Page:An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans.djvu/213

Rh a barred window; they seemed very fond of each other, and their kindly feelings were never interrupted by peevishness; indeed, the temperament of a negro child is generally so sound, that he is not affected by those little morbid sensations, which are the frequent cause of crossness and ill-temper in our children. I do not remember, that I ever saw a young black fretful, or out of humor; certainly never displaying those ferocious fits of petty passion, in which the superior nature of infant whites indulges. I sometimes brought cakes and fruit in my pocket, and handed them in to the group. It was quite delightful to observe the generous and disinterested manner in which they distributed them. There was no scrambling with one another; no selfish reservation to themselves. The child to whom I happened to give them, took them so gently, looked so thankfully, and distributed them so generously, that I could not help thinking that God had compensated their dusky hue, by a more than usual human portion of amiable qualities."

Several negroes in Jamaica were to be hung. One of them was offered his life, if he would hang the others; he preferred death. A negro slave who was ordered to do it, asked time to prepare; he went into his cabin, chopped off his right hand with an axe, and then came back, saying he was ready.

Sutcliff in his Travels, speaks of meeting a coffle of slaves in Maryland, one of whom had voluntarily gone into slavery, in hopes of meeting her husband, who was a free black and had been stolen by kidnappers. The poor creature was in treacherous hands, and it is a great chance whether she ever saw her husband again.

An affecting instance of negro friendship may be found in 1 Bay's Report, 260-3. A female slave in South Carolina was allowed to work out in the town, on condition that she paid her master a certain sum of money, per month. Being strong and industrious, her wages amounted to more than had been demanded in their agreement. After a time she earned enough to buy her freedom; but she preferred to devote the sum to the emancipation of a negro girl, named Sally, for whom she had conceived a strong affection. For a long time the