Isaac Hammer, "the bearer of the petitions of a very considerable number of the Citizens of Several Counties of this State" that concern the plight "of the African race, who are suffering in Slavery," decries "the suffering of this people" and offers examples of the cruelties of bondage. He relates that a man was "sold and Iron'd in a most barbarous manner and taken down the Mississippi," forced to leave his wife and eight children; that the owner of a female slave bearing children "would not let her suckle them because it would hinder her from her work"; and that "another woman who was about to be sold, from her husband and two children, she went on her knees to her mistress, a widow, to sell one of her Children with her, but all was refus'd ... She went in her frenzy and drowned her two Children." Hammer thinks "that it is not possible for this present legislature, to pass any one act that would do more honour to this state, and to the Members of the present legislature, than one that would provide to protect this suffering race of beings, from the cruelties they are exposed to."
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Repository: Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee
