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APPALLING FEATURES
OF SLAVERY
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"THERE was a planter
named Anthony Williams who lived upon the Red
River. This Williams tied up a poor slave,
and gave him a THOUSAND lashes on the bare back. I
saw it done myself. About six weeks after that
time, said Williams came out to the field where
the slaves were at work, and brought with him his
double-barrelled hunting-piece. He leaned the gun
in the crotch of an apple-tree, and stepped forward to
the head of the gang to speak to the overseer, who was
on horseback. In the meantime, the above-mentioned
slave lagged behind; and, as Williams came back,
the slave caught up the gun, and fired at Williams.
The first shot shattered his master's arm only; but the
slave fired the second charge directly into his head,
and sent him to his own place.
"I well remember a circumstance of inhuman
cruelty and brutality that I witnessed near Natchez,
when I was only about seven years of age. I went
out one morning, in company with some other little boys,
to hunt monkeys. These animals abounded in that
country at that time; and we climbed on a rail fence
near by, and there sat, for some little time, to see the
'hands' hoe cotton. One of these 'hands' was a
black woman, who had a child at her breast, aged about
six or seven months. The slaves are in the habit
of taking their children out to the fields, and leaving
them in the shade, or bushes alongside the fence, giving
the child nutriment occasionally, as the overseer may
order.
"The 'hands,' in this case, were each hoeing their row
of cotton, and were some twenty yards from the fence,
when, all at once, the babe began to scream as though
its little heartstrings would break. No slaves are
allowed to leave their work, in that country, without
leave of the overseer; but, in this case, the maternal
feelings of the frantic mother rose beyond
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the fear of orders, and she rushed to the rescue of her
child, which was struggling with a huge snake. The
overseer (John Manning was his infamous name)
cried out, 'Stick to your work, or I'll cut you in
pieces!' But that poor trembling mother kept on
her maternal errand of mercy, snatched up the little
one, the snake wound around it: the overseer followed on
close at her heels, with his curses and imprecations
upon the woman for leaving her work without orders.
He stripped her as naked as the day she was born,
fastened a rope around two hands, and ordered two other
slaves to climb a tree with the other end of the rope,
and to pull this woman up so that her extremities would
be about two feet from the ground; and this overseer,
with his terrible lash, whipped this poor ill-fated
creature to the extent of three hundred lashes. He
literally 'cut her to pieces,' as he had said he would
do.
"I distinctly recollect the language of this victim,
until she got so faint that she could no longer speak,
but hung to the rope as a dead person, without any
living motion whatever.
"She screamed, as the lash went into her flesh, in
these words, namely, 'Pray, massa! pray, massa! O, pray
massa! Snake bite chile, massa, O, massa; forgive me,
massa! Snake bite my chile, massa! Lord, make
massa have little feeling for poor nigger! Lord,
massa, you kill me, massa! Snake bite chile, massa!'
&c., &c. And her voice became more and more faint,
till the faculty of speech was whipped out of her, so
that she hung in the lifeless manner to which I have
alluded above.
"Now, I declare in the face of God and man, that my two
eyes beheld this sight; for the proof of which I can
produce living witnesses even at this distant day.
"And I am commanded to obey the Fugitive-slave Law in
the face of these things, am I? No! I will
obey the injunctions of Jesus Christ, who has commanded
me 'to let the captive go free.' And may this hand
become withered, and this soul of mine for ever cursed,
when I cease to recognise the inspiring precepts of
Jesus, rather than to follow those of Millard Fillmore."
- Albany Busy Bee.
Leeds Anti-slavery
Series. No. 46.
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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