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

Louisa Picquet, the Octoroon 56
the regulators, and certain circumstances
Page 60
seeming in some degree to corroborate Ike's statement, stakes were driven into
the ground, and the two slaves chained to them. A large quantity of fat pine was
piled around them, and J. L. M-- set it on fire! In a few minutes, nothing out
charred and blackened corpses remained. A subscription was circulated to
indemnify the owners for their losses.
Mr. Norrell told me that when the flames were rising ten feet above Jack's head,
he said to the dying slave, "I have raised you, Jack, and I never caught you in a
lie. You are going to die! nothing can save you; and now, tell me truly, as you
hope for heaven, are you guilty?" Jack answered from the flames, "Master, I
don't know any more about it than you do." Mr. Norrell and all his family
believed Jack to have been innocent, and shed tears as they spoke of him.
The act of burning turpentine upon the lacerated back, I had from the lips of Mr.
M--himself, who rather boasted of his ingenuity in thus eliciting testimony when
ordinary means had failed.
I have given true names and can give the names of more than one hundred men
in the vicinity, and I am ready at any time to make affidavit to what I have
stated.
CORYDON E. FULLER.
------
Such is the barbarism of slavery. And let no man say that these "evils" of
slavery are no part of the system, and not justly chargeable to it. As well may
we expect drunkenness without broils and litigation, and idleness and
destitution, as to expect to hold men and women in slavery without scourgings,
and thumb-screws, and murder, and almost every species of torture.
God never made a man to be a slave, and no measure of cruelty can reduce an
immortal spirit, made in the image of God, to entire submission to life-long
bondage. Hence, while slavery exists, chains, and thumb-screws, and slavemaiming,
and slave-burnings must exist, as the only means by which one race
can be kept in a state of even partial submission to another. And even with all
these terrors before them, the wonder is that the slaves do not arise, and assert
their freedom at all hazards.
24.03.2006