Letters on the equality of the sexes, and the condition of womanGrimké, Sarah
Religion
Letters on the equality of the sexes, and the condition of woman
Grimké, Sarah
Women -- History; Women -- United States; Women's rights -- United States
S. A. Forrall, speaking of the state of morals at the South, says,
‘Negresses when young and likely, are often employed by the planter, or
his friends, to administer to their sensual desires. This frequently is
a matter of speculation, for if the offspring, a mulatto, be a handsome
female, 800 or 1000 dollars may be obtained for her in the New Orleans
market. It is an occurrence of no uncommon nature to see a Christian
father sell his own daughter, and the brother his own sister.’ The
following is copied by the N. Y. Evening Star from the Picayune, a
paper published in New Orleans. ‘A very beautiful girl, belonging to
the estate of John French, a deceased gambler at New Orleans, was sold
a few days since for the round sum of $7,000. An ugly-looking bachelor
named Gouch, a member of the Council of one of the Principalities, was
the purchaser. The girl is a brunette; remarkable for her beauty and
intelligence, and there was considerable contention, who should be
the purchaser. She was, however, persuaded to accept Gouch, he having
made her princely promises.’ I will add but one more from the numerous
testimonies respecting the degradation of female slaves, and the
licentiousness of the South. It is from the Circular of the Kentucky
Union, for the moral and religious improvement of the colored race.
‘To the female character among our black population, we cannot allude
but with feelings of the bitterest shame. A similar condition of moral
pollution and utter disregard of a pure and virtuous reputation, is
to be found _only without the pale of Christendom_. That such a state
of society should exist in a Christian nation, claiming to be the
most enlightened upon earth, without calling forth any _particular
attention_ to its existence, though ever before our eyes and _in our_
families, is a moral phenomenon at once unaccountable and disgraceful.’
Nor does the colored woman suffer alone: the moral purity of the white
woman is deeply contaminated. In the daily habit of seeing the virtue
of her enslaved sister sacrificed without hesitancy or remorse, she
looks upon the crimes of seduction and illicit intercourse without
horror, and although not personally involved in the guilt, she loses
that value for innocence in her own, as well as the other sex, which
is one of the strongest safeguards to virtue. She lives in habitual
intercourse with men, whom she knows to be polluted by licentiousness,
and often is she compelled to witness in her own domestic circle, those
disgusting and heart-sickening jealousies and strifes which disgraced
and distracted the family of Abraham. In addition to all this, the
female slaves suffer every species of degradation and cruelty, which
the most wanton barbarity can inflict; they are indecently divested
of their clothing, sometimes tied up and severely whipped, sometimes
prostrated on the earth, while their naked bodies are torn by the
scorpion lash.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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