532 United States of America, and British West Indies. [MAY, 



Hall : the reply was, " Certainly none. That is entirely contrary to usage 

 here, and contrary to law in some places. Such things would only make 

 them discontented with their lot, and in fact would be quite repugnant 

 to the whole system of slave discipline in this country."* The superior 

 liberality of our West Indian slave system cannot be denied even by the 

 most virulent anti-colonist ! 



Although domestic slaves in America, as every where else, are better 

 fed and clothed, yet field labour is generally preferred; and Capt. Hall 

 vindicates the conduct of overseers, as a class, from that mass of abuse 

 which it has been too much the custom to heap upon them. An over- 

 seer in America who acquires a character for undue severity is, as in 

 the British Colonies, much scouted, and sooner or later discovers that his 

 services are not valued or sought after. The cultivation of the fertile 

 land on the coast, or any part of the low districts of the southern states, 

 by white labour, is universally declared to be quite visionary. Slaves 

 must either be employed, or these fertile districts abandoned ! 



In the northern parts of Virginia, where the soil is poor, the slaves do 

 not reproduce by their labour as much as they consume in the shape of 

 food. " Many fine-looking districts were pointed out to me in Virginia, 

 formerly rich in tobacco and Indian corn, which had been completely 

 exhausted by the production of crops for the maintenance of slaves." 

 " The climate as well as the soil of the extreme southern states, Georgia, 

 Alabama, and Louisiana, together with the territory of Florida, are quite 

 unlike those which are found in the northern districts of the slave-hold- 

 ing portion of the union, such as Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky. In 

 the southern section, as the labour of the negro is highly productive, the 

 settlers in that new and fertile country are willing to give great prices 

 for slaves. A sure and profitable market is thus furnished for the sale 

 of the blacks reared in that express view on the more northern planta- 

 tions above described. 



" The new states bordering on the gulf of Mexico, as well as those 

 which are watered by the Mississippi, are at present the chief markets 

 to which the slaves bred in the north are sent. But great numbers are 

 also absorbed by South Carolina and Georgia, where the cultivation of 

 rice thins the population so fast, as to render a constant fresh supply of 

 negroes indispensable, in order to meet the increasing demand for that 

 great staple production of the country. The enormous increased con- 

 sumption of cotton, also, has brought down multitudes of negroes to turn 

 up the fertile soils of those burning regions, the sea-island districts, well 

 known to commerce. The progress of sugar-cultivation, in like manner, 

 in the alluvial lands forming the vast Delta of the Mississippi, is a further 

 attraction to the slave dealers, and must, like the others, long continue 

 in operation as a productive field for slave labour. These combined 

 causes have set a-going, and will probably keep in motion for a long period 

 of time to come, one of the most extensive slave trades in the world, in the 

 very heart of the United States "-\ 



So great is this traffic, that, during certain seasons of the year, " all the 

 roads, steam-boats, and packets, are crowded with troops of negroes on 

 their way to the great slave markets of the south. 



" It is quite clear that the pecuniary interest of the slave holders in 



* Hall's Travels, vol. iii. p. 191. 

 t Hall's Travels, vol. iii. pp. 194, 195, 196. 



