|
BUSINESS LETTER FROM
A SLAVE-TRADER
OF NORTH CAROLINA.
---------------
SINCE the discontinuance
of the African slave-trade, some parts of America have
become great breeding districts, in which human cattle
are raised for the southern market. The following
is a specimen of the style of correspondence of
gentlemen engaged in this commerce. It is from a
North Carolina merchant to his consignee at New Orleans:
-
| |
"Halifax, North Carolina,
Nov. 16, 1839. |
"DEAR SIR,
- I have shipped in the brig, Addison, prices
as below: -
| No. |
Dollars |
| 1. Caroline Ennis, |
650 |
| 2. Silvy Holland, |
625 |
| 3. Silvy Booth, |
487.50 |
|
| No. |
Dollars |
| 4. Maria Pollock, |
475 |
| 5. Emeline Pollock |
475 |
| 6. Delia Averitt |
475 |
|
"The two girls that cost 650 and 625 dollars, were
bought before I shipped my first. I have a
great many negroes offered to me, but I will not pay
the prices they ask, for I know they will come down.
I have no opposition in market. I will wait
until I hear from you before I buy, and then I can
judge what I must pay. Goodwin will
send you the bill of lading for my negroes, as he
shipped them with his own. Write often, as the
times are critical, and it depends on the prices you
get, to govern me in buying. - Yours, &c., G. W.
Barnes.
"Mr. THEOPHILUS FREEMAN}
New Orleans
}
The above was a small, but choice invoice of wives
and mothers. Nine days before Mr. Barnes
advised Mr. Freeman of having shipped a lot
of 43 men and women, Mr. Freeman, informing
one of his correspondents of the state of the
market, writes (Sunday,21st Sept., 1839) -
"I bought a boy yesterday, 16 years old, and likely,
weighing 110 lbs., at 700 dollars. I sold
a likely girl, 12 years old, at 500 dollars. I
bought a man yesterday, 20 years old, six feet
high, at 820 dollars; one to-day (Sunday), 24
years old, at 850 dollars, black and sleek as a
mole."
Thus do the brokers in human flesh, and butchers of
human hearts,
"Guage
and span,
And buy the muscles and the bones of man!"
The American government prohibits the trading of
slaves from Africa, yet makes it lawful to buy a
fellow-countryman, and possibly a fellow-Christian,
in North Carolina, and sell him in New Orleans.
What wicked inconsistency!
Leeds Anti-slavery
Series. No. 18.
Sold by W. and F. G. CASH, 5,
Bishopsgate Street, London; and by JANE JOWETT, Friends'
Meeting Yard, Leeds, at 1s. 2. per 100.
|
