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Impressions of an English Traveler

"As I observed before, at least two thirds of the inhabitants are negroes....

"It is fortunate for humanity that these poor creatures possess such a fund of contentment and resignation in their minds; for they indeed seem to be the happiest inhabitants in America, notwithstanding the hardness of their fare, the severity of their labour, and the unkindness, ignominy, and often barbarity of their treatment."–J.F.D., "A Tour in the United States of America, containing an account of the present situation of that country"; London, 1784, p. 39.

Abbé Robin on Conditions in Virginia

"The population of Virginia is computed at one hundred fifty thousand whites and five hundred thousand negroes. There is a still greater disproportion between the whites and blacks in Maryland, where there are not more than twenty thousand whites and at least two hundred thousand negroes. The English imported into these two provinces between seven and eight thousand yearly. Perhaps the lot of these slaves is not quite so hard as that of the negroes in the islands; their liberty, it is true, is irreparably lost in both places, but here they are treated with more mildness, and are supported upon the same kind of food with their masters; and if the earth which they cultivate, is moistened with their sweat, it has never been known to blush with their blood. The American, not at all industrious by nature, is considerate enough not to expect too much from his slave, who in such circumstances, has fewer motives to be laborious for himself."–Abbé Robin, "New Travels through North America in a series of letters," Boston, 1784, p. 48.

Observations of St. John de Crèvecoeur

"There, arranged like horses at a fair, they are branded like cattle, and then driven to toil, to starve and to languish for a few years on the different plantations of those citizens.

"If negroes are permitted to become fathers, this fatal indulgence only tends to increase their misery.... How many have I seen cursing the irresistible propensity, and regretting that by having tasted of those joys, they had become the authors of double misery to their wives.... Their paternal fondness is embittered by considering that if their children live, they must live to be slaves like themselves: no time is allowed them to exercise their pious offices, the mothers must fasten them on their backs, and, with the double load follow their husbands in the fields, where they too often hear no other sound than that of the voice or whip of the taskmaster, and the cries of their infants, broiling in the sun.... It is said, I know, that they are much happier here than in the West Indies; because land being cheaper upon this continent than in those Islands, the field allowed them to raise their subsistence from, are in general more extensive.

"… We have slaves likewise in our northern provinces; I hope the time draws near when they will be all emancipated; but how different their lot, how different their situation, in every possible respect! They enjoy as much liberty as their masters, they are as well clad, and as well fed; in health and sickness they are tenderly taken care of; they live under the same roof, and are, truly speaking, a part of our families. Many of them are taught to read and write, and are well instructed in the principles of religion; they are the companions of our labours, and treated as such; they enjoy many perquisites, many established holidays, and are not obliged to work more than white people. They marry when their inclination leads them; visit their wives every week; are as decently clad as the common people; they are indulged in education, cherishing and chastising their children, who are taught subordination to them as to their lawful parents; in short, they participate in many of the benefits of our society without being obliged to bear any of its burdens. They are fat, healthy, and hearty, and far from repining at their fate; they think themselves happier than many of the lower class whites: they share with their master the wheat and meat provision, they help to raise; many of those whom the good Quakers have emancipated, have received that great benefit with tears of regret, and have never quitted, though free, their former masters and benefactors."–St. John de Crèvecoeur, "Letters from an American Farmer, 1782," pp. 226 et seq.

Impressions of Johann D. Schoepf

"The condition of the Carolina negro slaves is in general harder and more troublous than that of their northern brethren. On the rice plantations, with wretched food, they are allotted more work and more tedious work; and the treatment which they experience at the hands of the overseers and owners is capricious and often tyrannical. In Carolina (and in no other of the North American states) their severe handling has already caused several uprisings among them. There is less concern here as to their moral betterment, education, and instruction, and South Carolina appears little inclined to initiate the praiseworthy and benevolent ordinances of its sister states in regard to the negro. It is sufficient proof of the bad situation in which these creatures find themselves here that they do not multiply in the same proportions as the white inhabitants, although the climate is more natural to them and agrees with them better. Their numbers must be continually kept up by fresh importations; to be sure, the constant taking up of new land requires more and more working hands, and the pretended necessity of bringing in additional slaves is thus warranted in part; but close investigation makes it certain that the increase of the blacks in the northern states, where they are handled more gently, is vastly more considerable. The gentlemen in the country have among their negroes as the Russian nobility among the serfs, the most necessary handicrafts-men, cobblers, tailors, carpenters, smiths, and the like, whose work they command at the smallest possible price or for nothing almost. There is hardly any trade or craft which has not been learned and is not carried on by negroes, partly free, partly slave; the latter are hired out by their owners for day's wages. Charleston swarms with blacks, mulattoes and mestizos; their number greatly exceeds that of the whites, but they are kept under strict order and discipline, and the police has a watchful eye upon them. These may nowhere assemble more than 7 male negro slaves; their dances and other assemblies must stop at 10 o'clock in the evening; without permission of their owners none of them may sell beer or wine or brandy. There are here many free negroes and mulattoes. They get their freedom if by their own industry they earn enough to buy themselves off, or their freedom is given them at the death of their masters or in other ways. Not all of them know how to use their freedom to their own advantage; many give themselves up to idleness and dissipation which bring them finally to crafty deceptions and thievery. They are besides extraordinarily given to vanity, and love to adorn themselves as much as they can and to conduct themselves importantly."

–-Johann D. Schoepf, "Travels in the Confederation," 1784, p. 220.

Extracts from Anburey's Travels through North America

"Thus the whole management of the plantation is left to the overseer, who as an encouragement to make the most of the crops, has a certain portion as his wages, but not having any interest in the negroes, any further than their labour, he drives and whips them about, and works them beyond their strength, and sometimes till they expire; he feels no loss in their death, he knows the plantation must be supplied, and his humanity is estimated by his interest, which rises always above freezing point.

"It is the poor negroes who alone work hard, and I am sorry to say, fare hard. Incredible is the fatigue which the poor wretches undergo, and that nature should be able to support it; there certainly must be something in their constitutions, as well as their color, different from us, that enables them to endure it.

"They are called up at day break, and seldom allowed to swallow a mouthful of homminy, or hoe cake, but are drawn out into the field immediately, where they continue at hard labour, without intermission, till noon, when they go to their dinners, and are seldom allowed an hour for that purpose; their meals consist of hominy and salt, and if their master is a man of humanity, touched by the finer feelings of love and sensibility, he allows them twice a week a little skimmed milk, fat rusty bacon, or salt herring, to relish this miserable and scanty fare. The man at this plantation, in lieu of these, grants his negroes an acre of ground, and all Saturday afternoon to raise grain and poultry for themselves. After they have dined, they return to labor in the field, until dusk in the evening; here one naturally imagines the daily labor of these poor creatures was over, not so, they repair to the tobacco houses, where each has a task of stripping allotted which takes them up some hours, or else they have such a quantity of Indian corn to husk, and if they neglect it, are tied up in the morning, and receive a number of lashes from those unfeeling monsters, the overseers, whose masters suffer them to exercise their brutal authority without constraint. Thus by their night task, it is late in the evening before these poor creatures return to their second scanty meal, and the time taken up at it encroaches upon their hours of sleep, which for refreshment of food and sleep together can never be reckoned to exceed eight.

"When they lay themselves down to rest, their comforts are equally miserable and limited, for they sleep on a bench, or on the ground, with an old scanty blanket, which serves them at once for bed and covering, their cloathing is not less wretched, consisting of a shirt and trowsers of coarse, thin, hard, hempen stuff, in the Summer, with an addition of a very coarse woolen jacket, breeches and shoes in Winter. But since the war, their masters, for they cannot get the cloathing as usual, suffer them to go in rags, and many in a state of nudity.

"The female slaves share labor and repose just in the same manner, except a few who are term'd house negroes, and are employed in household drugery.

"These poor creatures are all submission to injuries and insults, and are obliged to be passive, nor dare they resist or defend themselves if attacked, without the smallest provocation, by a white person, as the law directs the negroe's arm to be cut off who raises it against a white person, should it be only in defence against wanton barbarity and outrage.

"Notwithstanding this humiliating state and rigid treatment to which this wretched race are subject, they are devoid of care, and appear jovial, contented and happy. It is a fortunate circumstance that they possess, and are blessed with such an easy satisfied disposition, otherwise they must inevitably sink under such a complication of misery and wretchedness; what is singularly remarkable, they always carry out a piece of fire, and kindle one near their work, let the weather be so hot and sultry.

"As I have several times mentioned homminy and hoe-cake, it may not be amiss to explain them: the former is made of Indian corn, which is coarsely broke, and boiled with a few French beans, till it is almost a pulp. Hoe-cake is Indian corn ground into meal, kneaded into a dough, and baked before a fire, but as the negroes bake theirs on the hoes that they work with, they have the appellation of hoe-cakes. These are in common use among the inhabitants, I cannot say they are palateable, for as to flavor, one made of sawdust would be equally good, and not unlike it in appearance, but they are certainly a very strong and hearty food."

–-Anburey, "Travels through America during the War," Vol. 2, pp. 330-5.

Vindication of the Negroes: A Controversy

First let me repeat your longest section relative to that people.

'Below this class of inhabitants, (the whites of no property, in Virginia,) we must rank the Negroes, who would be still more to be pitied, if their natural insensibility did not in some measure alleviate the wretchedness inseparable from slavery. Seeing them ill lodged, ill clothed, and often overcome with labour, I concluded that their treatment had been as rigorous as it is elsewhere. Notwithstanding I have been assured that it is very mild, compared to what they suffer in the Sugar Colonies. And indeed one does not hear habitually, as at Jamaica and St. Domingo, the sound of whips, and the outcries of the wretched beings, whose bodies are torn piece meal by their strokes. It is because the people of Virginia are commonly milder than those of the Sugar Colonies, which consist chiefly of rapacious men, eager to amass fortunes, as soon as possible, and return to Europe. The produce of their labours being also less valuable, their tasks are not so rigorously exacted, and in justice to both, it must be allowed that the Negroes themselves are less treacherous and thievish, than they are in the Islands: for the propagation of the black species being very considerable here, most of them are born in the country, and it is remarked that these are in general less depraved than those imported from Africa. Besides, we must do the Virginians the justice to remark, that many of them treat their Negroes with a great deal of humanity, and what is still more to their honor, they appear sorry there are any among them, and are forever talking of abolishing slavery, and falling upon some other mode of improving their land, &c.

'However this may be, it is fortunate that different motives concur to deter mankind from exercising such tyranny, at least upon their own species, if we cannot say, strictly speaking, their equals; for the more we observe the Negroes, the more we are convinced that the difference between us does not lie in the colour alone, &c.

'Enough upon this subject, which has not escaped the attention of the politicians and philosophers of the present age: I have only to apologize for treating it without declamation; but I have always thought, that eloquence can only influence the resolutions of the moment, and that every thing which requires time, must be the work of reason. And besides, it will be an easy matter to add ten or twelve pages to these few reflections, which may be considered as a concert composed only of principal parts, con corni ad libertum.'

Upon reading this passage attentively, I was surprised to find it contain a singular mixture of contradictory principles, and in the same breath, the sentiments of a philosopher and of a colonist; of an advocate for the Negroes, and of their enemy.

It is evident that as a philosopher, and a friend to humanity, you are inclined to alleviate the lot of the Negroes, and commend those who do so, but this tenderness itself conceals a subtile venom that ought to be exposed. For you only bestow your pity upon the Negroes, while you owe them, if you are a philosopher, vindication and defense; you wish their masters to be humane; they ought to be just. Instead of praising such humanity, you ought to have blamed them for stopping there, in short, such a contempt for the Negroes pervades this whole article, as will necessarily encourage their tormentors to rivet their chains. Is not this contempt observable, for instance in the very first period?

"Below this class of inhabitants (the meanest whites of Virginia) we must rank the Negroes, who would be still more to be pitied, if their natural insensibility did not in some measure alleviate the wretchedness inseparable from slavery."

And who told you, Sir, that nature had created the Negroes with less feeling than other men? do you judge so because they have vegetated for three centuries in European fetters, and at this day have not altogether shaken off the horrid yoke? But do not their frequent risings, and the cruelties they from time to time retaliate upon their masters, give the lie to this natural insensibility? for an insensible being has no resentment. If he does not feel, how should he remember? Do you think the wretched Indians, who, since the discovery of the New world, are burried in the mines of Peru, are also naturally insensible, because they suffer patiently?

You calumniate nature in making her grant favours to particulars; in giving her a system of inequality among her offspring. All men are cast in the same mould.–The varieties which distinguish individuals, are the sports of chance, or the result of different circumstances; but the black comes into the world with as much sensibility as the white, the Peruvian, as the European.

What then degrades this natural and moral sensibility? The greater or less privation of liberty; in proportion as man loses it, he loses the powers of sensation; he loses the man; he sickens or becomes a brute. It is slavery alone which can reduce a man to a level with the brute creation, and sometimes deprives him of all sensibility; but you blame nature, that kind parent, who would have us all equal, free and happy, for the crime of social barbarity, and you pass by this crime, to extenuate another, to extenuate the horrid torments of slavery! Not satisfied with violating nature, by abusing her offspring, even in her name, you encourage slaveholders to torment them.

Do you not arm their tyrants, when you tell them, the insensibility of the Negroes alleviates their torments?

What! because greatness of soul raised Sidney above the terrors of death, the infernal Jefferies⁵¹¹ who caused his execution, was less guilty! because the Quakers appeared insensible to insults, blows, or punishments, they are less to be pitied, and it was right to martyr them! A dangerous notion, whose consequences I am sure you would disapprove. If this insensibility with which you reproach the Negroes mitigated the cruelty of their masters, it were well: but their tormentors do not wish them not to feel; they would have them all feeling, for the pleasure of torturing them; and their punishments are increased in proportion to their insensibility.

Seeing the Negroes, say you, "Ill lodged, ill cloathed, and often overcome with labour, I concluded that their treatment had been as rigorous as it is elsewhere. Notwithstanding I have been assured that it is very mild, compared to what they suffer in the Sugar Colonies."

Why this comparison, which seems to insinuate a justification of the Virginians? does a misfortune cease to be such, because there is a greater elsewhere? Was Cartouche less detestable because Brinvilliers had existed before him? Let us not weaken by comparisons the idea of criminality, nor lessen the attention due to the miserable, this were to countenance the crime. The Negroes are ill lodged, ill cloathed, oppressed with labour in Virginia: this is the fact, this is the offence. It matters not whether they are worse treated elsewhere; in whatever degree they are so in Virginia, it is still outrage and injustice.

And again, why are the Negroes of Virginia less cruelly treated? Humanity is not the motive, it is because covetousness cannot obtain so much from their labours, as in the Sugar Islands. Was it otherwise, they would be sacrificed to it here, as well as there; how can we praise such forced humanity? how, on the contrary, not give vent to all the indignation, which must naturally arise in every feeling mind?

"And to do justice to both, you add, if the Virginians are not so severe, it is because the Negroes themselves are less treacherous and thievish than in the islands, because the propagation of the black species being very considerable here, most of the Negroes are born in the country, and it is remarked, that these are in general less depraved than those imported from Africa."

Here is a strange confusion of causes and effects, and a strange abuse of words. First let us clear up the facts. Here are some valuable ones for the cause of the Negroes.

You say they are not so thievish in Virginia, propagate faster, and are less depraved: Why? Because they are less cruelly treated.–Here is the cause and the effect, you have mistaken one for the other.

We must conclude from this fact, that if the Virginians were no longer severe, and should treat the blacks like fellow-creatures, they would not be more vicious than their white servants.

The degree of oppression is the measure of what is improperly called the viciousness of the slaves.–The more cruel their tyrants, the more treacherous, villainous and cruel are the slaves in return–Can we wonder that Macronius should assassinate his master Tiberius? This viciousness is a punishment that heaven inflicts upon tyranny.

Can the efforts of a slave for the recovery of his liberty, be denominated vicious or criminal? From the moment you violate the laws of nature, in regard to them, why should not they shake them off in their relative duties to you? You rob them of liberty, and you would not have them steal your gold! You whip and cruelly torment them, and expect them not to struggle for deliverance! You assassinate them every day, and expect them not to assassinate you once! You call your outrages, rights, and the courage which repulses them, a crime! What a confusion of ideas! what horrid logic!

And you, sir, a humane philosopher! are accessory to this injustice, by describing the blacks in the style of a dealer in human flesh! You call what are no more than natural consequences of the compression of the spring of liberty–treachery, theft and depravation.⁵¹² But can a natural consequence be criminal? Remove the cause or is it not the only crime?

For my part, sir, I firmly believe, that the barbarities committed by the Negroes, not merely against their masters, but even against others, will be attributed at the bar of eternal justice, to the slaveholders, and those infamous persons employed in the Guinea trade. I firmly believe, that no human justice has the right of putting a Negro slave to death for any crime whatever, because not being free, he is not sui juris, and should be regarded as a child or an idiot, being almost always under the lash. I believe that the real criminal, the cause of the crime, is the man who first seized him, sold him, or enslaved him.–And if ever I should fall under the knife of an unhappy runaway, I would not resent it upon him but upon those white men who keep blacks in slavery. I would tell them, your cruelty towards your Negroes, has endangered my life–they execrate you, they take me for a tyrant because I am white like you, and the vengeance due to your crimes has fallen upon me.

God forbid, however, that I should undertake to encourage the blacks to take up arms against their masters! God forbid, however, that I should undertake to justify the excesses to which their resentments have sometimes hurried them, and which have often fallen on persons who were not accessary to their wretchedness! The slavery under which they groan, must be abolished by peaceable means; and thanks to the active spirit of benevolence which animates the Quakers, the pious undertaking is already begun. In most of the United States of America, the yoke has been taken from their necks; in others the Guinea-trade has been prohibited. Societies have been formed both at Paris and London, to collect and circulate information upon this interesting subject, to induce the European governments to put a stop to the Negro trade, and provide for their gradual emancipation in the West-India islands: No doubt success will crown their views, and the friends of liberty will enjoy the satisfaction of communicating its blessings to the blacks.

But the blacks must wait for the happy moment that shall restore them to civil life, in silence and in peace; they must rely upon the unwearied diligence and zeal of the numerous writers who advocate their cause, and the efforts of the humane to second their endeavors; they must strive to justify and support the arguments that are adduced in their favour, by displaying virtue in the very bosom of slavery; they must endeavour, in a word, to render themselves worthy of liberty, that they may know how to use it when it shall be restored to them; for liberty itself is sometimes a burden, when slavery has stupefied the soul.

Such blacks, therefore, as are so inconsiderate as to be concerned in insurrections, are guilty of retarding the execution of the general plan for their emancipation; for the question is not, at the present day, whether a million of slaves ought to be set at liberty, but whether they can when free, be put into a capacity of providing for the subsistence of themselves and their families. Insurrections, far from effecting this purpose, would destroy the means. Regard, therefore, to their own interests, if there were no other motive, should therefore engage the blacks to patient submission, and no doubt but they will yield it, if their masters and the ministers of the gospel in particular, to whom the task of comforting and instructing them, is committed, endeavour to prepare them for approaching freedom.

You sir, have adopted the vulgar notion, that the Negroes born in Virginia, are less depraved than those imported from Africa. You call the firmness which is common in the early stages of their slavery greater degeneracy; they are depraved, that is, in your language–they are wicked and treacherous to those who have purchased them, or brought them from their own country.–But in my mind, they are not depraved, because the acts of violence their genius inspires them to revenge themselves upon their tyrants, are justified by the rights of nature.

And why are those imported, more wicked in your opinion? In mine, more quick, more ardent in their resentments? because, not having forgotten their former situation, they feel their loss the more sensibly; and having strong ideas, their resolutions are more firm and their actions more violent, they not having yet contracted the habits of slavery.

They soon fall into that degree of apathy and insensibility, which you unjustly believe to be natural to them; that is, in your language, they become less depraved; but I would say that their depravity begins with this apathy and weakness.–For depravity is the loss of nature, and the want of those virtues inherent in man, courage and the love of liberty. Our readers may judge from this article, how strangely writers have wrested words to condemn these unhappy Negroes, and the unfortunate in general.

I do not, however, pretend to say, that the Negroes of Africa are all good, or even that many of them are not depraved. But is this fact to be imputed to them as a personal crime? Ought you not rather to have ascribed it to the foreign source by which they are corrupted. Alike in them and in the whites, the depravity of man is a consequence of his wretchedness, and the usurpation of his rights. Wherever he is free and at ease, he is good; wherever the contrary, he is wicked. Neither his nature nor the climate corrupt him, but the government of his country. Now that of the Negroes is almost universally despotic, such as must necessarily debase and corrupt the Negro.

How much is the depravity, occasioned by the government of his country, increased by his second slavery, far worse than the first–for he is no longer among friends in his native land–surrounded by the pleasing scenes of his childhood, he is among monsters who are going to live by, and trade in his blood, and has nothing before his eyes but death, or oppression equivalent to an endless punishment.

How is it possible such horrid prospects should not fire his soul? How, if chance should present him with arms and liberty, should he resist using them, to put an end to his own existence, or that of his tormentors? What white man would be less cruel in his situation? Truly I think myself of a humane disposition, that I love my fellow-creatures and detest the effusion of blood, but if ever a villain, white or black, should snatch me from my freedom, my family, and my friends, should overwhelm me with outrages and blows, to gratify his caprice, should extend his barbarities to my wife and children–my blood boils at the thought–perhaps in a transport of revenge.... If such vengeance would be lawful in me, what makes the Negro more guilty? Why should that be called wickedness and depravity in him, which would be stiled virtue in me, in you, in every white man? Are not my rights the same as his? Is not nature our common parent? God his father as well as mine? His conscience an infallible guide as well as mine? Let us then no longer make other laws for the blacks than those we are bound by ourselves, since Heaven has placed them on a level with us, has made them like us, since they are our brethren and our fellow-creatures.

Here you stop me, you say that the Negro is not our fellow-creature, that he is below the white.

How could so shocking an opinion escape the pen of a member of the Royal Academy, a writer who would be thought a friend of mankind!

Do not you see the tormentors of St. Domingo, avail themselves of it already, redoubling their strokes, and regarding their slaves as mere machines, like the Cartesians do the brutes? They are not our fellow-creatures will they say: a philosopher of Paris has proved it?

What! the blacks our equals! Have not they eyes, ears, a shape, and organs like ours? Does nature follow another order, other laws for them?–Have not they speech, that peculiar characteristic of humanity? But then the colour! What of that? Are the pale white Albinos, the olive or copper coloured Indians also of different species! Who does not know that colour is accidental. They are not our equals! Have not they the same faculties–reason, memory, imagination? Yes, you reply, but they have written no books. Who told you so? Who told you there were no learned blacks? And supposing it were so, if none but authors are men, the whole human race is different from us.