If we look back to the advertisements, we shall see that the traders take only the younger ones, between the ages of ten and thirty. But this is only one port, and only one mode of exporting; for multitudes of them are sent in coffles over land; and yet Mr. J, Thornton Randolph represents the negroes of Virginia as living in pastoral security, smoking their pipes under their own vines and fig-trees, the venerable patriarch of the flock declaring that "he nebber hab hear such a ting as a nigger sold to Georgia all his life, unless dat nigger did someting very bad."
An affecting picture of the consequences of this traffic upon both master and slave is drawn by the committee of the volume from which we have quoted.
The writer cannot conclude this chapter better than by the language which they have used.
This system bears with extreme severity upon the slave. It subjects him to a perpetual fear of being sold to the "soul-driver," which to the slave is the realization of all conceivable woes and horrors, more dreaded than death. An awful apprehension of this fate haunts the poor sufferer by day and by night, from his cradle to his grave. Suspense hangs like a thunder-cloud over his head. He knows that there is not a passing hour, whether he wakes or sleeps, which may not be the last that he shall spend with his wife and children. Every day or week some acquaintance is snatched from his side, and thus the consciousness of his own danger is kept continually awake. "Surely my turn will come next," is his harrowing conviction; for he knows that he was reared for this, as the ox for the yoke, or the sheep for the slaughter. In this aspect, the slave's condition is truly indescribable. Suspense, even when it relates to an event of no great moment, and "endureth but for a night," is hard to bear. But when it broods over all, absolutely all that is dear, chilling the present with its deep shade, and casting its awful gloom over the future, it must break the heart! Such is the suspense under which every slave in the breeding states lives. It poisons all his little lot of bliss. If a father, he cannot go forth to his toil without bidding a mental farewell to his wife and children. He cannot return, weary and worn, from the field, with any certainty that he shall not find his home robbed and desolate. Nor can he seek his bed of straw and rags without the frightful misgiving that his wife may be torn from his arms before morning. Should a white stranger approach his master's mansion, he fears that the soul-driver has come, and awaits in terror the overseer's mandate, "You are sold; follow that man." There is no being on earth whom the slaves of the breeding states regard with so much horror as the trader. He is to them what the prowling kidnapper is to their less wretched brethren in the wilds of Africa. The master knows this, and that there is no punishment so effectual to secure labor, or deter from misconduct, as the threat of being delivered to the soul-driver.[1]
Another consequence of this system is the prevalence of licentiousness. This is indeed one of the foul features of slavery everywhere; but it is especially prevalent and indiscriminate where slave-breeding is conducted as a business. It grows directly out of the system, and is inseparable from it. * * * The pecuniary inducement to general pollution must be very strong, since the larger the slave increase the greater the master's gains, and especially since the mixed blood demands a considerably higher price than the pure black.
The remainder of the extract contains specifications too dreadful to be quoted. We can only refer the reader to the volume, p. 13.
The poets of America, true to the holy soul of their divine art, have shed over some of the horrid realities of this trade the pathetic light of poetry. Longfellow and Whittier have told us, in verses beautiful as strung pearls, yet sorrowful as a mother's tears, some of the incidents of this unnatural and ghastly traffic. For the sake of a common humanity, let us hope that the first extract describes no common event.
THE QUADROON GIRL.
The Slaver in the broad lagoon
Lay moored with idle sail;
He waited for the rising moon,
And for the evening gale.
Under the shore his boat was tied
And all her listless crew
Watched the gray alligator slide
Into the still bayou.
Odors of orange-flowers and spice
Reached them, from time to time.
Like airs that breathe from Paradise
Upon a world of crime.
The Planter, under his roof of thatch.
Smoked thoughtfully and slow;
The Slaver's thumb was on the latch,
He seemed in haste to go.
He said, "My ship at anchor rides
In yonder broad lagoon;
I only wait the evening tides,
And the rising of the moon."
Before them, with her face upraised,
In timid attitude,
Like one half curious, half amazed,
A Quadroon maiden stood.
Her eyes were large, and full of light,
Her arms and neck were bare;
No garment she wore, save a kirtle bright.
And her own long raven hair.
And on her lips there played a smile
As holy, meek, and faint.
As lights in some cathedral aisle
The features of a saint.
"The soil is barren, the farm is old,"
The thoughtful Planter said;
Then looked upon the Slaver's gold.
And then upon the maid.
His heart within him was at strife
With such accursed gains;
For he knew whose passions gave her life.
Whose blood ran in her veins.
- ↑ This horribly expressive appellation is in common use among the slaves of the breeding states.
