The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917Various
History
The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917
Various
African Americans -- Periodicals
natural Bent; and when they have robb'd, you may lash them Hours
before they will confess the Fact; however, were they not to look
upon every White Man as their Tormentor; were a slight Fault to
be pardon'd now and then; were their Masters, and those
adamantine-hearted Overseers, to exercise a little more
Persuasion, Complacency, Tenderness and Humanity towards them, it
might perhaps, improve their Tempers to a greater Degree of
Tractability. Such Masters and such Overseers, Maryland may with
Justice Boast; and Mr. Bull, the late Lieutenant-Governor of
Carolina, is an Instance, amongst many, of the same, in that
Province: But, on the contrary, I remember an Instance of a late
Sea Officer, then resident in a neighbouring Colony, that for a
mere Peccadillo, order'd his Slave to be ty'd up, and for a whole
Hour diverted himself with the Wretched Groans; struck at the
Mournful Sound, with a Friend, I hasted to the Noise, where the
Brute was beginning a new Scene of Barbarity, and belabour'd the
Creature so long with a large Cane, his Overseer being tir'd with
the Cowskin, that he remained without Sense and Motion. Happily
he recovered, but, alas! deceas'd soon after, and perhaps, may
meet him, where the Wicked cease from troubling, and the Weary be
at rest: Where as our immortal Pope sings.
No friends torment, no christians thirst for gold. Another, upon
the same Spot, when a Girl had been lash'd till she confess'd a
Robbery, in mere Wantonness continu'd the Persecution, repeating
every now and then these christian-like, and sensible Expressions
in the Ragings of his Fury, G--dd--mn you, when you go to Hell, I
wish G--d would d--mn me, that I might follow you with the
Cowskin there.
Slavery, thou worst and greatest of Evils! Sometimes thou
appearest to my affrighted Imagination, sweating in the Mines of
Potosi, and wiping the hard-bound Tears from thy exhausted eyes;
sometimes I view thy sable Liberty under the Torture of the Whip,
inflicted by the Hands, the remorseless Hands of an American
Planter: At other Times I view thee in the Semblance of a Wretch
trod upon by ermin'd or turban'd Tyrants, and with poignant,
heart-breaking Sighs, dragging after thee a toilsome Length of
Chain, or bearing African Burdens. Anon I am somewhat comforted,
to see thee attempt to smile under the Grand Monarque; but on the
other Side of the Alpes, thou again resum'st thy Tears, and what,
and how great are thy Iberian Miseries! In Britain, and Britain
only, thy name is not heard; thou hast assum'd a new Form, and
the heaviest Labours are lightsome under those mild Skies!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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