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SLAVERY IN THE SOUTH, 263
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
<> Savannah, 4th March.—Here In This Hou...
weeks I Iiad seen a great deal of her and found her very intelligent and affectionate . She was so sorrowful at parting with me that she
could not say one word , and put herself behind the door perfectly quiet . She told me she had no one in the world who cared for her .
Her father was alive but she never saw him . Slave owners may say what they like , but families are separated : when they are not ,
it is an exception . " What falsehoods I have read ! Answers to Uncle Tom ( which book is itself nowhere to be found ) deluge the
together South in , newsp and th ap at ers the . reverse It is always is a _^ sad asserted and rare that occurrence families . are Wh kept y ,
every week hundreds from Virginia and Maryland are sold in New Orleansand it is rarely that a family is sold altogether—father
, , mother , and children ;—nevery I was going to say ; but it is sometimes the case . There is one slave dealer in New Orleans who
does not sell slaves without consulting them as to their likes and dislikes : he asks them whether they will like _sLich and such
a master . This I heard on very good authority , but mentioned as a very curious and solitary instance . "When I was talking
as usual to these negro women on board the _JStvan , they said , " You must not speak loud ; you must speak lowor you will
get into trouble ! " An English lady and gentleman , had to leave New Orleans merely for talking abolition ; and at Mobile a
Unitarian minister only escaped tar and feathers by night , because lie made some allusion to abolition doctrines in the pulpit . I say
I am not an abolitionist ; I am not . What I wish for is gradual freedom for the blacks ; but freedom in all the states to buy themselves
and freedom to educate themselves . Instead of any tendency to , ameliorate the condition of the slave , I see nothing but increased
barbarity in the laws , and firmer barriers raised against the encroachments of the universal spirit of freedom . Hereas in Europe
laws to stifle this spirit increase in severity ; despotism , seems , dominant : "but spite of appearancesthere are more souls alive
to the idea of self-government than , ever before . My feeling against the whites of the South is for their wickedness in . neglecting
everything which might elevate the African race . My anger is not only against the slave ownersbut against all in America who would
exclude the dusky-skinned from , the lights of knowledge and the blessings of freedom which all the white race here so abundantly
enjoy . We are both struck by the intelligence and general agreeableness of the negroes and mulattoes . The race is not so low in the
human scale as I supposed before I came here . Probably the field hands are inferior . I take Jolm Ormsted's account as true , for I have
not seen much of plantation life . When I am in the country I paint , and it is only in the towns I see the negroes .
DIAHY OF A CONVERSATION ON THE MISSISSIPPI HIVE !* ,. Last night I sat finishing jay sketches at the public table ; the
_company being the pretty little Mrs . H , and her fair Scotch-
Slavery In The South, 263
SLAVERY IN THE SOUTH , 263
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Dec. 1, 1861, page 263, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01121861/page/47/
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