A Southside View of Slavery

**This is an retypeset reprint edition of an historical book originally published in the 1800s. It does not advocate racial discrimination or bigotry in today's society.**

Few who agitated against Southern slavery in the Nineteenth Century had ever seen it with their own eyes. Himself an Abolitionist, Nehemiah Adams journeyed from Boston to the South to witness the "horrors" of slavery for himself. Instead of the expected scenes of cruel bondage, what he found was a well-ordered society in which the Negroes were mainly content, well-cared for by their masters, and even evangelized. The author warns his Northern brethren that a continued assault upon the South's "peculiar institution" would lead to a destruction of the Union and the ultimate ruin of the Black population. Of particular interest is the chapter written in response to Harriet Beecher Stowe's fictional romance, Uncle Tom's Cabin.

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Nehemiah Adams (1806-1878) was a native of Salem, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University in 1826, and from Andover Theological Seminary in 1829. He served as minister at the First Congregational Church in Cambridge and at Union Congregational Church in Boston, as well as an officer of the American Tract Society. Due to illness, he took leave of his ministerial duties in 1854 to spend three months traveling in parts of Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia, where he had opportunity to observe first-hand the institution of Southern slavery. Having imbibed the Abolitionist sentiments so prevalent in his home State, Adams was surprised to find the condition of the Negroes to be very different from what he had anticipated. His book was subjected to hostile criticism for its call for moderation from the North in its opposition to slavery, and for his stated belief that servitude had proven to be generally beneficial to the Negroes' religious character. Shortly after returning from a global voyage, Adams died in Boston at the age of 72.