quite naked, manifestly her own brothers or sisters, only with a differently tinged skin. This puts a stranger to his full stretch of imaginative meditation; and as is often the case, he perceives, that if you could divest him of his mental associations, and clothe the girls and boys alike, they could not be known apart. The children are suckled at the same coloured women's breasts; and except that their treatment is different during infancy, they grow up together with their common animal instincts, and equally devoid of correct moral sensibility. That such a system must destroy all feminine purity and domestic confidence is obvious: and that such a perennial fountain of vice long since would have been dried up, if the southern women had so determined, is not less undeniable. But females, old and young, and of all ranks among the slave-holders, shamelessly boast that they never put on or took off a single article of their dress during their lives. They would consider it excessive toil, and the utmost degradation thus to dress or undress themselves; and of course boys must be multiplied to work in the fields, while girls are nurtured for the house. Two ladies of the first rank in Virginia affirmed, that the Northern citizens were totally incompetent to form any correct idea of a slave plantation. One of them remarked: "We are called wives, and as such are recognised in law; but we are little more than superintendents of a coloured seraglio." When the old slave-driver is dead, the "boy" who is most like him is generally called by his title; and you are often surprised to hear a mulatto coachman or footman denominated captain, major or colonel. You ask the cause, and are informed; "the man is so like his father, that if it were not for the colour of his skin, he is such a chip of the old block, that you could not know them apart." This man is often the confidential manager of the house; the coachman who drives about his father's daughters, waits upon the table; and, in fact, is upon terms of the most intimate, and often, it is understood, of licentious familiarity with his half sisters. Hence, there is now growing up in the southern states with inconceivable rapidity, a third race of American people; whose numbers will soon preponde rate over both the resident whites, and the genuine blacks. They are the persons of the various shades between the Europeans and Africans. These citizens ordinarily possess the constitutional energy and aptitude of the black race for the southern climate, with the high temper and cunning of their white fathers. They feel neither the sullen debasement of the descendant of the kidnapped African, nor the languor and emaciation of the dissolute white. Myriads of southern white women, it is fully believed, if they dared would rather marry those light coloured young men, than the miserable profligates with whom they associate; and to this mixed race, if there be any way of reading "the signs of the times," God in his Providence, has surely given the southern portion of the United States bordering on the Atlantic, as their domicil. A remuneration to the succeeding generations, for the toil, sweat, blood, and anguish of their ancestors. As in the slave states, a man's wealth is not estimated by his bank-stock, or the number of acres of land which he owns, but by the coloured citizens whom he has kidnapped; it necessarily follows, that every slavite will propagate slaves as fast as he possibly can, and at the least expense. Consequently, every slave farm and plantation, in various degrees, is a scene of inconceivable dissolution. There may be some men, who will not degrade themselves by an actual participation in the fornication, adultery, and incest, which inhere to almost every slave quarter: but who ever heard of a man that would not connive at all these things, and reward the father and mother, if he had so promised, for so cheaply putting another" fellow," or another "wench" within his grasp? In the lower counties of Virginia, this white-washing system and these amalgamating processes were carried on to a diabolical perfection. A picture of one plantation will serve for the whole. I was riding alone, and had pursued my solitary route from Charlotteville during the whole day. Toward sunset my attention was arrested by a large crowd of coloured people collected close by the road. When I came near to them I halted; and instantly perceived that they were husking corn. There was a genuine slavite, the despot, strutting about with his whip, two boys of man's size, his hopeful sons; and his overseer almost incessantly resounding his commands and oaths, and cracking as a signal, the huge cart whip which he brandished. I think I counted nearly a hundred full grown coloured persons; the surrounding juniors defied all my arithmetic. There was every distinguishable shade of complexion from Congo black to that sallow, which the ingenuity of an artist can scarcely define. While I was musing upon this unusual display of domestic purity and of American freedom, a true Virginian rode up and accosted me. 'You are from a distance, stranger, I see." I replied, "Yes, and have met with a curiosity," pointing to the field near us. "Well, that's a good one," he retorted; "but which way are you riding?" I told him where I was going to stop for the night. "I live a little distance beyond the tavern," said he, so we will ride together." 66 After we were fairly started, my companion began. "What were you thinking about, stranger, when I met you?" The man had so little of the slavite's usual scowling and furious passions on his face, that I resolved if possible to obtain some information from him. I therefore replied, "I was puzzling myself to know how so many people of different colours could be collected together on one plantation. The man must have exercised some ingenuity in picking out his assortment." The Virginian burst into a roar of laughter, and said, "Well, stranger, that's a good one. Sure enough, you know nothing about our ways here near Richmond." I begged him to explain the secret to me. "Major E." he retorted, "is too cunning to buy negroes; he breeds and sells them." I asked, "But what has that to do with the twenty different shades of colours on the faces of the motley groupe?" He again laughed aloud, and then proceeded to divulge the major's process of multiplying and whitewashing his slaves. I dare not publish the particulars of the major's bleaching manufactory; but I gathered from his statement some general views which will unravel what southern women know or connive at or encourage, that they may pass their |