American Slavery as It is: Testimonies. Theodore Dwight Weld
winters.
A New Orleans paper, dated March 23, 1826, says: "To judge from the activity reigning in the cotton presses of the suburbs of St. Mary, and the late hours during which their slaves work, the cotton trade was never more brisk."
Mr. GEORGE W. WESTGATE, a member of the Congregational Church at Quincy, Illinois, who lived in the south western slave states a number of years, says, "The slaves are driven to the field in the morning about four o'clock, the general calculation is to get them at work by daylight; the time for breakfast is between nine and ten o'clock, this meal is sometimes eaten 'bite and work,' others allow fifteen minutes, and this is the only rest the slave has while in the field. I have never known a case of stopping an hour, in Louisiana; in Mississippi the rule is milder, though entirely subject to the will of the master. On cotton plantations, in cotton picking time, that is from October to Christmas, each hand has a certain quantity to pick, and is flogged if his task is not accomplished; their tasks are such as to keep them all the while busy."
The preceding testimony under this head has sole reference to the actual labor of the slaves in the field. In order to determine how many hours are left for sleep, we must take into the account, the time spent in going to and from the field, which is often at a distance of one, two and sometimes three miles; also the time necessary for pounding, or grinding their corn, and preparing, over night, their food for the next day; also the preparation of tools, getting fuel and preparing it, making fires and cooking their suppers, if they have any, the occasional mending and washing of their clothes, &c. Besides this, as every one knows who has lived on a southern plantation, many little errands and chores are to be done for their masters and mistresses, old and young, which have accumulated during the day and been kept in reserve till the slaves return from the field at night. To this we may add that the slaves are social beings, and that during the day, silence is generally enforced by the whip of the overseer or driver.3 When they return at night, their pent up social feelings will seek vent, it is a law of nature, and though the body may be greatly worn with toil, this law cannot be wholly stifled. Sharers of the same woes, they are drawn together by strong affinities, and seek the society and sympathy of their fellows; even "tired nature" will joyfully forego for a time needful rest, to minister to a want of its being equally permanent and imperative as the want of sleep, and as much more profound, as the yearnings of the higher nature surpass the instincts of its animal appendage.
All these things make drafts upon time. To show how much of the slave's time, which is absolutely indispensable for rest and sleep, is necessarily spent in various labors after his return from the field at night, we subjoin a few testimonies.
Mr. CORNELIUS JOHNSON, Farmington, Ohio, who lived in Mississippi in the years 1837 and 38, says:
"On all the plantations where I was acquainted, the slaves were kept in the field till dark; after which, those who had to grind their own corn, had that to attend to, get their supper, attend to other family affairs of their own and of their master, such as bringing water, washing clothes, &c. &c., and be in the field as soon as it was sufficiently light to commence work in the morning."
Mr. GEORGE W. WESTGATE, of Quincy, Illinois, who has spent several years in the south western slave states, says:
"Their time, after full dark until four o'clock in the morning is their own; this fact alone would seem to say they have sufficient rest, but there are other things to be considered; much of their making, mending and washing of clothes, preparing and cooking food, hauling and chopping wood, fixing and preparing tools, and a variety of little nameless jobs must be done between those hours."
PHILEMON BLISS, Esq. of Elyria, Ohio, who resided in Florida in 1834 and 5, gives the following testimony:
"After having finished their field labors, they are occupied till nine or ten o'clock in doing chores, such as grinding corn, (as all the corn in the vicinity is ground by hand,) chopping wood, taking care of horses, mules, &c., and a thousand things necessary to be done on a large plantation. If any extra job is to be done, it must not hinder the 'niggers' from their work, but must be done in the night."
W. C. GILDERSLEEVE, Esq., a native of Georgia, an elder of the Presbyterian Church at Wilkesbarre, Pa. says:
"The corn is ground in a handmill by the slave after his task is done--generally there is but one mill on a plantation, and as but one can grind at a time, the mill is going sometimes very late at night."
We now present another class of facts and testimony, showing that the slaves engaged in raising the large staples, are overworked.
In September, 1834, the writer of this had an interview with JAMES G. BIRNEY, Esq., who then resided in Kentucky, having removed with his family from Alabama the year before. A few hours before that interview, and on the morning of the same day, Mr. B. had spent a couple of hours with Hon. Henry Clay, at his residence, near Lexington. Mr. Birney remarked, that Mr. Clay had just told him, he had lately been led to mistrust certain estimates as to the increase of the slave population in the far south west--estimates which he had presented, I think, in a speech before the Colonization Society. He now believed, that the births among the slaves in that quarter were not equal to the deaths--and that, of course, the slave population, independent of immigration from the slave-selling states, was not sustaining itself.
Among other facts stated by Mr. Clay, was the following, which we copy verbatim from the original memorandum, made at the time by Mr. Birney, with which he has kindly furnished us.
"Sept. 16, 1834.--Hon. H. Clay, in a conversation at his own house, on the subject of slavery, informed me, that Hon. Outerbridge Horsey, formerly a senator in Congress from the state of Delaware, and the owner of a sugar plantation in Louisiana, declraed to him, that his overseer worked his hands so closely, that one of the women brought forth a child whilst engaged in the labors of the field.
"Also, that a few years since, he was at a brick yard in the environs of New Orleans, in which one hundred hands were employed; among them were from twenty to thirty young women, in the prime of life. He was told by the proprietor, that there had not been a child born among them for the last two or three years, although they all had husbands."
The preceding testimony of Mr. Clay, is strongly corroborated by advertisements of slaves, by Courts of Probate, and by executors administering upon the estates of deceased persons. Some of those advertisements for the sale of slaves, contain the names, ages, accustomed employment, &c., of all the slaves upon the plantation of the deceased. These catalogues show large numbers of young men and women, almost all of them between twenty and thirty-eight years old; and yet the number of young children is astonishingly small. We have laid aside many lists of this kind, in looking over the newspapers of the slaveholding states; but the two following are all we can lay our