The following is an extract from the Will of the late celebrated John Randolph of Virginia.
"To my old and faithful servants, Essex and his wife Hetty, I give and bequeath a pair of strong shoes, a suit of clothes and a blanket each, to be paid them annually; also an annual hat to Essex."
No Virginia slaveholder has ever had a better name as a "kind master,"
and "good provider" for his slaves, than John Randolph. Essex and Hetty were _favorite_ servants, and the memory of the long uncompensated services of those "old and faithful servants," seems to have touched their master's heart. Now as this master was _John Randolph_, and as those servants were "faithful," and favorite servants, advanced in years, and worn out in his service, and as their allowance was, in their master's eyes, of sufficient moment to constitute a paragraph in his last _will and testament_, it is fair to infer that it would be _very liberal_, far better than the ordinary allowance for slaves.
Now we leave the reader to judge what must be the _usual_ allowance of clothing to common field slaves in the hands of common masters, when Essex and Hetty, the "old" and "faithful" slaves of John Randolph, were provided, in his last will and testament, with but _one_ suit of clothes annually, with but _one blanket_ each for bedding, with no _stockings_, nor _socks_, nor _cloaks_, nor overcoats, nor _handkerchiefs_, nor _towels_, and with no _change_ either of under or outside garments!
IV. DWELLINGS.
THE SLAVES ARE WRETCHEDLY SHELTERED AND LODGED.
Mr. Stephen E. Maltby. Inspector of provisions, Skaneateles, N.Y. who has lived in Alabama.
"The huts where the slaves slept, generally contained but _one_ apartment, and that _without floor_."
Mr. George A. Avery, elder of the 4th Presbyterian Church, Rochester, N.Y. who lived four years in Virginia.
"Amongst all the negro cabins which I saw in Va., _I cannot call to mind one_ in which there was any other floor than the _earth_; any thing that a northern laborer, or mechanic, white or colored, would call a _bed_, nor a solitary _partition_, to separate the sexes."
William Ladd, Esq., Minot, Maine. President of the American Peace Society, formerly a slaveholder in Florida.
"The dwellings of the slaves were palmetto huts, built by themselves of stakes and poles, thatched with the palmetto leaf. The door, when they had any, was generally of the same materials, sometimes boards found on the beach. They had _no floors_, no separate apartments, except the guinea negroes had sometimes a small inclosure for their 'god house.' These huts the slaves built themselves after task and on Sundays."
Rev. Joseph M. Sadd, Pastor Pres. Church, Castile, Greene Co., N.Y., who lived in Missouri five years previous to 1837.
"The slaves live _generally_ in _miserable huts_, which are _without floors_, and have a single apartment only, where both sexes are herded promiscuously together."
Mr. George W. Westgate, member of the Congregational Church in Quincy, Illinois, who has spent a number of years in slave states.
"On old plantations, the negro quarters are of frame and clapboards, seldom affording a comfortable shelter from wind or rain; their size varies from 8 by 10, to 10 by 12, feet, and six or eight feet high; sometimes there is a hole cut for a window, but I never saw a sash, or glass in any. In the new country, and in the woods, the quarters are generally built of logs, of similar dimensions."
Mr. Cornelius Johnson, a member of a Christian Church in Farmington, Ohio. Mr. J. lived in Mississippi in 1837-8.
"Their houses were commonly built of logs, sometimes they were framed, often they had no floor, some of them have two apartments, commonly but one; each of those apartments contained a family. Sometimes these families consisted of a man and his wife and children, while in other instances persons of both sexes, were thrown together without any regard to family relationship."
The Western Medical Reformer, in an article on the Cachexia Africana by a Kentucky physician, thus speaks of the huts of the slaves.
"They are _crowded_ together in a _small hut_, and sometimes having an imperfect, and sometimes no floor, and seldom raised from the ground, ill ventilated, and surrounded with filth."
Mr. William Leftwich, a native of Virginia, but has resided most of his life in Madison, Co. Alabama.
"The dwellings of the slaves are log huts, from 10 to 12 feet square, often without windows, doors, or floors, they have neither chairs, table, or bedstead."
Reuben L. Macy of Hudson, N.Y. a member of the Religious Society of Friends. He lived in South Carolina in 1818-19.
"The houses for the field slaves were about 14 feet square, built in the coarsest manner, with one room, _without any chimney or flooring, with a hole in the roof to let the smoke out_."
Mr. Lemuel Sapington of Lancaster, Pa. a native of Maryland, formerly a slaveholder.
"The descriptions generally given of negro quarters, are correct; the quarters are _without floors, and not sufficient to keep off the inclemency of the weather_; they are uncomfortable both in summer and winter."
Rev. John Rankin, a native of Tennessee.
"When they return to their miserable huts at night, they find not there the means of comfortable rest; _but on the cold ground they must lie without covering, and shiver while they slumber."_
Philemon Bliss, Esq. Elyria, Ohio, who lived in Florida, in 1835.
"The dwellings of the slaves are usually small _open_ log huts, with but one apartment, and very generally _without floors_."
Mr. W.C. Gildersleeve, Wilkesbarre, Pa., a native of Georgia.
"Their huts were generally put up without a nail, frequently without floors, and with a single apartment."
Hon. R.J. Turnbull, of South Carolina, a slaveholder.
"The slaves live in _clay cabins_."
V. TREATMENT OF THE SICK.
THE SLAVES SUFFER FROM HUMAN NEGLECT WHEN SICK
In proof of this we subjoin the following testimony:
Rev. Dr. CHANNING of Boston, who once resided in Virginia, relates the following fact in his work on slavery, page 163, 1st edition.
"I cannot forget my feelings on visiting a hospital belonging to the plantation of a gentleman _highly esteemed for his virtues_, and whose manners and conversation expressed much _benevolence and conscientiousness_. When I entered with him the hospital, the first object on which my eye fell was a young woman, very ill, probably approaching death. She was stretched on the floor. Her head rested on something like a pillow; but _her body and limbs were extended on the hard boards._ The owner, I doubt not, had at least as much kindness as myself; but he was so used to see the slaves living without common comforts, that the idea of unkindness in the present instance did not enter his mind."
This _dying_ young woman "was _stretched on the floor_"--"her body and limbs extended upon the hard boards,"--and yet her master "was highly esteemed for his virtues," and his general demeanor produced upon Dr.
Channing the impression of "benevolence and conscientiousness" If the _sick and dying female_ slaves of _such_ a master, suffer such barbarous neglect, whose heart does not fail him, at the thought of that inhumanity, exercised by the _majority_ of slaveholders, towards their aged, sick, and dying victims.