Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes County, Ohio) 1856-1865, 1857-09-10
How the Slaves are HChristian.
iZed ard HumanfZedc by
Southern Church Members.

How the Slaves are "Christian.
iZed ard HumaniZedc by
Southern Church Members.
We published a few days since an ex.
tract from the statement of Rev. Samuel
Sawyer, of Rogersyille, Tennessee, attested
by two of the elders of this church, regarding
the brutal treatment of the former slave of
DR.. Ross. Below we give another extract
from the same statement, giving striking
ly beautiful illustration Of the peculiar kind
Of humanization and christianization so
highly approved by H. B. Payne, of Ohio,
and Col. Chase, of the Southern CONNER
cial Convention, as put in practice by their
confrere, John Netherland, church member
and delegate to the convention recently
held in Richmond, for the purpose of form
ing a Southern Church. After giving the
account of the fate of DR.. Ross's slave, Mr..
Sawyer says:
The community had not recovered from
the shock before they were agitated again
by rumor of still more melancholy in
stance of cruelty. The same church mem
Der referred to had taken an old grey head
ed servent that had helped to nurse him
in childhood, and on mere suspicion, it was
said, that he knew the hiding place of the
runaway, he had given him to the same
negro-trader to be ironed, taken to neigh
boring county, and whipped at discretion.
1t was reported that this trader had stop
ped with the servent at Bayne's Station
that he took him to stable on the public
highway, and in the loft stripped him ma
ked, stretched him on plank, tied his arms
together under the plank, strapped his feet
to a post, and tied his head forward TO a
brace, so that he could not move, or in the
slightest degree evade the blows-that he
whipped him with carpenters hand saw
a Mississippi way Of whipping-which
raises large blisters and bursts them, cut
ting the hide in pieces es-that he whipped
him on Sunday, whipped him till the neigh
bors closed their doors, shut down their
windows, and dropped their curtains to
keep from hearing the blows, and the ne
groes cries for mercy-whipped him till
the women of the place cried out against it
till one man said if it was not stopped
he would return him to ccurt-till the
landlord, after he had given him, as he
supposed, at least three hundred blows with
the saw, went to him and told him that he
must put an end to it-that he himself
was liable to Indictment for suffering such
things on his premises, and that he was un-
able and unwilling to bear it any longer
that the trader became angry that any man
should interfere with his whipping slave
on Sunday-that he had hired little boy
to get him bundle of whips, with which
he intended to whip him over the raw flesh
after his back should be blistered and cut
with the saw. 1t was said that the trader,
after the landlord arrested his whipping,
manacled the negro, and shaking the dust
off his feet in disgust against the Bean Sta
tion people, he went on to Rutledge-that
the slave had two fits or spasms as the ef-
fects of the whipping, one in the buggy and
one in the Jail, when the irons were taken
off his limbs, (hypocrite fits of course, as
the trade allows no limits to the endurance
of slave, THAT nevertheless the trader
stripped him again the next day, tied him
up in the jail, and although the sheriff and
the jailor were opposed to his being there,
taking advantage Of the absence af the jail
OF, he took three sticks from loom and
whipped him over the raw flesh to make
him tell what it is believed by many he
did not know, and of course could not tell
and that in this respect the testimony
of the servants correspond that not
satisfied with his confessions, he gave out
word that he would whip him again next
day-that the jailor resolved to prevent the
Jail being used any more for such purpose,
and the inspectors instructed him not to
suffer it-and the most of these particu-
lars of the whipping the trader acknowl-
edged in the statement he made to vari-
GUS individuals.
After remaining at Rutledge nearly q
week to heal up his back, the grey-headed
old servant the Sabbath evening after the
whipping of the runaway, returned home.
The horrible details Of this whipping Of
Anthony but infamed the public feeling of
indignation against slavetrading cruelties.
Yet it was whispered that the owner was
responsible for it all, and justified it all
This was too much to be believed. 1t
seemed matter of astonishment, however,
to many, that respectable man and pro-
Tossing Christian man, should give his
slave, who could depend upon his master
alone for protection, to the tender mercies
of negro trader, and tell him to whip him
at his discretion-a grey-headed servant,
too, that had nursed him in boyhood, a
servant reputed as generally dutiful and
exemplary, and member also of the Pres
byterian Church in common with bis mas
ter. II, as God says, 'the merciful man is
merciful to his BEAST" one is almost afraid
to form an opinion of such things as these.