Electronic Resource
E-book Clotelle : A Tale of the southern states
With the growing population in the Southern States, the increase of
mulattoes has been very great. Society does not frown upon the man
who sits with his half-white child upon his knee whilst the mother
stands, a slave, behind his chair. In nearly all the cities and
towns of the Slave States, the real negro, or clear black, does
not amount to more than one in four of the slave population. This
fact is of itself the best evidence of the degraded and immoral
condition of the relation of master and slave. Throughout the
Southern States, there is a class of slaves who, in most of the towns, are permitted to hire their time from their owners, and who
are always expected to pay a high price. This class is the mulatto
women, distinguished for their fascinating beauty. The handsomest
of these usually pay the greatest amount for their time. Many of
these women are the favorites of men of property and standing, who
furnish them with the means of compensating their owners, and not a
few are dressed in the most extravagant manner.
When we take into consideration the fact that no safeguard is
thrown around virtue, and no inducement held out to slave-women to
be pure and chaste, we will not be surprised when told that
immorality and vice pervade the cities and towns of the South to
an extent unknown in the Northern States. Indeed, many of the
slave-women have no higher aspiration than that of becoming the
finely-dressed mistress of some white man. At negro balls and
parties, this class of women usually make the most splendid
appearance, and are eagerly sought after in the dance, or to
entertain in the drawing-room or at the table.
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