“...  We have slaves likewise in our northern provinces; I hope the time draws near when they will be all emancipated; but how different their lot, how different their situation, in every possible respect!  They enjoy as much liberty as their masters, they are as well clad, and as well fed; in health and sickness they are tenderly taken care of; they live under the same roof, and are, truly speaking, a part of our families.  Many of them are taught to read and write, and are well instructed in the principles of religion; they are the companions of our labours, and treated as such; they enjoy many perquisites, many established holidays, and are not obliged to work more than white people.  They marry when their inclination leads them; visit their wives every week; are as decently clad as the common people; they are indulged in education, cherishing and chastising their children, who are taught subordination to them as to their lawful parents; in short, they participate in many of the benefits of our society without being obliged to bear any of its burdens.  They are fat, healthy, and hearty, and far from repining at their fate; they think themselves happier than many of the lower class whites:  they share with their master the wheat and meat provision, they help to raise; many of those whom the good Quakers have emancipated, have received that great benefit with tears of regret, and have never quitted, though free, their former masters and benefactors.”—­St. John de Crevecoeur, “Letters from an American Farmer, 1782,” pp. 226 et seq.

IMPRESSIONS OF JOHANN D. SCHOEPF

“The condition of the Carolina negro slaves is in general harder and more troublous than that of their northern brethren.  On the rice plantations, with wretched food, they are allotted more work and more tedious work; and the treatment which they experience at the hands of the overseers and owners is capricious and often tyrannical.  In Carolina (and in no other of the North American states) their severe handling has already caused several uprisings among them.  There is less concern here as to their moral betterment, education, and instruction, and South Carolina appears little inclined to initiate the praiseworthy and benevolent ordinances of its sister states in regard to the negro.  It is sufficient proof of the bad situation in which these creatures find themselves here that they do not multiply in the same proportions as the white inhabitants, although the climate is more natural to them and agrees with them better.  Their numbers must be continually kept up by fresh importations; to be sure, the constant taking up of new land requires more and more working hands, and the pretended necessity of bringing in additional slaves is thus warranted in part; but close investigation makes it certain that the increase of the blacks in the northern states, where they are handled more gently, is vastly more considerable.