Doctor ——­ came down the river with thirty slaves, among which were an old negro and negress, each between sixty and seventy years of age; this unfortunate old woman had borne twenty-one children, all of whom had been at different times sold in the Orleans market, and carried into other states, and into distant parts of Louisiana.  The Doctor said, in order to induce her to leave home quietly, that he was bringing her into Louisiana for the purpose of placing her with some of her children—­“and now,” says the old negress, “aldo I suckle my massa at dis breast, yet now he sell me to sugar planter, after he sell all my children away from me.”  This gentleman was a strict Methodist, or “saint,” and is, I was informed, much esteemed by the preachers of that persuasion, because of his liberal contributions to their support.

Negresses, when young and likely, are often employed as wet nurses by white people, as also by either the planter or his friends, to administer to their sensual desires—­this frequently as a matter of speculation, for if the offspring, a mulatto, be a handsome female, from 800 to 1000 dollars may be obtained for her in the Orleans market.[11] It is an occurrence of no uncommon nature to see the Christian father sell his own daughter, and the brother his own sister, by the same father.  Slaves do not marry, but pair at discretion; and the more children they produce, the better for their masters.

On the Levee at New Orleans, are constantly exhibited specimens of the white man’s humanity, in the persons of runaway slaves.  When such an unfortunate negro is retaken, a log is chained to one of his legs, and round his neck is placed an iron collar, from which project three sharp prongs more than a foot in length each.

The evils of this infernal system are beginning to re-act upon the Christians, who are latterly kept in a constant state of alarm, fearing the number and disposition of the blacks, which threaten at no far distant period to overwhelm the south with some dreadful calamity.[12] Three incendiary fires took place at Orleans, during the month I remained in that city, by which several thousand bales of cotton were consumed.  The condition of the slaves on the sugar or rice plantations, is truly wretched.  They are ill-fed, ill-clad, and worked in gangs under the superintendence of a driver, who is armed with a long whip, which he uses at discretion; and it is a fact, well known to persons who have visited slave countries, that punishments are more frequently inflicted to gratify the private pique or caprice of the driver, than for crime or neglect of duty.