With regard to the religious instruction of slaves, widely different practices of course prevail. There are some slaveholders, like Bishop Polk of Louisiana, who oblige, and many others who encourage, their slaves to engage in religious exercises, furnishing them certain conveniences for the purpose. Among the wealthier slave owners, however, and in all those parts of the country where the enslaved portion of the population outnumbers the whites, there is generally a visible, and often an avowed distrust of the effect of religious exercises upon slaves, and even the preaching of white clergymen to them is permitted by many with reluctance. The prevailing impression among us, with regard to the important influence of slavery in promoting the spread of religion among the blacks, is an erroneous one in my opinion. I have heard northern clergymen speak as if they supposed a regular daily instruction of slaves in the truths of Christianity to be general. So far is this from being the case, that although family prayers were held in several of the fifty planters' houses in Mississippi and Alabama, in which I passed a night, I never in a single instance saw a field-hand attend or join in the devotion of the family.--See Olmsted's _Cotton Kingdom_, II, 212-213. FOOTNOTES: [228] Environ soixante livres. [229] It is apparent that our author once lived at St. Domingo. I imagine he was a sufferer from the revolt, insurrection and triumph of the Negroes; hence his aversion to them, hence his revilings, hence his outrageous invectives. [230] The disastrous events proceeding from the late war should be impressed with redoubled force upon the minds of all slave-holders throughout the globe, they should teach them the necessity of keeping them in that state of content and subordination, which will alienate them from the wish of acquiring a freedom, which has cost so much blood to the colonists of St. Domingo. I subjoin for the information of the inhabitants of the United States the directions issued by the Spanish government for the treatment of slaves in Louisiana. They exhibit the internal police of the plantations. Every slave shall punctually receive the barrel of corn allowed by the usage of the colony, and which quantity is voluntarily augmented by the greater part of their masters. The Syndics shall take measures to induce the planters of their district to allow their negroes a portion of their waste lands; by which they will not only add to their comforts, but increase the productions of the province, and that time will be usefully employed which would otherwise be devoted to libertinism.