Robert Sutcliff, an English Quaker, arrived in the United States on a business trip in 1804. Over the next three years, he recorded his travels in the country and published his experiences as a book in 1812. In the following excerpts, Sutcliff describes his encounters with the institution of slavery in the area around Richmond, Virginia, which include a reference to Gabriel’s Conspiracy, and then in the last segment, near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
9th Month, 25th [1804].
I pursued my way to Richmond in the mail stage, through a beautiful country, but clouded and debased by Negro slavery. At the house where I breakfasted, which is called the Bowling-green, I was told that the owner had in his possession 200 slaves. In one field near the house, planted with tobacco, I counted nearly 20 women and children, employed in picking grubs from the plant. In the afternoon I passed by a field in which several poor slaves had lately been executed, on the charge of having an intention to rise against their masters. A lawyer who was present at their trials at Richmond, informed me that on one of them being asked what he had to say to the court on his defence, he replied in a manly tone of voice: “I have nothing more to offer than what General Washington would have had to offer, had he been taken by the British and put to trial by them. I have adventured my life in endeavouring to obtain the liberty of my countrymen, and am a willing sacrifice in their cause: and I beg, as a favour, that I may be immediately led to execution. I know that you have pre-determined to shed my blood, why then all this mockery of a trial?” . . .
8th Month, 15th [1805].
I spent this day at Richmond. In the evening I walked to Manchester, over the bridge at James’s River, which at this place is nearly half a mile wide. From my own observations, and the information I received from an inhabitant, Richmond appears to be a place of great dissipation; chiefly arising from the loose and debauched conduct of the white people with their black female slaves. It sometimes happens here, as in other places, that the white inhabitants, in selling the offspring of these poor debased females, sell their own sons and daughters with as much indifference as they would sell their cattle. By such means, every tender sentiment of the human breast is laid waste, and men become so degraded that their feelings rank but little above those of the beasts in the field. In their treatment of their offspring, how far do some of the brute creation surpass them! . . .
1st Month, 25th [1806].
In crossing the Schuylkill [River, at Philadelphia] on the floating bridge at the upper ferry, I passed a Negro boy apparently about 12 years of age. Round his neck an iron collar was locked, and from each side of it an iron bow passed over his head. His dress was a light linsey jacket and trowsers, without hat, shoes, or stockings. Soon after passing the boy, whom I supposed to be a runaway slave, I met a person of whom I inquired the reason of the boy’s having so much iron about him. The man replied that the boy was his, and was so often running away that he had used that method to prevent him.
Source: Robert Sutcliff, Travels in Some Parts of North America, in the Years 1804, 1805, and 1806 (Philadelphia: B&T Kite, 1812), 50, 94, 181.