A handsome mulatto woman, about eighteen or twenty years of age, whose independent spirit could not brook the degradation of slavery, was in the habit of running away: for this offence she had been repeatedly sent by her master and mistress to be whipped by the keeper of the Charleston workhouse. This had been done with such inhuman severity as to lacerate her back in a most shocking manner; a finger could not be laid between the cuts. But the love of liberty was too strong to be annihilated by torture; and, as a last resort, she was whipped at several different times, and kept a close prisoner. A heavy iron collar, with three long prongs projecting from it, was placed round her neck, and a strong and sound front tooth was extracted, to serve as a mark to describe her, in case of escape. Her sufferings at this time were agonizing; she could lie in no position but on her back, which was sore from scourgings, as I can testify from personal inspection; and her only place of rest was the floor, on a blanket. These outrages were committed in a family where the mistress daily read the Scriptures, and assembled her children for family worship. She was accounted, and was really, so far as almsgiving was concerned, a charitable woman, and tender-hearted to the poor; and yet this suffering slave, who was the seamstress of the family, was continually in her presence, sitting in her chamber to sew, or engaged in her other household work, with her lacerated and bleeding back, her mutilated mouth, and heavy iron collar, without, so far as appeared, exciting any feelings of compassion.
This iron collar the author has often heard of from sources equally authentic.[[11]] That one will meet with it every day in walking the streets, is not probable; but that it must have been used with some great degree of frequency, is evident from the fact of a law being thought necessary to protect it. But look at the penalty of the two protective laws! The fiendish cruelties described in the act of South Carolina cost the perpetrator not more than five hundred dollars, if he does them before white people. The act of humanity costs from two hundred to one thousand dollars, and imprisonment from six months to two years, according to discretion of court! What public sentiment was it which made these laws?
[11]. The iron collar was also in vogue in North Carolina, as the following extract from the statute-book will show. The wearers of this article of apparel certainly have some reason to complain of the “tyranny of fashion.”
“When the keeper of the said public jail shall, by direction of such court as aforesaid, let out any negro or runaway to hire, to any person or persons whomsoever, the said keeper shall, at the time of his delivery, cause an iron collar to be put on the neck of such negro or runaway, with the letters P. G. stamped thereon; and thereafter the said keeper shall not be answerable for any escape of the said negro or runaway.”—Potter’s Revisal, i. 162.
CHAPTER VI.
PROTECTIVE ACTS WITH REGARD TO FOOD AND RAIMENT, LABOR, ETC.
Illustrative Drama of Tom v. Legree, under the Law of South Carolina.—Separation of Parent and Child.
Wheeler, p. 220. State v. Sue, Cameron & Norwood’s C. Rep. 54.
Having finished the consideration of the laws which protect the life and limb of the slave, the reader may feel a curiosity to know something of the provisions by which he is protected in regard to food and clothing, and from the exactions of excessive labor. It is true, there are multitudes of men in the Northern States who would say, at once, that such enactments, on the very face of them, must be superfluous and absurd. “What!” they say, “are not the slaves property? and is it likely that any man will impair the market value of his own property by not giving them sufficient food or clothing, or by over-working them?” This process of reasoning appears to have been less convincing to the legislators of Southern States than to gentlemen generally at the North; since, as Judge Taylor says, “the act of 1786 (Iredell’s Revisal, p. 588) does, in the preamble, recognize the fact, that many persons, by cruel treatment of their slaves, cause them to commit crimes for which they are executed;” and the judge further explains this language, by saying, “The cruel treatment here alluded to must consist in withholding from them the necessaries of life; and the crimes thus resulting are such as are necessary to furnish them with food and raiment.”
The State of South Carolina, in the act of 1740 (see Stroud’s Sketch, p. 28), had a section with the following language in its preamble: