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about three thousand souls , including blacks , whites and mulattoes , the chief part of the former being mostly slaves / We have a Roman Catholic chapel , built
of wood , called the Old Church . We have also a Presbyterian chapel , called the New Church , a handsome brick building , and well attended . . They have a regular minister , and frequently sermons by itinerants of different denominations . Bigotry in religion is a stranger
in the city . We have a Methodist meeting-house , where there is a mixture of whites and blacks . There is likewise a meeting-house where none but negroes and mulattoes meet , having two negro preachers , who strain every nerve to
excite the feelings of the audience . They jump about in the same manner as I have seen some of the Welsh preachers , the audience raising a dismal howl , resembling brutes more than the human species . They are , if possible , worse than the Welsh are when they heard the word gogoniant , or glory , which you mention
in your Sketch of the Denominations of the Christian World . I am happy , however , to think , that our good countrymen have left off these their hot-headed superstitions , thus becoming Christians instead of resembling brutes and savages . * " At all times we have some of the Chretow Indians in the vicinity of Nachez . They come into the city occasionally to sell venison , deer-skins , bear-skins , &c ,
for which they get powder , shot , and sometimes money . They are much addicted to drinking . They often get so drunk with whisky , that they will lie in
the streets like beasts . They generally encamp upon the commons or in the woods , exposed to all weathers . They wear a blanket for a coat , and a pair of trowsers made of deer-skin , and shoes of
the same material . In the heat of summer they go naked , except a flap to cover their nakedness , which is secured behind . The women have short petticoats . The men , being lazy , will do nothing besides hunting , but the women work hard . On the precipice there are the remains of a Spanish fort , ( as there are in many
places on the Mississippi , ) in the middle of which a gallows is seen erected ; so that the place that was once the defence of the city is now the place of execution . I have seen one negro slave executed for killing his fellow-slave with an axe . Slaves are brought down the river , and are sold with as little ceremony ( except
* The 14 th edition of the Sketch , just published , contains an account of the American Jerkers and Barkers , who surpass , the Jumpers in the Priucipality .
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giving a good title } as oxen are at Stiiithfield ! Yesterday the Free Masons of our city went in procession to the New Church , where an oration was delivered by one of the brethren . ' It is a very respectable society . "
Such , Mr . Editor , is the account transmitted me of a southern portion of the United States of America . Of Nachez , one circumstance is stated which almost exceeds credibility . Here is a profusion of sects—but " bigotry in religion is a stranger in the city" » It was not to be expected that the
millennial cessation of the reign of bigotry would commence in the United States of America . May the divine spirit of liberality work its way upwards through the midland and northern provinces of Columbia , till the tvhole lump is leavened—the inhabitants , from one end of the continent to the
other , witnessing the triumphs of Christian Charity ! But what must be said of the accursed practice of slavery in a land of freedom ? This is the purple plague-spot—the indelible disgrace of the United States of
America . By a bloody struggle of seven long years , they accomplished their emancipation from the yoke of British tyranny . But a far greater victory remains to be achieved—the abolition
of personal slavery ! Peace Societies , now multiplying in this and other countries , are conducted on a magnificent scale by the American patriots ; and we would fain hope that the hydraheaded monsters of War and Slavery
may be speedily cast down together into that bottomless pit whence tliey will never emerge to afflict and desolate mankind .
— say , Reason , say , When shall thy long minority expire ? When shall thy dilatory kingdom come ? Haste , royal infant—to thy manhood spring ; Almighty when mature to rule mankind !
Thine is the majesty—the victory thine : For tliee reserved are all the wrongs oi life ! The pigmy rapine , whose invasions vex The private scene—that hides his head minute From human justice—it is thine to end ! And thine the Titan-crimes that lift to
heaven JTheir blush less front , and laugh at lawn . To thee
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284 Description of Nachez in tite U . S . of Amertik .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1821, page 284, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2500/page/28/
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