The Anti-Slavery Record, Volume 1, No. 7American Anti-Slavery Society
History
The Anti-Slavery Record, Volume 1, No. 7
American Anti-Slavery Society
Antislavery movements -- United States -- Periodicals; Slavery -- United States -- Periodicals
Her spirits became so depressed, and she grieved so much about
leaving her friends, that she could not eat, and every time the trader
caught her crying, he would beat her, accompanying it with dreadful
curses. The trader would whip and curse any of them whom he found
praying. One evening he caught one of the men at prayer――he took him,
lashed him down to a parcel of rails, and beat him dreadfully. He told
Mary that if he caught her praying he would give her Hell!! (Mary was
a member of the Methodist Church in Washington.) There were a number
of pious people in the company, and at night when the driver found
them melancholy, and disposed to pray, he would have a fiddle brought,
and make them dance in their chains. It mattered not how sad or weary
they were, he would whip them until they _would_ do it.
“Mary at length became so weak that she could travel no further. Her
feeble frame, was exhausted and sunk beneath her accumulated
sufferings. She was seized with a burning fever, and the trader,
fearing he should lose her, carried her the remainder of the way in a
wagon.
“When they arrived at Natchez, they were all offered for sale, and as
Mary was still sick, she begged that she might be sold to a kind
master. She would sometimes make this request in presence of
purchasers――but was always insulted for it, and after they were gone,
the trader would punish her for such presumption. On one occasion he
tied her up by her hands, so that she could only touch the end of her
toes to the floor. This was soon after breakfast; he kept her thus
suspended, whipping her at intervals through the day――at evening he
took her down. She was so much bruised, that she could not lie down
for more than a week afterwards. He often beat and choked her for
another purpose, until she was obliged to yield to his desires.
“She was at length sold to a wealthy man of Vicksburg at four hundred
and fifty dollars, for a house servant. But he had another object in
view. He compelled her to gratify his licentious passions and had
children by her. This was the occasion of so much difficulty between
him and his wife, that he has now sent her up to Cincinnati to be
free.
“We have no reason to doubt the account of Mary as given above. The
person from whom we heard this took it down from her own lips. Her
manner of relating it was perfectly simple and artless, and is here
written out almost verbatim. We have also the testimony of a number of
individuals who knew her in Vicksburg; they have no doubt of her
integrity, and say that we may rely implicitly upon the truth of any
statement which she may make.”
HELPING TO BUY A FATHER.
[From a Report on the Free Colored Population of Ohio.]
“Calling upon a family not long since, whose children did not come to
school very regularly, we found the father and mother were out at
work. On saying to the eldest child, aged about ten years, “why dont
you come to school, my girl?” she replied, “I’m staying at home to
help buy father.”
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