But I will now stop, and let the slaveholders speak for themselves. I shall here present some evidences of the treatment which slaves receive from their masters; after which I will present a few of the slave-laws. And it has been said, and I believe truly, that no people were ever found to be better than their laws. And, as an American slave,—as one who is identified with the slaves of the south by the scars which I carry on my back,—as one identified with them by the tenderest ties of nature,—as one whose highest aspirations are to serve the cause of truth and freedom,—I beg of the reader not to lay this book down until he or she has read every page it contains. I ask it not for my own sake, but for the sake of three millions who cannot speak for themselves.
From the Livingston County (Alabama) Whig of Nov. 16, 1845.
"Negro Dogs.—The undersigned having bought the entire pack of Negro Dogs, (of the Hays & Allen stock,) he now proposes to catch runaway Negroes. His charge will be three dollars per day for hunting, and fifteen dollars for catching a runaway. He resides three and a half miles north of Livingston, near the lower Jones' Bluff road.
"William Gambrel.
"Nov. 6, 1845."
The Wilmington [North Carolina] Advertiser of July 13, 1838, contains the following advertisement:
"Ranaway, my Negro man Richard. A reward of $25 will be paid for his apprehension, DEAD or ALIVE. Satisfactory proof will only be required of his being killed. He has with him, in all probability, his wife Eliza, who ran away from Col. Thompson, now a resident of Alabama, about the time he commenced his journey to that state.
"D. H. Rhodes.
The St. Louis Gazette says—
"A wealthy man here had a boy named Reuben, almost white, whom he caused to be branded in the face with the words 'A slave for life.'"
From the N. C. Standard, July 28, 1838.
"Twenty Dollars Reward.—Ranaway from the subscriber, a negro woman and two children; the woman is tall and black, and a few days before she went off I burnt her on the left side of her face: I tried to make the letter M, and she kept a cloth over her head and face, and a fly bonnet over her head, so as to cover the burn; her children are both boys, the oldest is in his seventh year; he is a mulatto and has blue eyes; the youngest is a black, and is in his fifth year.
"Micajah Ricks, Nash County."
"One of my neighbors sold to a speculator a negro boy, about 14 years old. It was more than his poor mother could bear. Her reason fled, and she became a perfect maniac, and had to be kept in close confinement. She would occasionally get out and run off to the neighbors. On one of these occasions she came to my house. With tears rolling down her cheeks, and her frame shaking with agony, she would cry out, 'Don't you hear him—they are whipping him now, and he is calling for me!' This neighbor of mine, who tore the boy away from his poor mother, and thus broke her heart, was a member of the Presbyterian church."—Rev. Francis Hawley, Baptist minister, Colebrook, Ct.