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Adams, Nehemiah, 1806-1878

"The Sable Cloud A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861)"

I am so glad to find
people happy who I had supposed were weeping and wailing."
We admonished her that she had not seen the whole of slavery.
A very interesting coincidence happened to us the next day. We took tea
at Rev. Mr. ----'s. A splendid bride-cake adorned the table. As Hattie
was admiring the ornaments on the cake, the lady of the clergyman smiled
and said,--
"This is from a colored wedding."
Sure enough, that black bride whom we saw the day before had sent her
minister's wife this loaf. Said Miss ----, "I was hurrying to get a silk
dress made last week, but my dressmaker put me off, because she was
working for Phillis B.'s wedding."
We both gave a glance at Hattie. She sat gazing at Miss ----, her lips
partly open, her eyes moistened,--a picture in which delight and
incredulity were in pleasant strife.
* * * * *
We have been in the interior a fortnight. One thing filled me with
astonishment, soon after I came here, namely, to find widow ladies and
their daughters, all through the interior of Southern States, living
remote from other habitations, surrounded by twenty, fifty, or a hundred
slaves. Hattie and I spent a week with a widow lady, whose head slave
was her overseer.


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