The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4American Anti-Slavery Society
History
The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4
American Anti-Slavery Society
Antislavery movements -- United States -- Periodicals; Slavery -- United States -- Periodicals
That the slaveholders themselves regard the usual allowance of food to
slaves as insufficient, both in kind and quantity, for hard-working
men, is shown by the fact, that in all the slave states, we believe
without exception, _white_ convicts at hard labor, have a much
_larger_ allowance of food than the usual one of slaves; and generally
more than _one third_ of this daily allowance is meat. This conviction
of slaveholders shows itself in various forms. When persons wish to
hire slaves to labor on public works, in addition to the inducement of
high wages held out to masters to hire out their slaves, the
contractors pledge themselves that a certain amount of food shall be
given the slaves, taking care to specify a _larger_ amount than the
usual allowance, and a part of it _meat_.
The following advertisement is an illustration. We copy it from the
"Daily Georgian," Savannah, Dec. 14, 1838.
NEGROES WANTED.
The Contractors upon the Brunswick and Alatamaha Canal are desirous to
hire a number of prime Negro Men, from the 1st October next, for
fifteen months, until the 1st January, 1810. They will pay at the rate
of eighteen dollars per month for each prime hand.
These negroes will be employed in the excavation of the Canal. They
will be provided with _three and a half pounds of pork or bacon, and
ten quarts of gourd seed corn per week_, lodged in comfortable
shantees and attended constantly a skilful physician. J.H. COUPER,
P.M. NIGHTINGALE.
But we have direct testimony to this point. The late Hon. John Taylor,
of Caroline Co. Virginia, for a long time Senator in Congress, and for
many years president of the Agricultural Society of the State, says in
his "Agricultural Essays," No. 30, page 97, "BREAD ALONE OUGHT NEVER
TO BE CONSIDERED A SUFFICIENT DIET FOR SLAVES EXCEPT AS A PUNISHMENT."
He urges upon the planters of Virginia to give their slaves, in
addition to bread, "salt meat and vegetables," and adds, "we shall be
ASTONISHED to discover upon trial, that this great comfort to them is
a profit to the master."
The Managers of the American Prison Discipline Society, in their third
Report, page 58, say, "In the Penitentiaries generally, in the United
States, the animal food is equal to one pound of meat per day for each
convict."
Most of the actual suffering from hunger on the part of the slaves, is
in the sugar and cotton-growing region, where the crops are exported
and the corn generally purchased from the upper country. Where this is
the case there cannot but be suffering. The contingencies of bad
crops, difficult transportation, high prices, &c. &c., naturally
occasion short and often precarious allowances. The following extract
from a New Orleans paper of April 26, 1837, affords an illustration.
The writer in describing the effects of the money pressure in
Mississippi, says:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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