Farmers, herdsmen, and laborers in
their own country, they required not to be taught to work, and how to do
it--but it was only necessary to tell them to go to work, and they at
once knew what to do, and how it should be done.
It is notorious, that in the planting States, the blacks themselves are
the only skillful cultivators--the proprietor knowing little or nothing
about the art, save that which he learns from the African husbandman,
while his ignorant white overseer, who is merely there to see that the
work is attended to, knows a great deal less. Tobacco, cotton, rice,
hemp, indigo, the improvement in Indian corn, and many other important
products, are all the result of African skill and labor in this country.
And the introduction of the zigzag, or "Virginia Worm Fence," is purely
of African origin. Nor was their skill as herdsmen inferior to their
other attainments, being among the most accomplished trainers and
horsemen in the world. Indeed, to this class of men may be indebted the
entire country for the improvement South in the breed of horses. And any
one who has travelled South, could not fail to have observed, that all
of the leading trainers, jockies, and judges of horses, as well as
riders, are men of African descent.
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