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FEBRUARY, 1862.      DOUGLASS' MONTHLY      601
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has extended.  There is not a man who has been liberated by this brigade but is abundantly able and willing to take care of himself.  In every case we have found the slave fit for freedom.
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CAN EMANCIPATED SLAVES TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES?
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[From the N. Y. Tribune.]

The following experience of Mr. McDonough, a slaveholder, who resided near New Orleans, will go far to answer the above question.  It is abridged from a statement published by Mr. McDonough, in the Cincinnati Gazette, March, 1843.  Dr. John G. Palfrey, formerly member of Congress, and author of a very valuable History of New England, made use of it in a pamphlet he published in vindication of free labor.  Dr. Palfrey, whose father was a slaveholder in New Orleans, was acquainted with Mr. McDonough, and had conversed with him concerning the experiment here described.

Mr. McDonough, finding that his slaves worked for themselves on Sunday, for want of time on other days, proposed to give them Saturday afternoon to work for themselves, if they would keep the Sabbath.  He was soon struck with the amount of labor they perfomed during the half day they had to themselves, and with the sums of money they contrived to derive from it.  It occurred to him that it would be a good plan gradually to sell them the remaining days of the week, on condition of their paying him certain sums out of their wages, at appointed periods.  So far as appears, that plan was suggested solely by financial policy, uninfluenced by any conviction of the wrongfulness of taking other people's wages.  He called his slaves together, eighty in number, and proposed to them to work for him on Saturday afternoon, at small wages, instead of working for themselves.——He advised them to draw upon these wages as little as possible, and leave the remainder in his hands to buy the whole of Saturday for themselves.  That the terms he offered were pretty hard, is evident from the fact that he told them he calculated it would take them seven years to buy one day.  But he reminded them that the first part of the process would be the most difficult; for when they had the whole of Saturday to work for wages, they could in less time buy Friday for themselves; and the facility would go on increasing with every day of the week they succeeded in purchasing.  He told them that according to the terms he could offer, and the calculations he had made, it would take them about fifteen years to buy their entire freedom.

Undismayed by the tediousness of the process, the slaves seized his offer with eagerness.  They went to work so zealously that they bought the whole of Saturday in less than six years; Friday in four years; Thursday in two years and a quarter; Wednesday in fifteen months, Tuesday in one year; Monday in six months.
 
In fourteen years and a half, they had purchased their freedom, beside working diligently for their master on the days that still legally belonged to him.  It would have been done sooner, but during the later years they expended more than they had formerly done for comforts and conveniences for their families.  The labor of their little boys and girls also had not made up the sum required for them by the master; so there was a balance due on their account, which they worked five additional months to pay.

Mr. McDonough, describing his experiment, says:

"They had always been well disposed and orderly, but, from the day I made the proposition, a great change took place in them.  A sedateness, a care, an economy, and industry took possession of them, to which there appeared to be no bounds but their physical strength.  They became temperate, moral, and religious, setting an example that was observed and admired by all.  They performed for me more labor, and better labor, than slaves usually perform, and, in addition to
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that, earned money enough to buy themselves.  From the time the experiment began, to its completion, besides paying for themselves, they gained for me money enough to enable me to buy a gang of slaves, nearly twice their number, at the prices in Carolina and Virginia.  This I state from exact accounts kept by me, which I am ready to attest to, in the most solemn manner, at any time."

The steadiness and industry of these slaves attracted attention in the neighborhood, and also in the adjacent city of New Orleans, where twenty or thirty of them were let out to work under the superintendence of a head bricklayer, named Jim.

The public were not informed of the stimulus which prompted these slaves to such unusual activity and diligence.  Perhaps Mr. McDonough did not consider it prudent to have much talk about it.  Such experiments prove too much; they interfere with the established policy of slaveholding society, and consequently are generally viewed with disapprobation, which sometimes manifests itself in inconvenient ways.  Among those whose attention was attracted by these slaves was a Mr. Parker of New Orleans. 

"What kind of people are those of yours?" said he to Mr. McDonough.  "I never saw such people.  They are building a house next door to me, where I can have my eye on them from morning till night, and they are always at work. Do tell me where they live?"

"They live on the opposite side of the river, where I do," replied Mr. McDonough, "and when they are employed in New Orleans, they cross the river every night and morning."

"Why, Sir, I am an early riser," said Mr. Parker.  "I am usually up before day.  But every morning they wake me with their singing and the noise of their trowels.  They work as long as they can see to lay a brick; and after that, they carry up bricks and mortar for an hour or two, so as to be ahead of their work the next morning.  They never walk up and down those immensely long ladders, five stories high; they run up and down all day.  If there was a white overseer driving them, whip in hand, I could understand it.  But there is nobody over them, and I never saw you at the building.  That Jim must be a great man, Sir; I should like to own him."

He had previously made successive offers for Jim, and finally offered $5,000, which was refused.

Mr. McDonough says:

"Mr. Parker was not aware of the stimulus that was acting on the heart of each and every one of them.  He did not know that it was the whole body of them that moved together as one mind; that it was not merely the greatness of the head man, as he supposed."

In order duly to estimate the power of the motive which stimulated these slaves, the reader must bear in mind the hard terms their master made with them, and the long years they were working, with hope deferred.  Added to this, was the fact that freedom was coupled with the penalty of banishment from home and friends.  Slaveholders do not like the presence of emancipated slaves around them; it makes other slaves uneasy.  Consequently, when they had worked out their freedom, they were obliged to go to Liberia.——Negroes are remarkable for storg local attachments; and powerful indeed must be the motives, either of fear or hope, that can induce them to leave the scenes to which they have been long accustomed.

Yet with all these drawbacks, their souls were filled with gratitude to the man who had granted them the boon of freedom, though he had made by the transaction a good deal of money which rightfully belonged to them——On the 8th of June, 1842, they all sailed for Liberia.  Their last words, when they parted with Mr. McDonough's other slaves, were——"As you hope to meet us in Heaven, take good care of our beloved master."
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In the island of Jamaica, the emancipated
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slaves had to contend with difficulties of all sorts.  Their masters were very deeply in debt at the time of emancipation; they were exceedingly reluctant to give up their old habits of despotism; they paid their laborers the lowest possible wages, and charged them the highest possible rents.  The wages of the emancipated slaves were from 18 to 24 cents a day, out of which they boarded themselves; yet in four years they bought land and erected buildings, for which they paid $823,650.  During that short period of freedom, they bought and paid for more than 100,000 acres of land, on which they worked diligently, raising vegetables for the use of their families and for the market.  Does that look as if emancipated slaves could not take care of themselves?

After emancipation in the British West Indies, the imports into those islands increased at a rapid rate.  The slaves, who formerly wore cotton-bagging, could afford to buy calico and ribbons, good shoes and good hats.——Many even indulged in the luxuries of pretty China, mahogany tables, and clocks, in their neat little whitewashed cottages.

Have the Merchants and Manufacturers of the North ever thought how many more articles would be bought at the South if the laborers were free, and thus enabled to live better and dress better?
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HOW JOHN BROWN SAVED THE CAPITAL.——

The Washington correspondent of the Boston Journal tells the following singular story of the way in which John Brown's raid into Virginia became the remote cause of the salvation of the Federal capital:

When the Marines dashed up to the door of the engine house, where Virginia chivalry quailed, they seized not only John Brown, but a quantity of powder within the building, which he had brought from Pennsylvania.  After Brown and his party were secured, the powder was placed in one of the brick buildings, where it remained till April last.  When the U. S. troops found that the Virginia forces were preparing to make a descent upon the ferry for the purpose of capturing the arms, they looked about for ammunition.——They did not dare to visit the magazine, for there were sharp eyes which watched every movement, and an attempt to take powder from there would precipitate an attack.  Then it was that John Brown's powder was valuable.  It was in small packages, and where it could be taken and distributed unbeknown to any outsiders.  It was placed in the different buildings, the trains were laid, and just as the Virginians thought the prize was theirs, they found that the flames were ahead of them.  It was designed that the several thousand stand of arms there stored should be distributed in Baltimore, where, as you know, the outbreak immediately occurred, and that thence a descent would be made upon Washington.  So John Brown's powder caved the Capital.  All of this will appear, I am informed, with satisfactory evidence, in the report of the committee appointed to investigate the Harper's Ferry affair.

"John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave, His soul is marching on."
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A proposition has been made to the rebel War Department, by members of the rebel Congress, to arrange some plan by which fugitive slaves can be returned in exchange for the surplus of prisoners they have; they to select the slaves.  Something definite as to securing their runaways will be at once proposed to Secretary Seward, but whether he will favor such a proposition, remains to be seen.
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It is estimated that there are some 14 000,000 persons of African descent on this continent.  In the Untied States they number 4,500,000; Brazil, 4,150,000; Cuba, 1,500,000; South and Central American Republics, 1,200,000; Hayti, 2,000,000; British Possessions, 800,000; French, 250,000; Dutch, Danish and Mexican, 200,000.
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Transcription Notes:
Italics references deleted per Smithsonian transcription instructions.