For a quarter of a century there had been a steady concentration of
the slave population within the cotton and cane-growing region, the
grain-growing States of Delaware, Maryland and Virginia having become
to a considerable extent breeding farms. Particularly was this the
case with the more intelligent and higher developed individual slaves
who appeared near the border line. The master felt that such persons
would soon make their escape by way of the "Underground Railroad" or
otherwise, and hence in order to prevent a total loss, would follow
the dictates of business prudence and sell his bright slave man to
Georgia. The Maryland or Virginia slave who showed suspicious
aspirations was usually checked by the threat, "I'll sell you to
Georgia;" and if the threat did not produce the desired reformation it
was not long before the ambitious slave found himself in the gang of
that most despised and most despicable of all creatures, the Georgia
slave-trader. Georgia and Canada were the two extremes of the slave's
anticipation during the last decade of his experience. These stood as
his earthly Heaven and Hell, the "Underground Railroad," with its
agents, conducting to one, and the odious slave-trader, driving men,
women and children, to the other. No Netherlander ever hated and
feared the devil more thoroughly than did the slaves of the border
States hate and fear these outrages on mankind, the kidnapping
slave-traders of the cotton and cane regions.
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