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Show 12 PORTRAITURE OF SLAVERY. learn (says he) to be just to our fellow creatures? Shall we blindly pursue the imaginary advantages of the moment, and neglect the still but solemn voice of God, until "---Vengeance in the lurid air, Lifts ber red arm exJtos'd and bare." Without offering an opinion on the propriety of the expression of Mr. Jefferson, I must add, that 1 tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that his justice is ever active and continually executing its commission! The truth of this may be easily recognised by any observer who has not been familiarised to the constant presence of slavery, from infancy- Indeed, the possessors of slaves, with whom I lutve conversed, while travelling through several slave districts, frequently acknowledged that they " have inherited a curse from their ancestors, and that it wou/1 be better for the country if the slaves were all out of it." And with respect to the red arm of vengeance exposed and hare, it must often menace those neighborhoods, whence the citizens frequently write to their friends in the north, thar " it is high time to leave a country where one cannot go to bed in the evening, without the apprehension of being massacred before morning!" I have been assured by citizens having personal knowledge of the frtct, that the rage of the slave• is such, in some districts, and especially near Savanna!1, that their masters and overseers are obliged to retreat to some secure place during the night, or employ armed sentinels. Four slaves were executed but a few months since, in Maryland, for destroying the life of their master's brother, while he was in the act of inflicting corporeal punishment upon them. A citizen of Philadelphia, very lately related to me the most shocking heart-rending in~tance of ferocious vengeance that can be possibly conceived. It very forcibly exemplifies the infatuation and temerity of subjecting those, to whom our persons must necessarily be frequently accessible, to a state of the most ·sava~ moral debasement, and then of tampering wit!) their furious untamed passions. A lemale slave having PORTRAITUR-E OF SLAVERY. 13 been flogged by her mistress, watched for an opp01tunity to iudulge her resentment, which she executed 111 a manner too horrible to describe, and which it is not deemed prudent to Specify_ Many instances have cxi~tcd, where slaves, in a state of enrnged despemtion, huve involved their masters and thrmst'lves, of course, in mutual destruction. A gentleman of high respectability, lately informed me, that he persoually kne\v a master of slaves, 'rho retreated every night into an upper room, the-entrance into which was by a trap-door, and kept an axe by his side lor dclencc. Does not self-preservation, as 'rcll as the obligations of religious duty and brotherly love, enjoin the education and civilization of our sable heuthen neighbors in our own dwellings, equally as imperatively as of our tawny ones in the wilderness, and of both, on this side of the Atlantic, as well as on the other?* * The aboriginal Americans have offt>red their civilized brethren a most beautiful and instruclivc lesson on this subject. 'l'he author of" rnte Slur in the 'Vest," Elias Doudinot, L. L. D. relates the following fact. From page 232 :- " 'l'hc writer of these sheets, many years ago, was one of the corresponding members of n society in Scotland for promoting the gospel among the Indians. 'l'o further the great work, they educated two young mcu, of very serious ami religious disposilions, and who were dcsi1'0US of undertaking the mission for thia purpose. When they were ordained ami ready to depart, we wrote a letter in the Indian style, to the Delaware nation, then residing on the northwest of the Ohio, informing that we had, by the goodness of the Great Spirit, been favored wilh a lwowlc1lge of his will, as to the worship he required of his creatures, nml the means he would bless to promote the happiness of men, both in this life and that which ia to ('Ome. 'J'hat thus enjoying so much happiness ourselves, we coold not but think of our red brethren in the wilderness, and wish to comm.unicale the glad tiditJgs to them, that they might be partakers wtth us. We had therefore sent tbem two miuisters of the gospel, who would teach tltem these grenl things, and earnestly reeommend' d them to their careful attention. With proper passports ~~~ :::;:~~~muies set ofl~ and arrived io safely at o11e of their princi- |
