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Slavery In Baltimore

Slavery In Baltimore image
Parent Issue
Day
1
Month
December
Year
1841
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Perhaps jou are alreacJy irapatient to hear of the condition of the negro. In speakin of hira I shall endeavor to be candid and impartial; for I conceive the Anti-Slayery cause, which s dearto me, has been injured by exaggerated accounts Tnd by harsh and improper laoguage.- The slave-holder should be told plainly f his sins,but nut tnunlingly or insullingly. True, coses of cruelty, and fiend-Jike oppression if need be [fur euch cases do exist according to their ovvn confcssion,] should be exposed, and not false rcports circtilated as have been in a few instance?. h has been said tliat tho prejudice against color is far less at the Sonth than ai the Northjthis is truc. That is, ihe souiherner feels none of that abhorrence towiirds ihe negro which the norlherner can hardly avoid, though his betlcr judgetïjeni convinceshim the feeling is wrong. The reason is obvious. One has been inroniaci wun tlie negro Irom cbüdhood, or, I might say,infancy, (Cor chüdrenare tended in the nursery by negro servants,) while tbc other lias only occasionally met one. The advocate of slavery asserls ihat the slaves are better clothed and fed ihan thefree blacks; this is parlly true and partly false. A wealthy'slave-holdcr in the city, in any place where his slaves are much exposed to oLservation, will, f rom prirle, clolhe his slaves well, or even genteelly, by consigning his own soilod clolhes tolhem, while the poor free black cannotafïbrd the expense of costly clothing. So far as external appearance was cconcerned,! couid notwhüu in Baltimore, distinguish the free black from the slave. The tree black is i a very precarious condition throughout the state, but more especially in cornmereial towns; living in onstant fear of teing seized and sold to the southern planter. A Quaker woman with whom 1 was Loarding, having sent herservant girl on an errand,and she being absent Jonger than necessary, set forth in pursuit oí her, fearing she had been lodged in one.o' the slavc prisons,of which there are two in Baltunüre. 1 am happy lo state, however, that she found the girl safe. Il is said by the Quakers, who you are awareare free from the sin of slavery, and wilh whom alone it is safe to converse on the subject, that many hundreds of the free blacks are yearly s;.ld into hnpeless bondage, no one daring or caring to inteifere in their behalf. I ought to have mentioned before, that the ai tempt tomiiiïsh the harshness ofslavery by applying the term servant to the negro insteatl of slave is purely a northern iuvenlion to use ia norihern clmes,for tfínds do countenance here. Al an intelligence office kept in the basement story of the City Hotel in Baltimore, hansn sign, bearing this inscription, "Slaves bovght and sold.