We have no data from which to infer the number of planters who go South with their slaves. But, allowing that five hundred thus remove, and that on an average they have ten slaves each (proper estimates we believe), we have left thirty-five thousand as the number of human beings who are every year sold to the speculators in human flesh!
Now, Mr. Barnes's "lot" of his fellow-creatures averaged in value over five hundred dollars apiece; and those were times when, from his account, the market was glutted, and the prices accordingly low. "Young and likely" negroes are more easily acclimated, and are better able to work, than others. Consequently, they are the ones most sought after by judicious traders. We should consider five hundred dollars for a young, healthy negro, warranted sound, as really a low price. But, if we suppose the slaves annually exported to be worth less than any of Mr. Barnes's lot,—considering them as worth only $450 apiece,—we have, as the sums of money every year invested in the trade in slaves, the very moderate sum of fifteen millions seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars! This is exclusive of the cost of all the private jails, of transportation by sea and land, food, wages of drivers, &c.; which cannot but very largely increase this sum. This sum, $15,750,000, would, in less than three years, double the number of miles of railroad which were in operation in all the Southern States in 1846 (Parker's "Letter on Slavery," p. 52). It would, in only two years, more than double in length all the railroads which were then in operation in all the Slave States, except Maryland. It costs every year five millions more to carry on the domestic slave-trade than it does to fit out and victual all the whale-ships of the United States! ("American Almanac, 1843," p. 178.) Over one fifth of the entire value of the cotton, sugar, rice, and tobacco raised in the fifteen Slave States in 1839, and over one third of the value of articles manufactured in the South, was invested in slaves! Nearly twice as many slaves are carried South and West every year as there are men in all the Slave States engaged in the learned professions!—so terribly prominent is this trade in men and women! Who will venture to conceive, much less express, the deep degradation which must be caused by a trade of such fearful character and magnitude;—degradation not only to the immediate sufferers, but to all those who may be subjected to it?
CHAPTER IX.
RUNAWAY SLAVES.
"It is contrary also to the will of God for servants either to run away, or harbor a runaway"—Rev. C. C. Jones's Teaching to Slaves.
The treatment which runaway slaves receive cannot but greatly degrade them. Pious as well as worldly masters consider that their slaves have no more right to run away than their horses or mules. The Christian slaveholder orally teaches his slaves, that, by taking this step, they sin in the sight of God; for has not Paul most emphatically condemned the practice? So careful is he of the souls of those whom God has committed to his charge!
We frequently find advertisements similar to this, cut from the "American Beacon" (Norfolk, Va.), Jan. 24, 1848:—
"$50 Reward.—Stop Ruffin and Wyatt.—These men left my house on Saturday night, January 15, 1848, without any provocation. They have uniformly maintained a good character for honesty, industry, and sobriety,—were obedient and trustworthy servants, and no severity nor threats had been offered towards them; and I very much fear they have left for some Northern State.