[25] Mr. Russell makes an observation to the same effect with regard to the Cuba plantations, p. 230. On these large cotton plantations there are frequently more men than women, men being bought in preference to women for cotton picking.
The contrary is usually the case on the small plantations, where the profits of breeding negroes are constantly in view.
[26] “A woman, calling herself Violet Ludlow, was arrested a few days ago, and committed to jail, on the supposition that she was a runaway slave belonging to A. M. Mobley, of Upshur county, Texas, who had offered through our columns a reward of fifty dollars for her apprehension. On being brought before a justice of the peace, she stated that she was a white woman, and claimed her liberty. She states that she is a daughter of Jeremiah Ludlow, of Pike county, Alabama, and was brought from that country in 1853, by George Cope, who emigrated to Texas. After arriving in Texas, she was sold by George Cope to a Doctor Terry, in Upshur county, Texas, and was soon after sold by him to a Mrs. Hagen, or Hagens, of the same county. Violet says that she protested against each sale made of her, declaring herself a free woman. She names George Gilmer, Thomas Rogers, John Garret, and others, residents of Pike county, Alabama, as persons who have known her from infancy as the daughter of one Jeremiah Ludlow and Rene Martin, a widow at the time of her birth, and as being a free white woman, and her father a free white man. Violet is about instituting legal proceedings for her freedom.”—Shreveport Southwestern.
“Some days since, a woman named Pelasgie was arrested as a fugitive slave, who has lived for more than twelve years in this city as a free woman. She was so nearly white that few could detect any traces of her African descent. She was arrested at the instance of a man named Raby, who claimed her as belonging to an estate of which he is heir-at-law. She was conveyed to the First District guard-house for safe keeping, and while there she stated to Acting Recorder Filleul that she was free, had never belonged to Raby, and had been in the full and unquestioned enjoyment of her freedom in this city for the above-mentioned period. She also stated that she had a house, well furnished, which she was in the habit of letting out in rooms.”—New Orleans Picayune.
[27] “Bishop Polk, of Louisiana, was one of the guests. He assured me that he had been all over the country on Red River, the scene of the fictitious sufferings of ‘Uncle Tom,’ and that he had found the temporal and spiritual welfare of the negroes well cared for. He had confirmed thirty black persons near the situation assigned to Legree’s estate. He is himself the owner of four hundred slaves, whom he endeavours to bring up in a religious manner. He tolerates no religion on his estate but that of the Church. He baptizes all the children, and teaches them the Catechism. All, without exception, attend the Church service, and the chanting is creditably performed by them, in the opinion of their owner. Ninety of them are communicants, marriages are celebrated according to the Church ritual, and the state of morals is satisfactory. Twenty infants had been baptized by the bishop just before his departure from home, and he had left his whole estate, his keys, &c., in the sole charge of one of his slaves, without the slightest apprehension of loss or damage. In judging of the position of this Christian prelate as a slave-owner, the English reader must bear in mind that, by the laws of Louisiana, emancipation has been rendered all but impracticable, and, that, if practicable, it would not necessarily be, in all cases, an act of mercy or of justice.”—The Western World Revisited. By the Rev. Henry Caswall, M.A., author of “America and the American Church,” etc. Oxford, John Henry Parker, 1854.
[28] In White’s ‘Statistics of Georgia’ (page 377), the citizens of Liberty county are characterized as “unsurpassed for the great attention paid to the duties of religion.”—Dr. Stevens, in his ‘History of Georgia,’ describes them as “worthy of their sires,” who were, “the moral and intellectual nobility of the province,” “whose accession was an honour to Georgia, and has ever proved one of its richest blessings.”—In the biography of General Scrivens the county of Liberty is designated “proud spot, of Georgia’s soil!”—Dr. J. M. B. Harden, in a medical report of the county, says: “The use of intoxicating drinks has been almost entirely given up” by its people.—White says (‘Statistics,’ p. 373), “The people of Liberty, from their earliest settlement, have paid much attention to the subject of education. Excellent schools are found in different portions of the county, and it is believed a greater number of young men from Liberty graduate at our colleges than from any [other] section of Georgia. Indeed, it has been proverbial for furnishing able ministers and instructors.”
[29] The following newspaper paragraph indicates the wholesale way in which slaves may be nominally Christianized:—
“Revival among the Slaves.—Rev. J. M. C. Breaker, of Beaufort, S.C., writes to the Southern Baptist, that within the last three months he has baptized by immersion three hundred and fifty persons, all of them, with a few exceptions, negroes. These conversions were the result of a revival which has been in progress during the last six months. On the 12th inst., he baptized two hundred and twenty-three converts—all blacks but three—and the ceremony, although performed with due deliberation, occupied only one hour and five minutes. This is nearly four a minute, and Mr. Breaker considers it a demonstration that the three thousand converted on the day of Pentecost could easily have been baptized by the twelve apostles—each taking two hundred and fifty—in an hour and thirteen minutes.”
[30] “A small farmer,” who “has had control of negroes for thirty years and has been pursuing his present system with them for twenty years,” and who “owning but a few slaves is able,” as he observes, “to do better by them” than large planters, writing to Mr. De Bow, says: “I have tried faithfully to break up immorality. I have not known an oath to be sworn for a long time. I know of no quarrelling, no calling harsh names, and but little stealing. Habits of amalgamation, I cannot stop. I can only check it in name. I am willing to be taught, for I have tried everything I know.” He has his field-negroes attend his own family prayers on Sunday, prayer meetings at four o’clock Sunday mornings, etc.—De Bow’s Resources, vol. ii., p. 337.
[31] The “Southern Presbyterian,” in reviewing some observations made before a South Carolina Bible Society, in which it had been urged that if slaves were permitted to read the Bible, they would learn from it to be more submissive to the authority which the State gives the master over them, says that the speaker “seems to be uninformed of the fact that the Scriptures are read in our churches every Sabbath day, and those very passages which inculcate the relative duties of masters and servants in consequence of their textual, i. e. legally prescribed connections, are more frequently read than any other portions of the Bible.”