"$25 Reward.—Ran away from the subscriber, a negro woman, named Matilda. It is thought she may be somewhere up James River, as she was claimed as a wife by some boatman in Goochland. J. ALVIS."
"Stop the Runaway!!!—$25 Reward. Ranaway from the Eagle Tavern, a negro fellow, named Nat. He is no doubt attempting to follow his wife, who was lately sold to a speculator named Redmond. The above reward will be paid by Mrs. Lucy M. Downman, of Sussex county, Va."
Multitudes of advertisements like the above appear annually in the southern papers. Reader, look at the preceding list—mark the unfeeling barbarity with which their masters and mistresses describe the struggles and perils of sundered husbands and wives, parents and children, in their weary midnight travels through forests and rivers, with torn limbs and breaking hearts, seeking the embraces of each other's love. In one instance, a mother torn from all her children and taken to a remote part of another state, presses her way back through the wilderness, hundreds of miles, to clasp once more her children to her heart: but, when she has arrived within a few miles of them, in the same county, is discovered, seized, dragged to jail, and her purchaser told, through an advertisement, that she awaits his order. But we need not trace out the harrowing details already before the reader.
Rev. C.S. RENSHAW, of Quincy, Illinois, who resided some time in Kentucky, says;—
"I was told the following fact by a young lady, daughter of a slaveholder in Boone county, Kentucky, who lived within half a mile of Mr. Hughes' farm. Hughes and Neil traded in slaves down the river: they had bought up a part of their stock in the upper counties of Kentucky, and brought them down to Louisville, where the remainder of their drove was in jail, waiting their arrival. Just before the steamboat put off for the lower country, two negro women were offered for sale, each of them having a young child at the breast. The traders bought them, took their babes from their arms, and offered them to the highest bidder; and they were sold for one dollar apiece, whilst the stricken parents were driven on board the boat; and in an hour were on their way to the New Orleans market. You are aware that a young babe decreases the value of a field hand in the lower country, whilst it increases her value in the 'breeding states.'"
The following is an extract from an address, published by the Presbyterian Synod of Kentucky, to the churches under their care, in 1835:—
"Brothers and sisters, parents and children, husbands and wives, are torn asunder, and permitted to see each other no more. These acts are DAILY occurring in the midst of us. The shrieks and the agony, often witnessed on such occasions, proclaim, with a trumpet tongue, the iniquity of our system. There is not a neighborhood where these heart-rending scenes are not displayed. There is not a village or road that does not behold the sad procession of manacled outcasts, whose mournful countenances tell that they are exiled by force from ALL THAT THEIR HEARTS HOLD DEAR."—Address, p. 12.
Professor ANDREWS, late of the University of North Carolina, in his recent work on Slavery and the Slave Trade, page 147, in relating a conversation with a slave-trader, whom he met near Washington City, says, he inquired,
"'Do you often buy the wife without the husband?' 'Yes, VERY OFTEN; and FREQUENTLY, too, they sell me the mother while they keep her children. I have often known them take away the infant from its mother's breast, and keep it, while they sold her.'"
The following sale is advertised in the "Georgia Journal," Jan, 2, 1838.