The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4American Anti-Slavery Society
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The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4
American Anti-Slavery Society
Antislavery movements -- United States -- Periodicals; Slavery -- United States -- Periodicals
"A near female friend of mine in company with another young lady, in
attempting to visit a sick woman on Washington's Bottom, Wood county,
Virginia, missed the way, and stopping to ask directions of a group of
colored children on the outskirts of the plantation of Francis Keen,
Sen., they were told to ask 'aunty, in the house.' On entering the
hut, says my informant, I beheld such a sight as I hope never to see
again; its sole occupant was a female slave of the said Keen--her
whole wearing apparel consisted of a frock, made of the coarsest tow
cloth, and so scanty, that it could not have been made more tight
around her person. In the hut there was neither table, chair, nor
chest--a stool and a rude fixture in one corner, were all its
furniture. On this last were a little straw and a few old remnants of
what had been bedding--all exceedingly filthy.
"The woman thus situated _had been for more than a day in travail_,
without any assistance, any nurse, or any kind of proper
provision--during the night she said some fellow slave woman would
stay with her, and the aforesaid children through the day. From a
woman, who was a slave of Keen's at the same time, my informant
learned, that this poor woman suffered for three days, and then
died--when too late to save her life her master sent assistance. It
was understood to be a rule of his, to neglect his women entirely in
such times of trial, unless they previously came and informed him,
and asked for aid."
Rev. PHINEAS SMITH, of Centreville, N.Y, who has resided four years
at the south, says:
"Often when the slaves are sick, their accustomed toil is exacted from
them. Physicians are rarely called for their benefit."
Rev. HORACE MOULTON, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal church in
Marlborough, Mass., who resided a number of years in Georgia, says:
"Another dark side of slavery is the neglect of the _aged_ and
_sick_. Many when sick, are suspected by their masters of _feigning_
sickness, and are therefore whipped out to work after disease has got
fast hold of them; when the masters learn, that they are really sick,
they are in many instances left alone in their cabins during work
hours; not a few of the slaves are left to die without having one
friend to wipe off the sweat of death. When the slaves are sick, the
masters do not, as a general thing, employ physicians, but "doctor"
them themselves, and their mode of practice in almost all cases is to
bleed and give salts. When women are confined they have no physician,
but are committed to the care of slave midwives. Slaves complain very
little when sick, when they die they are frequently buried at night
without much ceremony, and in many instances without any; their
coffins are made by nailing together rough boards, frequently with
their feet sticking out at the end, and sometimes they are put into
the ground without a coffin or box of any kind."
PERSONAL NARRATIVES--PART II.
TESTIMONY OF THE REV. WILLIAM T. ALLAN, LATE OF ALABAMA.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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