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Slave Trade SLAVE TRADE. The Internal Slave Trade. The New-York Journal of Commerce, of Oct. 12, 1835, published a letter “from a very good and sensible man in Virginia,” in which we find the following language :—“The negroes have to thank their kind friends for this (Lynch Law.) an for 20000 moved from the state this year into perpetual slavery, and not one liberated where hitherto there have been annually numbers set free.” “The kind friends,” ironically referred to, are the abolitionists. It seems then, that the abolitionists last year caused Virginia to sell into “perpetual slavery” 20,000 of her own native citizens, for which she probably received, at the market price, not less than $l0,000,000 a very large amount of crime this, to be committed out of spite towards a set of repeaters. But large as it is, we have no doubt it is far exceeded by the iniquitous traffic of the present year. There is every reason to believe that more slaves have been this year torn from their homes in the single state of Virginia, than were ever brought into the whole United States in any one year during the continuance of the foreign traffic. The enormous price of slaves at the southwest has given such activity to the internal slave trade as was never known before. The northern slave states now receive more money by selling of their people, than by all their other productions put together. To speak within bounds, more people have this year been sold and driven away to the Cotton, rice and sugar plantations of the remote south than inhabit the city of Boston. THE RED-BONE HOUND. White folks Is gonna tell you a story ‘bout a mean overseer and what happened to him during the slavery days. It all commenced when a nigger named Jake Williams got a whupping for staying out after the time on his pass done give out. All the niggers on the place hated the overseer worse than pizen, ‘cause he was so mean and used to try to think up things to whup us for. One morning the slaves was lined up ready to eat their breakfast, and Jake Williams was a-petting his old red-bone hound. ‘Bout that time the overseer come up and seed Jake a-petting his hound, and he say: “Nigger, you ain’t got time to be a-fooling ‘long that dog. Now make him git.” Jake tried to make the dog go home, but the dog didn’t want to leave Jake. Then the overseer pick up a rock and slam the dog in the back. The dog, he then went a-howling off. That night Jake, he come to my cabin and he say to me: “Heywood, I is gonna run away to a free state. I ain’t a-gonna put up with this treatment no longer. I can’t stand much more.” I gives him my hand, and I say: “Jake, I hopes you gits there. Maybe i’ll see you again sometime.” “Heywood,” he says, “I wish you’d look after my hound Belle. Feed her and keep her the best you can. She a mighty good possum and coon dog. I hates to part with her, but I knows that you is the best person I could leave her with.” And with that Jake slip out the door, and I seed him a-walking toward the swamp down the long furrows of corn. It didn’t take that overseer long to find out that Jake done run away, and when he did, he got out the bloodhounds and started off after him. It wa’n’t long afore Jake heard them hounds a-howling in the distance. Jake, he was too tired to go any further. He circled round and doubled on his tracks so as to confuse the hounds and then he dumb a tree. ‘Twa’n’t long afore he seed the light of the overseer coming through the woods, and the dogs was a-gitting closer and closer. Finally they smelled the tree that Jake was in, and they started barking round it. The overseer lift his lighted pine knot in the air so’s he could see Jake. He say, “Nigger, come on down from there. You done wasted ‘nough of our time.” But Jake, he never move nor make a sound, and all the time the dogs kept a-howling and the overseer kept a-swearing. “Come on down,” he say again. “Iffen you don’t I’s coming up and knock you outen the tree with a stick.” Jake, still he never moved, and the overseer began to climb the tree. When he got where he could almost reach Jake, he swung that stick, and it come down on Jake’s leg and hurt him terrible. Jake, he raised his foot and kicked the overseer right in the mouth, and that white man went a-tumbling to the ground. When he hit the earth, them hounds pounced on him. Jake, he then lowered hisseif to the bottom limbs so’s he could see what had happened. He saw the dogs a-tearing at the man and he holler: “Hold him, Belle! Hold him, gal!” The leader of that pack of hounds, white folks, wa’n’t no bloodhound. She was a plain old red-bone possum and coon dog, and the rest done just like she done, tearing at the overseer’s throat. All the while, Jake he a-hollering from the tree for the dogs to git him. ‘Twa’n’t long afore them dogs tore that man all to pieces. He died right under that maple tree that he run Jake up. Jake, he and that coon hound struck off through the woods. The rest of the pack come home. I seed Jake after us niggers was freed. That’s how come I knowed all about it. It musta been six years after they killed the overseer. It was in Kentucky that I run across Jake. He was a-sitting on some steps of a nigger cabin. A hound dog was a-sitting at his side. I tells him how glad I is to see him, and then I look at the dog. “That ain’t Belle?” 1 says. “Naw,” Jake answers, “this her puppy.” Then he told rue the whole story. I always did want to know what happen to ‘em. “We are opposed to emancipating Negro slaves unless on some plan of colonization, in order that they may not come in contact with the white man’s labor.” Resolution passed by the Tammany Hall Young Men’s Democratic Committee, March 13, 1862. This organization was comprised mainly of first-generation Americans whose power rested on corrupt control of an immigrant vote. The attitude expressed in 1/ic resolution erupted into the Civil War Draft Riots of 1863 in New York City. BLACK SLAVEOWNERS. In 1862, Congress abolished slavery in the District of Columbia and paid cash compensation to owners of freed slaves who established claims within a specified time limit. Under that act, seven colored residents in the nation’s capital received a total of $5,978.20 in return for 26 slaves. Largest among black slaveholders were Robert Gunnell who owned ten slaves and Gabriel Coakley, owner of eight slaves. Juba, jubilant and jubilee. The Juba was a plantation dance in slavery time and there was always a jubilee on New Year’s Day on plantations where any consideration was given to the servants. Such handmade gifts as the slaves were able to make were exchanged. There would be much eating and drinking and then the dancing to the accompaniment of hand-clapping, rattling bones and often a banjo or a violin. It was the minstrel men who took the Juba dance off the plantation, smoothed it up and introduced it all over America and Europe. The man who deserves the most credit for the popularity of the Juba as entertainment acquired the name “Mr. Juba.” His true name was William Henry Lane, freeborn in Providence, Rhode Island. He was living in the Five Points district of Manhattan in the 1840’s when minstrel shows were popular, but most often they were all-white casts in blackface cork. The first French horn brought to America was played by a colored man, Adrastus Lew of Dracut (now Pawtucketsville), Massachusetts. He was a businessman of the town by occupation, but a musician at heart. For over fifty years he sang in the choir of the Congregational Church of Dracut and was a member of the celebrated Lowell Cornet Band. In addition to French horn and cornet, he played the violin and flageolet. Adrastus Lew came by his musical talent naturally, as his grandfather, Barzillai Lew, had a family band that is said to have played at Washington’s inauguration. “Bar” Lew was a veteran of the French-Indian and Revolutionary Wars. Fanset’s For Freeman says of “Bar” Lew: “During the attacks of the British (at Bunker Hill), the Negro fifer, Barzellai Lew, kept up the spirits of his comrades playing the inspiring strains of the song ‘There’s Nothing Makes the British Run Like Yankee Doodle Dandy Alzheimer, alternate health, alternate cure, artheritis, brujeria, back pain, carpaltunnal, demon, exorcism, ghost removal, head aches, magic, metaphysic, orisha, paranormal, santeria, shaman, sorcellery, voudou, vodou, voudoo, wicca. |
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