08/05/2018
To those with doubts about the cruelty of slavery.
Narrative and Testimony of Sarah M. Grimke
Recorded March 26, 1830
“As I left my native state on account of slavery, and deserted the home of my fathers to escape the sound of the lash and the shrieks of the tortured victims, I would gladly bury in oblivion the recollection of those scenes with which I have been familiar; but this may not, cannot be; they come over my memory like gory spectres, and implore me with resistless power, in the name of a God of mercy, in the name of crucified Savior, in the name of humanity; for the sake of the slaveholder as well as the slave, to bear witness to the horror of the southern prison house. I feel impelled by a sacred sense of duty, by my obligations to my country, by sympathy for the bleeding victims of tyranny and lust, to give my testimony respecting the system of American slavery,to detail a few facts, most of which came under my personal observation. And here I may premise, that the actors in these tragedies were all men and women of the highest respectability, and of the first families in South Carolina, and with one exception, citizens of Charleston; and that their cruelties did not in the slightest affect their standing in society.
A handsome mulatto woman, about 18 or 20 years of age, whose independent spirit could not brook the degradation of slavery, was in the habit of running away: for this offence she had been repeatedly sent by her master and mistress to be whipped by the keeper of the Charleston work-house. This had been done with such inhuman severity, as to lacerate her back in a most shocking manner; a finger could not be laid between the cuts. But the love of liberty was too strong to annihilated by torture; and as a last resort, she was shipped at several different times, and kept a close prisoner. A heavy iron collar, with three long prongs projecting from it, was placed round her neck, and a strong and sound front tooth was extracted, to serve as a mark to describe her, in case of escape. Her sufferings at this time were agonizing; she could lie in no position but on her back, which was sore from scourgings, as I can testify, from personal inspection, and her only place of rest was the floor, on a blanket. These outrages were committed in a family where the mistress daily read the scriptures, and assembled her children for family worship. She was accounted, and was really, so far as alms-giving was concerned, a charitable woman, and tender hearted to the poor; and yet this suffering slave, who was the seamstress of the family, was continually in her presence, sitting in her chamber to sew, or engaged in her other household work, with her lacerated and bleeding back, her mutilated mouth, and heavy iron collar, without, so far as appeared, exciting any feelings of compassion…
A friend of mine, in who veracity I have entire confidence, told me that about two years ago a woman in Charleston with whom I was well acquainted, had starved a female slave to death. She was confined in a solitary apartment, kept constantly tied, and condemned to the slow and horrible death of starvation. This woman was notoriously cruel. To those who have read the narrative of James Williams I need only say, that the character of young Larrimore’s wife is an exact description of this female tyrant, whose countenance was ever dressed in smiles when in the presence of strangers, but whose heart was s the nether millstone toward her slaves…”
Narrative and Testimony of Sarah M. Grimke
Recorded March 26, 1830
Fort Lee, Bergen County, New Jersey
Published by the American Anti-Slavery Society in New York in 1839
As part of:
“American Slavery as it is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses”
To learn more about Sarah Grimke, go to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Moore_Grimk%C3%A9
http://www.pbs.org/godinamerica/people/angelina-grimke.html
Great books on Sarah and her equally amazing sister, Angelina:
http://www.gerdalerner.com/the-grimke-sisters-from-south-carolina/
http://suemonkkidd.com/books/the-invention-of-wings/overview/ (fiction, but fabulous)
To learn more about the book, “Slavery as it was…,” go to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Slavery_as_It_Is
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/american-slavery-as-it-is
To get the full text of the book (for free), go to:
https://books.google.com/books?id=bSITAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=slavery+as+it+was&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi96s3XmcLcAhWnwFQKHWSLCrgQ6AEIKTAA =onepage&q=slavery%20as%20it%20was&f=false
