They were kept here for a short time to fatten, and after that were sent to the slave-market, down South, to be sold; no slave was allowed to be sold here for the present. There were now some very splendid articles for sale, which were to be sent down South. Among these there was a young girl who had been brought up in all respects ‘like a lady;’ she could embroider and play on the piano, and dress like a lady, and read, and write, and dance, and all this she had learned in the family which had brought her up, and who had treated her in her childhood as if she had been their own. But however her mind had grown too high for her; she had become proud, and now to humble her they had brought her here to be sold.”
All this the talkative slave-keeper told us. I inquired something about the temper and the state of mind of those who were confined here.
“Oh!” said the man smiling, “they would be unruly enough if they were not afraid of a flogging.”
My honest, open-hearted hostess could not contain her indignation at this treatment of people who were not guilty of any crime. The man laughed and maintained that the negro-people, both men and women, must be ruled by the whip, and took leave of us as much satisfied with himself and his world as we were the contrary.
In Washington, near the United States' Senate House—this slave-pen! Could one not be tempted to enter and read aloud there the American Declaration of Independence! Yet there are sufficient there to read it aloud. The freedom and honour of America will not die or become paralysed in American hands.[1]
Have I told you about a baptism by immersion, which I have witnessed in one of the churches here? I believe not. In the South, on the banks of the Red River, in
- ↑ This slave-pen has, I believe, been removed since Miss Bremer's visit. —Trans.
