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BONDAGE AND FREEDOM

her to move on. Follow this drove to New Orleans. Attend the auction; see
men examined like horses; see the forms of women rudely and brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of American slave-buyers. See this drove sold
and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from
that scattered multitude. Tell me, citizens, where, under the sun, can you
witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. Yet this is but a glance at
the American slave trade, as it exists at this moment, in the ruling part of the
United States.

I was born amid such sights and scenes. To me the American slave trade
is a terrible reality. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of
its horrors. I lived on Philpot street, Fell's Point, Baltimore, and have
watched from the wharves the slave ships in the basin, anchored from the
shore, with their cargoes of human flesh, waiting for favorablc winds to waft
them down the Chesapeake. There was, at that time, a grand slave man kept
at the head of Pratt street, by Austin Woldfolk. His agents were sent into
every town and county in Maryland, announcing their arrival through the papers, and on flaming hand-bills, headed, "cash for negroes." These men were
generally well dressed, and very captivating in their manners; ever ready to
drink, to treat, and to gamble. The fate of many a slave has depended upon
the turn of a single card; and many a child has been snatched from the arms
of its mother by bargains arranged in a state of brutal drunkenness.

The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them,
chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. When a sufficient number have
been collected here, a ship is chartered, for the purpose of conveying the
forlorn crew to Mobile or to New Orleans. From the slave-prison to the
ship, they are usually driven in the darkness of night; for since the antislavery agitation a cenain caution is observed.

In the deep. still darkness of midnight, I have been often aroused by the
dead, heavy footsteps and the piteous cries of the chained gangs that passed
our door. The anguish of my boyish heart was intense; and I was often consoled, when speaking to my mistress in the morning, to hear her say that the
custom was very wicked; that she hated to hear the rattle of the chains, and
the heart-rending cries. I was glad to find one who sympathized with me in
my horror.

Fellow-citizens, this murderous traffic is to-day in active operation in
this boasted republic. In the solitude of my spirit, I see clouds of dust raised
on the highways of the south; I see the bleeding footsteps; I hear the doleful
wail of fettered humanity, on the way to the slave markets. where the victims are to be sold like horses, sheep, and swine, knocked off to the highest