I suspected that these moans were from a tortured
slave, for I was told that this was the case in another instance.
Near Rio de Janeiro I lived opposite to an old lady, who kept
screws to crush the fingers of her female slaves. I have stayed in
a house where a young household mulatto, daily and hourly, was
reviled, beaten, and persecuted enough to break the spirit of the
lowest animal. I have seen a little boy, six or seven years old,
struck thrice with a horse-whip (before I could interfere) on his
naked head, for having handed me a glass of water not quite clean;
I saw his father tremble at a mere glance from his master's eye.
These latter cruelties were witnessed by me in a Spanish colony, in
which it has always been said that slaves are better treated than
by the Portuguese, English, or other European nations. I have seen
at Rio de Janeiro a powerful negro afraid to ward off a blow
directed, as he thought, at his face. I was present when a
kind-hearted man was on the point of separating forever the men,
women, and little children of a large number of families who had
long lived together. I will not even allude to the many
heart-sickening atrocities which I authentically heard of;--nor
would I have mentioned the above revolting details, had I not met
with several people, so blinded by the constitutional gaiety of the
negro as to speak of slavery as a tolerable evil.
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