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1 Negro Slavery: Address to the Clergy of the Established Church, and to Christian Ministers of Every Denomination 1 (1826)

handle is hein.slavery/neslvadcler0001 and id is 1 raw text is: NEGRO SLAVERY. ADDRESS TO THE CLERGY OF THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH, AND TO CHRISTIAN MINISTERS OF EVERY DENOMINATION. THE subject to which.your earnest attention is soli- colonists exclusively. On the contrary, the guilt and cited is that of NEGRO SLAVERY as it subsists in the shame connected with it belong also to the People and Par- Colonies of Great Britain. The following is a concise liament of this country. But on that very account are we view of its nature and effects, every circumstance in which the more rigidly bound to lose no time in adopting such stands fully established by the testimony of the colonists measures as shall bring it to the earliest termination which themselves, is compatible with the well-being of the parties who sus- In the Colonies of Great Britain there are, at this mo- tain the grievous yoke of colonial bondage. ment, upwards of 830,000 human beings in a state of In May 1823, the Government and Parliament of this degrading personal slavery; the absolute property of their country, having taken these evils into their consideration, master, who may sell or transfer them at his pleasure, and resolved that the degraded Negro should be raised, with who may brand them, if he pleases, by means of a hot iron, all convenient speed, to a participation of the same civil as cattle are branded in this country. These slaves, whe. rights which are enjoyed by the other classes of his Ma- ther male or female, are driven to labour during the day jesty's subjects. In this resolution all parties, even the by the impulse of the cart-whip, for the sole benefit of West-Indians, concurred. Ministers proposed to carry it their owners, from whom they receive no wages; and in into effect by a recommendation from the Crown to the the season of crop, which lasts for four or five months of Colonial Legislatures. Against this course, the leaders in the year, their labour is protracted not only throughout the cause of abolition entered their protest. The Colonial the day, as at other times, but during half the night. Be- Legislatures, they said, were themselves the cause of all sides this, they are usually obliged to labour for their the evil that was to be redressed : to hope for effectual re- maintenance on the Sunday; and as that day is also their form at their hands was vain and illusory: that reform market-day, it is of necessity a day of worldly occupa- could be brought about only by the direct and anthoritative tion, and much exertion. The colonial laws arm the mas. interference of Pdrliament-a point which experience had ter, or any one to whom he may delegate his authority, abundantly proved. The Ministers of the Crown, how- with a power to punish his slaves to a certain extent (ge- ever, thought it right once more to try the experiment, only nerally that of thirty-nine lashes), for any offence, or for he intimating, that, if the Colonies contumaciously resisted, offence. These discretionary punishments are usually Parliament would be called upon to interfere. Accordingly inflicted on the naked body with a cart-whip which cruelly they lost no time in urging the Colonial Legislatures to lacerates the flesh of the sufferer. Even the unhappy tb- pass certain laws for giving effect to the Resolutions of males are equally liable with the men to have their persdns Parliament. Those Legislatures have, however, resisted thus exposed, and tortured, at the caprice of their masier the call. Upwards of two years and a half have passed, on,- ' hpmn, in the eve of the law lr rni no p--'-- - chatt7sa,'re liable to be seized and sold toThtnesMaW .ts with a view either to the mitigation or extinction of '-.a debts, without any regard to the family ties which may 4e very. On the contrary, the documents, laid before Par. broken by this oppressive process. Marriage is protetd, liament in the last session, prove that they are fully re- in the case of slaves, by no legal sanction, and cannot solved not to comply with the requisitions of Government. therefore be said to exist among them ; and in gene~l What now remains, therefore, on the part of the public, they have little access to the means of Christian instri , but to implore Parliament at length to take upon them. tion. The effect of the want of such instruction, as wll selves the task of terminating the evils of colonial bondage, as of the absence of the marriage tie, is, that the m and to proceed with all convenient speed to the accom- unrestrained licentiousness, (exhibited in a degrading plishment of their own resolutions ? depopulating promiscuous intercourse,) prevails am It is our clear and indisputable duty, not only to do the slaves; which is too much encouraged by the exam this, but to strain every nerve to effect, by all other lawful of their superiors the Whites. The evidence of slave means in our power, the extinction of Slavery. And the generally not admitted by the Colonial Courts, in any c obligation we are under thus to act will be strengthened, or criminal case affecting a person of free condition. when we consider the large sums we are now paying an- White or free man, therefore, perpetrates the most atroc us nually-not less than a Million and a Half-to the slave- acts of barbarity, in the presence of slaves only, th i holders, in the shape of bounties and protecting duties on jured party is left without means of legal redress. I lie their produce; by which payments we are made the great Colonies of Great Britain, the same facilities have not en and efficient upholders of that slavery which we condemn. afforded to the slave, to purchase his freedom, as i he We ought at least to claim to be freed from contribu- colonial possessions of Spain and Portugal. On the n- tions, by which we are made to participate directly in its trary, in many of our colonies, even the voluntary n u- guilt. And if this boon should not be granted to us, we mission of slaves by their masters has been obstructed d have it still in our power to abstain from the purchase and in some loaded with large fines. Many thousand in ts consumption of articles which tend to implicate us in the are annually born, within the British dominions, to n n- maintenance of that hideous system. heritance but that of the hopeless servitude which as As we cannot doubt that the resistance, on the part of the been described; and the general oppressiveness of w h colonists, to the proposed reforms, will be powerful and may be inferred from this fact alone, that while, in ie persevering, it becomes necessary to call into action all United States of America, the slaves increase rap y, proper means, both of diffusing a knowledge of the evils of there is, even now, in the British Colonies, no inc se, colonial bondage throughout the land, and of exciting in- but on the contrary from year to year a diminution of eir creased efforts for speedily putting a period to the state numbers. of slavery itself throughout the British dominions. Such are some of the more prominent features of o In taking a view of the means which may be employed Slavery, as it exists in the Colonies of Great B in. with advantage to bring about this result, it would be Revolting as they are, they form only a part of thos ir- unpardonable to overlook the ambassadors of Hi~ who cumstances of wretchedness and degradation which lit came to proclaim peace on earth, and good will to be pointed out, fiom their own official returns, as ch . men; of HiiVi who claims it as his peculiar office to bind terizing that unhappy state of being. up the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the It is by no means intended to attribute the exisl ce captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are and conatimauce of this most opprobrious system t ur bound,-To the conscientious Christian Minister, of Digitized from Best Copy Available

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