterian Church, and a student in Marietta College. All that prevents the introduction of his name, is the peril to his life, which would probably be the consequence, on his return to Virginia. His character for integrity and veracity is above suspicion. On the night of the great meteoric shower, in Nov. 1833. I was at Remley's tavern, 12 miles west of Lewisburg, Greenbrier Co., Virginia. A drove of 50 or 60 negroes stopped at the same place that night. They usually camp out,' but as it was excessively muddy, they were permitted to come into the house. So far as my knowledge extends, droves,' on their way to the south, eat but twice a day, early in the morning and at night. Their supper was a compound of potatoes and meal,' and was, without exception, the dirtiest, blackest looking mess I ever saw. I remarked at the time that the food was not as clean, in appearance, as that which was given to a drove of hogs, at the same place the night previous. Such as it was, however, a black woman brought it on her head, in a tray or trough two and a half feet long, where the men and women were promiscuously herded. The slaves rushed up and seized it from the trough in handfulls, before the woman could take it off her head. They jumped at it as if half.famished. เ They slept on the floor of the room which they were permitted to occupy, lying in every form imaginable, males and females, promiscu. ously. They were so thick on the floor, that in passing through the room it was necessary to step over them. There were three drivers, one of whom staid in the room to watch the drove, and the other in the language of a witness,' cut his back to two slept in an adjoining room. Each of the mince-meat. But the fiend was not satisfied with latter took a female from the drove to lodge with this. He burnt his legs to a blister, with hot emhim, as is the common practice of the drivers bers, and then chained him naked, in the open generally. There is no doubt about this particu.air, weary with running, weak from the loss of lar instance, for they were seen together. The mud was so thick on the floor where this drove slept, that it was necessary to take a shovel, the next morning, and clear it out. Six or eight in this drove were chained; all were for the south. In the autumn of the same year, I saw a drove of upwards of a hundred, between 40 and 50 of them were fastened to one chain, the links being made of iron rods, as thick in diameter as a man's little finger. This drove was bound westward to the Ohio river, to be shipped to the south. I have seen many droves, and more or less in each, almost without exception, were chained. I never saw but one drove, that went on their way making merry. In that one they were blowing horns, singing, &c., and appear ed as if they had been drinking whisky. blood, and smarting from his burns. It was a cold night-and in the morning the negro was dead. Yet this monster escaped without even the shadow of a trial. The negro,' said the doctor, died, by-he knew not what; any how, Gibbs did not kill him.'* A short time since, (the letter is dated, April, 1838,) Gibbs whip. ped another negro unmercifully because the horse, with which he was ploughing, broke the reins and ran. He then raised his whip against Mr. Bowers, (son of Mrs. P.) who shot him. Since I came here,' (a period of about six months,) there have been eight white men and two negroes killed, within 30 miles of me!' Mr. Knapp, gives me some further verbal particulars about this affair. He says that his informant saw the negro dead the next morning, that his legs were blistered, and throw embers upon him. But Gibbs denied it, and said that the negroes affirmed that Gibbs compelled them to the blistering was the effect of frost, as the negro was son of Mrs. Phillips by a former husband, attempted to much exposed to it before being taken up. Mr. Bowers, a have Gibbs brought to justice, but his mother justified Gibbs, and nothing was therefore done about it. The af fair took place in Upper Elkton, Tennessee, near the Ala bama line. "The following is from Mr. Knapp's own lips, taken down a day or two since. They generally appear extremely dejected. I have seen in the course of five years, on the road near where I reside, 12 or 15 droves at least, passing to the south. They would average 40 in each drove. Near the first of January, 1834, I started about sunrise to go to Lewisburg. It was a bitter cold morning. I met a drove of negroes, 30 or 40 in number, remarkably ragged and destitute of clothing. One little boy particularly excited my sympathy. He was some dis- Mr. Buster, with whom I boarded, in Limetance behind the others, not being able to keep stone Co., Ala., related to me the following inci up with the rest. Although he was shivering dent: George, a slave belonging to one of the with cold and crying, the driver was pushing him estates in my neighborhood, was lurking about up in a trot to overtake the main gang. All of my residence without a pass. We were making them looked as if they were half-frozen. There preparations to give him a flogging, but he cs. was one remarkable instance of tyranny, ex-caped from us. Not long afterwards, meeting hibited by a boy, not more than eight years old, that came under my observation, in a family by the name of D-n, six miles from Lewisburg; This youngster would swear at the slaves, and exert all the strength he possessed, to flog or beat them, with whatever instrument or weapon he could lay hands on, provided they did not obey him instanter. He was encouraged in this by his father, the master of the slaves. The slaves often fled from this young tyrant in terror." Mr. Hall adds: "The following extract is from a letter, to a student in Marietta College, by his friend in Alabama. With the writer, Mr. ISAAC KNAPP, I am perfectly acquainted. He was a student in the above College, for the space of one year, before going to Alabama, was formerly a resident of Dummerston, Vt. He is a professor of religion, and as worthy of belief as any member of the community. Mr. K. has returned from the South, and is now a member of the same college. In Jan. (1838) a negro of a widow Phillips, ranaway, was taken up, and confined in Pulaski jail. One Gibbs, overseer for Mrs. P., mounted on horseback, took him from confinement, compelled him to run back to Elkton, a distance of fifteen miles, whipping him all the way. When he reached home, the negro exhausted and worn out, exclaimed you have broke my heart,' i. e. you have killed me. For this, Gibbs flew into a violent passion, tied the negro to a stake, and, a patrol which had just taken a negro in custody without a pass, I inquired, Who have you there ? on learning that it was George, well, I rejoined, there is a small matter between him and myself, that needs adjustment, so give me the raw hide, which I accordingly took, and laid 60 strokes on his back, to the utmost of my strength.' I was speaking of this barbarity, afterwards, to Mr. Bradley, an overseer of the Rev. Mr. Donnell, who lives in the vicinity of Moresville, Ala., Oh,' replied he, we consider that a very light whipping here.' Mr. Bradley is a professor of religion, and is esteemed in that vicinity a very pious, exemplary Christian,'" EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM REV. C. STEWART RENSHAW, of Quincy, Illinois, dated Jan. 1, 1839. "I do not feel at liberty to disclose the name of the brother who has furnished the following facts. He is highly esteemed as a man of scru pulous veracity. I will confirm my own testimony by the certificate of Judge Snow and Mr. Keyes, two of the oldest and most respectable settlers in Quincy. Quincy, Dec. 29, 1838. "Dear Sir,-We have been long acquainted with the Christian brother who has named to you some facts that fell under his observation whilst a resident of slave states. He is a member of a Christian church, in good standing; and is a man of strict integrity of character. Rev. C. Stewart Renshaw." HENRY H. SNOW, |