The above are a few specimens of the gross details, in describing the persons of females, of all ages, and the marks upon all parts of their bodies; proving incontestably, that slaveholders are in the habit not only of stripping their female slaves of their clothing, and inflicting punishment upon their 'shrinking flesh,' but of subjecting their naked persons to the most minute and revolting inspection, and then of publishing to the world the results of their examination, as well as the scars left by their own inflictions upon them, their length, size, and exact position on the body; and all this without impairing in the least, the standing in the community of the shameless wretches who thus proclaim their own abominations. That such things should not at all affect the standing of such persons in society, is certainly no marvel: how could they affect it, when the same communities enact laws requiring their own legal officers to inspect minutely the persons and bodily marks of all slaves taken up as runaways, and to publish in the newspapers a particular description of all such marks and peculiarities of their persons, their size, appearance position on the body, &c. Yea, verily, when the 'public opinion' of the community, in the solemn form of law, commands jailors, sheriffs, captains of police, &c. to divest of their clothing aged matrons and young girls, minutely examine their naked persons, and publish the results of their examination—who can marvel, that the same 'public opinion' should tolerate the slaveholders themselves, in doing the same things to their own property, which they have appointed legal officers to do as their proxies.[[37]]
[Footnote [37]: 'As a sample of these laws, we give the following extract from one of the laws of Maryland, where slaveholding 'public opinion' exists in its mildest form.'
"It shall be the duty of the sheriffs of the several counties of this state, upon any runaway servant or slave being committed to his custody, to cause the same to be advertised, &c. and to make particular and minute descriptions of the person and bodily marks, of such runaway."—Laws of Maryland of 1802, Chap. 96, Sec. 1 and 2.
That the sheriffs, jailors, &c. do not neglect this part of their official 'duty,' is plain from the minute description which they give in the advertisements of marks upon all parts of the persons of females, as well as males; and also from the occasional declaration, 'no scars discoverable on any part,' or 'no marks discoverable about her;' which last is taken from an advertisement in the Milledgeville (Geo.) Journal, June 26, 1838, signed 'T.S. Denster, Jailor.']
The zeal with which slaveholding 'public opinion' protects the lives of the slaves, may be illustrated by the following advertisements, taken from a multitude of similar ones in southern papers. To show that slaveholding 'public opinion' is the same now, that it was half a century ago, we will insert, in the first place, an advertisement published in a North Carolina newspaper, Oct. 29, 1785, by W. SKINNER, the Clerk of the County of Perquimons, North Carolina.
"Ten silver dollars reward will be paid for apprehending and delivering to me my man Moses, who ran away this morning; or I will give five times the sum to any person who will make due proof of his being killed, and never ask a question to know by whom it was done."
W. SKINNER.
Perquimons County, N.C. Oct. 29, 1785.
The late JOHN PARRISH, of Philadelphia, an eminent minister of the religious society of Friends, who traveled through the slave states about thirty-five years since, on a religious mission, published on his return a pamphlet of forty pages, entitled 'Remarks on the Slavery of the Black People.' From this work we extract the following illustrations of 'public opinion' in North and South Carolina and Virginia at that period.
"When I was traveling through North Carolina, a black man, who was outlawed, being shot by one of his pursuers, and left wounded in the woods, they came to an ordinary where I had stopped to feed my horse, in order to procure a cart to bring the poor wretched object in. Another, I was credibly informed, was shot, his head cut off, and carried in a bag by the perpetrators of the murder, who received the reward, which was said to be $200, continental currency, and that his head was stuck on a coal house at an iron works in Virginia—and this for going to visit his wife at a distance. Crawford gives an account of a man being gibbetted alive in South Carolina, and the buzzards came and picked out his eyes. Another was burnt to death at a stake in Charleston, surrounded by a multitude of spectators, some of whom were people of the first rank; ... the poor object was heard to cry, as long as he could breathe, 'not guilty—not guilty.'"