Publisher's Synopsis
With Civil War on the horizon and bitter feelings growing on both sides, Reverend Horace Cowles Atwater made a three-month tour of the South in 1857 to see for himself the conditions of slavery. Much of what he found surprised him and much confirmed his worst fears.
In this account of his trip, he attempted an honest assessment of what he saw and heard. He asked questions, listened, talked to free African-Americans and slaves, as well as slaveholders and poor whites. Read this fascinating true story of the south just before the storm broke.
Atwater takes to task the tired expressions of benevolence expressed by the slave owners with whom he spoke. He heard from enslaved Americans themselves of their passionate desire for freedom.
"While I was on one plantation, the mothers were engaged in shucking corn near the "baby house" and were kept under lock and key during the hours of labor lest the mother, hearing the cry of her darling for that food which she alone could impart would have her maternal feelings so excited that she would rush to press her babe to her bosom. Northern mothers, who are so ready to listen to and answer the child's first cry of distress, will think that this feature of Slavery cannot be too strongly condemned."
Atwater saw and recorded worse than this on the eve of the war that ended slavery in America.
