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522  DOUGLASS' MONTHLY. SEPTEMBER, 1861

in the woods.  But the immediate danger was at an end, the short-lived insurrection was finished, and now the work of vengeance was to begin.  In the frank phrase of a North Carolina correspondent — 'The massacre of the whites was over, and the white people had commenced the destruction of the negroes, which was continued after our men got there, from time to time, as they could fall in with them, all day yesterday.'  A postscript adds, that ' passengers by the Fayetteville stage say, that, by the latest accounts, one hundred and twenty negroes had been killed'-this being little more than one day's work. 

These murders were defended as Nat Turner defended his: a fearful blow must be struck.  In shuddering at the horrors of the insurrection, we have forgotten the far greater horrors of its suppression. 

The newspapers of the day contain many indignant protests against the cruelties which took place.  'It is with pain,' says a correspondent of the National Intelligencer, Sept 7, 1831, 'that we speak of another feature of the Southampton Rebellion ;  for we have been most unwilling to have our sympathies for the sufferers diminished or affected by their misconduct.  We allude to the slaughter of many blacks without trial and under circumstances of great barbarity. . . . . We met with an individual of intelligence who told us that he himself had killed between ten and fifteen. . . . . . We [the Richmond troop] witnessed with surprise the sanguinary temper of the population, who evinced a strong disposition to inflict immediate death on every prisoner.' 

There is a remarkable official document from General Eppes, the officer in command, to be found in the Richmond Enquirer for September 6. 1831.  It is an indignant denunciation of precisely these outrages ; and though he refuses to give details, he supplies their place by epithets: 'revolting'—'inhuman and not to be justified'—'acts of barbarity and cruelty'—'acts of atrocity'—'this course of proceeding dignifies the rebel and the assassin with the sanctity of martyrdom.'  And he ends by threatening martial law upon all future transgressors.  Such general orders are not issued except in rather extreme cases.— And in the parallel columns of the newspaper the innocent editor prints equally indignant descriptions of Russian atrocities in Lithuania, where the Poles were engaged in active insurrection, amid profuse sympathy from Virginia.  The truth is, it was a Reign of  Terror.  Volunteer patrols rode in all directions, visiting plantations.  'It was with the greatest difficulty,' said General Brodnax before the House of Delegates, 'and at the hazard of personal popularity and esteem, that the coolest and most judicious among us could exert an influence sufficient to restrain an indiscriminate slaughter of the blacks who were suspected.'  A letter from the Rev. G. W. Powell declares, 'There are thousands of troops searching in every direction, and many negroes are killed every day : the exact number will never be ascertained.'  Petition after petition was subsequently presented to the legislature, asking compensation for slaves thus assassinated without trial. 

Men were tortured to death, burned, maimed, and subjected to nameless atrocities.  The overseers were called on to point out any slaves whom they distrusted, and if any tried to escape, they were shot down.  Nay, worse than this.  'A party of horsemen started from Richmond with the intention of killing every colored person they saw in Southampton County. They stopped opposite the cabin of a free colored man, who was hoeing in his little field. They called out, "Is this Southampton County?"  He replied, "Yes, Sir, you have just crossed the line, by yonder tree."  They shot him dead and rode on'.— This is from the narrative of the editor of the Richmond Whig, who was then on duty in the militia, and protested manfully against these outrages.  'Some of the scenes,' he adds, 'are hardly inferior in barbarity to the atrocities of the insurgents.

These were the masters' stories.  If even these conceded so much, it would be interesting to hear what the slaves had to report.  I am indebted to my honored friend, Lydia Maria Child, for some vivid recollections of this  terrible period, as noted down from the lips of an old colored woman, once well known in New York, Charity Bowery.  ' At the time of the old Prophet Nat,' she said, 'the colored folks was afraid to pray loud ; for the whites threatened to punish 'em dreadfully, if the least noise was heard.  The patrols was low, drunken whites, and in Nat's time, if they heard any of the colored folks praying or singing a hymn, they would fall upon 'em and abuse 'em, and sometimes kill 'em, afore master or missis could get to 'em.  The brightest and best was killed in Nat's time.  The whites always suspect such ones.  They killed a great many at a place called Duplon.  They killed Antonio, a slave of Mr. J. Stanley, whom they shot ; then they pointed their guns at him, and told him to confess about the insurrection. 
He told 'em he didn't know anything about any insurrection.  They shot several balls through him, quartered him, and put his head on a pole at the fork of the road leading to the court.'  (This is no exaggeration, if the Virginia newspapers may be taken as evidence.)  'It was there but a short time.  He had no trial.  They never do.  In Nat's time, the patrols would tie up the free colored people, flog 'em, and try and make 'em lie against one another, and often kill them before anybody could interfere.  Mr. Jas. Cole, High Sheriff, said, that if any of the patrols came on his plantation, he would lose his life in defence of his people.  One day he heard a patroller boasting how many niggers he had killed.  Mr. Cole said, "If you don't pack up as quick as God Almighty will let you, and get out of this town, and never be seen in it again, I'll put you where dogs won't bark at you."  He went off, and wasn't seen in them parts again.' 

These outrages were not limited to the colored population ; but other instances occurred which strikingly remind one of more recent times.  An Englishman, named Robinson, was engaged in selling books at Petersburg.  An alarm being given, one night, that five hundred blacks were marching towards the town, he stood guard, with others, on the bridge— After the panic had a little subsided, he happened to remark, that 'the blacks, as men, were entitled to their freedom, and ought to be emancipated.'  This led to great excitement, and he was warned to leave town.  He took passage in the stage, but the stage was intercepted.  He then fled to a friend's house; the house was broken open and he was dragged forth.  The civil authorities being applied to, refused to interfere.  The mob stripped him, gave him a great number of lashes, and sent him on foot, naked, under a hot sun, to Richmond, whence he with difficulty found a passage to New York. 

Of the capture or escape of most of that small band who met with Nat Turner in the woods upon the Travis plantation, little can now be known.  All appear among the list of convicted, except Henry and Will.  Gen Moore, who occasionally figures as second in command, in the newspaper narratives of that day, was probably the Hark or Hercules before mentioned ; as no other of the confederates had belonged to Mrs. Travis, or would have been likely to bear her previous name of Moore.  As usual, the newspapers state that most, if not all the slaves, were 'the property of kind and indulgent masters.'— Whether in any case they were also the sons of those masters is a point ignored ; but from the fact that three out of the seven were at first reported as being white men by several different witnesses—the whole number being correctly given, and the statement therefore probably authentic—one must suppose that there was an admixture of patrician blood in some of these conspirators. 

The subordinate insurgents sought safety as they could.  A free colored man, named Will Artist, shot himself in the woods where his hat was found on a stake and his pistol lying by him ; another was found drowned ; others were traced to the Dismal Swamp ; others returned to their homes, and tried to conceal their share in the insurrection, assuring their masters that they had been forced, against their will, to join—the usual defence in such cases.  The number shot down at random must, by all accounts, have amounted to many hundreds, but it is past all human registration now.  The number who had a formal trial, such as it was, is officially stated at fifty-five ; of these, seventeen were convicted and hanged, twelve were convicted and transported, twenty acquitted, and four free colored men sent on for further trial and finally acquitted.  'Not one of those known to be concerned escaped.'  Of those executed, one only was a woman—'Lucy, slave of John T. Barrow '—that is all her epitaph, shorter even that of Wordsworth's more famous Lucy ; but whether this one was old or young, pure or wicked, lovely or repulsive, octoroon, or negro, a Cassy, an Emily, or a Topsy, no information appears ; she was a woman, she was a slave, and she died. 

[CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH] 

A RIGHT KIND OF COLONEL.— Our readers will remember the gallant Capt. Montgomery who attained so wide a reputation in connection with the Kansas troubles.  He is now Colonel of one of the Kansas regiments, and we understand that JOHN BROWN, Jr., is Captain of a company under him.  While at Leavenworth the other day, he was called upon by a number of citizens and at their request the Colonel was induced to make a speech to a large crowd in front of the hotel.  We give a synopsis of what he said: 

He began with a history of the Kansas difficulties, the part he had played therein, and vindicated the course of himself and those who had acted with him ; referred to the outrages they had suffered, and their method of retaliation.  Horses and other property had been taken from pro-slavery depredations.  He stated that one man had been hung by his followers, for pursuing slaves on Kansas soil, and they would not permit slave-catching in their neighborhood. 

The Colonel next referred to the war and to slavery, and intimated pretty strongly that the one ought to do away with the other.— He discussed the question of abolition of slavery, and replied to many of the arguments used against it.  He was not in favor of colonizing the negroes in Africa ; the expense would be too enormous and too burdensome to the people.  Central America, of the West Indies, should be set apart for the black race, and as they flourished best in warm climates, they would naturally emigrate to those countries and settle there.  He denounced the idea that volunteers should be used to catch runaway slaves, and was opposed to whipping volunteers.  The only kind of punishment he would introduce into the branch of the service, would be drumming out of camp, or death by shooting.  He closed by saying that the war would be a short one ; that the Administration could end it if they would, and he had no doubt of their desire to do so.  He expected by next Spring to be back on his farm in season to plow his land and sow his crops.  By that time the Government would either have whipped the traitors or they would have whipped the Government, and so, in any event, the war would have an end. 


—The Rebel Congress at Richmond has passed a resolution instructing the Judiciary Committee to inquire into and report on the expediency of prescribing by law, while the facts are fresh and susceptible of proof, some uniform mode of taking, authenticating and preserving the evidence of the abduction or reception, by the enemy, of slaves owned by any of the Confederate States, as also of the age, sex and value of said slaves, to the end that indemnity may hereafter be exacted from the enemy. 

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