for their safety not
to leave one white skin alive, for this was the plan they pursued at St.
Domingo." And all this was not a mere dream of one lonely enthusiast,
but a measure which had been maturing for four full years among several
confederates, and had been under discussion for five months among
multitudes of initiated "candidates."

As usual with slave-insurrections, the best men and those most trusted
were deepest in the plot. Rolla was the only prominent conspirator who
was not an active Church-member. "Most of the ringleaders," says a
Charleston letter-writer of that day, "were the rulers or class-leaders
in what is called the African Society, and were considered faithful,
honest fellows. Indeed, many of the owners could not be convinced, till
the fellows confessed themselves, that they were concerned, and that the
first object of all was to kill their masters." And the first official
report declares that it would not be difficult to assign a motive for
the insurrectionists, "if it had not been distinctly proved, that, with
scarcely an exception, they had no individual hardship to complain
of, and were among the most humanely treated negroes in the city. The
facilities for combining and confederating in such a scheme were amply
afforded by the extreme indulgence and kindness which characterizes
the domestic treatment of our slaves. Many slave-owners among us, not
satisfied with ministering to the wants of their domestics by all the
comforts of abundant food and excellent clothing, with a misguided
benevolence have not only permitted their instruction, but lent to such
efforts their approbation and applause."

"I sympathize most sincerely," says the anonymous author of a pamphlet
of the period, "with the very respectable and pious clergyman whose
heart must still bleed at the recollection that his confidential
class-leader, but a week or two before his just conviction, had received
the communion of the Lord's Supper from his hand. This wretch had
been brought up in his pastor's family, and was treated with the same
Christian attention as was shown to their own children." "To us who are
accustomed to the base and proverbial ingratitude of these people this
ill return of kindness and confidence is not surprising; but they who
are ignorant of their real character will read and wonder."

One demonstration of this "Christian attention" had lately been the
closing of the African Church,--of which, as has been stated