Slave Breeding for Profit
True Stories of American Slave Breeding by those that Witnessed
By Frederick Douglas, Charles Ball, Theodore Dwight Weld, Rev. C. S. Renshaw, John Anderson, John Brown, William Wells Brown, Austin Steward, John Dixon Long, Charles Thompson and Various others;
I am not one of those slaves in the United States who have experienced much cruelty in my own person. Nevertheless, I have felt the lash and the galling fetter. I have known what it is to be dragged fifteen miles to the human flesh market and be sold like a brute beast. I am from a slave-breeding state--where slaves are reared for the market as horses, sheep, and swine are. I was brought up in a state where the slave-holder found it to be his own interest to be a little more lenient and kind to his slaves. Understanding this, you that are thoughtful may see the reason of this kindness and leniency without my attempting to explain it. Slavery is said to exist in its mildest form in Maryland, and yet there may be seen cruelties deeper and darker than those described by my friend Garrison. The slave is driven by the beating of the lash, and often, immediately he is landed, is branded with the hot iron, often his ears are cut and his teeth drawn, so as to mark him in case he runs away, when he advertises him and so brings him back to bondage.
Frederick Douglas
"Things is hard this year and I don't know how come. I guess it's 'cause folks is so wicked. They is livin' fast--black and white.
"How many chillun? Now, you'd be s'prised. I hardly ever tell folks how many. I had fifteen; I was a good breeder. But they is all dead but one, and they ain't doin' me no good. Never raised but two. Most of 'em just died when they was born.'
