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THE SLAVE-TRADE IN
COLUMBIA
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"YESTERDAY, a servant an
came to my room, saying, a coloured woman wished to
speak with me. I asked the cause of her grief.
It was some time before she could so far compose her
mind as to relate to me her misfortune. She said
her husband had just been sold to a slave-driver, and
taken to the barracoons of Alexandria - that his
purchaser was intending to take him to Alabama in two or
three days - that she had four children at home.
At this point she burst into a loud expression of her
grief. Her sobbings were interrupted occasionally
with exclamations of 'O, God! O, my dear children!
O, my husband!' Then, appealing to me, 'O, master,
for God's sake, do try to get back the father of my
babes!'
"I learned that her husband went to work this morning
in the barn, husking corn, without any suspicion of the
fate that awaited him. The slave-dealer and an
assistant came and seized him, hurrying him off to the
slave-pen in Alexandria.
"The woman, hearing of it, followed him here on foot,
and sought me in the vain hope that I should be able to
assist her. The day is the coldest known here for
years; yet she has been exposed to the keen piercing
winds, although thinly clad. She had not seen her
children since morning, when she left them without
firewood. I endeavoured to soothe her feelings by
expressing some faint hope that her husband might yet be
redeemed - that I would make inquiry, and ascertain if I
could find some one who would repurchase him, and permit
him to remain in the district. I reflected upon
the barbarous law by which Congress has authorized and
encouraged such crimes, inflicting such misery upon the
down-trodden of God's poor. I trembled for my
country, when I reflected that God was just, and that
his justice will not sleep for ever. I asked
myself the question, Will Heaven permit such wicked,
barbarous cruelty to go unpunished?"
- Ashtabula Sentinel.
Leeds Anti-slavery
Series. No. 70
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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