SEARCH Clippings

HomeCollectaneaSell Them Down The River

Sell Them Down the River

Curve-billed Thrasher, Alamogordo NM, November 12, 2011

"The average Missouri Negro looked upon being sold south as one or two degrees worse than being sent straight to hell." Thomas Henry Tibbles

Brown had in his camp a fine-looking Negro, who said he had run away from his master in Platte County, Missouri, because the man was going to sell him and his wife to a dealer who would take them south to the Louisiana sugar plantations. The average Missouri Negro looked upon being sold south as one or two degrees worse than being sent straight to hell. This viewpoint was fostered by the masters, who always threatened, when things went wrong, to sell them down the river. ...

Buckskin and Blanket Days by Thomas Henry Tibbles, The Lakeside Press, 1985 pg 47

clipped February 2, 2005

Collection: American History - Word Play