Slavery's Pleasant Homes & Other Tales by Lydia Maria Child

Author:Lydia Maria Child [Child, Lydia Maria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788027225354
Publisher: Musaicum Books
Published: 2017-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

"You may sell my children to Georgy,

But you cannot harm their soul;

They will join the forty thousand by and bye.

"Come, slave-trader, come in too;

The Lord's got a pardon here for you;

You shall join the forty thousand by and bye.

"Come, poor nigger, come in too;

The Lord's got a pardon here for you;

You shall join the forty thousand by and bye.

"My skin is black, but my soul is white;

And when we get to Heaven, we'll all be alike;

We shall join the forty thousand by and bye.

That's the way to glorify the Lord."

Scarcely had the cracked voice ceased the tremulous chant in which these words were uttered, when a loud altercation commenced; some crying out vehemently for the blood of the white men, others maintaining that the old man's doctrine was right. The aged black remained leaning on his staff, and mildly replied to every outburst of fury, "But Jesus said, do good for evil." Loud rose the din of excited voices; and the disguised slaveholder shrank deeper into the shadow.

In the midst of the confusion, an athletic, gracefully-proportioned young man sprang upon the stump, and throwing off his coarse cotton garment, slowly turned round and round before the assembled multitude. Immediately all was hushed; for the light of a dozen torches, eagerly held up by fierce, revengeful comrades, showed his back and shoulders deeply gashed by the whip, and still oozing with blood. In the midst of that deep silence, he stopped abruptly, and with stern brevity exclaimed, "Boys! shall we not murder our masters?"

"Would you murder all?" inquired a timid voice at his right hand. "They don't all cruellize their slaves."

"There's Mr. Cambell," pleaded another; "he never had one of his boys flogged in his life. You wouldn't murder him, would you?"

"Oh, no, no, no," shouted many voices; "we wouldn't murder Mr. Campbell. He always good to colored folks."

"And I wouldn't murder my master," said one of Mr. Duncan's slaves; "and I'd fight anybody that set out to murder him. I an't a going to work for him for nothing any longer, if I can help it; but he shan't be murdered; for he's a good master."

"Call him a good master, if ye like!" said the bleeding youth, with a bitter sneer in his look and tone. "I curse the word. The white men tell us God made them our masters; I say it was the Devil. When they don't cut up the backs that bear their burdens, when they throw us enough of the grain we have raised to keep us strong for another harvest, when they forbear to shoot the limbs that toil to make them rich, there are fools who call them good masters. Why should they sleep on soft beds, under silken curtains, while we, whose labor bought it all, lie on the floor at the threshold, or miserably coiled up in the dirt of our own cabins? Why should I clothe my master in broad-cloth and fine linen, when he knows, and I know, that he

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