Saturday, February 23, 2013
Saturday, February 09, 2013
Founding father trivia - Dolly Madison Slave-Dealer
Founding father trivia - Dolly Madison Slave-Dealer
"We wish we had not heard it."
The North Star
Friday, April 14, 1848
Mrs. Madison A Slave Dealer
The Albany Patriot contains a letter from its Washington Correspondent, relating certain facts concerning Mrs. Madison and her slaves which have occasioned us more pain and shame than any other narrative of horrors that has yet reached up from the pandemonium of Southern Slavery. The facts are not all without parallels, familiar and frequent, but the person implicated is one whom it is terrible to regard with the feelings which her conduct challenges. Mrs Madison is above eighty years of age, the widow of one of our most honored Presidents, and herself, we have been glad to believe, worthy of all the love and reverence which it does the heart so much good to render to those in whom the most glorious associations of our country center.
Three years ago she sold an old slave, who had been nurtured on Mr. Madison's farm, and had been his barber and dressing-man for a quarter of a century. He was purchased by a Northern Senator to save him from the cotton field, and is now working out the price of his freedom with his own hands. "Among other slaves," the writer says, "she owned a mother 50 odd years of age, and her daughter of fifteen. About three months ago, the old lady called this girl into the parlor one day, nominally to bring her some water, but really to show her to a Georgian as the colored people call the slave-drivers. The girl was quick on the scent, and at a glance perceived that she was to be sold. Her mistress, Mrs. Madison, agreed with the purchaser to send the unprotected child to the pump, at a certain hour on a day fixed upon, when he could conveniently seize and carry her off. The girl embraced an early opportunity to retire behind the scenes, and has not made her appearance on the stage since.
Immediately after this event, Mrs. Madison, either piqued a little at the loss of the daughter, or from her necessities, offered the mother for sale.--By great good luck she found a family in the city in want of a colored woman like herself. The price was paid to her mistress, and she is now at work with the prospect of freedom sometime. The reason assigned for Mrs. Madison's conduct in these cases is, that poverty and want forced it upon her."
Mr. Madison, it is said, left a good estate, including one hundred slaves. Mrs. Madison received $20,000 a few years ago from Congress, for her husband's manuscripts, and is now boring for $20,000 more for the balance of those same papers. Mrs. Madison is herself a mother, (by her first marriage,) and no degree of want that she could possibly suffer could tempt her, if she has a heart, to sell another's child away into Southern bondage. It was unmotherly, it was unwomanly, it was brutal to barter away the maiden virtue of that poor child; and it would have disgraced her widowhood no more to sell her husband's dead body to the surgeons, than this old barber to the soul-driver. His horse or dog would be treated with more tenderness by any washerwoman with an American heart in her, than this body-servant received from his wife. Out upon her--it would degrade our manhood to respect her if she were our own mother. Can it be true? Mrs. Madison a dealer in human flesh--a broker of maidenhood! "We wish we had not heard it."
http://www.libraryweb.org/~digitized/newspapers/north_star/vol.I.pdf
Mrs. Madison A Slave Dealer
The Albany Patriot contains a letter from its Washington Correspondent, relating certain facts concerning Mrs. Madison and her slaves which have occasioned us more pain and shame than any other narrative of horrors that has yet reached up from the pandemonium of Southern Slavery. The facts are not all without parallels, familiar and frequent, but the person implicated is one whom it is terrible to regard with the feelings which her conduct challenges. Mrs Madison is above eighty years of age, the widow of one of our most honored Presidents, and herself, we have been glad to believe, worthy of all the love and reverence which it does the heart so much good to render to those in whom the most glorious associations of our country center.
Three years ago she sold an old slave, who had been nurtured on Mr. Madison's farm, and had been his barber and dressing-man for a quarter of a century. He was purchased by a Northern Senator to save him from the cotton field, and is now working out the price of his freedom with his own hands. "Among other slaves," the writer says, "she owned a mother 50 odd years of age, and her daughter of fifteen. About three months ago, the old lady called this girl into the parlor one day, nominally to bring her some water, but really to show her to a Georgian as the colored people call the slave-drivers. The girl was quick on the scent, and at a glance perceived that she was to be sold. Her mistress, Mrs. Madison, agreed with the purchaser to send the unprotected child to the pump, at a certain hour on a day fixed upon, when he could conveniently seize and carry her off. The girl embraced an early opportunity to retire behind the scenes, and has not made her appearance on the stage since.
Immediately after this event, Mrs. Madison, either piqued a little at the loss of the daughter, or from her necessities, offered the mother for sale.--By great good luck she found a family in the city in want of a colored woman like herself. The price was paid to her mistress, and she is now at work with the prospect of freedom sometime. The reason assigned for Mrs. Madison's conduct in these cases is, that poverty and want forced it upon her."
Mr. Madison, it is said, left a good estate, including one hundred slaves. Mrs. Madison received $20,000 a few years ago from Congress, for her husband's manuscripts, and is now boring for $20,000 more for the balance of those same papers. Mrs. Madison is herself a mother, (by her first marriage,) and no degree of want that she could possibly suffer could tempt her, if she has a heart, to sell another's child away into Southern bondage. It was unmotherly, it was unwomanly, it was brutal to barter away the maiden virtue of that poor child; and it would have disgraced her widowhood no more to sell her husband's dead body to the surgeons, than this old barber to the soul-driver. His horse or dog would be treated with more tenderness by any washerwoman with an American heart in her, than this body-servant received from his wife. Out upon her--it would degrade our manhood to respect her if she were our own mother. Can it be true? Mrs. Madison a dealer in human flesh--a broker of maidenhood! "We wish we had not heard it."
http://www.libraryweb.org/~digitized/newspapers/north_star/vol.I.pdf
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