The Arkansaw traveler., 1884-11-01
SLAVE LIFE ra rHs coLoNrnu

SLAVE LIFE ia THE COLONIES.
 Edward Eeelesaoa, b aa i,ssges6ieS article in the Ceafhwy, on "Social Cen- dition in the Colonies," thus paints she horroGs of slave ife in the early period os this country's settlement:
 For long time after ths introducfion of slaves Ti6i9l. they were almost all foreign-born and savage-born, 90 that those attachments hefween a kindly master and . faithful slave, which did much to ameliorate the system at last, were rendered quite impossible wh,le the negroes were untamed barbarians, repre- senting in their 5eaiurss and speech the various ribes of the African mainland and Madagascar. The relation between the two races was, for the most part, one of hardly suppressed hostility. Many who came of slave lineage in Africa were submissive-their backs were bent to the burden of their inheritance others, who had been kidnapped or captured in re- cent warS, and especially those who had been of consequences in their tribes, vese difficult and defiant, scorning a tame obedience, and proudly contemning toll. For . long time but fev women were brought and the slaves lived together in gangs, with no softening influence of family ties, but in brutal ,rregularity and vice. Their holiday amusements were savage dances, accompanied by beating of drums and blowing of horns and their funeral ceremonies were, in the eyes of their masters, grotesque num- meries. They were believed to possess many secret poisons potent, but tardy in their operations-and to produce bv them long-lingering and mysterious sick nesses, which resulted at last in the death of master ard mistresses, or of some fellow slave who had incurred the ani. mesitl os she poisonerx To this terror of poisoning was added dread of the sorceries of the pagans, who were nasur- ally supposed to have familiar relations with the powers of evil. Such fears of assassination, soscery and insurrection aggravated the hardness with which the colonists treated the horde of black ser. wants, whose speech and character were alike incomprehensible. That they were of savage end uneovernable nature, and without any sense of shame, was the ex- cuse assigned for the sternness, not to say ferocity, of some of the colonial laws. That they had no fear of punishment in a future life was also urged in the preamble of many acts whose rigor was calculated to make perdition conceivable to the im- agination of the darkest pagan. But a part of the severity of the statutes against slaves must be attributed to the general harshness of English legislation in that day. especially such legislation as had to do with the lower classes. Partly, also, it was due to that almost universal de fault of humane feeling which makes the hrst half of the eighteenth century seem SO remote from our time. It is rare that the colonial laws propose anything less than death for a slaves cffense. Even petty larceny, the tendency to which is a characteristic of the plantation negro as permanent as the color of his skin, by the South Carolina law was visited with death for the fourth offense. The simple death penalty was not accounted terrible enough for serious ofIenses. Travellers by night through the forests were sometimes startled by the swinging to and fro of the body of negro who had been hanged alive, in chains, for killing his master. Such an offense io Maryland was treated as treason, and punished with good old English elaboration of details The right hand was amputated, then the criminal was hanged, then the head was cut of, the body quarered, and the quarters suspended in the most public places. In some of the provinces a special court of one or two magistrates, with two or pnore freeholders, was authorized to inflict death for certain offenses by slaves, "in such a manner and with such circum. stances as the aggravation and enormity of their crimes shall merit" The pen shrinks from recording the penalties in- fiicted by these courts burning alive and a lingering death by hanging in chains were not the most cruel of them. The people were better than these laws begotten of terror; and in South Carolina many constables and other officers flatly refused, to execute the punishments, 90 that to penal laws against the slaves it was needful to add penalties for the humanity of the officers.
 There were some offens9s not ac- counted death-worthy. For any resist ance to white person, without regard to extecuating circumstances, Virginia pun ished the slaves with thirty lashes Maryland cropped one of his ears; while in South Carolina he might suffer more severely. Hamstrinsing. branding in the face, and sitting the nose were among the methods in use for the sub jugation of the heather. in mere than ore colony, slaves running about at night or lying out" might ssder a more cruel and degrading mutilati,n.
 That the law did sot, in execution, lose mach of the severi y of its letter, is shown by the complaint in I7I4, that the treasury of South Carolina "had been very much exhausted by extraordinary sums paid to compensate masters for slaves that had been executed. And yet society in this province was more urbane than in any other. In colonies where the statutes did not warrant extraordinary penalties on slaves, the administration of law vent to the limit of severity. In Massachusetts hanging vas the vor<f