OCR Text |
Show 144 ON THE. SLAVERY AND COMMERCE [pots produce, before they are fufficiently ripe: a clear indication, that the calls of hunger are frequently fo preffing, as not to fuffer them to wait, till they can really enjoy them. This iituation, of a want of the common neceil'aries of life, added to that of hard and continual labour, mull: be fulliciently painful of itfelf. How then mull: the pain be iharpcned, if it be accompanied with feverity! if an unfortunate ilave does not come into the fidd exactly at the appointed time, if, drooping with iicknefs or fatigue, he appears to work unwillingly, or if the bundle of grafs that he has been collecting, appears too iinall in the eye of the overfeer, he is equally fure of experiencing the whip. This inll:rument erafe~ the Jkin, and cuts out fmall portions of the fleil1 at almoll: every {hoke; and is fo frequently applied, that the fmack of it is all day long in the ears of thofe, who are in the vicinity of the plantations. This feverity of mall:ers, or managers, to their ilaves, which is coniidered only as common difcipline, is attended with bad effects. It enables them to behold inll:ances of cruelty without OF THE H UMAN SPECIES. without commiferation, and to be guilty of them without remorfc. lienee thole many acts of deliberate mutilation, that have taken place on the ilightcll: occaiions : hence thofe many acts of inferiour, though il1ocking, barbarity, that have taken place without any occafion at all: * the very flitting of ears has been coniidered as an operation, fo perfectly devoid of pain, as to have been performed for no other reafon than that for which a brand is fet upon cattle, as a mark of property. But this is not the only effdl:, which this feverity produces: for while it hardens their hearts, and makes them infeniible of the • " A boy ha\•ing received fix flavcs as a prcfent " from his father, immediately flit their cars, and for the u following .-eafon, that as his father was a whimfical man. u he might claim them again, unlcfs they were marked." We Jo not mention this inflancc as a confirmation of the paf~ f.1.gc to which it is annexed, but only to !hew, how cautious we ought to be in giving credit to what may be advanced in any work written in defence of flavcry, by any native of the colonies: for being trained up to fcenes of cruelty from his cradle, he may, confiftently with his own feelings, reprcfent that treatment as mild, at which we, who have nc,•er been ufed to fee them, lh.ould abfolutely lhudder. K mifery |