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The slave-auction

Chapter 4: THE CHRISTIAN SLAVE.
By John Theophilus Kramer
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About This Book

The author offers a firsthand, moral indictment of slavery, opening with a preface that frames his aim to examine whether slavery can coexist with Christian principles. Through vivid scene-setting of a Southern auction hall—its polished comforts, the proprietor and auctioneer, and the assembled slaves presented for sale—he juxtaposes genteel surroundings with human degradation. Eyewitness narrative follows the crowd and the enslaved individuals, recounting familial separations and the inner conscience of owners, and develops ethical arguments that slavery corrupts religion, destroys family life, and contradicts civilization and Christian redemption.

THE CHRISTIAN SLAVE.

BY J. G. WHITTIER.

[In a publication of L. F. Tasistro, ‘Random Shots and Southern Breezes,’ is a description of a slave auction at New Orleans, at which the auctioneer recommended the woman on the stand as ‘a good Christian!’]

A Christian! going, gone!
Who bids for God’s own image?—for His grace
Which that poor victim of the market-place
Hath in her suffering won?
My God! can such things be?
Hast thou not said that whatsoe’er is done
Unto Thy weakest and Thy humblest one,
Is even done to Thee?
In that sad victim, then,
Child of Thy pitying love, I see Thee stand,
Once more the jest-word of a mocking band,
Bound, sold, and scourged again!
A Christian up for sale!
Wet with her blood your whips—o’ertask her frame,
Make her life loathsome with your wrong and shame,
Her patience shall not fail!
Cheers for the turbaned Bey
Of robber-peopled Tunis! he hath torn
The dark slave-dungeons open, and hath borne
Their inmates into day:
But our poor slave in vain
Turns to the Christian shrine her aching eyes—
Its rites will only swell her market price,
And rivet on her chain.
God of all right! how long
Shall priestly robbers at Thine altar stand,
Lifting in prayer to Thee the bloody hand
And haughty brow of wrong!
O, from the fields of cane,
From the low rice-swamp, from the trader’s cell—
From the black slave-ship’s foul and loathsome hell,
And coffle’s weary chain—
Hoarse, horrible, and strong,
Rises to heaven that agonizing cry,
Filling the arches of the hollow sky,
How long, O Lord, how long!