The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4 eBook

American Anti-Slavery Society
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,269 pages of information about The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4.

The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4 eBook

American Anti-Slavery Society
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,269 pages of information about The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4.
taken to an older plantation of their masters, where they could be made comfortable, and they recovered.  I directed that they should not go to work till after sunrise, and should not work in the rain till their health became established.  But the overseer refusing to permit it, I declined attending on them farther.  I was called,’ continued he, ’by the overseer of another plantation to see one of the men.  I found him lying by the side of a log in great pain.  I asked him how he did, ‘O,’ says he, ‘I’m most dead, can live but little longer.’  How long have you been sick?  I’ve felt for more than six weeks as though I could hardly stir.’  Why didn’t you tell your master, you was sick?  ’I couldn’t see my master, and the overseer always whips us when we complain, I could not stand a whipping.’  I did all I could for the poor fellow, but his lungs were rotten.  He died in three days from the time he left off work.’  The cruelty of that overseer is such that the negroes almost tremble at his name.  Yet he gets a high salary, for he makes the largest crop of any other man in the neighborhood, though none but the hardiest negroes can stand it under him.  “That man,” says the Doctor, “would be hung in my country.”  He was a German.”

TESTIMONY OF REV.  WILLIAM A. CHAPIN.

REV.  WILLIAM SCALES, of Lyndon, Vermont, has furnished the following testimony, under date of Dec. 15, 1838.

“I send you an extract from a letter that I have just received, which you may use ad libitum.  The letter is from Rev. Wm. A. Chapin, Greensborough, Vermont.  To one who is acquainted with Mr. C. his opinion and statements must carry conviction even to the most obstinate and incredulous.  He observes, ’I resided, as a teacher, nearly two years in the family of Carroll Webb, Esq., of Hampstead, New Kent co. about twenty miles from Richmond, Virginia.  Mr. Webb had three or four plantations, and was considered one of the two wealthiest men in the county:  it was supposed he owned about two hundred slaves.  He was a member of the Presbyterian Church, and was elected an elder while I was with him.  He was a native of Virginia, but a graduate of a New-England college.

“The slaves were called in the morning before daylight, I believe at all seasons of the year, that they might prepare their food, and be ready to go to work as soon as it was light enough to see.  I know that at the season of husking corn, October and November, they were usually compelled to work late—­till 12 or 1 o’clock at night.  I know this fact because they accompanied their work with a loud singing of their own sort.  I usually retired to rest between 11 and 12 o’clock, and generally heard them at their work as long as I was awake.  The slaves lived in wretched log cabins, of one room each, without floors or windows.  I believe the slaves sometimes suffer for want of food.  One evening, as I was sitting in the parlor with Mr.

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The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.