Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1856-12-19
The Alleged Slave Instruction.

A number Of startling accounts appeared
last week in several Southern papers rcsreat.
ing the discovery of an extensive conspiracy
among the slaves extending, as some say,
throughout Kentucky. Tennessee, Mississp-
pi, Arkansas. and Louisiana, if not still fur.
Their.
We have read the accounts US they have
appeared and at best the iurornltion is
very indefinite, except to make it sure that
a wide spread alarm has existed, and that
quite number Of lives have been taken Of
those who lay under the imputation of plot
ing or fayoring a revolt Of the slaves.
1t does not appear that tho negroes made n
hostile movement any where stli, it Is said
the conspiracy was discovered, and some
twenty negroes, or more, have been hung or
shot, and one white man whipped to denth,
being sentenced to receive nine hundred
lashes A great many negroes have been
whipped or sentenced to be whipped, with
the greatest severtyand many arrested whose
fate has not been decided
The following extracts show the .t'te of
alarm which pcrvades the communities where
the transactions have taken pl,a.
The Louisville Courier Of the Sd printed long
call for help from llopkinsvllc Ky upon which
place the negroes said 70 be ABOUT t. march,
coo strong. Tho town put in state Of defence,
and 80 men under arms. But nothing seems
to have come of this
The Courier thought the account not al
together reliable.
The Evansville journal Of Saturday morn
ing, the 9th says
Through what is called the Iron District, on the
Cumberland AMI Tennessee rivers, thcrc are from
5000 ~ 10 900 slaves employed Ht the iron rks ;
they there congregatcd in large numbers, work.
ing in the various labors Of making charcoal. dig
cinr ore and tending the furnace in game, mos "
by themselves, with few whites for general over
seers There are many Of these works situated
within fcw miles of each other, an in sections
that have few white inhabitants.
gentleman who arrive here last evening
informs us that at Dover the Cumberland, tn y
had obtained such evidence left no doubt Of n
widespread spiracy existing in that mel hhorhood
and that number Of the rnyleaicrs had been dis
covered and arrested; and that eleven of them had
been hung by the excited inhabitants anl that
among those arrested was person who had ALWAYS
passed as a negro, but on his arrest was 'ouu1 to
he a white man painted and disguised a' negro
These occurrences had produced general rousicrna-
ton and terror, and the women and children were
arming and organizing for defence, and the negroes
were being confined or kept unier very vigilant
watch.
The very general discussion Of the question Of
slavery in slave states, in the late canvass, has
impaired somc vague ideas to the blacks cfn change
to he effected by political revolution. which has
rendered them restless and insubordinatc.
A Southern paper charges whatever Of
movement there was on the part Of tho blacks
to the incessant clamoring Of rro slavcry
| politicians about abolitionism, md shrewdly
observes that il the late Presidential canvass
had anything to do with unsettlins the minds
OF the negroes, it could not he charged to the
republicans. Those who were inccsz1ntly de-
! claring that the election Of Fremont would
destroy the Union, it says. must bear the
blame, for nobody else had chance to
say a word throughout that region.
The chapter of wide spread alarm, ha'ty
and one sided examinations, and Of the sum-
mary destruction of life forms significant
commentary on that state of society Which
the rsbid Southern politicians pronounce the
only really happy one for a r'publir. and
which ought to be allowed IN indefinite ex-
pansion.