TESTIMONY.—"I lived for thirty years in Virginia, and have travelled extensively through Fauquier, Culpepper, Jefferson, Stafford, Albemarle and Charlotte Counties; my remarks apply to these Counties.
"The negro houses are miserably poor, generally they are a shelter from neither the wind, the rain, nor the snow, and the earth is the floor. There are exceptions to this rule, but they are only exceptions; you may sometimes see puncheon floor, but never, or almost never a plank floor. The slaves are generally without beds or bedsteads; some few have cribs that they fasten up for themselves in the corner of the hut. Their bed-clothes are a nest of rags thrown upon a crib, or in the corner; sometimes there are three or four families in one small cabin. Where the slaveholders have more than one family, they put them in the same quarter till it is filled, then build another. I have seen exceptions to this, when only one family would occupy a hut, and where were tolerably comfortable bed-clothes.
"Most of the slaves in these counties are miserably clad. I have known slaves who went without shoes all winter, perfectly barefoot. The feet of many of them are frozen. As a general fact the planters do not serve out to their slaves, drawers, or any under clothing, or vests, or overcoats. Slaves sometimes, by working at night and on Sundays, get better things than their masters serve to them.
"Whilst these things are true of field-hands, it is also true that many slaveholders clothe their waiters and coachmen like gentlemen. I do not think there is any difference between the slaves of professing Christians and others; at all events, it is so small as to be scarcely noticeable.
"I have seen men and women at work in the field more than half naked: and more than once in passing, when the overseer was not near, they would stop and draw round them a tattered coat or some ribbons of a skirt to hide their nakedness and shame from the stranger's eye."
Mr. GEORGE W. WESTGATE, a member of the Congregational Church in Quincy, Illinois, who has spent the larger part of twelve years navigating the rivers of the south-western slave states with keel boats, as a trader, gives the following testimony as to the clothing and lodging of the slaves.
"In lower Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana, the clothing of the slaves is wretchedly poor; and grows worse as you go south, in the order of the states I have named. The only material is cotton bagging, i.e. bagging in which cotton is baled, not bagging made of cotton. In Louisiana, especially in the lower country, I have frequently seen them with nothing but a tattered coat, not sufficient to hide their nakedness. In winter their clothing seldom serves the purpose of comfort, and frequently not even of decent covering. In Louisiana the planters never think of serving out shoes to slaves. In Mississippi they give one pair a year generally. I never saw or heard of an instance of masters allowing them stockings. A small poor blanket is generally the only bed-clothing, and this they frequently wear in the field when they have not sufficient clothing to hide their nakedness or to keep them warm. Their manner of sleeping varies with the season. In hot weather they stretch themselves anywhere and sleep. As it becomes cool they roll themselves in their blankets, and lay scattered about the cabin. In cold weather they nestle together with their feet towards the fire, promiscuously. As a general fact the earth is their only floor and bed—not one in ten have anything like a bedstead, and then it is a mere bunk put up by themselves."
Mr. GEORGE A. AVERY, an elder in the fourth Congregational Church, Rochester, N.Y., who spent four years in Virginia, says, "The slave children, very commonly of both sexes, up to the ages of eight and ten years, and I think in some instances beyond this age, go in a state of disgusting nudity. I have often seen them with their tow shirt (their only article of summer clothing) which, to all human appearance, had not been taken off from the time it was first put on, worn off from the bottom upwards shred by shred, until nothing remained but the straps which passed over their shoulders, and the less exposed portions extending a very little way below the arms, leaving the principal part of the chest, as well as the limbs, entirely uncovered."
SAMUEL ELLISON, a member of the Society of Friends, formerly of Southampton Co., Virginia, now of Marlborough, Stark Co., Ohio, says, "I knew a Methodist who was the owner of a number of slaves. The children of both sexes, belonging to him, under twelve years of age, were entirely destitute of clothing. I have seen an old man compelled to labor in the fields, not having rags enough to cover his nakedness."
Rev. H. LYMAN, late pastor of the Free Presbyterian Church, in Buffalo, N.Y., in describing a tour down and up the Mississippi river in the winter of 1832-3, says, "At the wood yards where the boats stop, it is not uncommon to see female slaves employed in carrying wood. Their dress which was quite uniform was provided without any reference to comfort. They had no covering for their heads; the stuff which constituted the outer garment was sackcloth, similar to that in which brown domestic goods are done up. It was then December, and I thought that in such a dress, and being as they were, without stockings, they must suffer from the cold."