louisa picquet, the octoroon: or inside views of - Negro Artist

Louisa Picquet, the Octoroon 51
was thrown into the flames and consumed, to show that no such being had ever
existed. Nearly four thousand slaves from the neighboring plantations were
present as at a moral lesson written in characters of hell fire. Numerous
speeches were made by the magistrates and ministers of religion (facetiously so
called) to the slaves, warning them that the same fate awaited them if they
proved rebellious to their owners."
Read also the following, taken from the Alton (Ill.) Telegraph of April 30, 1836;
it is part of an account of a slaveburning published in that paper under that date:
"All was silent as death when the executioners were piling wood around their
victim. He said not a word, until feeling that the flames had seized upon him. He
then uttered an awful howl, attempting to sing and pray, then hang his head, and
suffered in silence, except in the following instance: After the flames had
surrounded their prey, his eyes burned out of his head, and his mouth seemingly
parched to a cinder, some one in the crowd, more compassionate than the rest,
proposed to put an end to his misery by shooting him, when it was replied, 'that
it would be of no use, since he was already out of pain.' 'No, no' said the wretch,
'I am not, I am suffering as much as ever; shoot me, me.' 'No, no,' said one of
the fiends who was standing about the sacrifice they were roasting, 'he shall not
be shot. I would sooner slacken the fire, if that would increase his misery,' and
the man who said this was, as we understand, an officer of justice.
"If any one wishes evidence of other negroes being burned in the State of
Missouri, I can furnish it--evidence of the burning of eight negroes within the
last ten years, and innumerable instances of negroes being burned throughout
the Slave States.
GILBERT J. GREENE."Tarrytown, N. Y., August 21, 1860."
Some time in the early part of 1860, Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, publicly denied
that slaves were ever burned alive at the South. This denial led to the collection
of quite an amount of
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testimony upon the subject, most of which was published in the New York
Tribune. We subjoin a few of these testimonies:
The editor of Hayneville (Ala.), Chronicle very justly observes:
24.03.2006