I also know an instance in which the husband was a slave and the wife was free:  during the illness of the former, the latter was allowed to come and nurse him; she was obliged to leave the work by which she had made a living, and come to stay with her husband, and thus lost weeks of her time, or he would have suffered for want of proper attention; and yet his “owner” made her no compensation for her services.  He had long been a faithful and a favorite slave, and his owner was a woman very benevolent to the poor whites.—­She went a great deal among these, as a visiting commissioner of the Ladies’ Benevolent Society, and was in the constant habit of paying the relatives of the poor whites for nursing their husbands, fathers, and other relations; because she thought it very hard, when their time was taken up, so that they could not earn their daily bread, that they should be left to suffer.  Now, such is the stupifying influence of the “chattel principle” on the minds of slaveholders, that I do not suppose it ever occurred to her that this poor colored wife ought to be paid for her services, and particularly as she was spending her time and strength in taking care of her “property.”  She no doubt only thought how kind she was, to allow her to come and stay so long in her yard; for, let it be kept in mind, that slaveholders have unlimited power to separate husbands and wives, parents and children, however and whenever they please; and if this mistress had chosen to do it, she could have debarred this woman from all intercourse with her husband, by forbidding her to enter her premises.

Persons who own plantations and yet live in cities, often take children from their parents as soon as they are weaned, and send them into the country; because they do not want the time of the mother taken up by attendance upon her own children, it being too valuable to the mistress.  As a favor, she is, in some cases, permitted to go to see them once a year.  So, on the other hand, if field slaves happen to have children of an age suitable to the convenience of the master, they are taken from their parents and brought to the city.  Parents are almost never consulted as to the disposition to be made of their children; they have as little control over them, as have domestic animals over the disposal of their young.  Every natural and social feeling and affection are violated with indifference; slaves are treated as though they did not possess them.

Another way in which the feelings of slaves are trifled with and often deeply wounded, is by changing their names; if, at the time they are brought into a family, there is another slave of the same name; or if the owner happens, for some other reason, not to like the name of the new comer.  I have known slaves very much grieved at having the names of their children thus changed, when they had been called after a dear relation.  Indeed it would be utterly impossible to recount the multitude of ways in which the heart of the slave is continually lacerated by the total disregard of his feelings as a social being and a human creature.