DOCUMENTS

TRAVELERS’ IMPRESSIONS OF SLAVERY IN AMERICA FROM 1750 TO 1800

From these writers, almost all of whom were foreigners, one would naturally expect such a portraiture of slavery as persons unaccustomed to the institution would give.  Most Americans, of course, considered the institution as belonging to the natural order of things and, therefore, hardly ever referred to it except when they mentioned it unconsciously.  Foreigners, however, as soon as they came into this new world began to compare the slaves with the lowest order of society in Europe.  Finding the lot of the bondmen so much inferior to that of those of low estate in European countries, these travelers frequently made some interesting comparisons.  We are indebted to them for valuable information which we can never hope to obtain from the literature of an essentially slaveholding people.  Here we see how the American Revolution caused a change for the better in the condition of the Negroes in certain States, and how the rigorousness of slavery continued in the others.  We learn too what enlightened Negroes thought about their state and what the white man believed should be done to prevent their reaching the point of self-assertion.  That a large number of anti-slavery Americans were advocating and effecting the emancipation of slaves appears throughout these documents.

BURNABY’S VIEW OF THE SITUATION IN VIRGINIA

Speaking of Virginia, he said:  “Their authority over their slaves renders them vain and imperious, and entire strangers to that elegance of sentiment, which is so peculiarly characteristic of refined and polished nations.  Their ignorance of mankind and of learning, exposes them to many errors and prejudices, especially in regard to Indians and Negroes, whom they scarcely consider as of human species; so that it is almost impossible in cases of violence, or even murder, committed upon those unhappy people by any of the planters, to have delinquents brought to justice:  for either the grand jury refuse to find the bill, or the petit jury bring in the verdict of not guilty.”—­Andrew Burnaby, “Travels,” 1759, p. 54.

GENERAL TREATMENT OF SLAVES AMONG THE ALBANIANS—­CONSEQUENT ATTACHMENT OF DOMESTICS.—­REFLECTIONS ON SERVITUDE BY AN AMERICAN LADY

In the society I am describing, even the dark aspect of slavery was softened into a smile.  And I must, in justice to the best possible masters, say, that a great deal of that tranquility and comfort, to call it by no higher name, which distinguished this society from all others, was owing to the relation between master and servant being better understood here than in any other place.  Let me not be detested as an advocate for slavery when I say that I think I have never seen people so happy in servitude as the