All shades wuz
represented. There wuz the coal-black Cuffee, whose feechers denoted the
pure Afrikin, and whose awkward manners showed that he wuz not long from
Afrika. There wuz the civilized mulatto, in whose veins the Guttle blood
showed; the quadroon, in whom the good old Guttle blood predominated;
and the octoroon, which wuz mostly Guttle. The Guttleses wuz eminently a
Christian generation. They wuz devoutly pious; and there never wuz one
uv the name who cood not repeat, without the book, all uv the texts
bearin on slavery. The passages in which Onesimus and Hager figger wuz
favorites with em; but on "cussid be Canaan" they wuz strong. For
generations they had mourned over the hard fate uv the sons uv Ham,
doomed to perpetooal bondage becoz uv the sin uv their father; and with
a missionary spirit ekaled by few and excelled by none, they did their
part towards redoosin that cuss, by makin ez many of em ez possible
half-brothers to the more favored race uv Japhet, and thus bringing uv
em out uv the cuss; and they had mellered the color uv their charges
down from the hideous black to a bright yeller. Under the old patriarkle
system, time passed orf smoothly and pleasantly with the Guttle family.
Them 250 niggers wuz obliged, uv course, to work, and their labor wuz
money. John bought each uv the male sons uv Ham too soots uv close per
annum, and each uv the female sons uv Ham one soot.
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