Читать книгу American Slavery as It is: Testimonies - Theodore Dwight Weld - Страница 30
ОглавлениеTHE SLAVES SUFFER FROM INHUMAN NEGLECT WHEN SICK.
In proof of this we subjoin the following testimony:
Rev. Dr. CHANNING of Boston, who once resided in Virginia, relates the following fact in his work on slavery, page 163, 1st edition.
"I cannot forget my feelings on visiting a hospital belonging to the plantation of a gentleman highly esteemed for his virtues,and whose manners and conversation expressed much benevolence and conscientiousness. When I entered with him the hospital, the first object on which my eye fell was a young woman, very ill, probably approaching death. She was stretched on the floor. Her head rested on something like a pillow; but her body and limbs were extended on the hard boards. The owner, I doubt not, had at least as much kindness as myself; but he was so used to see the slaves living without common comforts, that the idea of unkindness in the present instance did not enter his mind."
This dying young woman "was stretched on the floor"--"her body and limbs extended upon the hard boards,"--and yet her master "was highly esteemed for his virtues," and his general demeanor produced upon Dr. Channing the impression of "benevolence and conscientiousness." If the sick and dying female slaves of such a master, suffer such barbarous neglect, whose heart does not fail him, at the thought of that inhumanity, exercised by the majority of slaveholders, towards their aged, sick, and dying victims.
The following testimony is furnished by SARAH M. GRIMKE, a sister of the late Hon. Thomas S. Grimké, of Charleston, South Carolina.
"When the Ladies' Benevolent Society in Charleston, S. C., of which I was a visiting commissioner, first went into operation, we were applied to for the relief of several sick and aged colored persons; one case I particularly remember, of an aged woman who was dreadfully burnt from having fallen into the fire; she was living with some free blacks who had taken her in out of compassion. On inquiry, we found that nearly all the colored persons who had solicited aid, were slaves, who being no longer able to work for their "owners," were thus inhumanly cast out in their sickness and old age, and must have perished, but for the kindness of their friends.
"I was once visiting a sick slave in whose spiritual welfare peculiar circumstances had led me to be deeply interested. I knew that she had been early seduced from the path of virtue, as nearly all the female slaves are. I knew also that her mistress, though a professor of religion, had never taught her a single precept of Christianity, yet that she had had her severely punished for this departure from them, and that the poor girl was then ill of an incurable disease, occasioned partly by her own misconduct, and partly by the cruel treatment she had received, in a situation that called for tenderness and care. Her heart seemed truly touched with repentance for her sins, and she was inquiring, "What shall I do to be saved?" I was sitting by her as she lay on the floor upon a blanket, and was trying to establish her trembling spirit in the fulness of Jesus, when I heard the voice of her mistress in loud and angry tones, as she approached the door. I read in the countenance of the prostrate sufferer, the terror which she felt at the prospect of seeing her mistress. I knew my presence would be very unwelcome, but staid, hoping that it might restrain, in some measure, the passions of the mistress. In this, however, I was mistaken; she passed me without apparently observing that I was there, and seated herself on the other side of the sick slave. She made no inquiry how she was, but in a tone of anger commenced a tirade of abuse, violently reproaching her with her past misconduct, and telling her in the most unfeeling manner, that eternal destruction awaited her. No word of kindness escaped her. What had then roused her temper I do not know. She continued in this strain several minutes, when I attempted to soften her by remarking, that----was very ill, and she ought not thus to torment her, and that I believed Jesus had granted her forgiveness. But I might as well have tried to stop the tempest in its career, as to calm the infuriated passions nurtured by the exercise of arbitrary power. She looked at me with ineffable scorn, and continued to pour forth a torrent of abuse and reproach. Her helpless victim listened in terrified silence, until nature could endure no more, when she uttered a wild shriek, and casting on her tormentor a look of unutterable agony, exclaimed, 'Oh, mistress, I am dying!' This appeal arrested her attention, and she soon left the room, but in the same spirit with which she entered it. The girl survived but a few days, and, I believe, saw her mistress no more."
Mr. GEORGE A. AVERY, an elder of a Presbyterian church in Rochester, N. Y., who lived some years in Virginia, gives the following:
"The manner of treating the sick slaves, and especially in chronic cases, was to my mind peculiarly revolting. My opportunities for observation in this department were better than in, perhaps, any other, as the friend under whose direction I commenced my medical studies, enjoyed a high reputation as a surgeon. I rode considerably with him in his practice, and assisted in the surgical operations and dressings from time to time. In confirmed cases of disease, it was common for the master to place the subject under the care of a physician or surgeon, at whose expense the patient should be kept, and if death ensured to the patient, or the disease was not cured, no compensation was to be made, but if cured a bonus of one, two, or three hundred dollars was to be given. No provision was made against the barbarity or neglect of the physician, &c. I have seen fifteen or twenty of these helpless sufferers crowded together in the true spirit of slaveholding inhumanity, like the "brutes that perish," and driven from time to time like brutes into a common yard, where they had to suffer any and every operation and experiment, which interest, caprice, or professional curiosity might prompt,--unrestrained by law, public sentiment, or the claims of common humanity."
Rev. WILLIAM T. ALLAN, son of Rev. Dr. Allan, a slaveholder, of Huntsville, Alabama, says in a letter now before us:
"Colonel Robert H. Watkins, of Laurence county, Alabama, who owned about three hundred slaves, after employing a physician among them for some time, ceased to do so, alleging as the reason, that it was cheaper to lose a few negroes every year than to pay a physician. This Colonel Watkins was a Presidential elector in 1836."
A. A. GUTHRIE, Esq., elder in the Presbyterian church at Putnam, Muskingum county, Ohio, furnishes the testimony which follows.
"A near female friend of mine in company with another young lady, in attempting to visit a sick woman on Washington's Bottom, Wood county, Virginia, missed the way, and stopping to ask directions of a group of colored children on the outskirts of the plantation of Francis Keen, Sen., they were told to ask 'aunty, in the house.' On entering the hut, says my informant, I beheld such a sight as I hope never to see again; its sole occupant was a female slave of the said Keen--her whole wearing apparel consisted of a frock, made of the coarsest tow cloth, and so scanty, that it could not have been made more tight around her person. In the hut there was neither table, chair, nor chest--a stool and a rude fixture in one corner, were all its furniture. On this last were a little straw and a few old remnants of what had been bedding--all exceedingly filthy.
"The woman thus situated had been for more than a day in travail, without any assistance, any nurse, or any kind of proper provision--during the night she said some fellow slave woman would stay with her, and the aforesaid children through the day. From a woman, who was a slave of Keen's at the same time, my informant learned, that this poor woman suffered for three days, and then died--when too late to save her life her master sent assistance. It was understood to be a rule of his, to neglect his women entirely in such times of trial, unless they previously came and informed him, and asked for aid."
Rev. PHINEAS SMITH, of Centreville, N. Y., who has resided four years at the south, says: "Often when the slaves are sick, their accustomed toil is exacted from them. Physicians are rarely called for their benefit."
Rev. HORACE MOULTON, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal church in Marlborough, Mass., who resided a number of years in Georgia, says:
"Another dark side of slavery is the neglect of the aged and sick. Many when sick, are suspected by their masters of feigningsickness, and are therefore whipped out to work after disease has got fast hold of them; when the masters learn, that they are really sick, they are in many instances left alone in their cabins during work hours; not a few of the slaves are left to die without having one friend to wipe off the sweat of death. When the slaves are sick, the masters do not, as a general thing, employ physicians, but "doctor" them themselves, and their mode of practice in almost all cases is to bleed and give salts. When women are confined they have no physician, but are committed to the care of slave midwives. Slaves complain very little when sick, when they die they are frequently buried at night without much ceremony, and in many instances without any; their coffins are made by nailing together rough boards, frequently with their feet sticking out at the end, and sometimes they are put into the ground without a coffin or box of any kind.
