Chapter V
., that this instrument of degradation has been in use, in our own day, in certain of the slave states, under the express sanction and protection of statute laws; although the material is different, and the construction doubtless improved by modern ingenuity.
X. _Fetters and chains were much used for punishment or restraint, and were, in some instances, worn by slaves during life, through the sole authority of the master. Porters at the gates of the rich were generally chained. Field laborers worked for the most part in irons posterior to the first ages of the republic._
The Legislature of South Carolina specially sanctions the same practices, by excepting them in the “_protective enactment_,” which inflicts the penalty of _one hundred pounds_ “in case any person shall wilfully cut out the tongue,” &c., of a slave, “or shall inflict _any other cruel_ punishment, _other than_ by whipping or beating with a horse-whip, cowskin, switch, or small stick, _or by putting irons on, or confining or imprisoning such slave_.”
XI. _Some persons made it their business to catch runaway slaves._
That such a profession, constituted by the highest legislative authority in the nation, and rendered respectable by the commendation expressed or implied of statesmen and divines, and of newspapers political and religious, exists in our midst, _especially in the free states_, is a fact which is, day by day, making itself too apparent to need testimony. The matter seems, however, to be managed in a more perfectly open and business-like manner in the State of Alabama than elsewhere. Mr. Jay cites the following advertisement from the _Sumpter County_ (Ala.) _Whig_:
NEGRO DOGS.
The undersigned having bought the entire pack of Negro Dogs (of the Hay and Allen stock), he now proposes to catch runaway negroes. His charges will be Three Dollars per day for hunting, and Fifteen Dollars for catching a runaway. He resides three and one half miles north of Livingston, near the lower Jones’ Bluff road.
WILLIAM GAMBEL.
_Nov. 6, 1845._—6m.
The following is copied, _verbatim et literatim_, and with the pictorial embellishments, from _The Dadeville_ (Ala.) _Banner_, of November 10th, 1852. _The Dadeville Banner_ is “_devoted to politics, literature, education, agriculture, &c._”
NOTICE.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
The undersigned having an excellent pack of HOUNDS, for trailing and catching runaway slaves, informs the public that his prices in future will be as follows for such services:
For each day employed in hunting or trailing, $2.50 For catching each slave, 10.00 For going over ten miles and catching slaves, 20.00
If sent for, the above prices will be exacted in cash. The subscriber resides one mile and a half south of Dadeville, Ala.
B. BLACK.
_Dadeville, Sept. 1, 1852._ 1tf
XII. _The runaway, when taken, was severely punished by authority of the master, or by the judge, at his desire; sometimes with crucifixion, amputation of a foot, or by being sent to fight as a gladiator with wild beasts; but most frequently by being branded on the brow with letters indicative of his crime._
That severe punishment would be the lot of the recaptured runaway, every one would suppose, from the “_absolute power_” of the master to inflict it. That it _is_ inflicted in many cases, it is equally easy and needless to prove. The peculiar forms of punishment mentioned above are now very much out of vogue, but the following advertisement by Mr. Micajah Ricks, in the _Raleigh_ (N. C.) _Standard_ of July 18th, 1838, shows that something of classic taste in torture still lingers in our degenerate days.
Ran away, a negro woman and two children; a few days before she went off, I burnt her with a hot iron, on the left side of her face. I tried to make the letter M.
It is charming to notice the _naïf_ betrayal of literary pride on the part of Mr. Ricks. He did not wish that letter M to be taken as a specimen of what he could do in the way of writing. The creature would not hold still, and he fears the M may be illegible.
The above is only one of a long list of advertisements of maimed, cropped and branded negroes, in the book of Mr. Weld, entitled _American Slavery as It Is_, p. 77.
XIII. _Cruel masters sometimes hired torturers by profession, or had such persons in their establishments, to assist them in punishing their slaves. The noses and ears and teeth of slaves were often in danger from an enraged owner; and sometimes the eyes of a great offender were put out. Crucifixion was very frequently made the fate of a wretched slave for a trifling misconduct, or from mere caprice._
For justification of such practices as these, we refer again to that horrible list of maimed and mutilated men, advertised by slaveholders themselves, in Weld’s _American Slavery as It Is_, p. 77. We recall the reader’s attention to the evidence of the monster Kephart, given in Part I. As to crucifixion, we presume that there are wretches whose religious scruples would deter them from this particular form of torture, who would not hesitate to inflict equal cruelties by other means; as the Greek pirate, during a massacre in the season of Lent, was conscience-stricken at having tasted a drop of blood. We presume?—Let any one but read again, if he can, the sickening details of that twelve hours’ torture of Souther’s slave, and say how much more merciful is American slavery than Roman.
The last item in Blair’s description of Roman slavery is the following:
_By a decree passed by the Senate, if a master was murdered when his slaves might possibly have aided him, all his household within reach were held as implicated, and deserving of death; and Tacitus relates an instance in which a family of four hundred were all executed._
To this alone, of all the atrocities of the slavery of old heathen Rome, do we fail to find a parallel in the slavery of the United States of America.
There are other respects, in which American legislation has reached a refinement in tyranny of which the despots of those early days never conceived. The following is the language of Gibbon:
Hope, the best comfort of our imperfect condition, was not denied to the Roman slave; and if he had any opportunity of rendering himself either useful or agreeable, he might very naturally expect that the diligence and fidelity of a few years would be rewarded with the inestimable gift of freedom. * * * Without destroying the distinction of ranks, a distant prospect of freedom and honors was presented even to those whom pride and prejudice almost disdained to number among the human species.[14]
The youths of promising genius were instructed in the arts and sciences, and their price was ascertained by the degree of their skill and talents. Almost every profession, either liberal or mechanical, might be found in the household of an opulent senator.[15]
The following chapter will show how “the best comfort” which Gibbon knew for human adversity is taken away from the American slave; how he is denied the commonest privileges of education and mental improvement, and how the whole tendency of the unhappy system, under which he is in bondage, is to take from him the consolations of religion itself, and to degrade him from our common humanity, and common brotherhood with the Son of God.
-----
Footnote 13:
See also the case of _State_ v. _Abram, 10 Ala. 928. 7 U. S. Dig._ p. 449. “The master or overseer, and not the slave, is the proper judge whether the slave is too sick to be able to labor. The latter cannot, therefore, resist the order of the former to go to work.”
Footnote 14:
Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall,” Chap. II.
Footnote 15:
Ibid.
##