Not only so, but over Slave States there has always brooded an atmosphere charged with the fear which springs from the consciousness of a great wrong. The laws and customs of Sparta, for fear of the Helots, were those of a city in a perpetual state of siege. Whatever may have been the exact nature of the Crypteia, it certainly was an instrument of terrorism put in action each year against the servile class. Plato himself, when, not without a deep moral pang, he has acquiesced in the necessity of Slavery, sanctions the inhuman policy of mixing together as much as possible slaves of different races and languages, that they may not be able to communicate and conspire with each other. This policy, and that of encouraging
and slaves who lived in remote parts of the town suffered in an especial manner. In some cases the searchers scattered powder and shot among their clothes, and then sent other parties to find them, and bring them forward as proof that they were plotting insurrection. Everywhere men, women, and children were whipped till the blood stood in puddles at their feet. Some received five hundred lashes; others were tied hands and feet, and tortured with a bucking paddle, which blisters the skin terribly. The dwellings of the coloured people, unless they happened to be protected by some influential white person, who was nigh at hand, were robbed of clothing and every thing else the marauders thought worth carrying away. All day long these unfeeling wretches went round, like a troop of demons, terrifying and tormenting the helpless. At night, they formed themselves into patrol bands, and went wherever they chose among the coloured people, acting out their brutal will. Many women hid themselves in woods and swamps, to keep out of their way. If any of the husbands or fathers told of these outrages, they were tied up to the public whipping-post, and cruelly scourged for telling lies about white men. The consternation was universal. No two people that had the slightest tinge of colour in their faces dared to be seen talking together.”—The Deeper Wrong; or, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Written by Herself. Edited by L. Maria Child, pp. 98, 99.
