Foreword ^{6 6} Dik translates terms that he suspects his readers will not understand; for a difficult word of Germanic origin (here, forbarikht), he suggests a term common in Jewish discourse (hakdome.)

Slavery was instituted among all peoples and in all lands since time immemorial. Even in our Torah, which is the oldest book in the world, sufficient evidence of this shameful trade in human beings is found, for example, when Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers. ^{7 7} Genesis 37:27-28. Dik refers to the selling of Joseph, a biblical narrative that serves as a basis for traditional Ashkenazi folk theater. For another central representation of Joseph’s enslavement in nineteenth century Ashkenazi performance, see Eliakum Zunser, Maḥaze mekhires̀ Yoysef: eyn teater shtik in zibin aktn un in zibetsn tsenen (Vilna: Bidfus ha-almanakh vẹha-ahịm Rom, 1893). It is said that the trade stems from a phrase that Noah cursed upon his son Ham, when he rebuked him with these words: “a slave of slaves he shall be unto his brethren.” ^{8 8} Genesis 9:2. All biblical translations are by Robert Alter. On the identification of dark-skinned Africans with the biblical Cushite, see Jonathan Schorsch, Jews and Blacks in the Early Modern World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004) and David M Goldenberg The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2003). Biblical quotations appear in Hebrew in Dik’s original, while he often paraphrases, explains, or interprets them in Yiddish directly after the quotation, a common practice in Yiddish. So it appears in the holy tales that slavery began with the Negroes (Moors) who descend from Ham and came to be called Cushites by us Jews. ^{9 9} Dik is referring to popular Old Yiddish texts: the Tsenerene, a commentary on the weekly Torah reading, and the Mayse-bukh, a collection of didactic folktales, both of which make reference to Moors in various editions. And only later did this “evil” spread over the white man as well, who descends from Shem and Japheth. ^{10 10} Shem, Japheth, and Ham are the sons of Noah. The three sons came to represent the unity of human languages and races. Later, Noah’s sons were used to organize ethnology and geography around notions of biblical genealogy. See Maurice Olender The Languages of Paradise: Race, Religion, and Philology in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992).

Therefore slavery, among both white and black peoples, should be seen as merely a historical law. (This means a law that has its foundation firmly in ancient history and in ancient times. Especially, as in this case, in which it appears in our Torah to have originated from a single curse.) It is not, however, a rational law. (This means a law that is grounded in the genuine evidence of unchangeable human understanding, as in calculating “two times two equals four.”) ^{11 11} Historical Law (Historischesrecht) is contrasted with rational law (Vernunftrecht.) These terms also appear in Kant and by extension in German Enlightenment discourse of nature. See P. Abela, “The Demands of Systematicity: Rational Judgment and the Structure of Nature,” in A Companion to Kant, ed. G. Bird (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 408–22; Tal Kogman, “Jewish Maskilim Observe Nature: A Personal Story or a Literary Model of the Enlightenment?” Zion 78 (2013): 379-93; Kogman, “Intercultural Contacts in Haskalah Texts on Natural Sciences,” in The Varieties of Haskalah, ed. Israel Bartal and Shmuel Feiner (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2005), 29-42. Because genuine human intelligence shows that slavery is opposed to reason, and proves that whatever nation we may reside in and whatever color we were born, we are created alike, as brothers, like children from one father. And this too, is the opinion of our holy books. As Job proclaims in his book, “If I did spurn the cause of my slave, or of my slave-girl, when they contended with me, what then shall I do when God rises up? And when He remembers, what shall I answer Him? Did not He that made me in the womb make him? And did not One fashion us in the womb?” ^{12 12} Job 31:13.
This means, I have scorned the right of my servants to quarrel with me. But then I thought: what will I do when God takes me to account? Did not the same one who created me create them? Did not one Master form us in our mother’s womb? ^{13 13} IMD: “From these humanitarian words of his it is clear that this holy man had only servants or maids that worked for monetary wages and which were not chattel slaves. These words: ‘my slave’ mean only he who is paid and nothing less. Sturdy evidence for this is found in that the book does not count the number of his servants as it does his oxen, camel, and sheep. And Job also calls his servants simply ‘boys’ with the same words that he uses to refer to his own children. It fell upon the children, and they died. [Job 1:19]”
In that case, we have no right to sell one another, nor even ourselves, just like the children of Jacob had no right to sell their brother Joseph, because every person is a portion of God above, as the verse tells us: In the image of God I made Man. ^{14 14} Genesis 1:27. The four color scheme is likely based on the first edition of Carl Linnaeus’ Systema Naturae: ”Europæus albus” (white European), “Americanus rubescens” (red American), “Asiaticus fuscus” (brown Asian) and “Africanus niger” (black African). God made Man with his own form, and he did not make more than two people, and from them man came forth in many colors: white, black, brown, and red. ^{15 15} IMD: “There is great disagreement among physiologists (natural scientists) over the reason for the Moors’ blackness. [shvartskeyt. Popular in nineteenth century discourse, scientific racism denotes ostensibly scientific methods to justify racist attitudes and worldviews. Racism is based on belief in the existence and significance of racial categories, but extends this into a hierarchy between the races to support political or ideological positions of racial supremacy. Dik is specifically referencing the debate over the origin of the human races. Monogenists argued that human races descended from a single pair of ancestors (usually Adam and Eve), while polygenists argued that races descended from multiple pairs of ancestors.] One side argues that they are descended from another species of man. The other side argues that they have become black merely from the sun that burns strongly in Africa, where Moors live. [Environmental determinism, sometimes called climactic determinism, is an older belief that physical environment predisposes human populations towards certain trajectories. Dik is arguing against the belief that hotter climates with intense sunshine caused human skin to darken. See James R. Fleming. Historical Perspectives on Climate Change. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998),. Pg. 11-20.] Both opinions are incorrect. The first is false because the Torah tells us that humans descend from a single couple. The other opinion is also incorrect, because we see that Jews, who have lived in Africa for so long, are white. Thus, the most sensible seems to be the opinion of our Rabbis, who say that because Canaan was conceived in the ark, he came out black from his mother’s womb. [BT Sanhedrin 108b.] Dik follows Rashi’s interpretation that Canaan and his descendants had their skin transformed as a result of Ham’s fornication in the ark. Dik rejects the notion that illicit sex darkens the skin but makes use of environmental determinism within the biblical framework.] This is because in the time of the flood there was massive destruction in nature. Then there was a thick fog. The sun did not shine. As our sages say, all the planets stopped their movement. This greatly affected Canaan, so much so that he did not come out of the womb white. One can see instinctively that the sunshine affects everything, plants and animals. Blacks are born white, but in some days [of darkness] become black. Other Moors have white hands, white blotches on their faces, which we read in Midrash Tanhuma.” [This reflects Romanelli’s remarks about the slave market in Morocco, which the author connects to Midrash Tanhuma’s oblique description of Ham’s descendants. See Samuele Romanelli. Masa Be-ʻarav: Hu Sefer Ha-Ḳorot Asher...ʻalu ʻalai Ṿeha-Masa Asher Haziti Bi-Gelilot Maʻarav ... Ben Ba-Yehudim Ben Ba-ʻaraviʼim (Berlin: Hinukh ne’arim, 1792)] Because of this, we find that our Torah severely forbids slavery among our nation. No Jew may be sold for his entire life; barely for seven years [should he toil]. Additionally he must be treated very humanely, one could not make him do excruciating labor.

Also no shameful work is allowed: “Ye shall not rule over one another with rigor.” ^{16 16} Leviticus 25:43 See, our rabbis have decreed that a Hebrew slave need not haul water to the public bath for his master. ^{17 17} The Hebrew slave should not be humiliated. Maimonides. Mishnah Torah, Laws of Slaves, Chapter 1, Law 7. When he finishes his time as a slave, his master must present him with blessings for his home: “Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock.” ^{18 18} Deuteronomy 15:12-15
This means they should lend beauty to and crown his dwelling with all the goods found in their own stables. The rabbis summed it up like this: “He who acquires a Hebrew slave acquires a master upon himself.” ^{19 19} Babylonian Talmud, Kiddushin 2a, 40b Our Torah also takes care to support the Canaanite slave. If his master punched out his eye or a tooth, he was thenceforth free. If he died under the lash of his master, his master is killed, just as if he had killed a free Jew. The Torah allowed the Canaanite slave to serve forever only because other tribes allowed a Hebrew slave to serve them forever. ^{20 20} Maimonides, Mishnah Torah, Laws of Slaves, Chapter 4. Just as the Torah allowed us to charge non-Jews interest because non-Jews allowed themselves to charge interest to Jews.

In those times, however, slavery was not the same among other peoples who were already highly civilized. They took slaves from among their own brothers and treated them worse than their dogs. Though both Spartans and Helots were from the Greek nation, they [Spartans] oppressed them [Helots] and made them slaves. Their children learned to aim at them with their bows and arrows. Even Plato, the greatest of Greece’s sages, writes in his Laws that a slave does not have the right to defend himself. The Romans were known to restrain their naked slaves in a doorframe and chain them up.

The Romans also have a law that one should kill all the slaves that are found in a house where the master has been killed. With this law as justification, the hangmen killed four hundred slaves in the town square because they found the masters struck dead. There is also a law that elderly slaves who can no longer work are set down on an island in the river Tiber to starve. ^{21 21} “The custom of exposing old, useless, or sick slaves in an island of the Tyber, there to starve, seems to have been pretty common in Rome.” Cicero, Marcus T, and Cyrus R. Edmonds. Cicero’s Three Books of Offices, or Moral Duties: Also His Cato Major, an Essay on Old Age; Lælius, an Essay on Friendship; Paradoxes; Scipio’s Dream; and Letter to Quintus on the Duties of a Magistrate. New York: Harper, 1855. The great general Cato did this with all his old slaves, and afterward fed his dogs with their flesh. There was also a law, that if a man caught someone who shot a hare in another’s forest, he had the right to defend himself by claiming that he was actually aiming at an old slave.” ^{22 22} “And yet a man will shoot a Negro with as little emotion as he shoots a hare, several instances of which have come within my own knowledge.” Benjamin West’s original letter, which describes slavery in South Carolina, is found in the Smithsonian. It was likely quoted or reprinted in abolitionist literature. West, Benjamin, and James S. Schoff. Life in the South, 1778-1779. Ann Arbor, William L. Clements Library, 1963. pg 33. Well, my dear reader, ^{23 23} Here and elsewhere Dik addresses a female reader, “lezerin,” though he was widely read by men and women. you ought to see how humane is our own Torah in this field, when compared to all these tyrannical laws, and all the more in other matters as well. Moses deservedly boasted about this: “And what great nation is there, that hath statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?” ^{24 24} Deuteronomy 4:8 That means: and where in the world can be found such a great and civilized nation that has such righteous laws and such just judgments as are found in this Torah that I give to you now? Take note, and rejoice, because you belong to such a noble lineage that has been imbued with humanity (compassion toward man) from time immemorial.

I did wrong, my dear reader, to tell you about the tyrannical practice of slavery that existed in ancient times and how it was among the ancient people who have left no trace. All that might seem to you only a fable, while I have so much to explain about the slave trade in England, France and even in Poland. ^{25 25} It appears that Dik means to suggest the opposite. Providing an overview of slavery in ancient societies is meant to illuminate the novel at hand. It is likely that Dik had read early editions of Isaac Baer Levinsohn’s Zerubavel (1863, Leipzig) that briefly mentions the horrors of colonial slavery in comparable terms. See Isaac Baer Levinsohn. Zerubavel (Warsaw, 1886), 70-73. Not long ago in these nations, which still exist in our civilized Europe today, it was entirely commonplace to see peasants traded for horses and dogs, whipped excessively and worked endlessly. What’s more, my dear reader, you probably remember this yourself. Well, thank God that this has ceased in Europe—in France, England, and Germany, about a century ago! In our own land, these laws have only recently been repealed. Alexander the First only had time to free the peasants of Courland. The blessed Emperor Nikolai I freed the peasants from the Crown Lands, and made it illegal to sell someone away from his family. He restrained the nobility from tyrannizing and oppressing the peasants at their will.

His son Alexander the Second, our beloved Emperor, our monarch who governs now in our land (may his royal majesty reign!); he has done much more in this matter than the previous rulers. He has freed the peasants in their entirety and wiped away this dishonor from his subjects. In this matter he was truly the greatest in Europe! He - with his own noble will - freed over twenty five million serfs who had been languishing in the deepest slavery for an inconceivably long time. Well, we can rightly quote our sages: “The benefit of a good deed is due to one who completes it.” ^{26 26} Credit for the performance of a biblical commandment is reserved for the person who completes the commandment. When Moses is unable to bury Joseph’s bones in Shechem, the credit goes not to Moses, but to the Children of Israel, who complete the burial. See Midrash Tanhuma and Rashi on Parashat Eikev. This means that merit is due to the person who completes the good deed, and not to the one who begins it. No other except his majesty has done such an act of charity, which will remain, eternally in memory, from generation to generation. His deeds will outlast all marble monuments and statues. Indeed, all becomes dust in the end. But a good deed does not age—with every year it is enriched by beautiful legends, and he who performed the deed remains holy. ^{27 27} Though Dik was known to support the liberal reforms of Tsar Alexander II, unreserved praise for the Tsar also gladdened the imperial censors. See John D. Klier, “1855–1894: Censorship of the Press in Russian and the Jewish Question,” Jewish Social Studies 48.3–4 (1986): 257–268.

And at the same time that our Emperor was carrying out this unforgettable good deed in his great lands in the most peaceful and calm way, the same good deed occurred in the United States, but with what differences! First, their emancipation touched only five million slaves. Second, this emancipation did not leave the freed slaves better off. They are not able to make a living and cannot find refuge anywhere. The large majority of the freed slaves starve in the streets. This is not the case with our peasants. Our monarch has ensured them with a piece of land, with a dwelling, and they are highly satisfied with their position. Thirdly, the American Emancipation made twice as many people unhappy as it had hoped to make happy. That is because it was achieved through a terrible war between the northern states and the southern states. About five million free European men were killed on both sides. This war cost more than one billion dollars, besides the fires and other damages that occurred during this war!

The slaves that live there are exclusively Negroes or Moors. They were long ago brought from African countries. They are a strong class of people. They grow tall, with short, tightly coiled hair and thick lips. The majority of them are heathens, and already from time immemorial were used in Asia as slaves. In Timbuktu and also in other cities, they were sold in the market like herds of sheep. Like long ago here with the European peasants, the Africans were sold by their own princes. ^{28 28} Benjamin of Tudela’s travelogue (1165) reflects on a long association of Slavic lands with slavery: “Further on is the land of Bohemia, called Prague, and this is called ‘Ashklavonia,’ which is called by the Jews who inhabit it Canaan, because the people of this land sell their sons and daughters to all nations, this also applies to Russia.” Translation by Eli Rosenblatt Sometimes, enslavement was a punishment for small sins, sometimes a fate for war captives, or sometimes payment for debts.

Since America was discovered, the slave trade increased ten times over. The source of this was the cruelty of the Spaniards, who were the first rulers of America. Upon their arrival, they discovered about ten million men, the native-born American of red color, who is known to be weak and lazy. The Spaniards easily took them, made them their slaves and divided them like sheep. They began to work them in the gold mines and silver mines (quarries, that is) that were abundant there at that time. They worked them further in the pearl fisheries. ^{29 29} “The pearl fishers who are generally poor slaves and are compelled to risk their lives in the employment stop their nostrils and ears with cotton take a piece of sponge dipped in oil in their mouths and then with a rope tied round their waists they dive down to the bottom to fetch up the mussels. You may readily conceive how many human beings must lose their lives in such an employment.” Joachim H Campe The Discovery of America: For the Use of Children and Young Persons, (London: Printed for J. Johnson, No. 72, St. Paul’s Church Yard, 1799). The original German can be found in Joachim H. Campe Die Entdeckung von Amerika: ein angenehmes und nützliches Lesebuch für Kinder und junge Leute (Hamburg: Bohn, 1781). And this was carried out with such hard pressure that in a period of fifteen years, this class of men that had numbered ten million was reduced to very few. The majority of them took to drowning themselves and hanging entire families. In addition to that, great amounts of blood were spilled over religious matters. In short, America became empty and desolate. America became, in a manner of speaking, populated by masters without servants! They were compelled to bring slaves from Africa, and from that time the human market there in Africa began to expand day by day. The minor princes there began to lead wars more often than before in order to take prisoners and sell them as slaves.

Now, there were already many slave traders who, in most cases, were from European peoples. They would journey around the African countries to buy slaves from the princes there. And they would trade with very little money, around thirty dollars for the best slaves, and sometimes even for some worn, discolored Spanish boots or a bottle of liquor and other such small things. With the minor estate owners, they would trade beads, mirrors, knives and similar things. In this way they would buy a homeowner out of his house, a father away from his family, a mother from her children, and children from their parents. No one noticed the tears and no one heard the cries. They thought of them merely as cattle, even though in truth the Negro has a greater bond with his family than us Europeans.

Just as the buying was easy and cheap, so was the transport very difficult and often fraught with danger and great loss. The slaves that had been traded from deep in Africa had to be guarded heavily to ensure that they didn’t flee, and so that they did not kill the slave merchant. On the neck of every slave they would put long wooden beams, which were wide enough to reach over the head on one end and narrower on the other with a peg struck into it with which they attach one slave to the neck of the other. They would attach a third slave to the beam in the same way, and so on. And so went a series of twenty to thirty men. Skins of water and bags of rice for cooking would hang on the wooden beams. When they would arrive at a place to rest, they would release each slave from the others. They let the slaves lay down quickly on the ground and they could not get back on their feet until the slave trader’s men helped them, the stocks choked them so. When they approached a village they would be forced to sing and rejoice accompanied by drums and whistles. ^{30 30} Bloch. Sheviley ha-Olam: Tekhunot Kol Artsot Tevel (Zolkiew: Bey Meyerhoffer, 1822): 7a-10b.
Such a journey often used to last until they came to the seashore after three or four weeks, and often longer. At each village, the pack of goods would increase. One landowner would sell ten or twelve, and then each homeowner might sell a spare person for some useful thing. Some would be bartered, for example, for bottles of French schnapps, or a red vest. For a necklace of red beads one could clear out half the village and yet, only a tenth of this living merchandise would be packed into the ship because many would die on the difficult journey from the great weights they were forced to carry, from the extreme heat, and from great suffering. The slaves would long for home terribly. Yet this journey over land was like a walk in fields of wildflowers when compared to the journey that they had to take over water on the ships to America.

They were packed in there in the hulls like geese in a cage, with husbands, wives and children together. It was so tight, filthy and damp there that the doctor that entered there each day to check in on them every morning could barely get out—he could barely breath because of the stench, since they relieved themselves right where they were. Not more than ten minutes was anyone allowed to stay on the deck of the ship. And even then just a few at a time to get some fresh air and to be washed with cold water.

Under there it was worse than hell. Dank and dark, the yammering and crying would deafen the ears. Many of the people were sick, with some on the verge of death. Every day several corpses would be collected and cast overboard like stones, without a procession and without ceremony. They would soon be eaten by the sharks that always followed such slave ships to eat the dead bodies. Worse than anything was the fear that they were brought to America just to burn them there and use their ashes to distill sugar. ^{31 31} The heart-rending depiction of the Middle Passage echoes the description in Shimshon Bloch’s Shvilei Ha-Olam (Zolkiev, v.2 1827.) If the slave trader would bring ten percent of the slaves to America healthy, it was considered a lucky trip. ^{32 32} The sentimental nature of this description, likely adapted from Bloch, has interested scholars who seek to identify the inner motivations for anti-slavery discourse in Haskalah literature. Iris Idelson-Shein, Difference of a Different Kind: Jewish Constructions of Race During the Long Eighteenth Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), 82-89; R. Wolpe, “From Slavery to Freedom: Abolitionist Expressions in Maskilic Sea Adventures,” AJS Review 36, no. 1 (2012): 43-70.

When they arrived the slave handler would make a big scene in which he would bring all the slaves together, wash them and dress them in short pants, the women in short dresses. And then people would start to notice. This would continue for a few days as merchants and buyers began to gather. Then would begin the horrible scene of separation. The plantation owner or planter would buy a mother and not her child, others, a child and not her mother. So there was ceaseless wailing and lamenting. Then came an endless farewell. The slaves clearly understood that they would not be around too much longer, that their days were numbered. They would curse the day that they were born. ^{33 33} Job 3:1 Among the slaves you could find children of Moorish princes; and men with profound wisdom who would later play major roles in the slave revolt of Santo Domingo, such as the world famous Negro Gustavus Vassa, who in Benin was sold for six silver groschen. ^{34 34} Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797), known as Gustavus Vassa in his own time. While a well-known abolitionist in Europe, Gustavus Vassa is not known to have played a direct role in the Haitian Revolution. For more information on slavery and abolition in German Enlightenment discourse, see Susan Buck-Morss, Hegel, Haiti and Universal History (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009). Now you can surely understand how painful it was for such men of spirit (great and wise men) to carry the heavy yoke of slavery for so many years—and how greatly each longed for home!

And there in America the masters would work the slaves like horses and strike them without pity. They would look for ways to frame them simply to punish them severely so that they would always feel downtrodden and inferior and never have thoughts of freedom or become rebellious. The more a master oppressed his slaves, the more the local government praised him.

There was one plantation owner who would often harness eight or ten Negroes to his carriage and would drive them in the greatest heat through deep sand. He would strike them with a long whip until blood and sweat would run down their backs, and when they came home he would make them wash the wounds with vinegar and salt so that the branding would not fade.

Some masters who owned pretty female slaves would force them to work and earn shameful money in brothels. They would send little slave children to run in the fields to catch the little birds which we call hummingbirds, so that distinguished women could adorn themselves with their golden feathers. In the previous era the plantation owner even had the right to kill his slave, and when a planter had a slave hanged because he was suspected of being rebellious, the local government was thankful and would bestow an award on him. Not only would he be reimbursed for what he had paid for the slave, he would also be given a month free from taxes. Given this, some planters would hang the slaves who became crippled and no longer could do their job and the local government would reward the planter. Some would intentionally buy lame or old slaves for a trifle and slave traders would give them a paper that they had paid a lot for them, so that they would have someone to hang and be paid for it. This practice has since been stopped only because the deceit was discovered.

Among the American slaves there were many different classes. One class is the true African, black as pitch with short, tightly coiled hair. The second class is the mulattos. This means someone who was born of a black mother and a white father. These are not entirely dark and have a more beautiful countenance. The third class is the mestizo, those born of a white mother and an Indian father. This means that he is from the original American whom Europeans found when they discovered America. These people are lighter skinned, and there are many other mixes, for example the children that come from a mulatto that lived with a mestiza. ^{35 35} Dik coins new Yiddish racial terms: mestitsn, mulatn and kreolen. Dik’s understanding of racial types would have been unfamiliar to nineteenth century Americans outside of New Orleans and its Caribbean network.

The free people there are also divided into two classes. One class is those that came from Europe, they are as white as we are, and they stay white until they die. The other class is the Creoles. This means the children who were born in America from white parents. These people have already lost much of their whiteness, and they appear tanned. ^{36 36} It appears here that Dik acknowledges the mutability of race. They are very beautiful nevertheless, and mature very quickly. A ten-year-old child there comprehends situations as if he was a grown man, though consequently becomes old very quickly. These classes of people are the masters, the planters, and the owners of estates.

Well, all that remains to explain to you, my dear reader, is about the difficult labor that the slave performed and of the rebellions they often foment. The most difficult labor was in the sugar factory. Not more than ten years can the strongest slaves endure the work and after that they become weak and sickly. In most cases, the slave would be out of service even earlier because it was very easy to become a cripple in the sugar mills. A hand or a foot could be ripped off, and sometimes hair gets tangled into the machine and drags the head in as well. The cotton picking and cleaning is also very difficult and very dull. The slaves fall into a grim melancholy. They stop eating, drinking, and working. No entreaties or beatings are of any use. They remain seated in their places until they pass away or hang themselves. Their master is left a pauper.

Also the food of the slaves is very dismal, because the master would give them nothing but a small piece of earth to sow in their off-hours. This meant at night when they returned from work or on Sunday, and by the Jewish planters on the Sabbath as well. ^{39 39} European debates about Jewish emancipation affected the racial status of Jews living in the colonies, especially in areas where communal identification was complicated by the mixed racial descent of Jewish individuals. See Laura A. Leibman, and Sam May, “Making Jews: Race, Gender and Identity in Barbados in the Age of Emancipation,” American Jewish History 99, no. 1 (2015): 1-26. They would have very little - barely enough on which to live. The same constraints would go for their clothes—they clothed themselves in coarse linen, which they crafted from thin bast fibers.

With some masters they would be treated in a much better fashion and, as a result, they would be faithful and diligent in their work. Some masters though would treat them so bad that they would commit suicide, ^{40 40} IMD: “The Negroes have the ability to choke themselves with their own tongues. They swallow the tongue down with great haste so that it gets stuck in their throats like a bite of food. One who was tortured so gravely to force him to reveal something about the rebellion bit off his own tongue in great anger and then he spit it out in his master’s face.” escape, or even rise up and rebel.

No disaster in the world compares to the disaster of a slave rebellion. The slaves would guard their secrets expertly and would never reveal another’s intentions. And sometimes they would keep a conspiracy against their master secret for a decade, nothing would be known of it until the last minute. Woe to the master whose slaves rise up against him! They kill the master and his whole family—with the greatest cruelty in the world they burn his storehouses and kill everything that breathes except themselves on the plantation. They don’t leave a single brick unturned, a stone whole, or a tree left standing. They destroy and wipe out everything. Then they run away deep into the woods or to the far mountains where they already have bands that are called Bushmen. These bands were armed and attacked the planters with great wrath. They would devastate everything. The worst rebellion was in Santo Domingo, which we have come to call Haiti. We will write about this at length later.

Well, my dear reader, I have sufficiently made known the issues that are necessary for you to understand our tale about the pious and brave slave Uncle Tom, who was neither Jew nor Christian, nor Heathen. Only a believer in the Creator, praised be He, and in the Bible. We can by rights call him a ger toshav, a resident alien ^{41 41} IMD: “A resident alien means for us Jews when a heathen, someone without religion, begins to believe in the one God, and vows that God gave the Torah to the Jews. Yet he is required to observe the seven commandments that God gave Noah, and nothing more. He may even be circumcised, but he can eat unkosher animals, even pig. Such a man among us Jews, in our land, had the same residency rights and was a citizen, like any good Jew.” —before he was an African heathen (without belief in God) but upon coming to America he came to a Jewish Planter, where he had the opportunity to get to know the one God and his holy books. From this story one can learn ethics and the fear of god, and patience in all hardships. And lastly, how much one must thank God and our Emperor, may his majesty reign, that he dissolved the slave trade from our land and with time, from the entire world. Indeed, our emperor is freeing slaves in Asia as well, in those new lands that God has blessed to be ruled under his humane government.

By A. M. D.