service to the people of Pernambuco; for without their protective aid
the bar of sandstone would inevitably have been long ago worn away and
without the bar, there would have been no harbour.
On the 19th of August we finally left the shores of Brazil. I thank
God, I shall never again visit a slave-country. To this day, if I hear
a distant scream, it recalls with painful vividness my feelings, when
passing a house near Pernambuco, I heard the most pitiable moans, and
could not but suspect that some poor slave was being tortured, yet knew
that I was as powerless as a child even to remonstrate. I suspected
that these moans were from a tortured slave, for I was told that this
was the case in another instance. Near Rio de Janeiro I lived opposite
to an old lady, who kept screws to crush the fingers of her female
slaves. I have stayed in a house where a young household mulatto,
daily and hourly, was reviled, beaten, and persecuted enough to break
the spirit of the lowest animal. I have seen a little boy, six or
seven years old, struck thrice with a horse-whip (before I could
interfere) on his naked head, for having handed me a glass of water not
quite clean; I saw his father tremble at a mere glance from his
master's eye. These latter cruelties were witnessed by me in a Spanish
colony, in which it has always been said, that slaves are better
treated than by the Portuguese, English, or other European nations. I
have seen at Rio de Janeiro a powerful negro afraid to ward off a blow
directed, as he thought, at his face. I was present when a
kind-hearted man was on the point of separating forever the men, women,
and little children of a large number of families who had long lived
together. I will not even allude to the many heart-sickening
atrocities which I authentically heard of;--nor would I have mentioned
the above revolting details, had I not met with several people, so
blinded by the constitutional gaiety of the negro as to speak of
slavery as a tolerable evil. Such people have generally visited at the
houses of the upper classes, where the domestic slaves are usually well
treated, and they have not, like myself, lived amongst the lower
classes. Such inquirers will ask slaves about their condition; they
forget that the slave must indeed be dull, who does not calculate on
the chance of his answer reaching his master's ears.
It is argued that self-interest will prevent excessive cruelty; as if
self-interest protected our domestic animals, which are far less likely
than degraded slaves, to stir up the rage of their savage masters. It
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