Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453, page 39 by Various Authors
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e; but his master falls into pecuniary difficulties; becomes indebted to a wretch, Haley, a dealer in slaves from the south; and he is obliged to part with so much live property to wipe out his obligations. It is arranged that Tom must go, and along with him a young female slave, Eliza, almost white, who is married, and has hitherto acted as lady's-maid to Mrs Shelby. Eliza's pretty boy, Harry, makes up the lot. The first point of interest in the narrative turns on Eliza and her child; and we cannot do better than allow the authoress to enter on the history of this unfortunate female slave and her husband. It is said to be drawn from the life.
'Eliza had been brought up by her mistress from girlhood as a petted and indulged favourite. The traveller in the south must often have remarked that peculiar air of refinement, that softness of voice and manner, which seems in many cases to be a particular gift to the quadroon and mulatto women. These natural graces in the quadroon are often united with beauty of the most dazzling kind, and in almost every case with a personal appearance prepossessing and agreeable. Eliza, such as we have described her, is not a fancy sketch, but taken from remembrance, as we saw her years ago in Kentucky. Safe under the protecting care of her mistress, Eliza had reached maturity without those temptations which make beauty so fatal an inheritance to a slave. She had been married to a bright and talented young mulatto man, who was a slave on a neighbouring estate, and bore the name of George Harris.
'This young man had been hired out by his master to work in a bagging factory, where his adroitness and ingenuity caused him to be considered the first hand in the place. He had invented a machine for the cleaning of the hemp, which, considering the education and circumstances of the inventor, displayed quite as much mechanical genius as Whitney's cotton-gin. He was possessed of a handsome person and pleasing manners, and was a general favourite in the factory. Nevertheless, as thi