Rev. Charles C. Jones, in his interesting work on the Religious Instruction of Negroes, has a passage which so peculiarly describes that influence of public opinion which we have been endeavoring to illustrate, that we shall copy it.
Habits of feeling and prejudices in relation to any subject are wont to take their rise out of our education or circumstances. Every man knows their influence to be great in shaping opinions and conduct, and ofttimes how unwittingly they are formed; that while we may be unconscious of their existence, they may grow with our growth and strengthen with our strength. Familiarity converts deformity into comeliness. Hence we are not always the best judges of our condition. Another may remark inconveniences, and, indeed, real evils, in it, of which we may be said to have been all our lives scarcely conscious. So, also, evils which, upon first acquaintance, revolted our whole nature, and appeared intolerable, custom almost makes us forget even to see. Men passing out of one state of society into another encounter a thousand things to which they feel that they can never be reconciled; yet, shortly after, their sensibilities become dulled,—a change passes over them, they scarcely know how. They have accommodated themselves to their new circumstances and relations,—they are Romans in Rome.
Let us now inquire what are the educational influences which bear upon the mind educated in constant familiarity with the slave system.
Take any child of ingenuous mind and of generous heart, and educate him under the influences of slavery, and what are the things which go to form his character? An anecdote which a lady related to the writer may be in point in this place. In giving an account of some of the things which induced her to remove her family from under the influence of slavery, she related the following incident: Looking out of her nursery window one day, she saw her daughter, about three years of age, seated in her little carriage, with six or eight young negro children harnessed into it for horses. Two or three of the older slaves were standing around their little mistress, and one of them, putting a whip into her hand, said, “There, Misse, whip ‘em well; make ‘em go,—they’re all your niggers.”
What a moral and religious lesson was this for that young soul! The mother was a judicious woman, who never would herself have taught such a thing; but the whole influence of slave society had burnt it into the soul of every negro, and through them it was communicated to the child.
As soon as a child is old enough to read the newspapers, he sees in every column such notices as the following from a late Richmond Whig, and other papers.
LARGE SALE OF NEGROES, HORSES, MULES, CATTLE, &c.
The subscriber, under a decree of the Circuit Superior Court for Fluvanna County, will proceed to sell, by public auction, at the late residence of William Galt, deceased, on Tuesday, the 30th day of November, and Wednesday, the 1st day of December next, beginning at 11 o’clock, the negroes, stock, &c., of all kinds, belonging to the estate, consisting of 175 negroes, amongst whom are some Carpenters and Blacksmiths,—10 horses, 33 mules, 100 head of cattle, 100 sheep, 200 hogs, 1500 barrels corn, oats, fodder, &c., the plantation and shop tools of all kinds.
The Negroes will be sold for cash; the other property on a credit of nine months, the purchaser giving bond, with approved security.
James Galt, Administrator of
William Galt, deceased
Oct. 19.
From the Nashville Gazette, Nov. 23, 1852:
GREAT SALE OF NEGROES, MULES, CATTLE, &c.
On Tuesday, the 21st day of December next, at the Plantation of the late N. A. McNairy, on the Franklin Turnpike, on account of Mrs. C. B. McNairy, Executrix, we will offer at Public Sale
FIFTY VALUABLE NEGROES.
These Negroes are good Plantation Negroes, and will be sold in families. Those wishing to purchase will do well to see them before the day of sale.
Also, ten fine Work Mules, two Jacks and one Jennet, Milch Cows and Calves, Cattle, Stock Hogs, 1200 barrels Corn, Oats, Hay, Fodder, &c. Two Wagons, One Cart, Farming Utensils, &c.
From the Newberry Sentinel:
FOR SALE.
The subscriber will sell at Auction, on the 15th of this month, at the Plantation on which he resides, distant eleven miles from the Town of Newberry, and near the Laurens Railroad,
22 Young and Likely Negroes;
comprising able-bodied field-hands, good cooks, house-servants, and an excellent blacksmith;—about 1500 bushels of corn, a quantity of fodder, hogs, mules, sheep, neat cattle, household and kitchen furniture, and other property.—Terms made public on day of Sale.
M. C. Gary.
Dec. 1.
? Laurensville Herald copy till day of sale.
130From the South Carolinian, Oct. 21, 1852:
ESTATE SALE OF VALUABLE PROPERTY.
The undersigned, as Administrator of the Estate of Col. T. Randell, deceased, will sell, on Monday, the 20th December next, all the personal property belonging to said estate, consisting of 56 Negroes, Stock, Corn, Fodder, &c. &c. The sale will take place at the residence of the deceased, on Sandy River, 10 miles West of Chesterville.
Terms of Sale: The negroes on a credit of 12 months, with interest from day of sale, and two good sureties. The other property will be sold for cash.
Samuel J. Randell.
Sept. 2.
See, also, New Orleans Bee, Oct. 28. After advertising the landed estate of Madeline Lanoux, deceased, comes the following enumeration of chattels:
Twelve slaves, men and women; a small, quite new schooner; a ferrying flat-boat; some cows, calves, heifers and sheep; a lot of household furniture; the contents of a store, consisting of hardware, crockery ware, groceries, dry goods, etc.
Now, suppose all parents to be as pious and benevolent as Mr. Jones,—a thing not at all to be hoped for, as things are;—and suppose them to try their very best to impress on the child a conviction that all souls are of equal value in the sight of God; that the negro soul is as truly beloved of Christ, and ransomed with his blood, as the master’s; and is there any such thing as making him believe or realize it? Will he believe that that which he sees, every week, advertised with hogs, and horses, and fodder, and cotton-seed, and refuse furniture,—bedsteads, tables and chairs,—is indeed so divine a thing? We will suppose that the little child knows some pious slave; that he sees him at the communion-table, partaking, in a far-off, solitary manner, of the sacramental bread and wine. He sees his pious father and mother recognize the slave as a Christian brother; they tell him that he is an “heir of God, a joint heir with Jesus Christ;” and the next week he sees him advertised in the paper, in company with a lot of hogs, stock and fodder. Can the child possibly believe in what his Christian parents have told him, when he sees this? We have spoken now of only the common advertisements of the paper; but suppose the child to live in some districts of the country, and advertisements of a still more degrading character meet his eye. In the State of Alabama, a newspaper devoted to politics, literature and EDUCATION, has a standing weekly advertisement of which this is a copy:
NOTICE.
The undersigned having an excellent pack of Hounds, for trailing and catching runaway slaves, informs the public that his prices in future will be as follows for such services:
For each day employed in hunting or trailing, $2.50
For catching each slave, 10.00
For going over ten miles and catching slaves, 20.00
If sent for, the above prices will be exacted in cash. The subscriber resides one mile and a half south of Dadeville, Ala.
B. Black.
Dadeville, Sept. 1, 1852. 1tf
The reader will see, by the printer’s sign at the bottom, that it is a season advertisement, and, therefore, would meet the eye of the child week after week. The paper from which we have cut this contains among its extracts passages from Dickens’ Household Words, from Professor Felton’s article in the Christian Examiner on the relation of the sexes, and a most beautiful and chivalrous appeal from the eloquent senator Soulé on the legal rights of women. Let us now ask, since this paper is devoted to education, what sort of an educational influence such advertisements have. And, of course, such an establishment is not kept up without patronage. Where there are negro-hunters advertising in a paper, there are also negro-hunts, and there are dogs being trained to hunt; and all this process goes on before the eyes of children; and what sort of education is it?
The writer has received an account of the way in which dogs are trained for this business. The information has been communicated to the gentleman who writes it by a negro man, who, having been always accustomed to see it done, described it with as little sense of there being anything out of the way in it as if the dogs had been trained to catch raccoons. It came to the writer in a recent letter from the South.
The way to train ‘em (says the man) is to take these yer pups,—any kind o’ pups will do,—fox-hounds, bull-dogs, most any;—but take the pups, and keep ‘em shut up and don’t let ‘em never see a nigger till they get big enough to be larned. When the pups gits old enough to be set on to things, then make ‘em run after a nigger; and when they cotches him, give ‘em meat. Tell the nigger to run as hard as he can, and git up in a tree, so as to larn the dogs to tree ‘em; then take the shoe of a nigger, and larn ‘em to find the nigger it belongs to; then a rag of his clothes; and so on. Allers be carful to tree the nigger, and 131teach the dog to wait a............