Volume 1

Life of Benjamin Silliman : late professor of chemistry, mineralogy, and geology in Yale college : chiefly from his manuscript reminiscences, diaries, and correspondence / by George P. Fisher.

Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Life of Benjamin Silliman : late professor of chemistry, mineralogy, and geology in Yale college : chiefly from his manuscript reminiscences, diaries, and correspondence / by George P. Fisher. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    45/435 page 22
    island he came,) was an able man, but now having no mas- ter, he was bold and sometimes impudent to my mother. His wife. Sue, was kind and faithful. A sense of integrity alone induces me to record these painful facts regarding the participation of our family in the sin and shame of slavery. I trust that we have been for many years cleared of these injuries to our fel- low-men, and our nation is now settling an awful account with heaven for the accumulated guilt of more than two centuries, for which we are paying the heavy penalty of our blood Domestic slavery was extensively diffused through these colonies, in a mild form indeed, — the men working on the farms, and the women generally in the house, more rarely on the land, especially during harvest-time and haying. The dairy was managed chiefly by the women, with occa- sional help from the men in milking. In general, the ti'eatment was not severe; the lash was rarely used on human beings, and never on women. In general, the slaves, especially on the farms, fared as to food as their masters did. The in-door servants were often favorites with the family, and especially with the children. In the North, slaves rarely became fugitives, and were never hunted by the gun and the blood-hound, and were never loaded with the ball and chain, or with the iron collar; nor, in general, were they overtasked with labor. Eng- land, froni the planting of Virginia, forced slavery and the slave-trade upon the colonies. On this subject, even the Puritans, to a certain extent, followed the bad example of the cavaliers of the South. The Quakers, however, stood out as a noble exception, and are in general con- sistent opposers of slavery to this day. As regards my paternal family, I am sure it was a wasteful institution, not to mention its injustice. ]My father would have been much better off with his legal business alone, than with the horde of negro servants who consumed the products
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3