Page:Letters on the condition of the African race in the United States.djvu/16

14 neither live nor die. These extreme tortures lasted a whole week before it breathed its last; and my own mind was so excited by its sharp and constant convulsive shrieks, that I never left it night or day, and could not sleep, even a moment, sitting by its side; and yet its own mother slept soundly at the foot of the bed, not because she was fatigued, for she was required to do nothing but nurse the dying child; and I only mention it to show that the master's feelings are sometimes even deeper than the mother's. The negroes are taught in the Sunday-schools all the requirements of God's law, and their masters are now commencing to build churches for them on the plantations. They are so gregarious, however, they prefer to walk several miles to a large church, and there exchange greetings with each other. They confide in their master, and they feel no enmity towards him when he is forced to punish them. My father cultivated numerous fruit-trees, and nearly the whole family of nuts. Sweet and sour oranges, figs, pomegranates, pears, &c, grew in great abundance around our hospitable mansion, that we named Orange Grove; and the long row of neat-looking negro-houses, always kept purely white, from being whitewashed every year, gave the place, as you passed it on the river, the appearance of a small city, almost enveloped in woods. He also owned hundreds of cattle, sheep, hogs, cows, and numerous horses and oxen, and he raised for his own use (as it is considered mean for the master to sell poultry off of a large plantation), I say raised scores of turkeys, geese, ducks, and many other domestic fowls; and yet his negroes rarely were known to steal anything from him, as they knew they would always come in for their share of their master's temporalities, independent of what they raised for themselves. The women are the most enthusiastically fond foster-mothers, when they are called upon to nurse the infant child of their owners. They love their master most sincerely, and mourn with intense grief when he dies. They attend his funeral, and, from respect to his memory, are not required to work for several days afterwards. Their own dead they bury with great ceremony, and always have a feast when the funeral is over.

My father always provided for them the most suitable clothing, shoes and blankets, &c. They received their weekly allowance of provisions every Monday morning, and were, besides, encouraged to ask for any extras that their sickly caprices of appetite might demand from their master's private larder. Their pipes and their tobacco, and all such to them important luxuries, were never forgotten in laying