Most of the actual suffering from hunger on the part of the slaves, is in the sugar and cotton-growing region, where the crops are exported and the corn generally purchased from the upper country.  Where this is the case there cannot but be suffering.  The contingencies of bad crops, difficult transportation, high prices, &c. &c., naturally occasion short and often precarious allowances.  The following extract from a New Orleans paper of April 26, 1837, affords an illustration.  The writer in describing the effects of the money pressure in Mississippi, says: 

“They, (the planters,) are now left without provisions and the means of living and using their industry, for the present year.  In this dilemma, planters whose crops have been from 100 to 700 bales, find themselves forced to sacrifice many of their slaves in order to get the common necessaries of life for the support of themselves and the rest of their negroes.  In many places, heavy planters compel their slaves to fish for the means of subsistence, rather than sell them at such ruinous rates.  There are at this moment THOUSANDS OF SLAVES in Mississippi, that KNOW NOT WHERE THE NEXT MORSEL IS TO COME FROM.  The master must be ruined to save the wretches from being STARVED.”

II.  LABOR

THE SLAVES ARE OVERWORKED.

This is abundantly proved by the number of hours that the slaves are obliged to be in the field.  But before furnishing testimony as to their hours of labor and rest, we will present the express declarations of slaveholders and others, that the slaves are severely driven in the field.

The Senate and House of Representatives of the State of South Carolina.

“Many owners of slaves, and others who have the management of slaves, do confine them so closely at hard labor that they have not sufficient time for natural rest.—­See 2 Brevard’s Digest of the Laws of South Carolina, 243.”

History of Carolina.—­Vol.  I, page 190.

“So laborious is the task of raising, beating, and cleaning rice, that had it been possible to obtain European servants in sufficient numbers, thousands and tens of thousands MUST HAVE PERISHED.”

Hon. Alexander Smyth, a slaveholder, and member of Congress from Virginia, in his speech on the “Missouri question,” Jan. 28, 1820.

“Is it not obvious that the way to render their situation more comfortable, is to allow them to be taken where there is not the same motive to force the slave to INCESSANT TOIL that there is in the country where cotton, sugar, and tobacco are raised for exportation.  It is proposed to hem in the blacks where they are HARD WORKED, that they may be rendered unproductive and the race be prevented from increasing. * * * The proposed measure would be EXTREME CRUELTY to the blacks. * * * You would * * * doom them to HARD LABOR.”

“Travels in Louisiana,” translated from the French by John Davies, Esq.—­Page 81.