nhabitants is, of course, the same all over the plantation, and if
I were to describe them I should but weary you with a repetition of
identical phenomena: filthy, wretched, almost naked, always bare-legged
and bare-footed children; negligent, ignorant, wretched mothers, whose
apparent indifference to the plight of their offspring, and utter
incapacity to alter it, are the inevitable result of their slavery. It is
hopeless to attempt to reform their habits or improve their condition
while the women are condemned to field labour; nor is it possible to
overestimate the bad moral effect of the system as regards the women
entailing this enforced separation from their children and neglect of all
the cares and duties of mother, nurse, and even house-wife, which are all
merged in the mere physical toil of a human hoeing machine. It seems to me
too--but upon this point I cannot, of course, judge as well as the persons
accustomed to and acquainted with the physical capacities of their
slaves--that the labour is not judiciously distributed in many cases; at
least, not as far as the women are concerned. It is true that every
able-bodied woman is made the most of in being driven a-field as long as
under all and any circumstances she is able to wield a hoe; but on the
other hand, stout, hale, hearty girls and boys, of from eight to twelve
and older, are allowed to lounge about filthy and idle, with no pretence
of an occupation but what they call 'tend baby,' i.e. see to the life and
limbs of the little slave infants, to whose mothers, working in distant
fields, they carry them during the day to be suckled, and for the rest of
the time leave them to crawl and kick in the filthy cabins or on the
broiling sand which surrounds them, in which industry, excellent enough
for the poor babies, these big lazy youths and lasses emulate them. Again,
I find many women who have borne from five to ten children rated as
workers, precisely as young women in the prime of their strength who have
had none; this seems a cruel carelessness. To be sure, while the women are
pregnant their task is diminished, and this is one of the many indirect
inducements held out to reckless propagation, which has a sort of premium
offered to it in the consideration of less work and more food,
counterbalanced by none of the sacred responsibilities which hallow and
ennoble the relation of parent and child; in short, as their lives are for
the most part those of mere animals,