preserved her slaves from the continual melancholy, which had too
just a foundation. She sympathized with mothers, and delighted to
share with them the caresses of the children.
Her husband, although possessing not her intelligence and elevation
of mind, nor actuated by the principle that directed the energies of
his amiable wife, yet was induced, by her unostentatious usefulness,
and evident success in her plans, to accede to most of the humane
innovations she proposed to him; convinced, by her arguments, that it
would be his interest to be humane. Hence, their plantation exhibited a
picture of comfort seldom seen, and their slaves had every appearance
of health. They were allowed wholesome provision in ample quantity,
with as much fruit as they wished; they had the liberty of keeping
poultry, and to cultivate a piece of ground with esculent roots;
their huts were comfortable, and when sick they experienced the
kindest attention; and they were frequently suffered to associate
with each other in little parties, for recreation and amusement.
Such were the proprietors of the poor Imihie and her hapless boy, who
soon began to find the benefit of kind treatment; and it is probable,
had Providence ordained that it should have been enjoyed, immediately
after landing on a foreign shore, that the miseries of the voyage,
and even the horrors of bondage, might have been overcome by youth,
and that wonderful buoyancy of the human mind, that seems to force
itself above the swelling waves of misfortune. But the arrow had sunk
too deep: its barb had been too powerfully poisoned, for human effort
to withdraw, or to antidote it. Imihie was evidently the victim of that
disease which hurries to an untimely grave, so many individuals of
her hapless country; and which, throughout the world, may be termed,
although not yet classed, a broken heart. The first symptom of this
disorder among negroes, became evident; namely, the black and glossy
skin assumed an olive hue, the tongue became white, and the poor
sufferer became overpowered by such a desire to sleep, that it was
found impossible to resist it, a deadly faintness preventing the
smallest exercise. In fact, a languor and general relaxation of the
whole wonderful machinery of the human frame, seems to threaten death
day by day, yet the sufferer still survives. So great is the state of
despondency accompanying this distressing malady, that those afflicted
will suffer themselves to be beaten, rather than attempt to move or
walk. Happy was it for Imihie that she had not a task-master's whip to
dread; and that the loathing which she had for mild and wholesome food,
was not attributed to obstinacy, but to what it really was, a symptom
of the disease which was insiduously undermining the vital principles
of life. It made rapid advances upon her delicate and youthful frame:
her respiration became laborious and painful, the extremities became
swollen, and suffocation seemed frequently to impede the action of
the heart.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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