The Cass County Republican. [volume] (Dowagiac, Mich.) 18??-1880, 1859-03-31
The Sale of the Butler Negroes.

The New York Tribune has taken
the pains to send reporter all the way
to Savannah, in order to report the sale
of the negroes on the estate of Mr..
Pierce Butler, person who resides in
Philadelphia. 1t accordingly, under
the title of illustrations of American
Civilization" gives a most praphic and
interesting account of the affair. About
four hundred chattels in all were sold
men, women and children-varying
from the ages of fifteen days to fifty
years. A great many negro dealers
were in attendance, and the sale appears
to have excited an unusual interest in
the vicinity. The reporter says:
''For several days before the sale
every hotel in Savannah was crowde d
with negro spectators from North and
South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia,
Alabama and Louisiana, who had been
attracted thither by the prospect of
making good bargains. Nothing was
heard for days, in the bar-rooms and
public rooms, but talk of the great sale,
criticisms of the business affairs of Mr..
Butler, and speculations as to the proba-
bic price the stock would bring. The
Office of Joseph Bryan, the negro bro
ker, who had the management of the
sale, was thronged every day by eager
inquiries in search of information, and
by some who were anxious to buy, but
were uncertain rs to whether their
securities would prove acceptable. Lit
tie parties were made up from the
various hotels every day, to visit the
race-course, some three miles from the
city, to look over the chattels, discuss
their points, and make memoranda for
guidance on the day of sale. The
buyers were generally of rough breed,
siangy, pro.aie and bearish, being for
/. ;,,c -, most nart from the back river and
swamp plantations, where the elegancles
of polite life are not perhaps developed
to their fullest extent. In fact, the
humanities are sadly neglected by the
petty tyrants of the rice fields that
border the Great Dismal Swamp, their
knowledge of the luxuries of our best
society comprehending only revolvers
and kindred delicacies." 3
Most of the slaves appear to have
been genuine negroes, and not mullat-
toes-a point in their favor. The in
termixture of white blood, it is said,
has bad effect upon the black, which
is, for the most part, in its native in
stincts gentle, kindly and unenterpri-
sing; whereas the white tiger. commu-
nicates to it certain irritability and
restlessness which is not wholly com
patible with servitude. l3s e9t5,fss
None of the slaves had ever been
sold before but had passed all
their lives on.the Butler plantations,
either at Darien in Georgia, or at St
Simon's Island, a small strip cut off the
coast by the Atlantic. What ever they
knew of life, its joys or its sorrows
mad been connected with these estates
but by this sale they were to be torn
from them and from their companions
forever. Families were not parted, i. e.,
a man was not separated from his wife
nor mother from her young children:
but other family ties, such as that oj
brother and sister, or of parents and
older children, were not regarded
These harmless creatures, who had
always lived together, were scattered
at once to the rice. swamps and cottor
fields of the most distant parts. ssisl
They had been brought up to the
race-course near Savannah for exhi
bition, and the Tribune writer thu
describes them:
q ssThe slaves remained at the race
course, some of them more than weel
and all of them for, four days befor,
the sale. They were brought in thu!
early that buyers who desired to inspec