The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin Read online

the doctrine of disinterested benevolence with such zeal, as to

  make it an imperative article of belief, that every individual

  ought to be willing to endure everlasting misery, if by doing so

  they could, on the whole, produce a greater amount of general

  good in the universe; and the inquiry was sometimes made of

  candidates for church-membership, whether they could bring

  themselves to this point as a test of their sincerity. The clergy-

  man who was to examine this lady, was particularly interested in

  these speculations. When he came to inquire of her with regard

  to her views as to the obligations of Christianity, she informed

  him decidedly that she had brought her mind to the point of

  emancipating all her slaves, of whom she had a large number.

  The clergyman seemed rather to consider this as an excess of

  zeal, and recommended that she should take time to reflect upon

  it. He was, however, very urgent to know whether, if it should

  appear for the greatest good of the universe, she would be willing

  to be damned. Entirely unaccustomed to theological specula-

  tions, the good woman answered, with some vehemence, that

  “she was sure she was not;” adding, naturally enough, that if

  that had been her purpose, she need not have come to join the

  church. The good lady, however, was admitted, and proved her

  devotion to the general good by the more tangible method of

  setting all her slaves at liberty, and carefully watching over their

  education and interests after they were liberated.

  Mrs. Shelby is a fair type of the very best class of Southern

  women; and while the evils of the institution are felt and

  deplored, and while the world looks with just indignation on the

  national support and patronage which is given to it, and on the

  men who, knowing its nature, deliberately make efforts to

  perpetuate and extend it, it is but justice that it should bear in

  mind the virtues of such persons.

  Many of them, surrounded by circumstances over which they

  can have no control, perplexed by domestic cares, of which

  women in free States can have very little conception, loaded

  down by duties and responsibilities which wear upon the very

  springs of life, still go on bravely and patiently from day to

  day, doing all they can to alleviate what they cannot prevent,

  and, as far as the sphere of their own immediate power extends,

  rescuing those who are dependent upon them from the evils of

  the system.

  We read of Him who shall at last come to judgment, that

  “His fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his

  floor, and gather his wheat into the garner.” Out of the great

  abyss of national sin he will rescue every grain of good and

  honest purpose and intention. His eyes, which are as a flame

  of fire, penetrate at once those intricate mazes where human

  judgment is lost, and will save and honour at last the truly good

  and sincere, however they may have been involved with the evil;

  and such souls as have resisted the greatest temptations, and

  persisted in good under the most perplexing circumstances, are

  those of whom he has written, “And they shall be mine, saith

  the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels;

  and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that

  serveth him.”

  * The leader of the insurrection in Virginia, in which upwards of a hundred

  white persons, principally women and children, were massacred in cold blood.

  CHAPTER IV.

  GEORGE HARRIS.

  The character of George Harris has been represented as

  overdrawn, both as respects personal qualities and general

  intelligence. It has been said, too, that so many afflictive

  incidents happening to a slave are improbable, and present a

  distorted view of the institution.

  In regard to person, it must be remembered that the half-

  breeds often inherit, to a great degree, the traits of their white

  ancestors. For this there is abundant evidence in the adver-

  tisements of the papers. Witness the following from the

  Chattanooga (Tenn.) Gazette, October 5th, 1852.

  Run away from the subscriber, on the 25th May, a VERY BRIGHT MU-

  LATTO BOY, about 20 or 22 years old, named WASH. Said boy, without

  close observation, might pass himself for a white man, as he is very bright--has

  sandy hair, blue eyes, and a fine set of teeth. He is an excellent bricklayer; but

  I have no idea that he will pursue his trade, for fear of detection. Although he

  is like a white man in appearance, he has the disposition of a negro, and delights

  in comic songs and witty expressions. He is an excellent house servant, very

  handy about a hotel--tall, slender, and has rather a down look, especially when

  spoken to, and is sometimes inclined to be sulky. I have no doubt that he has

  been decoyed off by some scoundrel, and I will give the above reward for the

  apprehension of the boy and thief, if delivered at Chattanooga. Or, I will give

  200 dollars for the boy alone; or 100 dollars if confined in any jail in the United

  States, so that I can get him.

  GEORGE O. RAGLAND.

  Chattanooga, June 15, 1852.

  From the Capitolian Vis-à-vis, West Baton Rouge, Louisiana,

  November 1, 1852:

  Run away about the 15th of August last, Joe, a yellow man; small, about

  5 feet 8 or 9 inches high, and about twenty years of age. Has a Roman nose, was

  raised in New Orleans, and speaks French and English. He was bought last

  winter of Mr. Digges, Banks Arcade, New Orleans.

  In regard to general intelligence, the reader will recollect that

  the writer stated it as a fact which she learned while on a jour-

  ney through Kentucky, that a young coloured man invented a

  machine for cleaning hemp, like that alluded to in her story.

  Advertisements, also, occasionally propose for sale artisans of

  different descriptions. Slaves are often employed as pilots for

  vessels, and highly valued for their skill and knowledge. The

  following are advertisements from recent newspapers.

  From the South Carolinian (Columbia), December 4th, 1852.

  by j. and l. t. levin.

  WILL be Sold, on MONDAY, the 6th Day of December, the following valuable

  NEGROES:--

  Andrew, 24 years of age, a bricklayer and plasterer, and thorough workman.

  George, 22 years of age, one of the best barbers in the State.

  James, 19 years of age, an excellent painter.

  These boys were raised in Columbia, and are exceptions to most of boys, and

  are sold for no fault whatever.

  The terms of sale are one-half cash, the balance on a credit of six months,

  with interest, for notes payable at bank, with two or more approved endorsers.

  Purchasers to pay for necessary papers.

  WILLIAM DOUGLASS.

  November 27, 36.

  From the same paper of November 18th, 1852.

  Will be sold at private sale, a LIKELY MAN, boat hand, and good pilot; is

  well acquainted with all the inlets between here and Savannah and Georgetown.

  With regard to the incidents of George Harris's life, that he

  may not be supposed a purely exceptional case, w
e propose to

  offer some parallel facts from the lives of slaves of our personal

  acquaintance.

  Lewis Clark is an acquaintance of the writer. Soon after his

  escape from slavery, he was received into the family of a sister-

  in-law of the author, and there educated. His conduct during

  this time was such as to win for him uncommon affection and

  respect, and the author has frequently heard him spoken of in

  the highest terms by all who knew him.

  The gentleman in whose family he so long resided, says of

  him, in a recent letter to the writer, “I would trust him, as the

  saying is, with untold gold.”

  Lewis is a quadroon, a fine-looking man, with European

  features, hair slightly wavy, and with an intelligent, agreeable

  expression of countenance.

  The reader is now desired to compare the following incidents

  of his life, part of which he related personally to the author, with

  the incidents of the life of George Harris.

  His mother was a handsome quadroon woman, the daughter

  of her master, and given by him in marriage to a free white man,

  a Scotchman, with the express understanding that she and her

  children were to be free. This engagement, if made sincerely at

  all, was never complied with. His mother had nine children,

  and on the death of her husband, came back, with all these chil-

  dren, as slaves in her father's house.

  A married daughter of the family, who was the dread of the

  whole household, on account of the violence of her temper, had

  taken from the family, upon her marriage, a young girl. By the

  violence of her abuse she soon reduced the child to a state of

  idiocy, and then came imperiously back to her father's establish-

  ment, declaring that the child was good for nothing, and that

  she would have another, and, as poor Lewis' evil star would

  have it, fixed her eye upon him.

  To avoid one of her terrible outbreaks of temper, the family

  offered up this boy as a pacificatory sacrifice. The incident is

  thus described by Lewis, in a published narrative:--

  Every boy was ordered in, to pass before this female sorceress, that she might

  select a victim for her unprovoked malice, on whom to pour the vials of her

  wrath for years. I was that unlucky fellow. Mr. Campbell, my grandfather,

  objected, because it would divide a family, and offered her Moses; * * *

  but objections and claims of every kind were swept away by the wild passion and

  shrill-toned voice of Mrs. B. Me she would have, and none else. Mr. Campbell

  went out to hunt, and drive away bad thoughts; the old lady became quiet, for

  she was sure none of her blood ran in my veins, and if there was any of her hus-

  band's there, it was no fault of hers. Slave-holding women are always revengeful

  toward the children of slaves that have any of the blood of their husbands in

  them. I was too young--only seven years of age--to understand what was going

  on. But my poor and affectionate mother understood and appreciated it all.

  When she left the kitchen of the mansion-house, where she was employed as cook,

  and came home to her own little cottage, the tear of anguish was in her eye, and

  the image of sorrow upon every feature of her face. She knew the female Nero

  whose rod was now to be over me. That night sleep departed from her eyes.

  With the youngest child clasped firmly to her bosom, she spent the night in

  walking the floor, coming ever and anon to lift up the clothes and look at me and

  my poor brother, who lay sleeping together. Sleeping, I said. Brother slept,

  but not I. I saw my mother when she first came to me, and I could not sleep.

  The vision of that night--its deep, ineffaceable impression--is now before my

  mind with all the distinctness of yesterday. In the morning I was put into the

  carriage with Mrs. B. and her children, and my weary pilgrimage of suffering was

  fairly begun.

  Mrs. Banton is a character that can only exist where the laws

  of the land clothe with absolute power the coarsest, most brutal

  and violent-tempered, equally with the most generous and

  humane.

  If irresponsible power is a trial to the virtue of the most

  watchful and careful, how fast must it develope cruelty in those

  who are naturally violent and brutal!

  This woman was united to a drunken husband, of a temper

  equally ferocious. A recital of all the physical torture which

  this pair contrived to inflict on a hapless child, some of which

  have left ineffaceable marks on his person, would be too trying

  to humanity, and we gladly draw a veil over it.

  Some incidents, however, are presented in the following

  extracts:--

  A very trivial offence was sufficient to call forth a great burst of indignation

  from this woman of ungoverned passions. In my simplicity, I put my lips to the

  same vessel, and drank out of it, from which her children were accustomed to

  drink. She expressed her utter abhorrence of such an act by throwing my head

  violently back, and dashing into my face two dippers of water. The shower of

  water was followed by a heavier shower of kicks; but the words, bitter and cut-

  ting, that followed, were like a storm of hail upon my young heart. “She would

  teach me better manners than that; she would let me know I was to be brought

  up to her hand; she would have one slave that knew his place; if I wanted water,

  go to the spring, and not drink there in the house.” This was new times for me;

  for some days I was completely benumbed with my sorrow.

  * * * * *

  If there be one so lost to all feeling as even to say that the slaves do not suffer

  when families are separated, let such a one go to the ragged quilt which was my

  eouch and pillow, and stand there night after night, for long, weary hours, and see

  the bitter tears streaming down the face of that more than orphan boy, while with

  half-suppressed sighs and sobs he calls again and again upon his absent mother.

  “Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed?

  Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son?

  Wretch even then! life's journey just begun.”

  He was employed till late at night in spinning flax or rocking

  the baby, and called at a very early hour in the morning; and

  if he did not start at the first summons, a cruel chastisement

  was sure to follow. He says:--

  Such horror has seized me, lest I might not hear the first shrill call, that I have

  often in dreams fancied I heard that unwelcome voice, and have leaped from my

  couch and walked through the house and out of it before I awoke. I have gone

  and called the other slaves, in my sleep, and asked them if they did not hear

  master call. Never, while I live, will the remembrance of those long bitter nights

  of fear pass from my mind.

  He adds to these words which should be deeply pondered

  by those who lay the flattering unction to their souls that the

  oppressed do not feel the sundering of family ties.

  But all my severe labour, and bitter and cruel punishments, for these ten years

  of captivity with this worse than Arab family, all these were as nothing to the

  sufferings I experienced by being separat
ed from my mother, brothers, and sisters;

  the same things, with them near to sympathise with me, to hear my story of

  sorrow, would have been comparatively tolerable.

  They were distant only about thirty miles, and yet, in ten long lonely years of

  childhood, I was only permitted to see them three times.

  My mother occasionally found an opportunity to send me some token of

  remembrance and affection--a sugar-plum or an apple; but I scarcely ever ate

  them; they were laid up, and handled, and wept over, till they wasted away in my

  hand.

  My thoughts continually by day, and my dreams by night, were of mother and

  home; and the horror experienced in the morning, when I awoke and behold it

  was a dream, is beyond the power of language to describe.

  Lewis had a beautiful sister by the name of Delia, who, on

  the death of her grandfather, was sold, with all the other

  children of his mother, for the purpose of dividing the estate.

  She was a pious girl, a member of the Baptist church. She fell

  into the hands of a brutal, drunken man, who wished to make

  her his mistress. Milton Clark, a brother of Lewis, in the

  narrative of his life, describes the scene where he, with his

  mother, stood at the door while this girl was brutally whipped

  before it for wishing to conform to the principles of her

  Christian profession. As her resolution was unconquerable,

  she was placed in a coffle and sent down to the New Orleans

  market. Here she was sold to a Frenchman named Coval; he

  took her to Mexico, emancipated and married her. After

  residing some time in France and the West Indies with him, he

  died, leaving her a fortune of twenty or thirty thousand dollars.

  At her death she endeavoured to leave this by will to purchase

  the freedom of her brothers; but, as a slave cannot take pro-

  perty, or even have it left in trust for him, they never received

  any of it.

  The incidents of the recovery of Lewis' freedom are thus

  told:--

  I had long thought and dreamed of Liberty; I was now determined to make

  an effort to gain it. No tongue can tell the doubt, the perplexities, the anxiety,