who was hoeing in his little field.  They called out, ’Is this Southampton County?’ He replied, ’Yes, Sir, you have just crossed the line, by yonder tree.’  They shot him dead and rode on.”  This is from the narrative of the editor of the “Richmond Whig,” who was then on duty in the militia, and protested manfully against these outrages.  “Some of these scenes,” he adds, “are hardly inferior in barbarity to the atrocities of the insurgents.”

These were the masters’ stones.  If even these conceded so much, it would be interesting to hear what the slaves had to report.  I am indebted to my honored friend, Lydia Maria Child, for some vivid recollections of this terrible period, as noted down from the lips of an old colored woman, once well known in New York, Charity Bower.  “At the time of the old Prophet Nat,” she said, “the colored folks was afraid to pray loud; for the whites threatened to punish ’em dreadfully, if the least noise was heard.  The patrols was low drunken whites, and in Nat’s time, if they heard any of the colored folks praying or singing a hymn, they would fall upon ’em and abuse ’em, and sometimes kill ’em, afore master or missis could get to ’em.  The brightest and best was killed in Nat’s time.  The whites always suspect such ones.  They killed a great many at a place called Duplon.  They killed Antonio, a slave of Mr. J. Stanley, whom they shot; then they pointed their guns at him, and told him to confess about the insurrection.  He told ’em he didn’t know anything about any insurrection.  They shot several balls through him, quartered him, and put his head on a pole at the fork of the road leading to the court.” (This is no exaggeration, if the Virginia newspapers may be taken as evidence.) “It was there but a short time.  He had no trial.  They never do.  In Nat’s time, the patrols would tie up the free colored people, flog ’em, and try to make ’em lie against one another, and often killed them before anybody could interfere.  Mr. James Cole, High Sheriff, said, if any of the patrols came on his plantation, he would lose his life in defence of his people.  One day he heard a patroller boasting how many niggers he had killed.  Mr. Cole said, ’If you don’t pack up, as quick as God Almighty will let you, and get out of this town, and never be seen in it again, I’ll put you where dogs won’t bark at you.’  He went off, and wasn’t seen in them parts again.”

These outrages were not limited to the colored population; but other instances occurred which strikingly remind one of more recent times.  An Englishman, named Robinson, was engaged in selling books at Petersburg.  An alarm being given, one night, that five hundred blacks were marching towards the town, he stood guard, with others, on the bridge.  After the panic had a little subsided, he happened to remark, that “the blacks, as men, were entitled to their freedom, and ought to be emancipated.”  This led to great excitement, and he was warned to leave town.  He took passage in the stage, but the stage was intercepted.  He then fled to a friend’s house; the house was broken open, and he was dragged forth.  The civil authorities, being applied to, refused to interfere.  The mob stripped him, gave him a great number of lashes, and sent him on foot, naked, under a hot sun, to Richmond, whence he with difficulty found a passage to New York.