but I think I have observed that your countrymen who have been obliged to work out their own fortunes here, have succeeded best with a small farm. labour indeed is dear here, but rents are low, and on the whole a reasonable profit & comfortable subsistance results. it is at the same time the...
a nailery which I have established with my own negro boys now provides completely for the maintenance of my family, as we make from 8. to 10,000 nails a day
His negroes are nourished, clothed, and treated as well as white servants could be. As he cannot expect any assistance from the two small neighbouring towns, every article is made on his farm; his negroes are cabinet-makers, carpenters, masons, bricklayers, smiths, &c. The children he employs...
a more general and certain means of providing for the instruction of the slaves, and more desireable as they would in the course of it be mixed with those of free condition. whether, for their happiness, it should extend beyond those destined to be free, is questionable. ignorance &...
as to the mode of emancipation, I am satisfied that that must be a matter of compromise between the passions the prejudices, & the real difficulties which will each have their weight in that operation. perhaps the first chapter of this history, which has begun in St Domingo, & the next...
the bill for continuing the suspension of intercourse with France & her dependencies is still before the Senate, but will pass by a very great vote. an attack is made on what is called Toussaint’s clause, the object of which, as is charged by the one party and admitted by the other, is to...
Could we procure lands beyond the limits of the US. to form a receptacle for these people? on our Northern boundary, the country not occupied by British subjects, is the property of Indian nations, whose title would be to be extinguished, with the consent of Great Britain; & the new settlers...
I observe that the resolution of the legislature of Virginia, of Jan. 23. in desiring us to look out for some proper place to which insurgent negroes may be sent, expresses a preference of the continent of Africa, or some of the Spanish or Portuguese settlements in S. America: in which preference...
The course of things in the neighboring islands of the West Indies appears to have given a considerable impulse to the minds of the slaves in different parts of the US. a great disposition to insurgency has manifested itself among them, which, in one instance, in the state of Virginia broke out...
I have long since given up the expectation of any early provision for getting in the extinguishment of slavery among us. there are many virtuous men who would make any sacrifices to effect it. many equally virtuous who persuade themselves either that the thing is not wrong, or that it cannot be...
I recieved last night a letter from mr Thomas Brannagan ... the cause in which he embarks is so holy, the sentiments he expresses in his letter so friendly that it is highly painful to me to hesitate on a compliance which appears so small. but that is not it’s true character, and it would be...
Those who work in the nailery, are Moses, Wormly, Jame Hubbard, Barnaby, Isbel’s Davy, Bedford John, Bedford Davy, Phill Hubbard, Bartlet, and Lewis. They are sufficient for 2 fires, five at a fire.
I congratulate you, fellow citizens, on the approach of the period at which you may interpose your authority constitutionally, to withdraw the citizens of the United states from all further participation in those violations of human rights, which have been so long continued on the unoffending...
I have received the favor of your letter of aug: 17. and with it the Volume you were so kind as to send me on the literature of negroes. be assured that no person living wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a complete refutation of the doubts I have myself entertained and expressed on the...
the retort, on European Censors, of their own practices on the liberties of man, the inculcation on the master of the moral duties which he owes to the slave, in return for the benefits of his service, that is to say, of food, cloathing, care in sickness, & maintenance under age &...
my houshold manufactures are just getting into operation on the scale of a Carding machine ... which may be worked by a girle of 12. years old, a Spinning machine ... carrying 6. spindles for wool, to be worked by a girl also, another ... carrying 12. spindles for cotton, & a loom, with a...
Your position that a small farm, well worked and well manned, will produce more than a larger one ill-tended, is undoubtedly true in a certain degree. there are extremes in this as in all other cases. the true medium may really be considered and stated as a Mathematical problem. ‘Given the...
we have in our family ... looms fixed with flying shuttles, which altho’ they do not perform the miracles ascribed to them, do, I think, double the effect of the common loom.
I am glad to learn that you are shewing us the way to supply ourselves with some of the most necessary tropical productions, and that the bette-rave, which we can all raise, promises to supplant the cane particularly, and to silence the demand for the inhuman species of labour employed in it’s...
our Spinners are taught to use them so completely as to ensure our being able to clothe our own people by the labor of a few of the least useful of them.