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SLAVE BRANDING
A LETTER from an officer
on board the "Amphitrite," in the Bight of Benin, which
recently appeared in the daily papers, revives in the
public mind a recollection of the revolting cruelties to
which a portion of our race is subjected, through the
enormities of the slave-trade. He states, that six
hundred slaves were lately murdered by the chiefs at
Palma, who were unable to dispose of them.
It is evident, by the accounts received from all
sources, that, in spite of the enormous cost at which
England is keeping up a blockading squadron on the coast
of Africa, this horrible traffic is carried on with as
much activity, and with more cruelties, than ever; the
risk which the slavers run of being taken, being just
enough, and no more, to induce them to adopt certain
measures of precaution, which involved increased
sufferings and horrors to the poor wretches, who are
being carried from their native shores. All the
dreadful horrors that
imagination can picture, fall short of the appalling
reality of this nefarious trade.
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The great markets for the traffic are on the Brazilian
coasts; and it is stated, upon credible authority, that
from 50,000 to 60,000 negroes have been annually
imported into Rio Janeiro alone. Three other ports
are stated to trade, to nearly, if not quite, the same
extent, while many smaller places smuggle the unhappy
wretches ashore. One chief mart is the island of
Sanctos, or Santos, a large section of land dovetailed
in with the continent, and affording not only great
facilities for landing the slaves, but also for
secreting them afterwards, till they are marched off and
buried in the gold-mines of San Paulo, for the remainder
of their lives.
The extent to which the slave-trade is prosecuted, may
be, in some degree, judged of, when it is stated, that
the slaves carried into the Brazils, since the treaty
made with Great Britain for the suppression of the
trade, exceed two millions and a half. In fact,
when we take into consideration the trade carried on
with the Brazils, Cuba, the Southern States of America,
Morocco, Tunis, Tripoli, Egypt, Turkey, Persia, Arabia,
and the borders of Asia, it is no exaggeration to say,
that this frightful drain of human beings from the
African shores, includes no fewer than from 300,000 to
400,000 souls a-year. Upwards of 8000 of these
poor heart-broken slaves are known to have been landed
in Cuba and Brazil alone, during the year 1851.
These unfortunates are collected in the interior of
Africa, and are generally prisoners captured in some
marauding affray of one nation upon another; or they are
persons kidnapped secretly in the midnight assault.
They are attached to a strong chain, by iron collars
placed round their necks, and are thus marched down to
the barracoons near the coast, where the cargoes are
made up. Previous to embarkation, the poor
creatures are mustered, and certain figures or numbers
are branded on their naked flesh, by means of a hot
iron. This practice is truly soul-sickening.
Some of the victims undergo the torture in dogged and
sullen silence; others are overcome by pain and terror;
and it is often necessary to bind and gag them before
the deed can be done.
We were long unwilling to believe that the branding of
slaves with hot irons was still practised, but we blush
to state that this is done in the United States of
America, where there are
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upwards of three millions of slaves. Read the
following advertisement copied from an American
newspaper: -
"TWENTY DOLLARS REWARD. - Run away from advertiser, a
negro girl named MOLLY, 16 or 17 years of age;
lately branded on the left cheek, thus, "R,' and a
piece cut off her ear on the same side; the same letter
on the inside of both legs."
The following is from an advertisement, quoted, amongst
many others, in Goodell's American Slave Code: -
"Mary has a small scar over her eye, a good
many teeth missing, the letter a branded on her cheek
and forehead."
The following is from the North Carolina Standard: -
"TWENTY DOLLARS REWARD. - Run away from the
subscriber, a negro woman and two children. The
woman is tall and black, and a few days before she went
off, I burnt her with a ot iron on the left side of
her face. I tried to make the letter M; and
she kept a cloth over her head and face, and a fly
bonnet on her head, so as to cover the burn. Her
children, &c. - MICAJAH RICKS."
On calling at the City of London News Room, 66
Cheapside (where, for a penny, papers can be seen from
all parts of the world), we took up the New Orleans
Bulletin, dated Apr. 17, 1852, and glancing over its
pages, we soon saw that American slaves are looked upon
like the "beasts which perish," rather than as fellow
immortal beings, for whom the Saviour died. From
an advertisement of a public auction by Messrs.
Palfrey & Co., in which a plantation, with
buildings, is described, we copied the following
sentence: -
"There are upon, and belonging to the place, fifty
slaves, with mules, horses, oxen, sheep, hogs, and corn
in abundance.
"A catalogue, with a description of the slaves, &c.,
may be had of the auctioneers."
Many pages might be filled with similar advertisements,
which appear in the most respectable Southern journals,
with the names of the advertisers, many of them
prominent citizens, and sometimes respectable ladies!
The seventh Report of the American Colonization Society
makes this acknowledgement: "We have never heard
of slavery in any country, ancient or modern, Pagan,
Mahometan, or Christian, so terrible in its character as
the slavery which exists in the United States."
And the Presbyterian Synod of Kentucky says: "They (the
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slaves) suffer all that can be inflicted by wanton
caprice, by grasping avarice, by brutal lust, by
malignant spite, and by insane anger. Their
happiness is the sport of every whim, the prey of every
passion that may occasionally or habitually infest the
master's bosom.'
Rev. James A. Thome, now of Ohio City, a native
of Kentucky, and son of a slaveholder, says, "Slavery is
the parent of more suffering than has flowed from any
one soure since the date of its existence. Such
suffering, too! sufferings in conceivable and
innumerable; unmingled wretchedness from the ties of
nature broken and destroyed; the acutest bodily
tortures, groans, tears, and blood; lying for ever in
weariness from the ties of nature broken and destroyed;
the acutest bodily tortures, groans, tears, and blood;
lying for ever in weariness and painfulness, in wtchings,
in hunger, and in thirst, in cold, and in nakedness."
We forbear citing further witnesses. It is
manifest that human chattels must be worse treated than
brutes, in order to be kept in chattelhood. Other
working animals are not punished as examples totheir
fellows. Other animals re not the objects of
suspicion, jealousy, lust or revenge. They are not
hated: they are not threatened; they are not conversed
and quarrelled with. They cannot be regarded
guilty, or proper subjects of censure or punishment.
They have no aspirations above their condition.
They have no keen sense of being injured by being
imbruted. They can utter no provoking language,
nor retort, nor retaliate. All these items are
bulwarks of defence to the brute, but inlets and avenues
of attack upon the slave. The individuals and
classes of men most wronged dreadful doom of the poor
negro, and he is completely under the power of his
tyrant. As the exercise of despotic power over the
defenceless makes men hard-hearted and cruel, it is
evident that the more absolute any despotism becomes,
the more cruel will the persons become who administer
it. And the most absolute form of despotism known
among men is that human chattelhood in the United States
of America.
Leeds Anti-slavery
Series. No. 23.
Sold by W. and F. G. CASH, 5,
Bishopsgate Street, London; and by JANE JOWETT, Friends'
Meeting Yard, Leeds, at 1s. 2. per 100.
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