rmans and Irish, who, although
there is no professed distinction, bargain for a deck-passage, the
charge being better suited to their means. Amongst the objects that
arrested my attention, as our vessel floated majestically down the
turbid current, were gibbets standing on the banks, depending from
several of which were short chains, doubtless required occasionally in
carrying out this kind of discipline. As the horrifying objects occurred
at intervals of a few miles, I at first imagined they were cranes used
to lower bales of cotton into the holds of vessels, and addressing a
passenger whose physiognomy prepossessed me in his favour, and who had
several times shown a disposition to impart the knowledge he possessed
concerning the objects around, he soon convinced me of my mistake,
adding, that such engines were as necessary to the proper discipline of
the negroes in that latitude as the overseer himself. He then proceeded
to detail several instances of fugitive negroes being dragged in capture
to the foot of the gallows, where, with halter-encircled necks, they
were made not only to acknowledge the error committed and expose
accessories, but "pumped dry," as he facetiously termed it, as to the
intended flight of other negroes on the estate. Sometimes, he said, it
was necessary to suspend the culprit for a moment or so, to intimidate,
but this was only in cases where the victim (he used the word rascal)
was inclined to be sullen, and refused readily to give the required
information. I inquired whether it ever occurred that actual execution
took place; to this my new acquaintance replied, "Wall, yes, where the
nigger had dar'd to strike a white man;" but that it was usual to go to
a magistrate first, in such cases. The appearance of these gibbets,
after the information I had received respecting them from my
slave-holding acquaintance, made my flesh creep as we steamed onwards,
the more so as, in many of the grounds skirting the river, where these
sombre murky-looking objects presented themselves to the gaze of the
traveller, gangs of negroes were at work, looking up complacently for a
moment as the vessel glided by. I was subsequently told by a gentleman
who had been long resident in the state of Louisiana, that no punishment
so effectually strikes with terror the negro mind, as that of hanging,
the very threat being sufficient to subdue (in general) the most
hardened offenders. This I do not wonder at, for perhaps there a