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There would be thirty or forty acres over here of cultivation and then thirty or forty acres over there of woods and so on. He had more land than anybody else but it wasn't all under cultivation. "He's been dead now twenty or thirty years. I don't know that he was mean to his slaves. If he had been, they wouldn't have gone on after freedom. They would have moved out.
In Tennessee he had been born and bred surrounded by slaves. His youth and manhood had been spent in Nashville and New Orleans. He believed as honestly, as fanatically in the right to hold slaves as did his father in the faith of the Covenanters. To-day one reads his arguments in favor of slavery with the most curious interest.
The English West Indies were first forbidden to import slaves; next, all the slaves were set free; and there are now four Bishoprics for their black and white population.
Two eyes were rated at six hundred crowns, or six slaves. For the loss of the right hand or arm two hundred crowns or two slaves were paid, and for both six hundred crowns. When a Flibustier had a wound which obliged him to carry surgical helps and substitutes, they paid him two hundred crowns, or two slaves.
He was too old to be in the ranks himself he must have been quite seventy then but his means enabled him to be useful in other ways. In ordinary times the homestead where he was now living produced the bread and meat to supply the slaves on his main plantation, in the low-lands of Mississippi.
The same Latin speech, now somewhat degraded, the same dress, the same division into a minority of free men, a majority of slaves, and a few very rich masters round whom not only the slaves but the mass of the free men also were grouped as dependents.
I had no tenantry to come out and meet me; but there were the blacks. It is true, the law was on the point of liberating these slaves, leaving a few of the younger to serve for a term of years, that should requite their owners for the care of their infancies and their educations; but this law could not effect an immediate change in the condition of the Clawbonnys.
"I'd rather go and serve willingly than be pressed, that's the truth; but no one has a right to call British men-of-war's men slaves. They may be pretty hardly tasked sometimes; but they get pay and prize-money and liberty, and if they did but know how to take care of their money, and would but conduct themselves like rational beings, the good men would have no reason to complain."
I agreed to do so, and accordingly devoted my Sundays to teaching these my loved fellow-slaves how to read. Neither of them knew his letters when I went there. Some of the slaves of the neighboring farms found what was going on, and also availed themselves of this little opportunity to learn to read. It was understood, among all who came, that there must be as little display about it as possible.
He received, me with much joy, and many embraces were mutually given and received, and we rejoiced together on my safe arrival. But as I had much need of rest, I very soon went to bed. When the king heard of my arrival, he sent some of his slaves to congratulate me, who presented me with some refreshments sent by his majesty.
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