History (antebellum america)

Discuss Readings:

Prompt: How did labor conditions in the North and South compare in Antebellum

America and what do the internal controversies say about these conditions?

Examine the primary evidence to answer the prompt. Each piece of primary evidence
must be addressed in the essay.

a. This passage from Frederick Douglass’s memoirs, published in 1883, reflects back on

the culture of slavery in the antebellum South

b. George Fitzhugh, “The Blessings of Slavery” (1857)

c. The Condition of the Operatives, from Voice of Industry, March 26, 1847,

d. and “Pleasures of Factory Life” (Sarah G. Bagley, The Lowell Offering Series I, 1840,

pp 25-26)

e. The Lowell Offering: Mouthpiece of the Corporations?

Report of Speech by Sarah G. Bagley – 07-10-45 and her response 07-17-45

a. “A General Survey of the Slave Plantation,” Frederick Douglass from

The Autobiography of Frederick Douglass, 1883
was generally supposed that slavery in the State of Maryland existed in its mildest form, and that it

History 17A(T/TH) – Essay Assignment Assignment: 4-page essay (100 points) Due: May 13 Discuss Readings: April 22 Writing Workshop: May 6 (please note, I changed the

date of the workshop so that you have a weekend between the workshop and due date) Type the essay double-spaced, justifying the left side only, and use one-inch

margins all around, and indenting the first line on a paragraph. Do not leave additional blank lines between paragraphs. Use 12-point typeface Times font. The essay

must be at least 4 FULL pages and no longer than 5 pages. Number the pages, staple them together, and do not fold them in any manner. I will not accept papers

formatted in any other manner. Hence, I will hand the paper back to the student and s/he will have to wait to the next class period to submit the reformatted paper.

Plagiarism, using the words or ideas of others without giving proper credit, will result in a grade of F for the paper. Plagiarism is defined by the Rules of Student

Conduct: “the unauthorized use of the language and thought of another author and representing them as your own.” Late papers will be graded down using the formula

below May 12: -10 points May 14: -20 points Prompt: How did labor conditions in the North and South compare in Antebellum America and what do the internal

controversies say about these conditions? Examine the primary evidence to answer the prompt. Each piece of primary evidence must be addressed in the essay.

a. This passage from Frederick Douglass’s memoirs, published in 1883, reflects back on
the culture of slavery in the antebellum South b. George Fitzhugh, “The Blessings of Slavery” (1857) c. The Condition of the Operatives, from Voice of Industry, March

26, 1847, d. and “Pleasures of Factory Life” (Sarah G. Bagley, The Lowell Offering Series I, 1840, pp 25-26) e. The Lowell Offering: Mouthpiece of the Corporations?

Report of Speech by Sarah G. Bagley – 07-10-45 and her response 07-17-45 a. “A General Survey of the Slave Plantation,” Frederick Douglass from
The Autobiography of Frederick Douglass, 1883

It was generally supposed that slavery in the State of Maryland existed in its mildest form, and that it

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was totally divested of those harsh and terrible peculiarities which characterized the slave system in the Southern and South Western States of the American Union. The

ground of this opinion was the contiguity of the free States, and the influence of their moral, religious, and humane sentiments. Public opinion was, indeed, a

measurable restraint upon the cruelty and barbarity of masters, overseers, and slave-drivers, whenever and wherever it could reach them; but there were certain

secluded and out of the way places, even in the State of Maryland, fifty years ago, seldom visited by a single ray of healthy public sentiment, where slavery, rapt in

its own congenial darkness, could and did develop all its malign and shocking characteristics, where it could be indecent without shame, cruel without shuddering, and

murderous without apprehension or fear of exposure, or punishment. Just such a secluded, dark, and out of the way place, was the home plantation of Colonel Edward

Lloyd, in Talbot county, eastern shore of Maryland. It was far away from all the great thoroughfares of travel and commerce, and proximate to no town or village. There

was neither school-house nor town-house in its neighborhood. The school-house was unnecessary, for there were no children to go to school. The children and grand-

children of Col. Lloyd were taught in the house by a private tutor (a Mr. Page from Greenfield, Massachusetts, a tall, gaunt, sapling of a man, remarkably dignified,

thoughtful, and reticent, and who did not speak a dozen words to a slave in a whole year). The overseer’s children went off somewhere in the State to school, and

therefore could bring no foreign or dangerous influence from abroad to embarrass the natural operation of the slave system of the place. Not even the commonest

mechanics, from whom there might have been an occasional outburst of honest and telling indignation at cruelty and wrong on other plantations, were white men here. Its

whole public was made up of and divided into three classes, slaveholders, slaves, and overseers. Its blacksmiths, wheelwrights, shoemakers, weavers, and coopers, were

slaves. Not even commerce, selfish and indifferent to moral considerations as it usually is, was permitted within its secluded precincts. Whether with a view of

guarding against the escape of its secrets, I know not, but it is a fact, that every leaf and grain of the products of this plantation and those of the neighboring

farms, belonging to Col. Lloyd, were transported to Baltimore in his own vessels, every man and boy on board of which, except the captain, were owned by him as his

property. In return, everything brought to the plantation came through the same channel. To make this isolation more apparent it may be stated that the adjoining

estates to Col. Lloyd’s were owned and occupied by friends of his, who were as deeply interested as himself in maintaining the slave system in all its rigor. These

were the Tilgmans, the Goldboroughs, the Lockermans, the Pacas, the Skinners, Gibsoas, and others of lesser affluence and standing. The fact is, public opinion in such

a quarter, the reader must see, was not likely to be very efficient in protecting the slave from cruelty. To be a restraint upon abuses of this nature, opinion must

emanate from humane and virtuous communities, and to no such opinion or influence was Col. Lloyd’s plantation exposed. It was a little nation by itself, having its own

language, its own rules, regulations, and customs. The troubles and controversies arising here were not settled by the civil power of the State. The overseer was the

important dignitary. He was generally accuser, judge, jury, advocate, and executioner. The criminal was always dumb – and no slave was allowed to testify, other than

against his brother slave. There were, of course, no conflicting rights of property, for all the people were the property of one man, and they could themselves own no

property. Religion and politics were largely excluded. One class of the population was too high to be reached by the common preacher, and the other class was too low

in condition and ignorance to be much cared for by religious teachers, and yet some religious ideas did enter this dark corner.
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This, however, is not the only view which the place presented. Though civilization was in many respects shut out, nature could not be. Though separated from the rest

of the world, though public opinion, as I have said, could seldom penetrate its dark domain, though the whole place was stamped with its own peculiar iron-like

individuality, and though crimes, high-handed and atrocious, could be committed there with strange and shocking impunity, it was to outward seeming a most strikingly

interesting place, full of life, activity, and spirit, and presented a very favorable contrast to the indolent monotony and languor of Tuckahoe. It resembled in some

respects descriptions I have since read of the old baronial domains of Europe. Keen as was my regret, and great as was my sorrow, at leaving my old home, I was not

long in adapting myself to this my new one. A man’s troubles are always half disposed of when he finds endurance the only alternative. I found myself here; there was

no getting away; and naught remained for me but to make the best of it. Here were plenty of children to play with, and plenty of pleasant resorts for boys of my age

and older. The little tendrils of affection so rudely broken from the darling objects in and around my grandmother’s home, gradually began to extend and twine

themselves around the new surroundings. Here for the first time I saw a large wind-mill, with its wide-sweeping white wings, a commanding object to a child’s eye. This

was situated on what was called Long Point – a tract of land dividing Miles river from the Wye. I spent many hours here watching the wings of this wondrous mill. In

the river, or what was called the “Swash,” at a short distance from the shore, quietly lying at anchor, with her small row boat dancing at her stern, was a large

sloop, the Sally Lloyd, called by that name in honor of the favorite daughter of the Colonel. These two objects, the sloop and mill, as I remember, awakened thoughts,

ideas, and wondering. Then here were a great many houses, human habitations full of the mysteries of life at every stage of it. There was the little red house up the

road, occupied by Mr. Sevier, the overseer; a little nearer to my old master’s stood a long, low, rough building literally alive with slaves of all ages, sexes,

conditions, sizes, and colors. This was called the long quarter. Perched upon a hill east of our house, was a tall dilapidated old brick building, the architectural

dimensions of which proclaimed its creation for a different purpose, now occupied by slaves, in a similar manner to the long quarters. Besides these, there were

numerous other slave houses and huts, scattered around in the neighborhood, every nook and corner of which, were completely occupied. Old master’s house, a long brick

building, plain but substantial, was centrally located, and was an independent establishment. Besides these houses there were barns, stables, store houses, tobacco

houses, blacksmith shops, wheelwright shops, cooper shops; but above all there stood the grandest building my young eyes had ever beheld, called by everyone on the

plantation the great house. This was occupied by Col. Lloyd and his family. It was surrounded by numerous and variously shaped out-buildings. There were kitchens,

wash-houses, dairies, summer-houses, green-houses, henhouses, turkey-houses, pigeon-houses, and arbors of many sizes and devices, all neatly painted or whitewashed-

interspersed with grand old trees, ornamental and primitive, which afforded delightful shade in summer and imparted to the scene a high degree of stately beauty. The

great house itself was a large white wooden building with wings on three sides of it. In front a broad portico extended the entire length of the building, supported by

a long range of columns, which gave to the Colonel’s home an air of great dignity and grandeur. It was a treat to my young and gradually opening mind to behold this

elaborate exhibition of wealth, power, and beauty. The carriage entrance to the house was by a large gate, more than a quarter of a mile distant. The intermediate

space was a beautiful lawn, very neatly kept and cared for. It was dotted thickly over with trees and flowers. The road or lane from the gate to the great house was

richly paved with white pebbles from the beach, and in its course formed a complete circle around the lawn. Outside this
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select enclosure were parks, as about the residences of the English nobility, where rabbits, deer, and other wild game might be seen peering and playing about, with

“none to molest them or make them afraid.” The tops of the stately poplars were often covered with red-winged blackbirds, making all nature vocal with the joyous life

and beauty of their wild, warbling notes. These all belonged to me as well as to Col. Edward Lloyd, and, whether they did or not, I greatly enjoyed them. Not far from

the great house were the stately mansions of the dead Lloyds – a place of somber aspect. Vast tombs, embowered beneath the weeping willow and the fir tree, told of the

generations of the family, as well as their wealth. Superstition was rife among the slaves about this family burying-ground. Strange sights had been seen there by some

of the older slaves, and I was often compelled to hear stories of shrouded ghosts, riding on great black horses, and of balls of fire which had been seen to fly there

at midnight, and of startling and dreadful sounds that had been repeatedly heard. Slaves knew enough of the Orthodox theology at the time, to consign all bad

slaveholders to hell, and they often fancied such persons wishing themselves back again to wield the lash. Tales of sights and sounds strange and terrible, connected

with the huge black tombs, were a great security to the grounds about them, for few of the slaves had the courage to approach them during the day time. It was a dark,

gloomy and forbidding place, and it was difficult to feel that the spirits of the sleeping dust there deposited reigned with the blest in the realms of eternal peace.

Here was transacted the business to twenty or thirty different farms, which, with the slaves upon them, numbering, in all, not less than a thousand, all belonged to

Col. Lloyd. Each farm was under the management of an overseer, whose word was law. Mr. Lloyd at this time was very rich. His slaves alone, numbering as I have said not

less than a thousand, were an immense fortune, and though scarcely a month passed without the sale of one or more lots to the Georgia traders, there was no apparent

diminution in the number of his human stock. The selling of any to the State of Georgia was a sore and mournful event to those left behind, as well as to the victims

themselves. The reader has already been informed of the handicrafts carried on here by the slaves. “Uncle” Toney was the blacksmith, “Uncle” Harry the cartwright, and

“Uncle” Abel was the shoemaker, and these had assistants in their several departments. These mechanics were called “Uncles” by all the younger slaves, not because they

really sustained that relationship to any, but according to plantation etiquette as a mark of respect, due from the younger to the older slaves. Strange and even

ridiculous as it may seem, among a people so uncultivated and with so many stern trials to look in the face, there is not to be found among any people a more rigid

enforcement of the law of respect to elders than is maintained among them. I set this down as partly constitutional with the colored race and partly conventional.

There is no better material in the world for making a gentleman than is furnished in the African. Among other slave notabilities, I found here one called by everybody,

white and colored, “Uncle” Isaac Copper. It was seldom that a slave, however venerable, was honored with a surname in Maryland, and so completely has the south shaped

the manners of the north in this respect that their right to such honor is tardily admitted even now. It goes sadly against the grain to address and treat a negro as

one would address and treat a white man. But once in a while, even in a slave state, a negro had a surname fastened to him by common consent. This was the case with

“Uncle” Isaac Copper. When the “Uncle” was dropped, he was called Doctor Copper. He was both our Doctor of Medicine and our Doctor of Divinity. Where he took his

degree I am unable to say, but he was too well

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established in his profession to permit question as to his native skill, or attainments. One qualification he certainly had. He was a confirmed cripple, wholly unable

to work, and was worth nothing for sale in the market. Though lame, he was no sluggard. He made his crutches do him good service, and was always on the alert looking

up the sick, and such as were supposed to need his aid and counsel. His remedial prescriptions embraced four articles. For diseases of the body, epsom salts and castor

oil; for those of the soul, the “Lord’s prayer,” and a few stout hickory switches. I was early sent to Doctor Isaac Copper, with twenty or thirty other children, to

learn the Lord’s prayer. The old man was seated on a huge three-legged oaken stool, armed with several large hickory switches, and from the point where he sat, lame as

he was, he could reach every boy in the room. After standing a while to learn what was expected of us, he commanded us to kneel down. This done, he told us to say

everything he said. “Our Father” – this we repeated after him with promptness and uniformity – “who art in Heaven,” was less promptly and uniformly repeated, and the

old gentleman paused in the prayer to give us a short lecture, and to use his switches on our backs. Everybody in the South seemed to want the privilege of whipping

somebody else. Uncle Isaac, though a good old man, shared the common passion of his time and country. I cannot say I was much edified by attendance upon his ministry.

There was even at that time something a little inconsistent and laughable, in my mind, in the blending of prayer with punishment. I was not long in my new home before

I found that the dread I had conceived of Captain Anthony was in a measure groundless. Instead of leaping out from some hiding place and destroying me, he hardly

seemed to notice my presence. He probably thought as little of my arrival there, as of an additional pig to his stock. He was the chief agent of his employer. The

overseers of all the farms composing the Lloyd estate, were in some sort under him. The Colonel himself seldom addressed an overseer, or allowed himself to be

addressed by one. To Captain Anthony, therefore, was committed the headship of all the farms. He carried the keys of all the store-houses, weighed and measured the

allowances of each slave, at the end of each month; superintended the storing of all goods brought to the store-house; dealt out the raw material to the different

handicraftsmen, shipped the grain, tobacco, and all other saleable produce of the numerous farms to Baltimore, and had a general oversight of all the workshops of the

place. In addition to all this he was frequently called abroad to Easton and elsewhere in the discharge of his numerous duties as chief agent of the estate. The family

of Captain Anthony consisted of two sons – Andrew and Richard, his daughter Lucretia and her newly married husband, Captain Thomas Auld. In the kitchen were Aunt Katy,

Aunt Esther, and ten or a dozen children, most of them older than myself. Capt. Anthony was not considered a rich slave-holder, though he was pretty well off in the

world. He owned about thirty slaves and three farms in the Tuckahoe district. The more valuable part of his property was in slaves, of whom he sold one every year,

which brought him in seven or eight hundred dollars, besides his yearly salary and other revenue from his lands. I have been often asked during the earlier part of my

free life at the north, how I happened to have so little of the slave accent in my speech. The mystery is in some measure explained by my association with Daniel

Lloyd, the youngest son of Col. Edward Lloyd. The law of compensation holds here as well as elsewhere. While this lad could not associate with ignorance without

sharing its shade, he could not give his black playmates his company without giving them his superior intelligence as

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well. Without knowing this, or caring about it at the time, I, for some cause or other, was attracted to him and was much his companion. I had little to do with the

older brothers of Daniel – Edward and Murray. They were grown up and were fine looking men. Edward was especially esteemed by the slave children and by me among the

rest, not that he ever said anything to us or for us which could be called particularly kind. It was enough for us that he never looked or acted scornfully toward us.

The idea of rank and station was rigidly maintained on this estate. The family of Captain Anthony never visited the great house, and the Lloyds never came to our

house. Equal non-intercourse was observed between Captain Anthony’s family and the family of Mr. Sevier, the overseer. Such, kind readers, was the community and such

the place in which my earliest and most lasting impressions of the workings of slavery were received – which impressions you will learn more in the after coming

chapters of this book. A Slaveholders Character Although my old master, Captain Anthony, gave me, at the first of my coming to him from my grandmother’s, very little

attention, and although that little was of a remarkably mild and gentle description, a few months only were sufficient to convince me that mildness and gentleness were

not the prevailing or governing traits of his character. These excellent qualities were displayed only occasionally. He could, when it suited him, appear to be

literally insensible to the claims of humanity. He could not only be deaf to the appeals of the helpless against the aggressor, but he could himself commit outrages

deep, dark, and nameless. Yet he was not by nature worse than other men. Had he been brought up in a free state, surrounded by the full restraints of civilized society

restraints which are necessary to the freedom of all its members, alike and equally, Capt. Anthony might have been as humane a man as are members of such society

generally. A man’s character always takes its hue, more or less, from the form and color of things about him. The slaveholder, as well as the slave, was the victim of

the slave system. Under the whole heavens there could be no relation more unfavorable to the development of honorable character than that sustained by the slaveholder

to the slave. Reason is imprisoned here and passions run wild. Could the reader have seen Captain Anthony gently leading me by the hand, as he sometimes did, patting

me on the head, speaking to me in soft, caressing tones and calling me his little Indian boy, he would have deemed him a kind-hearted old man, and really almost

fatherly to the slave boy. But the pleasant moods of a slaveholder are transient and fitful. They neither come often nor remain long. The temper of the old man was

subject to special trials, but since these trials were never borne patiently, they added little to his natural stock of patience. Aside from his troubles with his

slaves and those of Mr. Lloyd’s, he made the impression upon me of being an unhappy man. Even to my child’s eye he wore a troubled and at times a haggard aspect. His

strange movements excited my curiosity and awakened my compassion. He seldom walked alone without muttering to himself, and he occasionally stormed about as if defying

an army of invisible foes. Most of his leisure was spent in walking around, cursing and gesticulating as if possessed by a demon. He was evidently a wretched man, at

war with his own soul and all the world around him. To be overheard by the children disturbed him very little. He made no more of our presence than that of the ducks

and geese he met on the greed. But when his gestures were most violent, ending with a threatening shake of the head and a sharp snap of his middle finger and thumb, I

deemed it wise to keep at a safe distance from him.

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One of the first circumstances that opened my eyes to the cruelties and wickedness of slavery and its hardening influences upon my old master, was his refusal to

interpose his authority to protect and shield a young woman, a cousin of mine, who had been most cruelly abused and beaten by his overseer in Tuckahoe. This overseer,

a Mr. Plummer, was like most of his class, little less than a human brute; and in addition to his general profligacy and repulsive coarseness, he was a miserable

drunkard, a man not fit to have the management of a drove of mules. In one of his moments of drunken madness he committed the outrage which brought the young woman in

question down to my old master’s for protection. The poor girl, on her arrival at our house, presented a most pitiable appearance. She had left in haste and without

preparation, and probably without the knowledge of Mr. Plummer. She had traveled twelve miles, bare-footed, bare-necked, and bare-headed. Her neck and shoulders were

covered with scars newly made, and not content with marring her neck and shoulders with the cowhide, the cowardly wretch had dealt her a blow on the head with a

hickory club, which cut a horrible gash and left her face literally covered with blood. In this condition the poor young woman came down to implore protection at the

hands of my old master. I expected to see him boil over with rage at the revolting deed, and to hear him fill the air with curses upon the brutal Plummer; but I was

disappointed. He sternly told her in an angry tone, “She deserved every bit of it, and if she did not go home instantly he would himself take the remaining skin from

her neck and back.” Thus the poor girl was compelled to return without redress, and perhaps to receive an additional flogging for daring to appeal to authority higher

than that of the overseer. I did not at that time understand the philosophy of this treatment of my cousin. I think I now understand it. This treatment was a part of

the system, rather than a part of the man. To have encouraged appeals of this kind would have occasioned much loss of time, and leave the overseer powerless to enforce

obedience. Nevertheless, when a slave had nerve enough to go straight to his master, with a well-founded complaint against an overseer, though he might be repelled and

have even that of which he complained at the time repeated, and though he might be beaten by his master as well as by the overseer, for his temerity, in the end, the

policy of complaining was generally vindicated by the relaxed rigor of the overseer’s treatment. The latter became more careful and less disposed to use the lash upon

such slaves thereafter. The overseer very naturally disliked to have the ear of the master disturbed by complaints, and either for this reason or because of advice

privately given him by his employer, he generally modified the rigor of his rule after complaints of this kind had been made against him. For some cause or other the

slaves, no matter how often they were repulsed by their masters, were ever disposed to regard them with less abhorrence than the overseer. And yet these masters would

often go beyond their overseers in wanton cruelty. They wielded the lash without any sense of responsibility. They could cripple or kill without fear of consequences.

I have seen my old master in a tempest of wrath, full of pride, hatred, jealousy, and revenge, where he seemed a very fiend. The circumstances which I am about to

narrate, and which gave rise to this fearful tempest of passion, were not singular, but very common in our slave-holding community. The reader will have noticed that

among the names of slaves, Esther is mentioned. This was a young woman who possessed that which was ever a curse to the slave girl – namely, personal beauty. She was

tall, light-colored, well formed, and made a fine appearance. Esther was courted by “Ned Roberts,” the son of a favorite slave of Col. Lloyd, who was as fine-looking a

young man as Esther was a woman. Some slave-holders would have been glad to have promoted the marriage of two such

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persons, but for some reason, Captain Anthony disapproved of their courtship. He strictly ordered her to quit the company of young Roberts, telling her that he would

punish her severely if he ever found her again in his company. But it was impossible to keep this couple apart. Meet they would, and meet they did. Had Mr. Anthony

been himself a man of honor, his motives in this matter might have appeared more favorably. As it was, they appeared as abhorrent as they were contemptible. It was one

of the damning characteristics of slavery, that it robbed its victims of every earthly incentive to a holy life. The fear of God and the hope of heaven were sufficient

to sustain many slave women amidst the snares and dangers of their strange lot; but they were ever at the mercy of the power, passion, and caprice of their owners.

Slavery provided no means for the honorable perpetuation of the race. Yet despite of this destitution there were many men and women among the slaves who were true and

faithful to each other through life. But to the case in hand. Abhorred and circumvented as he was, Captain Anthony, having the power, was determined on revenge. I

happened to see its shocking execution, and shall never forget the scene. It was early in the morning, when all was still, and before any of the family in the house or

kitchen had risen. I was, in fact, awakened by the heart-rending shrieks and piteous cries of poor Esther. My sleeping-place was on the dirt floor of a little rough

closet which opened into the kitchen, and through the cracks in its unplaned boards I could distinctly see and hear what was going on, without being seen. Esther’s

wrists were firmly tied, and the twisted rope was fastened to a strong iron staple in a heavy wooden beam above, near the fire-place. Here she stood on a bench, her

arms tightly drawn above her head. Her back and shoulders were perfectly bare. Behind her stood old master, with cowhide in hand, pursuing his barbarous work with all

manner of harsh, coarse, and tantalizing epithets. He was cruelly deliberate, and protracted the torture as one who was delighted with the agony of his victim. Again

and again he drew the hateful scourge through his hand, adjusting it with a view of dealing the most pain-giving blow his strength and skill could inflict. Poor Esther

had never before been severely whipped. Her shoulders were plump and tender. Each blow, vigorously laid on, brought screams from her as well as blood. “Have mercy! Oh,

mercy!” she cried. “I won’t do so no more.” But her piercing cries seemed only to increase his fury. The whole scene, with all its attendants, was revolting and

shocking to the last degree, and when the motives for the brutal castigation are known, language has no power to convey a just sense of its dreadful criminality. After

laying on I dare not say how many stripes, old master untied his suffering victim. When let down she could scarcely stand. From my heart I pitied her, and child as I

was, and new to such scenes, the shock was tremendous. I was terrified, hushed, stunned, and bewildered. The scene here described was often repeated, for Edward and

Esther continued to meet, notwithstanding all efforts to prevent their meeting. b. George Fitzhugh, “The Blessings of Slavery” (1857) The negro slaves of the South are

the happiest, and in some sense, the freest people