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.

Mr. GEORGE A. AVERY, an elder of a Presbyterian church in Rochester, N.Y., who lived some years in Virginia, gives the following: 

“The manner of treating the sick slaves, and especially in chronic cases, was to my mind peculiarly revolting.  My opportunities for observation in this department were better than in, perhaps, any other, as the friend under whose direction I commenced my medical studies, enjoyed a high reputation as a surgeon.  I rode considerably with him in his practice, and assisted in the surgical operations and dressings from time to time.  In confirmed cases of disease, it was common for the master to place the subject under the care of a physician or surgeon, at whose expense the patient should be kept, and if death ensued to the patient, or the disease was not cured, no compensation was to be made, but if cured a bonus of one, two, or three hundred dollars was to be given.  No provision was made against the barbarity or neglect of the physician, &c.  I have seen fifteen or twenty of these helpless sufferers crowded together in the true spirit of slaveholding inhumanity, like the “brutes that perish,” and driven from time to time like brutes into a common yard, where they had to suffer any and every operation and experiment, which interest, caprice, or professional curiosity might prompt,—­unrestrained by law, public sentiment, or the claims of common humanity.”

Rev. WILLIAM T. ALLAN, son of Rev. Dr. Allan, a slaveholder, of Huntsville, Alabama, says in a letter now before us: 

“Colonel Robert H. Watkins, of Laurence county, Alabama, who owned about three hundred slaves, after employing a physician among them for some time, ceased to do so, alleging as the reason, that it was cheaper to lose a few negroes every year than to pay a physician.  This Colonel Watkins was a Presidential elector in 1836.”

A.A.  GUTHRIE, Esq., elder in the Presbyterian church at Putnam, Muskingum county, Ohio, furnishes the testimony which follows.

“A near female friend of mine in company with another young lady, in attempting to visit a sick woman on Washington’s Bottom, Wood county, Virginia, missed the way, and stopping to ask directions of a group of colored children on the outskirts of the plantation of Francis Keen, Sen., they were told to ask ‘aunty, in the house.’  On entering the hut, says my informant, I beheld such a sight as I hope never to see again; its sole occupant was a female slave of the said Keen—­her whole wearing apparel consisted of a frock, made of the coarsest tow cloth, and so scanty, that it could not have been made more tight around her person.  In the hut there was neither table, chair, nor chest—­a stool and a rude fixture in one corner, were all its furniture.  On this last were a little straw and a few old remnants of what had been bedding—­all exceedingly filthy.

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