Anti-slavery catechism

by Lydia Maria Child

A. So it is for the interest of men to treat their horses and cattle well; and yet their passions not unfrequently make them forget their interests. Passive obedience is obtained from human beings with more difficulty than from animals; and when the master is provoked, the poor slave is completely in his power, with scarcely the shadow of protection from the law. The law in no case recognises slaves as human beings; on the contrary, it expressly declares they “shall be deemed, sold, taken, and reputed to be chattels personal, in the hands of their owners and possessors, their administrators and assigns, to all intents, constructions, and purposes whatever.” An act of Maryland, for the settlement of estates, enumerates specific articles, such as “slaves, working beasts, animals,” &c. Where even the laws consider human beings as animals, it is not a matter of surprise that they are generally treated no better than self-interest leads men to treat animals. You will likewise perceive that when the slave becomes old, or diseased, or in any way unfit for labor, it is not for the interest of his master to prolong his existence by rendering it comfortable. Then again that part of the system connected with overseers, shows plainly that the self-interest of the master cannot effectually secure good treatment to the slave. If planters were to give overseers a stated salary, without regard to the amount of produce, the overseers (who are proverbially unprincipled men) would have no motive for consulting the interest of their employers—it would be a matter of indifference to them whether much or little work were done. To obviate this difficulty, it is customary to give the overseer a certain proportion of the profits of the plantation. Of course, it becomes his ruling desire to get the greatest possible amount of work done. He does not care how much the soil is exhausted, nor how much the negroes are broken down. If a slave says he is very ill, the overseer is unwilling to believe the story, because he is reluctant to lose a day’s labor. If the poor creature droops under his allotted task, he must be stimulated by the whip, because the overseer cannot spare an hour of his exertions. If the “slave dies under moderate punishment,” the master must furnish a new laborer; and the loss falls on him, not on the overseer. It is obviously natural for the latter personage to think more of his own gains than of his employer’s losses. Every body knows that men are prone to drive hired horses with less mercy than their own; because they do not meet with any personal loss from injury done to the beast, and their object is to get their money’s worth of riding. Is it not a fearful thing for one human being to be placed towards another in the same relation that a stable-horse is toward the man who hires him? When planters are reminded of instances of cruelty, too well authenticated to be denied, they are prone to lay the blame upon overseers. Mr. Wirt, of Virginia, speaks of this class of men as “the lowest of the human race—always cap in hand to the dons who employ them, and furnishing materials for their pride, insolence, and love of dominion.” If we had no such information concerning the character of these men, we should naturally conclude that good people would be averse to enter into such an employment. Yet overseers and drivers are a necessary part of this bad system, because slaves are entirely deprived of the motives which induce free laborers to work; and since overseers must be employed, it is necessary to make it for their interest to get as much work out of the slave as possible. The evils of slavery are necessary and inevitable parts of the system; and whether the planters reprobate them or not, they cannot possibly avoid them, except by relinquishing the system. The master and his subordinate agents must have discretionary power to punish, because their poor human brutes, being deprived of salutary motives to exertion, must be driven to it. The slave must not be allowed to buy or sell, or make the most trifling contracts; because the oppressed being would naturally avail himself of this privilege, and sell some of the cotton or tobacco, which he cultivates for his master without wages. The laws must punish them with great severity; because the very nature of their condition is a constant temptation to theft, falsehood, and murder. They must be kept brutally ignorant; because if they were otherwise, they could not be kept in slavery. Licentiousness must be countenanced among them; because their master’s interest is connected with their increase, and he might lose many good bargains if the laws did not allow him to sell a wife from her husband, or a husband from his wife. The law must suppose a negro to be a slave, till he proves himself free; because runaway slaves would of course pretend that they were free. They must not be allowed to witness against a white man; for a slave may have had a wife or a child whipped to death by a white man—and he may have many other good reasons for strong prejudice against white men. An unnatural system must be sustained by unnatural means. Hence we find the same characteristic features in every country where negro slavery has been allowed.

Q. Some people think slavery as great a sin as the slave trade. Are you of that opinion?

A. There seems to me just the same difference as there is between the thief and the man who pays him for stealing. What would you say of a man who buys a horse, knowing it to be stolen? The following circumstance, which took place a short time before our Revolution, furnishes a good commentary on this matter. A Philadelphia negro was accused of having stolen goods in his possession. He acknowledged the fact, saying, “Massa Justice, me know me got dem tings from Tom dere, and me tink Tom teal dem too; but what den, Massa? dey be only a piccaninny knife, and a piccaninny corkscrew; one cost sixpence, and tudder a shilling; an me pay Tom honestly for dem, Massa.” “Pretty story, truly!” said his worship; “you knew they were stolen, and yet allege for excuse, you honestly paid for them. Don’t you know, Pompey, that the receiver is as bad as the thief? You must be severely whipped, you black rascal.” “Very well, Massa, if de black rascal be whipt for buying tolen goods, me hope de white rascal be whipt too, for same ting, when you catch him.” “To be sure,” replied the Justice. “Well den,” says Pompey, “here be Tom’s Massa—hold him fast, constable! He buy Tom, as I buy de piccaninny knife, and de piccaninny corkscrew. He know very well Tom be tolen from his old fadder and mudder; de knife and de corkscrew had neder.”

I do not see how we can escape from the conclusion that the slave-owner is an accomplice of the slave-trader. So long as a profitable market is kept open, the article will be supplied, despite of difficulties and dangers. The only way to stop the trade, is to shut up the market; and this can be done only by the entire abolition of the system of slavery. When nobody will buy a man, nobody will be tempted to steal a man. Slavery never exists without having more or less of the slave-trade involved in it. There is in the very heart of our land a slave-trade constantly carried on, and sanctioned by our laws, which is as disgraceful and cruel as the foreign slave trade. The new slave States at the extreme South have not slaves enough, and the climate, together with the hard labor of the sugar plantations, kills them very fast. The old slave States have a surplus of slaves, which they send off to supply these markets. About ten thousand are annually exported from Virginia alone. Niles, in his Register, vol. 35, page 4, says: “Dealing in slaves has become a large business. Establishments are made at several places in Maryland and Virginia, at which they are sold like cattle. These places are strongly built, and well supplied with thumbscrews, gags, cow-skins, and other whips, often bloody.” In these sales no regard is paid to domestic ties. The newly married wife is torn shrieking from her husband, and the mother with her little ones are sold in “separate lots to suit purchasers.” A gentleman in Charleston, S. C., writes to his friend in New York: “Curiosity sometimes leads me to the auction sales of the negroes. There I saw the father looking with sullen contempt on the crowd, and expressing an indignation in his countenance that he dares not speak; and the mother pressing her infants closer to her bosom, exclaiming, in wild and simple earnestness, ‘I can’t leff my children! I won’t leff my children!’ But the hammer went on, reckless whether it united or sundered for ever. On another stand I saw a man apparently as white as myself exposed for sale.”

Q. I have heard some people say that the negroes do not care so much about such separations as we should suppose.

A. There is no doubt that their degraded situation tends to blunt the feelings, as well as to stultify the intellect; and it is a fearful thing to think what Christians have to answer for, who thus brutalize immortal souls. But there are numerous instances to prove that the poor creatures do often suffer the most agonizing sensations when torn from those they love. Near Palmyra, in Marion county, Missouri, two boys were sold to a slave-trader, who did not intend to leave the place until morning. During the night, the mother was kept chained in an out-house, that she might not make any effort to prevent the departure of her children. She managed to get loose from her fetters, seized an axe, cut off the heads of her sleeping boys, and then ended her own life by the same instrument.

The Missouri Intelligencer, a few months ago, gave an account of a slave named Michael, who was sold by his master to Mr. J. E. Fenton, by whom he was to be immediately shipped for the Southern markets. At the mouth of the Ohio, he filed off his irons, and contrived to escape. He immediately returned to the place where his wife resided, and having armed himself, declared he never would be sent to the South, unless his wife was allowed to accompany him. He was finally taken by stratagem, and lodged in jail for safe keeping. Finding that his oppressors were determined to separate him from his beloved wife, he committed suicide. I believe the attachments of slaves are even stronger than ours; for these ties constitute the only pleasure they are allowed to have. Hundreds of instances might be told, where they have preferred death to separation.

Q. I have been told they sometimes kidnapped free colored persons, to sell them as slaves. Is it so?

A. It is unquestionably true that this is carried on to a considerable extent. More than twenty free colored children were kidnapped in the single city of Philadelphia, in 1825; and in 1827 two were stolen in open day. It is a common thing to decoy the unsuspecting victims on board a vessel, or to some retired spot, and then seize and bind them. A New York paper of 1829, says: “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.” As the law supposes every colored person to be a slave unless he can prove himself free, and as no person of his own complexion is allowed to be evidence for him, the kidnappers have an easy time of it.