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.

“‘The dogs succeeded in drowning him’!  Poor fellow!  He tried hard for his life, plunged into the sluice, and, with a bullet in his shoulder, and the blood hounds unfleshing his bones, he bore up for a moment with feeble stroke as best he might, but ‘public opinion,’ ‘succeeded in drowning him,’ and the same ‘public opinion,’ calls the man who fired and crippled him, and cheered on the dogs, ’a gentleman,’ and the editor who celebrates the exploit is a ‘gentleman’ also!”

A large number of extracts similar to the above, might here be inserted from Southern newspapers in our possession, but the foregoing are more than sufficient for our purpose, and we bring to a close the testimony on this point, with the following.  Extract of a letter, from the Rev. Samuel J. May, of South Scituate, Mass. dated Dec. 20, 1838.

“You doubtless recollect the narrative given in the Oasis, of a slave in Georgia, who having ranaway from his master, (accounted a very hospitable and even humane gentleman,) was hunted by his master and his retainers with horses, dogs, and rifles, and having been driven into a tree by the hounds, was shot down by his more cruel pursuers.  All the facts there given, and some others equally shocking, connected with the same case, were first communicated to me in 1833, by Mr. W. Russell, a highly respectable teacher of youth in Boston.  He is doubtless ready to vouch for them.  The same gentleman informed me that he was keeping school on or near the plantation of the monster who perpetrated the above outrage upon humanity, that he was even invited by him to join in the hunt, and when he expressed abhorrence at the thought, the planter holding up the rifle which he had in his hand said with an oath, ’damn that rascal, this is the third time he has runaway, and he shall never run again.  I’d rather put a ball into his side, than into the best buck in the land.’”

Mr. Russell, in the account given by him of this tragedy in the ‘Oasis,’ page 267, thus describes the slaveholder who made the above expression, and was the leader of the ‘hunt,’ and in whose family he resided at the time as an instructor he says of him—­he was “an opulent planter, in whose family the evils of slaveholding were palliated by every expedient that a humane and generous disposition could suggest.  He was a man of noble and elevated character, and distinguished for his generosity, and kindness of heart.”

In a letter to Mr. May, dated Feb. 3, 1839, Mr. Russell, speaking of the hunting of runaways with dogs and guns, says:  “Occurrences of a nature similar to the one related in the ‘Oasis,’ were not unfrequent in the interior of Georgia and South Carolina twenty years ago. Several such fell under my notice within the space of fifteen months.  In two such ‘hunts,’ I was solicited to join.”

The following was written by a sister-in-law of Gerrit Smith, Esq., Peterboro.  She is married to the son of a North Carolinian.

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