THE TRANSPLANTATION OF A RACE. 523 



reunions and other exciianges, but when the negro was " sold 

 South " the place and people that had known him would know him 

 no more. My first impression of the iniquity of slavery came from 

 the anxious questions of negroes as to the danger of their being sold 

 to Alabama, that State being then the supposed destination of all 

 those who were out of favor. They naturally strove to make in- 

 terest with children whom they thought could successfully inter- 

 cede for them. 



There were several very diverse consequences arising from the 

 exportation of slaves from the border States to the far South. It 

 shook the confidence of the negro as to his safety in all that was 

 dearest to him, and thus did much to degrade the relation between 

 him and his master. It served, cruel as it was, to elevate the rela- 

 tively uncivilized blacks of the more Southern districts, where the 

 newly imported laborers were mostly accumulated. It curiously 

 operated to elevate the quality of the blacks in what was termed 

 the slave-breeding States, those where the institution had longest 

 been established. This was due to the selection of those of lower 

 grade for the market. As it became necessary to part with slaves, 

 a choice was naturally made of men and women who had least 

 endeared themselves to the household. Save in rare cases, the 

 trader sought rather the lusty youths for their brawn than the 

 more delicate, refined house people. Moreover, where a fellow 

 had showm a tendency to any vice, the choice fell on him. In this 

 way for two or three generations a weeding process went on, with 

 the result that the negroes who were left in the districts where 

 the work was done acquired a quality noticeably better than those 

 on the Southern plantations. The difference is almost that we 

 would look for between two distinct races. The faces of the se- 

 lected folk are more intelligent, the lines of their bodies finer, their 

 moral and intellectual quality very much above those of their 

 lower kindred. They are at their best, in very numerous instances, 

 as gentle as the elect of our owm race. 



Where, as in the Southern plantations, the institution of slav- 

 ery was deliberately made the basis of large commercial interests, 

 the motives were wholly different from whatever existed in the 

 early and better days, when the slaves were appendages of a house- 

 hold. Even on the largest tobacco plantations the numbers were 

 not such as to exclude a share of contact with friendly whites. 

 But on the great properties of the South the negro was not to any 

 extent subject to the influences which had in the earlier stage of 

 his apprenticeship done so much for him. AVorked in gangs that 

 were counted by the hundreds, seeing no whites except the over- 

 seers, they tended to lose what little culture they had gained. 



