Incidents in the life of a slave girl.: Written by herself. Edited by L. Maria Child.

Sketches of Neighboring Slaveholders. 81
but his daughter, foreseeing the storm that would
arise, had giYen him free papers, and sent him out of
the state.
In such cases the infant is smothered, or sent where
it is never seen by any who know its history. But if
the white parent is the father, instead of the mother,
the offspring are unblushingly reared for the market.
If they are girls, I have indicated plainly enough what
will be their inevitable destiny.
You may believe what I say; for I write only that
whereof I know. I was twenty-one years in that cage
of obscene birds. I can testify, from my own experience and observation, that slavery is a curse to the
whites as well as to the blacks. It makes the white
fathers cruel and sensual; the sons violent and licentious; it contaminates the daughters, and makes the
wives wretched. And as for the colored race, it needs
an abler pen than mine to describe the extremity of
their sufferings, the depth of their degradation.
Yet few slaveholders seem to be aware of the widespread moral ruin occasioned by this wicked system.
Their talk is of blighted cotton crops -not of the
blight on their children's souls.
If you want to be fully convinced of the abominations of slavery, go on a southern plantation, and call
yourself a negro trader. Then there will be no concealment; and you will see and hear things that will
seem to you impossible among human beings with
immortal souls.