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New York Morning Herald, September 9, 1839, p. 2.
NEW HAVEN, Sept. 6, 1839
MR. BENNETT:--The excitement respecting the Africans appears to be constantly increasing.
New Haven is usually a very quiet city, and any new topic that furnished matter for
conversation is seized upon with avidity, and every new idea thrown out in the course
of discussion is husbanded with great economy, and turned over, handled and viewed
in all possible aspects, until the whole string become tedious to a discriminating
observer. The capture of the negroes in our waters, and their confinement here are
events of great importance, and all the minor functionaries, who have had the good
luck to get a finger in the pie, have suddenly become of vast consequence in the
community. The jailor is making a little fortune out of the negroes. The admittance
fee is a shilling, and the prison is constantly crowded with visiters [sic]. Curious
people look at them as at any other beasts; and the skill of the keeper in showing
up the caravan is worthy of all praise. Dogberry himself could not have surpassed
the gravity of demeanor with which the jailor discharges his various and important
duties. Some amiable French philosopher says, that gravity is a mysterious carriage
of the body to hide some defect of the mind; but he was mistaken. Our jailor is a
living proof of the contrary. His mind is without defect, and his gravity would put
an owl out of countenance. I called today for the purpose of examining the boy Antonio,
agreably [sic] to a previous understanding, with a view of obtaining such facts,
respecting the slaves, and particularly the ringleaders, as might be interesting
to the public, but I was met with the assurance that Judge Judson had expressly interdicted
all communication with the boy, under the apprehension that he might be tampered
with, and his testimony rendered nugatory. Perhaps the very extraordinary
sympathy manifested for the slaves, by the Abolitionists and their abettors here
may have rendered this precaution necessary; but the supercilious insolence of larks
in office is "most intolerable, and not to be endured," nevertheless.
Another look at the blacks has satisfied me that the abolitionists and their Congo
interpretors[sic], are entirely at fault respecting the tribe to which they belong.
The poor devils are obviously from at least three distinct parts of Africa. Their
conformation is different, and many of them communicate with each other with great
difficulty. One of them, Quas [letters unclear. NAME NEEDS TO BE ACCURATE.] , who
assisted in murdering the captain, makes characters with a pen with considerable
despatch. To be sure, they resemble the tracks of a spider who should have escaped
from the inkstand with the palsy in a couple of his legs; but there is some apparent
method about them, and he seems to have an idea of their meaning. Whether he has
fallen in with some white men and acquired the art of writing imperfectly, or whether
they are mere marks that he makes to amuse himself, it is impossible to say.
It seems to me that the Abolitionists, and those most clamorous against slavery,
would do well to assist in getting these miserable wretches out of the country as
soon as possible. They constitute the most formidable argument in support of slavery
that I have ever yet met with. I had no conception that God's earth contained any
beings in human shape so utterly debased and dejected as these loathsome creatures.
the sympathy which is lavished on theunfortunate slaves at the South is entirely
misplaced if these blacks are to be taken as a fair specimen of any considerable
portion of the savages of Africa.--They are below the brutes that perish; and the
transition from the state of destitution and misery that they must have endured
in their native land, 'to the care of the most cruel slave-owner in this country
would be a merciful change to them. The twaddle about liberty is preposterous when
applied to such animals.
The better opinion seems now to be, that the blacks cannot be tried in Connecticut.
they were not captured in the limits of the State, and if they are not given up,
they must be removed to New York for trial.
