Up to this time the slave-trade had been looked upon most unfavorably by the people of the South. Among the first sermons I remember to have heard, was one depicting the horrors of this trade. I was by my grandmother's side at Bethany, in Greene county, and, though a child, I remember, as if of yesterday, the description of the manner of capturing the African in his native wilds—how the mother and father were murdered, and the boys and the girls borne away, and how England was abused for the cruel inhumanity of the act. Although unused to the melting mood, the old lady wiped from her eyes a tear, whether in sorrow or sympathy for outraged humanity, or in compliment to the pathos and power of her favorite preacher, I was too young to know or have an opinion. I remember well, however, that she cried, for she pinched me most unmercifully for laughing at her, and at home spanked me for crying. Dear old grandmother! but yesterday I was at your grave, where you have slept fifty-two years, and if I laughed above thy mould at the memory of the many bouts we had more than sixty years ago, and, from the blue bending above, thy spirit looked down in wrath upon the unnatural outrage, be appeased ere I come; for I should fear to meet thee, even in heaven, if out of humor! The roses bloomed above you—sweet emblems of thy purity and rest—and there, close by you, were the pear-trees, planted by your hands, around the roots of which you gathered the rods of my reformation; for I was a truant child. You meant it all for my good, no doubt; but to me it was passing through purgatory then, to merit a future good in time. Ah! how well I remember it—all of it. Requiescat in pace. I had almost irreverently said, "Rest, cat, in peace."
It was at this period that the competition for accumulating money may be said to have commenced in Middle Georgia. Labor became in great demand, and the people began to look leniently upon the slave-trade. The marching of Africans, directly imported, through the country for sale, is a memory of sixty-five years ago. The demand had greatly increased, and, with this, the price. The trade was to cease in 1808, and the number brought over was daily augmenting, to hasten to make from the traffic as much money as possible before this time should arrive. The demand, however, was greater than could be supplied. From house to house they were carried for sale. They were always young men and women, or girls and boys, and their clothing was of the simplest kind. That of the men and boys consisted of drawers, only reaching midway the thigh, from the waist. The upper portions of the person and the lower extremities were entirely nude. The females wore a chemise reaching a few inches below the knee, leaving bare the limbs. This was adopted for the purpose of exposing the person, as much as decency would permit, for examination, so as to enable the purchaser to determine their individual capacity for labor. This examination was close and universal, beginning with an inspection of the teeth, which in these young savages were always perfect, save in those where they had been filed to a point in front. This was not uncommon with the males. It was then extended to the limbs, and ultimately to the entire person. They were devoid of shame, and yielded to this inspection without the slightest manifestation of offended modesty. At first they were indifferent to cooked food, and would chase and catch and eat the grasshoppers and lizards with the avidity of wild turkeys, and seemed, as those fowls, to relish these as their natural food.
From such is descended the race which our Christian white brothers of the North have, in their devotion to their duty to God and their hatred to us, made masters of our destiny. Our faith in the justice and goodness of the same Divine Being bids us believe this unnatural and destructive domination will not be permitted to endure for any lengthy period. Could the curtain which veiled out the future sixty years ago, have been lifted, and the vision of those then subduing the land been permitted to pierce and know the present of their posterity, they would then have achieved a separation from our puritanical oppressors, and built for themselves and their own race, even if in blood, a separate government, and have made it as nature intended it should be to this favored land—a wise and powerful one.
Sooner or later these intentions of Divine wisdom are consummated. The fallible nature of man, through ignorance or the foolish indulgence of bad passions in the many, enable the few to delude and control the many, and to postpone for a time the inevitable; but as assuredly as time endures, nature's laws work out natural ends. Generations may pass away, perhaps perish from violence, and others succeed with equally unnatural institutions, making miserable the race, until it, like the precedent, passes from the earth. Yet these great laws work on, and in the end triumph in perfecting the Divine will.
To the wise and observant this design of the Creator is ever apparent; to the foolish and wicked, never.
John Wesley had visited Savannah, and travelled through the different settlements then in embryo, teaching the tenets and introducing the simple worship of the church of his founding, after a method established by himself, and which gave name and form to the sect, now, and almost from its incipiency known as Methodist. This organization and the tenets of its faith were admirably suited to a rude people, and none perhaps could have been more efficient in forming and improving such morals. Unpretending, simple in form, devoid of show or ceremony, it appealed directly to the purer emotions of our nature, and through the natural devotion of the heart lifted the mind to the contemplation and inspired the soul with the love of God. Its doctrines, based upon the purest morality, easily comprehensible, and promising salvation to all who would believe, inspiring an enthusiasm for a pure life, were natural, and naturally soon became wide-spread, and as the writer believes, has done more in breaking away the shackles of ignorance and debasing superstition from the mind, than any other system of worship or doctrine of faith taught by man; and to this, in a great degree, is due the freedom of thought, independence of feeling and action, chivalrous bearing, and high honor of the Southern people. Inculcating as it does the simple teachings of the gospel of Christ—to live virtuously—do no wrong—love thy neighbor as thyself, and unto all do as you would be done by—a teaching easy of comprehension, and which, when sternly enforced by a pure and elevated public sentiment, becomes the rule of conduct, and society is blessed with harmony and right. This moral power is omnipotent for good, concentrating communities into one without divisions or dissensions, to be wielded for good at once and at all times. Nothing evil can result from such concentration of opinions being directed by the vicious and wicked, so long as the moral of this faith shall control the mind and heart.
Camp-meetings, an institution of this church, and which were first commenced in Georgia, are a tradition there now. Here and there through the country yet remains, in ruinous decay, the old stand or extemporized pulpit from which the impassioned preacher addressed the assembled multitude of anxious listeners; and around the square now overgrown with brush-wood and forest-trees, prostrate and rotten, the remains of the cabin tents may be seen, where once the hospitality of the owners and worshippers was dispensed with a heartiness and sincerity peculiar to the simple habits, and honest, kindly emotions of a rude and primitive people.
How well do I remember the first of these meetings I ever witnessed! I was a small lad, and rode behind my father on horseback to the ground. It was sixty-five years ago. The concourse was large, consisting of the people of all the country around—men, women, and children, white and black. Around a square enclosing some six acres of ground, the tents were arranged—arbors of green boughs cut from the adjoining forest formed a shelter from the sun's rays. In front of all of these, shading the entrance