Page:An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans.djvu/217

Rh feelings, she made a hideous howling; and for that crime she was flogged. Soon after he sold her other child. This 'turned her heart within her,' and impelled her into a kind of madness. She howled night and day in the yard; tore her hair; ran up and down the streets and the parade, rending the heavens with her cries, and literally watering the earth with her tears. Her constant cry was,'' 'Da wicked massa, he sell me children.—Will no buckra master pity nega? What me do! Me have no child! As she stood before my window, she said, lifting her hands towards heaven, 'Do, me master minister, pity me! Me heart do so, (shaking herself violently,) me heart do so, because me have no child. Me go a massa house, in massa yard, and in me hut, and me no see em;' ''and then her cry went up to God. I durst not be seen looking at her."

A similar instance of strong affection happened in the city of Washington, December, 1815. A negro woman, with her two children, was sold, near Bladensburgh, to Georgia traders; but the master refused to sell her husband. When the coffle reached Washington, on their way to Georgia, the poor creature attempted to escape, by jumping from the garret window of a three-story brick tavern. Her arms and back were dreadfully broken. When asked why she had done such a desperate act, she replied, "They brought me away, and would n't let me see my husband; and I didn't want to go. I was so distracted that I did not know what I was about: but I did n't want to go—and I jumped out of the window." The unfortunate woman was given to the landlord as a compensation for having her taken care of at his house; her children were sold in Carolina; and thus was this poor forlorn being left alone in her misery. In all this wide land of benevolence and freedom, there was no one who could protect her: for in such cases, the laws come in, with iron grasp, to check the stirrings of human sympathy.

Another complaint is that slaves have most inveterate habits of laziness. No doubt this is true—it would be strange indeed if it were otherwise. Where is the human being, who will work from a disinterested love of toil, when his labor brings no improvement to himself, no increase of comfort to his wife and children?