If a free colored person remain in Virginia twelve months after his manumission, he can be sold by the overseers of the poor for the benefit of the literary fund!
In Georgia, a free colored man, except a regular articled seaman, is fined one hundred dollars for coming into the State; and if he cannot pay it, may be sold at public outcry. This act has been changed to one of increased severity. A free colored person cannot be a witness against a white man. They may therefore be robbed, assaulted, kidnapped and carried off with impunity; and even the legislatures of the old slave States adopt it as a maxim that it is very desirable to get rid of them. It is of no avail to declare themselves free; the law presumes them to be slaves, unless they can prove to the contrary. In many instances written documents of freedom have been wrested from free colored people and destroyed by kidnappers. A lucrative internal slave-trade furnishes constant temptation to the commission of such crimes; and the new States of Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, and the territories of Arkansas, and the Floridas, are not likely to be glutted for years to come.
In Philadelphia, though remote from a slave market, it has been ascertained that more than thirty free persons of color, were stolen and carried off within two years. Stroud says: "Five of these have been restored to their friends, by the interposition of humane gentlemen, though not without great expense and difficulty. The others are still in bondage; and if rescued at all, it must be by sending white witnesses a journey of more than a thousand miles."
I know the names of four colored citizens of Massachusetts, who went to Georgia on board a vessel, were seized under the laws of that State, and sold as slaves. They have sent the most earnest exhortations to their families and friends to do something for their relief; but the attendant expenses
require more money than the friends of negroes are apt to have, and the poor fellows as yet remain unassisted.
A New-York paper, November, 1829, contains the following caution:
"Beware of kidnappers!—It is well understood that there is at present in this city, a gang of kidnappers, busily engaged in their vocation of stealing colored children for the Southern market! It is believed that three or four have been stolen within as many days. A little negro boy came to this city from the country three or four days ago. Some strange white persons were very friendly to him, and yesterday morning he was mightily pleased that they had given him some new clothes. And the persons pretending thus to befriend him, entirely secured his confidence. This day he cannot be found. Nor can he be traced since seen with one of his new friends yesterday. There are suspicions of a foul nature, connected with some who serve the police in subordinate capacities. It is hinted that there may be those in some authority, not altogether ignorant of these diabolical practices. Let the public be on their guard! It is still fresh in the memories of all, that a cargo, or rather drove, of negroes, was made up from this city and Philadelphia, about the time that the emancipation of all the negroes in this State took place under our present constitution, and were taken through Virginia, the Carolinas, and Tennessee, and disposed of in the State of Mississippi. Some of those who were taken from Philadelphia were persons of intelligence, and after they had been driven through the country in chains, and disposed of by sale on the Mississippi, wrote back to their friends, and were rescued from bondage. The persons who were guilty of this abominable transaction are known, and now reside in North Carolina; they may, very probably, be engaged in similar enterprises at the present time—at least there is reason to believe that the system of kidnapping free persons of color from the Northern cities has been carried on more extensively than the public are generally aware of."
This, and other evils of the system, admit of no radical cure but the utter extinction of slavery. To enact laws prohibiting the slave traffic, and at the same time tempt avarice by the allurements of an insatiable market, is irreconcilable and absurd.
To my great surprise, I find that the free States of Ohio and
Indiana disgrace themselves by admitting the same maxim of law, which prevents any black or mulatto from being a witness against a white man!