9: Description of Charles-Town; Thoughts on Slavery; on Physical Evil; A Melancholy Scene
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Charles-town is, in the north, what Lima is in the south; both are
Capitals of the richest provinces of their respective hemispheres:
you may therefore conjecture, that both cities must exhibit the
appearances necessarily resulting from riches. Peru abounding in
gold, Lima is filled with inhabitants who enjoy all those gradations
of pleasure, refinement, and luxury, which proceed from wealth.
Carolina produces commodities, more valuable perhaps than gold,
because they are gained by greater industry; it exhibits also on our
northern stage, a display of riches and luxury, inferior indeed to
the former, but far superior to what are to be seen in our northern
towns. Its situation is admirable, being built at the confluence of
two large rivers, which receive in their course a great number of
inferior streams; all navigable in the spring, for flat boats. Here
the produce of this extensive territory concentres; here therefore
is the seat of the most valuable exportation; their wharfs, their
docks, their magazines, are extremely convenient to facilitate this
great commercial business. The inhabitants are the gayest in
America; it is called the centre of our beau monde, and is always
filled with the richest planters of the province, who resort hither
in quest of health and pleasure. Here are always to be seen a great
number of valetudinarians from the West Indies, seeking for the
renovation of health, exhausted by the debilitating nature of their
sun, air, and modes of living. Many of these West Indians have I
seen, at thirty, loaded with the infirmities of old age; for nothing
is more common in those countries of wealth, than for persons to
lose the abilities of enjoying the comforts of life, at a time when
we northern men just begin to taste the fruits of our labour and
prudence. The round of pleasure, and the expenses of those citizens'
tables, are much superior to what you would imagine: indeed the
growth of this town and province has been astonishingly rapid. It is
pity that the narrowness of the neck on which it stands prevents it
from increasing; and which is the reason why houses are so dear. The
heat of the climate, which is sometimes very great in the interior
parts of the country, is always temperate in Charles-Town; though
sometimes when they have no sea breezes the sun is too powerful. The
climate renders excesses of all kinds very dangerous, particularly
those of the table; and yet, insensible or fearless of danger, they
live on, and enjoy a short and a merry life: the rays of their sun
seem to urge them irresistibly to dissipation and pleasure: on the
contrary, the women, from being abstemious, reach to a longer period
of life, and seldom die without having had several husbands. An
European at his first arrival must be greatly surprised when he sees
the elegance of their houses, their sumptuous furniture, as well as
the magnificence of their tables. Can he imagine himself in a
country, the establishment of which is so recent?
The three principal classes of inhabitants are, lawyers, planters,
and merchants; this is the province which has afforded to the first
the richest spoils, for nothing can exceed their wealth, their
power, and their influence. They have reached the ne plus ultra of
worldly felicity; no plantation is secured, no title is good, no
will is valid, but what they dictate, regulate, and approve. The
whole mass of provincial property is become tributary to this
society; which, far above priests and bishops, disdain to be
satisfied with the poor Mosaical portion of the tenth. I appeal to
the many inhabitants, who, while contending perhaps for their right
to a few hundred acres, have lost by the mazes of the law their
whole patrimony. These men are more properly law givers than
interpreters of the law; and have united here, as well as in most
other provinces, the skill and dexterity of the scribe with the
power and ambition of the prince: who can tell where this may lead
in a future day? The nature of our laws, and the spirit of freedom,
which often tends to make us litigious, must necessarily throw the
greatest part of the property of the colonies into the hands of
these gentlemen. In another century, the law will possess in the
north, what now the church possesses in Peru and Mexico.
While all is joy, festivity, and happiness in Charles-Town, would
you imagine that scenes of misery overspread in the country? Their
ears by habit are become deaf, their hearts are hardened; they
neither see, hear, nor feel for the woes of their poor slaves, from
whose painful labours all their wealth proceeds. Here the horrors of
slavery, the hardship of incessant toils, are unseen; and no one
thinks with compassion of those showers of sweat and of tears which
from the bodies of Africans, daily drop, and moisten the ground they
till. The cracks of the whip urging these miserable beings to
excessive labour, are far too distant from the gay Capital to be
heard. The chosen race eat, drink, and live happy, while the
unfortunate one grubs up the ground, raises indigo, or husks the
rice; exposed to a sun full as scorching as their native one;
without the support of good food, without the cordials of any
cheering liquor. This great contrast has often afforded me subjects
of the most conflicting meditation. On the one side, behold a people
enjoying all that life affords most bewitching and pleasurable,
without labour, without fatigue, hardly subjected to the trouble of
wishing. With gold, dug from Peruvian mountains, they order vessels
to the coasts of Guinea; by virtue of that gold, wars, murders, and
devastations are committed in some harmless, peaceable African
neighbourhood, where dwelt innocent people, who even knew not but
that all men were black. The daughter torn from her weeping mother,
the child from the wretched parents, the wife from the loving
husband; whole families swept away and brought through storms and
tempests to this rich metropolis! There, arranged like horses at a
fair, they are branded like cattle, and then driven to toil, to
starve, and to languish for a few years on the different plantations
of these citizens. And for whom must they work? For persons they
know not, and who have no other power over them than that of
violence, no other right than what this accursed metal has given
them! Strange order of things! Oh, Nature, where art thou?—Are not
these blacks thy children as well as we? On the other side, nothing
is to be seen but the most diffusive misery and wretchedness,
unrelieved even in thought or wish! Day after day they drudge on
without any prospect of ever reaping for themselves; they are
obliged to devote their lives, their limbs, their will, and every
vital exertion to swell the wealth of masters; who look not upon
them with half the kindness and affection with which they consider
their dogs and horses. Kindness and affection are not the portion of
those who till the earth, who carry the burdens, who convert the
logs into useful boards. This reward, simple and natural as one
would conceive it, would border on humanity; and planters must have
none of it!
If negroes are permitted to become fathers, this fatal indulgence
only tends to increase their misery: the poor companions of their
scanty pleasures are likewise the companions of their labours; and
when at some critical seasons they could wish to see them relieved,
with tears in their eyes they behold them perhaps doubly oppressed,
obliged to bear the burden of nature—a fatal present—as well as
that of unabated tasks. How many have I seen cursing the
irresistible propensity, and regretting, that by having tasted of
those harmless joys, they had become the authors of double misery to
their wives. Like their masters, they are not permitted to partake
of those ineffable sensations with which nature inspires the hearts
of fathers and mothers; they must repel them all, and become callous
and passive. This unnatural state often occasions the most acute,
the most pungent of their afflictions; they have no time, like us,
tenderly to rear their helpless off-spring, to nurse them on their
knees, to enjoy the delight of being parents. Their paternal
fondness is embittered by considering, that if their children live,
they must live to be slaves like themselves; no time is allowed them
to exercise their pious office, the mothers must fasten them on
their backs, and, with this double load, follow their husbands in
the fields, where they too often hear no other sound than that of
the voice or whip of the taskmaster, and the cries of their infants,
broiling in the sun. These unfortunate creatures cry and weep like
their parents, without a possibility of relief; the very instinct of
the brute, so laudable, so irresistible, runs counter here to their
master's interest; and to that god, all the laws of nature must give
way. Thus planters get rich; so raw, so unexperienced am I in this
mode of life, that were I to be possessed of a plantation, and my
slaves treated as in general they are here, never could I rest in
peace; my sleep would be perpetually disturbed by a retrospect of
the frauds committed in Africa, in order to entrap them; frauds
surpassing in enormity everything which a common mind can possibly
conceive. I should be thinking of the barbarous treatment they meet
with on ship-board; of their anguish, of the despair necessarily
inspired by their situation, when torn from their friends and
relations; when delivered into the hands of a people differently
coloured, whom they cannot understand; carried in a strange machine
over an ever agitated element, which they had never seen before; and
finally delivered over to the severities of the whippers, and the
excessive labours of the field. Can it be possible that the force of
custom should ever make me deaf to all these reflections, and as
insensible to the injustice of that trade, and to their miseries, as
the rich inhabitants of this town seem to be? What then is man; this
being who boasts so much of the excellence and dignity of his
nature, among that variety of unscrutable mysteries, of unsolvable
problems, with which he is surrounded? The reason why man has been
thus created, is not the least astonishing! It is said, I know that
they are much happier here than in the West Indies; because land
being cheaper upon this continent than in those islands, the fields
allowed them to raise their subsistence from, are in general more
extensive. The only possible chance of any alleviation depends on
the humour of the planters, who, bred in the midst of slaves, learn
from the example of their parents to despise them; and seldom
conceive either from religion or philosophy, any ideas that tend to
make their fate less calamitous; except some strong native
tenderness of heart, some rays of philanthropy, overcome the
obduracy contracted by habit.
I have not resided here long enough to become insensible of pain for
the objects which I every day behold. In the choice of my friends
and acquaintance, I always endeavour to find out those whose
dispositions are somewhat congenial with my own. We have slaves
likewise in our northern provinces; I hope the time draws near when
they will be all emancipated: but how different their lot, how
different their situation, in every possible respect! They enjoy as
much liberty as their masters, they are as well clad, and as well
fed; in health and sickness they are tenderly taken care of; they
live under the same roof, and are, truly speaking, a part of our
families. Many of them are taught to read and write, and are well
instructed in the principles of religion; they are the companions of
our labours, and treated as such; they enjoy many perquisites, many
established holidays, and are not obliged to work more than white
people. They marry where inclination leads them; visit their wives
every week; are as decently clad as the common people; they are
indulged in educating, cherishing, and chastising their children,
who are taught subordination to them as to their lawful parents: in
short, they participate in many of the benefits of our society,
without being obliged to bear any of its burdens. They are fat,
healthy, and hearty, and far from repining at their fate; they think
themselves happier than many of the lower class whites: they share
with their masters the wheat and meat provision they help to raise;
many of those whom the good Quakers have emancipated have received
that great benefit with tears of regret, and have never quitted,
though free, their former masters and benefactors.
But is it really true, as I have heard it asserted here, that those
blacks are incapable of feeling the spurs of emulation, and the
cheerful sound of encouragement? By no means; there are a thousand
proofs existing of their gratitude and fidelity: those hearts in
which such noble dispositions can grow, are then like ours, they are
susceptible of every generous sentiment, of every useful motive of
action; they are capable of receiving lights, of imbibing ideas that
would greatly alleviate the weight of their miseries. But what
methods have in general been made use of to obtain so desirable an
end? None; the day in which they arrive and are sold, is the first
of their labours; labours, which from that hour admit of no respite;
for though indulged by law with relaxation on Sundays, they are
obliged to employ that time which is intended for rest, to till
their little plantations. What can be expected from wretches in such
circumstances? Forced from their native country, cruelly treated
when on board, and not less so on the plantations to which they are
driven; is there anything in this treatment but what must kindle all
the passions, sow the seeds of inveterate resentment, and nourish a
wish of perpetual revenge? They are left to the irresistible effects
of those strong and natural propensities; the blows they receive,
are they conducive to extinguish them, or to win their affections?
They are neither soothed by the hopes that their slavery will ever
terminate but with their lives; or yet encouraged by the goodness of
their food, or the mildness of their treatment. The very hopes held
out to mankind by religion, that consolatory system, so useful to
the miserable, are never presented to them; neither moral nor
physical means are made use of to soften their chains; they are left
in their original and untutored state; that very state wherein the
natural propensities of revenge and warm passions are so soon
kindled. Cheered by no one single motive that can impel the will, or
excite their efforts; nothing but terrors and punishments are
presented to them; death is denounced if they run away; horrid
delaceration if they speak with their native freedom; perpetually
awed by the terrible cracks of whips, or by the fear of capital
punishments, while even those punishments often fail of their
purpose.
A clergyman settled a few years ago at George-Town, and feeling as I
do now, warmly recommended to the planters, from the pulpit, a
relaxation of severity; he introduced the benignity of Christianity,
and pathetically made use of the admirable precepts of that system
to melt the hearts of his congregation into a greater degree of
compassion toward their slaves than had been hitherto customary;
"Sir," said one of his hearers, "we pay you a genteel salary to read
to us the prayers of the liturgy, and to explain to us such parts of
the Gospel as the rule of the church directs; but we do not want you
to teach us what we are to do with our blacks." The clergyman found
it prudent to withhold any farther admonition. Whence this
astonishing right, or rather this barbarous custom, for most
certainly we have no kind of right beyond that of force? We are
told, it is true, that slavery cannot be so repugnant to human
nature as we at first imagine, because it has been practised in all
ages, and in all nations: the Lacedemonians themselves, those great
assertors of liberty, conquered the Helotes with the design of
making them their slaves; the Romans, whom we consider as our
masters in civil and military policy, lived in the exercise of the
most horrid oppression; they conquered to plunder and to enslave.
What a hideous aspect the face of the earth must then have
exhibited! Provinces, towns, districts, often depopulated! their
inhabitants driven to Rome, the greatest market in the world, and
there sold by thousands! The Roman dominions were tilled by the
hands of unfortunate people, who had once been, like their victors,
free, rich, and possessed of every benefit society can confer; until
they became subject to the cruel right of war, and to lawless force.
Is there then no superintending power who conducts the moral
operations of the world, as well as the physical? The same sublime
hand which guides the planets round the sun with so much exactness,
which preserves the arrangement of the whole with such exalted
wisdom and paternal care, and prevents the vast system from falling
into confusion; doth it abandon mankind to all the errors, the
follies, and the miseries, which their most frantic rage, and their
most dangerous vices and passions can produce?
The history of the earth! doth it present anything but crimes of the
most heinous nature, committed from one end of the world to the
other? We observe avarice, rapine, and murder, equally prevailing in
all parts. History perpetually tells us of millions of people
abandoned to the caprice of the maddest princes, and of whole
nations devoted to the blind fury of tyrants. Countries destroyed;
nations alternately buried in ruins by other nations; some parts of
the world beautifully cultivated, returned again to the pristine
state; the fruits of ages of industry, the toil of thousands in a
short time destroyed by a few! If one corner breathes in peace for a
few years, it is, in turn subjected, torn, and levelled; one would
almost believe the principles of action in man, considered as the
first agent of this planet, to be poisoned in their most essential
parts. We certainly are not that class of beings which we vainly
think ourselves to be; man an animal of prey, seems to have rapine
and the love of bloodshed implanted in his heart; nay, to hold it
the most honourable occupation in society: we never speak of a hero
of mathematics, a hero of knowledge of humanity; no, this
illustrious appellation is reserved for the most successful butchers
of the world. If Nature has given us a fruitful soil to inhabit, she
has refused us such inclinations and propensities as would afford us
the full enjoyment of it. Extensive as the surface of this planet
is, not one half of it is yet cultivated, not half replenished; she
created man, and placed him either in the woods or plains, and
provided him with passions which must for ever oppose his happiness;
everything is submitted to the power of the strongest; men, like the
elements, are always at war; the weakest yield to the most potent;
force, subtlety, and malice, always triumph over unguarded honesty
and simplicity. Benignity, moderation, and justice, are virtues
adapted only to the humble paths of life: we love to talk of virtue
and to admire its beauty, while in the shade of solitude and
retirement; but when we step forth into active life, if it happen to
be in competition with any passion or desire, do we observe it to
prevail? Hence so many religious impostors have triumphed over the
credulity of mankind, and have rendered their frauds the creeds of
succeeding generations, during the course of many ages; until worn
away by time, they have been replaced by new ones. Hence the most
unjust war, if supported by the greatest force, always succeeds;
hence the most just ones, when supported only by their justice, as
often fail. Such is the ascendancy of power; the supreme arbiter of
all the revolutions which we observe in this planet: so irresistible
is power, that it often thwarts the tendency of the most forcible
causes, and prevents their subsequent salutary effects, though
ordained for the good of man by the Governor of the universe. Such
is the perverseness of human nature; who can describe it in all its
latitude?
In the moments of our philanthropy we often talk of an indulgent
nature, a kind parent, who for the benefit of mankind has taken
singular pains to vary the genera of plants, fruits, grain, and the
different productions of the earth; and has spread peculiar
blessings in each climate. This is undoubtedly an object of
contemplation which calls forth our warmest gratitude; for so
singularly benevolent have those parental intentions been, that
where barrenness of soil or severity of climate prevail, there she
has implanted in the heart of man, sentiments which overbalance
every misery, and supply the place of every want. She has given to
the inhabitants of these regions, an attachment to their savage
rocks and wild shores, unknown to those who inhabit the fertile
fields of the temperate zone. Yet if we attentively view this globe,
will it not appear rather a place of punishment, than of delight?
And what misfortune! that those punishments should fall on the
innocent, and its few delights be enjoyed by the most unworthy.
Famine, diseases, elementary convulsions, human feuds, dissensions,
etc., are the produce of every climate; each climate produces
besides, vices, and miseries peculiar to its latitude. View the
frigid sterility of the north, whose famished inhabitants hardly
acquainted with the sun, live and fare worse than the bears they
hunt: and to which they are superior only in the faculty of
speaking. View the arctic and antarctic regions, those huge voids,
where nothing lives; regions of eternal snow: where winter in all
his horrors has established his throne, and arrested every creative
power of nature. Will you call the miserable stragglers in these
countries by the name of men? Now contrast this frigid power of the
north and south with that of the sun; examine the parched lands of
the torrid zone, replete with sulphureous exhalations; view those
countries of Asia subject to pestilential infections which lay
nature waste; view this globe often convulsed both from within and
without; pouring forth from several mouths, rivers of boiling
matter, which are imperceptibly leaving immense subterranean graves,
wherein millions will one day perish! Look at the poisonous soil of
the equator, at those putrid slimy tracks, teeming with horrid
monsters, the enemies of the human race; look next at the sandy
continent, scorched perhaps by the fatal approach of some ancient
comet, now the abode of desolation. Examine the rains, the
convulsive storms of those climates, where masses of sulphur,
bitumen, and electrical fire, combining their dreadful powers, are
incessantly hovering and bursting over a globe threatened with
dissolution. On this little shell, how very few are the spots where
man can live and flourish? even under those mild climates which seem
to breathe peace and happiness, the poison of slavery, the fury of
despotism, and the rage of superstition, are all combined against
man! There only the few live and rule, whilst the many starve and
utter ineffectual complaints: there, human nature appears more
debased, perhaps than in the less favoured climates. The fertile
plains of Asia, the rich low lands of Egypt and of Diarbeck, the
fruitful fields bordering on the Tigris and the Euphrates, the
extensive country of the East Indies in all its separate districts;
all these must to the geographical eye, seem as if intended for
terrestrial paradises: but though surrounded with the spontaneous
riches of nature, though her kindest favours seem to be shed on
those beautiful regions with the most profuse hand; yet there in
general we find the most wretched people in the world. Almost
everywhere, liberty so natural to mankind is refused, or rather
enjoyed but by their tyrants; the word slave, is the appellation of
every rank, who adore as a divinity, a being worse than themselves;
subject to every caprice, and to every lawless rage which
unrestrained power can give. Tears are shed, perpetual groans are
heard, where only the accents of peace, alacrity, and gratitude
should resound. There the very delirium of tyranny tramples on the
best gifts of nature, and sports with the fate, the happiness, the
lives of millions: there the extreme fertility of the ground always
indicates the extreme misery of the inhabitants!
Everywhere one part of the human species are taught the art of
shedding the blood of the other; of setting fire to their dwellings;
of levelling the works of their industry: half of the existence of
nations regularly employed in destroying other nations.—"What
little political felicity is to be met with here and there, has cost
oceans of blood to purchase; as if good was never to be the portion
of unhappy man. Republics, kingdoms, monarchies, founded either on
fraud or successful violence, increase by pursuing the steps of the
same policy, until they are destroyed in their turn, either by the
influence of their own crimes, or by more successful but equally
criminal enemies."
If from this general review of human nature, we descend to the
examination of what is called civilised society; there the
combination of every natural and artificial want, makes us pay very
dear for what little share of political felicity we enjoy. It is a
strange heterogeneous assemblage of vices and virtues, and of a
variety of other principles, for ever at war, for ever jarring, for
ever producing some dangerous, some distressing extreme. Where do
you conceive then that nature intended we should be happy? Would you
prefer the state of men in the woods, to that of men in a more
improved situation? Evil preponderates in both; in the first they
often eat each other for want of food, and in the other they often
starve each other for want of room. For my part, I think the vices
and miseries to be found in the latter, exceed those of the former;
in which real evil is more scarce, more supportable, and less
enormous. Yet we wish to see the earth peopled; to accomplish the
happiness of kingdoms, which is said to consist in numbers. Gracious
God! to what end is the introduction of so many beings into a mode
of existence in which they must grope amidst as many errors, commit
as many crimes, and meet with as many diseases, wants, and
sufferings!
The following scene will I hope account for these melancholy
reflections, and apologise for the gloomy thoughts with which I have
filled this letter: my mind is, and always has been, oppressed since
I became a witness to it. I was not long since invited to dine with
a planter who lived three miles from——, where he then resided. In
order to avoid the heat of the sun, I resolved to go on foot,
sheltered in a small path, leading through a pleasant wood. I was
leisurely travelling along, attentively examining some peculiar
plants which I had collected, when all at once I felt the air
strongly agitated, though the day was perfectly calm and sultry. I
immediately cast my eyes toward the cleared ground, from which I was
but at a small distance, in order to see whether it was not
occasioned by a sudden shower; when at that instant a sound
resembling a deep rough voice, uttered, as I thought, a few
inarticulate monosyllables. Alarmed and surprised, I precipitately
looked all round, when I perceived at about six rods distance
something resembling a cage, suspended to the limbs of a tree; all
the branches of which appeared covered with large birds of prey,
fluttering about, and anxiously endeavouring to perch on the cage.
Actuated by an involuntary motion of my hands, more than by any
design of my mind, I fired at them; they all flew to a short
distance, with a most hideous noise: when, horrid to think and
painful to repeat, I perceived a negro, suspended in the cage, and
left there to expire! I shudder when I recollect that the birds had
already picked out his eyes, his cheek bones were bare; his arms had
been attacked in several places, and his body seemed covered with a
multitude of wounds. From the edges of the hollow sockets and from
the lacerations with which he was disfigured, the blood slowly
dropped, and tinged the ground beneath. No sooner were the birds
flown, than swarms of insects covered the whole body of this
unfortunate wretch, eager to feed on his mangled flesh and to drink
his blood. I found myself suddenly arrested by the power of affright
and terror; my nerves were convoked; I trembled, I stood motionless,
involuntarily contemplating the fate of this negro, in all its
dismal latitude. The living spectre, though deprived of his eyes,
could still distinctly hear, and in his uncouth dialect begged me to
give him some water to allay his thirst. Humanity herself would have
recoiled back with horror; she would have balanced whether to lessen
such reliefless distress, or mercifully with one blow to end this
dreadful scene of agonising torture! Had I had a ball in my gun, I
certainly should have despatched him; but finding myself unable to
perform so kind an office, I sought, though trembling, to relieve
him as well as I could. A shell ready fixed to a pole, which had
been used by some negroes, presented itself to me; filled it with
water, and with trembling hands I guided it to the quivering lips of
the wretched sufferer. Urged by the irresistible power of thirst, he
endeavoured to meet it, as he instinctively guessed its approach by
the noise it made in passing through the bars of the cage. "Tanke,
you white man, tanke you, pute some poison and give me." "How long
have you been hanging there?" I asked him. "Two days, and me no die;
the birds, the birds; aaah me!" Oppressed with the reflections which
this shocking spectacle afforded me, I mustered strength enough to
walk away, and soon reached the house at which I intended to dine.
There I heard that the reason for this slave being thus punished,
was on account of his having killed the overseer of the plantation.
They told me that the laws of self-preservation rendered such
executions necessary; and supported the doctrine of slavery with the
arguments generally made use of to justify the practice; with the
repetition of which I shall not trouble you at present.—Adieu.
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