But the voice of nature was too weak;
He took the glittering gold!
Then pale as death grew the maiden's cheek.
Her hands as icy cold.
The Slaver led her from the door.
He led her by the hand,
To be his slave and paramour
In a strange and distant land!
BY A VIRGINIA SLAVE MOTHER TO HER DAUGHTERS, SOLD INTO SOUTHERN BONDAGE.
Gone, gone,—sold and gone,
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings.
Where the noisome insect stings.
Where the fever demon strews
Poison with the falling dews.
Where the sickly sunbeams glare
Through the hot and misty air,—
Gone, gone,—sold and gone.
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
From Virginia's hills and waters,—
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
Gone, gone,—sold and gone.
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
There no mother's eye is near them.
There no mother's ear can hear them;
Never, when the torturing lash
Seams their back with many a gash,
Shall a mother's kindness bless them,
Or a mother's arms caress them.
Gone, gone, &c.
Gone, gone,—sold and gone.
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
O, when weary, sad, and slow,
From the fields at night they go.
Faint with toil, and racked with pain.
To their cheerless homes again,—
There no brother's voice shall greet them,
There no father's welcome meet them.
Gone, gone, &c.
Gone, gone,—sold and gone.
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
From the tree whose shadow lay
On their childhood's place of play;
From the cool spring where they drank;
Rock, and hill, and rivulet bank;
From the solemn house of prayer.
And the holy counsels there,—
Gone, gone, &c.
Gone, gone,—sold and gone.
To the rice-swamp dank and lone;
Toiling through the weary day.
And at night the spoiler's prey.
O, that they had earlier died.
Sleeping calmly, side by side.
Where the tyrant's power is o'er.
And the fetter galls no more!
Gone, gone, &c.
Gone, gone,—sold and gone.
To the rice-swamp dank and lone.
By the holy love He beareth.
By the bruised reed He spareth,
O, may He, to whom alone
All their cruel wrongs are known.
Still their hope and refuge prove.
With a more than mother's love
Gone, gone, &c.
John G. Whittier.
The following extract from a letter of Dr. Bailey, in the Era, 1847, presents a view of this subject more creditable to some Virginia families. May the number that refuse to part with slaves except by emancipation increase!
The sale of slaves to the south is carried to a great extent. The slave-holders do not, so far as I can learn, raise them for that special purpose. But, here is a man with a score of slaves, located on an exhausted plantation. It must furnish support for all; but, while they increase, its capacity of supply decreases. The result is, he must emancipate or sell. But he has fallen into debt, and he sells to relieve himself from debt, and also from an excess of mouths. Or, he requires money to educate his children; or, his negroes are sold under execution. From these and other causes, large numbers of slaves are continually disappearing from the state, so that the next census will undoubtedly show a marked diminution of the slave population.
The season for this trade is generally from November to April; and some estimate that the average number of slaves passing by the southern railroad weekly, during that period of six months, is at least two hundred. A slave-trader told me that he had known one hundred pass in a single night. But this is only one route. Large numbers are sent off westwardly, and also by sea, coastwise. The Davises, in Petersburg, are the great slave-dealers. They are Jews, who came to that place many years ago as poor pedlers; and, I am informed, are members of a family which has its representatives in Philadelphia, New York, &c.! These men are always in the market, giving the highest price for slaves. During the summer and fall they buy them up at low prices, trim, shave, wash them, fatten them so that they may look sleek, and sell them to great profit. It might not be unprofitable to inquire how much Northern capital, and what firms in some of the Northern cities, are connected with this detestable business.
There are many planters here who cannot be persuaded to sell their slaves. They have far more than they can find work for, and could at any time obtain a high price for them. The temptation is strong, for they want more money and fewer dependants. But they resist it, and nothing can induce them to part with a single slave, though they know that they would be greatly the gainers in a pecuniary sense, were they to sell one-half of them. Such men are too good to be slave-holders. Would that they might see it their duty to go one step further, and become emancipators! The majority of this class of planters are religious men, and this is the class to which generally are to be referred the various cases of emancipation by will, of which from time to time we hear accounts.
CHAPTER V.
SELECT INCIDENTS OF LAWFUL TRADE, OR FACTS STRANGER THAN FICTION.
The atrocious and sacrilegious system of breeding human beings for sale, and trading them like cattle in the market, fails to produce the impression on the mind that it ought to produce, because it is lost in generalities.
