TREATMENT OF SLAVES IN CHARLESTON. 77 



with his too children, had been exposed in the 

 public market at Charleston for sale, — that he had 

 been purchased by Mr. Street, — that his wife and 

 children had been purchased by a different person ; 

 and that, though he was living in tlie same town 

 with them, he was never allowed to see them, — he 

 would be beaten within an ace of his life if he ven- 

 tured to go to the corner of the street. 



Whenever the least symptom of rebellion or in- 

 subordination appears at Charleston on the part of a 

 slave, the master sends the slave to the gaol, where, 

 for a trifling douceur to the gaoler or his assistants, 

 he is whipped or beaten as the master desires. The 

 Duke of Saxe Weimar, in his travels, mentions that 

 he visited the gaol in December, 1825; that the 

 " black overseers go about everywhere armed with 

 cow-hides ; that in the basement story there is an 

 apparatus upon which the negroes, by order of the 

 police, or at the request of the masters, are flogged ; 

 that the machine consists of a sort of crane, on which 

 a cord with too nooses runs over pulleys ; the nooses 

 are made fast to the hands of the slave and drawn 

 up, while the feet are bound tight to a plank ; that 

 the body is stretched out as much as possible, — and 

 thus the miserable creature receives the exact number 

 of lashes as counted off. The pubhc sale of slaves 

 in the market-place at Charleston occurs frequently. 

 I was present at two sales, where, especially at one 

 of them, the miserable creatures were in tears on 

 account of their being separated from their relations 

 and friends. At one of them, a young woman of 

 sixteen or seventeen was separated from her father 

 and mother, and all her relations, and every one she 

 had formerly known. This not unfrequently hap- 

 pens, although I was told and believe that there is a 

 general wish to keep relations together, where it can 

 be done.'' 



The following extract of a letter from a gentleman 

 at Charleston, to a friend of his at New York, 

 contains even a more shocking account of the public 



