Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1858-12-30
The Domestic Slave Trade.

The domestic Slave Trade is now unusually
active, and the prices obtained for " likely ne
groes'' in the Southern slave marts show that
the demand exceeds the supply. Slave breed.
ing for market is now a staple and the most
profitable business of Virginia and the Older
slave States, and it is pursued with vigor that
makes large money returns. The great demand
is for field hands in the cotton and sugar sec
tions, and it is not unusual to meet with para.
graphs similar to the following from recent
number of the Richmond Enquirer
PRICES FOR NEGRoEs.--Youthful, sound and
active negro boys and girls, as field hands, con-
tinue to be in good demand at present, at very
| high prices in the Richmond slave mart. Yes
terday a number of girls, black and strong, aged
about nine or ten years, brought Sl,025 each.
One girl aged about twenty, with her first in
| FAINT. brought 81 ,230, and girls aged about six
teen years, for work, such as common washing
and ironing, brought from $1,000 to SI,040
each. Plow boys aged fourteen, ranged at from
81 900 to 81, ,200 each Altogether the prices
for good hands seem to be kept up at an unu-
sually high degree.
The drain of slaves from the Atlantic States
to the Mississippi Valley is constant, and far
exceeds the white emigration from the same
States to the Southwest The railroads afford
good facilities for the transit of slaves, and ma
ny are sent over the Chattanooga route. Gn
the 18th of December one gang of 275 negroes
passed through Chattanooga en- route for Cot
tOndOm, and the paper Published there states
that the average of forced emigration of colored
Americans of African descent through Chatta-
nOOga per week is from six to eight hundred
This is only one line of travel from the old
Slave States to the new
The domestic Slave Trade is in many respects
morecruel, heartless, and revolving than the for
eign which is treated as piracy by the principal
nations of the earth and by the Republic which
tolerates and encourages the former even at its
Capital; for notwithstanding the act prohibiting
the sale of slaves in the District of Columbia,
it is violated under the very nose of the Presi-
dent and the federal authorities, with impuni-
ty. But few weeks ago an advertisement ap
peared in the National Intelligencer stating that
on certain day ten slaves would be sold at
auction,i in front of the City Jail. The announce
ment caused some stir from the publicity of the
place of sale, ,and the auction was held within the
walls of the Jail, which, with the ground upon
which it stands, is Federal property, the pro-
perty of the United States. The sale was at
tended by quite large number of persons,
though efforts were made to exclude all but
slave dealers. The sale was conducted in the
slave mart style. Each chattel, as offered for
sele, was submitted to the examination manual
and ocular, of the bidders, as is usual III such
cases. In one instance where a young mother
and her infant were under the hammer, she, of
course, standing with the child in her arms, the
sale fingered SO long that the poor woman,
from fatigue and excitement, sank exhausted to
the floor. These slaves were brought up from
a Maryland estate to be sold under the flag of
freedom waving from the dome of the National
Capitol! No prosecutions under the violated
law Of Congress have followed.
The horrors of the middle passage are un.
known, it is true, in the domestic Slave Trade.
But there are other horrors family realized by
the wild Africans only little raised above the
brutes, as were the cargo of the SLAYER Echo
The American slaves are much more elevated
in the scale of intelligence as a class, and have
the ties of kindred and home to be ruthlessly
sundered by the most hardened and depraved of
humans, the slave dealers. Families are broken
up, husband and wife, parent and child, brother
and sister torn apart and separated forever, as
every deY in nearly one half the States of this
Union. Is it a marvel that the greedy dealers in
human flesh should reopen the foreign Slave
Trade that Southern Grand Juries should re-
fuse to indict the pirates l-or that African
slaves are secretly landed on the Southern At
lantie coast