It is remarkable to notice that, although the poor negroes are but very little acquainted with the Sacred Scriptures, yet the Almighty, apparently to show man the futility of attempting to keep the mind of his fellow-man in ignorance of Him, has imparted to the poor despised one a species of subtlety in acquiring religious knowledge, which may appear to those who are not personally acquainted with the fact, extraordinary and impossible. If God so honour the negro, and if He works for his deliverance from bondage as He has been doing, ought we to be idle? Surely if we stand calmly by, and see our brother murdered, shall not we be guilty of his blood? Some have blamed “Abolitionists" for over-zealousness; but surely no one could be too zealous for the destruction of a system which works, or can work, as described in these pages. "Let us be up and doing, for the night cometh when no man can work." "Oh, early in the morning, Early in the evening, Then we'll shout glory, glory, in my soul. Old fathers, can't you rise and tell? Then we'll shout glory, glory, in my soul." This the slaves sing to keep time while picking cotton in the fields under the burning sun; soon after, the whiplash falls on their backs by their drunken masters and overseers, till the blood runs down. And still they say that the slaves are better off than the working people in free countries, which is as big a lie as ever was told. A man by the name of Stevondecause, in South Carolina, kept a storehouse at the cross road, over the mill branch, where he sold liquor and other things to the white people at daytime; he enticed the negroes to steal at night cotton and corn, and other things, for which he gave them liquor and one thing or another; and he steals it from them by not giving them what it is worth, and tells them to go and steal more, and not let their masters see them. And when he got rich enough to buy niggers himself, he stopped trading with the others. He went across Black River Swamp, where he bought a plantation, and was one of the worst masters that ever lived. He was afraid to let any of his niggers leave his plantation at night, and told them if they did he would whip them; and why, because it takes a rough to catch a rough, and he is afraid they will steal his cotton, as he got other master's niggers to steal for him to make him rich. Mr. Neddy Anderson, and William Miles, and Stevondecause, are very bad men-more like beasts than men-they used to go about all the plantations on Sunday nights, and frighten the negroes that used to come together to hold prayer-meetings, chasing them here and there, and whipping as many as they could catch without a pass. Mr. Anderson spends a great deal of his time in plaiting whips to whip the negroes with; my mistress hired him as overseer to come and flog all the negroes, and me in particular, after Christmas, because I had a black pony. But she gave us three days at Christmas, and I have not been home since; for I and the pony gave them leg-bail for security, and thank God, got safe to a Free State. Two negroes were being taken away from their families in chains to the new countries, on the way there, the master stopped for dinner at one of the planter's houses, while the slaves were fastened to a tree. After dinner, he sent for his horse to be brought. The horse would not let the slave put the bridle on him, he bit at him. Master," said the slave, "I can't catch your horse, he bites" "Oh, well, I'll go.' He went, and said, "What are you about, sir?" and rubbing him down behind, and lifting one of his hind feet, the horse kicked his brains out. The slaves were then let loose and sent back. 66 The Rev. Mr. Reed, minister of Mount Zion Church, South Carolina, when his wife wanted him to whip her slave girl, he said, "I can't, I am a minister of the gospel." "Well, other ministers whip their niggers, and you can whip yours too." "No, I can't." "Well, I will send her to Mr. Sam. Wilson, and have her whipped." So she sat down and wrote a few lines, and she called her slave girl to her and said, "Here, Madam Manda, take this letter to Mr. Wilson." Which was five miles from her house. When he broke open the letter, he read, “Please give the bearer fifty lashes on the bare back, well put on.' The girl looked astonished, and thought she had committed some crime, and said, "Please massa, don't whip me, mistress give me this letter to give you." He said, “I don't care, I am going to give you fifty lashes." After she was flogged, she returned to her cruel mistress, who examined her back, and said, "Right good for you; I'm glad, I long wanted you whipped." A drunken slave holder, by the name of Old Billy Dunn, whipped one of his negroes to death, and dug a hole in the field, and threw him in without coffin or anything of the kind, just as dogs are buried; and in the course of time, the niggers ploughed up the bones, and said, "Brudder, this the place where Old Billy Dunn buried one of his slaves that was flogged to death." I, John Andrew Jackson, once a slave in the United States, have seen and heard all this, therefore I publish it. J. A. JACKSON. FLIGHT OF THE BONDMAN, DEDICATED TO WILLIAM W. BROWN, And Sung by the Hutchinsons. BY ELIAS SMITH. AIR-Silver Moon. From the crack of the rifle and baying of hound, CHORUS. O God, speed the flight of the desolate slave, There is room 'mong our hills for the true and the brave, Oh, sweet to the storm-driven sailor the light, O God, speed, &c. Cold and bleak are our mountains, and chilling our winds, Be the hands and the hearts which the hunted one finds, O God, speed, &c. Then list to the 'plaint of the beart-broken thrall, THE BEREAVED MOTHER. AIR-Kathleen O'More. Oh, deep was the anguish of the slave mother's heart, The lash of the master her deep sorrows mock, The babe in return, for its fond mother cries, In sorrow and woe. The harsh auctioneer, to sympathy cold, Tears the babe from its mother and sells it for gold; At last came the parting of mother and child, Her brain reeled with madness, that mother was wild; The child was borne off to a far distant clime, That poor mourning mother of reason bereft, O list ye kind mothers, to the cries of the slave; THE YANKEE GIRL. She sings by her wheel at that low cottage door, How brilliant and mirthful the light of her eye, Who comes in his pride to that low cottage door- 'Nay, Ellen, for shame! Let those Yankee fools spin, But thou art too lovely and precious a gem They shall heed thee as mistress with trembling and awe, O could ye have seen her-that pride of our girls- THE SLAVE'S SONG. AIR-Dearest May. Now, freemen, listen to my song, a story I'll relate, CHORUS. They worked me all the day, Without a bit of pay, And believed me when I told them That I would not run away. |