September, 1834, the writer of this had an interview with James G. Birney, Esq., who then resided in Kentucky, having removed, with his family, from Alabama, the year before. A few hours before that interview, and on the morning of the same day, Mr. B. had spent a couple of hours with Hon. Henry Clay, at his residence, near Lexington. Mr. Birney remarked that Mr. Clay had just told him he had lately been led to mistrust certain estimates as to the increase of the slave population in the far South-west—estimates which he had presented, I think, in a speech before the Colonization Society. He now believed that the births among the slaves in that quarter were not equal to the deaths; and that, of course, the slave population, independent of immigration from the slave-selling states, was not sustaining itself.
Among other facts stated by Mr. Clay was the following, which we copy verbatim from the original memorandum made at the time by Mr. Birney, with which he has kindly furnished us.
“Sept. 16, 1834.—Hon. H. Clay, in a conversation at his own house on the subject of slavery, informed me that Hon. Outerbridge Horsey—formerly a senator in Congress from the State of Delaware, and the owner of a sugar plantation in Louisiana—declared to him that his overseer worked his hands so closely that one of the women brought forth a child whilst engaged in the labors of the field.
“Also that, a few years since, he was at a brick-yard in the environs of New Orleans, in which one hundred hands were employed; among them were from twenty to thirty young women, in the prime of life. He was told by the proprietor that there had not been a child born among them for the last two or three years, although they all had husbands.”
The late Mr. Samuel Blackwell, a highly-respected citizen of Jersey City, opposite the city of New York, and a member of the Presbyterian church, visited many of the sugar plantations in Louisiana a few years since; and having, for many years, been the owner of an extensive sugar refinery in England, and subsequently in this country, he had not only every facility afforded him by the planters for personal inspection of all parts of the process of sugar-making, but received from them the most unreserved communications as to their management of their slaves. Mr. B., after his return, frequently made the following statement to gentlemen of his acquaintance:—“That the planters generally declared to him that they were obliged so to over-work their slaves, during the sugar-making season (from eight to ten weeks), as to use them up in seven or eight years. For, said they, after the process is commenced, it must be pushed, without cessation, night and day; and we cannot afford to keep a sufficient number of slaves to do the extra work at the time of sugar-making, as we could not profitably employ them the rest of the year.”
Dr. Demming, a gentleman of high respectability, residing in Ashland, Richland County, Ohio, stated to Professor Wright, of New York city,
“That, during a recent tour at the South, while ascending the Ohio river, on the steamboat Fame, he had an opportunity of conversing with a Mr. Dickinson, a resident of Pittsburg, in company with a number of cotton-planters and slave-dealers from Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. Mr. Dickinson stated as a fact, that the sugar-planters upon the sugar-coast in Louisiana had ascertained that, as it was usually necessary to employ about twice the amount of labor during the boiling season that was required during the season of raising, they could, by excessive driving, day and night, during the boiling season, accomplish the whole labor with one set of hands. By pursuing this plan, they could afford to sacrifice a set of hands once in seven years! He further stated that this horrible system was now practised to a considerable extent! The correctness of this statement was substantially admitted by the slave-holders then on board.”
The following testimony of Rev. Dr. Channing, of Boston, who resided some time in Virginia, shows that the over-working of slaves, to such an extent as to abridge life, and cause a decrease of population, is not confined to the far South and South-west.
“I heard of an estate managed by an individual who was considered as singularly successful, and who was able to govern the slaves without the use of the whip. I was anxious to see him; and trusted that some discovery had been made favorable to humanity. I asked him how he was able to dispense with corporal punishment. He replied to me, with a very determined look, ‘The slaves know that the work must be done, and that it is better to do it without punishment than with it.’ In other words, the certainty and dread of chastisement were so impressed on them that they never incurred it.
“I then found that the slaves on this well-managed estate decreased in number. I asked the cause. He replied, with perfect frankness and ease, ‘The gang is not large enough for the estate.’ In other words, they were not equal to the work of the plantation, and yet were made to do it, though with the certainty of abridging life.
“On this plantation the huts were uncommonly convenient. There was an unusual air of neatness. A superficial observer would have called the slaves happy. Yet they were living under a severe, subduing discipline, and were over-worked to a degree that shortened life.”—Channing on Slavery, page 162, first edition.
A friend of the writer—the Rev. Mr. Barrows, now officiating as teacher of Hebrew in Andover Theological Seminary—stated the following, in conversation with her:—That, while at New Orleans, some time since, he was invited by a planter to visit his estate, as he considered it to be a model one. He found good dwellings for the slaves, abundant provision distributed to them, all cruel punishments superseded by rational and reasonable ones, and half a day every week allowed to the negroes to cultivate their own grounds. Provision was also made for their moral and religious instruction. Mr. Barrows then asked the planter,
“Do you consider your estate a fair specimen?” The gentleman replied, “There are two systems pursued among us. One is, to make all we can out of a negro in a few years, and then supply his place with another; and the other is, to treat him as I do. My neighbor on the next plantation pursues the opposite system. His boys are hard worked and scantily fed; and I have had them come to me, and get down on their knees to beg me to buy them.”
Mr. Barrows says he subsequently passed by this plantation, and that the woe-struck, dejected aspect of its laborers fully confirmed the account. He also says that the gentleman who managed so benevolently told him, “I do not make much money out of my slaves.”
It will be easy to show that such is the nature of slavery, and the temptations of masters, that such well-regulated plantations are and must be infinitely in the minority, and exceptional cases.
The Rev. Charles C. Jones, a man of the finest feelings of humanity, and for many years an assiduous laborer for the benefit of the slave, himself the owner of a plantation, and qualified, therefore, to judge, both by experience and observation, says, after speaking of the great improvidence of the negroes, engendered by slavery:
And, indeed, once for all, I will here say that the wastes of the system are so great, as well as the fluctuation in prices of the staple articles for market, that it is difficult, nay, impossible, to indulge in large expenditures on plantations, and make them savingly profitable.—Religious Instruction, p. 116.
If even the religious and benevolent master feels the difficulty of uniting any great consideration for the comfort of the slave with prudence and economy, how readily must the moral question be solved by minds of the coarse style of thought which we have supposed in Legree!
“I used to, when I first begun, have considerable trouble fussin’ with ’em, and trying to make ’em hold out—doctorin’ on ’em up when they’s sick, and givin’ on ’em clothes, and blankets, and what not, trying to keep ’em all sort o’ decent and comfortable. Law, ‘twant no sort o’ use; I lost money on ’em, and ’twas heaps o’ trouble. Now, you see, I just put ’em straight through, sick or well. When one nigger’s dead, I buy another; and I find it comes cheaper and easier every way.”
