FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   196   197  
198   199   200   201   202   203   204   205   206   207   208   209   210   211   212   213   214   215   216   217   218   219   220   221   222   >>   >|  
dom stilled within these accursed walls. BERNARD, DUKE OF SAXE-WEIMAR EISENACH, _Travels through North America during the years 1825 and 1826_, pp. 61-63. THE CONDITIONS AGAINST WHICH WOOLMAN AND ANTHONY BENEZET INVEIGHED Impressions of Jasper Danckaerts in 1679-1680 Servants and negroes are chiefly employed in the culture of tobacco, who are brought from other places to be sold to the highest bidders, the servants for a term of years only, but the negroes for ever, and may be sold by their masters to other planters as many times as their masters choose, that is, the servants until their term is fulfilled, and the negroes for life. These men, one with another, each make, after they are able to work, from 2,500 pounds to 3,000 pounds and even 3,500 pounds of tobacco a year, and some of the masters and their wives who pass their lives here in wretchedness, do the same. The servants and negroes after they have worn themselves down the whole day, and come home to rest, have yet to grind and pound the grain, which is generally maize, for their masters and all their families as well as themselves, and all the negroes, to eat. Tobacco is the only production in which the planters employ themselves, as if there were nothing else in the world to plant but that, and while the land is capable of yielding all the productions that can be raised any where, so far as the climate of the place allows. As to articles of food, the only bread they have is that made of Turkish wheat or maize, and that is miserable. They plant this grain for that purpose everywhere. It yields well, not a hundred, but five or six hundred for one; but it takes up much space, as it is planted far apart like vines in France. This grain, when it is to be used for men or for similar purposes, has to be first soaked, before it is ground or pounded, because the grains being large and very hard, can not be broken under the small stones of their light hand-mills; and then it is left so coarse it must be sifted. They take the finest for bread, and the other for different kinds of groats, which, when it is cooked is called sapaen or homina. The meal intended for bread is kneaded moist without leaven or yeast, salt or grease, and generally comes out of the oven so that it will hardly hold together, and
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   180   181   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   196   197  
198   199   200   201   202   203   204   205   206   207   208   209   210   211   212   213   214   215   216   217   218   219   220   221   222   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

negroes

 

masters

 

servants

 

pounds

 

hundred

 

tobacco

 
planters
 
generally
 

planted

 

purpose


articles

 

climate

 

yielding

 

productions

 

raised

 

yields

 

Turkish

 

miserable

 

finest

 
groats

cooked

 

sifted

 

coarse

 

called

 

leaven

 

kneaded

 

intended

 

sapaen

 
homina
 

soaked


capable

 

ground

 

grease

 

similar

 

purposes

 
pounded
 

broken

 

stones

 

grains

 

France


INVEIGHED

 
Impressions
 

Jasper

 

Danckaerts

 

BENEZET

 

ANTHONY

 
AGAINST
 

WOOLMAN

 

highest

 
bidders