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PLANTATION SCENES
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FEW know what slavery really is.
Its atrocities are so horrible that the relation of them
seems to be a most wicked exaggeration. The
following was related by a lady of the highest
respectability, as having occurred a few months since on
a plantation where she was temporarily residing.
The planter, with whose family she was then staying,
held about two hundred slaves on a plantation a few
miles distant from his dwelling. The slaves, as
usual, were under the charge of an overseer or driver.
The planter had, among his house-servants, a bright boy
about seventeen, a special favourite with the whole
household, who was tenderly reared. He presented
one of those cases often held up by the advocates of
slavery, to show its mild and patriarchal character; and
certainly this boy possessed all but one thing which is
essential to humanity.
He was sent one day to the plantation on an errand, and
having in some manner offended the overseer, was tied up
and severely whipped. Not having had his spirit crushed
by field practice, he felt and expressed an
indignation natural to one nurtured as he had been.
The driver ordered a pair of spirited horses to be
fastened to a plough, and having so tied the boy to it
that he could not guard himself from injury, he set them
in rapid motion round the field, with the body of the
poor boy now dragging across roots, now rebounding as it
struck the ground, and finally, his head hitting a
stump, he was instantly killed. Great
consternation and sorrow seized the family when the
account of Henry's murder reached the house.
They felt it almost as keenly as if he had been a child
or a brother.
What now was done? Was the murderer arrested?
Was the blood avenged? Was he even dismissed?
Nothing of this. He was secreted a few days, until
a coroner's verdict covered up the deed as a casualty,
and then returned to his place, with his heart harder
than ever, and all things went on as before. A
hole in the corner hides the corpse of the murdered boy,
and justice sleeps till God shall deal with his
murderer. - Christian Press.
Leeds Anti-slavery
Series. No. 40.
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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