The Journal of Negro History, Volume 1, January 1916. Various
to be recounted, before I take my final leave of the subject.–In the ordinary course of the business of the country, the punishment of relatives frequently happens on the same farm, and in view of each other:–The father often sees his beloved son–the son his venerable sire–the mother her much-loved daughter–the daughter her affectionate parent–the husband the wife of his bosom, and she the husband of her affection, cruelly bound up without delicacy or mercy, and punished with all extremity of incensed rage, and all the rigour of unrelenting severity, whilst these unfortunate wretches dare not even interpose in each other's behalf. Let us reverse the case and suppose it ours:–all is silent horror!
Othello Maryland, May 23, 1788.
–-American Museum, IV, 509-512.
Letter on Slavery by a Negro
I am one of that unfortunate race of men, who are distinguished from the rest of the human species, by a black skin and wooly hair–disadvantages of very little moment in themselves, but which prove to us a source of greatest misery, because there are men, who will not be persuaded that it is possible for a human soul to be lodged within a sable body. The West Indian planters could not, if they thought us men, so wantonly spill our blood; nor could the natives of this land of liberty, deeming us of the same species with themselves, submit to be instrumental in enslaving us, or think us proper subjects of a sordid commerce. Yet, strong as the prejudices against us are, it will not, I hope on this side of the Atlantic, be considered as a crime, for a poor African not to confess himself a being of an inferior order to those, who happen to be of a different colour from himself; or be thought very presumptuous, in one who is but a negro, to offer to the happy subjects of this free government, some reflections upon the wretched condition of his countrymen. They will not, I trust, think worse of my brethren, for being discontented with so hard a lot as that of slavery; nor disown me for their fellow-creature, merely because I deeply feel the unmerited sufferings which my countrymen endure.
It is neither the vanity of being an author, nor a sudden and capricious gust of humanity, which has prompted this present design. It has long been conceived and long been the principal subject of my thoughts. Ever since an indulgent master rewarded my youthful services with freedom and supplied me at a very early age with the means of acquiring knowledge, I have laboured to understand the true principles, on which the liberties of mankind are founded, and to possess myself of the language of this country, in order to plead the cause of those who were once my fellow slaves, and if possible to make my freedom, in some degree, the instrument of their deliverance.
The first thing then, which seems necessary, in order to remove those prejudices, which are so unjustly entertained against us, is to prove that we are men–a truth which is difficult of proof, only because it is difficult to imagine, by what argument it can be combatted. Can it be contended that a difference of colour alone can constitute a difference of species?–if not in what single circumstance are we different from the rest of mankind? what variety is there in our organization? what inferiority of art in the fashoning of our bodies? what imperfection in the faculties of our minds?–Has not a negro eyes? has not a negro hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?–fed with the same food; hurt with the same weapons; subject to the same diseases; healed by the same means; warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter as a white man? if you prick us, do we not bleed? if you poison us, do we not die? are we not exposed to all the same wants? do we not feel all the same sentiments–are we not capable of all the same exertions–and are we not entitled to all the same rights, as other men?
Yes–and it is said we are men, it is true; but that we are men, addicted to more and worse vices, than those of any other complexion; and such is the innate perverseness of our minds, that nature seems to have marked us out for slavery.–Such is the apology perpetually made for our masters, and the justification offered for that universal proscription, under which we labour.
But, I supplicate our enemies to be, though for the first time, just in their proceedings toward us, and to establish the fact before, they attempt to draw any conclusions from it. Nor let them imagine that this can be done, by merely asserting that such is our universal character. It is the character, I grant, that our inhuman masters have agreed to give us, and which they have so industriously and too successfully propagated, in order to palliate their own guilt, by blackening the helpless victims of it, and to disguise their own cruelty under the semblance of justice. Let the natural depravity of our character be proved–not by appealing to declamatory invectives, and interested representations, but by showing that a greater proportion of crimes have been committed by the wronged slaves of the plantation, than by the luxurous inhabitants of Europe, who are happily strangers to those aggravated provocations, by which our passions are every day irritated and incensed. Show us, that, of the multitude of negroes, who have within a few years transported themselves to this country,87 and who are abandoned to themselves; who are corrupted by example, prompted by penury, and instigated by the memory of their wrongs to the commission of crime–shew us, I say (and the demonstration, if it be possible, cannot be difficult) that a greater proportion of these, than of white men have fallen under the animadversions of justice, and have been sacrificed to your laws. Though avarice may slander and insult our misery, and though poets heighten the horror of their fables, by representing us as monsters of vice–the fact is, that, if treated like other men, and admitted to a participation of their rights, we should differ from them in nothing, perhaps, but in our possessing stronger passions, nicer sensibility, and more enthusiastic virtue.
Before so harsh a decision was pronounced upon our nature, we might have expected–if sad experience had not taught us, to expect nothing but injustice from our adversaries–that some pains would have been taken, to ascertain, what our nature is; and that we should have been considered, as we are found in our native woods, and not as we now are–altered and perverted by an inhuman political institution. But, instead of this, we are examined, not by philosophers, but by interested traders: not as nature formed us, but as man has depraved us–and from such an inquiry, prosecuted under such circumstances, the perverseness of our dispositions is said to be established. Cruel that you are! you make us slaves; you implant in our minds all the vices, which are in some degree, inseparable from that condition; and you then impiously impute to nature, and to God, the origin of those vices, to which you alone have given birth; and punish in us the crimes, of which you are yourselves the authors.
The condition of the slave is in nothing more deplorable, than in its being so unfavorable to the practice of every virtue. The surest foundation of virtue is love of our fellow creatures; and that affection takes its birth, in the social relations of men to one another. But to a slave these are all denied. He never pays or receives the grateful duties of a son–he never knows or experiences the fond solicitude of a father–the tender names of husband, of brother, and of friend, are to him unknown. He has no country to defend and bleed for–he can relieve no sufferings–for he looks around in vain, to find a being more wretched than himself. He can indulge no generous sentiment–for he sees himself every hour treated with contempt and ridiculed, and distinguished from irrational brutes, by nothing but the severity of punishment. Would it be surprising, if a slave, labouring under all these disadvantages–oppressed, insulted, scorned, trampled on–should come at last to despise himself–to believe the calumnies of his oppressors–and to persuade himself, that it would be against his nature, to cherish any honourable sentiment or to attempt any virtuous action? Before you boast of your superiority over us, place some of your own colour (if you have the heart to do it) in the same situation with us; and see, whether they have such innate virtue, and such unconquerable vigour of mind, as to be capable of surmounting such multiplied difficulties, and of keeping their minds free from the infection of every vice, even under the oppressive yoke of such a servitude.
But, not satisfied with denying us that indulgence, to which the misery of our condition gives us so just a claim, our enemies have laid down other and stricter rules of morality, to judge our actions by, than those by which the conduct of all other men is tried. Habits, which in all human beings, except ourselves, are thought innocent, are, in us, deemed criminal and actions, which are even laudable in white men, become enormous crimes in negroes. In proportion to our weakness, the strictness of censure is increased upon us; and as resources are withheld from us, our duties are multiplied. The terror
This letter was originally published in England, where the number of Negroes had considerably increased after the war in America.