Here is recorded, in only eleven papers, the sale of eight hundred forty-nine slaves in two weeks in Virginia; the state where Mr. J. Thornton Randolph describes such an event as a separation of families being a thing that “we read of in novels sometimes.”
| States where published. | No. of Papers consulted. | No. of Negroes advertised. | No. of Lots. | No. of Runaways described. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Virginia, | 11 | 849 | 7 | 15 |
| Kentucky, | 5 | 238 | 1 | 7 |
| Tennessee, | 8 | 385 | 4 | 17 |
| S. Carolina, | 12 | 852 | 2 | 7 |
| Georgia, | 6 | 98 | 2 | 0 |
| Alabama, | 10 | 549 | 5 | 5 |
| Mississippi, | 8 | 669 | 5 | 6 |
| Louisiana, | 4 | 460 | 4 | 35 |
| 64 | 4100 | 30 | 92 |
In South Carolina, where the writer in Fraser’s Magazine dates from, we have during these same two weeks a sale of eight hundred and fifty-two recorded by one dozen papers. Verily, we must apply to the newspapers of his state the same language which he applies to “Uncle Tom’s Cabin:” “Were our views of the system of slavery to be derived from these papers, we should regard the families of slaves as utterly unsettled and vagrant.”
The total, in sixty-four papers, in different states, for only two weeks, is four thousand one hundred, besides ninety-two lots, as they are called.
And now, who is he who compares the hopeless, returnless separation of the negro from his family, to the voluntary separation of the freeman, whom necessary business interest takes for a while from the bosom of his family? Is not the lot of the slave bitter enough, without this last of mockeries and worst of insults? Well may they say, in their anguish, “Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of them that are at ease, and with the contempt of the proud!”
From the poor negro, exposed to bitterest separation, the law jealously takes away the power of writing. For him the gulf of separation yawns black and hopeless, with no redeeming signal. Ignorant of geography, he knows not whither he is going, or where he is, or how to direct a letter. To all intents and purposes, it is a separation hopeless as that of death, and as final.
[18]. Article in Fraser’s Magazine for October, by a South Carolinian.
[19]. “If language can convey a clear and definite meaning at all, I know not how it can more unequivocally or more plainly present to the mind any thought or idea than the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus clearly or unequivocally establishes the fact that slavery or bondage was sanctioned by God himself; and that ‘buying, selling, holding and bequeathing’ slaves, as property, are regulations which were established by himself.”—Smylie on Slavery.