"The woman thus situated had been for more than a day in travail, without any assistance, any nurse, or any kind of proper provision—during the night she said some fellow slave woman would stay with her, and the aforesaid children through the day. From a woman, who was a slave of Keen's at the same time, my informant learned, that this poor woman suffered for three days, and then died—when too late to save her life her master sent assistance. It was understood to be a rule of his, to neglect his women entirely in such times of trial, unless they previously came and informed him, and asked for aid."
Rev. PHINEAS SMITH, of Centreville, N.Y, who has resided four years at the south, says:
"Often when the slaves are sick, their accustomed toil is exacted from them. Physicians are rarely called for their benefit."
Rev. HORACE MOULTON, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal church in Marlborough, Mass., who resided a number of years in Georgia, says:
"Another dark side of slavery is the neglect of the aged and sick. Many when sick, are suspected by their masters of feigning sickness, and are therefore whipped out to work after disease has got fast hold of them; when the masters learn, that they are really sick, they are in many instances left alone in their cabins during work hours; not a few of the slaves are left to die without having one friend to wipe off the sweat of death. When the slaves are sick, the masters do not, as a general thing, employ physicians, but "doctor" them themselves, and their mode of practice in almost all cases is to bleed and give salts. When women are confined they have no physician, but are committed to the care of slave midwives. Slaves complain very little when sick, when they die they are frequently buried at night without much ceremony, and in many instances without any; their coffins are made by nailing together rough boards, frequently with their feet sticking out at the end, and sometimes they are put into the ground without a coffin or box of any kind."
PERSONAL NARRATIVES—PART II.
TESTIMONY OF THE REV. WILLIAM T. ALLAN, LATE OF ALABAMA.
Mr. ALLAN is a son of the Rev. Dr. Allan, a slaveholder and pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Huntsville, Alabama. He has recently become the pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Chatham, Illinois.
"I was born and have lived most of my life in the slave states, mainly in the village of Huntsville, Alabama, where my parents still reside. I seldom went to a plantation, and as my visits were confined almost exclusively to the families of professing Christians, my personal knowledge of slavery, was consequently a knowledge of its fairest side, (if fairest may be predicated of foul.)
"There was one plantation just opposite my father's house in the suburbs of Huntsville, belonging to Judge Smith, formerly a Senator in Congress from South Carolina, now of Huntsville. The name of his overseer was Tune. I have often seen him flogging the slaves in the field, and have often heard their cries. Sometimes, too, I have met them with the tears streaming down their faces, and the marks of the whip, ('whelks,') on their bare necks and shoulders. Tune was so severe in his treatment, that his employer dismissed him after two or three years, lest, it was said, he should kill off all the slaves. But he was immediately employed by another planter in the neighborhood. The following fact was stated to me by my brother, James M. Allan, now residing at Richmond, Henry county, Illinois, and clerk of the circuit and county courts. Tune became displeased with one of the women who was pregnant, he made her lay down over a log, with her face towards the ground, and beat her so unmercifully, that she was soon after delivered of a dead child.