An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans. Lydia Maria Child

      Published by Good Press, 2021

       [email protected]

      EAN 4057664639172

Table of Contents

       PREFACE.

       AN APPEAL, &c.

       CHAPTER I.

       CHAPTER II.

       Proposition 1. — Slavery hereditary and perpetual.

       Prop. 2. — Labor compulsory and uncompensated, &c.

       Prop. 3. — Slaves considered personal chattels, liable to be sold, pledged, &c.

       Prop. 4. — Slaves can have no legal claim to any property.

       Prop. 5. — No colored man can be evidence against a white man, &c.

       Prop. 6. — The master has absolute power to punish a slave, &c.

       Prop. 7. — The slave never allowed to resist a white man.

       Prop. 8. — Slaves cannot redeem themselves or change masters.

       Prop. 9. — Slave unprotected in his domestic relations.

       Prop. 10. — The laws obstruct emancipation.

       Prop. 11. — Operation of the laws interferes with religious privileges.

       Prop. 12. — Whole power of the laws exerted to keep negroes in ignorance.

       Prop. 13. — There is a monstrous inequality of law and right.

       Prop. 14. — The laws operate oppressively on free colored people.

       CHAPTER III.

       CHAPTER IV.

       CHAPTER V.

       CHAPTER VI.

       CHAPTER VII.

       CHAPTER VIII.

       INDEX.

PREFACE.

       Table of Contents

      Reader, I beseech you not to throw down this volume as soon as you have glanced at the title. Read it, if your prejudices will allow, for the very truth's sake:—If I have the most trifling claims upon your good will, for an hour's amusement to yourself, or benefit to your children, read it for my sake:—Read it, if it be merely to find fresh occasion to sneer at the vulgarity of the cause:—Read it, from sheer curiosity to see what a woman (who had much better attend to her household concerns) will say upon such a subject:—Read it, on any terms, and my purpose will be gained.

      The subject I have chosen admits of no encomiums on my country; but as I generally make it an object to supply what is most needed, this circumstance is unimportant; the market is so glutted with flattery, that a little truth may be acceptable, were it only for its rarity.

      I am fully aware of the unpopularity of the task I have undertaken; but though I expect ridicule and censure, it is not in my nature to fear them.

      A few years hence, the opinion of the world will be a matter in which I have not even the most transient interest; but this book will be abroad on its mission of humanity, long after the hand that wrote it is mingling with the dust.

      Should it be the means of advancing, even one single hour, the inevitable progress of truth and justice, I would not exchange the consciousness for all Rothchild's wealth, or Sir Walter's fame.

AN APPEAL, &c.

       Table of Contents

CHAPTER I.

       Table of Contents

      BRIEF HISTORY OF NEGRO SLAVERY.—ITS INEVITABLE EFFECT UPON ALL CONCERNED IN IT.

      While the Portuguese were exploring Africa, in 1442, Prince Henry ordered Anthony Gonsalez to carry back certain Moorish prisoners, whom he had seized two years before near Cape Bajador: this order was obeyed, and Gonsalez received from the Moors, in exchange for the captives, ten negroes, and a quantity of gold dust. Unluckily, this wicked speculation proved profitable, and other Portuguese were