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TENDER MERCIES OF
THE DOMESTIC INSTITUTION
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"The crying injustice and
cruelty of slavery had frequently engaged my attention
during the course of this journey; but never more than
while I was in this place, where this oppressed race are
very numerous, and frequently sold at auction like
cattle. At one of these sales, I was much affected
in hearing a
young coloured man pleading his cause. His aged
father and mother, and his wife and child were all
mounted upon a stage, so that they might be seen by the
bidders, they being about to be sold. The young
man stepped forward, and stood by them; but was soon
ordered down. He said he wanted to be sold with
them; but was told that he could not, as it was a sale
to satisfy a mortgage upon the others, in which he was
not included. He pleaded with very affecting and
moving language, to show how hard it was to be separated
from his family; but it was all to no purpose.
When he saw that his prayers were unheeded, and
that the others would be sold without him, he burst into
a flood of tears, and, in the anguish of his feelings,
besought them rather to kill him; 'For,' said he, 'I
would rather die than be separated from my family.
'Upon which he was dragged off the scaffold, and driven
away. The company went on bidding,
apparently as unconcerned as though the auctioneer had
been selling a sheep; while the screams and prayers of
the aged parents and the bereaved wife, with her infant
in her arms, went up to heaven in behalf of themselves,
and especially for the poor young man who had been so
inhumanly torn from them. Besides these victims of
cruel and unchristian avarice, there was a
large number more confined in a cellar, who were brought
out and sold to different purchasers. Thus it is
that near relatives are violently separated, never to
see each other in this world!" —Extract
of a Letter received by Nathan Hinshaw, of Randolph
County, Indiana, from a Correspondent in the South.
Leeds Anti-slavery
Series. No. 53.
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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