uV 
 
 HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 OF 
 
 AFRICAN SLAVERY. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM. B. TROTTER, 
 
 OF QUITMAN, MISSISSIPPI. 
 
 PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR. 
 
 18 01. 
 
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S60, by 
 
 WILLIAM B. TROTTER, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Conrt of the United States for the Southern 
 
 District of Mississijipi. 
 
 (. 2 ^7 1 I 
 
 \ 
 
 ^i.^ 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 As the African slave population in the United 
 States now number about four millions, and are 
 greatly on the increase — a population which, in the 
 capacity of slaves, are as useful to the commerce of 
 the world, or more so, than any other number of 
 people of any class, and in the condition of slaves 
 are better satisfied than in any other ; and many 
 different and erroneous opinions having been enter- 
 tained, in relation to this class of people, by those 
 who neither know anything practically or theoreti- 
 cally about them, in consequence of which much dis- 
 turbance has been caused to exist in the political 
 part of the different States of the United States and 
 elsewhere for the want of the proper knowledge of 
 the true nature and condition of African slavery, 
 and no other book has ever been written containing 
 as complete a history of the African race and nature 
 
 (iii) 
 
IV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of African slavery — I have written this book for the 
 purpose of placing the subject fairly before the pub- 
 lic in a condensed form, embracing as much informa- 
 tion as possible in a few words. 
 
 Having been raised in a country where African 
 slavery was tolerated, and having been the owner 
 and manager of many of them, my opportunities 
 for understanding their nature and disposition are 
 equal to any other author who has ever written on the 
 subject ; and having made a careful examination into 
 the histories and writings of able authors and emi- 
 nent travelers, and procured the best information 
 which can possibly be gleaned from the writings of 
 others, I have embraced within this work informa- 
 tion which will be of immense value to all classes — 
 the non-slaveholder as well as the slaveholder — not 
 only as to the nature and origin of African slavery, 
 but the mode of treatment and management of Afri- 
 can slaves, in order to make them profitable ; and I 
 am also convinced that no unprejudiced, reflecting 
 mind can ever read this little book through, and 
 afterward be opposed to African slavery. 
 
 WM. B. TROTTER. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Origin of the Negro Race. — The Descendants of Ham, 
 the youngest Son of Noah. — The Curse pronounced on 
 Ham and his Posterity by Noah. — Bible Evidence of 
 Slavery 9 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 The Utility of African Slavery, and of Slavery in the United 
 States ; and Transportation. — Further Bible Evidence of 
 Slavery , 25 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Nature of the African Race. — 1st. His Physical Qualities; 
 2d. His Peculiar Color and Hair ; 3d. His Mental Quali- 
 ties; 4th. His Disposition and Habits 33 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Relative Condition of the African Race. — Comparison 
 between the Wild African and American Slave 57 
 
 (V) 
 
vi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Trobable Result as to Universal Slavery of the African 
 Race.— All Civilized Nations would be benefited by hav- 
 ing them as Slaves.— Their Probable Destiny.— The De- 
 struction of the English Possessions in the West Indies 
 by Freeing their Slaves.— Evil Result of Freeing the 
 Slaves in San Domingo 67 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The People of the Slave States, of all others, have a right 
 to own their Slaves. — Slavery introduced by Great Britain 
 and France into the United States. — Judicial Decisions 
 by the Courts of Great Britain and the United States on 
 the Subject of African Slavery 76 
 
 CHAPTER TIL 
 The Probable Result of African Slavery 117 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 How to make African Slavery Profitable.— Treatment of 
 Slaves.— Their Houses.— Their Clothing.— Their Food.... 120 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 How to Construct their Houses 131 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Mode of Clothing the Slave 136 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 Mode of Feeding Slaves 149 
 
 CHAPTEU XII. 
 AVomen and Children— How to Treat Them 155 
 
CONTENTS. Vll 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The Mode of arranging Out-houses on a Plantation — Jail, 
 Ball-room, Church, Hospitals, with the Mode of Treating 
 the Sick, and evil Consequence of the Use of Spirituous 
 Liquors ■•• 164 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 How to Treat the Women 181 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 A Hint to Overseers 184 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Duties of Masters and Slaveholders 191 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Free Negroes. — Their Influence and Danger among Slaves.. 199 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 The Conclusion, with Seven Maxims as Advice to Young 
 Men 202 
 
A HISTOEY AND DEFENSE 
 
 AFRICAN SLATERY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Origin of the Negro Race. — The Descendants of Ilam, the 
 youngest Son of Xoah, — The Curse pronounced on Ham and 
 his Posterity by Noah. — Bible Evidence of Slavery. 
 
 When we look around us, on every side, 
 and examine the book of nature, we find that 
 there is a great variety of everything which 
 meets our view or comes in contact with our 
 senses, both in the animal and the vegetable 
 kingdoms ; and, although different things may 
 bear in some respects a close resemblance to 
 each other, in other respects they are very 
 widely different, and intended for very dif- 
 ferent uses. Thus, we find in the vegetable 
 kingdom many kinds of oaks, many kinds of 
 willows, many kinds of hickories, many kinds 
 of corn, and of everything we behold many 
 
 2 (9) 
 
10 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 kinds of the same species. So among ani- 
 mals, from the smallest insect up to man, 
 many kinds of each, in some respects alike, 
 in others very widely different. Thus, we 
 find that the greyhound, though very swift, 
 cannot scent like the long-eared hound; nei- 
 ther can the bull-dog scent like the one or 
 run as the other, but he is better adapted to 
 fio'ht than either. God has made them as 
 they are, and each have their particular 
 duties to perform, and it would be perfectly 
 absurd for either to attempt to cope with the 
 other in the particular occupation for which 
 God has formed them; hence, when we look 
 at a tree, we find that it has bark, sap, heart, 
 root, trunk and branches, all difierent from 
 each other, yet the wdiole combined forms 
 the tree, neither able to perform the duties of 
 the others, yet all in the performance of the 
 duties assigned to each add to the life and 
 nutriment of the whole. So with the human 
 system; there is the head, the hands, the 
 body, the legs and the feet, besides many 
 other portions, each having a separate duty; 
 none able to perform the duties of the rest, 
 none able to do without the others, yet all 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 11 
 
 combined makes the man complete. It would 
 not do for all to be head, neither for all to be 
 hands, legs or feet, but it is all-important that 
 there should be a due proportion of each, and 
 no one portion can say to any of the rest, I 
 have no need of thee. 
 
 So it is in society; there must be some to 
 govern and some to be governed; there must 
 be some to trade, some to navigate the seas, 
 some to cultivate the soil, and some to manu- 
 facture, and all combined adds to the benefit 
 of themselves and each other; and thus has 
 God formed all things according to his good 
 pleasure and for his own glory. Some men 
 he has made black, some red, and some white; 
 some he has made wise, and some he has 
 made for one purpose and some for another; 
 and we can no more raise the negro to the 
 equality of the white man than we could 
 change the color of his skin, or the form of 
 his hair, or the circulation of his blood. 
 
 The next question will then arise as to the 
 origin of the different races of men, as it re- 
 spects the three colors — the black, the red, 
 and the white man. These seem to be the 
 three distinct races of men, differing materi- 
 
12 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 ally in coIoFj in disposition^ in intellect, and in 
 habit. We read in the Book of Genesis that 
 God formed Adam, the first man, ont of the 
 dust of the earth, and breathed into his 
 nostrils the breath of life, and that God 
 brought on him a deep sleep and took a rib 
 from his side, out of which he formed a 
 woman and gave her to the man; that they 
 were both placed in the Garden of Eden, and 
 commanded that of a particular tree of the 
 garden they should not eat of the fruit there- 
 of; that by the temptation of the devil they 
 were induced to partake of the forbidden fruit, 
 and thereby fell from their state of purity 
 and were driven out of the garden in conse- 
 quence of their disobedience; that they soon 
 began to multiply, until there were a great 
 many human beings on the earth; that the 
 human race became very wicked, and God 
 was offended at them; that in consequence of 
 which, God destroyed, by means of the flood, 
 all the human race from the face of the earth 
 except Noah and his family, who were saved 
 by means of an ark which God had instructed 
 Noah to build; that Noah had three sons, 
 to wit, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, with their 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 13 
 
 families, from whom sprang all the human 
 race which has since inhabited the earth; 
 and there can be little doubt but that God 
 created the different colors of men in that 
 noted family; that as he intended to repeople 
 the earth after the flood by the family of 
 Noah, and wrought a miracle in their preser- 
 vation, he also wrought a miracle in the 
 formation of the different colors in the three 
 sons of Noah; hence, it is generally agreed 
 by all authors on the subject, from the best 
 authority we can obtain, that Shem was a 
 red man, and that he is the same with Mel- 
 chizedek — mentioned as a great high priest 
 in the Bible, for he preached to the descend- 
 ants of Noah for four hundred years after the 
 flood, and was held in great reverence; that 
 Ham was a black man, and took his name 
 from his color, for the word Ham means black; 
 and that Japheth was a white man. Thus, 
 in this remarkable family, the family of Noah, 
 from the best authority we have, commenced 
 the different races of men. 
 
 After the waters of the flood had subsided, 
 Noah planted a vineyard, (see Genesis, 9th 
 chapter, from the 20th to the 2Tth verse in- 
 
 9* 
 
14 A niSTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 elusive;) and being on one occasion drunk 
 by drinking too freely of the Avine, Ham, one 
 of his sons, seeing him lie thus exposed naked, 
 made sport of him and pointed him out to 
 Shem and Japheth, his two brothers, who 
 took a garment and walked backwards and 
 covered their father; in consequence of which, 
 Noah, when he came to himself, pronounced 
 this curse on Ham, to wit, 25th verse: Cursed 
 be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be 
 unto his brethren. 
 
 26th V. And he said. Blessed be the Lord 
 God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his ser- 
 vant. 
 
 27th V. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he 
 shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan 
 shall be his servant. 
 
 Ham, the black son of Noah, who was 
 called Canaan, settled Africa, and the curse 
 pronounced on him by his flither, on that 
 memorable occasion, is verified by the en- 
 slavery of his posterity down to the present 
 day. 
 
 The first introduction of Africans into the 
 United States was not a matter of haste, but 
 the subject was deliberately investigated and 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 15 
 
 entered upon by wise men and philanthropists. 
 Shortly after the settling of the colonies by 
 Great Britain, in North America, a skillful 
 navigator, by the name of Hudson, suggested 
 to some of the nobility of England and France 
 that the African race was peculiarly adapted 
 to hard, rough work, such as clearing land and 
 making fences, and if properly trained they 
 might be made of great value in the perform- 
 ance of the rough work in the colonies, and 
 the trade would be a profitable one and pay 
 well for the capital invested; that it would 
 redound to the good of the African as well 
 as the white man; that the African kings 
 were in the habit of killing promiscuously all 
 of their prisoners, and sometimes would eat 
 them for food, and that if they could procure 
 the value of a hog of the same weight, they 
 would gladly make the exchange, and thereby 
 the life of man, a poor unfortunate prisoner, 
 v/ould be saved and be taken to a Christian 
 land, where he would hear the gospel preached 
 and have an opportunity of becoming a Chris- 
 tian. This seemed very feasible to the no- 
 bility, but they were unwilling to embark in 
 the speculation unless they could becom.e 
 
16 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 thoroughly convinced that it was morally 
 right for them to engage in such a specula- 
 tion. 
 
 Consequently, as some of them were of the 
 Roman Catholic religion, they sent a special 
 delegation to the Pope of Rome, and asked 
 his opinion on the subject, whether or not it 
 was right for them to transport Africans to 
 the colonies in order to make slaves of them. 
 The Pope, after mature deliberation, replied 
 that he had searched the Scriptures and ma- 
 turely considered the subject, and that he 
 found, on examining the ninth chapter of the 
 Book of Genesis, that Noah had pronounced 
 a curse upon Ham, that he positively should 
 be a servant of servants, and that the African 
 race w^ere the descendants of Ham, and that 
 it was right and proper in a moral point of 
 view for them to engage in the business, and, 
 as far as he was concerned, he would grant 
 them the privilege; in consequence of wliich 
 a company was tlien formed by the nobility 
 of England and some of the French nobility 
 with the navigator Hudson to embark in the 
 slave trade. A few vessels were fitted out in 
 New York and Boston and sent to the coast 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 17 
 
 of Africa for slaves ; the vessels were gone 
 but a short time before they returned^ well 
 stored with slaves which cost them but a 
 trifle, and they were soon disposed of at a 
 very large profit in New York and Boston. 
 Hence originated the first traffic in African 
 slaves in the United States; but they had 
 been dealt with as slaves in Africa and many 
 other places long before. 
 
 When they were first brought on board the 
 vessel, they supposed that the white people 
 intended to eat them, and had bought them 
 for food; as many of the African tribes eat 
 their prisoners, they supposed that the white 
 people would do so likewise. But great was 
 their surprise and joy when they were in- 
 formed that they were intended to work, and 
 would be treated with humanity and kind- 
 ness as friends. Most of them were entirely 
 naked when purchased, and others had only 
 a small piece of raw hide on their hips to 
 hide their nakedness; and when they were 
 clothed and informed that they were intended 
 as slaves, that if they behaved well they 
 would be protected by their masters, clothed, 
 fed, and properly cared for, they could scarcely 
 
18 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 be made to believe it ; and after they were 
 convinced of the fact, not one could be in- 
 duced to return to their old condition, but 
 rejoiced that they had been rescued from the 
 hands of their own race, and saved from the 
 horrid fate of being eaten by the Africans. 
 
 African slavery is objected to by some, be- 
 cause they say it is morally wrong for one 
 individual to keep another as a slave to serve 
 him. To such I would say, where do you go 
 to get your moral code, is it not to the Bible ? 
 It certainly is to the Bible, the great book of 
 morals and religion, we must all look for the 
 best code of morals which has ever been given 
 to the human race. Then if you believe the 
 Bible, you must believe that African slavery 
 is right, and that slavery existed in the 
 world long before America was discovered by 
 Columbus, and was very common among the 
 Jews immediately after their entrance into 
 the promised land. That it is entirely con- 
 sistent with the doctrine of the Holy Bible, 
 see Leviticus, chap. 25th, verses 44, 45, and 
 4G, which reads thus : Both thy bondmen 
 and thv bondmaids, which thou shalt have, 
 shall be of the heathen that are round about 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY." 19 
 
 yon ; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bond- 
 maids. Moreover, of the children of the 
 strangers that do sojourn among you, of them 
 shall ye buy and of their families that are 
 with you, which they begat in your land; and 
 they shall be your possession. And ye shall 
 take them as an inheritance for your children 
 after you, to inherit them for a possession; 
 they shall be your bondmen forever. 
 
 Thus we find that the children of Israel 
 were not only permitted to make slaves or 
 bondmen of the heathen, but actually com- 
 manded so to do, and that such should be 
 their bondmen to them and their children 
 forever. 
 
 And, as before observed, the Africans are 
 heathens, the descendants of Ham; that the 
 different races of men commenced with the 
 family of Noah; that Shem was red. Ham 
 black, and Japheth a white man; and that a 
 miracle was wrought in the birth of Noah's 
 three sons, as well as in the preservation of 
 that family from the destruction of the flood ; 
 that as the earth was to be repeopled by the 
 family of Noah, God formed the difierent 
 races in that peculiar family according to his 
 
20 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 good will and pleasure, and suited the dif- 
 ferent branches for the purposes for which 
 they were designed. That we are warranted 
 in coming to this conclusion, is very evident. 
 The word Ham means black; thus, Ham being 
 black at his birth, and of different color from 
 any other individual, Avas called after his 
 color; and not only this, his descendants are 
 also, in most cases, distinguished by kinky 
 wool on their heads, like a merino sheep, only 
 it is black and coarse ; other races have hair 
 on their heads. Thus it seems that Ham, the 
 black son of Noah, possessed a color in con- 
 formity with his disposition, for he was cer- 
 tainly very vile and base to have treated his 
 father with such indignity as he did in mak- 
 ing sport of him, and pointing him out as an 
 object of ridicule. Ham was noticed by his 
 two brothers to rush out of his father's tent 
 almost bursting with laughter; but as soon as 
 the fit had somewhat abated, Shcm and Ja- 
 pheth made inquiry respecting the cause of 
 so much mirth and uproar, when they found 
 that their lather, Noah, was laying naked, 
 exposed; fuiding a garment, they seized it and 
 placed it on their shoulders and walked back- 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 21 
 
 ward and covered him with it; when Noah 
 ^woke from his wine and knew what his 
 youngest son had done unto him, he said: 
 Cursed be Canaan, (Ham;) a servant of ser- 
 vants shall he be unto his brethren. And he 
 said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and 
 Canaan (Ham) shall be his servant. God 
 shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell 
 in the tents of Shem; and Canaan (Ham) 
 shall be his servant. 
 
 But, lest the reader should become per- 
 plexed respecting the application of this 
 anathema, on account of the text above re- 
 ferred to being in the English, cursed Canaan, 
 instead of cursed Ham, as it should have been 
 translated, we state that the Arabic copy of 
 the Book of Genesis, which is a language of 
 equal authority with the Hebrew, and origin- 
 ally the very same, reads. Cursed be Ham, the 
 father of Canaan ; a servant of servants shall 
 he be unto his brethren. 
 
 In this sense it has ever been understood 
 by all the commentators, in every age, on the 
 sacred writings. Bishop Newton thus under- 
 stood the passage, who also refers the reader 
 
 3 
 
22 A UISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 to the Arabic Bible for the true reading, as 
 does also Adam Clark. 
 
 This light and frivolous disposition of Ham, 
 and great want of filial respect for his parents, 
 has extended itself to his whole posterity. 
 The negroes of the United States and Africa, 
 and elsewhere, are all given to loud laughter, 
 game-making, and sport with everything 
 around them, and a great want of reverence 
 or respect for parents; they will frequently 
 laugh at trivial matters so loud that they can 
 be heard at the distance of half a mile or 
 more. After the Hood, Shem, who became a 
 high priest, and is by historians considered 
 to be the same as Melchizedek, preached to 
 the increasing population of the descendants 
 of Noah ; but Ham and his posterity gave no 
 heed to him, but forsook the true religion 
 and became idolators, and thus became the 
 most base, vile, and degraded of all others of 
 the human race. Bowen, in his travels in 
 Central Africa, says that he found some 
 cities containing sixty thousand inhabitants, 
 and some of them had their iarms as far dis- 
 tant as twenty miles, and none of them even 
 possessed so much as a sled to haul it in with. 
 
OP AFRICAN SLAVERY. 2S 
 
 but packed their provisions on their backs, 
 entirely destitute of any of the improvements 
 in arts and sciences ; they live in little mud 
 huts, made of mud and sticks, and many of 
 them go naked winter and summer, as the 
 beast of the forest, and feed on lizards, snakes, 
 or any vile thing they can get hold of, and 
 are entirely void of chastity, giving a loose 
 rein to their animal passions; they cohabit 
 promiscuously with one another, and their 
 lust is not confined to one another, but in 
 many cases, men with each other, and with 
 beasts ; they are continually at war, one tribe 
 with another, and they do not scruple to eat 
 each other as quick as they would eat a bit 
 of a hog or a monkey ; in their market-places 
 they frequently have the limbs of each other 
 hung up in the stall for sale as they would a 
 sheep or a pig; and thus in this degraded, 
 fiillen state they live, devoid of religion, 
 morals, or even common decency ; and there- 
 fore the great necessity of the balance of 
 mankind who feel for the sufferings of human 
 beings, and would wish to ameliorate their 
 woes and bring to a knowledge of the truth 
 and of the religion of Jesus Christ, uniting 
 
24 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 ill their ofTorts to bring them in a state of 
 shavery to Christian masters, who will correct 
 their morals, feed and clothe them, and make 
 them work and cultivate the soil, so as to 
 become useful to themselves and the balance 
 of mankind. This can only be done by first 
 reducing them to a state of slavery; mission- 
 aries have heretofore been sent among them 
 to no purpose ; they pay no attention to their 
 teachings, but fref_[uently kill and eat them 
 for food. 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 25 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 The Utility of African Slavery, and of Slavery in tlie United 
 States; and Transportation.— Further Bible Evidence of 
 "Slavery. 
 
 That the African is only an incnmberer of 
 the ground in his wild and native state, needs 
 only to be pointed to, in the wilds of Africa; 
 for although it contains a population of per- 
 haps two hundred millions of souls, they pro- 
 duce nothing for transportation; they manu- 
 facture nothing; they invent nothing; the 
 wdld African is but a little ahead of the 
 orang-outang in his habits. They possess a 
 fine fertile country, yet it is comparatively 
 uncultivated. The African possesses a strong 
 frame, a robust constitution, a fertile country, 
 and delightful climate; yet he walks about, 
 up and down in the forest, as naked as when 
 he came into the world, feeding on fruits and 
 reptiles, fills himself and lays down and sleeps, 
 and then rises and pursues the same course 
 again, occasionally meeting with the child of 
 3* 
 
26 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 an enemy and killing and eating it as he would 
 a rabbit or squirrel ; and such is his native con- 
 dition. But when they are taken by the white 
 people and taught to work in the field, they 
 are clothed and fed as human beings, they be- 
 come as a matter of necessity civilized, and, by 
 frequently hearing the gospel preached, they 
 become Christianized and elevated far above 
 their former condition in the scale of human 
 beings. By their labor they become very use- 
 ful, and add greatly to the commerce of the 
 world. In the United States there are now, 
 in A.D. 18G0, about three and a half millions 
 of African slaves, the proceeds of whose 
 labor contribute, in exports to foreign coun- 
 tries, more than one-half of the exports in 
 value of all the exports of the nation. In 
 the single article of cotton alone, the nation 
 exports 3,500.000 bales, which, at §50 per 
 bale, is worth Si 75,000,000, the proceeds of 
 slave labor, besides toljacco, sugar, and ilour, 
 and many other articles, which would amount 
 to more than fii'ty millions more — making a 
 .<um-total of exports from slave labor alone 
 amount to over two hundred and twenty 
 millions of dollars annual] \-, IVom the United 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 27 
 
 States to other countries, besides what is con- 
 sumed at home, bringing in return the pro- 
 ducts and manufactures of other countries an 
 amount equivalent in exchange for their ex- 
 ports; thus giving an impetus to trade and 
 commerce of the world and manufactories of 
 more than four hundred millions of dollars 
 annually, by being kept in a state of servi- 
 tude and made to cultivate the soil, for which 
 they were intended; w^hile the whole popula- 
 tion of Africa, with her two hundred millions 
 of people in a free and savage state, ex- 
 ports nothing, adds nothing, does nothing for 
 themselves or others. I speak of Africa pro- 
 per, the kinky heads, which comprise a large 
 portion. If there is any place in Africa which 
 bids fair to achieve anything in the way of 
 civilization and the arts, it is the little colony 
 of Liberia, peopled by about six thousand 
 American slaves who have been sent over 
 from the United States: and they feel as 
 much above the common wild African as a 
 white man would above his slave, or more so; 
 and should they be left to themselves, with- 
 out the fostering care of the white man, 
 would soon degenerate into their ancient 
 
28 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 barbarism ^vith the rest of the natives. Thus 
 we see, that for the good of the African him- 
 self, for the welfare of mankind in general, 
 that the African may be well provided for 
 while he lives, and brought to a condition 
 where he may become a Christian, and the 
 welf\ire of his immortal soul promoted by 
 hearing the gospel preached, and that he may 
 become useful and happy in his sphere of 
 existence, it is absolutely necessary that he 
 should be made a slave of and placed under 
 a master, who will correct him for his faults 
 and teach him to behave himself as a human 
 being, and make him work for his support. 
 A negro will never construct a steam-engine 
 or a railroad, or make any new addition to 
 anything of the kind; yet with a good over- 
 seer he can dig up the iron ore, aid in melting 
 it ; can dig in the ground and aid in making 
 a railroad, and add as much in the construc- 
 tion of it as white men, with some one to 
 construct and diivct; and in a state of slavery 
 do as much towards internal improvements 
 and [)romoting the arts and sciences as white 
 men. while in a free state they would not 
 .strike a lick or do anything. Therefore, the 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 29 
 
 three and a half millions of slaves in the 
 United States are doing more for the com- 
 merce of the nation, its internal improvement 
 at home, and the promotion of industry in 
 the manufacturing nations of the earth, than 
 the same number of people of any color on 
 any part of the globe. Then, is it not right, 
 is it not proper, is it not perfectly in con- 
 formity with religion and the doctrine of the 
 Holy Bible, that the African should be placed 
 in bondage to the white man — the only con- 
 dition in which it seems he can exist as a 
 moral human being and be provided for, or 
 in any manner content, useful, or happy ? It 
 seems to me, that no rejQecting, rational man 
 can doubt for a moment the absolute neces- 
 sity of making him a slave — for which he was 
 intended. But, it is contended, that even if 
 this should be the case, that the African is 
 more useful, more happy, and better provided 
 for ill a state of slavery than when free, that 
 unless we can find that it is in accordance 
 with the doctrine of the Bible, it is morally 
 wrong. To this, I would again refer the 
 reader to Leviticus, xxv. 44-46 verses : Both 
 thy bondmen and thy bondmaids, which thou 
 
30 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 8lialt liavo, shall be of (from, in Hebrew) 
 the heathen that are around alxjut you; of 
 (from) them shall ye buy bondmen and bond- 
 maids. Moreover, of (from) the children of 
 the strangers that do sojourn among you, of 
 them sliall you buy, and of their families 
 that are with you, which they begat in your 
 land; and they sliall be your possession, and 
 ye shall take them as an inheritance for your 
 children after yon to inherit them for a pos- 
 session; they shall be your bondmen forever: 
 but over your brethren the children of Israel 
 ye shall not rule, one over another with 
 rigor. This shows that the servitude is per- 
 petual. They shall be your bondmen for- 
 ever, Lc olaitm, and the heathen bondmen are 
 transmitted as property by inheritance to the 
 children. 
 
 There is in the Hebrew language, as well 
 as Hebrew society, two classes of servants, 
 represented by two distinct words indicative 
 of diil'erent positions or relations. These are 
 hired servants and l)on(lmen ; the former is 
 represented by one word and the latter by 
 another; these are of dilTerent meaning and 
 ori'-'m. 
 
OF AFEICAN SLAVERY. 31 
 
 A hired servant, in the law of Moses, is 
 called saclieer ; a bondman or bond-servant 
 is uniformly denominated geliced : the latter is 
 never called sacJicer, nor the former gelived. 
 Like doulos in the Septuagint and in the 
 New Testament, gelived includes divers sorts 
 of servants not receiving wages, but saclieer 
 indicates simply a hired servant. 
 
 They are sometimes found in the same 
 verse in contrast, Leviticus, xxv. 39 : If thy 
 brother that dwelleth by thee become poor, 
 and be sold to thee, thou shalt not compel 
 him to serve as a gelived, a bond-servant, but 
 as a saclieer, a hired servant. Again, verse 
 42 : He shall not be sold as a gelived, a bond- 
 man. Verse 44 : Of the heathen thou shalt 
 or mayest buy bondmen, gelived. Thus, it is 
 clear, that among the Jews there were two 
 kinds of servants: gelived, the bond-servant, 
 or slave as we term it, and saclieer, the 
 hired servant 3 and both classes were toler- 
 ated by the laws of Moses, and nowhere 
 condemned in the New Testament. Taking 
 then the Bible as it is, we nowhere find any- 
 thing condemning the principle of slavery of 
 the heathen 3 but we find it has been toler- 
 
32 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 ated and permitted by the laws of Moses, as 
 laid down in the Holy Bible, and practiced 
 by the Jews, the flivored people of God ; and 
 by others so long that the memory of man 
 runneth not to the contrary; and our observa- 
 tion teaches us, from fair illustration, that the 
 African race is elevated in the scale of human 
 beings by being placed in a state of bondage; 
 that they are only useful when thus situated; 
 that they are more happy, better provided 
 for, more moral, better satisfied in that state, 
 and prefer it to any other. 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 33 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Nature of the African race — 1st. His Physical Qualities; 2d. 
 His Peculiar Color and Hair 5 3d. His Mental Qualities ; 4th. 
 His Disposition and Habits. 
 
 In many respects tlie African negro or 
 kinky heads differ materially from the white 
 people, and the Indian or red man, in his 
 physical as well as his mental capacity. The 
 negro is generally stouter built, possessing 
 heavier muscles and harder bones than either 
 the white man or the Indian; the bones of 
 the negro are more firm and much harder 
 to break, and the skull of the negro is thicker, 
 as has been frequently proven by anatomists 
 by investigation: and a blow on the head, 
 which would kill a white man or an Indian, 
 will scarcely stagger a negro, which shows 
 conclusively that he is particularly intended 
 to perform the rough, heavy work of the 
 world, and to endure hardships. The head of 
 the negro is also different in shape from any 
 other : they are generally flat on top and low 
 in front ; and the skull can easily be distin- 
 
 4 
 
34 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 guislied from any other, both from the pecu- 
 liar shape and thickness. They generally 
 have more robust frames and stouter chests 
 than any other race. The pure negro is jet 
 black, or nearly so, has black, kinky wool, 
 somewhat coarser than that of a coarse w^ool 
 sheep, black eyes, and a flat nose without any 
 gristle on the point. I can tell a negro in 
 the dark, merely by feeling his nose; he has 
 also a Hat foot, without much hollow, and a 
 long heel; a negro's track is easily distin- 
 guished from any other. These are promi- 
 nent traits in his formation, which are easily 
 discerned; but there are many other material 
 differences in his physical formation from that 
 of any other class of the human race. He is 
 not as susceptible to disease as the other races, 
 and is capable of bearing more fatigue and 
 for a greater length of time, and requires less 
 sleep than either of the other races; when 
 they sleep their sleep is very sound, and 
 they are very hard to wake, but they are 
 soon refreshed by it. They Avill often work 
 all day, from daylight until dark, only sto}> 
 ping long enougli to eat their meals, doing 
 the heaviest kind of labor, and after their 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 35 
 
 masters have retired to rest at night, after 
 ten o'clock, will put out from home and stroll 
 about in the neighborhood six or seven miles 
 round, and return home about three hours 
 before day, sit down by the fire and nod 
 until daybreak, jump up and be ready to go 
 to work again, work all day and run about 
 again at night, the next as before, without 
 experiencing the least inconvenience. 
 
 Such hardship as would completely pros- 
 trate a white man does not appear to affect 
 them in the least. Among the slaves of the 
 United States there are a great many different 
 shades of color — from the deep black or full- 
 blooded Africans to the bright mulatto ; but 
 all other shades brighter than the deep black 
 is caused by amalgamation, or mixing of the 
 white blood with the black, and not at all 
 from the climate. The full-blooded African 
 will retain his black color anywhere for any 
 length of time without any change, and also 
 the kinky heads without any respect to cli- 
 mate; and it is immaterial where they are 
 born, the children will be as black as their 
 ancestors, and possess every other quality of 
 their ancestors; and when crossed with the 
 
36 A niSTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 white race, they partake more of the negro 
 than the white man, both in complexion and 
 disposition. In stature, the kinky -headed 
 negro is about the height of EngHsh or 
 American, varying from five feet in height 
 to six feet six inches; and although they are 
 generally much stouter and heavier muscled, 
 yet, in general, they are not as active as the 
 white race, and cannot run so fast, but can 
 hold out much longer. I knew a negro boy, 
 about twelve years old, who was stationed at 
 a plantation in Clark County, Mississippi, and 
 his mother was at another place sixteen miles 
 distant; and he would often run away and 
 run his best the whole sixteen miles, going at 
 the rate of about eight miles an hour, and at 
 the end of the sixteen miles did not seem to 
 be the least tired or flitigucd. The average 
 weight of the African man is from one hun- 
 dred and forty to two hundred pounds. They 
 are much stouter and stronger, physically, 
 than the Dutch, the French, the Germans, 
 Spaniards, or any other race; the English 
 and Americans are the nearest to them in 
 point of physical strength than any other, 
 while at the same time they have less Intel- 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 37 
 
 lect than either of these races, which shows 
 very clearly that they were not intended to 
 construct, but to labor under the instruction 
 of others. 
 
 The mental faculties of the African are not 
 so great as either of the other races of men, 
 although in a physical point of view they are 
 unsurpassed; they seem to be incapable of 
 much reflection, and almost void of any in- 
 ventive genius whatever. Although Africa 
 has been settled as long as any other quarter 
 of the globe, with a fertile soil and abound- 
 ing in minerals of many descriptions, and a 
 soil which is capable of most improvement by 
 cultivation, there never has as yet emanated 
 from a full-blooded, kinky -headed African 
 any useful invention, or any improvement in 
 the arts and sciences, by which themselves 
 or the balance of mankind were the least ben- 
 efited or improved, either in mechanics, com- 
 merce, the invention of implements of labor, 
 the improvement thereon, advancement in 
 agriculture, the improvement in morals or 
 otherwise; and I defy contradiction to the 
 contrary. Although they have frequently 
 
 witnessed the improvements going on in the 
 4* 
 
88 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 surrounding nations, and had specimens of 
 the productions of other countries distribu- 
 ted among them, and the benefit of Uterary 
 travelers frequently among them, they have 
 made no advances in civilization or the arts 
 and sciences. Of those in the United States 
 in a state of slavery, some of them have been 
 taught to become tolerably good, rough me- 
 chanics, so that they could do good, rough 
 plantation work, stock a plow in a rough 
 manner, shoe a horse, frame a house, make a 
 brick chimney, etc.; but in every case the 
 work is rough and will not bear close inspec- 
 tion. There never has been a full-blooded 
 negro who has ever yet been able to compete 
 with a skillful white man in any of the fine 
 arts; and I think it impossible that there 
 ever will be : any more than that the moon 
 can ever shine as bright as the sun. The 
 African may be greatly improved from his 
 native state of education by cultivating his 
 mind and giving him suitable instructions, as 
 is evidenced l)y the great superiority of the 
 American slave over the wild African in his 
 native state in Africa, both in morals, intelli- 
 gence, and religion; but they can no more be 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 39 
 
 made equal with the white man than a piece 
 of coarse sandstone can be made equal to 
 the beautiful marble, or a piece of rough iron 
 brought to the pure state of the gold ; or that 
 his skin can be changed from black to white, 
 or his kinky wool to beautiful, straight hair, 
 by education. Man may polish, but God 
 makes the material. 
 
 Then, as to the disposition of the Afri- 
 can race, they are savages, and their dis- 
 position has a downward tendency; naturally 
 inclined to degenerate, as the stone that is 
 tossed in the air has a tendency to fall to 
 the earth — as long as it is held up by force, 
 it will stay up, but as soon as let go, it will 
 naturally fall to the earth; so, as long as the 
 African is forced into a state of civilization 
 by the white man and kept up, he will be 
 more or less civilized; but as soon as left to 
 himself, he will naturally return gradually to 
 his ancient state of barbarism. If all of the 
 American slaves were turned loose in Africa, 
 with all the advantages they now possess, 
 with the knowledge they have of the arts 
 and sciences, and the knowledge of the Chris- 
 tian religion, they would soon eclipse all 
 
40 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 Africa in their improvements, and subjugate 
 the whole country by their knowledge; but 
 they would immediately commence degener- 
 ating, and in the course of two or three gener- 
 ations would degenerate into dark, heathenish 
 barbarism, and be as barbarous, ignorant, Ijase, 
 and vile as the present population of Africa. 
 They are actuated, in most instances, in their 
 actions, by the disposition of fear, and have 
 no disposition or inclination to respect or obey 
 those who permit them to act as they please; 
 they prefer a tyrant for a master to any 
 other; provided he will treat them with kind- 
 ness, it matters not how hard they are com- 
 pelled to work, or ^^hat hardships they are 
 nuide to endure, if their owners will feed them 
 well and clothe them, and protect them; the 
 more rigid he is w^ith them, and the better 
 discipline he establishes among them, the 
 better they will love him, and the more use- 
 ful they will be to him. They are naturally 
 inclined to be fdtliy in their habits, and negli- 
 gent, careless, and wasteful, and it requires the 
 strictest kind of attention on the part of their 
 owners to keep them in order, and to make 
 them take care of their clothing and keep 
 
OF AFEICAN SLAVERY. 41 
 
 themselves cleanly, and to be made even to 
 attend to tlieir own children; of the two in the 
 United States, the master is often the greatest 
 slave in attending to the welfare of his slaves, 
 nursing them when sick and administering to 
 their comforts; this is all-important on the 
 part of the owner, for the negro will pay but 
 little attention to their nearest relatives when 
 sick, unless compelled to do so. They are 
 naturally inclined to be base and profligate 
 in their habits, and consider a free and pro- 
 miscuous exercise of their sexual passions 
 as the height of all hum^an happiness and 
 glory; and it requires the most rigid disci- 
 pline on the part of their owners to prevent 
 marriages between brother and sister, and 
 illicit intercourse between parent and child, 
 and even between one male and another; 
 and notwithstanding the most rigid discipline, 
 they will frequently commit rapes on each 
 other's children ; frequently on females under 
 ten years old; they seem to inherit this unre- 
 strained sexual appetite from their ancestors, 
 and look no higher for happiness ; but owing 
 to the restrictions placed on them by their 
 owners, the constant admonitions to lead a 
 
42 A HISTORY AXD DEFENSE 
 
 moral and upright life, and the good examples 
 continually set before the American, they are 
 much less lewd and far better in their prac- 
 tice in this behalf than the free African in 
 the wilds of Africa, ^vho indulge in an unre- 
 strained manner in every species of debauch- 
 ery of that kind; and then feed upon the flesh 
 of each other, as upon that of a squirrel or 
 monkey. It is an evident fact, that by the 
 fostering care of the owners of slaves, they 
 increase in the United States upwards of ten 
 per cent, faster than the whites, according 
 to population, as shown by the census of 
 1840 and 1S3G, wdiile from every account we 
 receive, the African race has been on the de- 
 crease in Africa for many years past, owing 
 to their sinful, base, and corrupt habits. The 
 African has but little of the principles of 
 sympathy about him, and when clothed with 
 authority becomes the most overbearing tyrant 
 in the world, and will frequently abuse their 
 authority by inlHcting punishment in a cruel 
 manner, merely to show their authority. I 
 have known owners of slaves to select the 
 most wise and discreet among them as over- 
 seers, or drivers ns they are termed, to look 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 43 
 
 over and watch tlie balance, with power to 
 whip when they misbehave; and as certain 
 as a white man would visit the field, just so 
 certain the black driver would begin to whip 
 and lash the slaves, whether they deserved it 
 or not, just to show his authority, until the 
 owner would stop him, if present, or he would 
 be rebuked by the white man for his unfeeling 
 cruelty. Hence the saying, when a man gets 
 into office and commences showing his au- 
 thority by cruel and arbitrary actions, that 
 he is like a negro driver in a corn-field; this 
 expression conveys all that is necessary in 
 describing the most bigoted tyrant. 
 
 The African has an inclination to be a 
 slave, and really prefers that condition to 
 any other; they cannot bear responsibility, 
 and when they are well fed and clothed, and 
 kept in order, they are decidedly the happiest 
 and best contented people in the world; and 
 will fight for their masters in a hurry. It is 
 altogether a mistake, that if the negroes should 
 become the most numerous in a great propor- 
 tion, that they would rebel and murder their 
 masters and seek to be free; this is not the 
 case. If the negroes were in proportion of a 
 
44 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 thousand to one white man, the white man 
 would still keep them in slavery with as 
 much ease as he now does, because the negroes 
 prefer bondage to freedom, as has been e^dnced 
 on various occasions. In many instances, it is 
 true, that occasionallj^ there will be restless 
 spirits among them, who will occasionally rise 
 up and do mischief, and sometimes murder 
 their masters; but they are of very rare oc- 
 currence; and in a majority of cases, young 
 white men are raised up on the plantation 
 with their slaves, and they become attached 
 to each other, and there is a feeling of rela- 
 tionship existing between them, which makes 
 them feel very near and dear to each other, 
 and the slave would risk his life for his 
 master's welfare sooner than for the nearest 
 relation he had, and looks to his master as 
 his only friend and protector; while, on the 
 other liand, although the master would correct 
 his slave for his faults when necessary, would 
 risk his life in the defense of his slave sooner 
 than let him be unjustly abused. As an evi- 
 dence of the preference of the African race 
 for a state of slavery to any other, they are 
 held in Ijondaee bv each other in Africa as 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 45 
 
 well as elsewhere, and make the worst and 
 most cruel of masters to each other; the In- 
 dians also in the Chocktaw nation own many 
 of them; also the Creek, and Cherokee In- 
 dians, west of the Mississippi Elver; some of 
 these red men of the forest own over two 
 hundred African slaves, owned by single in- 
 dividuals; the Spaniards also, in Cuba, own a 
 great many; yet they quietly submit to sla- 
 very — even prefer it to any other state, even 
 to serve the wild, red man of the forest. 
 
 A man by the name of Stroud, about the 
 year 1836, carried five hundred slaves from 
 the State of South Carolina into the northern 
 part of Texas, before the State of Texas was 
 annexed to the United States, at a time when 
 the Cherokee Indians were in a state of hos- 
 tilities to the whites, and settled right on the 
 borders of the hostile Cherokee country; he 
 armed all of his negroes with a good gun, 
 taught them the use of fire-arms; had two 
 cannon, taught them their use, mustered 
 them every day, and whipped the Cherokees 
 in several engagements with his negroes; in 
 a wild country, where there was no other 
 white man within one hundred miles of him, 
 
 5 
 
46 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 and the negroes only had to kill him oft' to 
 be as free as the Indians; yet they stuck to 
 him, and looked to him as their only chance 
 of safety and protection, and served him as 
 faithful as if he had been surrounded by an 
 army of a thousand men for his protection, 
 and would have killed any man who would 
 have dared to injure their master. Does not 
 this show a preference for that condition on 
 the part of the blacks? It certainly does, in 
 the strongest colors; and clearly shows that 
 the Africans are destined to be slaves, and 
 are satisfied and useful in that condition and 
 no other. 
 
 Again, a gentleman by the name of Prince, 
 who lives near Bladen Springs, in the State 
 of Alabama, a few years before this, went to 
 England on some business for the State, 
 and carried with him a servant, a negro 
 man ntimed Tom; when he got to England 
 he tuld Tom that he was as free as his 
 master, and he would advise him to remain; 
 that ii" he wouhl remain in England, he would 
 gi\e him ll\r iiundred dollars to make a start 
 in the world, and he mii;ht eventuallv become 
 a wealthy man; Tom told his master that he 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 47 
 
 did not wish to remain on any terms, but was 
 determined to return with him, and rem.ain 
 his slave; his master told him to look around, 
 that he would be in England for several 
 weeks, and if Tom should determine to stay, 
 that he could do so. During the six weeks 
 which he remained in England, Tom had 
 considerable attention paid to him, and many 
 inducements held out to him to remain by 
 some of the abolitionists, and his master 
 would frequently importune him to remain. 
 One day Tom had taken an excursion into 
 the country to see how the common poor folks 
 lived, as he called them ; and after visiting an 
 Irish settlement, he became alarmed, and was 
 afraid that his master intended to leave him 
 in England against his will ; and went to him 
 with tears in his eyes, and told him not to 
 think of leaving him in England, or any- 
 where else ; that he could not bear the idea 
 of being separated from him; that five hun- 
 dred dollars would be no inducement with 
 his freedom for him to remain ; that the poor 
 folks in England w^ere worse off ten times 
 than the black folks in the United States; 
 that the slaves in. the United States were 
 
48 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 cared for and provisioned by their masters, 
 while the poor folks in England were worse 
 slaves in reality than the slaves in the United 
 States, and had to supply themselves with 
 food and clothing, or starve and go naked. 
 
 While in England, Tom would frequently 
 speak of his master s possessions in the United 
 States, and spoke of them as his own, and 
 assumed a considerable degree of consequence, 
 more than his master did, as negroes always 
 do; they pride themselves .on their masters' 
 possessions, and assume a consequence accord- 
 ing to what they consider the consequence of 
 their owner; and frequently take the title of 
 their masters, as Colonel, Judge, or General, 
 and appear much prouder of their title tlian 
 their masters, who really have the office and 
 title. It is amusing, at times, to see them at 
 church, or out on some public occasion; their 
 masters often indulge them a great deal, 
 where they are faithful, and they generally 
 are provided with a fine suit of clothes to 
 wear on Sundays and on public occasions. 
 To see them dressed out in a suit of fine 
 broadcloth, with a white linen shirt and 
 line cambric rulUes, with a pair of white kid 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 49 
 
 gloves on, and an umbrella in their hands to 
 keep off the sun, strutting about as large as 
 life, with a pair of red-topped boots on, while 
 their masters present a plain, country gentle- 
 man, dressed in plain homespun of his ow^n 
 make. The negro likes to have a rich master, 
 and cannot bear to be called poor folks' negro ; 
 and they would run away from a man who 
 only owns one slave, no matter how well he 
 is treated, or on what equality, to get on a 
 plantation where there are many, regardless 
 of how hard the fare may be; a negro would 
 prefer a master who owned a hundred slaves, 
 if he get nothing but bread to eat, where he 
 would be confined to hard labor from day- 
 light to dark, to one who only owned him, 
 one who would give him all the dainties of 
 the world to eat, have them cooked for him, 
 and would clothe him well, and give him half 
 of his time to work for himself; they would 
 run away from such an owner to get to the 
 rich man. They have the most dire contempt 
 for the poor, ignorant classes of white people, 
 and call them poor bucra; but with an intel- 
 ligent gentleman, who only owns one as a 
 body-servant, they are generally satisfied to 
 
50 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 remain, yet never grieve «at being sold to a 
 wealthier master who owns a great number 
 of slaves. 
 
 I knew an instance of a man by the name 
 of Brock, who owned a negro man and two 
 other negroes, one a woman and the other a 
 boy. Brock and his negro man Charles were 
 raised up together, and wrestled and sported 
 together in their boyhood; the consequence 
 was. Brock permitted his negro man Charles 
 to do very much as he pleased; Charles only 
 worked when his master did, eat what his 
 master eat, and was just about as free to act. 
 Charles naturally looked with contempt on 
 his master, as being no better than himself, 
 and wished his master to sell him to some 
 rich man who owned more slaves; his master 
 refused to do so, and the consequence was, 
 Charles ran away, was gone several weeks, 
 and at leniith was caught by one of the 
 neighbors, who tied him, and in taking him 
 home, had to cross a hirge creek in a ferry 
 fiat; in crossing the creek, Charles jumped 
 into the stream and tried to commit suicide 
 by drowning himself, but was pulled out be- 
 fore he had time to drown, alleging that he 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 51 
 
 had rather die than to belong to so poor a 
 man as his master. His master finding that 
 Charles was determined in his resolution, 
 sold him to a man in the neighborhood, who 
 owned about thirty slaves, and who seldom 
 gave them anything more than bread to eat, 
 worked them very hard, and allowed them 
 but few privileges, where Charles, in his new 
 situation, seemed perfectly satisfied and con- 
 tented, having procured a master for whom 
 he had respect. 
 
 Another instance of the kind occurred 
 with a negro man I had in my charge, by 
 the name of George^ who belonged to my 
 brother's estate, and the law required him to 
 be hired out. George v^as one of the best 
 and most truthful and fiiithful black men I 
 ever knew, and I hired him to a man in the 
 neighborhood of Quitman, in the State of 
 Mississippi, by the name of Murphy, who 
 had no other slaves on his premises, and was 
 a very humane man, and treated George in 
 every way as one equal ; he gave him plenty 
 to eat, and only required him to work when 
 he worked, and was very kind to him. 
 George stood it about two weeks, when one 
 
52 A HISTORY AXD DEFENS£ 
 
 day he Avent to Mr. M. and told him he Avanted 
 him to hire him out to 8ome white man who 
 owned negroes; that he was too lonesome, 
 and really could not stand it any longer- 
 Mr. M. asked him if he was dissatisfied with 
 his fare : he answered he was not, hut, on the 
 contrary, Mr. M. had treated him as w^ell and 
 as kind as he could wish, and he could ask 
 no more; but he wanted to be where there 
 were more negroes; that he would prefer 
 being on a large farm with a multitude of 
 negroes, and eating nothing but bread, than 
 to l)e situated where he was, w4th all the 
 dainties of the world. The consequence was, 
 that George would not be satisfied until 
 Murphy had to rehire him, and put him on 
 a farm where there were many other slaves; 
 where George seemed perfectly satisfied with 
 short ration, and cooked it himself. 
 
 I will also mention another instance of 
 somewhat siniihir nature. Gen. Alexander 
 Trotter owned a slave at the time of his death, 
 hy the name of Willoughby, a very trust- 
 worthy man, very iiitelligent and sprightly; 
 and being the owner of a great many slaves, 
 he made Willoughby his overseer, who, under 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 53 
 
 tlie superintendence of his master, soon ac- 
 quired the reputation of being a great over- 
 seer and an excellent manager. Having rich 
 land to cultivate, a great many hands, and 
 making large crops, Willoughby was very at- 
 tentive to his business, and became a great 
 favorite with his master, so much so, that 
 when his master died, in a.d. 1847, he made 
 his will and gave Willoughby his freedom, 
 and willed him, in addition, about one thou- 
 sand dollars' worth of property, and a forty- 
 acre tract of land as a residence. As soon 
 as Willoughby became free and in possession 
 of a decent competency, he became very much 
 dissatisfied and reckless, commenced drinking, 
 and soon became a great drunkard and quite 
 a nuisance, having spent a great portion of 
 what his master had given him, in the course 
 of two or three years. He said he felt very 
 unhappy, and did not know what to do ; that 
 he was once a happy man, in the lifetime of 
 his master, when he had some person to look 
 up to and protect him ; but now it seemed to 
 him that no one cared for him, and was sorry 
 his master was gone ; that if every negro felt 
 as he did, that none of them would ever wash 
 
54 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 to be free; that lie had been miserable ever 
 smee he had his freedom. I told him that I 
 "Nvas sorry to see him throwing himself away, 
 and acting so badly, as I once used to own 
 him, and had sold him to my brother; that I 
 would take him under my charge, and give 
 him land on my farm to cultivate and manage 
 for him, and he would have to walk straight, 
 and conduct properly, or I would Hog him. 
 I then took him under my charge, and fixed 
 him up comfortably, and gave him as much 
 land as he could cultivate; made him 2:0 to 
 work, and forbid him the use of spirituous 
 liquors, and kept him in restraint; when he 
 became steady and industrious in his habits, 
 and is growing rich, and is quite a decent 
 man. 
 
 This shows how little they are qualified to 
 act for themselves, and the great necessity of 
 having some one to control them and keep 
 them in order; that when properly managed 
 and ke[)t under the proper restraint, they are 
 as useful as any other class of the community, 
 and the most happy by far; l)ut Avhen set free, 
 tliey are not quahfied to manage for them- 
 scKes, and soon become nuisances to society, 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 55 
 
 and a burden and a pest to the community, 
 and the most degraded and unhappy people 
 in the universe. 
 
 Suppose, then, that there are now two hun- 
 dred and twenty millions of Africans in the 
 wilds of Africa, who are like drones in the 
 bee-hive, adding nothing to the commerce of 
 the world; roaming wild in the forest, many 
 as naked as when they entered into existence, 
 feeding upon reptiles and upon the flesh of 
 each other, ignorant of the religion of Jesus 
 Christ, and practicing all of the abominations 
 which their ingenuity can invent or their 
 appetites crave ; that twenty millions of these 
 black people were taken and made slaves of; 
 that they were put under good masters, who 
 would take care of them, feed and clothe 
 them, and make them work, and teach them 
 the Christian religion, and raise them from 
 their present state of savage degradation and 
 wickedness to the level of the American 
 slave; that they could be rendered as useful 
 to themselves and the balance of the world 
 in the same proportion in numbers as the 
 American slaves now are; the consequence 
 would be, that they would add twelve hun- 
 
56 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 dred millions of dollars more to the worth 
 and commerce of the Avorld annually than it 
 now has, and would give an impetus to trade, 
 commerce, and manufacturing in every civil- 
 ized nation of the earth unheard of, or un- 
 thought of before; and they would be far 
 better provided for and attended to than they 
 can ever possibly be in the wilds of Africa in 
 their present condition. 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 57 
 
 CHAPTER ly. 
 
 The Relative Condition of the African Race. — Comparison be- 
 tween the AVild African and American Slave. 
 
 Whex we take a view of Africa and its 
 population^ the situation of the country, with 
 its advantages, and behold the degradation, 
 the barbarism, ignorance, vice, profligacy, in- 
 dolence, superstition, bigotry, and wretched- 
 ness of its population, we are at once surprised 
 and amazed at the very wide difference which 
 exist between the blacks in that country and 
 the black slave in America; to see how very 
 far ahead of them the American slave is ad- 
 vanced in civilization, morality, and religion; 
 and we are again as much surprised that any 
 human being in a civilized country, professing 
 to be the follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 and an advocate of his holy religion, and a 
 lover of peace and morality, should ever be 
 an abolitionist, or desire to free the slaves of 
 America and reduce them to such state of 
 
 6 
 
58 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 degradation and vice, from the high position 
 they now occupy, compared to the wild Afri- 
 can, and from their present happy and useful 
 condition ; that they should turn unheedingly 
 from Africa, where human degradation, vice, 
 and miser}' exists in all forms; where they 
 might do much good by their efforts in amel- 
 iorating the suffering of the poor wild Afri- 
 can, and with a false pretended sympathy 
 pity the condition of the American slaves, 
 and with a false notion of religion seek to 
 liberate them and place them in a condition 
 where, as a matter of necessity, they would 
 soon degenerate into the same barbarous con- 
 dition as the present race in Africa; and that, 
 too, when nine-tenths of American slaves are 
 far better situated, and better provided for 
 by their owners, than the abolitionists of the 
 North are, who so kindly pretend to sympa- 
 thize with them; and would spurn the offer, 
 if it was proposed that they should change 
 places with them. 
 
 In Dahoma, and a few other kingdoms in 
 Africa, near the sea-coast, where the slavers 
 have frcijuently visited the blacks, some of 
 them wear clothes, which they procure from 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 59 
 
 traders along on the coast, but even there 
 they are badly clad; an American master 
 would be indicted before the courts of the 
 country, if he did not clothe his negroes better 
 than the best of them, even on the coast, 
 where they so frequently mingle with the 
 whites; many of them have no other cover- 
 ing than a breech-clout around their hips to 
 hide their nakedness, made of coarse cloth, 
 or skins of wild beasts, while far in the inte- 
 rior, where they have not so many advan- 
 tages, many of them go naked entirely, if 
 we credit the accounts given by respectable 
 travelers who have ventured far into the in- 
 terior, and have given us descriptions of the 
 manners and habits of the people in the in- 
 terior. Bo wen, who spent many years in 
 Africa, and penetrated far into the interior, 
 describes the Africans as going entirely naked 
 in some places, and in others, with nothing 
 more than a breech-clout and wrapper to hide 
 their nakedness. 
 
 The whole country of Africa is governed 
 by petty kings, who rule with absolute despot- 
 ism as far as their jurisdiction extends; their 
 voice is the law, and they frequently put 
 
60 A niSTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 their subjects to death, merely for the pur- 
 pose of sliovving their authority. These kings 
 frequently get at variance one with another, 
 and go to war, and in such cases they are 
 like other savages: they carry on a war of 
 extermination, kill all they come to — men, 
 women, and children, and eat one another for 
 food, unless they can have a chance of selling 
 their prisoners to a slaver; in that case, they 
 spare their prisoners and barter them for 
 goods. These tribes, some two or more, are 
 continually at war with each other, and it is 
 seldom or never the case that the whole 
 country is at peace; in this way, at times, 
 whole provinces are laid waste, and the in- 
 habitants entirely destroyed ; repeopled again, 
 and again destroyed at another remote period ; 
 and there is but little prospect of affairs ever 
 being much better, until the country is con- 
 quered by some civilized nation, and the whole 
 of the natives enslaved and put to work 
 as the American negroes now are. Then, 
 and not until then, will Africa be at peace, 
 and her natives become civilized, useful, and 
 hap[)3'. The natives are very fond of dancing, 
 and Bowen describes them as putting on a 
 
Illl»i\\ 
 
OF AFKICAN SLAVERY. 61 
 
 great many awkward airs and gestures in 
 that kind of exercise, and those who can 
 place themselves in the most numerous and 
 awkward positions are considered the best 
 dancers. Their houses are little huts made 
 of mud and sticks, rudely constructed, and 
 often no other furniture than a few leaves 
 and some grass on the dirt floor as a bed, and 
 a pot to boil their food in, among the most 
 civilized, while at other places they live in 
 caves or hollow trees, and eat their food raw 
 like the hogs. In the northern part of Africa, 
 there is a small race of people called Earth- 
 mans, about three feet high ; they live in the 
 ground and burrow like rabbits, go entirely 
 naked, and are unable to contend against the 
 larger race; the consequence is, that when- 
 ever a large African meets with an Earthman, 
 he never fails to butcher him and make soup 
 of his carcass; they will kill an Earthman 
 and eat him with as little compunction of 
 conscience as an American negro would kill 
 an opossum, and do it with as much sport. 
 
 As little is yet known of Africa as any 
 country on the globe by civilized man; the 
 country has never as yet been entirely 
 6* 
 
62 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 traversed by any traveler, and there is no 
 doubt but there are many other petty king- 
 doms and despotisms within its borders, of 
 which there has never yet been any account 
 given to the world. Tagard, in his travels, 
 ventured several hundred miles into the inte- 
 rior, and visited many of their petty kings, 
 but has never explored the extreme northern 
 regions; as did also Bowen, who spent several 
 years among them as a missionary, and visited 
 Zoruba, Mahony, Monrovia, and many other 
 provinces, of which they have given us some 
 accounts; but of the far northern regions 
 they can tell us nothing, and they yet re- 
 main to be explored. There is no doubt but 
 that it has frequently been attempted to be 
 explored, and the travelers were captured 
 and eaten by the natives. Some of the tribes 
 of Africa are Mohammedans, and acquired 
 their religion no doubt by their frequent in- 
 tercourse with the Arabs; but many of them 
 are idolators, and worship idols, and we have 
 accounts given by travelers in Africa of some 
 of the tribes there worshiping the devil. 
 
 The country in Africa abounds with fruits 
 of various description, which grow wild in the 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 03 
 
 woods, and constitute a principal part of the 
 food of the natives. The cocoa-nut grows wild 
 in many phaces, also the pineapple, and the 
 plantain, and the yam : upon such food they 
 exist and feed. In some places they culti- 
 vate the pinder, or ground peas, and the yam ; 
 this they roast, or boil in a pot. The yam is 
 a favorite dish with all classes, and the coun- 
 try produces it in abundance, and it is culti- 
 vated for the purpose; the woods abound also 
 in monkeys in great abundance, and the Afri- 
 can is very fond of their flesh. 
 
 Such is the condition of the negro race in 
 a free state in Africa; they are never safe, 
 always exposed, either to the cruel tyranny 
 of their kings, the ferocity of their savage 
 and blood-thirsty neighbors, or the ravages of 
 famine; are destitute of every necessary of 
 life, entire strangers to luxuries, void of the 
 knowledge of the true religion of Jesus 
 Christ, and sunk into the lowest state of 
 idolatry and degradation. 
 
 While, on the other hand, take a view of 
 the American negro on his master's planta- 
 tion : we find him well clothed to suit every 
 season of the year, with comfortable clothes 
 
6-4 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 for his bod}', and shoes for liis feet; we enter 
 his habitation, and there we find he has a 
 comfortable, neat habitation to protect him 
 from the weather, a comfortable mattress or 
 bed on which to rest his head when tired or 
 fatigued, w^ith every comfort for his support. 
 We find him intelligent and contented; he 
 can converse on the subject of the Christian 
 religion with heart-felt piety, and in many 
 cases point to the time of being at some 
 preaching where a white man had preached, 
 when he was converted, and felt the saving 
 grace of the Lord Jesus Christ shed abroad 
 in his soul. He rises early in the morning, 
 puts on his clothes, goes whistling and hap- 
 pily to his work; by his labor, fields are 
 cleared, fences made; corn, wheat, potatoes, 
 cotton, and every variety of valuable plants 
 and seeds are produced in abundance; by his 
 labor, the iron ore is dug up out of the earth, 
 and the railroads are graded, steam saw-mills 
 are kept at work, and cotton furnished for 
 every civilized nation in the world; and he 
 glories in beholding the earth yielding her 
 fruits in abundance from the ellect of his 
 labor. lie rests secure under the protection 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 65 
 
 of his master, and is never afraid of being- 
 eaten by his neighbors; he is no idohitor or 
 Mohammedan; he has no use for idols, but 
 worships his God, and acknowledges Jesus 
 Christ as his Saviour. They generally have 
 a plenty to eat, a plenty to wear, and a plenty 
 to do, and with this they are satisfied and 
 apparently the best contented and happiest 
 people in the world. 
 
 But some will say, your slaveholders in 
 the United States sometimes use their slaves 
 cruel, and sometimes kill them; how can all 
 this happen, if your slaves are the happiest 
 people in the world? To this I answer, that 
 sometimes a slave is killed, but it is generally 
 a matter of necessity, in order to control 
 them ; that sometimes there are some so very 
 bad that their owners are compelled to kill 
 them. But, after all, there are not one-half as 
 many slaves killed by white men in the slave- 
 holding States as there are white men killed 
 by one another in the same States, or in 
 the non-slaveholding States, in proportion to 
 numbers; and in all the slave States put to- 
 gether there are not as many negroes killed 
 annually, by white men, as are butchered by 
 
06 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 a single African king in bis petty dominion : 
 not one-tenth as many as are killed by Great 
 Britain, in sending her subjects to be shaves 
 in the wars; or France, or Spain, or any other 
 nation. And as to cruelty, a master is not al- 
 lowed to inflict any cruel or unusual ill-treat- 
 ment on his slave by the laws of the country, 
 and if he does so, he is liable to be indicted 
 and punished ; and we more frequently hear 
 of cruel and unusual ill-treatment in the non- 
 slaveholding States inflicted by white people 
 on each other, than we do in the slaveholding 
 States on slaves. The slaves are protected 
 by the laws of the country and their owners, 
 and it is to the interest of the slaveholder to 
 see that his slaves are properly treated; and 
 it is very rarely the case that a slaveholder 
 ever unnecessarily abuses his slaves, or per- 
 mits it to be done by others. 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 67 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 The Probable Result as to Universal Slavery of the African 
 Race. — All Civilized Nations would be benefited by having 
 them as Slaves. — Their Probable Destiny. — The Destruction 
 of the English Possessions in the West Indies by Freeing their 
 Slaves. — Evil Result of Freeing the Slaves in San Domingo. 
 
 Taking it for granted, then, that the xifrican 
 race was intended, from the beginning, to he 
 slaves ; that their physical and mental organi- 
 zation are so constructed as to fit them for 
 that condition; that they are the only people 
 in the world who will submit to be kept in 
 bondage by their own color, and men of every 
 other nation, whether they are in the ascend- 
 ency in numbers or not; that a state of slavery 
 is the only one in which the black man can 
 exist as a moral and an intelligent human 
 being; that it is in that condition alone he 
 is capable of being of any service, either to 
 himself or the balance of mankind; and that 
 in that condition he is as useful, or more so, 
 than any other class of human beings, both 
 
68 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 to himself and the rest of mankind; that 
 it is in that condition alone he is by any 
 means happy or contented; and that by his 
 peculiar organization, he prefers to be a slave 
 to being free, — we can come to but one con- 
 clusion as to the final destiny of the whole 
 African race, and that is, that they will 
 eventually all be slaves; that the wdiole race 
 of the descendants of Ham will eventualh^ 
 be brought under that curse which was pro- 
 nounced b}' Noah, shortly after the flood, on 
 Ham, for his Avickedness and his disobedi- 
 ence, that he should be a servant of ser- 
 vants; that the descendants of Shem and 
 Japheth, when they shall find that all of 
 their eftbrts to raise the descendants of their 
 brother Ham in the scale of human beings, 
 from their present degraded and vile condi- 
 tion in a state of freedom, shall fail; when 
 they shall be brought to see that they have 
 invariably pursued the wrong course in trying 
 to civilize Africa as she is, and that all of 
 their eilbrts will l)e vain; that the only con- 
 dition in which the sons of Ham are at all 
 hap])y, cimtented, civilized, and useful, is in 
 a state of slavery, for which they were in- 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 69 
 
 tended; that a state of slavery is the only 
 one in which they will thrive and prosper; 
 and that, in that state, they are capable of 
 civilization and being Christianized, and are 
 capable, in an eminent degree, of aiding and 
 assisting in the support of themselves, and 
 adding much to the common stock for the 
 benefit of the whole, — they will bring them 
 all to a state of bondage, and place them 
 under masters and overseers, that they may 
 fulfill the purpose for which they are so well 
 qualified and seem to be designed; that Eng- 
 land, France, Russia, Prussia, Austria, the 
 whole of the United States, and everj' civil- 
 ized nation in the world, will have the Afri- 
 can as a slave; that thev would enslave them 
 as a matter of benevolence, if nothing more, 
 seeing that they cannot exist in any other 
 condition as civiHzed human beings. They 
 may experiment for awhile, by continuing to 
 liberate those who are in a state of bondage, 
 from a false notion of Christian duty; but 
 when they find that by thus setting them 
 free, they destroy whole continents, by lay- 
 ing waste a country which has been kept in 
 cultivation by slave labor; that they destroy 
 
 7 
 
70 A niSTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 the commerce of the world, and break down 
 the manufacturing interest everywhere, and 
 reduce the shave, from a condition of plenty 
 and protection, to a state of starvation and 
 degradation ; that in trying to free the slave, 
 they are bringing a curse upon him, and on 
 themselves, and fighting against the immuta- 
 ble decrees of God, — they will then turn and 
 pursue the only proper course to effect the 
 object which many of the abolitionists now 
 pretend to have in view, to raise the African 
 in the scale of human beings, and teach them 
 the Christian religion, by bringing all those 
 who are in a wild state of freedom into bond- 
 age. Suppose, for a moment, that the three 
 and a half millions of slaves now in the 
 United States were set free, what would be 
 the effect of such a course on the United 
 States and the rest of the world? The con- 
 sequence would be, that every cotton factory 
 in the world would stop operations, and 
 not less than one hundred thousand white 
 persons in Europe and the United States, 
 who are engaged in the manufacturing of 
 cotton goods, be thrown out of employment; 
 the whole of the Southern slaveholding States 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 71 
 
 would be left barren and uncultivated, and 
 instead of exporting upwards of three hun- 
 dred millions of dollars' worth of exports into 
 foreign countries, and importing as much in 
 return, as they now do, they would not export 
 one dollar's worth. The shipping interest 
 would feel the effect, and dwindle away for 
 the want of freights ; for the want of custom- 
 house duties, the government would have to 
 resort to direct taxation to make up the defi- 
 ciencies, and thus indirectly enslave the white 
 people in all of the non-slaveholding States, 
 in order to liberate the blacks, who, to make 
 the best of it, would only be as so many 
 drones in the hive, who would have to be 
 supported by the whites. But this is not all; 
 the whites and the blacks can never exist to- 
 gether in any country in a state of equality : 
 a murderous, exterminating war would com- 
 mence immediately, in the which one party 
 or the other would soon be exterminated and 
 killed off. If the whites should kill off the 
 blacks, they would do nothing more in the 
 slaveholding States than barely to make a 
 support; the climate is such that white men 
 cannot cultivate the soil to much advantage, 
 
72 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 while the negro is admirably adapted to it. 
 If the negroes should succeed, there would 
 soon be a country of black savages, in a few 
 generations, as barbarous and degraded as the 
 wild Africans now in Africa; and all of this 
 beautiful country, now in a high state of cul- 
 tivation, on the sea-board, in the slaveholding 
 States, rendered useless to all the world, and 
 left a barren waste, to be inhabited by a set of 
 wild, black, cannibal barbarians, who would 
 be ever and anon a pest to the border white 
 States, far more terrible than any ancient 
 Indian tribe. Of the proceeds of slave labor 
 in the fourteen slaveholding States of the 
 United States, there is now exported about 
 three hundred millions of dollars' worth annu- 
 ally, and there is about twice as much kept 
 at home, for home consumption, which would 
 make, as the probable estimate of the whole 
 amount of slave labor in the United States, 
 at about nine hundred millions of dollars' 
 worth, an estimate of more than one-half of 
 the entire production of the whole nation; 
 an item greatly to be considered in the 
 annals of national importance. 
 
 Just see what the result was, in the Island 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 73 
 
 of San Domingo, when the French government 
 declared the slaves of that island to be free; 
 the consequence was, that instead of showing 
 themselves grateful for the favor the govern- 
 ment had done them, they immediately ex- 
 terminated the whites, and France lost her 
 possession of the island entirely, and the 
 blacks set up a government of their own, 
 under which they were more persecuted than 
 under the government of their former mas- 
 ters; and, although it has not been sixty 
 years since the occurrence, the blacks have 
 since greatly degenerated in their morals and 
 civilization, and, in the course of one century 
 more, will be in as bad a state of barbarism 
 and savage ignorance as the inhabitants of 
 Africa, unless again enslaved by some civil- 
 ized nation. Look at the British possessions 
 in the West Indies, where a few years ago 
 their islands flourished and prospered as the 
 rose, under the influence of African slave 
 labor; and now, since they have liberated 
 their slaves, within a few years past, their 
 islands are valueless and a dead expense to 
 the nation, and the negro population in a far 
 worse condition than before. 
 7* 
 
74 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 The Parliament of Great Britain, in a.d. 
 
 1832, liberated her African slaves, and appro- 
 priated out of the public treasury £21,000,- 
 000, which is equivalent to §105,000,000, to 
 indemnify the owners of the slaves. For the 
 success of this experiment. Professor Josiah 
 Priest, A.M., and member of the Antiquarian 
 Society of Nev/ York, says, in his valuable 
 work on '^ Bible Evidence of Slavery," that a 
 recent letter from Jamaica states, that the 
 poverty and industrial prostration of the is- 
 land are almost incredible; it sa^'s that, since 
 
 1833, out of six hundred and fifty sugar 
 estates then in cultivation, more than one 
 hundred and fifty have been abandoned, and 
 the works broken up; this has thrown out of 
 cultivation over 200,000 acres of rich land, 
 which, in 1832, gave employment to about 
 30,000 laborers, and yielded over 15,000 
 hogsheads of sugar and GOOO puncheons of 
 rum. During the same period, over 500 coffee 
 plantations have been abandoned, and their 
 works broke'U up; this threw out of cultiva- 
 tion over 200,000 acres more of land, which in 
 lb32 required the labor of over 30,000 men. 
 These experiments show very clearly the 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 75 
 
 great evils which result from liberating the 
 African from his state of bondage to the 
 white race. Is there any man, with a single 
 spark of Christian feeling within his breast, 
 who would desire to see the black slaves of 
 the United States set free, with all these 
 lights before his eyes, when the inevitable 
 consequence would be extermination of the 
 whole race in the end, and the massacre of 
 thousands of the white population in the 
 bloody controversy which would ensue; a 
 stoppage to the manufacturing interest in 
 cotton goods all over the world, and a com- 
 plete overthrow of commerce in every civil- 
 ized nation? Those who would desire such a 
 scene, are surely blind to observation, reason, 
 and revelation, or else, like Beelzebub, are 
 enemies to the whole human race. 
 
A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 CHAPTER yi. 
 
 The reople of the Slave States, of all others, have a right to 
 own their Slaves. — Slavery introduced by Great Britain and 
 France into the United States. — Judicial Decisions by the 
 Courts of Great Britain and the United States on the Subject 
 of African Slavery. 
 
 The thirteen colonies which, on the 4th 
 day of July, a.d. 1776, asserted their inde- 
 pendence, were governed hy British laws. 
 Our ancestors, in their emigration to this 
 country, brought with them the common law 
 of England as their birthright; they adopted 
 its principles for their government as far as 
 it was not incompatible with the peculiarities 
 of their situation, in a rude and unsettled 
 country. Great Britain, then, having the 
 sovereignty over them, possessed the power 
 to regulate their institutions, to control their 
 commerce, and give laws to their intercourse 
 with all the nations of the earth. Great 
 Britain thus exercising sovereign power of 
 the thirteen colonies, did establish slavery in 
 
or AFRICAN SLAVERr. iT 
 
 tliem; did maintain and protect the institu- 
 tion; did carry on, foster, and support the 
 African sLave-trade, and forbade the colonies 
 permission, either to emancipate or export 
 their slaves, and forbade them from inaugu- 
 rating any legislation in diminishing or dis- 
 couraging the institution. 
 
 The first permanent settlement made on 
 this continent by the English, was made 
 under a charter granted in a.d. 1606, in the 
 fourth year of James I., to Sir Thomas Gates 
 and his associates. A few unsuccessful at- 
 tempts had previously been made by others, 
 but the first permanent settlement made 
 under the authority of the Crown was made 
 in 1606. That charter was superseded by a 
 quo warranto, issued at the instance of the 
 British Crown; and in a.d. 1620, another 
 charter was granted to the Duke of Lenox 
 and his associates, who were incorporated un- 
 der the name of the Plymouth Company : to 
 that Company the coast was granted from the 
 40th to the 48th degree of north latitude. This 
 charter was followed by successive grants to 
 different noblemen and companies, until the 
 entire coast was disposed of. In a.d. 1664, 
 
78 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 all the territory was granted to the Duke of 
 York, as far south as Delaware Bay; and in 
 1663 and 1660, the entire coast, extending 
 from the 29tli degree of north latitude to 
 that celebrated line of 36° 50' north, since so 
 famous in the history of our intestine disputes, 
 was granted to Lord Clarendon and his asso- 
 ciates. Thus was conveyed the whole coast 
 comprised within our present limits. 
 
 And before this very first settlement, the 
 slave-trade had been inaugurated and estab- 
 lished in Great Britain. The first historical 
 notice we have of this fact, is the grant of a 
 charter by Queen Elizabeth to a company 
 formed for the purpose of supplying slaves to 
 the Spanish American colonies; the queen 
 herself was a shareholder. Subsequently, in 
 A.D. 1662, under Charles XL, a monopoly was 
 created in favor of a company authorized to 
 export to the colonies three thousand slaves 
 per annum ; and so valuable was this privi- 
 lege considered, so great was the influence 
 required for the purpose of obtaining a share 
 in it, that it was placed under the auspices 
 of the Queen Dowager and the Duke of York. 
 The kin 2!: himself, in order to encourai2:e the 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 79 
 
 traffic in African slaves, issued his proclama- 
 tion, offering a bounty of a hundred acres of 
 land to his subjects for every four slaves em- 
 ployed in the cultivation of it. 
 
 The merchants of London found their trade 
 to the slave coast very much cramped by this 
 royal monopoly, granted to favorites of the 
 Crown, and they loudly complained that they 
 were excluded from the advantages of so pros- 
 perous a traffic; and in a.d. 1695, in commit- 
 tee of the whole, the Commons of England 
 
 Resolved, That for the better supply of the 
 plantations, all the subjects of Great Britain 
 should have liberty to trade in Africa for 
 negroes, with such limits as should be pre- 
 scribed by Parliament. 
 
 In the 9th and 10th William III., an act 
 was passed partially relaxing this monopoly, 
 the preamble to which states — 
 
 That the trade was highly beneficial to the 
 kingdom, and to the plantations and colonies 
 thereto belonging. 
 
 This partial relaxation w^as unsatisfactory; 
 petitions continued to pour in; in 1708, the 
 Commons again 
 
 Resolved, That the trade was important, 
 
80 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 and ought to be free and open to all the 
 queen's subjects trading from Great Britain. 
 
 And in 1711, they again resolved that this 
 trade ought to be free in a regulated company; 
 the plantations ought to be supplied with ne- 
 groes at reasonable rates; a considerable stock 
 was necessary for carrying on the trade to the 
 best advantage, and that an export of <£100,- 
 000 at least, in merchandise, should be annu- 
 ally made from Great Britain to Africa. 
 Finally, in the year a.d. 1749, these repeated 
 resolutions of the Commons and petitions of 
 the merchants of London accomplished the 
 desired result. They gained their object by 
 the passage of the act of 23d George II., 
 throwing open the trade, and declaring the 
 slave-trade to be very advantageous to Great 
 Britain, and necessary for supplying the plan- 
 tations and colonies thereunto belonging with 
 a suflicient numljer of negroes at reasonable 
 rates. 
 
 Thus we see, that Great Britain unhesita- 
 tingly went into the slave traffic in negroes 
 by tlie wholesale; ])uying annually £100,000 
 worth of slaves, at prices in Africa, an amount 
 nearly equivalent to a half million of dollars; 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 81 
 
 in which all classes were permitted to share 
 the profits, from the monarch to the peasant, 
 and was considered and so declared to be a very 
 lucrative and profitable business, both to the 
 government and the stockholders of individuals 
 concerned; yet, notwithstanding all this, that 
 the stockholders acquired millions by the trade, 
 the African, who was sold in servitude, was 
 the greatest gainer of all concerned : he was 
 taken from a state of heathenish paganism, 
 from a state of naked and savage barbarity, 
 and placed in a condition where he would 
 hear the gospel of Jesus Christ preached, to 
 the salvation of his soul, and under a master 
 who would restrict him in his criminal prac- 
 tices and teach him the morals of the Chris- 
 tian religion, clothe him and feed him as a 
 rational being, and make him do such work 
 as he could and ought to do for his own bene- 
 fit and that of the rest of the human race; 
 by which means the American slave has risen 
 far above the common African in the wilds 
 of Africa, in intelligence, morality, and reli- 
 gion. 
 
 This legislation of Great Britain fixed the 
 institution upon the colonies; they had no 
 
82 A IIISTOKY AND DEFENSE 
 
 power to resist it; they eould only remon- 
 strate and petition, and make attempts to 
 legislate at home to diminish the evil, and 
 every such attempt was sternly repressed by 
 the British Crown. 
 
 In 1760, South Carolina passed an act pro- 
 hibiting the further importation of African 
 slaves. The act was rejected by the Crown; 
 the governor was reprimanded, and a circular 
 was sent to all the governors of the colonies, 
 warning them against presuming to counte- 
 nance such legislation. 
 
 In 1765, a similar bill was twice read in 
 the Assembly of Jamaica. The news reached 
 Great Britain before its final passage ; instruc- 
 tions were sent to the royal governor; he called 
 the House of Assembly before him, communi- 
 cated his instructions, and forbade any further 
 progress of the bill. 
 
 In 1774, in spite of this discountenancing 
 the bill by Great Britain, two bills passed the 
 Legislature of Jamaica; and the Earl of Dart- 
 mouth, then Secretary of State, wrote to Sir 
 Basil Krith. the Ciovenior of the colony, that 
 these measures had created alarm to the 
 merchants of Great Britain engaged in that 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 83 
 
 branch of commerce, and forbidding him, on 
 pain of removal from his office, to assent to 
 such haws. 
 
 Finally, in 1775, mark the date, after the 
 revolutionary struggle had commenced, while 
 the Continental Congress was in session, after 
 armies had been levied, after Crown Point 
 and Ticonderoga had been taken possession 
 of by the insurgent colonists, and after the 
 first blood had been shed in the Eevolution 
 at Lexington, this same Earl of Dartmouth, 
 in answer to a remonstrance from an agent 
 of the colonies, replied : ^Ye cannot allow the 
 colonies to check or discourage in any degree 
 a traffic so beneficial to the nation. 
 
 Thus, down to the very commencement of 
 the Revolution, which separated Great Britain 
 from the thirteen colonies, African slavery 
 was forced by her on the colonies, without 
 their consent, regardless of their approbation, 
 and may, therefore, be considered the com- 
 mon law of the land, ingrafted from the 
 mother country. 
 
 And, if we will examine the decision of 
 her judges, and the answers of her lawyers 
 to questions propounded by the Crown and 
 
84 A HISTORY A^'D DEFENSE 
 
 assembled bodies, ^ye Avill find that slavery is 
 recogni/A'd jjy the common law of England, 
 and slaves are declared to be merchandise 
 and property, and transferable the same as 
 any other chattels. 
 
 A short time prior to the year 1713, a con- 
 tract had been formed between Spain and a 
 certain company called the Eoyal Guinea 
 Company, that had been established in 
 France. This contract was technically called 
 in those days an ass lento. 
 
 By the treaty of Utrecht, of the 11th of 
 April, 1713, Great Britain, through her diplo- 
 matist, obtained a transfer of that contract — 
 she yielded considerations for it — the obtain- 
 ing of which was greeted in England with 
 great joy; it was considered a triumph of 
 diplomacy. It Avas followed, in the month 
 of May, 1713, by a new contract in form, by 
 which the British government undertook, for 
 the term of thirty years then next to come, 
 to transport annually 4800 slaves to the 
 Spanisli American colonies at a fixed price. 
 Almost innnediately after this new contract, 
 a question arose in the English council as to 
 the true legal character of the slaves thus to 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 85 
 
 be transported to the Spanish American colo- 
 nies; and, according to the forms of the Brit- 
 ish constitution, the question was submitted 
 by the Crown in council to the twelve judges 
 of England ; and they answered in the follow- 
 ing words, to wit: In pursuance of his Ma- 
 jesty's order in council, hereunto annexed, Ave 
 do humbly certify our opinion to be, that ne- 
 groes are merchandise. 
 
 Signed by Lord Chief Justice Holt, Judge 
 PoUextin, and eight other judges of England. 
 This was immediately after the treaty of 
 Utrecht, in 1713. Yery soon after this, the 
 spirit of fanaticism began to obtain a foothold 
 in England; and, although large numbers of 
 slaves were owned in Great Britain, and were 
 daily sold in the pubUc Exchange in London, 
 (see 2 Haggard's Keport, page 105,) questions 
 arose as to the rights of the owners to retain 
 property in their slaves ; and the merchants 
 of London, alarmed, submitted the question 
 to Sir Philip York, who afterward became 
 Lord Hardwick, and to Lord Talbot, who was 
 then the Solicitor and Attorney-General of 
 the kingdom. The question w^as propounded 
 to them: What are the rights of a British 
 8* 
 
86 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 owner of a slave in England? And this is 
 the answer of those two legal functionaries. 
 They certified that a slave coming from the 
 West Indies to England, with or without his 
 master, does not become free, and his master's 
 property in him is not thereby determined 
 nor varied; and his master may legally com- 
 pel him to return to the plantation. 
 
 And in A.d. 1749, the same question again 
 came up before Sir Philip York, then Lord 
 Chancellor of England, under the title of 
 Lord Hardwdck, and by a decree in Chan- 
 cery in the case before him, he athrmed the 
 doctrine which he had uttered when he was 
 Attorney- General of Great Britain. 
 
 Such were the decisions of the judges of 
 England up to a.d. 1771, when the spirit of 
 fanaticism began greatly to prevail, by which 
 Lord Mansfield was driven to a different deci- 
 sion in the celebrated Sommerset case; by 
 which judicial legislation, we may term it, 
 subverted the connnon law of England, and 
 decided, not that a slave carried to England 
 from the West Indies by his nuister thereby 
 became free, but that by the law of England, 
 if the slave resisted the master, there was no 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 87 
 
 remedy by which the master could exercise 
 his control; that the colonial legislation, 
 which afforded the master means of control- 
 ling his property, had no authority in Eng- 
 land; and that England, by her laws, had 
 provided no substitute for that authority. 
 To this decision Lord Mansfield was driven 
 by the spirit of fanaticism; for he had no 
 precedent or law on which to base it. On 
 the contrary, both law and precedent were 
 clearly against the decision ; for he used every 
 effort in his power to get the parties to com- 
 promise the case, so that he could evade giv- 
 ing a decision on the subject; but they would 
 not compromise. But this decision of Lord 
 Mansfield had but little effect on subsequent 
 decisions of the English courts, and only went 
 to tarnish his reputation and show his vacil- 
 lating disposition. For, as late as a.d. 1827, 
 twenty years after Gre^t Britain had abol- 
 ished the slave-trade, and six years before 
 she confiscated the property of the colony, 
 which she forced them to buy, the celebrated 
 case of the slave Grace, well known to all law- 
 yers, was brought before Lord Stowell, one of 
 the most learned and firm judges in all the 
 
0» A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 kingdom, in which it was decided quite dif- 
 ferent; it was contended in argument that the 
 slave Grace, having been brought to England 
 by her master, was free; that once she was 
 free, she was always free. That the Eng« 
 lish atmosphere was too pure to be breathed 
 b}^ a slave. Lord Stowell, in answering 
 that legal argument, said: That after pain- 
 ful and laborious research into historical re- 
 cords, he did not find anvthin": touchino: the 
 peculiar fitness of the English atmosphere for 
 respiration, during the ten centuries that 
 slaves had lived in England. 
 
 The point was also raised in this case, that 
 slavery did not exist by common law usage 
 anywhere, but was only the creature of posi- 
 tive legislation; and here is what Lord Sto- 
 well said on that point in the case, to wit: 
 Having adverted to most of the objections 
 that arise to the removal of slavery in the 
 colonies, I have first to observe that it returns 
 upon the slave by the same title by which it 
 grew up; originally it never was in antiquia 
 a creature of law. Init of that custom which 
 operates with the force of law; and Avhen it 
 is cried out that mains icsils aholcndus est, it 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 89 
 
 is first to be proven that even in the consider- 
 ation of Enghand the use of slavery is con- 
 sidered as a inalus iisus in the colonies. Is 
 that a malus usus which the court of kings, 
 privy council, and the courts of chancery are 
 every day carrying into full effect in all con- 
 siderations of property; in the one by appeal, 
 and in the other by original causes; and all 
 this enjoined and confirmed by statutes? 
 Still less is it to be considered as a mains 
 usus in the colonies themselves, where it has 
 been incorporated into full life and establish- 
 ment, where it is the system of the State, 
 and of every individual in it; and fifty years 
 have passed without any authorized condem- 
 nation of it in England as a mains usus in 
 the colonies. And this was fifty years after 
 Lord Mansfield's speech in the Sommerset 
 case. 
 
 The fact is, that in England, where villein- 
 age of both sorts went into total decay, we 
 had communication with no other country, 
 and, therefore, it is triumphantly declared, as 
 I have before observed, once a freeman, ever 
 a freeman; there being no other country 
 with which we had immediate connection, 
 
90 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 which at the tune of suppressing that 
 system we had any occasion to trouble our- 
 selves about; but slavery was a very great 
 source of the mercantile interest of the coun- 
 try, and was on that account largely consid- 
 ered by the mother country as a great source 
 of its wealth and strength. Treaties were 
 made on that account, and the colonies com- 
 pelled to submit to those treaties by the au- 
 thority of this country. This system con- 
 tinued entire; instead of being condemned as 
 mains usus, it was regarded as a most eminent 
 source of its riches and power. It was at a 
 late period of the last century that it was 
 condemned in England as an institution not 
 fit to exist here, for reasons peculiar to our 
 own condition ; but it has been continued in 
 our colonies, favored and supported by our 
 own courts, which have liberally imparted to 
 it their protection and encouragement. To 
 such a system, while it is supported, I rather 
 feel it to be too strong to apply the maxim 
 v}((ln-^ u.^Ns aholritdiis est. The time may come 
 when this institution may fall, in the colonies, 
 as other institutions have done in other flour- 
 ishing countries; but I am of opinion it can 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 91 
 
 only be effected at the joint expense of both 
 countries; for it is in a peculiar manner the 
 crime of this country, and I rather feel it to 
 be an objection to this species of emancipa- 
 tion; that it is indeed to be a very cheap 
 measure, hereby throwing the whole expense 
 upon the country. (2 Haggard's Reports, 
 page 128, et seq.) 
 
 Such was the opinion of Lord Stowell in 
 the celebrated case of the slave Grace. At 
 the time of his decision, he v> as in correspond- 
 ence with Judge Story, a man of known abil- 
 ity and patriotism; and he wrote to Judge 
 Story upon the subject of his opinion, who 
 was asked to consider it, and give his opinion 
 about it; and here is an extract from his an- 
 swer, to wit: I have read with great atten- 
 tion your judgment in the slave case. Upon 
 the fullest consideration which I have been 
 able to give the subject, I entirely concur 
 in your views; if I had been called upon to 
 pronounce a judgment in alike case, I shoaid 
 certainly have arrived at the same conclusion. 
 That was the opinion of Judge Story, given 
 in this case, in a.d. 1827. 
 
 These facts, supported by the decisions of 
 
92 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 such men as Lord Stowell and Judge Story, 
 ought to be sufficient to convince any unpre- 
 judiced mind that shavery exists in the Uni- 
 ted States by the common law brought from 
 England, and existed in all of the English 
 colonies in the same way ; and that it existed 
 in England by the same usage until very re- 
 cently. But, in looking still further, we see 
 that it is the common law of the whole con- 
 tinent, both North and South America alike. 
 The European powers w^hich joined and co- 
 operated with Great Britain in the discovery 
 and establishing of colonies on this conti- 
 nent, all followed the same views of polic}'. 
 France, Spain, Portugal, and England occu- 
 pied the whole continent north and south; 
 tlie legislation of all of them ^vas the same. 
 Louis XIIL, by royal edict, established sla- 
 very in all his colonies in America; and, 
 through the interference of Lascasas, the 
 Spanish Crown inaugurated the slave-trade 
 with a view of substituting the servile labor 
 of the African for that of the Indians, who 
 had been reduced to slavery by their Spanish 
 conquerors. As regards Portugal, she inau- 
 gurated the trade; she originally supplied all 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 93 
 
 the colonies; and the empire of Brazil to-day, 
 with its servile labor, is the legitimate fruit 
 of the colonial policy of the Portuguese govern- 
 ment in the sixteenth century. She began 
 her trade in 1508; some authors say even 
 before the colonization of America in the 
 fifteenth century. 
 
 Slavery was thus the recognized institution, 
 both of the Old and New World. White sla- 
 very existed in England until comparatively 
 a recent date; it did not finally disappear 
 until the reign of James II. The system 
 of villeinage, of which all the law writers 
 speak, was a system of slavery in its strictest 
 sense. Villeins Avere all slaves, as much so 
 as the negroes now are in America. There 
 w^ere two kinds: villeins regardant, and vil- 
 leins in gross; and the only difterence be- 
 tween them was that the villeins regardant 
 w^ere attached to the soil, and could not be 
 sold away from the glebe; they followed 
 the conveyance of the estate in the hands of 
 the lord. But the villeins in gross w^ere 
 chattels, sold from hand to hand just as ne- 
 groes or cattle, or any other species of prop- 
 erty are now sold — a concise account of 
 
94 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 Avliicli is given in the first volume of the 
 celehrated treatise of Mr. Spence on the 
 Equity Jurisdiction of the Courts of Chan- 
 eery. That vohnne contains an admirable, 
 concise history of the English law; some 
 statements are contained therein relative to 
 the English law of villeinage, as also in Mr. 
 Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of 
 England. But a true and fair picture of the 
 state of villeinage in England is very con- 
 cisely portrayed in the celebrated argument 
 of Mr. Ilargrave, the great lawyer, who was 
 the counsel for the slave in the Sommerset 
 case; one passage will gi\e us an idea of 
 what the villein was, under the common law 
 of England. He said : The condition of the 
 villein had most of the incidents which I 
 have before described, in giving the idea of 
 slavery in general. His service Avas uncer- 
 tain and indeterminate, such as his lord saw 
 fit to require; or, as some of our ancient 
 writers express it, he knew not in the even- 
 ing what he was to do in the morning. He 
 was Ijound to do whatever he was commanded; 
 he was liable to beating, inq^risonment, or any 
 other species of chastisement his lord might 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. Vb 
 
 prescribe, except killing and maiming. He 
 was incapable of acquiring property for his 
 own benefit, the rule being quo quid acquiri- 
 tur servo acquiritur domino. He was himself 
 the subject of property, as such salable and 
 transmissible; if he was a villein regardant, 
 he passed with the manor or land to which 
 he was annexed, but might be severed at the 
 pleasure of the lord. If he was a villein in 
 gross, he was a hereditament or a chattel 
 real, according to his lord's interest, being de- 
 scendable to the heir where the lord was ab- 
 solute owner, and transmissible to the execu- 
 tor where the lord had only a term of years 
 in him. Lastly, the slavery extended to the 
 issue; if both parents were villeins, or if the 
 father was a villein — our law deriving the 
 condition of the child from that of the father, 
 contrary to the Eoman law, in Avhich the 
 rule was partus sequiter ventrem. 
 
 The origin of villeinage is principally to be 
 derived from the wars between the British, 
 Saxons, Danish, and Norman ancestors, while 
 they were contending for the possession of the 
 country. Judge Fitzherbert, in his reading on 
 the fourth of Edward I, stat. i., entitled exterda 
 
96 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 manerti, supposes villeinage to have com- 
 menced at the Conquest, by the distribution 
 then made of the forfeited lands, and of the 
 vanquished inhabitants resident upon them; 
 but there were many bondmen in England 
 before the Conquest, as appears by the Anglo- 
 Saxon laws regulating them; and, therefore, 
 it would be nearer the truth to attribute the 
 origin of villeins, as well to the preceding 
 wars and revolutions in this country, as to 
 the effects of this Conquest. (20th Howell's 
 State Trials, pp. 36, 37.) 
 
 White slaver}' in England was protected by 
 the common law, down to James II., and its 
 disappearance was gradual. The monarchs 
 themselves held a property in them; and 
 when they were liberated, they had to pay 
 a full equivalent for their freedom. Queen 
 Elizabeth, during her reign, issued a commis- 
 sion to Cecil, Lord Burleigh, and Sir William 
 Mildmay, giving them authority to go into 
 her counties of Gloucester, Cornwall, Devon, 
 and Sommerset, and there to manumit her 
 slaves, by getting from them a reasonable 
 price for their liberty. That is the wny sla- 
 very was abolished in England; it was abol- 
 
or AFRICAN SLAVERY. 97 
 
 ished by the graclaal emancipation of the 
 slaves, resulting from the sale of the lord to 
 the slave himself of his right over him. 
 Here is a copy of the commission, which may 
 be found in the Appendix to the 20th volume 
 of Howell's State Trials, which reads as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 Elizabeth, by the grace of God, etc., to our 
 right trustie and well beloved Councillor, Sir 
 W. Cecil, of the Garter, Knighte, Lord Burgh- 
 ley, and Highe Treasurer of England, and to 
 our trustie and right well beloved Councillor, 
 Sir \Yalter Mildmay, Knighte, Chancellor and 
 Under Treasurer of our Exchequer, Greet- 
 inge: Whereas divers and sundrie of our 
 poore, faithful, and loyal subjects, being borne, 
 bounde in blode, and regardant to divers and 
 sundrie our manors and possessions, wdthin 
 our realm of England, have made humble 
 suyte unto us to be manumised, enfranchised, 
 and made free, with theire children and se- 
 quels, by reason whereof, they, theire chil- 
 dren, and sequels may become more apt and 
 fitte members for the service of us and of 
 our commonwealth; we, then, having tender 
 9* 
 
98 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 considerations of theire said siiyte, and well 
 considering the same to be acceptable to Al- 
 miglitie God. 
 
 Now, we would suppose she was going to 
 give them their liberty. Not at all; but, kind 
 queen as she is, willing to sell them to them- 
 selves at a fair price, like one negro would 
 sell a quart of pinders to another, for its full 
 value! What merciful kindness! And so 
 she goes on : — 
 
 And we do committ and give unto you full 
 power and authoritie by these presents to ac- 
 cept, admitte, and receive to be manumised, 
 enfranchised, and made free, such and so many 
 of our bondmen and bond-women in blode, 
 with all and every theire children and se- 
 quells, theire goodes, landes, tenementes, and 
 hereditaments as are now apperteynynge or 
 regarduante to all or any of our manors, 
 landes, tenementes, possessions or heredita- 
 ments within the said several counties of 
 Cornwall, Devon, Sommerset, and Gloucester, 
 as to }ou, by your discressions shall seme 
 mete and convenient. Compoundinge with 
 them for such reasonable fmes or sommes of 
 money to be taken and received to our use. 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 99 
 
 for manumyssion and enfranchisement; and 
 for the possessions and enjoying of all and 
 singular theire landes, tenementes, heredita- 
 ments, goodes, and chattels, whatsoever as 
 you and they can agree, for the same after 
 your wisdomes and discressions. 
 
 Here, then, was slavery in its widest and 
 broadest acceptation in Great Britain, in the 
 time of Elizabeth; and it never finally disap- 
 peared from the kingdom until the reign of 
 James II. 
 
 In France, they had also a system of white 
 slaves of the same kind; there they were 
 called gens de maine morte, most main people, 
 because they belonged to the estates; and 
 they w^ere not liberated until 1779, long after 
 black slaves were introduced into the French 
 possessions in America. They w^ere enfran- 
 chised by a royal edict, commencing in these 
 w^ords : — 
 
 We have been greatly affected by the con- 
 sideration that a large number of our subjects, 
 still attached as slaves to the glebe, are re- 
 garded as forming a part of it, as it were; 
 that, deprived of the liberty of their persons, 
 and of the rights of property, they themselves 
 
 lofC. 
 
100 A niSTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 are considered as the property of their lords; 
 that they have not the consolation of be- 
 queathing of their goods; and that, except 
 in a few cases rigorously circumscribed, they 
 cannot even transmit to their own children 
 the fruits of their own labor. 
 
 Thus fell the last remnant of white slavery 
 in France, in 1779; after the independence 
 of the United States, and after it was ascer- 
 tained that the negro race were much better 
 adapted to slavery than the white. 
 
 That slavery of the black population is the 
 common law of the land, and is so recog- 
 nized, every one of the slaveholding States 
 of the thirteen States, at the time of the Dec- 
 laration of Independence, who afterwards 
 abolished slavery, found it necessary to do 
 so by positive statute to that efiect. There 
 was no law of the colonies establishing Af- 
 rican slavery previous to that date, and it 
 therefore existed by the common law of the 
 country, brought from the mother countrj^; 
 and to abolish it required a direct statute. 
 
 Those States which abolished slavery did 
 not do so all of a sudden, but gradually; giv- 
 ing time in all cases for the owners to send 
 
OF AFRICAX SLAVERY. 101 
 
 them to the Southern slaveholding States, 
 to sell them for a fair price, which they did 
 by thousands, pocketed the money, returned 
 home with the proceeds, and then raised a 
 great hue and cry, that African slavery in 
 the United States was abominable! What 
 very sympathetic philanthropists these North- 
 ern negro-speculators are ! — they would sell 
 their o;randniother for monev to the Southern 
 planter, then weep over the evils of slavery! 
 The States which liberated their slaves were 
 not the losers; their citizens sent off their 
 slaves, and sold them in the Southern States, 
 where they are now faring much better than 
 many of their former owners are in the free 
 States: better fed, better clothed, and better 
 satisfied wath their condition. 
 
 The Constitution of the United States re- 
 cognizes African slavery, and guarantees a 
 protection to the owners of the same, in every 
 part of the nation. The free States are bound 
 by that instrument to protect the slaveholder 
 in the possession and enjoyment of his slave- 
 property; and whenever they fail to do it, 
 they violate that sacred instrument, which 
 binds the States toorether as a band of broth- 
 
102 A IirSTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 ers; which makes them formidable and re- 
 spected, both at home and abroad. In addi- 
 tion to the express recital in the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States, guaranteeing to 
 the owner of slaves protection to their prop- 
 erty in every State in the Union, in order to 
 dispel all doubt on the subject, the Supreme 
 Court of the United States, the highest judi- 
 cial tribunal in the world, has clearly decided 
 the question, in the celebrated Dred Scott 
 case, which was commenced before the United 
 vStates District Court in the State of Missouri, 
 in November, 1853, and carried up by writ 
 of error to the Supreme Court of the nation, 
 where it was decided by the Supreme Court : 
 That negroes were slaves in the United States, 
 and the property still continued in the owner, 
 whether in a free State or a slaveholding 
 State; and that the slave Dred Scott was 
 not entitled to his freedom ; that slaves were 
 not citizens of the United States, but prop- 
 erty, which vested in their owners. 
 
 The opinion of the Supreme Court Avas de- 
 livered by Chief Justice Taney, one of tlie 
 greatest jurists, and most upright and impar- 
 tial judges the world has ever known. 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 103 
 
 With all these facts before us, then, it is 
 evident, beyond all doubt, that African sla- 
 very in the United States is the common law 
 of the land ; that it exists without any legis- 
 lative statute to support it ; and that when- 
 ever the United States acquired any new 
 territory, the slaveholder had an undoubted 
 right to take his slave-property to it, as he 
 had any other kind; and it is the bounden 
 duty of the Government of the United States, 
 and every State in the Union, whether slave- 
 holding or not, to protect him in the enjoy- 
 ment of his property. They have agreed to 
 do so in their compact : the Constitution under 
 w^hich they exist as one great and formidable 
 government requires it; the interest of all 
 demands it; and every just man and patriot, 
 and obeying man, who has any love for his 
 country, or any desire for the perpetuity of 
 the union of the States, or any regard or feel- 
 ing for the negroes themselves, or any feeling 
 of humanity for his own race, should desire 
 it. All should unite in the mutual protection 
 of each other, and of each other's rights, in 
 any and every species of property whatever. 
 If they will do this, and let every State make 
 
104 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 her own regulation about her shave-jjroperty, 
 as Avell as all other species of goods and chat- 
 tels, and never permit the subject ever once 
 to be agitated before the Congress of the na- 
 tion, this great republic will very soon be the 
 Eden of the earth ; its influence will extend to 
 the remotest parts of the world ; and, in point 
 of strength and population, will be equal to 
 all the world besides. As Mr. Webster ob- 
 served, a fevr years ago, in Congress: That 
 the child was now^ born who would live to 
 see our nation possessed of one hundred mil- 
 lions of inhabitants, if our States would only 
 remain united. Then, what it would be in 
 the course of three centuries to come, we can 
 scarcely calculate. We may safely suggest, 
 that it would amount to more than a million 
 of millions of people; that the whole con- 
 tinent of North America and South America, 
 with every island wdthin its range, will be- 
 long to this great republic, every one in their 
 proper place, for which they were designed — 
 the whites all free, and the negroes all 
 slaves; each contributing, according to his 
 capacity, largely for the benefit of the whole. 
 A powerful republic, governed by the free- 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 105 
 
 men of the land^ with no king but God, our 
 creator and preserver, who rules directly, and 
 governs all according to his own good plea- 
 sure; to whom be all the glory, power, and 
 honor, now and forever more. 
 
 What would be said of the Southern people 
 in the slaveholding States, if they should take 
 their horses to the free States and sell them, 
 and they should run away and return, and 
 the owners should come after their property, 
 and the j)eople of the slaveholding States 
 should say to them. You shall not take your 
 property back; they have crossed the line, 
 and got into our State, and you shall not 
 take them away ? They would be looked upon 
 as thieves and robbers, and every act of the 
 kind would loosen the bands which bind 
 them together, and their union could last 
 but a little while; instead of safety and pro- 
 tection from the union, it would only amount 
 to robbery and fraud. So, the principle is 
 just the same, if a slaveholder's slave runs 
 away, and goes into a free State, and the 
 citizens of the free State refuse to give him 
 up to his owner; it is depriving the owner of 
 his slave, and defrauding him of his property, 
 10 
 
106 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 and converting tlie union of the States into 
 fraud and oppression, instead of safety and 
 protection. 
 
 AYe say to the people of the free-soil States, 
 You are our brothers; we constitute one great 
 national family ; we all have conceded certain 
 rights to the general government for the pro- 
 tection and benefit of the whole; and other 
 certain rights we have reserved to ourselves; 
 among which reserved rights is the regulation 
 of the subject of African slavery within our 
 own borders. We are well convinced that in 
 union there is strength; for Jesus Christ the 
 great Saviour of mankind, has taught us this 
 lesson, which is handed down to us in the 
 Holy Bible, wherein he says that a house di- 
 vided against itself cannot stand; that a na- 
 tion divided against itself cannot stand; and 
 
 even that if Satan is divided in his kingdom 
 
 I— 
 
 that cannot stand. 
 
 That we wish to carry out our contract, as 
 expressed in the Constitution of the United 
 States, in its ."strictest sense; that Ave will give 
 you permission to bring your property among 
 us, let it be of what kind it may; that we 
 will take up arms to fight against any nation 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 107 
 
 on the earth who will dare to rob you of 
 your property, either on the land or on the 
 seas; that whenever the United States ac- 
 quires any new territory, it shall be the com- 
 mon property of us all; and w^e w^ill all take 
 our property there, if we choose, wdiether it be 
 slaves, dry goods, horses, cattle, or any other 
 kind; and w^e will mutually join in the pro- 
 tection of each other, in the possession of that 
 property; and when we see each other's prop- 
 erty going astray, we will go according to the 
 doctrines of the Bible : we will take it up and 
 return it to our neighbor, to whom it of right 
 belongs; that w^e will protect you in your 
 rights, and in return you must protect us in 
 our rights; there shall be no sectional divi- 
 sions among us; there shall be no Northern, 
 Southern, Eastern, or Western line of divi- 
 sion among us; but w^e will all be as citizens 
 of one great nation, and the interest of one 
 of us shall be the interest of us all. When 
 your property goes astray, and comes among 
 us, we will not only deliver it up to you, 
 when you come after it, but we will turn out 
 en masse, and help you hunt it up; and you 
 shall be assisted in obtaining it again; and 
 
108 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 if any man shall steal your property, and 
 bring it among us, we will use every means 
 in our power to ferret him out, and aid 
 in delivering up to you both your property 
 and the thief who stole it. Our land shall 
 not be polluted as being the hiding place for 
 thieves and stolen property. It shall be no 
 place of refuge for any such. 
 
 And you in return must aid us in the same 
 way : if our negroes run away and go among 
 you, catch them, and return them to their 
 proper owner. If any person should steal 
 them, and carry them away, you use every 
 exertion in your power to return the slave to 
 his master, and deliver up the thief to be 
 punished; and in this manner, a brotherly 
 feeling will spring up among us, which will 
 defy all the nations of the earth to sever us. 
 We shall very soon hear nothing more of any 
 slave running away from his master, to make 
 his way to a free State, or of any man steal- 
 ing slaves for any such purpose. Conten- 
 tion and disputes will soon cease among us; 
 and instead of fighting against each other, 
 and striving to injure one another, we shall 
 all be striving to promote each other's wel- 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 109 
 
 fare; and in doing that, promote our own. 
 And if at any time any of you should so de- 
 sire it, and wish to set any of our negroes 
 free, as a matter of kindness on your part, 
 just bring us the money, a fair valuation for 
 the slave, and the owner will sell them to 
 you at a fair price, and permit you to take 
 them to a free State, and settle them there, 
 if you like it; but we cannot permit free 
 negroes to settle in among us; it would be 
 unsafe and contrary to our policy, and calcu- 
 lated to breed disaffection and insurrection 
 among our slaves. But if you will pay us 
 the cash for them, you shall be at liberty to 
 take them home with you, or send them 
 where you please, where their influence will 
 not tarnish the rest of our slaves; and by 
 pursuing a policy of this kind, our nation 
 will be bound to grow and flourish above 
 every other on the earth, until it shall 
 govern every other by its influence. It will 
 not be necessary for us to take up arms to 
 acquire territory; one by one, will every 
 other government of the New World apply 
 to our government for admittance, and beg to 
 be received as a member of the Confederacy, 
 10* 
 
110 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 until the whole contment shall become one 
 great republic by special favor, most gra- 
 ciously granted, instead of compulsion by the 
 sword; for it is such, and only such as would 
 be anxious to be admitted, who would make 
 worthy members of a great and growing re- 
 public like ours. 
 
 We have no use for friends and connections 
 that we have to make such at the point of 
 the bayonet ; such do not possess the neces- 
 sary cement to unite them to us in the ca- 
 pacity in which we ought to live; we want 
 such as come willingly and anxiously, not so 
 much for our benefit as for their own welfare 
 and particular good. Such as come willingly 
 are only such as are qualified to form sister 
 States with us; on whom we can in safety rely 
 in peace and in war. Our happy condition as a 
 nation will be observed; and when other na- 
 tions are broken up and destroyed by intes- 
 tine wars, and trampled under foot by their 
 powerful neighbors ; when individual life, 
 property, and liberty are continually in dan- 
 ger, and exposed to destruction in other coun- 
 tries, it will only be to become a member of 
 this great republic to be safe, (juiet, and pro- 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. Ill 
 
 tected; and other nations will, one by one, 
 seek that refuge, by being united to our gov- 
 ernment, which they nowhere else can find. 
 
 Now, in A.D. 1860, the government of the 
 United States is composed of thirty-four 
 States, many of them larger than some of 
 the kingdoms of Europe, and has, besides, 
 territory sufficient to form some twenty more 
 States, either of which, except the State of 
 Delaware, is more powerful than any other 
 government on the whole continent of North 
 and South America, except Mexico, which 
 no doubt will shortly be ingrafted into our 
 Union, if we are willing to receive her; and 
 a population of about thirty millions, rapidly 
 increasing. It has increased since 1776, the 
 date of the Declaration of Independence, 
 from three millions of inhabitants, up to the 
 present population of about thirty millions, 
 and is now increasing much faster than ever. 
 It is in this happy republic that all free-born 
 white men are equal, and the poorest peasant 
 has a chance, according to his merit, to rise to 
 eminence, and fill the highest position in the 
 country, equal with him who floats in wealth 
 and splendor. It is in this republic that the 
 
112 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 power of steam was discovered by Eobert 
 Fuiton, an American mechanic, not sixty 
 years ago, Avliicli is now doing so much to 
 enrich and civilize the world. It was in this 
 republic that the existence of electricity was 
 discovered by Dr. Benjamin Franklin, an 
 American citizen, a discovery which is now 
 astonishing the world, and conveying news 
 on the lightning's wing from one State to 
 another, a distance of thousands of miles in a 
 few seconds. Though yet in its infancy, the 
 world has never seen the day before, when any 
 government has ever grown and prospered as 
 has done the United States of North America, 
 or a generation in which the arts and sciences 
 have flourished as much as the present; or a 
 nation whose arms were attended with more 
 success in battling against their enemies; — all 
 goes clearlj^ to show that God, who rules the 
 universe and guides the distinguished men 
 and nations, has planted our government, di- 
 rected its institutions, nurtured it with his 
 hands, and governed its armies in battle. 
 Just look at the character of WashinGr- 
 
 o 
 
 ton, that great American general, who com- 
 manded the American army in the days 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 113 
 
 of the Revolution — a character pure and 
 unspotted, the envy of kings, a noted land- 
 mark, a disposition which seems to be differ- 
 ent from that of any other man, a devoted 
 follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, and a large 
 African slaveholder ; a man who, having liber- 
 ated his country, resigned its crown, and we 
 will see at once that he was a special charac- 
 ter, created and placed in the situation he 
 was destined to occupy for the purpose of 
 achieving a certain object: his chief aim was 
 the good of his country. Look again at the 
 great military chieftains, whose reputation has 
 shined as stars in the heaven, who succeeded 
 him : Andrew Jackson, Zachary Taylor, John 
 A. Quitman, Winiield Scott, and Sam Hous- 
 ton ; great generals, wise statesmen, and pure 
 patriots, all large African slaveholders; men 
 in whose hands we might at any time risk 
 the reins of our government in safety, guided 
 and directed by the great Creator of the uni- 
 verse. Their characters stand as monuments 
 of military greatness, bestowed upon the peo- 
 ple of this nation for their protection. And 
 also in the councils of our nation; look at 
 the gigantic intellect of Henry Clay, Daniel 
 
114 A HISTORY AXD DEFENSE 
 
 Webster, John C. Calhoun, James Buchanan, 
 William Henry Harrison, Thomas Jefferson, 
 and James Monroe, and the many other able 
 statesmen who figured not long since in the 
 councils of our nation, most of whom are 
 now laid low in the silent tomb; and the 
 world has never before seen the day, when 
 any nation could present such an array of 
 talent within her councils. And thej^, suc- 
 ceeded by the present able statesmen, who 
 have been raised up to fill their places; among 
 whom are Albert G. Brown, Jefferson Davis, 
 and 0. R. Singleton, of Mississippi; Mr. Ben- 
 jamin, of Louisiana, and many others whose 
 talents shine resplendent from every State in 
 the Union, and show forth to all mankind 
 that ours is a land of intellect, virtue, and 
 patriotism, and also the land of religion and 
 civilization. 
 
 Who is there that cannot admire such a 
 country? Who cannot admire its institu- 
 tions? Here is a country with already thirty- 
 four States in the Union, each larger than 
 many of the kingdoms in Europe; territory 
 enough to make twenty more, fourteen of 
 which own African slaves, who add greatly 
 
or AFRICAN SLAVERY. 115 
 
 to the strength and support of the whole; 
 transporting annually three and a half mil- 
 lions of cotton bales to other countries, by 
 means of slave labor; a country in which 
 the African is more safe and comfortable, 
 better provided for, more civilized, and more 
 happy, than they are in any other nation; 
 with about thirty millions of inhabitants as 
 free as the air they breathe; with no other 
 restriction than that wdiich is for their ow^n 
 benefit and w^elfare; w^ith a government 
 framed and managed by themselves; with a 
 revenue, by w\ay of duties, of eighty millions 
 of dollars, and a country whose one year's 
 income of revenue could pay the whole na- 
 tional debt; whose flag floats on every sea 
 on the globe; whose citizens are honored and 
 respected among all nations; whose very name 
 of being an American citizen is a sufficient 
 protection against imposition; wdiose citizens 
 are protected in the enjoyment of their lives, 
 their liberty, and their property, at home and 
 abroad; wdiere all have the high privilege of 
 hearing the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ 
 preached, and the privilege of w^orshiping 
 God according to the dictates of their own 
 
116 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 conscience, without money and without price; 
 and there is none to make them afraid. 
 
 And as remarkable as it may seem to many, 
 there is not an individual in the whole nation 
 who pays even one cent of taxes to support 
 and keep up this great government under 
 which they live, and by wdiich they are thus 
 protected. It is kept up and supported by 
 means of the revenue on imported articles 
 taken in exchange for our exports, which are 
 the proceeds of African slave labor. Three 
 and a half million of cotton bales — the pro- 
 duct of slave labor — are annually shipped to 
 other countries and exchanged for other arti- 
 cles which are brought to the United States in 
 return, on which a duty is paid sufficient to 
 defray all of the expenses of the country, 
 without resorting to any direct taxation. The 
 only direct taxes which are paid are paid to 
 keep up the State governments, and the county 
 taxes. There are no direct taxes to keep up 
 the great government of the United States; 
 she supplies herself with her own resources. 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 117 
 
 CHAPTER YIL 
 
 The Probable Result of African Slavery. 
 
 When we examine into the situation of 
 Africa, and view its position and the condi- 
 tion of its inhabitants, their pecuUar color, 
 hair, formation, intellect, and disposition, we 
 are bound to come to this conclusion, that the 
 kinky-headed African negro is different, in 
 many respects, from the white race, and far 
 inferior, in point of intellect and sound rea- 
 son, physically. They seem incapable of 
 thriving under a republican form of govern- 
 ment, and therefore, as a matter of necessity, 
 these people will always, perhaps, live under 
 a despotism. Africa, with her wide-spread 
 territory, can never, under negro rule, be 
 brought under one great government, so as to 
 be governed by one set of laws, under one 
 government, throughout the whole; for the 
 very reason, that the negro is too contracted 
 11 
 
118 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 ill his nature for any such a system of govern- 
 ment. We had as well suppose that a herd 
 of wild monkeys would frame a system of 
 laws, by which a whole nation would be regu- 
 larly governed, as to suppose such a thing 
 from the kinky-headed negro. 
 
 The consequence is, then, that Africa, an 
 extensive country, abounding in lakes, fine 
 rivers, seas, and beautiful harbors, is cut up 
 and divided into at least one hundred or more 
 different little petty kingdoms or despotisms, 
 among which are the Dahomies, the Barba- 
 ries, the Nuffies, the Benins, the Yaouries, the 
 Anzooans, the Ijibuses, the Eboes, and many 
 others too numerous to be here inserted, in 
 the which the voice of the king is their law, 
 and he rules with an iron sway his humble 
 subjects, as far as his jurisdiction extends; 
 and not unfrequentlj^, when they are visited 
 by a white man, they have a great many 
 of their poor subjects butchered like hogs, in 
 order to show their power and authority. And 
 some of their kings have heralds continually 
 standing beside them, prochiiming aloud, from 
 the rising of the monarch in the morning un- 
 til he lays down to sleep at night, that this is 
 the greatest king alive ! 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 119 
 
 Thus it is, that intestine wars must, of 
 course, continually rage between these little 
 petty princes, until eventually Great Britain, 
 France, or some other civilized nation, will 
 interfere, and conquer the whole country. 
 Place white men to rule over them, convert 
 their country into plantations, and put them 
 to work as slaves, and make them keep order 
 and be at peace with each other ; and all na- 
 tions, finding that they make good slaves, and 
 are by no means revolutionary in their charac- 
 ter, will become slaveholders, and the kinky- 
 headed African will be bought and sold like 
 cattle, in every civilized nation of the earth, 
 as slaves to the descendants of Shem and 
 Japheth. 
 
120 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 How to make African Slavery Profitable. — Treatment of Slaves. 
 — Their Houses.— Their Clothing.— Their Food. 
 
 I COME now to consider the important part, 
 of the manner of making slavery profitable 
 to the owners. The African slave is, in many 
 respects, very different from any other species 
 of property to the slave owner. In addition 
 to their being propertj^, they are also human 
 beings ; and, as such, are entitled to certain 
 privileges and rights under the laws of the 
 country and humanity, which ought to be 
 taken into consideration. I differ with Doctor 
 Nott, an able physician, who has written a 
 treatise on the physical construction of the 
 African. I believe it is his opinion that the 
 negro has no soul; but I think the Doctor is 
 mistaken. Although tlieir soul may be very 
 small, in comparison to tliat of the wliite man, 
 yet I believe they have a soul of some sort. 
 Although I have seen horses and dogs which 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 121 
 
 seemed to possess as much understanding as 
 the common African negro, yet the negro 
 seemed to possess the best talent of construc- 
 tion ; and, therefore, I consider them superior 
 to the brute creation. Then it becomes the 
 owner of such people, in the government and 
 management of their slaves, to regard them 
 in the light of human beings as well as prop- 
 erty, ever bearing in mind that they are hu- 
 man beings as ourselves, possessed of an im- 
 mortal soul, which must eventually be saved 
 through the intervention of Jesus Christ, our 
 Lord and Saviour, or lost forever. And though 
 slaves, they have been placed under the care 
 and protection of their masters by the decrees 
 of the Almighty Kuler of the universe, to 
 w^hom the owner will eventually have to an- 
 swer for his stewardship over all which is here 
 placed in his charge. 
 
 The number of slaves owned in the slave- 
 holding States by each individual slave- 
 holder, varies from one slave up to fifteen 
 hundred. There are not very many who just 
 own one slave ; for, in such cases, the slave is 
 certain to become so unhappy and discon- 
 tented — it makes no difference how well he 
 11* 
 
122 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 may be treated — that his master is obliged to 
 sell him, and let him have a master who owns 
 more, w^iere he is certain to be well satisfied, 
 if his new master owns over ten, regardless 
 of ill-treatment, hard work, and bad food. In 
 like manner there are but very few slave- 
 holders among the many in the United States 
 w^ho own as many as fifteen hundred or a 
 thousand, owing to the high prices of such 
 property. For a man to own one hundred, is 
 called quite a rich man, — the price of slaves 
 varying, for full-grown slaves, from eight hun- 
 dred to fifteen hundred dollars each, for com- 
 mon field hands; and as a man who owns slaves 
 must own other property in proportion, any 
 man who owns one hundred slaves, take them 
 large and small, may be said to be worth one 
 hundred and fifty thousand dollars, or on an 
 average of one thousand and five hundred dol- 
 lars for every slave he owns. It is very rarely 
 the case that, among the many slaveholders 
 in the United States, one can be found who 
 owns a thousand, although I have heard of 
 three brotliers v/ho owned about three thou- 
 sand each — the three llar^tons ; one of them 
 lived in the State of Mississippi, and the other 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 123 
 
 two in Yirginia. A man wlio owns from one 
 to two hundred, is termed a very rich slave- 
 holder. But there are a great number who 
 own from ten to thirty; and these are termed 
 slaveholders in good circumstances, and who, 
 by using proper industry and economy, can 
 live as well, and have every luxury of life 
 about them to feast upon, and be far more 
 contented than those who own such very large 
 numbers. But in either case the slaveholder 
 is not to be envied ; he has his hands full to 
 attend to his slaves, and if he does his duty, 
 he is himself about the greatest slave among 
 them ; for on him devolve the care and pro- 
 tection of ail the rest, and he is continually 
 kept busy looking after them, seeing that they 
 are properly fed and clothed, and kept in or- 
 der, and properly provided with bedding and 
 comfortable houses, and other necessaries 
 needed, and having them properly taken care 
 of when sick, supplied with wholesome food 
 and good nurses. 
 
 The system of government of a lot of slaves 
 must differ in some respects, according to the 
 number owned. Where a man only owns few, 
 say from ten to twenty, he can see to them 
 
124: A HISTORY AXD DEFENSE 
 
 himself, and very readily perceive what is 
 necessary to be done or supplied, or readily 
 correct any evil practice among them, where 
 he can be on his farm himself to attend in 
 person to them. But where he cannot re- 
 main on his farm to attend in person, or where 
 he owns a great many slaves, and has to place 
 them on different plantations, which is almost 
 invariably the case with those who own over 
 a hundred, they have to trust the manage- 
 ment of them to overseers or agents, and, in 
 many instances, the owner of the slaves does 
 not go among them, or on the plantation, once 
 in six months. A great deal, then, depends 
 on the honesty and fidelity of the agent or 
 overseer. And there are but very few, in 
 proportion to number, of this class of men 
 who can be relied on as being strictly honest, 
 true, and faithful ; and whenever a wealthy 
 planter can happen to find such, I would ad- 
 vise him to keep him as long as he can, 
 although he has to })ay him high wages for 
 his service ; for, of all other occupations 
 among men in the slaveholding States, that 
 of a good overseer among negroes pays best 
 among a large number of hands. For, in many 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 125 
 
 caseSj the overseer is an unprincipled wretch, 
 who cares nothing for the interest of his em- 
 ployer, and has no feeling of humanity for 
 the slave, and has not been able to manage 
 his own affairs, with no one to work but him- 
 self. He applies for the berth of an overseer 
 to a gentleman, to oversee some fifteen or 
 twenty negroes or more ; when placed on a 
 farm to himself to manage alone, he imme- 
 diately commences all kinds of debauchery 
 among the negro women; he knows nothing 
 about management, throws the place into 
 confusion, neglects his business, and some- 
 times unites with a company of thieves and 
 steals his employer's negroes and horses, and 
 ships them off by other rogues ; and with a 
 farm on the best land in the country, with 
 twenty hands to work with, every conveni- 
 ence at hand, instead of gaining some three 
 or four thousand dollars annually for his em- 
 ployer, at the end of the year he has not 
 cleared expenses by two thousand dollars; 
 and everything on the place is in disorder 
 and confusion ; and should his employer hap- 
 pen to discharge him a month or two before 
 his time is out, in order to keep from being 
 
126 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 ruined, he thinks it is a very hard case to be 
 cut out of a month or two months' wages, 
 although he has, in reality, made nothing for 
 his emploj^er, and run him to great expense. 
 
 Therefore, it is highly important for the 
 slaveholder, when he leaves his property in 
 the hands of an overseer, to select some man 
 of known reputation and ability as such, to 
 take charge of it; and even then, the oftener 
 the owner can visit his farm, and see how 
 things are managed, the better it will be for 
 him; for the frequent presence of the owner 
 will show to the overseer that he feels a deep 
 interest in the farm, and the slightest neglect 
 will be discovered; and this will add a spur 
 to his energy, and make him more careful. 
 Good steel will sometimes get dull, and need 
 whetting. And should the slaveholder dis- 
 cover that he has been deceived in his over- 
 seer — that he either lacks capacity or princi- 
 ple — he ought, unhesitatingly, to discharge 
 him at once; for, if he keeps him, his over- 
 seer will ruin him. 
 
 Farming and managing of negroes is a 
 science ; to become perfect in it requires prac- 
 tice and experience, and unless an overseer 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 127 
 
 has some practice and experience, he certainly 
 is not qualified to take charge of a fjirm, with 
 a number of hands to work it : he ought first 
 to serve an apprenticeship under some one 
 who is qualified. Such might make a good 
 driver, or under-overseer, on a farm where 
 the owner was present, or a principal overseer 
 to manage and direct the business ; but would 
 never answer as the principal superintendent 
 in the absence of the owner. What lawyer 
 is there who would trust a young stripling to 
 manage a case in court of much importance, 
 in which he was concerned, immediately after 
 he was admitted ? or what doctor is there who 
 would trust his life, in a critical case of sick- 
 ness, to the management of a young physician 
 as soon as he had obtained his license ? I 
 can readily answer, none. They will do to 
 ruin novices : so wdth green overseers. A 
 man wdio is truly an overseer himself, will 
 never trust his farm in the hands of a green 
 overseer ; he will let such go to ruin novices, 
 such as do not know the difference. 
 
 But want of principle is even more import- 
 ant than lack of qualification. If your over- 
 seer should ever once betray you, or grossly 
 
128 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 deceive you, trust liini no further; he will 
 continually do so as long as you keep him, 
 and the quicker you get rid of him the better. 
 If he is a rascal, it is vain for you to try to 
 make an honest man of him ; it will come as 
 natural for him to deceive you, as it is for a 
 wolf to catch a sheep : he w^ill promise to do 
 so no more, and the very first opportunity he 
 has, he will do the same thing over again, ac- 
 cording to his nature. 
 
 I would not advise the discharging of an 
 overseer for every little vice or error, if he 
 would suit otherwise ; for, of course, we must 
 make the necessary allowance for the frailties 
 of human nature, and put up with some faults 
 and failings, wdiere they do not amount to 
 anything very injurious; but in the case of 
 palpable want of qualification, or wailful de- 
 ception, set them adrift Avithout ceremony : it 
 is much better to have no overseer, than to 
 have one who w^ould ruin vou, and breed dis- 
 afiection among your negroes. 
 
 It is not harsh treatment, or nmcli whip- 
 ping among negroes, which causes them to 
 behave themselves, or do the most work; on 
 the contrary, a good overseer is always kind 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 129 
 
 to the slaves, and seldom or never has to whip 
 one. By his good management, every one 
 knows the particular duty which he has to 
 perform, knows what to do in the morning, 
 having his particular work allotted to him the 
 evening before, and everything moves on in 
 order and decorum. I want no better evidence 
 of a bad overseer and a mean manager, than 
 to see him always whipping the negroes. It 
 is the best evidence in the world that he does 
 not know how to manage, and that he is pun- 
 ishing the negroes because they did not know 
 wdiat to do, because he himself did not know 
 what to tell them to do, and he whips the 
 negroes for his own faults ; when, if he had 
 given them the proper instructions about their 
 business, as a good overseer would have done, 
 the negroes would have gone to work without 
 any noise or difficulty. It is only the wagon 
 which is out of order, and without grease, 
 that makes the creaking noise ; the one which 
 is well oiled, and in fine order, moves grace^ 
 fully and smoothly along, without noise or 
 disturbance. 
 
 Slave property, like everything else, the 
 better it is treated, and the better it is at- 
 12 
 
130 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 tended to, the better it will prosper, and the 
 more profit it will yield to the owners. There- 
 fore, in addition to the imperative duty of the 
 slaveholder, it is good economy, and more 
 profitable, for him to feed his negroes and 
 clothe them well, according to the season of 
 the year; the clothing should be cotton for 
 the summer, and woolen for the winter; and 
 also to provide them with good, comfortable 
 houses and bed-clothing, and make them take 
 care of what he gives them. 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 131 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 How to Construct their Houses. 
 
 As it is always better for the slaves not to 
 be too much crowded, and in such a state they 
 will be more cleanly and prosperous put off in 
 families than they would to be crowded, the 
 first thing to be done, when a man gets a fam- 
 ily of slaves, or where one of his negro women 
 takes a husband, is to prepare a suitable house 
 for them, and place them to themselves as a 
 separate family, and suffer no other negro on 
 the farm to intrude upon them. Let the man 
 consider it as his house and his premises, and 
 say to him. If any other negro comes in your 
 house who you do not want there, order him 
 out, and if he will not go, inform your master 
 of it, or the overseer, and he will make him 
 go. In this way they have a better opportu- 
 nity of taking care of their goods, and of be- 
 ing more neat and cleanly than they other- 
 
132 A UrSTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 wise would be. Besides, the women are not 
 so apt to prove inconstant to their husbands 
 as they otherwise would be, and much fight- 
 ing and contention among the men are avoid- 
 ed. A nec^ro woman who, otherwise, would 
 be lewd and breed contention, where the fam- 
 ily were crowded in a room with others, 
 situated to themselves would be tolerably vir- 
 tuous, and therefore much disturbance avoid- 
 ed ; and they will be much better satisfied, 
 produce more children, and take better care 
 of them. And never more than one family 
 ought to be permitted to occupy the same 
 house. 
 
 Then, in order to make the house comfort- 
 able, I would advise a cabin to be built about 
 fifteen feet wide, with two rooms ; one for 
 their sleeping-room, the other for their cook- 
 ing-room, and to hold their provisions and 
 loose plunder ; with a chimney, made of brick 
 or stone, in the center, with two fire-places, 
 one for each room. The sleeping-room should 
 be about fifteen feet square ; the cooking-room 
 fifteen feet one way, and about ten feet the 
 other. This may be efiected by making a 
 room twenty-five feet one way, and fifteen the 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 133 
 
 other, and running a partition tlirougli tlae 
 building, cutting off ten feet at one end, vaiich 
 would make the two rooms. The floor should 
 be tongued and grooved, so as to be perfectly 
 air-tight ; and there should be one window to 
 each room, about three by four feet; and the 
 walls of the house should be made air-tight, 
 or nearly so. If the house is built of logs, it 
 ought to be chinked and daubed well with 
 clay, so as to keep out the cold winter winds ; 
 if a framed building, the weather-boarding 
 will make it tight enough; and it is best to 
 have the door on the south side, so situated 
 that the north winds will not blow in on them 
 when the door is opened. The house should 
 be about nine feet high in the story, and cov- 
 ered over with good boards or shingles, so that 
 it will not leak a drop ; and there should be 
 a number of wooden pins placed in the house 
 about in different places in the wall, about as 
 high up as the slaves can conveniently reach, 
 for the purpose of hanging their clothes and 
 other articles on. 
 
 It is sometimes the case that the negro will 
 come in from work wet, and sit down by the 
 12^^ 
 
134 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 fire and go to sleep; and if they have an 
 open house in the winter, he wakes up. finds 
 the north Avind is pouring in on him, and his 
 fire has gone out, and he has no more wood 
 to make another; hence he sickens with 
 cold or pleurisies, and dies, all for the want 
 of a comfortable house; when, if his house 
 w\as close and comfortable, if his fire did go 
 out, he would be in a close, comfortable room, 
 wdiere he could sleep all night without freez- 
 ing or feeling uncomfortably cold. Thus the 
 life of a negro, w^orth one thousand dollars, 
 may be saved, frequently, to the ow^ner, by 
 building a comfortable cabin, which would not 
 cost fifty dollars. 
 
 It is best to build the houses in rows, and 
 have them not very fiir apart; but, at the 
 same time, put them off" a sufficient distance 
 from each other so that, in case one should 
 take fire, it will not burn up any of the rest ; 
 say about fifty yards apart. It is best not to 
 have them too far from each other, for the 
 reason that they would be more apt to harbor 
 runaways, unbeknown to each other, and not 
 so easily managed; but just of sufficient, con- 
 venient distance from each other to be safe 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 135 
 
 from catching fire from each other. As it is 
 the case sometimes, in spite of all the caution 
 that can be used, fire will break out; and 
 then, if the houses are within catching dis- 
 tance, they may all burn up. 
 
136 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Mode of Clothing the Slaves. 
 
 Haying treated of the mode of building 
 negro-houses for their comfort and support, I 
 come next in order to treat of the mode of 
 clothing the negro, which is an important 
 item, in order to make the slave profitable 
 and thrifty; and of all other property owned 
 in the United States or elsewhere, good atten- 
 tion to slaves will pay a better profit to the 
 owner than any other species of property; 
 for it is as easy to attend to the comfort of 
 a slave, worth fifteen hundred dollars, as it 
 is to a horse worth fifty dollars, and more so; 
 and if we will only look around us, and sur- 
 vey nature as far as our feeble observation 
 extends, we will find that nothing will prosper 
 without attention, and the better anything is 
 cultivated or attended to, the more it will 
 thrive, the better it will appear, and the 
 more service it will render the owner. There- 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 137 
 
 fore, let an owner of slaves be ever so penuri- 
 ous, or destitute of feelings of humanity, if he 
 is a man of sense, he will treat his slaves 
 kindly, and clothe them well, for his own in- 
 terest, for it is to his interest decidedly to do 
 so; but apart from all this, every slaveholder 
 has a double obligation resting on him, to in- 
 duce him to clothe and feed his slaves well: 
 first is the duty he owes to his God, w^ho has 
 placed him in charge of his slaves, to w^hom 
 he will have eventually to account for his 
 stewardship here, and to himself, to provide 
 for his own welfare, in taking care of his 
 property and rendering it profitable; and the 
 next, is his duty toward the slave as a hu- 
 man being, over whom he has control, and 
 who continually looks to his owner for pro- 
 tection and support. 
 
 In the first place, the owner has the com- 
 plete control of his slave, and of all his earn- 
 ings; the slave is entirely deprived of any 
 means of furnishing either food or clothing 
 for himself; the owner has all of the profits 
 arising from the slave's labor, let it be much 
 or small, and has the direction of the slave 
 in what he shall do; and of all people on 
 
138 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 earth, the shive is kept the most reguhar at 
 work. When his owner says coDie, he has to 
 come; when he says go, he has to go; and 
 their food and their clothing is all they get 
 for their services; therefore, by every princi- 
 ple of justice, humanity, and religion, it is the 
 duty of the owner of the slave to feed and 
 clothe his slaves well; to give them good, 
 strong clothing, suitable to the season and 
 the work they have to perform, and good, 
 wholesome food. 
 
 In the next place, if the owner of slaves 
 should lose a slave for the want of a blanket 
 to keep him warm at night, or for the want 
 of a good, strong suit of woolen clothes in 
 the winter, which would not cost ten dollars, 
 he would, perhaps, sutler a pecuniary loss of 
 a thousand dollars in the death of the slave, 
 because he was too stingy to spend ten dol- 
 lars for clothes to keep him alive. In this 
 way stingy men keep themselves poor, by 
 their own meanness, through an erroneous 
 idea of true economy, while those who are 
 more liberal grow ricli by making the proper 
 appropriation for the comfort and support of 
 their slaves. One loses a thousand dollars' 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 139 
 
 worth of slave-property, trying to cheat his 
 shave out of the vahie of a suit of clothes not 
 worth ten dollars; and the other man saves 
 a thousand dollars for a suit of clothes to 
 make his slave comfortable. Then, the next 
 question which arises is, how shall we clothe 
 them, how much shall we give them, and at 
 what season of the year, and with what kind 
 of clothing? 
 
 Negroes who labor should be furnished 
 with at least three or four strong suits of 
 new clothes each, every year, and two strong, 
 new pair of shoes. They should have at 
 least two summer suits of cotton, and one or 
 two woolen suits for winter; one cotton suit 
 should be given to them the first of April, 
 the next summer suit given to them the first 
 of August ; and their winter suits the first of 
 December. They should have a pair of shoes 
 given the first of October, and a pair the first 
 of January; and before they are given to 
 them, have the leather well saturated with a 
 mixture of beeswax, rosin, and tallow, about 
 equal parts of each ; this will make the leather 
 last twice as long as it would without it; and 
 if applied to leather of any kind, will add 
 
140 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 greatly to its durability. The clothes should 
 be given to them at different periods in this 
 way; for, if they were all given to them at 
 once, they being naturally careless, Avould 
 not take care of them, and would let 
 them lay out and rot; but, by giving them 
 the clothes as they need them, if any are 
 left to be wasted, it will be the old, worn-out 
 suit, and the new ones will be taken care of. 
 They should each be furnished with a trunk 
 or box to keep their clothes in, with a lock 
 and key to lock them up, and a paper of 
 large needles and plenty of thread, and a 
 thimble, in order to be able to mend their 
 clothes when they are torn. They should 
 also, each grown negro, be furnished with a 
 good mattress, made of cotton and shucks, or 
 wool or dried moss; and should always have 
 on hand three good blankets for each grown 
 negro, and two good blankets for each child, 
 in order to keep them comfortable and warm 
 in the winter. A family of a man and his 
 wife and six children ought to have at least 
 three mattresses and eighteen blankets; they 
 may not have to use them all at once regu- 
 larly, but there are a few excessive cold nights 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 141 
 
 sometimes in the course of the winter, when 
 «ill would be needed for the comfort of the 
 family. Each family should be furnished 
 with an ax and weeding-hoe, a wash-tub, 
 water-pail, oven-skillet, frying-pan, sifter, and 
 wash-pot, to be kept continually at their 
 houses, for the use of the family, so that 
 they would not have to borrow from each 
 other; and the woman ought to have one- 
 half of every Saturday, to wash their clothes, 
 and be made to wash them. Some men will 
 not furnish their slaves with such comforts^ 
 and, therefore, they have a great many to die 
 for the want of them. Suppose, for instance, 
 a slave returns from his work at nine o'clock 
 at night, in the winter, in cotton-picking time, 
 which is frequently the case, and has no ax 
 to chop his wood, and, perhaps, has to bring 
 his wood on his shoulder for a mile or more, 
 as is the case on some of the large plantations, 
 where there are a great number of slaves, and 
 then has to cook his supper and his food for 
 the next day; as he has no ax to chop his 
 wood, or has to borrow one from some of the 
 rest after they have gotten through, how is 
 it possible for that slave to make him a good 
 13 
 
142 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 fire and do his cooking properly? He cannot 
 do it at all; therefore, he gathers such sticks 
 as he can find, makes a poor fire, about half 
 cooks his provisions, and, from fatigue and 
 exhaustion, falls down on the floor and goes 
 to sleep; should the weather be cold and 
 he wet, he has not fire enough to dry him- 
 self; he lays down in his wet clothes, the fire 
 goes out, he has no more wood to renew it, 
 takes cold and dies, when his life might have 
 been saved merely by having a few of the 
 comforts of life about him, which would not 
 have cost ^ the owner twenty dollars all to- 
 gether. But negroes will be wasteful, and 
 when these things are furnished, will fre- 
 quently trade them off to other negroes, or 
 throw them away. This evil must be reme- 
 died by inspecting their houses frequently, 
 and seeing that they have them and keep 
 them in order. It is sometimes the case, that 
 negroes will have every comfort they need 
 one winter, and the next winter they will 
 have nothing at all, having permitted their 
 goods to be thrown about and wasted during 
 the summer; and when the ensuing winter 
 comes on, they are entirely destitute, and 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 143 
 
 unless their owners will see to it and furnish 
 them again, they will risk* the terrors of the 
 winter in destitution, rather than complain 
 to their owners, for fear of being w^hipped for 
 their carelessness. Thus it is, that not un- 
 frequently a woman who has four or five 
 likely children, throws her bed-clothes away 
 in the summer, lets them lay out and rot, and 
 when the winter comes on, the owner, not 
 having inquired into the matter, believing 
 she has taken the proper care of her bedding, 
 supposes she is well furnished, when one by 
 one the children take cold, catch the croup, 
 and die; while the owner spends five times 
 as much in doctor's bills for them during the' 
 time than would purchase them a new sup- 
 ply, and loses his negroes besides. Therefore, 
 on the first day of October, in every year, and 
 January and July, at three times during the 
 year, the owner should go to every negro- 
 house and inspect everything they have, and 
 enter it in a book, and see wdiat each one 
 needs; and if they should waste their goods, 
 or throw them away, give them a flogging for 
 their carelessness, and be sure and furnish 
 them with more. Some men will get angry 
 
144 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 with their slaves if they waste their goods, 
 and will not furnish them any more in con- 
 sequence of it; and will say to them, As you 
 have wasted your clothes, or thrown away 
 your blankets, or your ax, you may now go 
 without; I will buy you no more to throw 
 away. This is very bad economy, and such a 
 course frequently costs the owner the value of 
 the slave by his death, for the want of them. 
 The course to be pursued is for the owner to 
 give them a light whipping for their negli- 
 gence, and charge them particularly to be more 
 careful in the future, and then give them an- 
 other supply immediately. In this way, the 
 owners will attach their slaves to them, will 
 make them healthy, cheerful, and prosperous, 
 and add greatly to the wealth and interest of 
 the slaveholder. 
 
 Again, it frequently happens that slaves 
 return from their work at night wet, and it 
 is raining, when it is very difficult, if they 
 have the means, for them to procure wood to 
 make their fires; and if they have to hunt 
 about in the dark for it, they are almost sure 
 to go without, or be so very badly supplied 
 that they materially suffer for want of it. 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 145 
 
 Therefore, to remedy this evil, the shn^ves 
 should be particularly charged and required 
 to keep continually on hand, under their 
 houses, or under their beds in some dry place, 
 wood enough to make at least two good fires; 
 and when an occasion of that kind arrived, 
 they could use their dry wood, and be enabled 
 to have good fires, without going out in the 
 rain after dark to hunt it; and then the next 
 day they could replace it. This is very im- 
 portant to be observed, and the owner or 
 overseer ought to see to it continually, and 
 make them keep a supply on hand for bad 
 weather. 
 
 Again, there are generally two or three spells 
 of excessive cold weather during the winter 
 season in the South, which lasts for a week or 
 ten days at a time, when the ground becomes 
 frozen. At such times as this, slaves ought 
 not to be forced out to work before sunrise 
 in the morning ; and then they ought to be 
 permitted to return to their houses by, or be- 
 fore the sun goes down, so as to have ample 
 time to provide a plenty of wood and ^k 
 comfortable before it is dark ; and the women, 
 during such cold days, ought to remain at the 
 13* 
 
146 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 house with their children, in order to take care 
 of them even if they do nothing except to 
 take care of their children during such cold 
 spells, as they will be worth more at such 
 times in taking care of their children than 
 their work would possibly be in the field; 
 and their children ought all to be furnished 
 with good, woolen clothes in the winter, to 
 protect them from the cold, and prevent them 
 from catching on fire, for in the winter time 
 children will hover near the fire, and if they 
 are clothed in cotton, they are apt to take 
 fire, wdien wool will not burn; and besides, it 
 is much more comfortable and will last longer 
 than cotton, and costs but very little more. 
 Slaveholders who will pursue this course, will 
 find that they will be richly rewarded in the 
 health and increase of their slaves; and that 
 the little additional expense they are at in 
 procuring and preparing comforts for their 
 slaves is money well invested, and will pay 
 better than the same amount invested in any- 
 thing else. 
 
 In the course of the last twenty-five years 
 I have had the management of from ten to 
 one hundred slaves at a time, and during the 
 
'OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 14T 
 
 whole time liave only lost one slave wlio was 
 large enough to work, and she was an old 
 woman who died with old age, whose de- 
 scendants numbered over a hundred at the 
 time of her death, and only four slave chil- 
 dren during the whole twenty-five years. 
 The consequence has been, that the increase 
 of my slaves have added much more to the 
 value of my property than the amount of 
 their labor. 
 
 I had a neighbor, a few years ago, who 
 owned fifty slaves. He was one of the most 
 prudent, economical men I ever was acquaint- 
 ed with : he lived almost entirely within him- 
 self With but very little expense he made 
 his own cooper's ware, done his own black- 
 smith's work, tanned his leather and made his 
 own shoes, clothed his family, white and black, 
 with cloth of his own manufacture, and was 
 at no expense, except the purchase of his 
 iron, sugar, and coffee. The consequence 
 was, that he was enabled to save more 
 money than ordinary men, which he invest- 
 ed entirely in the purchase of slaves; but at 
 the same time he devoted a great deal of at- 
 tention to his slaves, and saw that they were 
 
148 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 properly cared for and fed, and well clothed, 
 with good, comfortable dwellings. The con- 
 sequence was, that in the course of sixteen 
 years he had purchased fifty slaves with the 
 money he had saved, and had raised one hun- 
 dred and fifty, having raised just three times 
 as many as he had purchased, and those 
 which he had raised were the most valuable; 
 and all the while made larger crops to his 
 force than any other planter in the neighbor- 
 hood, all by treating his slaves well and hav- 
 ing them properly attended to; and I do not 
 suppose that, during the whole time, a single 
 slave under his charge was ever so badly 
 whipped as to make a scar. 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 149 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Mode of Feeding Slaves. 
 
 We will next in order consider the proper 
 mode of feeding slaves, in order to make them 
 profitable, which, like clothing, is a very im- 
 portant item in the management of slaves — 
 one of far more importance than manj^ per- 
 sons are aware of who are not physiologists. 
 A certain quantity of nutriment is essentially 
 important, both for the vegetable and animal 
 kingdom ; and when deprived of the neces- 
 sary quantity or quality, either the animal or 
 vegetable will wither, dwindle away, and be- 
 come feeble and weak, and, of course, less fit 
 for use. Although it may receive enough to 
 sustain life, it is more susceptible to destruc- 
 tion, and less able to withstand hardships and 
 of performing the service for which it was de- 
 signed, than it would be when amply supplied; 
 for instance, a horse may be fattened on green 
 
150 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 food, but when put to service, he will soon tire 
 and give way; wdiile one that is fattened on 
 good dry food w^ill do double the quantity of 
 service of the other which is fattened on tlie 
 green food, and will not tire or give out. Any 
 person who has been used to the management 
 of horses knows this to be true by observation, 
 and it is more or less so wdtli all animals ; 
 their flesh will partake, more or less, of the 
 nature, in point of durability, of the food 
 which they eat, and when put to hard labor 
 their appetite will crave that kind and quan- 
 tity of food best calculated to enable them to 
 proceed in their labor. You may take an 
 able-bodied man and put him behind the 
 counter to sell goods, where the labor is light 
 and no excessive exertion is required, and 
 his stomach would reject fat bacon or pork ; 
 he would not, perhaps, eat more than a pound 
 of meat in a week, and his appetite would be 
 satisfied with light food and weak diet, and 
 he w^ould be able to progress with his business. 
 But take the same man and put him to mail- 
 ing rails, rolling of logs, chopping down trees, 
 and doing such heavy, rough work, and he 
 would eat a pound of fat bacon every day, 
 
OF AFEICAN SLAVERY. 151 
 
 and other strong food with it, and relish it 
 more than he would any dainty, because it is 
 absolutely necessary for him, in order to 
 strengthen him and enable him to perform 
 his work. The consec|uence is, that slaves 
 which are well fed with good wholesome food 
 will do double the work with more ease than 
 they would do scantily fed ; and it is, there- 
 fore, good economy and a money-saving busi- 
 ness to feed your slaves well, and give them 
 plenty to eat, if meat has to be purchased 
 even at high prices for the purpose. 
 
 As to the mode of giving slaves their food, 
 there are many methods used. Some give it 
 to them every week, once a week, a week's 
 allowance at a time, and let them cook it 
 themselves. Some give it to them twice a 
 w^eek in the same way ; and others have it 
 cooked for them. I think, however, the best 
 plan is to have some of it cooked for them, 
 and let them also cook a little for themselves; 
 for when slaves have to work all day in the 
 summer season, and return home at dark 
 when the nights are short, and have to make 
 their own fires and do their own cooking, they 
 frequently eat it raw, or go without. It is, 
 
152 A UISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 therefore, best to have their cookhig done for 
 them on hirge farms. Let every negro have 
 a bucket Large enough to hold his day's pro- 
 vision, with liis number on it, which num- 
 ber should be plainly and distinctly marked; 
 have the provision cooked neat and clean, 
 and each negro's day's allowance put in the 
 buckets, so that when they return at night 
 they have nothing to do but call at the cook- 
 house and receive their cooked provisions in 
 their buckets, and eat their supper and go to 
 bed, so that they can have a good night's rest 
 and be ready for work in the morning. On 
 Saturday nights, provisions should be fur- 
 nivshed them to do them for two days, until 
 Monday night, and let them cook it them- 
 selves as they may choose. 
 
 The quantity of bacon necessary for a com- 
 mon field-hand is about four and a half 
 pounds a week, w^ith vegetables and a quart 
 of meal per day, or a pound of Hour per day. 
 As bread, every farmer ought to raise as many 
 sweet potatoes as his family could consume ; 
 they are an excellent food for slaves, and when 
 fed with abundantly, will save other provi- 
 sions, and negroes are very fond of them. 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 153 
 
 They are easily raised, and to the quantity 
 necessary for a man's family, they pay better 
 than any other crop. Corn-field peas also are 
 a fine vegetable for negroes, — turnips, collards, 
 and Irish potatoes. Every farmer ought to 
 raise abundance of such vegetables for the use 
 of his slaves ; for if he has a plenty of pota- 
 toes and peas or beans for his negroes, they 
 will not require so much meat, and the slaves 
 are very fond of such diet, and such vegeta- 
 bles are very easily raised on any kind of soil 
 in the slaveholding region. Irish potatoes 
 and pumpkins are also valuable as a vegeta- 
 ble for slaves, and may be raised in great 
 abundance, with but little expense. 
 
 The women who have children should each 
 of them have an extra bucket, in which a 
 sufficient quantity of food should be placed 
 for their children at night and morning, and 
 during the day there should be a trusty old 
 woman to take care of them and feed them; 
 but it will not do to trust any negro to 
 take care of another's children entirely, for 
 they, in such cases, are sure to neglect 
 them, and let them die for want of atten- 
 tion, or suffer greatly; for they generally 
 14 
 
154 A HISTORY AXD DEFENSE 
 
 will not take good care of tlieir own children 
 unless their owners see to it, and make them 
 do it, and the}^ are certain not to take as good 
 care of each other's as they would of their 
 own. Therefore, slaveholders ought never to 
 separate small children from their mothers, 
 and place them entirely in the care of others 
 for weeks at a time ; if they do, the loss of a 
 majority of their little negroes will he the 
 fatal consequence. 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 155 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Women and Children — How to Treat Them. 
 
 It is the custom on some of the large plan- 
 tations on the Mississippi River and elsewhere 
 for the owner of slaves during the sickly sea- 
 son to take the children to some place on the 
 high lands for the purpose of their being more 
 healthy, and placing them under the care of 
 some old negress to feed, manage, and take care 
 of during the summer, supposing that in this 
 way the children would be less apt to die, and 
 would be better taken care of. But this is 
 altogether a mistake; for wherever the ex- 
 periment has been tried, it has proved fatal in 
 ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. The lit- 
 tle negroes have frequently, in such cases, 
 died for the want of the proper attention, 
 when it was supposed by the owner they died 
 from common sickness. 
 
 Notwithstanding the negro race is far in- 
 ferior, in point of natural affection, to the 
 
15G A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 whites, thej, nevertheless, possess a strong 
 attachment for their own children, and are 
 endued with that parental care for their own 
 brood which is common to all animals, with- 
 out which the world would soon be depopu- 
 lated — an instinct which has been so wisely 
 bestowed upon all living animals by the great 
 Creator and Preserver of the universe, in or- 
 der that they should take care of their young, 
 and provide for them until they were enabled 
 to shift for themselves. And although they 
 would neglect the child of one of their best 
 friends, and suffer it to die with starvation 
 when under their immediate care for the 
 want of a little attention, being prompted by 
 the impulses of natural affection, they would 
 place themselves to a great deal of trouble to 
 attend to their own children and administer 
 to their wants. Therefore, I would say to 
 those persons who own women and children, 
 not to separate them w^lien the child is under 
 ten years old, under any pretense w^hatever; 
 if the mother has to stuy in the swamp and 
 work, let the children stay with her. Give 
 them a plenty to eat, and they will be far 
 better attended to by their mother, and less 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 157 
 
 liable to die, than wlien under the care of any 
 other, although the climate may be unhealthy. 
 It is not half so unhealthy as the care of a 
 stranger who cares nothing for them; and 
 they will be sure to fare better when their 
 mother can see them once every day. And 
 if the woman has a husband on the planta- 
 tion, let them all stay on the same farm 
 together : he can greatly aid in attending to 
 the children at night. 
 
 I knew a gentleman who owned two plan- 
 tations : one was on the Mississippi Kiver, 
 near Natchez; the other out in the hills, 
 about fifteen miles from the river; and, in 
 order that his young negroes should be more 
 healthy, he took them from the river farm, 
 and placed them under the care of a trusty 
 old negress, out at his plantation on the high 
 lands. The consequence was, that a great 
 many of the children died ; the old woman 
 attributed it to nothing more than common 
 sickness, which human nature is subject to, 
 and averred, in the most positive terms, that 
 she had attended strictly to them. The gen- 
 tleman pursued this plan for two summers, 
 and the fatality v/as the same among his 
 14* 
 
158 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 young negroes in both summers. At length 
 he concluded that it certainly could be no 
 worse on the river, and he would let their 
 mothers have charge of them in the swamp. 
 The consequence was, that his little negroes 
 became more healthy, and he very seldom 
 ever lost one. He was then convinced that 
 it was bad policy to separate negro children 
 from their mothers, in order to have them 
 taken care of. 
 
 The experiments have been tried by many 
 others, and the result was invariably the 
 same, as far as my knowledge extends. I 
 would, therefore, recommend to all slave- 
 holders to keep their negro children with 
 their mothers, and not to permit them to be 
 separated ; to attend to them in person, and 
 see that everything was furnished necessary 
 for their comfort and support, and to give the 
 women who have children time to nurse and 
 to attend to them. And those who have ne- 
 groes in their charge to hire out for the bene- 
 fit of orj)han children, would always do better 
 to hire famiUes in one lot together — a man, 
 his wife, and all the children under ten years 
 of age — so, if one should get sick, the others 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 159 
 
 who are nearly related will attend to them. 
 I have known a great many negroes hired out 
 to the highest bidder, and those that were 
 hired in families always done better and pros- 
 pered more than those who were hired from 
 their families. I have known several in- 
 stances of children being hired from their 
 mothers, where the child contracted cold, for 
 the want of their mothers to attend to them, 
 in very cold weather, and died. Children 
 will not take the necessary care of their bed- 
 ding and clothes, so as to have them in order 
 for use in cold weather, and it is useless to 
 expect it; and, when hired out by themselves, 
 will frequently lay down and go to sleep with- 
 out any bedding at all in very cold weather, 
 and therefore freeze, for the want of a friend 
 to hunt up their blanket, and throw it over 
 them. 
 
 One of the greatest pieces of economy of 
 the slaveholder is, to see that his negro women 
 and children are properly attended to. They 
 are more hardy, generally, than the whites, 
 and, when properly attended to, vriil increase 
 much faster; and the same care and attention 
 devoted to the comfort of the women and chil- 
 
160 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 dren among negroes, will enrich the owner 
 faster in that way than any other. 
 
 The ovrner of slaves should never permit 
 his women, while pregnant, to be flogged; 
 there would be danger from the excitement 
 occasioned by the whijoping, not only of de- 
 stroying the child, but the mother also. 
 AYomen are much more apt to die from a 
 miscarriage than a natural birth; and a very 
 slight whipping in such cases might produce 
 a miscarriage, and cause death in both the 
 mother and child. 
 
 And again, there are a few cruel men, who 
 are in the habit of using a paddle on their 
 w^omen, or pennitting it to be done by their 
 overseers. This practice is not only indecent 
 in the highest degree, and to be condemned 
 as brutal and inhuman, but it is ruinous and 
 destructive to the vv'omen; it is almost sure 
 to produce a miscarriage, if the woman is in 
 a pregnant state, and not unfrequently causes 
 the womb of the woman to fall and destroy 
 her general health as long as Aia lives; and I 
 would say to all slaveholders, strictly to en 
 join it on your overseers not to use a paddle 
 on any of the women under any pretext 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 161 
 
 whatever, and never to whip them on the 
 bare backs, so as to cut the skin ; they can be 
 just as easily managed to whip them over the 
 shoulders, with their clothes on, as to whip 
 them on the naked back. They should never 
 be cruelly whipped or abused; thirty-nine 
 lashes with a small switch is enough to give 
 them for any moderate offense, and will fre- 
 quently answer a better purpose than a more 
 severe whipping. There are other modes of 
 punishment which frequently ansv/er a much 
 better purpose than whipping, and are much 
 less liable to injure the slave; for instance, to 
 lock them up in the jail for a day or two in 
 solitary confinement. This will frequently 
 do more good than whipping; and every large 
 farmer ought to have a jail of some sort on 
 his plantation ; it is much better than a cow- 
 hide to prevent slaves from running about 
 after dark. 
 
 The main object in all punishment is to 
 cow the spirit and produce a reformation in 
 the offender, and that mode is always the 
 best which will produce the desired effect 
 with the least physical injury; and when the 
 slave is cowed, every lick he gets afterwards 
 
162 A HISTORY AND DHFENSE 
 
 only tends to lessen his value, and makes him 
 less able to render service to his owner. If 
 one lick will cow the slave, stop right there, 
 he needs no more; the person who whips, if 
 he is any judge at all of the disposition of 
 negroes, can tell in a moment when the negro 
 is cowed — he will begin to beg and plead for 
 mercy; until he is cowed, he w^ill remain stub- 
 born and sullen. Negroes ought not to be 
 beaten w^ith sticks or large hickories; such 
 only deaden the flesh and disable the negro; 
 a small, keen switch or whip will hurt worse 
 for the moment and do less injurj^, and pro- 
 duce the desired effect much quicker, than a 
 large one. 
 
 Again, negro women ought not to be forced 
 to w^ork out in rainy, wet weather, for this 
 reason at least, once each month they have 
 their monthly courses on them, and if they 
 should get their feet wet at such times, it 
 causes a sudden stoppage of the menstrual 
 discharges, and produces severe sickness, at- 
 tended frequently with violent pain in the 
 head and parts of the body; and it is fre- 
 quently the case, that the general health of 
 the woman is destroyed through life, by being 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. . 1G3 
 
 exposed to bad, wet weather at such times; 
 and it is much better for the owner to lose a 
 few days of the labor of their women at such 
 times during the year, than to have the risk 
 of destroying the general health of the slave 
 during life by exposure. 
 
16-i A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The Mode of arranging Out-houses on a Plantation — Jail, pjall- 
 room, Church, Hospitals, with the Mode of Treating the Sick, 
 and evil Consequence of the Use of Spirituous Liquors. 
 
 As to the quantity of oiit-liouses on eacli 
 plantation, much will depend on the size of 
 the family and quantity of negroes on the 
 farm; but, in all cases, every farm ought to 
 have a sufficient quantity of out-buildings to 
 answer every purpose with convenience, so 
 as not to be too much crowded, in order that 
 everything may have its proper place, so as 
 to be arranged in order; for the better every- 
 thing is arranged, and the most perfect order 
 kept, the greater quantity of labor can be 
 performed with the least trouble and expense. 
 Thus:— 
 
 Order is slavery's first law — and this confessed, 
 Some are and must be greater than the rest. 
 
 So, there should be a house for every pur- 
 pose needed on every farm. 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 165 
 
 And on every plantation where there are 
 as many as forty slaves, there ought to be a 
 plantation-jail of some sort for the purpose of 
 locking up and keeping confined such slaves 
 as cannot be kept from running about in the 
 neighborhood after night, and for the purpose 
 of confining unruly negroes for awhile, instead 
 of corporal punishment. It will sometimes 
 have a better effect to lock a negro up in jail 
 and keep him confined all day on Sunday, 
 than to give him a hundred stripes; and in- 
 asmuch as the very object of punishing slaves 
 is to make them behave themselves, that kind 
 of punishment which will effect a reformation 
 with the least injury to the slave, is the most 
 preferable. 
 
 I once owned a negro w^oman, who was in 
 the habit of being insolent and impudent to 
 her mistress. I tried flogging, but it done but 
 little good; at length, I confined her a day or 
 two in prison, without any other punishment, 
 and it had the desired effect; she dreaded the 
 prison worse than the lash. 
 
 Again, when negroes are in the habit of 
 strolling about in the neighborhood after 
 night, they may be whipped for it, and still 
 15 
 
166 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 they will continue their practice; they will 
 wait until their owners or overseers go to 
 bed, and will then start out visiting, some- 
 times after midnight, and walk five or six 
 miles to see their neighbors, and return home 
 again before daybreak in the morning; the 
 consequence is, that the slave is wholly un- 
 qualified for service that day, and is frequent- 
 ly made sick by such exposure and loss of 
 sleep; and sometimes has a protracted spell 
 of sickness in consequence of such exposure, 
 all of which may be remedied by confining 
 him a few nights in prison; put him in after 
 supper, and let him out at daylight in the 
 morning, until he reforms. If there is a 
 negro on the place guilty of running about 
 after dark in the neighborhood, without his 
 owner's or overseer's consent, he can be very 
 easily found out, and by punishing him a few 
 nights in prison, he will soon quit it and be- 
 have himself; and the very presence of the 
 jail will sometimes have its efiect without 
 using it, for negroes would much prefer to be 
 flogged to solitary confinement. 
 
 Again, women, when in a state of preg- 
 nancy, ought never to be whipped, for causes 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 167 
 
 before mentioned. Flogging at such times 
 might destroy both mother and child; and 
 when they require correction for misconduct, 
 it is far better to lock them up in jail for a 
 few hours than to whip them; but always be 
 certain, if the weather is cold, to see that 
 they have a plenty of blankets to keep them 
 warm on such occasions, otherwise they might 
 freeze or contract severe cold. It will not cost 
 much to erect a private jail on a farm, as al- 
 most any kind of a building will answer for 
 the purpose, as those on the outside will 
 never try to break him out; a little log build- 
 ing, ten feet square, will be sufficient, with a 
 common stock lock; two hands can build one 
 in three days complete. 
 
 And there should also be a house con- 
 structed for a ball-room, on every farm where 
 there are as many as forty slaves, for the 
 amusement of those who wish to dance ; that 
 they may have an opportunity of indulging in 
 this kind of pleasure at home, instead of hav- 
 ing to seek for it elsewhere. All nations of 
 people, both civilized and savage, appear to be 
 fond of dancing ; and the nearer they ap- 
 proach to a savage state, the more they are 
 
163 A niSTORY AXD DEFENSE 
 
 deliglited with such exercises ; and until I 
 am convinced to the contrary, I shall be of 
 the opinion that it is an advantage, both to 
 the slaves and the slaveholder, for them to be 
 permitted occasionally to have a ball or dance 
 on the plantation with such as prefer it. 
 
 The mind of man is so constructed that it 
 must be employed at something : it will not 
 remain idle ; and when not engaged in some- 
 thing innocent, it will invariably be engaged 
 in something- vile and mischievous; hence the 
 Eoman emperors encouraged public plays and 
 exhibitions for the amusement of the popu- 
 lace, and the Olympic games were instituted 
 and kept up at great expense and trouble for 
 the amusement of the people ; and many wise 
 rulers have encouraged sports and amuse- 
 ments among their people for the purpose of 
 amusing their minds, and giving them some- 
 thing new to feast upon. All men are fond 
 of a change occasionally; and after being 
 confined to close business for several months 
 together, the mind naturally seeks for some- 
 thing to amuse it, and if these amusements 
 cannot be had near home, it will seek them 
 abroad. And if the slaves on a farm can 
 
OF AFEICAN SLAVEEY. 169 
 
 have a little dance on the Fourth of July and 
 on Christmas, with something a little extra to 
 eat at such times, they will think and talk 
 ahout it for months before it takes place, and 
 will have their minds on the frolic Avhich they 
 expect to have, with many pleasing anticipa- 
 tions, instead of insurrection and vile mis- 
 chief; and after the frolic is over, they wdll 
 have something to talk and laugh about — 
 some of their awkwardness in the frolic — for 
 months. 
 
 The owner or overseer ought in such case 
 to be always present, in order to prevent dis- 
 turbances, and ought never to permit spiritu- 
 ous liquors to be used on such occasions, un- 
 der any pretext whatever, and on no other 
 occasion among negroes, for they are the worst 
 kind of savages when drunk, and it is very 
 seldom the case, when negroes get spirituous 
 liquors, in a crowd or assemblage, but that 
 some of them are killed. Owners of slaves 
 should always see to that, and never permit 
 their slaves to indulge in the use of intoxica- 
 ting spirits. I have known very serious in- 
 juries committed by negroes when they were 
 intoxicated, and therefore they ought never 
 15* 
 
170 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 to be permitted to use intoxicating liquors as 
 a beverage ; it produces temporary mental de- 
 rangement witli all classes, white men as well 
 as negroes, and it is to be deplored that any 
 rational being should use it as a beverage ; 
 it blights a man's prospects, destroys his con- 
 stitution, depraves his appetite, distresses his 
 friends, impoverishes his family, degrades his 
 character, sinks him in his OAvn estimation 
 and that of others, casts a vail over his merit, 
 if he lias any, and is the forerunner of vice, 
 and mother of wretchedness and degradation 
 in all its forms. I have been a practicing 
 lawyer for over twenty-five years, and of the 
 great multitude of cases which I have wit- 
 nessed the trial of for crimes, in the courts of 
 the country, it is strange to tell, that nine- 
 teen out of twenty of the crimes conmiitted 
 had their origin, either directly or indirect- 
 ly, from the use of intoxicating, spirituous 
 liquors, and could be traced to that source. 
 
 Next in order, on every large farm there 
 ought to be a cliurch, or place of Avorship, 
 where the owner or overseer could occasion- 
 ally assemble the slaves for the purpose of 
 hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ preached 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVEKY. 171 
 
 to them. This is an imperative duty on the 
 slaveholder, where his farm is so situated that 
 his slaves cannot conveniently leave home 
 to attend church, for him to employ some 
 preacher to visit his farm occasionally, and 
 preach to his slaves, that they may have the 
 benefit of hearing the gospel preached. Those 
 who embrace religion will always make good, 
 obedient servants, as it is one of the in- 
 junctions of the Holy Bible, that servants 
 should be obedient to their masters ; and un- 
 less the owner of slaves on large plantations 
 should employ a preacher to visit his farm 
 and preach to his slaves, many of them may 
 live to a good old age, and die without know- 
 ing anything about the gospel of Jesus Christ 
 here in this enlightened Christian land of 
 ours. If a preacher could be employed to 
 preach to them once a month, or once in two 
 months, it might be sufficient. It would 
 hardly be supposed, that any slaveholder 
 vv^ould refuse to let his slaves go to church in 
 the neighborhood on Sunday, if there was 
 preaching handy or near at hand 5 but in 
 many cases farms are so inconveniently situ- 
 ated that there is no church near enoudi for 
 
172 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 the masses of tlie slaves to attend; in such 
 case it is nothing more than justice to the 
 shive for the owner to procure a preacher to 
 visit the farm occasionally — but always have 
 a white man to preach to them. Experience 
 has taught us, that it will not do to suffer 
 negroes to preach. In the first place, their 
 want of Bible knowledge disqualifies them; 
 in the second, they are ignorant and super- 
 stitious, and are very apt to preach some of 
 their own superstitious notions as the true 
 doctrine of the Bible, and produce wrong im- 
 pressions; and in the next place, they are 
 easily flattered, and very soon begin to feel 
 very consequential; and as soon as they 
 begin to be regarded with a degree of reveren- 
 tial awe, as they soon would be by the igno- 
 rant negroes, they would begin to regard 
 themselves as possessing very great inspi- 
 ration, and not unfrequently stir up the ne- 
 groes, over whom they can exercise an influ- 
 ence, to disaflc'ction and insurrection. 
 
 Preaching, properly administered, is at- 
 tended Avith much good, both to the slave and 
 master; but, when improperly used, may re- 
 sult in great injury. We may as well say 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 173 
 
 that a man ought not take medicme from a 
 skillful physician, when he is dangerously 
 sick, because there are quacks who know 
 nothing about medicine practicing the profes- 
 sion, who do their patients an injury and 
 sometimes kill them, as to say a slaveholder 
 ought not to have his slaves preached to by a 
 pious, good, white preacher, because an igno- 
 rant negro preacher would do them an injury. 
 Negroes are possessed of an immortal soul, 
 and, therefore, their owners should see that 
 they are not deprived of the benefit of the 
 gospel of Christ, the Lord and Saviour of us 
 all. 
 
 THE HOSPITAL. 
 
 Next in order of buildings on the farm is 
 the hospital. On every farm, where there 
 are as many as twenty slaves, there should be 
 a building erected, according to the number 
 in the family, of sufficient dimensions, and 
 with a sufficient number of rooms, as a hos- 
 pital, where the sick can be properly nursed 
 and attended to by good, careful nurses, and 
 supplied with such comforts as they need dur- 
 ing their sickness ; and, therefore, a building 
 
174 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 of tliis description is one of the most valua- 
 ble and important on every plantation, and 
 no large slaveholder should ever be without 
 one. Those who never have had one — and 
 there are many such — if they should ever try 
 it, will never after be without one, and will be 
 surprised that they had ever done without it. 
 By the use of the hospital, negroes can be 
 much easier and better attended to when sick, 
 at a much less expense. The sick will there 
 recover much more readily, and be less apt to 
 die, or to impart their sickness to others, or 
 suffer inconvenience by being with others not 
 their nurses, or cause others to suffer incon- 
 venience from them : and while they will be 
 less apt to die in the hospital than in their 
 houses, their recovery will be much more 
 speedy and certain. 
 
 This building should be built with a great 
 deal of care, and particular attention should 
 be paid to its construction, so as to have it to 
 contain a sufficient quantitj^ of rooms, so that 
 each sick negro, if possible, might have a 
 comfortable room to himself; and the rooms 
 should be so constructed as to be made 
 very comfortable, either in the winter or sum- 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 175 
 
 mer, with a brick chimney to each roonij for 
 fire in the winter, and good, airy, glass win- 
 dows for a free admission of the air in the 
 summer. It ought to be situated on the pLan- 
 tation not for from the negro houses, in some 
 cool, shady place, where there are a plenty of 
 good, green shade-trees in the summer, that 
 the house may be made as cool and pleasant 
 as possible in the summer. And there should 
 be a separate room to the building as a cook- 
 room, so that when their provisions Avere be- 
 ing prepared, the room might not be made 
 uncomfortable by the fire or scent of the pro- 
 visions. Each room for the sick should be 
 supplied wdth a good mattress and bedstead, 
 with other necessary bedding to suit the sea- 
 son, a water-bucket, and every other neces- 
 sary convenience for sick persons, and all 
 should be kept in neat and clean order. And 
 wdien any of the slaves are sick, have them 
 taken to the hospital, and supplied with a 
 good nurse; and increase the number of 
 nurses as the number of sick increases, so that 
 every sick negro shall be well and properly 
 attended to by their nurses. Their relations 
 should be permitted to visit them at night, and 
 
176 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 to assist the nurses, if they choose ; for some- 
 times the nurse will neglect the patient, and 
 if their relations come in to see them, the sick 
 negro will complain of the neglect; and the 
 owner can see that they have the proper at- 
 tention. Each hospital ought to have attached 
 to it at least one good bathing-tub, in which 
 the sick could be bathed all over, as it is 
 highly important, in many cases of sickness, 
 to bathe the patient; and a single bath may 
 sometimes save the life of the slave, when 
 properly administered. Good nursing fre- 
 quently adds more to the recovery of the pa- 
 tient than medicine ; and in every instance 
 good nursing aids the medicine very materi- 
 ally in the cure of the patient. 
 
 When a sick negro is taken to the hospital, 
 suppose he has the fever in the summer sea- 
 son, he is placed in a good, comfortable room, 
 in a cool, shady place, has his nurse to wait 
 upon him ; he takes medicine, perhaps is kept 
 confined to his bed for a week, during which 
 time he needs particular attention night and 
 day, in order that he may recover; he is, per- 
 haps, up three or four times during the night, 
 from the operation of the medicine; he inter- 
 
OP AFRICAN SLAVERY. 177 
 
 rupts 110 person at all but his nurse, who is 
 placed there for the purpose, and has nothing 
 else to do; after awhile, the sick negro gets 
 easy, drops into a sweet sleep, there is no 
 person stirring or rattling about to interfere 
 with him, he gets through with his sleep, 
 feels refreshed, and his recovery is rapid; he 
 soon gets well and is able to resume his 
 labors again, for the benefit of his owner. 
 
 Suppose, again, that there is no hospital 
 or sick-house on the farm, as is the case in 
 thousands of instances where there ought to 
 be one; the negro comes in, in the heat of 
 summer, with the fever on him, his owner or 
 overseer gives him a dose of medicine, and 
 he retires to his cabin. Night comes on, some 
 two or three other slaves of his family come 
 in from work ; they have to kindle up a fire 
 to get their suppers, the room becomes heated, 
 the negro with the fever is already nearly 
 dead with a hot fever, and instead of being 
 in a cool, comfortable place where he will 
 not be interrupted, he has to bear the addi- 
 tional scorch of the heating of the room by fire 
 for several hours at a time, until the rest are 
 done cooking their supper, and then bear the 
 16 
 
178 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 warmth that the fire produces afterwards, 
 until it goes out, and not unfrequently dies 
 by this additional aggravation of the disease, 
 when otherwise he would recover without 
 even the aid of medicine. After supper is 
 over, the well negroes, who are now very 
 much fatigued by their day's labor and the 
 fatigue of standing over a hot fire, cooking, 
 lay down, exhausted, to sleep; they rest 
 awhile and are soon aroused from their 
 slumbers by the groans of the sick ; his medi- 
 cine makes him sick and commences its oper- 
 ation; he groans and gets up to attend to the 
 operation of his medicine; the negroes in the 
 room are awakened from their sleep to attend 
 to him; he lays down again, and in the course 
 of an hour or two he rises and interrupts the 
 well negroes again and again in the same way 
 until daylight in the morning, when those 
 who are well, now only lialf rested by the 
 disturbance of the sick negro, have to repair 
 to the field to resume their daily labor, 
 wearied out from fatigue and the Avant of rest. 
 During the day some of them are attacked 
 by the fever in the same way; they return 
 to the house, are given a dose of medicine in 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 179 
 
 the same way, sent to tlieir cabin, and then 
 there are two sick ones to annoy the balance 
 of the inmates instead of one, and to be an- 
 noyed in the same way; and all this time it 
 does not occur to the owner or overseer the 
 true cause which produces it. 
 
 The negroes frequently die in this way, by 
 improper treatment for the want of a sick- 
 house, and their death is attributed, as a 
 matter of course, to the common fatality of 
 the sickness. Whole families are thus fre- 
 quently made sick and are down at once by 
 this kind of treatment and exposure, when 
 if there had been a sick-house on the place, 
 and the first one who was taken had been 
 sent to it, there would have been no more 
 sickness in that family during the summer; 
 because, when the sick one was properly 
 taken care of at the sick-house, the balance 
 of the family, after getting their supper at 
 night, could lay down and rest easy until 
 daylight, get up, feel refreshed, and cheer- 
 fully commence their work in the morning. 
 
 Slaveholders frequently lose a great many 
 slaves either for the want of attention or the 
 necessary conveniences ; and where the slave 
 
180 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 is proper!}' attended, and furnished with the 
 necessary conveniences when sick, it is very 
 rarely the case tliat one ever dies, except 
 from old age. And when they begin to re- 
 cover from their sickness, they ought to be 
 furnished with good, wholesome food, suitable 
 for persons in such a condition, as at such 
 times the stomach is weak and cannot bear 
 such strong food as when in good health; and 
 the slave ought not to be forced to go out to 
 work too soon after a recovery, or be made 
 to fatigue himself very much shortly after, for 
 fear of a relapse; it is generally the best plan 
 to let the slave remain at his house, after re- 
 covering from a severe spell of sickness, until 
 he gets ready to go out to work of his own 
 accord. 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 181 
 
 CHAPTER Xiy. 
 
 How to Treat the Women. 
 
 On all large farms there are frequently a 
 large portion of the slaves women, and some 
 one or more of them in a state of pregnancy 
 all the while, and this class of slaves, if prop- 
 erly taken care of, are the most profitable to 
 their owners of any others, and if not prop- 
 erly taken care of, are altogether valueless. 
 It is remarkable the number of slaves which 
 may be raised from one woman in the course 
 of forty or fifty years with the proper kind 
 of attention. I have frequently seen the 
 mother, who was a pert, active, old woman 
 under seventy years of age, who could boast 
 of having over a hundred of her posterity 
 living. 
 
 But, when they are not properly taken care 
 16* 
 
182 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 of, tlie children die for the want of attention, 
 and the mother, by being frequently laid up 
 in child-bearing, is valueless as to her labor 
 on the farm. Negro women, when pregnant, 
 ought never to be required to do any very 
 hard, rough work, which would fatigue them, 
 or to lift any heavy weight; neither should 
 they be Avhipped or abused in any way, but 
 should be treated with sympathy and kind- 
 ness; and they should be permitted to remain 
 wdth their children as much as possible, and 
 to remain in the house, without going out to 
 work for their owner, at least five or six 
 weeks after the birth of their child; and 
 when they have to work in the field, let 
 them come to their child three or four times 
 during the day to attend to it, otherwise the 
 mfant might die for the want of attention; 
 and very young children require a great deal 
 of nursing, which should never be refused 
 them. Where the owner of the slave appears 
 to exercise a degree of care and attention for 
 the negro children it will act as a stimulant 
 to the mother, and cause her to attend better 
 to her children; but where the owner does 
 not seem to care anything about them, and 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 188 
 
 will not give the mother time to attend to 
 her children, she becomes cowed and dis- 
 heartened, and will not pay the attention to 
 them that she can, and will frequently be 
 glad to see them die and out of the way. 
 
184 A HISTORY AXD DEFENSE 
 
 CHAPTER XY. 
 
 A Hint to Overseers. 
 
 It is almost invariably the case on planta- 
 tions where there are over a dozen slaves, the 
 owner has to employ some white man as an 
 overseer to stay on the plantation with the 
 slaves, and direct them in their labor. And 
 it is often the case on large farms, when the 
 owner does not reside on his farm, the over- 
 seer has the full charge and control of the 
 negroes and farm, and manages everything 
 according to his own will and pleasure. 
 Therefore, it is very important that an over- 
 seer should be a man under a good character, 
 a thorouoh-o'oinir, industrious, business man, 
 one possessing a high sense of honor and 
 honesty as well as anything else; otherwise, 
 instead of being a benefit to his employer, he 
 is a serious injury. Overseeing negroes is 
 like everything else; in order for a man to 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 185 
 
 understand the business well, he must have 
 experience and practice, otherwise he is 
 wholly unfit to take the reins as a principal 
 overseer on a farm; and in order for a man 
 to understand the business, he ought to serve 
 at least five years as a driver or under-over- 
 seer, that he may be enabled, when he comes 
 to manage as the principal overseer, to dis- 
 charge his duty with honor to himself and 
 profit to his employer, and by his manage- 
 ment acquire a reputation. 
 
 There are great difierences in overseers as 
 well as anything else, and of all occupations 
 in the world, a good overseer will pay the 
 employer more than anything else; and the 
 farmer who works twenty hands, who has a 
 first-rate overseer, and pays him a thousand 
 dollars per annum, gets his overseer cheaper 
 than his neighbor who has the same number 
 of hands and a mean overseer which cost him 
 only Mty dollars a year; the good overseer, 
 by his management, will make the farm 
 which he is on clear all expenses, pay his 
 wages, and net the owner from two to three 
 thousand dollars besides; w^iile the mean 
 overseer, by his bad management, will not 
 
186 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 pay expenses, and frequently, instead of the 
 owner ot the farm makhig a neat profit, he 
 falls behind, and his farm does not clear the 
 expenses by two or three thousand dolhirs. 
 And where farmers continue to employ 
 such, they will soon get broke by their mean 
 overseers; and the mean overseer will appar- 
 ently work the negroes harder than the good 
 one, and he is certain to whip a great deal 
 more, for, having no management himself, he 
 suffers everything to get in confusion, and 
 then whips the negroes for what he himself 
 is guilty of. 
 
 A great many farmers are ruined by mean 
 overseers; the overseer in such cases ruins 
 himself as well as his employer, for when he 
 is found out to be a mean overseer, no other 
 person w^ants him, and he is frequently thrown 
 out of employment. It is often the case that 
 a man is not able to manage his own little 
 affairs, with none to work but himself, and 
 being too lazy to work, and unqualified for 
 anything else, he starts out to hunt an over- 
 seer's berth, and considers himself worthy of 
 taking charge of a gentleman's farm with fifty 
 or one hundred hands. Such men sometimes 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 18T 
 
 succeed in getting employment, and are imme- 
 diately lifted up in their own estimation, and 
 will splutter about prodigiously for awhile, 
 but as soon as they are left to themselves, 
 will commence neglecting their business ; they 
 care nothing about the interests of their em- 
 ployer, so that their wages are going on ; they 
 suffer the stock to scatter, the mules and 
 horses to get poor, the whole farm to get out 
 of order, and do not even dream that any 
 person is noticing their management and con- 
 duct, wdiile the whole neighborhood, white 
 and black, are noticing every movement and 
 talking about it. Eventually, the owner of 
 the farm comes along ; his neighbors tell him 
 huw badly his overseer is getting on, he goes 
 to his farm and finds his overseer is worthless, 
 and w^ill ruin him if he keeps him, and he 
 immediately discharges him, and he now has 
 no further prospects as an overseer; he goes 
 around and tries to get in at some other 
 place; he finds that where he is known that 
 no person wants him at any price, and, to his 
 utter surprise, he now finds that instead of 
 not being noticed in his neglect and bad con- 
 duct, that every man, woman, and child has 
 
188 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 been observing; his movements in the neiizh- 
 borhood the whole while. 
 
 A young man, in such cases, should always 
 remember that when he undertakes to trans- 
 act business for another, that he has a great 
 deal of character at stake, and that if he is 
 faithful and true, every person around sees it, 
 and will give him credit for his fidelity, but 
 if he is treacherous and trifling, it will also 
 be noticed to his discredit; that when he is 
 at work for his employer, he is at work for 
 himself as much as for his employer, and 
 where he does his best and proves faithful, 
 a great many failings will be looked over for 
 the want of proper information, and that he 
 will improve by the proper kind of exertions 
 and win upon the confidence of his employer, 
 and instead of being discharged, he will be 
 encouraged and his wages will be increased, 
 and he will eventually improve and grow in 
 the confidence of his employer and others 
 who know him, until he will rank as a No. 
 1 overseer, and can get wages anywhere, and 
 be eagerly sought after; besides, he will have 
 the consciou.^ness of knowing that he has 
 done his duty and proved a blest^iug to his 
 em]Dlo}ers. 
 
OF AFKICAN SLAVERY. 189 
 
 It is the duty of the overseer to be con- 
 tinually on the farm, seeing to the interest of 
 his employer; to see to the hogs, the cattle, 
 the horses, the negroes, and everything which 
 requires his attention; to see that the horses 
 and mules are properly fed and watered, that 
 their gear does not gall them ; to see that they 
 are kept fat and sleek, for it is a bad sign to 
 see poor horses and mules on a farm Avhere 
 there is a plenty to feed with; it shows too 
 much neglect, or a great want of manage- 
 ment. It is also a very bad sign to see the 
 fences down and the gates off of the hinges, 
 and the houses out of repair on a farm. I 
 want no better evidence of bad management 
 than this. I can tell whether a man has a 
 good overseer or not, merely by riding by his 
 farm and looking at his houses and fences; a 
 neat manager will keep all in order without 
 much noise or whipping. The negroes should 
 always know at night what they are required 
 to do in the morning, and the overseer should 
 instruct them how to do their Vv^ork, and have 
 a particular place to keep everything; every 
 plowman should have his particular horse or 
 mule to manage, and a particular stall for 
 17 
 
190 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 them to stand in, and a particular place to 
 keep their bridles and curry-combs, so that 
 they could get up at any time of a dark night 
 and find them all without a light. In this 
 way, everything will move on in order and 
 regularity; and the overseer should be very 
 cautious, if he went to whip a negro for a 
 slight offense, and the negro should run from 
 him, not to shoot him, but wait until he can 
 hem him and catch him, which would not 
 take very long. A great many negroes will 
 run from the master or overseer when they 
 go to whip them, and it is very wrong to 
 shoot them merely for running from you ; it 
 will generally not take very long to catch 
 them afterwards, when they can be sufficients 
 ly punished without endangering their lives; 
 and also be cautious and never inflict any 
 cruel or unusual ill-treatment on any slave 
 under your charge, for no humane owner of 
 slaves will like to have his slaves ill-treated 
 in any way, but will think the more of his 
 overseer if he can manage the slaves without 
 puni.^hment. 
 
OF AFRICAjq- SLAVERY. 191 
 
 CHAPTER XYI. 
 
 Duties of Masters and Slaveholders. 
 
 Every slaveholder should reflect and con- 
 sider their slaves not only as property, but 
 also as human beings like themselves; that 
 notwithstanding they differ in color and in 
 strength of mind, and condition in life, that 
 the slave is entitled to certain rights which it 
 would be both cruel and unjust to deprive 
 him of: the right of his life, his limbs, of rest 
 on the Sabbath day, and the care and protec- 
 tion of his master, with the privilege of wor- 
 shiping God in that manner most agreeable 
 to his feelings and the dictates of his con- 
 science. These are privileges which do not 
 interfere at all with the rights of the owner, 
 but only tend to strengthen them, and to 
 better qualify the slaves to render service to 
 their owners. And as the slave receives no- 
 thing in return for his labor except victuals 
 
192 A HISTORY AXD DEFENSE 
 
 and clotlios, tlie owners should always see 
 that their slaves are well fed and clothed. 
 In this wav, the slave will be sure to be 
 more cheerful, healthy, and thrifty, and far 
 better qualified to render himself useful and 
 profitable to his owner. Some slaveholders, 
 from a mistaken idea of economy, do not fur- 
 nish the necessary quantity of food or cloth- 
 ing to their slaves, and seek to grow rich by 
 stinting their slaves in this way; but such a 
 course is the most extravagant after all, and 
 is always attended with ruinous consequences. 
 A slave may sometimes die for the want of a 
 good suit of warm clothes and a good blanket 
 in the winter, which would not cost the owner 
 ten dollars to buy, and for the v»^ant of them 
 a slave which is worth a thousand dollars dies 
 from cold and exposure ; or for the want of 
 proper food, may sicken and die in the same 
 way. Thus, we see that men who grow rich 
 fastest by the labor of their slaves, invariably 
 feed and clothe them better than those whose 
 slaves are of but little value. All who are in 
 the habit of managing negro slaves, know that 
 they do not regard work, and that they even 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 193 
 
 delight in it when they are properly fed and 
 clothed. 
 
 The owner should also look after his over- 
 seers or managers frequently, and see if they 
 treat the negroes properly, and never suffer 
 his slaves to be treated in any cruel or un- 
 usual ill manner. Some overseers, particu- 
 larly green ones, who know but little about 
 managing slaves, and there are a great many 
 of this kind who offer their services for such 
 business, think that they must always be 
 whipping and beating the slave, and, not 
 having any judgment in such matters, some- 
 times kill the slave, or disable him, so as to 
 render him valueless. Such a course of con- 
 duct is the best evidence of the want of 
 qualification in an overseer; and I would say 
 to slaveholders. If you have such a one, dis- 
 charge him immediately ; he will do you more 
 harm than good; for all good managers get 
 on smoothly without much noise or whipping. 
 There is a great deal in management, and the 
 overseer who understands his duties best, can 
 the more easily impart a knowledge of duty 
 to others. If you find that your overseer is 
 a treacherous scamp, that he has betrayed 
 17* 
 
194 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 or deceived you willfully in any instance, dis- 
 charge him — he will deceive and betray you 
 again; trust him no further. But if, on the 
 other hand, you find that he is faithful and 
 true ; that he has a correct knowledge of his 
 business; that everything moves on well un- 
 der his management; and that he treats your 
 slaves properly, and is devoted to your in- 
 terest, retain him if possible — he is one in a 
 thousand; and give him just as high wages as 
 you can possibly afford, rather than part with 
 him; for, be assured, it will puzzle you to 
 get another to fill his place; and occasionally, 
 though rare, we find one of this kind. 
 
 The overseer will be certain in all cases to 
 be more particular, and strive harder to 
 please, when he sees his employer taking an 
 interest in the farm, and looking into his 
 management. The owner should occasionally 
 inspect the negro-houses and their clothes 
 and bedding, and see that they are well 
 supplied, and everything kept neat; and in 
 the winter season, particularly in very cold 
 weather, have wood hauled in great abund- 
 ance and placed near their houses, to enable 
 them to keep good fires; they should also 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 195 
 
 never suffer mothers to be separated from 
 their children under ten years of age, but 
 keep the mothers on the same farm where 
 the children are, winter and summer; for the 
 mothers will be certain to take better care of 
 their children than any other person would, 
 and in cold weather it is often necessary for 
 mothers to rise in the night and cover up 
 their children, in order to keep them from 
 freezing; when they are willing to wait on 
 their own children in this way, they would 
 be unwilling to wait upon the children of 
 others, and would let them lie and freeze 
 rather than be troubled with them. 
 
 Sometimes it is the case that guardians or 
 administrators, in the South, have negroes to 
 hire out, which belong to the estate of the 
 intestate or their wards, among whom there 
 are women and children; in such cases it is 
 far better to hire all of the children under 
 twelve years old with their mothers, and if 
 the woman has a husband to be hired, it is 
 better to hire the husband with his wife and 
 children all together in one lot, with an ex- 
 press condition that they are not to be 
 separated or rehired without the written con- 
 
196 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 sent of the owner or guardian. Although 
 in such cases they may hire for less money, 
 they will certainly be better taken care of, 
 and of more value at the end of the year, 
 than they would be hired separate, and less 
 liable to die when sick for the want of at- 
 tention. 
 
 The owners of slaves should always act 
 toward the slave in such a manner as to 
 insure his respect and reverence. Therefore, 
 he ought never to use any undue familiarity 
 with his slave ; for if he becomes too familiar 
 with him, he will be certain to lose his re- 
 spect. He should be kind and humane to his 
 slave, and correct his faults in such a manner 
 as not to be cruel. He should always be 
 prompt with him, and be sure to perform all 
 of his promises to him ; pay him everything 
 he promises with a degree of punctuality, so 
 as to induce his slave to think it impossible for 
 his owuier to deceive him; and never show 
 any vindictiveness whatever. Whenever you 
 have to chastise him, do it in such a manner 
 as to show him it is done to correct his faults 
 and make him obe}^, as a parent would his 
 child, and not from any feeling of vindictive 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 197 
 
 vengeance ; and in this way joii will have 
 the love and esteem of your slaves, make 
 them fond of their home, and devoted to your 
 interest. 
 
 If at any time you should own a vindictive 
 slave — and it is sometimes the case — and you 
 think yourself in danger from him, or any 
 number of them, always be prepared for a 
 controversy, but never let them know that 
 you are afraid of them ; but, on the contrary, 
 always pretend as though you thought yourself 
 perfectly safe, and they will not be half so apt 
 to make an attack upon you. 
 
 Negro slaves, as I have observed before, 
 when properly treated and properlj^ governed, 
 are as useful and necessary as any other class 
 of human beings, and are the main root which 
 extracts from the earth the principal suste- 
 nance which goes to the support of all of the 
 balance of the human race ; but, when badly 
 governed, or left to themselves, of all others 
 they are of the least value, and like all other 
 savages the most dangerous. When let loose 
 to a free exercise of their passions and feel- 
 ings, their brutal barbarity knows no bounds, 
 as has been illustrated on several occasions, 
 
198 A HISTORY AXD DEFENSE 
 
 where an attempt was made at insurrection in 
 several parts of the United States, and other 
 places. Nothing short of total extermination 
 ever satisfies their savage desires ; and awful 
 have been the scenes where they have been 
 successful in their insurrections. 
 
 Therefore, the owners of negro slaves can- 
 not be too cautious in pursuing that course, 
 in the government of their slaves, which will 
 keep down insurrection, and the best promote 
 the happiness of the slave, the welfare, the 
 interest, and the safety of the slaveholder. 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 199 
 
 CHAPTER XYII. 
 
 Free Negroes, and their Influence and Danger among Slaves. 
 
 Negro slaves sliould, in all cases, be kept 
 as far from any vile influence operating on 
 their minds as possible. If possible, they 
 should not be permitted to talk or even think 
 of being free. It should always be made to 
 appear to them that the black man and the 
 mulatto were born to be slaves to the white 
 people ; and, therefore, they should never be •* 
 permitted to see a free negro or mulatto. Such 
 a thing ought not to exist in a slave country 
 where there are negro slaves; if it does, it is 
 always attended with the most serious conse- 
 quences. The very presence of one free ne- 
 gro or free mulatto in the slaveholding part 
 of the United States, will do more to breed 
 insurrection among the slaves, and render 
 them discontented with their condition, than 
 one hundred abolition presses in the North, 
 where there are no slaves. Although the free 
 negro or mulatto may be a clever man^ and 
 
200 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 not at all disposed to do wrong, the slaves Avill 
 look on liim and compare their own condition 
 w^ith that of the free negro, and desire to be 
 free as well as he is — and thus his very pres- 
 ence will breed disafiection. 
 
 Yet we see, in some of our Southern slave- 
 holding cities, free negroes and free mulattoes 
 strutting about with impunity, smoking their 
 cigars in the market-places, and wielding a 
 gold-headed cane, with as much consequence 
 as if they were the governors of the country; 
 and all this is tolerated as a matter of little 
 consequence, when a great noise and commo- 
 tion is made about the abolitionists in Massa- 
 chusetts and other non-slaveholding places, as 
 being great bugbears and dangerous enemies 
 to the slave and slaveholder. In this way, 
 you pass b}^ the substance and strike at the 
 shadow. If you wish to be safe — if you wish 
 your negroes to be satisfied with their condi- 
 tion — if you wish to put down every induce- 
 ment to insurrection among the negroes — if 
 }'ou wish, with your famiUes, your wives, your 
 daughters, and your children, to be in safety 
 by your own fireside, which it is your impera- 
 tive duty to do, remove every free negro and 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 201 
 
 free mulatto out of the bounds of the slave- 
 holding region ; send them to Liberia or some 
 of the free States, and never suffer a free ne- 
 gro or free mulatto to enter the slaveholding 
 region. If one is set free among you, send 
 him immediately out of the country. If they 
 settle among the abolitionists in the free 
 States, they will soon get tired of them, and 
 wish them back in the slave States, and soon 
 shut their mouths about abolitionism. But 
 by no means permit a free negro or mulatto to 
 remain among you, neither permit any negro 
 to hire his own time, and stroll through the 
 country seeking employment, under severe 
 penalties. This is the only way you can be 
 secure, in the enjoyment of your negro prop- 
 erty in the South; and, although in a few 
 cases it may seem hard to compel the free 
 negroes to emigrate and leave their old friends 
 and acquaintances, yet it is far better for them 
 to do so, and make some sacrifices, than that 
 a whole community should suffer, and, in con- 
 sequence of their presence, be in continual 
 danger of having the country deluged in blood 
 from an insurrection occasioned by the influ- 
 ence of their remaining, 
 18 
 
202 A HISTORY AND DEFENSE 
 
 CHAPTER XYIII. 
 
 The Conclusion, with Seven Maxims as Advice to Young Men. 
 
 In conclusion, I feel that I have been won- 
 derfully protected, in the many different 
 scenes in life through which I have had to 
 pass, by the Omnipotent hand of God, in 
 whom I trust for present comfort and future 
 happiness. At a very early age I had serious 
 and religious impressions, and frequently, 
 when I was but a child, retired in secret to 
 implore the aid and forgiveness of Him who 
 rules the universe — the great God, from whom 
 all blessings flow; through whose mercy and 
 goodness, by the mediation of Jesus Christ, 
 my Saviour, I hope to inherit eternal life, to 
 whom be all glory and honor and power for- 
 ever; — for I feel that God has heard my 
 prayers, and answered them on many and 
 various occasions, and that I am the special 
 object of his care and protection. Without 
 
OF AFRICAN SLAVERY. 203 
 
 his assistance, I should be nothing ; and with 
 his help, I am enabled to stand. 
 
 Now, I have a few words to say to young 
 men, in conclusion, which, if they will take 
 heed to, will prove a jewel and a fortune: — 
 
 1st. Shun intoxicating liquor as you would 
 a poisonous viper ; for thousands have fallen 
 victims to its use ; neither touch, taste, or 
 handle the unclean thing. 
 
 2d. Shun the card-table as you would a 
 rattlesnake : it allures, charms, and then de- 
 stroys its victim. Never risk at play that 
 which will make your family comfortable. 
 
 3d. Endeavor to keep out of bad company ; 
 for men are judged by the company they 
 keep. 
 
 4th. Never put off until to-morrow any of 
 your business that you can attend to to-day; 
 for men often lose much by neglecting their 
 business; for to-morrow has business enough 
 for itself, without engrossing the business of 
 to-day. 
 
 5th. Never forsake an old, tried, and faith- 
 ful friend for a new one. 
 
204 AFRICAN SLAVERY. 
 
 6th. Don't forget to read the Bible as much 
 as you can, because in it we read what is ne- 
 cessary to make us happy here and hereafter. 
 It is the best book in the world, and is the 
 inestimable gift of God to man. 
 
 7th. And above all, worship God and keep 
 his commandments : this is not only our duty, 
 but a very high privilege.