Diary in America, Series One

by Frederick Marryat

It does, however, satisfactorily prove, that the question of slavery was not overlooked; on the contrary, their determination to take advantage of the system was deliberate, and, there can be no doubt, well considered—the very omission of the paragraph proves it. I mention these facts to show that the Americans have no right to revile us on being the cause of slavery in America. They had the means, and were bound, as honourable men, to act up to their declaration but they entered into the question, they decided otherwise, and decided that they would retain their ill-acquired property at the expense of their principles.

The degrees of slavery in America are as various in their intensity as are the communities composing the Union. They may, however, be divided with great propriety under two general heads—eastern and western slavery. By eastern slavery, I refer to that in the slave states bordering on the Atlantic, and those slave states on the other side of the Alleghany mountains, which may be more directly considered as their colonies, viz, in the first instance, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North and South Carolina; and, secondly, Kentucky and Tennessee. We have been accustomed lately to class the slaves as non-predial and predial,—that is, those who are domestic, and those who work on the plantations. This classification is not correct, if it is intended to distinguish between those who are well, and those who are badly treated. The true line to be drawn is between those who work separately, and those who are worked in a gang and superintended by an overseer. This is fully exemplified in the United States, where it will be found that in all states where they are worked in gangs the slaves are harshly treated, while in the others their labour is light.

Now, with the exception of the rice grounds in South Carolina, the eastern states are growers of corn, hemp, and tobacco; but their chief staple is the breeding of horses, mules, horned cattle, and other stock: the largest portion of these states remain in wild luxuriant pasture, more especially in Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, either of which states is larger than the other four mentioned.

The proportion of slaves required for the cultivation of the purely agricultural and chiefly grazing farms or plantations in these states is small, fifteen or twenty being sufficient for a farm of two hundred or three hundred acres; and their labour, which is mostly confined to tending stock, is not only very light, but of the quality most agreeable to the negro. Half the day you will see him on horseback with his legs idly swinging—as he goes along, or seated on a shaft-horse driving his wagons. He is quite in his glory; nothing delights a negro so much as riding or driving, particularly when he has a whole team under his control. He takes his wagon for a load of corn to feed the hogs, sits on the edge of the shaft as he tosses the cobs to the grunting multitude, whom he addresses in the most intimate terms; in short, everything is done leisurely, after his own fashion.

In these grazing states, as they may very properly be called, the negroes are well fed; they refuse beef and mutton, and will have nothing but pork; and are, without exception, the fattest and most saucy fellows I ever met with in a state of bondage; and such may be said generally to be the case with all the negroes in the eastern states which I have mentioned. The rice grounds in South Carolina are unhealthy, but the slaves are very kindly treated. But the facts speak for themselves. When the negro works in a gang with the whip over him, he may be overworked and ill-treated; but when he is not regularly watched, he will take very good care that the work he performs shall not injure his constitution.

It has been asserted, and generally credited, that in the eastern states negroes are regularly bred up like the cattle for the western market. That the Virginians, and the inhabitants of the other eastern slave states, do sell negroes which are taken to the west, there is no doubt; but that the negroes are bred expressly for that purpose, is, as regards the majority of the proprietors, far from the fact: it is the effect of circumstances, over which they have had no control. Virginia, when first settled, was one of the richest states, but, by continually cropping the land without manuring it, and that for nearly two hundred years, the major portion of many valuable estates has become barren, and the land is no longer under cultivation; in consequence of this, the negroes, (increasing so rapidly as they do in that country.) so far from being profitable, have become a serious task upon their masters, who have to rear and maintain, without having any employment to give them. The small portion of the estates under cultivation will subsist only a certain portion of the negroes; the remainder must, therefore, be disposed of, or they would eat their master out of his home. That the slaves are not willingly disposed of by many of the proprietors I am certain, particularly when it is known, that they are purchased for the west. I know of many instances of this, and wins informed of others; and by wills, especially, slaves have been directed to be sold for two-thirds of the price which they would fetch for the western market, on condition that they were not to leave the state. These facts establish two points, viz, that the slaves in the eastern states is well treated, and that in the western states slavery still exists with all its horrors. The common threat to, and ultimate punishment of, a refractory and disobedient slave in the east, is to sell, him for the western market. Many slave proprietors, whose estates have been worn out in the east, have preferred migrating to the west with their slaves rather than sell them, and thus is the severity of the western treatment occasionally and partially mitigated.

But doing justice, as I always will, to those who have been unjustly calumniated, at the same time I must admit that there is a point connected with slavery in America which renders it more odious than in other countries; I refer to the system of amalgamation, which has, from promiscuous intercourse, been carried on to such an extent, that you very often meet with slaves whose skins are whiter than their master’s.

At Louisville, Kentucky, I saw a girl, about twelve years old, carrying a child; and, aware that in a slave state the circumstance of white people hiring themselves out to service is almost unknown, I inquired of her if she were a slave. To my astonishment, she replied in the affirmative. She was as fair as snow, and it was impossible to detect any admixture of blood from her appearance, which was that of a pretty English cottager’s child.

I afterward spoke to the master, who stated when he had purchased her, and the sum which he had paid.

I took down the following advertisement for a runaway slave, which was posted up in every tavern I stopped at in Virginia on my way to the springs. The expression of, “in a manner white” would imply that there was some shame felt it holding a white man in bondage:—