Our evenings were diversified with attendance upon phrenological lectures—which, however, soon ceases to be a variety, from the absolute sameness of all courses of lectures on that subject—with readings at home, and with a visit to a scene which I was strongly urged not to omit, the Saturday night's market held by the slaves.
I should have been sorry to miss this spectacle. The slaves enjoy the amusement and profit yielded by this market. They sit in rows, by lamplight, some with heaps of fruit and vegetables before them, or surrounded by articles of their own manufacture: boxes, bedsteads, baskets, and other handiworks, very cheap, and of good workmanship. The bananas, pines, imported apples, and oranges, which are seen in great abundance, are usually the property of the master; while the manufactured articles, made at spare hours, are nominally the slave's own. Some are allowed to make use of their leisure in preparing for the market, on condition of bringing their masters six dollars each per week, retaining whatever surplus they may gain. I could not learn the consequence of failing to bring in the six dollarsper week. They enjoy the fun and bustle of the market, and look with complacency on any white customers who will attend it. Their activity and merriment at market were pointed out to me as an assurance of their satisfaction with their condition, their conviction that their present position is the one they were made for, and in which their true happiness is to be found.
At the very same moment I was shown the ruins of the church of St. Philip, destroyed by fire, as they frowned in the rear of the lamplight; and I was informed that the church had once before been on fire, but had been saved by the exertions of a slave, who "had his liberty given him for a reward."
"A reward!" said I. "What! when the slaves are convinced that their true happiness lies in slavery?"
The conversation had come to an awkward pass. A lady advanced to the rescue, saying that some few, too many, were haunted by a pernicious fancy, put into their heads by others, about liberty; a mere fancy, which, however, made them like the idea of freedom.
"So the benefactor of the city was rewarded by being indulged, to his own hurt, in a pernicious fancy?"
"Why ... yes."
My impressions of Charleston may easily be gathered from what I have said. It seems to me a place of great activity, without much intellectual result; of great gayety, without much ease and pleasure. I am confident that, whatever might be the reason, the general mind was full of mystery and anxiety at the time of my visit; and that some hearts were glowing with ambitious hopes, and others sinking in fears, more or less clearly defined, of the political crisis which seems to be now at hand. These are the influences which are educating the youth of Charleston, more powerfully than all schools and colleges, and all books; inducing a reliance on physical rather than moral force, and strengthening attachment to feudal notions of honour and of every kind of good; notions which have no affinity with true republican morals. The prospects of the citizens are "dark every way," as some declared; for the rising generation must either ascend, through a severe discipline and prodigious sacrifices, to a conformity with republican principles, or descend into a condition of solitary feudalism, neither sanctioned by the example nor cheered by thesympathy of the world; but, on the contrary, regarded with that compassion which is precisely the last species of regard which the feudal spirit is able to endure.
We left Charleston in company with Mr. Calhoun and his family. The great nullifier told me many and long stories of his early days. Not being aware of my strong impressions respecting his present views and purposes, he could have no idea of the intense interest with which I listened to his accounts of the first kindling of his burning mind. He was five years old, standing between his father's knees, when his first political emotions stirred within him, awakened by his parent's talk of the colony and of free times just after the Revolution. If some good angel had at that moment whispered the parent, inspiring him to direct that young ambition to the ultimate grandeur of meek service, to animate that high spirit to a moral conflict with all human wrongs, we might already have owed to a mind so energetic the redemption of the negro race from the affliction, and of the republic from the disgrace of slavery, instead of mourning over the dedication of such powers to the propagation and exasperation of the curse. I feared how it would be; what part he would take in the present struggle between the two principles of greatness, physical force with territorial conquest, and moral power shown in self-conquest. I feared that Mr. Calhoun would organize and head the feudal party, as he has done; but I never had any fears that that party would prevail. When we parted at Branchville he little knew—he might have been offended if he had known—with what affectionate solicitude those whom he left behind looked on into his perilous political path. I am glad we could not foresee how soon our fears would be justified. Mr. Calhoun is at present insisting that the pirate colony of Texas shall be admitted into the honourable American Union; that a new impulse shall thereby be given to the slavetrade, and a new extension to slavery; and that his country shall thereby surrender her moral supremacy among the nations for a gross and antiquated feudal ambition. He vows, taking the whole Union to witness, that these things shall be. The words have publicly passed his pen and his lips, "Texas shall be annexed to the United States." His best friends must hope that the whole world will say, "It shall not."
"O! das Leben, Vater,Hat Reize, die wir nie gekannt. Wir habenDes schönen Lebens öde Kütse nurWie ein umirrend Räubervolk befahren.Was in den innern Thälern KöstlichesDas land verbirgt, O! davon—davon istAuf unsrer wilden Fahrt uns nichts erschienen."Schiller.
Schiller.
"We askBut to put forth our strength, our human strength,All starting fairly, all equipped alike,Gifted alike, and eagle-eyed, true-hearted."Paracelsus.
Paracelsus.
The traveller in America hears on every hand of the fondness of slaves for slavery. If he points to the little picture of a runaway prefixed to advertisements of fugitives, and repeated down whole columns of the first newspaper that comes to hand, he is met with anecdotes of slaves who have been offered their freedom, and prefer remaining in bondage. Both aspects of the question are true, and yet more may be said on both sides. The traveller finds, as he proceeds, that suicides are very frequent among slaves; and that there is a race of Africans who will not endure bondage at all, and who, when smuggled from Africa into Louisiana, are avoided in the market by purchasers, though they have great bodily strength and comeliness. When one of this race is accidentally purchased and taken home, he is generally missed before twenty-four hours are over, and found hanging behind a door or drowned in the nearest pond. The Cuba slaveholders have volumes of stories to tell of this race, proving their incapacity for slavery. On the other hand, the traveller may meet with a few negroes who have returned into slaveland from a state of freedom, and besought their masters to take them back.
These seeming contradictions admit of an easy explanation. Slaves are more or less degraded by slavery in proportion to their original strength of character or educational discipline of mind. The most degraded are satisfied, theleast degraded are dissatisfied with slavery. The lowest order prefer release from duties and cares to the enjoyment of rights and the possession of themselves; and the highest order have a directly opposite taste. The mistake lies in not perceiving that slavery is emphatically condemned by the conduct of both.
The stories on the one side of the question are all alike. The master offers freedom—of course, to the worst of his slaves—to those who are more plague than profit. Perhaps he sends the fellow he wants to get rid of on some errand into a free state, hoping that he will not return. The man comes back; and, if questioned as to why he did not stay where he might have been free, he replies that he knows better than to work hard for a precarious living when he can be fed by his master without anxiety of his own as long as he lives. As for those who return after having been free, they are usually the weak-minded, who have been persuaded into remaining in a free state, where they have been carried in attendance on their masters' families, and who want courage to sustain their unprotected freedom. I do not remember ever hearing of the return of a slave who, having long nourished the idea and purpose of liberty, had absconded with danger and difficulty. The prosecution of such a purpose argues a strength of mind worthy of freedom.
The stories on this side of the question are as various as the characters and fortunes of the heroes of them. Many facts of this nature became known to me during my travels, most of which cannot be published, for fear of involving in difficulty either the escaped heroes or those who assisted them in regaining their liberty. But a few may be safely related, which will show, as well as any greater number, the kind of restlessness which is the torment of the lives of "persons held to labour," the constitutional description of the slave-class of the constituents of government.
Slavery is nowhere more hopeless and helpless than in Alabama. The richness of the soil and the paucity of inhabitants make the labourer a most valuable possession; while his distance from any free state—the extent of country overspread with enemies which the fugitive has to traverse—makes the attempt to escape desperate. All coloured persons travelling in the slave states without a pass—a certificate of freedom or of leave—are liable to be arrested and advertised, and, if unclaimed at the end of a certain time,sold in the market. Yet slaves do continue to escape from the farthest corners of Alabama or Mississippi. Two slaves in Alabama, who had from their early manhood cherished the idea of freedom, planned their escape in concert, and laboured for many years at their scheme. They were allowed the profits of their labour at over-hours; and, by strenuous toil and self-denial, saved and hid a large sum of money. Last year they found they had enough, and that the time was come for the execution of their purpose. They engaged the services of "a mean white;" one of the extremely degraded class who are driven by loss of character to labour in the slave states, where, labour by whites being disgraceful, they are looked down upon by the slaves no less than the slaves are by the superior whites. These two slaves hired a "mean white man" to personate a gentleman; bought him a suit of good clothes, a portmanteau, a carriage and horses, and proper costume for themselves. One night the three set off in style, as master, coachman, and footman, and travelled rapidly through the whole country, without the slightest hinderance, to Buffalo. There the slaves sold their carriage, horses, and finery, paid off their white man, and escaped into Canada, where they now are in safety.
They found in Canada a society of their own colour prepared to welcome and aid them. In Upper Canada there are upward of ten thousand people of colour, chiefly fugitive slaves, who prosper in the country which they have chosen for a refuge. Scarcely an instance is known of any of them having received alms, and they are as respectable for their intelligence as for their morals. One peculiarity in them is the extravagance of their loyalty. They exert themselves vehemently in defence of all the acts of the executive, whatever they may be. The reason for this is obvious: they exceedingly dread the barest mention of the annexation of Canada to the United States.
It is astonishing that, in the face of facts of daily occurrence like that of the escape of these men, it can be pleaded in behalf of slavery that negroes cannot take care of themselves, and that they prefer being held as property. A lady of New-York favoured me with some of her recollections of slavery in that state. She told me of a favourite servant who had been her father's property for five-and-twenty years. I believe the woman was the family nurse. She was treated with all possible indulgence, and was the object of theattachment of the whole household. The woman was never happy. During all these dreary years she was haunted with the longing for freedom, and at last fell ill, apparently from anxiety of mind. From her sickbed she implored her master so movingly to make her free, and her medical attendant was so convinced that her life depended on her request being granted, that her master made the desired promise, but very unwillingly, as he thought freedom would be more of a care than a blessing to her. She immediately recovered, and in spite of all entreaty, pecuniary inducement, and appeals to her gratitude, left the family. She shed many tears, mourned over parting with the children, and thanked the family for all the favour with which she had been treated, but declared that she could not remain. Everything savoured too strongly of the bondage she had been unable to endure. She took a service not far off, deposited her earnings with her old master, and frequently visited the family, but, to the last, shrank from all mention of returning to them.
While I was in the United States, a New-York friend of mine was counsel for a native African who sued his mistress for his earnings of many years. This man had been landed in the South after the year 1808, the date fixed by the Constitution for the cessation of the importation of negroes. He was purchased by a lady to whom he proved very profitable, his services being of a superior kind. She let him out, and he paid over to her all the money he earned. After many years she visited New-York, bringing this man with her, not anticipating that, in that free city, he would gain new lights as to his relation to her. He refused to return, and brought his mistress into court to answer his demand for the repayment of all the money he had earned abroad, with interest, and compensation for his services at home during his illegal bondage. As a knowledge of the law was necessarily supposed on both sides, the counsel for the slave made compulsion his plea. This was not allowed. The slave's maintenance was decided to be a sufficient compensation for his services at home, and he was decreed to receive only the earnings of his hired labour, without interest. His counsel had, however, the pleasure of seeing him, in the strength of his manhood, free, and in possession of a large sum of money to begin life with on his own account.
A woman once lived in Massachusetts whose name ought to be preserved in all histories of the State as one of itshonours, though she was a slave. Some anecdotes of her were related in a Lyceum lecture delivered at Stockbridge in 1831. Others were told me by the Sedgwicks, who had the honour of knowing her best, by means of rendering her the greatest services. Mum Bett, whose real name was Elizabeth Freeman, was born, it is supposed, about 1742. Her parents were native Africans, and she was a slave for about thirty years. At an early age she was purchased, with her sister, from the family into which she was born, in the State of New-York, by Colonel Ashley, of Sheffield, Massachusetts. The lady of the mansion, in a fit of passion, one day struck at Mum Bett's sister with a heated kitchen shovel. Mum Bett interposed her arm and received the blow, the scar of which she bore to the day of her death. "She resented the insult and outrage as a white person would have done," leaving the house, and refusing to return. Colonel Ashley appealed to the law for the recovery of his slave. Mum Bett called on Mr. Sedgwick, and asked him if she could not claim her liberty under the law. He inquired what could put such an idea into her head. She replied that the "Bill o' Rights" said that all were born free and equal, and that, as she was not a dumb beast, she was certainly one of the nation. When afterward asked how she learned the doctrine and facts on which she proceeded, she replied, "By keepin' still and mindin' things." It was a favourite doctrine of hers, that people might learn by keeping still and minding things. But what did she mean, she was asked, by keeping still and minding things? Why, for instance, when she was waiting at table, she heard gentlemen talking over the Bill of Rights and the new constitution of Massachusetts; and in all they said she never heard but that all people were born free and equal, and she thought long about it, and resolved she would try whether she did not come in among them.
Mr. Sedgwick undertook her cause, which was tried at Great Barrington. Mum Bett obtained her freedom, and compensation for her services from twenty-one years of age. "What shall I do with all this money of yours?" said Mr. Sedgwick. "Fee the lawyers handsomely; pay 'em well," said she, "and keep the rest till I want it." She was offered every inducement to return to Colonel Ashley's, but she recoiled from all that reminded her of slavery. She begged the Sedgwicks to take her into their family, which they did;and with them she spent twenty years of great comfort. Her example was followed by many slaves; and from the day of her emancipation in 1772, more and more claimants were decreed free under the Bill of Rights, till slavery was abolished in Massachusetts.
Her services to the Sedgwick family are gratefully remembered by them. She is believed to have saved her master's life by following her own judgment in his treatment when she was nursing him in a dangerous fever. When her master was in Boston, and the rural districts were liable to nightly visitations from marauders after Shay's war (as an insurrection in Massachusetts was called), the village of Stockbridge, in the absence of the gentlemen, depended on Mum Bett for its safety, so general was the confidence in her wisdom and courage. The practice of the marauders was to enter and plunder gentlemen's houses in the night, on pretence of searching for ammunition and prisoners. Mum Bett declared that she could have no cowards in the village; as many as were afraid had better go up the hills to sleep. Several children and a few women went up the hills in the evening to farmhouses which were safe from intrusion. All brought their valuables of small bulk to Mum Bett for security. Everybody's watches, gold chains, rings, and other trinkets were deposited in an iron chest in the garret where Mum Bett slept.
The marauders arrived one night when Mrs. Sedgwick was very ill, and Mum Bett was unwilling to admit them. She quietly told her mistress that her pistols were loaded, and that a few shots from the windows would probably send the wretches away, as they could not be sure but that there were gentlemen in the house. Her mistress, however, positively ordered her to let the people in without delay. Mum Bett obeyed the order with much unwillingness. She appeared at the door with a large kitchen shovel in one hand and a light in the other, and assured the strangers that they would find nothing of what they asked for; neither Judge Sedgwick, nor ammunition and prisoners. They chose to search the house, however, as she had expected. Her great fear was that they would drink themselves intoxicated in the cellar, and become unmanageable; and she had prepared for this by putting rows of porter bottles in front of the wine and spirits, having drawn the corks to let the porter get flat, and put them in again. The intruders offered to take thelight from her hand, but she held it back, saying that no one should carry the light but herself. Here was the way to the cellars, and there was the way to the chambers: she would light the gentlemen wherever they chose to go, but she would not let the house be set on fire over her sick mistress's head. "The gentlemen" went down to the cellar first. One of the party broke the neck of a bottle of porter, for which she rebuked him, saying, that if they wished to drink, she would fetch the corkscrew, and draw the cork, and they might drink like gentlemen; but that, if any one broke the neck of another bottle, she would lay him low with her shovel. The flat porter was not to the taste of the visiters, who made wry faces, and said, if gentlemen liked such cursed bitter stuff, they might keep it, and praised spirits in comparison; upon which Mum Bett coolly observed that they were "sort o' gentlemen that lived here that did not drink spirits."
At the foot of the cellar stairs stood a barrel of pickled pork, out of which the intruders began helping themselves. In a tone of utter scorn Mum Bett exclaimed, "Ammunition and prisoners, indeed! You come for ammunition and prisoners, and take up with pickled pork!" They were fairly ashamed, and threw back the pork into the barrel. They went through all the chambers, poking with their bayonets under the beds, lest Judge Sedgwick should be there. At last, to Mum Bett's sorrow, they decided to search the garrets. In hers the iron chest came into view. She hoped in vain that they would pass it over. One of the party observed that it looked as if it held something. Mum Bett put down the light, kneeled on the chest, and brandished her weapon, saying, "This is my chist, and let any man touch it at his peril." The men considered the matter not worth contesting, and went down stairs. They were actually departing without having met with a single article of value enough to carry away, when a young lady, a niece of Judge Sedgwick's, wishing to be civil to the wretches, asked them, at the hall door, whether they would like to see the stables. They were glad of the hint, and stole one horse (if I remember right), and ruined another with hard riding. Mum Bett's expression of wrath was, "If I had thought the pesky fools would have done such a thing, I would have turned the horses loose over night in the meadow; they would have come back at my call in the morning."
She was considered as connected with Judge Sedgwick's family after she had left their house for a home of her own. By her great industry and frugality she supported a large family of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. There was nothing remarkable about her husband, and her descendants do not appear to have inherited her genius. Mum Bett lies in the Stockbridge graveyard, in the corner where the people of colourlie apart. Her epitaph, written by a son of Judge Sedgwick, is as follows:—
ELIZABETH FREEMAN,Known by the name ofMum Bett,Died December 28, 1829. Her supposed age was 85 years.She was born a slave, and remained a slave for nearly thirty years:she could neither read nor write, yet in her own sphere shehad no superior nor equal: she neither wasted time norproperty: she never violated a trust, nor failed toperform a duty. In every situation of domestictrial, she was the most efficient helperand the tenderest friend.Good Mother Farewell.
As far as energy and talent are concerned, I should not hesitate to say that in her own sphere Mum Bett "had no superior nor equal;" and the same may be said about the quality of fidelity. I know of a slave in Louisiana who picked up a parcel containing 10,000 dollars, and returned it, with much trouble, to its owner. I know of a slave in South Carolina, belonging to a physician, who drives his master's gig, and has made a wonderful use of what he sees in the course of his morning's duty. While waiting for his master at the doors of patients, this slave occupied himself with copying in the sandy soil the letters he saw on signs. When he believed he had caught the method, he begged a slate, or paper and pencil, and brought home his copies, coaxing the boys of the family to tell him the names of the letters. He then put them together, and thus learned to read and write, without any further help whatever. Having once discovered his own power of doing and learning, he went on in the only direction which seemed open to him. He turned his attention to mechanism, and makes miniature violins and pianos of surprising completeness, but no use. Here he will most likely stop; for there is no probability of his ever ceasing to be a slave, or having opportunity toturn to practical account a degree of energy, patience, and skill which, in happier circumstances, might have been the instruments of great deeds.
The energies of slaves sometimes take a direction which their masters contrive to render profitable, when they take to religion as a pursuit. The universal, unquenchable reverence for religion in the human mind is taken advantage of when the imagination of the slave has been turned into the channel of superstition. It is a fact, that in the newspapers of New-Orleans may be seen an advertisement now and then of a lot of "pious negroes." Such "pious negroes" are convenient on a plantation where the treatment is not particularly mild; as they consider nonresistance a Christian duty, and are able to inspire a wonderful degree of patience into their fellow-sufferers.
The vigour which negroes show when their destiny is fairly placed in their own hands, is an answer to all arguments about their helplessness drawn from their dulness in a state of bondage. A highly satisfactory experiment upon the will, judgment, and talents of a large body of slaves was made a few years ago by a relative of Chief-justice Marshall. This gentleman and his family had attached their negroes to them by a long course of judicious kindness. At length an estate at some distance was left to the gentleman, and he saw, with much regret, that it was his duty to leave the plantation on which he was living. He could not bear the idea of turning over his people to the tender mercies or unproved judgment of a stranger overseer. He called his negroes together, told them the case, and asked whether they thought they could manage the estate themselves. If they were willing to undertake the task, they must choose an overseer from among themselves, provide comfortably for their own wants, and remit him the surplus of the profits. The negroes were full of grief at losing the family, but willing to try what they could do. They had an election for overseer, and chose the man their master would have pointed out; decidedly the strongest head on the estate. All being arranged, the master left them, with a parting charge to keep their festivals, and take their appointed holydays as if he were present. After some time he rode over to see how all went on, choosing a festival day, that he might meet them in their holyday gayety. He was surprised, on approaching, to hear no merriment; and, onentering his fields, he found his "force" all hard at work. As they flocked round him, he inquired why they were not making holyday. They told him that the crop would suffer in its present state by the loss of a day, and that they had therefore put off their holyday, which, however, they meant to take by-and-by. Not many days after an express arrived to inform the proprietor that there was an insurrection on his estate. He would not believe it; declared it impossible, as there was nobody to rise against; but the messenger, who had been sent by the neighbouring gentlemen, was so confident of the facts, that the master galloped, with the utmost speed, to his plantation, arriving as night was coming on. As he rode in a cry of joy arose from his negroes, who pressed round to shake hands with him. They were in their holyday clothes, and had been singing and dancing. They were only enjoying the deferred festival. The neighbours, hearing the noise on a quiet working day, had jumped to the conclusion that it was an insurrection.
There is no catastrophe yet to this story. When the proprietor related it, he said that no trouble had arisen; and that for some seasons, ever since this estate had been wholly in the hands of his negroes, it had been more productive than it ever was while he managed it himself.
The finest harvest-field of romance perhaps in the world is the frontier between the United States and Canada. The vowed student of human nature could not do better than take up his abode there, and hear what fugitives and their friends have to tell. There have been no exhibitions of the forces of human character in any political revolution or religious reformation more wonderful and more interesting than may almost daily be seen there. The impression on even careless minds on the spot is very strong. I remember observing to a friend in the ferryboat, when we were crossing the Niagara from Lewistown to Queenstown, that it seemed very absurd, on looking at the opposite banks of the river, to think that, while the one belonged to the people who lived on it, the other was called the property of a nation three thousand miles off, the shores looking so much alike as they do. My friend replied with a smile, "Runaway slaves see a great difference." "That they do!" cried the ferryman, in a tone of the deepest earnestness. He said that the leap ashore of an escaped slave is a sight unlike any other that can be seen.
On other parts of the frontier I heard tales which I grieve that it is not in my power to tell, so honourable are they to individuals of both races, friends of the slaves. The time may come when no one will be injured by their being made public. Meantime, I will give one which happened many years ago, and which relates to a different part of the country.
A., now an elderly man, was accustomed in his youth to go up and down the Mississippi on trading expeditions; and both in these and in subsequent wanderings of many years—to Hayti among other places—he has had opportunity to study the character of the negro race; and he is decidedly of opinion that there is in them only a superinduced inferiority to the whites. In relating his experiences among the coloured people, he told the following story:—
When he was a young man, he was going down the Mississippi in a boat with a cargo of salt, when he stopped at a small place on the Kentucky shore called Unity, opposite to a part of Arkansas. While he was there a slavetrader came up with his company of upward of two hundred slaves, whom he was conveying to the New-Orleans market. Among these A. remarked a gigantic mulatto—handsome in countenance and proud in bearing—who was nearly naked, and fettered. He had an iron band round his waist and round each wrist, and these bands were connected by chains. The trader observed to A. that this man was the most valuable slave he had ever had on sale. I think he said that he would not take two thousand dollars for him; he added that he was obliged to chain him, as he was bent on getting away. When the trader's back was turned, the mulatto looked at A. as if wishing to talk with him.
"Why are you chained in this way?" asked A.
"Because my master is afraid of losing me. He knows that I am the most valuable slave he has, and that I mean to get away."
"Have you told him so?"
"Yes."
"And how do you mean to get away?"
"I don't know; but I mean it."
After a pause, he said in a low voice to A.,
"Could not you give me a file?"
"No," said A., decidedly. "Do you think I don't know the law? Do you think I am going to help you away, and get punished for it? No; I can't give you a file."
As A. went back to his boat he saw the slave looking wistfully after him, and his heart smote him for what he had said. He bethought himself that if he could manage to put an instrument of deliverance in the man's way without touching it, he might keep within the letter of the law, and he acted upon this notion. He looked about his boat, and found a strong three-sided file, which he put between his coat and waistcoat, so that it would be sure to drop out when the coat was unbuttoned. He sauntered back on shore, and the mulatto, who watched all his movements, came up to him, eagerly whispering,
"Have you got a file? Are you going to give me a file?"
"No," said A. "I told you that I knew better than to give you a file."
The slave's countenance fell.
"However," continued A., "I should not wonder if I can tell you where to get one. If you look about by yonder woodpile, I think, perhaps, you may find a file. No, not now. Go back to your company now, and don't look at me; and, when I am gone on board my boat, you can wander off to the woodpile."
A. unbuttoned his coat as he appeared to be picking up the scattered wood round the pile, and presently returned to his boat, whence he saw the mulatto presently walk to the woodpile, and stoop down just at the right spot. A. watched all day and late into the night, but he saw and heard nothing more.
In the morning the slavetrader came on board the boat, exclaiming angrily that A. had a slave of his concealed there. A. desired him to search the boat, which he did, looking behind every bag of salt. He was confident that A. must have helped the man away; chained as he was, he could not have got off without help. As for himself, he had rather have lost thousands of dollars than this man; but he always knew it would be so; the fellow always said he would get away.
Thus grumbling, the trader departed to make search in another direction. In an hour he returned, saying that the slave must either be drowned or have got over into Arkansas. His irons and a strong file were lying on a point of land projecting into the river about a mile off, and the marks were visible where the fugitive had taken the water. A.went, and long did he stay, questioning and meditating; and during all the years that have since elapsed, it has been his frequent daily and nightly speculation whether the mulatto escaped or perished. Sometimes, when he remembers the gigantic frame of the man, and the force of the impulse which urged him, A. hopes that it may have been possible for him to reach the opposite shore. At other times, when he thinks of the width of the Mississippi at that part, and of the tremendous force of the current, which would warrant the assertion that it is impossible for a swimmer to cross, he believes himself convinced that the fugitive has perished. Yet still the hope returns that the strong man may be living in wild freedom in some place where the sense of safety and peace may have taught him to forgive and pity his oppressors.
"Though everybody cried 'Shame!' and 'Shocking!' yet everybody visited them."—Miss Edgeworth.
When arrived at the extreme southwest point of our journey, it was amusing to refer to the warnings of our kind friends about its inconveniences and dangers. We had brought away tokens of the hospitality of Charleston in the shape of a large basket of provision which had been prepared, on the supposition that we should find little that we could eat on the road. There was wine, tea, and cocoa; cases of French preserved meat, crackers (biscuits), and gingerbread. All these good things, except the wine and crackers, we found it expedient to leave behind, from place to place. There was no use in determining beforehand to eat them at any particular meal; when it came to the point, we always found hunger or disgust so much more bearable than the shame of being ungracious to entertainers who were doing their best for us, that we could never bring ourselves to produce our stores. We took what was set before us, and found ourselves, at length, alive and well at New-Orleans.
At Mobile I met some relatives, who kindly urged my taking possession of their house at New-Orleans during my stay of ten days. I was thankful for the arrangement, as the weather was becoming hot, and we could secure more leisure and repose in a house of our own than in a boarding-house or as the guests of a family. With the house we were, of course, to have the services of my friend's slaves. He told me something of their history. He had tried all ways to obtain good service, and could not succeed. He had attempted wages, treating his people like free servants, &c., and all in vain. His present plan was promising them freedom and an establishment in a free state after a short term of years in case of good desert. He offered to take care of the money they earned during their leisure hours, and to pay them interest upon it, but they preferred keeping it in their own hands. One of them sewed up 150 dollars in her bed; she fell ill, and the person who nursed her is supposed to have got the money; for, when the poor slave recovered, her earnings were gone.
We left Mobile for New-Orleans on the 24th of April. The portion of forest which we crossed in going down from Mobile to the coast was the most beautiful I had seen. There was fresh grass under foot, and the woods were splendid with myrtles, magnolias, and many shrubs whose blossoms were new to me and their names unknown. We had plenty of time to look about us; for the hack which carried the four passengers whom the stage would not contain broke down every half hour, and the stage company had to stop till it could proceed. We had an excellent dinner in the gallery of a loghouse in the midst of the forest, where we were plentifully supplied with excellent claret. There had been showers all day, with intervals of sunshine, but towards sunset the settled gloom of the sky foreboded a night of storm. I was on the watch for the first sight of the Gulf of Mexico. I traced the line where the forest retires to give place to the marsh, and the whole scene assumes a sudden air of desolation. At this moment the thunder burst, sheets of lightning glared over the boiling sea, and the rain poured down in floods. Our umbrellas were found to be broken, of course; and we had to run along the pier to the steamboat in such a rain as I was never before exposed to; but it was well worth while getting wet for such a first sight of the Gulf of Mexico. It soon grewdark; and, before morning, we were in Lake Pontchartrain, so that this stormy view of the gulf was the only one we had.
We amused ourselves in the morning with tracing the dim shores of the State of Mississippi to the north, and of Louisiana to the west. About nine o'clock we arrived in sight of the long piers which stretch out from the swamp into the lake, the mudcraft, the canoes, with blacks fishing for crabs; the baths, and the large Washington hotel, with its galleries and green blinds, built for coolness, where gentlemen from New-Orleans go to eat fish and bathe. Next we saw the train of railroad cars waiting for us; and, without the loss of a moment's time, we were whirled away to the city, five miles in a quarter of an hour. I have expressed elsewhere[16]my admiration of the swamp through which our road lay; an admiration which faded as we traversed the lower faubourg, and died away in the Champs Elysées. Before ten o'clock we were breaking the seals of our English letters in the drawing-room of our temporary home.
When we had satisfied ourselves with home news, unpacked, dressed, and lunched, we took our seats by the window in the intervals of visits from callers. All was very new, very foreign in its aspect. Many of the ladies in the streets wore caps or veils instead of bonnets; the negroes who passed shouted their very peculiar kind of French; and everything seemed to tell us that we had plunged into the dogdays. I never knew before how impressions of heat can be conveyed through the eye. The intensity of glare and shadow in the streets, and the many evidences that the fear of heat is the prevailing idea of the place, affect the imagination even more than the scorching power of the sun does the bodily frame.
I was presented with a pamphlet written by a physician, which denies the unhealthiness of New-Orleans as strenuously as some of its inhabitants deny its immorality. To me it appears that everything depends on what is understood by Morals and Health. As to the morals of the city, I have elsewhere stated the principal facts on which my unfavourable judgment is founded.[17]In regard to another department of morals, the honourable fact of the generous charity of New-Orleans to strangers should be stated. Great numbersof sick and destitute foreigners are perpetually thrown upon the mercy of the inhabitants, and that mercy is unbounded. I have reason to believe that the sick are not merely nursed and cured, but provided with funds before departing. When I visited the hospital, it contained two hundred and fifty patients, not above fifty of whom were Americans. As to the health of the place, I believe the average is good among that portion of the population which can afford to remove northward for the hot months; but very low if the total white population be included. The pamphlet which I read argues that, though the fever is very destructive during a portion of the year, mortality from other diseases is much below the common average; that the variations of temperature are slight, though frequent; and that the average of children and old persons is high. All this may be true; but a place must be called peculiarly unhealthy whose inhabitants are compelled, on pain of death, to remove for three or four months of every year. Instead of arguing against such a fact as this, many citizens are hoping and striving to put an end to the necessity of such a removal. They hope, by means of draining and paving, to render their city habitable all the year round. Plans of drainage are under consideration, and I saw some importations of paving-stones. The friends of the New-Orleans people can hardly wish them a greater good than the success of such attempts; for the perpetual shifting about which they are subjected to by the dread of the fever is a serious evil to sober families of an industrious, domestic turn. It is very injurious to the minds of children and to the habits of young people, and a great hardship to the aged. I was struck with a remark which fell from a lady about her children's exercise in the open air. She said that she always took them out when the wind blew from over the lake, and kept them at home in warm weather when it blew from any other quarter, as it then only made them "more languid" to go out. This did not tend to confirm the doctrine of the pamphlet; but I was not surprised at the remark when I looked abroad over the neighbouring country from the top of the hospital. Thence I saw the marsh which was given to Lafayette, and which he sold, not long before his death, to a London firm, who sold it again. On this marsh, most of which was under water, the city of New-Orleans was begun. A strip of buildings was carried to the river bank, where the city spread.
In the midst of the flooded lots of ground stood the gas-works; surrounded by stagnant ponds lay the Catholic cemetery. The very churches of the city seemed to spring up out of the water. The blossomy beauties of the swamp could not be seen at this height, and all looked hideously desolate in the glaring sun. The view from the turret of the Cotton-press is much more advantageous. It commands many windings of the majestic river, and the point where it seems to lose itself in the distant forest; while below appears everything that is dry in all the landscape: the shipping, the Levée, the busy streets of the city, and the shady avenues of the suburbs.
The ladies of New-Orleans walk more than their countrywomen of other cities, from the streets being in such bad order as to make walking the safest means of locomotion. The streets are not very numerous; they are well distinguished, and lie at right angles, and their names are clearly printed up; so that strangers find no difficulty in going about, except when a fall of rain has made the crossings impassable. The heat is far less oppressive in the streets than in the open country, as there is generally a shady side. We were never kept within doors by the heat, though summer weather had fairly set in before our arrival. We made calls, and went shopping and sight-seeing, much as we do in London; and, moreover, walked to dinner visits, to the theatre, and to church, while the sun was blazing as if he had drawn that part of the world some millions of miles nearer to himself than that in which we had been accustomed to live. It is in vain to attempt describing what the moonlight is like. We walked under the long rows of Pride-of-India trees on the Ramparts, amid the picturesque low dwellings of the Quadroons, and almost felt the glow of the moonlight, so warm, so golden, so soft as I never saw it elsewhere. We were never tired of watching the lightning from our balcony, flashing through the first shades of twilight, and keeping the whole heaven in night-long conflagration. The moschetoes were a great and perpetual plague, except while we were asleep. We found our moscheto-curtains a sufficient protection at night; but we had to be on the watch against these malicious insects all day, and to wage war against them during the whole evening. Many ladies are accustomed, during the summer months, to get after breakfast into a large sack of muslin tied round the throat, with smaller sacks for the arms, andto sit thus at work or book, fanning themselves to protect their faces. Others sit all the morning on the bed, within their moscheto-curtains. I wore gloves and prunella boots all day long, but hands and feet were stung through all the defences I could devise. After a while the sting of the moscheto ceases to irritate more than the English gnat-sting; but, to strangers, the suffering is serious; to those of feverish habit, sometimes dangerous.
Sunday is the busiest day of the week to the stranger in New-Orleans. There is first the negro market to be seen at five o'clock. We missed this sight, as the mornings were foggy, and it was accounted unsafe to go out in the early damp. Then there is the Cathedral to be attended, a place which the European gladly visits, as the only one in the United States where all men meet together as brethren. As he goes, the streets are noisy with traffic. Some of those who keep the Sunday sit at their doors or windows reading the newspapers or chatting with their acquaintance. Merchants are seen hastening to the counting-house or the wharf, or busy in the stores. Others are streaming into the church doors. There are groups about the cathedral gates, the blacks and the whites parting company as if they had not been worshipping side by side. Within the edifice there is no separation. Some few persons may be in pews; but kneeling on the pavement may be seen a multitude, of every shade of complexion, from the fair Scotchwoman or German to the jet-black pure African. The Spanish eye flashes from beneath the veil; the French Creole countenance, painted high, is surmounted by the neat cap or the showy bonnet; while between them may be thrust a gray-headed mulatto, following with his stupid eyes the evolutions of the priest; or the devout negro woman telling her beads—a string of berries—as if her life depended on her task. During the preaching, the multitude of anxious faces, thus various in tint and expression, turned up towards the pulpit, afforded one of those few spectacles which are apt to haunt the whole future life of the observer like a dream. Several Protestants spoke to me of the Catholic religion as being a great blessing to the ignorant negro, viewing a ritual religion as a safe resting-place between barbarism and truth. Nothing that I saw disposed me to agree with them. I saw among Catholics of this class only the most abject worship of things without meaning, and no comprehension whateverof symbols. I was persuaded that, if a ritual religion be ever a good, it is so in the case of the most, not the least, enlightened; of those who accept the ritual as symbolical, and not of those who pay it literal worship. I could not but think that, if the undisguised story of Jesus were presented to these last as it was to the fishermen of Galilee and the peasants on the reedy banks of Jordan, they would embrace a Christianity, in comparison with which their present religion is an unintelligible and effectual mythology. But such a primitive Christianity they, as slaves, never will and never can have, as its whole spirit is destructive of slavery.
Half a year before my visit to New-Orleans, a great commotion had been raised in the city against a Presbyterian clergyman, the Rev. Joel Parker, on account of some expressions which he had been reported to have used, while on a visit in New-England, respecting the morals of New-Orleans, and especially the desecration of the Sunday. Some meddlesome person had called a public meeting, to consider what should be done with the Rev. Joel Parker for having employed his constitutional freedom of speech in declaring what almost everybody knew or believed to be true. Many gentlemen of the city were vexed at this encroachment upon the liberty of the citizen, and at the ridicule which such apparent sensitiveness about reputation would bring upon their society; and they determined to be present at the meeting, and support the pastor's rights. Matters were proceeding fast towards a condemnation of the accused and a sentence of banishment, when these gentlemen demanded that he should be heard in his own defence, a guarantee for his personal safety being first passed by the meeting. This was agreed to, and Mr. Parker appeared on the hustings. Unfortunately, he missed the opportunity—a particularly favourable one—of making a moral impression which would never have been lost. A full declaration of what he had said, the grounds of it, and his right to say it, would have turned the emotions of the assemblage, already softened in his favour, towards himself and the right. As it was, he did nothing wrong, except in as far as that he did nothing very right; but there was a want of judgment and taste in his address which was much to be regretted. He was allowed to go free for the time; but the newspapers reported all the charges against him, suppressed his replies, and lauded the citizens for not having pulled the offender to pieces; andMr. Parker's congregation were called upon, on the ground of the resolutions passed at the public meeting, to banish their pastor. They refused, and appealed to all the citizens to protect them from such oppression as was threatened. No further steps were taken, I believe, against the pastor and his people; his church flourished under this little gust of persecution; and, when I was there, a handsome new edifice was rising up to accommodate the increased number of his congregation. I wished to hear this gentleman, and was glad to find that his flock met, while the building was going on, in the vestry of the new church; a spacious crypt, which was crowded when he preached. I had not expected much from his preaching, and was therefore taken by surprise by the exceeding beauty of his discourse; beauty, not of style, but spirit. The lofty and tender earnestness of both his sentiments and manner put the observer off his watch about the composition of the sermon. I was surprised to perceive in conversation afterward tokens that Mr. Parker was not a highly-educated man. I was raised by the lofty tone of his preaching far above all critical vigilance.
I had much opportunity of seeing in the United States what is the operation of persecution on strong and virtuous minds, and I trust the lesson of encouragement will never be lost. As it is certain that the progression of the race must be carried on through persecution of some kind and degree; as it is clear that the superior spirits to whom the race owes its advancement must, by their very act of anticipation, get out of the circle of general intelligence and sympathy, and be thus subject to the trials of spiritual solitude and social enmity—since thus it has ever been, and thus, by the laws of human nature, it must ever be—it is heart-cheering and soul-staying to perceive that the effects of persecution may be, and often are, more blessed than those of other kinds of discipline. Many quail under the apprehension of persecution; some are soured by it; but some pass through the suffering, the bitter suffering of popular hatred, with a strength which intermits less and less, and come out of it with new capacities for enjoyment, with affections which can no longer be checked by want of sympathy, and with an object in life which can never be overthrown. Mr. Parker's case was not one of any high or permanent character; though, as far as his trial went, it seemed to have givencalmness and vigour to his mind. (I judge from his manner of speaking of the affair to me.) The abolitionists are the persons I have had, and always shall have, chiefly in view in speaking of the effects of persecution. They often reminded me of the remark, that you may know a philanthropist in the streets by his face. The life, light, and gentleness of their countenances, the cheerful earnestness of their speech, and the gayety of their manners, were enough to assure the unprejudiced foreign observer of the integrity of their cause and the blessedness of their pilgrim lives.
The afternoon or evening Sunday walk in New Orleans cannot fail to convince the stranger of the truth of the sayings of Mr. Parker, for which he afterward was subjected to so fierce a retribution. Whatever may be thought of the duty or expediency of a strict observance of the Sunday, no one can contend that in this city the observance is strict. In the market there is traffic in meat and vegetables, and the groups of foreigners make a Babel of the place with their loud talk in many tongues. The men are smoking outside their houses; the girls, with broad coloured ribands streaming from the ends of their long braids of hair, are walking or flirting; while veiled ladies are stealing through the streets, or the graceful Quadroon women are taking their evening airing on the Levée. The river is crowded with shipping, to the hulls of which the walkers look up from a distance, the river being above the level of the neighbouring streets. It rushes along through the busy region, seeming to be touched with mercy, or to disdain its power of mischief. It might overwhelm in an instant the swarming inhabitants of the boundless level; it looks as if it could scarcely avoid doing so; yet it rolls on within its banks so steadily, that the citizens forget their insecurity. Its breadth is not striking to the eye; yet, when one begins to calculate, the magnitude of the stream becomes apparent. A steamboat carries down six vessels at once, two on each side and two behind; and this cluster of seven vessels looks somewhat in the proportion of a constellation in the sky. From the Levée the Cathedral looks well, fronting the river, standing in the middle of a square, and presenting an appearance of great antiquity, hastened, no doubt, by the moisture of the atmosphere in which it stands.
The Levée continues to be crowded long after the sun has set. The quivering summer lightning plays over the headsof the merry multitude, who are conversing in all the tongues, and gay in all the costumes of the world.
Another bright scene is on the road to the lake on a fine afternoon. This road winds for five miles through the swamp, and is bordered by cypress, flowering reeds, fleurs-de-lis of every colour, palmetto, and a hundred aquatic shrubs new to the eye of the stranger. The gray moss common in damp situations floats in streamers from the branches. Snakes abound, and coil about the negroes who are seen pushing their canoes through the rank vegetation, or towing their rafts laden with wood along the sluggish bayou. There is a small settlement, wholly French in its character, where the ancient dwellings, painted red, and with broad eaves, look highly picturesque in the green landscape. The winding white road is thronged with carriages, driven at a very rapid rate, and full of families of children, or gay parties of young people, or a company of smoking merchants, going to the lake to drink or to bathe. Many go merely as we did, for the sake of the drive, and of breathing the cool air of the lake, while enjoying a glass of iced lemonade or sangaree.
It was along this road that Madame Lalaurie escaped from the hands of her exasperated countrymen about five years ago. The remembrance or tradition of that day will always be fresh in New-Orleans. In England the story is little, if at all, known. I was requested on the spot not to publish it as exhibiting a fair specimen of slaveholding in New-Orleans, and no one could suppose it to be so; but it is a revelation of what may happen in a slaveholding country, and can happen nowhere else. Even on the mildest supposition that the case admits of, that Madame Lalaurie was insane, there remains the fact that the insanity could have taken such a direction, and perpetrated such deeds nowhere but in a slave country.
There is, as every one knows, a mutual jealousy between the French and American creoles[18]in Louisiana. Till lately, the French creoles have carried everything their own way, from their superior numbers. I believe that even yet no American expects to get a verdict, on any evidence, from a jury of French creoles. Madame Lalaurie enjoyed a long impunity from this circumstance. She was a French creole, and her third husband, M. Lalaurie, was, I believe, a Frenchman.He was many years younger than his lady, and had nothing to do with the management of her property, so that he has been in no degree mixed up with her affairs and disgraces. It had been long observed that Madame Lalaurie's slaves looked singularly haggard and wretched, except the coachman, whose appearance was sleek and comfortable enough. Two daughters by a former marriage, who lived with her, were also thought to be spiritless and unhappy-looking. But the lady was so graceful and accomplished, so charming in her manners and so hospitable, that no one ventured openly to question her perfect goodness. If a murmur of doubt began among the Americans, the French resented it. If the French had occasional suspicions, they concealed them for the credit of their faction. "She was very pleasant to whites," I was told, and sometimes to blacks, but so broadly so as to excite suspicions of hypocrisy. When she had a dinner-party at home, she would hand the remains of her glass of wine to the emaciated negro behind her chair, with a smooth audible whisper, "Here, my friend, take this; it will do you good." At length rumours spread which induced a friend of mine, an eminent lawyer, to send her a hint about the law which ordains that slaves who can be proved to have been cruelly treated shall be taken from the owner, and sold in the market for the benefit of the State. My friend, being of the American party, did not appear in the matter himself, but sent a young French creole, who was studying law with him. The young man returned full of indignation against all who could suspect this amiable woman of doing anything wrong. He was confident that she could not harm a fly, or give pain to any human being.
Soon after this a lady, living in a house which joined the premises of Madame Lalaurie, was going up stairs, when she heard a piercing shriek from the next courtyard. She looked out, and saw a little negro girl, apparently about eight years old, flying across the yard towards the house, and Madame Lalaurie pursuing her, cowhide in hand. The lady saw the poor child run from story to story, her mistress following, till both came out upon the top of the house. Seeing the child about to spring over, the witness put her hands before her eyes; but she heard the fall, and saw the child taken up, her body bending and limbs hanging as if every bone was broken. The lady watched for many hours, and at night she saw the body brought out, a shallow holedug by torchlight in the corner of the yard, and the corpse covered over. No secret was made of what had been seen. Inquiry was instituted, and illegal cruelty proved in the case of nine slaves, who were forfeited according to law. It afterward came out that this woman induced some family connexions of her own to purchase these slaves, and sell them again to her, conveying them back to her premises in the night. She must have desired to have them for purposes of torture, for she could not let them be seen in a neighbourhood where they were known.
During all this time she does not appear to have lost caste, though it appears that she beat her daughters as often as they attempted in her absence to convey food to her miserable victims. She always knew of such attempts by means of the sleek coachman, who was her spy. It was necessary to have a spy, to preserve her life from the vengeance of her household; so she pampered this obsequious negro, and at length owed her escape to him.
She kept her cook chained within eight yards of the fireplace, where sumptuous dinners were cooked in the most sultry season. It is a pity that some of the admiring guests whom she assembled round her hospitable table could not see through the floor, and be made aware at what a cost they were entertained. One morning the cook declared that they had better all be burned together than lead such a life, and she set the house on fire. The alarm spread over the city; the gallant French creoles all ran to the aid of their accomplished friend, and the fire was presently extinguished. Many, whose curiosity had been roused about the domestic proceedings of the lady, seized the opportunity of entering those parts of the premises from which the whole world had been hitherto carefully excluded. They perceived that, as often as they approached a particular outhouse, the lady became excessively uneasy lest some property in an opposite direction should be burned. When the fire was extinguished, they made bold to break open this outhouse. A horrible sight met their eyes. Of the nine slaves, the skeletons of two were afterward found poked into the ground; the other seven could scarcely be recognised as human. Their faces had the wildness of famine, and their bones were coming through the skin. They were chained and tied in constrained postures, some on their knees, some with their hands above their heads. They hadiron collars with spikes which kept their heads in one position. The cowhide, stiff with blood, hung against the wall; and there was a stepladder on which this fiend stood while flogging her victims, in order to lay on the lashes with more effect. Every morning, it was her first employment after breakfast to lock herself in with her captives, and flog them till her strength failed.
Amid shouts and groans, the sufferers were brought out into the air and light. Food was given them with too much haste, for two of them died in the course of the day. The rest, maimed and helpless, are pensioners of the city.
The rage of the crowd, especially of the French creoles, was excessive. The lady shut herself up in the house with her trembling daughters, while the street was filled from end to end with a yelling crowd of gentlemen. She consulted her coachman as to what she had best do. He advised that she should have her coach to the door after dinner, and appear to go forth for her afternoon drive, as usual; escaping or returning, according to the aspect of affairs. It is not told whether she ate her dinner that day, or prevailed on her remaining slaves to wait upon her. The carriage appeared at the door; she was ready, and stepped into it. Her assurance seems to have paralyzed the crowd. The moment the door was shut they appeared to repent having allowed her to enter, and they tried to upset the carriage, to hold the horses, to make a snatch at the lady. But the coachman laid about him with his whip, made the horses plunge, and drove off. He took the road to the lake, where he could not be intercepted, as it winds through the swamp. He outstripped the crowd, galloped to the lake, bribed the master of a schooner which was lying there to put off instantly with the lady to Mobile. She escaped to France, and took up her abode in Paris under a feigned name, but not for long. Late one evening a party of gentlemen called on her, and told her she was Madame Lalaurie, and that she had better be off. She fled that night, and is supposed to be now skulking about in some French province under a false name.
The New-Orleans mob met the carriage returning from the lake. What became of the coachman I do not know. The carriage was broken to pieces and thrown into the swamp, and the horses stabbed and left dead upon the road. The house was gutted, the two poor girls having just timeto escape from a window. They are now living, in great poverty, in one of the faubourgs. The piano, tables, and chairs were burned before the house. The feather-beds were ripped up, and the feathers emptied into the street, where they afforded a delicate footing for some days. The house stands, and is meant to stand, in its ruined state. It was the strange sight of its gaping windows and empty walls, in the midst of a busy street, which excited my wonder, and was the cause of my being told the story the first time. I gathered other particulars afterward from eyewitnesses.
The crowd at first intended to proceed to the examination of other premises, whose proprietors were under suspicion of cruelty to their slaves; but the shouts of triumph which went up from the whole negro population of the city showed that this would not be safe. Fearing a general rising, the gentlemen organized themselves into a patrol, to watch the city night and day till the commotion should have subsided. They sent circulars to all proprietors suspected of cruelty, warning them that the eyes of the city were upon them. This is the only benefit the negroes have derived from the exposure. In reply to inquiries, I was told that it was very possible that cruelties like those of Madame Lalaurie might be incessantly in course of perpetration. It may be doubted whether any more such people exist; but if they do, there is nothing to prevent their following her example with impunity as long as they can manage to preserve that secrecy which was put an end to by accident in her case.
I could never get out of the way of the horrors of slavery in this region. Under one form or another, they met me in every house, in every street; everywhere but in the intelligence pages of newspapers, where I might read on in perfect security of exemption from the subject. In the advertising columns there were offers of reward for runaways, restored dead or alive; and notices of the capture of a fugitive with so many brands on his limbs and shoulders, and so many scars on his back. But from the other half of the newspaper, the existence of slavery could be discovered only by inference. What I saw elsewhere was, however, dreadful enough. In one house, the girl who waited on me with singular officiousness was so white, with blue eyes and light hair, that it never occurred to me that she could be aslave. Her mistress told me afterward that this girl of fourteen was such a depraved hussy that she must be sold. I exclaimed involuntarily, but was referred to the long heel in proof of the child's being of negro extraction. She had the long heel, sure enough. Her mistress told me that it is very wrong to plead in behalf of slavery that families are rarely separated; and gave me, as no unfair example of the dealings of masters, this girl's domestic history.
The family had consisted of father, mother, and four children, this girl being the eldest, and the youngest an infant at the breast. The father was first sold separately, and then the rest of the family were purchased in the market by the husband of my friend, the mother being represented to be a good cook and house servant. She proved to be both; but of so violent a temper that it was necessary to keep her own children out of her way when she had a knife in her hand, lest she should murder them. The anxiety of watching such a temper was not to be borne, and the woman was sold with her infant. Here was the second division of this family. The behaviour of the eldest girl was so outrageously profligate, that she was about to be disposed of also. And yet she was only a fair illustration of the results of the education by circumstance that slaves receive. When detected in some infamous practices, this young creature put on air of prudery, and declared that it gave her great pain to be thought immodest; that, so far from her being what she was thought, she had no wish to have any other lover than her master. Her master was so enraged at this—being a domestic Northern man, and not a planter—that he tied her to the whipping-post and flogged her severely with his own hands. The story of this dispersed and wretched family has nothing singular in it. With slight variations, it may be found repeated in every Southern settlement the traveller visits.
Just about the time that this was happening, a family in the neighbourhood was poisoned by a slave. I think one died, and the others had a narrow escape. The poisoner was sold in the market, as the proprietor could not afford to lose his human property by the law taking its course.
About the same time the cashier of a bank in New-Orleans sent one of his slaves out of the way, in order to be undisturbed in the violence which he meditated against the negro's attached wife. The negro understood the case, butdared not refuse to go where he was bid. He returned unexpectedly soon, however; found his home occupied, and stabbed the defiler of it. The cashier was the stronger man, and, in spite of his wound, he so maltreated the negro that he expired on the barrow on which he was being conveyed to jail. Nothing ensued on account of this affair; though, when the cashier was some time after found to be a defaulter, he absconded.
I would fain know what has become of a mulatto child in whom I became much interested at New-Orleans. Ailsie was eight years old, perfectly beautiful, and one of the most promising children I ever saw. She was quick, obedient, and affectionate to a touching degree. She had a kind master and mistress. Her mistress's health was delicate, and the child would watch her countenance wistfully, in the constant hope of saving her trouble. She would look very grave if the lady went up stairs with a languid step, take hold of her gown, and timidly ask, "What, an't ye well?" I used to observe her helping to dress her mistress's hair, her little hands trembling with eagerness, her eye following every glance of the eye which ever looked tenderly upon her. Her master declared he did not know what to make of the child, she looked so scared, and trembled so if she was spoken to; and she was, indeed, the most sensitive of children. As she stood at the corner of the dinner-table to fan away the flies, she was a picture from which it was difficult to turn away. Her little yellow headdress suited well with her clear brown complexion and large soft black eyes; nothing that she could at all understand of the conversation escaped her, while she never intermitted her waving of the huge brush of peacock's feathers. Her face was then composed in its intelligence, for she stood by her mistress's elbow; a station where she seemed to think no harm could befall her. Alas! she has lost her kind mistress. Amid the many sad thoughts which thronged into my mind when I heard of the death of this lady, one of the wisest and best of American women, I own that some of my earliest regrets were for little Ailsie; and when I think of her sensibility, her beauty, and the dreadful circumstances of her parentage, as told me by her mistress, I am almost in despair about her future lot; for what can her master, with all his goodness, do for the forlorn little creature's protection?None but a virtuous mistress can fully protect a female slave, and that too seldom.
Ailsie was born on an estate in Tennessee. Her father is a white gentleman not belonging to the family, her mother the family cook. The cook's black husband cherished such a deadly hatred against this poor child as to be for ever threatening her life, and she was thought to be in such danger from his axe that she was sent down the river to be taken into the family where I saw her. What a cruel world, what a hard human life must Ailsie find that she is born into!
Such facts, occurring at every step, put the stranger on the watch for every revelation of the feelings of the masters about the relation of the two races. Some minute circumstances surprised me in this connexion. At the American Theatre in New-Orleans, one of the characters in the play which my party attended was a slave, one of whose speeches was, "I have no business to think and feel."