AMERICAN EFFORTS AGAINST WHITE SLAVERY.
Such stories could not be recounted in vain. Glimpses opened into the dread regions of Slavery gave a harrowing reality to all that conjecture or imagination pictured. It was, indeed, true, that our own white brethren, heirs to freedom newly purchased by precious blood, partakers in the sovereignty of citizenship, belonging to the fellowship of the Christian Church, were degraded to do the will of an arbitrary taskmaster, sold as beasts of the field, galled by manacle and driven by lash! It was true that they were held at market prices, and that their only chance of freedom was in the earnest, energetic, united efforts of their countrymen. It is not easy to comprehend the exact condition to which they were reduced. There is no reason to believe that it differed materially from that of other captives in Algiers. Masters of vessels were lodged together, and indulged with a table by themselves, though a small iron ring was attached to one of their legs, to denote that they were slaves. Seamen were taught and obliged to work at the trade of carpenter, blacksmith, or stone-mason, from six in the morning till four in the afternoon, without intermission, except for half an hour at dinner.[101] Doubtless there is exaggeration in the accounts transmitted to us. It is, however, sufficient to know that they were slaves; nor is there any other human condition which, when barely mentioned, even without one word of description, so strongly awakens the sympathies of every just and enlightened lover of his race.
To secure their freedom, informal agencies were promptly established under the direction of our minister at Paris; and the Society of Redemption—whose beneficent exertions, commencing so early in modern history, were still continued—offered their aid. Our agents were blandly entertained by that great slave-dealer, the Dey of Algiers, who informed them that he was familiar with the exploits of Washington, and, never expecting to see him, expressed a hope, that, through Congress, he might receive a full-length portrait of this hero of freedom, to be displayed in his palace at Algiers. The Dey clung to his American slaves, holding them at prices considered exorbitant, being, in 1786, $6,000 for the master of a vessel, $4,000 for a mate, $4,000 for a passenger, and $1,400 for a seaman; while the agents were authorized to offer only $200 for each.[102] In 1790 the tariff seems to have fallen. Meanwhile one obtained his freedom through private means, others escaped, and others still were liberated by the great liberator, Death. The following list, if not interesting from the names of the captives, will at least be curious as evidence of prices at that time in the slave-market.
Crew of the Ship Dolphin, of Philadelphia, captured July 30, 1785.
| Sequins. | ||||
| Richard O'Brien, master, price demanded | 2,000 | |||
| Andrew Montgomery, mate | 1,500 | |||
| Jacob Tessanier, French passenger | 2,000 | |||
| William Patterson, | seaman | (keeps a tavern) | 1,500 | |
| Philip Sloan, | " | 725 | ||
| Peleg Loring, | " | 725 | ||
| John Robertson, | " | 725 | ||
| James Hall, | " | 725 | ||
Crew of the Schooner Maria, of Boston, captured July 25, 1785.
| Isaac Stevens, master (of Concord, Mass.) | 2,000 | |
| Alexander Forsythe, mate | 1,500 | |
| James Cathcart, seaman (keeps a tavern) | 900 | |
| George Smith, | " (in the Dey's house) | 725 |
| John Gregory, | " | 725 |
| James Hermit, | " | 725 |
| ——— | ||
| 16,475 | ||
| Duty on the above sum, ten per cent | 1,647½ | |
| Sundry gratifications to officers of the Dey's household | 240⅓ | |
| ——— | ||
| Sequins 18,362⅚ | ||
| This sum being equal to $34,792.[103] | ||
In 1793 no less than one hundred and fifteen of our fellow-citizens were groaning in Algerine slavery. Their condition excited the fraternal feeling of the whole people, while it occupied the anxious attention of Congress and the prayers of the clergy. A petition from these unhappy persons, dated at Algiers, December 29, 1793, was addressed to Congress. "Your petitioners," it says, "are at present captives in this city of bondage, employed daily in the most laborious work, without any respect to persons. They pray that you will take their unfortunate situation into consideration, and adopt such measures as will restore the American captives to their country, their friends, families, and connections; and your most humble petitioners will ever pray and be thankful."[104] The action of Congress was sluggish, compared with the patriot desires throbbing through the country.
Appeals of a different character were now addressed to the country at large, and these were efficiently aided by Colonel Humphreys, the friend and companion of Washington, who was at the time our minister in Portugal. Taking advantage of the common passion for lotteries, and particularly of the custom, not then condemned, of employing them to obtain money for literary or benevolent purposes, he proposed a grand lottery, sanctioned by the United States, or particular lotteries sanctioned by individual States, to obtain the freedom of our countrymen. He then asks, "Is there within the limits of these United States an individual who will not cheerfully contribute, in proportion to his means, to carry it into effect? By the peculiar blessings of freedom which you enjoy, by the disinterested sacrifices you made for its attainment, by the patriotic blood of those martyrs of liberty who died to secure your independence, and by all the tender ties of nature, let me conjure you once more to snatch your unfortunate countrymen from fetters, dungeons, and death."
This appeal was followed by a petition from American captives in Algiers, addressed to ministers of every denomination throughout the United States, praying help. Beginning with an allusion to the day of national thanksgiving appointed by President Washington, it asks the clergy to set apart the Sunday preceding that day for sermons, to be delivered simultaneously throughout the country, pleading for their brethren in bonds.
"Reverend and Respected,—
"On Thursday, the 19th of February, 1795, you are enjoined by the President of the United States of America to appear in the various temples of that God who heareth the groaning of the prisoner, and in mercy remembereth those who are appointed to die.
"Nor are ye to assemble alone; for on this, the high day of continental thanksgiving, all the religious societies and denominations throughout the Union, and all persons whomsoever within the limits of the confederated States, are to enter the courts of Jehovah, with their several pastors, and gratefully to render unfeigned thanks to the Ruler of Nations for the manifold and signal mercies which distinguish your lot as a people: in a more particular manner, commemorating your exemption from foreign war; being greatly thankful for the preservation of peace at home and abroad; and fervently beseeching the kind Author of all these blessings graciously to prolong them to you, and finally to render the United States of America more and more an asylum for the unfortunate of every clime under heaven.
"Reverend and Respected,—
"Most fervent are our daily prayers, breathed in the sincerity of woes unspeakable, most ardent are the embittered aspirations of our afflicted spirits, that thus it may be in deed and in truth. Although we are prisoners in a foreign land, although we are far, very far, from our native homes, although our harps are hung upon the weeping-willows of Slavery, nevertheless America is still preferred above our chiefest joy, and the last wish of our departing souls shall be her peace, her prosperity, her liberty forever. On this day, the day of festivity and gladness, remember us, your unfortunate brethren, late members of the family of freedom, now doomed to perpetual confinement. Pray, earnestly pray, that our grievous calamities may have a gracious end. Supplicate the Father of Mercies for the most wretched of his offspring. Beseech the God of all Consolation to comfort us by the hope of final restoration. Implore the Jesus whom you worship to open the house of the prison. Entreat the Christ whom you adore to let the miserable captives go free.
"Reverend and Respected,—
"It is not your prayers alone, although of much avail, which we beg on the bending knee of sufferance, galled by the corroding fetters of slavery. We conjure you by the bowels of the mercies of the Almighty, we ask you in the name of your Father in Heaven, to have compassion on our miseries, to wipe away the crystallized tears of despondence, to hush the heartfelt sigh of distress, and, by every possible exertion of godlike charity, to restore us to our wives, to our children, to our friends, to our God and to yours.
"Is it possible that a stimulus can be wanting? Forbid it, the example of a dying, bleeding, crucified Saviour! Forbid it, the precepts of a risen, ascended, glorified Immanuel! Do unto us in fetters, in bonds, in dungeons, in danger of the pestilence, as ye yourselves would wish to be done unto. Lift up your voices like a trumpet; cry aloud in the cause of humanity, benevolence, philosophy: eloquence can never be directed to a nobler purpose; religion never employed in a more glorious cause; charity never meditate a more exalted flight. Oh that a live coal from the burning altar of celestial beneficence might warm the hearts of the sacred order, and impassion the feelings of the attentive hearer!
"Gentlemen of the Clergy in New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia,—
"Your most zealous exertions, your unremitting assiduities, are pathetically invoked. Those States in which you minister unto the Church of God gave us birth. We are as aliens from the commonwealth of America. We are strangers to the temples of our God. The strong arm of infidelity hath bound us with two chains; the iron one of slavery and the sword of death are entering our very souls. Arise, ye ministers of the Most High, Christians of every denomination, awake unto charity! Let a brief, setting forth our hapless situation, be published throughout the continent. Be it read in every house of worship on Sunday, the 8th of February. Command a preparatory discourse to be delivered on Sunday, the 15th of February, in all churches whithersoever this petition or the brief may come; and on Thursday, the 19th of February, complete the godlike work. It is a day which assembles a continent to thanksgiving; it is a day which calls an empire to praise. God grant, that this may be the day which emancipates the forlorn captive, and may the best blessings of those who are ready to perish be your abiding portion forever! Thus prays a small remnant who are still alive; thus pray your fellow-citizens, chained to the galleys of the impostor Mahomet.
"Signed for and in behalf of his fellow-sufferers by
"Richard O'Brien,
"In the tenth year of his captivity."[105]
"Gentlemen of the Clergy in New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia,—
The cause which inspired this appeal will indispose the candid reader to any criticism of its exuberant language. Like the drama of Cervantes setting forth the horrors of the galleys of Algiers, it was "not drawn from the imagination, but was born far from the regions of fiction, in the very heart of truth."[106] Its earnest appeals were calculated to touch the soul, and to make the very name of slavery and slave-dealer detestable.