Anti-slavery catechism

by Lydia Maria Child

Q. Some people say we ought to pity the masters as well as the slaves.

A. I agree with them entirely. The masters are to be deeply pitied; because the long continuance of a wicked system has involved them in difficulties, and at the same time rendered them generally blind to the best means of getting rid of those difficulties. They are likewise to be compassionated for the effects which early habits of power produce on their own characters. Mr. Jefferson, who lived in the midst of slavery, says: “The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions; the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it. The parent storms; the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in a circle of smaller slaves, gives loose to the worst of passions; and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy, who can retain his morals and manners undepraved in such circumstances.” The general licentiousness produced by this system can never be described without using language too gross to be addressed to a civilized community. Some idea of it may be derived from the fact, that every female slave is completely in the power of her master, of his sons, of his overseers, and his drivers. The law does not allow her to offer resistance to a white man, under any circumstances; and the state of public opinion is such that any pretensions to virtue on her part would be treated with brutal ridicule. The slave is not allowed to have any right in his wife and children. If his master’s interest can be served by his keeping three or four wives, or by his wife’s having a succession of husbands, he cannot dispute the commands of his owner. The wife, or the husband, is sometimes sold, and sent thousands of miles from each other, and from their little ones, without the slightest hope of ever meeting again. Under these circumstances, the man, or the woman, is soon ordered to take another partner; because it is for the interest of the master that they should do so. It is a shameful fact that the laws and customs of our country make it absolutely impossible for a large portion of our population to be virtuous, even if they wish to be so. The wealth of Virginia is principally made by the breeding of slaves and horses; and persons unaccustomed to the system would be shocked by the detail of well authenticated facts, which prove that about as little regard is paid to decency in one case as the other. Mulatto slaves bring a higher price than black ones; hence licentiousness in slave States becomes a profitable vice, instead of being expensive, as it is under other forms of society.

Q. I have been told that a great many of the slaves have very light complexions. Is it so?

A. In the old slave States, where the process of amalgamation has been going on for a long time, this is remarkably the case. An old soldier, who lately visited the South, said he was not so much struck by any circumstance, as by the great change that had taken place in the complexion of the slaves since the Revolution. Now and then I have seen in the southern papers advertisements for a runaway slave, “who passes himself for a white man.” A Boston gentleman, who dislikes the abolitionists very much, visited Georgia a few years ago. He told me that when he was walking with a planter one day, they met a man driving a team, who had a perfectly fair complexion, with blue eyes and brown hair. The Bostonian remarked, “That must be an independent fellow, to be driving a team in this part of the country, where it is considered so disgraceful for a white man to work.” “O, that fellow is a slave,” replied the Georgian. Almost every body has heard of the recent case of Mary Gilmore, of Philadelphia, a perfectly white girl, of Irish parentage, who was taken up and tried as a runaway slave. A Missouri newspaper proves that a white man may, without a mistake, be adjudged a slave. “A case of a slave sueing for his freedom, was tried a few days since in Lincoln county, of which the following is a brief statement of particulars: A youth of about ten years of age sued for his freedom on the ground that he was a free white person. The court granted his petition to sue as a pauper upon inspection of his person. Upon his trial before the jury, he was examined by the jury and two learned physicians, all of whom concurred in the opinion that very little, if any, race of negro blood could be discovered by any of the external appearances. All the physiological marks of distinction, which characterize the African descent, had disappeared. His skin was fair, his hair soft, straight, fine and white, his eyes blue, but rather disposed to the hazel-nut color; nose prominent, the lips small, his head round and well formed, forehead high and prominent, ears large, the tibia of the leg straight, and feet hollow. Notwithstanding these evidences of his claims, he was proved to be the descendant of a mulatto woman, and that his progenitors on the mother’s side had been and still were slaves: consequently he was found to be a slave.” I have been told of a young physician, who went into the far Southern States to settle, and there became in love with a very handsome and modest girl, who lived at service. He married her; and about a year after that event, a gentleman called at the house, and announced himself as Mr. J*******y, of Mobile. He said to Dr. W*****, “Sir, I have a trifling affair of business to settle with you. You have married a slave of mine.” The young physician resented this language; for he had not entertained the slightest suspicion that the girl had any other than white ancestors since the flood. But Mr. J. furnished proofs of his claim, and Dr. W. knew very well that the laws of the country would uphold him in it. After considerable discussion, the best bargain he could make was either to pay eight hundred dollars, or have his wife put up at auction. He consented to the first alternative, and his unwelcome visiter departed. When he had gone, Dr. W. told his wife what had happened. The poor woman burst into tears and said, “That as Mr. J. was her own father, she had hoped that when he heard she had found an honorable protector, he would have left her in peace.”

Q. There can be no doubt that slavery is a bad system; but don’t you think it ought to be done away gradually? Ought not the slaves to be fitted for freedom, before they are emancipated?

A. The difficulty is, it is utterly impossible to fit them for freedom while they remain slaves. The masters know very well that their vassals will be servile just in proportion as they are brutally ignorant; hence all their legislation tends to keep them so. It is a disgraceful fact, that in half of these United States the working men are expressly forbidden to learn to read or write. The law ordains that twenty lashes shall be inflicted upon every slave found in an assembly met together for the purpose of “mental instruction.” Any white person who teaches a slave to read or write, or gives or sells him any book (the Bible not excepted), is fined two hundred dollars; and any colored person who commits the same crime, is punished with thirty-nine lashes, or with imprisonment. The Rev. Charles C. Jones, of Georgia, said in one of his sermons: “Generally speaking, the slaves appear to us to be without God and without hope in the world—a nation of heathen in our very midst. We cannot cry out against the Papists for withholding the Scriptures from the common people; for we withhold the Bible from our servants, and keep them in ignorance of it.” A writer in the Observer, of Charleston, S. C. says: “I hazard the assertion, that throughout the bounds of our synod, there are at least one hundred thousand slaves, speaking the same language as ourselves, who never heard of the plan of salvation by a Redeemer.” The reason assigned for these oppressive laws is, that “teaching slaves to read and write tends to excite dissatisfaction in their minds,” and to produce insurrection. In Georgia, a white man is fined five hundred dollars for teaching a slave or free negro to read or write; and if a colored man attempts to teach the alphabet even to his own child, he is liable to be fined or whipped, according to the discretion of the court. Such laws are necessary for the preservation of this detestable system; and while such laws exist, how can the slaves ever be better fitted for freedom? When the British government insisted that female slaves should no longer be flogged naked in the Colonies, the Jamaica legislature replied, that the practice could not possibly be laid aside, “until the negro women acquired more of the sense of shame, which distinguishes European females.” Fitting men for freedom by keeping them slaves, is like the Jamaica mode of making women modest by whipping them without clothing.

Q. But don’t you think it would be dangerous to turn the slaves at once loose upon the community?

A. The abolitionists never desired to have them turned loose. They wish to have them governed by salutary laws, so regulated as effectually to protect both master and slave. They merely wish to have the power of punishment transferred from individuals to magistrates; to have the sale of human beings cease; and to have the stimulus of wages applied, instead of the stimulus of the whip. The relation of master and laborer might still continue; but under circumstances less irksome and degrading to both parties. Even that much abused animal the jackass can be made to travel more expeditiously by suspending a bunch of turnips on a pole and keeping them before his nose, than he can by the continual application of the whip; and even when human beings are brutalized to the last degree, by the soul-destroying system of slavery, they have still sense enough left to be more willing to work two hours for twelve cents, than to work one hour for nothing.

Q. I should think this system, in the long run, must be an unprofitable one.