The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4 eBook

American Anti-Slavery Society
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,269 pages of information about The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4.

The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4 eBook

American Anti-Slavery Society
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,269 pages of information about The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4.

General WILLIAM EATON, for some years U.S.  Consul at Tunis, and commander of the expedition against Tripoli, in 1895, thus gives vent to his feelings at the sight of many hundreds of Sardinians who had been enslaved by the Tunisians: 

“Many have died of grief, and the others linger out a life less tolerable than death.  Alas! remorse seizes my whole soul when I reflect, that this is indeed but a copy of the very barbarity which my eyes have seen in my own native country. How frequently, in the southern states of my own country, have I seen weeping mothers leading the guiltless infant to the sales with as deep anguish as if they led them to the slaughter; and yet felt my bosom tranquil in the view of these aggressions on defenceless humanity.  But when I see the same enormities practised upon beings whose complexions and blood claim kindred with my own, I curse the perpetrators, and weep over the wretched victims of their rapacity. Indeed, truth and justice demand from me the confession, that the Christian slaves among the barbarians of Africa are treated with more humanity than the African slaves among professing Christians of civilized America; and yet here [in Tunis] sensibility bleeds at every pore for the wretches whom fate has doomed to slavery.”

Rev. H. LYMAN, late pastor of the free Presbyterian Church, Buffalo, N.Y. who spent the winter of 1832-3 at the south, says:—­

“In the interior of Mississippi I was invited to the house of a planter, where I was received with great cordiality, and entertained with marked hospitality.

“There I saw a master in the midst of his household slaves.  The evening passed most pleasantly, as indeed it must, where assiduous hospitalities are exercised towards the guest.

“Late in the morning, when I had gained the tardy consent of my host to go on my way, as a final act of kindness, he called a slave to show me across the fields by a nearer route to the main road.  ‘David,’ said he, ’go and show this gentleman as far as the post-office.  Do you know the big bay tree?’ ‘Yes, sir.’  ‘Do you know where the cotton mill is?’ ‘Yes, sir.’  ‘Where Squire Malcolm’s old field is?’ ‘Y—­e—­s, sir,’ said David, (beginning to be bewildered).  ’Do you know where Squire Malcolm’s cotton field is?’ ‘No, sir.’  ‘No, sir,’ said the enraged master, levelling his gun at him.  ’What do you stand here, saying, Yes, yes, yes, for, when you don’t know?’ All this was accompanied with threats and imprecations, and a manner that contrasted strangely with the religious conversation and gentle manners of the previous evening.”

The Rev. JAMES H. DICKEY, formerly a slaveholder in South Carolina, now pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Hennepin, Ill. in his “Review of Nevins’ Biblical Antiquities,” after asserting that slaveholding tends to beget “a spirit of cruelty and tyranny, and to destroy every generous and noble feeling,” (page 33,) he adds the following as a note:—­

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.