American Slavery as It is: Testimonies. Theodore Dwight Weld
following advertisement is an illustration. We copy it from the "Daily Georgian," Savannah, Dec. 14, 1838.
NEGROES WANTED.
The Contractors upon the Brunswick and Alatamaha Canal are desirous to hire a number of prime Negro Men, from the 1st October next, for fifteen months, until the 1st January, 1840. They will pay at the rate of eighteen dollars per month for each prime hand.
These negroes will be employed in the excavation of the Canal. They will be provided with three and a half pounds of pork or bacon, and ten quarts of gourd seed corn per week, lodged in comfortable shantees, and attended constantly by a skilful physician.
J. H. COUPER,
P. M. NIGHTINGALE.
But we have direct testimony to this point. The late Hon. John Taylor, of Caroline Co. Virginia, for a long time Senator in Congress, and for many years president of the Agricultural Society of the State, says in his "Agricultural Essays," No. 30, page 97, "BREAD ALONE OUGHT NEVER TO BE CONSIDERED A SUFFICIENT DIET FOR SLAVES EXCEPT AS A PUNISHMENT." He urges upon the planters of Virginia to give their slaves, in addition to bread, "salt meat and vegetables," and adds, "we shall be ASTONISHED to discover upon trial, that this great comfort to them is a profit to the master."
The Managers of the American Prison Discipline Society, in their third Report, page 58, say, "In the Penitentiaries generally,in the United States, the animal food is equal to one pound of meat per day for each convict."
Most of the actual suffering from hunger on the part of the slaves, is in the sugar and cotton-growing region, where the crops are exported and the corn generally purchased from the upper country. Where this is the case there cannot but be suffering. The contingencies of bad crops, difficult transportation, high prices, &c. &c., naturally occasion short and often precarious allowances. The following extract from a New Orleans paper of April 26, 1837, affords an illustration. The writer in describing the effects of the money pressure in Mississippi, says:
"They, (the planters,) are now left without provisions and the means of living and using their industry, for the present year. In this dilemma, planters whose crops have been from 100 to 700 bales, find themselves forced to sacrifice many of their slaves in order to get the common necessaries of life for the support of themselves and the rest of their negroes. In many places, heavy planters compel their slaves to fish for the means of subsistence, rather than sell them at such ruinous rates. There are at this moment THOUSANDS OF SLAVES in Mississippi, that KNOW NOT WHERE THE NEXT MORSEL IS TO COME FROM. The master must be ruined to save the wretches from being STARVED"
II. Labor
THE SLAVES ARE OVERWORKED.
This is abundantly proved by the number of hours that the slaves are obliged to be in the field. But before furnishing testimony as to their hours of labor and rest, we will present the express declarations of slaveholders and others, that the slaves are severely driven in the field.
| WITNESSES. | TESTIMONY. |
| The Senate and House of Representatives of the State of South Carolina. | "MANY OWNERS of slaves, and others who have the management of slaves, do confine them so closely at hard labor that they have not sufficient time for natural rest.--See 2 Brevard's Digest of the Laws of South Carolina, 243." |
| History of Carolina.--Vol. i, page 120. | "So laborious is the task of raising, beating, and cleaning rice, that had it been possible to obtain European servants in sufficient numbers, thousands and tens of thousands MUST HAVE PERISHED." |
| Hon. Alexander Smyth, a slaveholder, and member of Congress from Virginia, in his speech on the "Missouri question," Jan. 28, 1820. | "Is it not obvious that the way to render their situation more comfortable, is to allow them to be taken where there is not the same motive to force the slave to INCESSANT TOIL that there is in the country where cotton, sugar, and tobacco are raised for exportation. It is proposed to hem in the blacks where they are HARD WORKED, that they may be rendered unproductive and the race be prevented from increasing. * * * The proposed measure would be EXTREME CRUELTY to the blacks. * * * You would * * * doom them to HARD LABOR." |
| "Travels in Louisiana," translated from the French by John Davies, Esq.--Page 81. | "At the rolling of sugars, an interval of from two to three months, they work both night and day. Abridged of their sleep, they scarce retire to rest during the whole period." |
| The Western Review, No. 2,--article "Agriculture of Louisiana." | "The work is admitted to be severe for the hands, (slaves,) requiring when the process is commenced to be pushed night and day." |
| W. C. Gildersleeve, Esq., a native of Georgia, elder of the Presbyterian church, Wilkesbarre, Penn. | "Overworked I know they (the slaves) are." |
| Mr. Asa A. Stone, a theological student, near Natchez, Miss., in 1834 and 1835. | "Every body here knows overdriving to be one of the most common occurrences, the planters do not deny it, except, perhaps, to northerners." |
| Philemon Bliss, Esq., a lawyer of Elyria, Ohio, who lived in Florida in 1834 and 1835. | "During the cotton-picking season they usually labor in the field during the whole of the daylight, and then spend a good part of the night in ginning and baling. The labor required is very frequently excessive, and speedily impairs the constitution." |
| Hon. R. J. Turnbull of South Carolina, a slaveholder, speaking of the harvesting of cotton, says: | 'All the pregnant women even, on the plantation, and weak and sickly negroes incapable of other labor, are then in requisition." |
HOURS OF LABOR AND REST.
| Asa A Stone, theological student, a classical teacher near Natchez, Miss., 1835. | "It is a general rule on all regular plantations, that the slaves be in the field as soon as it is light enough for them to see to work, and remain there until it is so dark that they cannot see." |
| Mr. Cornelius Johnson, of Farmington, Ohio, who lived in Mississippi a part of 1837 and 1838. | "It is the common rule for the slaves to be kept at work fifteen hours in the day, and in the time of picking cotton a certain number of pounds is required of each. If this amount is not brought in at night, the slave is whipped, and the number of pounds lacking is added to the next day's job; this course is often repeated from day to day." |
| W. C. Gildersleeve, Esq., Wilkesbarre, Penn., a native of Georgia. | "It was customary for the overseers to call out the gangs long before day,say three o'clock, in the winter, while dressing out the crops; such work as could be done by fire light (pitch pine was abundant,) was provided." |
| Mr. William Leftwich, a native of Virginia and son of a slaveholder--he has recently removed to Delhi, Hamilton county Ohio. | "From dawn till dark, the slaves are required to bend to their work." |
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Mr. Nehemiah Caulkins, Waterford, Conn., a resident in North Carolina eleven |