New Orleans True American Quotes
We can assure those, one and all, who have embarked in the nefarious scheme of abolishing Slavery at the South, that lashes will hereafter be spared the backs of their emissaries. Let them send out their men to Louisiana; they will never return to tell their suffering, but they shall expiate the crime of interfering in our domestic institutions, by being burned at the stake.
New Orleans True American, ~1852
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The “stake” refers to burning at the stake, one of the methods of murder used in the South to intimidate Negroes and whites who might hold anti-slavery sentiments.
While England was strongly opposed to slavery, the English textile industry benefited from importing American Southern cotton. So many in England were supportive of the Confederacy.
The editorial was in response to the pro-slavery speeches in the Senate of John C. Calhoun.
The language was removed in the negotiations that followed Jefferson's draft.
This statement was made long after slavery had been abolished and Jim Crow was on the rise in the South.
Brown was the richest man in Rhode Island and made much of his money in the slave trade. This quotation shows that slavery was not completely a North verses South split. Northerners like Brown for whose family Brown University was named, was as virulent supporter of slavery as the most ardent Southerner.
In 1831 a slave preacher, Nat Turner, led a rebellion in North Carolina killing over 50 whites. Even though Turner and the rebels were captured and executed, whites throughout the South, took vengeance on any slaves they could find. This description was of a North Carolina community.
Parker and other escaped slaves in Christiana fought off slave catchers and killed the slave owner leading them. Charged with treason, he escaped to Canada with his family and lived there the rest of his life. While not a polished writer, after he himself had escaped and went to Christiana and leaned to read and write. He wrote this narrative of his life as a slave—one of the few written works we have from slaves.
The point about the negroes who were born into American slavery being less aggressive than those captured and transported to America is often overlooked. Slavery not only was cruel, moral, and inhuman in its own right, but also took its toll over generations as a result of the psychological effects of the terror of slavery. Despite these, it is amazing how resiliant the American Blacks were under those circumstances. in some cases one or two saves escaped after committing a violent act as they had little to lose for trying as they wold be killed if caught. A few of these escaped to the North and others reached Southern Cities like Charleston where there was a small free black community in which they could be absorbed.
This moral statement from a New jersey Quaker abolitionist is not particularly noteworthy, However what makes this quote important is that Woolman traveled throughout the South preaching this as his main theme. At that time — before the American Revolution — he did so and was not attacked or intimidated; he was mostly ignored by the Southern authorities. At the time, the South was very confident of its ability to continue slavery. Years later, when the abolition movement grew larger and stronger, a Northern Quaker Preacher doing this not not escape with his life.
