BY
FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
WITH
AN INTRODUCTION.
BY DR. JAMES M'CUNE SMITH.
By a principle essential to Christianity, a PERSON is eternally differenced from a THING; so that the idea of a HUMAN BEING, necessarily excludes the idea of PROPERTY IN THAT BEING. COLERIDGE
NEW YORK
AND AUBURN:
MILLER, ORTON & MULLIGAN.
New York: 25 Park Row. -- Auburn: 107 Genese-st.
1855
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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred
and fifty-five,
BY FREDERICK DOUGLASS,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Northern District of New
York.
AUBURN:
MILLER, ORTON & MULLIGAN, STEREOTYPES AND PRINTERS.
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TO
HONORABLE GERRIT SMITH,
AS A SLIGHT TOKEN OF
ESTEEM FOR HIS CHARACTER,
ADMIRATION FOR HIS GENIUS AND BENEVOLENCE,
AFFECTION FOR HIS PERSON, AND
GRATITUDE FOR HIS FRIENDSHIP,
AND AS
A Small but most Sincere Acknowledgement of
HIS PRE-EMINENT SERVICES IN BEHALF OF THE RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES
OF AN
AFFLICTED, DESPISED AND DEEPLY OUTRAGED PEOPLE,
BY RANKING SLAVERY WITH PIRACY AND MURDER,
AND BY
DENYING IT EITHER A LEGAL OR CONSTITUTIONAL EXISTENCE,
This Volume is Respectfully Dedicated,
BY HIS FAITHFUL AND FIRMLY ATTACHED FRIEND,
FREDERICK DOUGLAS.
ROCHESTER, N.Y.
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EDITOR'S PREFACE
If the volume now presented to the public were a mere work of ART, the history
of its misfortune might be written in two very simple words -- TOO LATE. The
nature and character of slavery have been subjects of an almost endless variety
of artistic representation; and after the brilliant achievements in that field,
and while those achievements are yet fresh in the memory of the million, he
who would add another to the legion, must possess the charm of transcendent
excellence, or apologize for something worse than rashness. The reader is, therefore,
assured, with all due promptitude, that his attention is not invited to a work
of ART, but to a work of FACTS -- Facts, terrible and almost incredible, it
may be yet FACTS, nevertheless.
I am authorized to say that there is not a fictitious name nor place in the whole volume; but that names and places are literally given, and that every transaction therein described actually transpired.
Perhaps the best Preface to this volume is furnished
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in the following letter of Mr. Douglass, written in answer to my urgent solicitation
for such a work:
ROCHESTER, N. Y. July 2, 1855.
DEAR FRIEND: I have long entertained, as you very well know, a somewhat positive repugnance to writing or speaking anything for the public, which could, with any degree of plausibilty, make me liable to the imputation of seeking personal notoriety, for its own sake. Entertaining that feeling very sincerely, and permitting its control, perhaps, quite unreasonably, I have often refused to narrate my personal experience in public anti-slavery meetings, and in sympathizing circles, when urged to do so by friends, with whose views and wishes, ordinarily, it were a pleasure to comply. In my letters and speeches, I have generally aimed to discuss the question of Slavery in the light of fundamental principles, and upon facts, notorious and open to all; making, I trust, no more of the fact of my own former enslavement, than circumstances seemed absolutely to require. I have never placed my opposition to slavery on a basis so narrow as my own enslavement, but rather upon the indestructible and unchangeable laws of human nature, every one of which is perpetually and flagrantly violated by the slave system. I have also felt that it was best for those having histories worth the writing -- or supposed to be so -- to commit such work to hands other than their own. To write of one's self, in such a manner as not to incur the imputation of weakness, vanity, and egotism, is a work within the ability of but few; and I have little reason to believe that I belong to that fortunate few.
These considerations caused me to hesitate, when first you
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kindly urged me to prepare for publication a full account of my life as a slave,
and my life as a freeman.
Nevertheless, I see, with you, many reasons for regarding my autobiography as exceptional in its character, and as being, in some sense, naturally beyond the reach of those reproaches which honorable and sensitive minds dislike to incur. It is not to illustrate any heroic achievements of a man, but to vindicate a just and beneficent principle, in its application to the whole human family, by letting in the light of truth upon a system, esteemed by some as a blessing, and by others as a curse and a crime. I agree with you, that this system is now at the bar of public opinion -- not only of this country, but of the whole civilized world -- for judgment. Its friends have made for it the usual plea -- "not guilty;" the case must, therefore, proceed. Any facts, either from slaves, slaveholders, or by-standers, calculated to enlighten the public mind, by revealing the true nature, character, and tendency of the slave system, are in order, and can scarcely be innocently withheld.
I see, too, that there are special reasons why I should write my own biography, in preference to employing another to do it. Not only is slavery on trial, but unfortunately, the enslaved people are also on trial. It is alleged, that they are, naturally, inferior; that they are so low in the scale of humanity, and so utterly stupid, that they are unconscious of their wrongs, and do not apprehend their rights. Looking, then, at your request, from this stand-point, and wishing everything of which you think me capable to go to the benefit of my afflicted people, I part with my doubts and hesitation, and proceed to furnish you the desired manuscript; hoping that you may be able to make such arrangements for its publication as shall be best adapted
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to accomplish that good which you so enthusiastically anticipate.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
There was little necessity for doubt and hesitation on the part of Mr. Douglass, as to the propriety of his giving to the world a full account of himself. A man who was born and brought up in slavery, a living witness of its horrors; who often himself experienced its cruelties; and who, despite the depressing influences surrounding his birth, youth and manhood, has risen, from a dark and almost absolute obscurity, to the distinguished position which he now occupies, might very well assume the existence of a commendable curiosity, on the part of the public, to know the facts of his remarkable history.
EDITOR
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INTRODUCTION
When a man raises himself from the lowest condition in society to the highest,
mankind pay him the tribute of their admiration; when he accomplishes this elevation
by native energy, guided by prudence and wisdom, their admiration is increased;
but when his course, onward and upward, excellent in itself, furthermore proves
a possible, what had hitherto been regarded as an impossible, reform, then he
becomes a burning and a shining light, on which the aged may look with gladness,
the young with hope, and the down-trodden, as a representative of what they
may themselves become. To such a man, dear reader, it is my privilege to introduce
you.
The life of Frederick Douglass, recorded in the pages which follow, is not merely an example of self-elevation under the most adverse circumstances; it is, moreover, a noble vindication of the highest aims of the American anti-slavery movement. The real object of that movement is not only to disenthrall, it is, also, to bestow upon the Negro the exercise of all those rights, from the possession of which he has been so long debarred.
But this full recognition of the colored man to the right, and the entire admission of the same to the full privileges, political, religious and social, of manhood, requires powerful effort on the part of the enthralled, as well as on the part of those who would disenthrall them. The people at large must feel the conviction, as well as admit the abstract logic, of human equality; the Negro, for the first time in the world's history, brought in full contact with high civilization, must prove his title first to all that is demanded for him; in the teeth of unequal chances, he must prove himself equal to the mass of those who oppress him -- therefore, absolutely superior to his apparent fate, and to their relative ability. And it is most cheering to the friends of freedom, today, that evidence of this equality is
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rapidly accumulating, not from the ranks of the half-freed colored people of
the free states, but from the very depths of slavery itself; the indestructible
equality of man to man is demonstrated by the ease with which black men, scarce
one remove from barbarism -- if slavery can be honored with such a distinction
-- vault into the high places of the most advanced and painfully acquired civilization.
Ward and Garnett, Wells Brown and Pennington, Loguen and Douglass, are banners
on the outer wall, under which abolition is fighting its most successful battles,
because they are living exemplars of the practicability of the most radical
abolitionism; for, they were all of them born to the doom of slavery, some of
them remained slaves until adult age, yet they all have not only won equality
to their white fellow citizens, in civil, religious, political and social rank,
but they have also illustrated and adorned our common country by their genius,
learning and eloquence.
The characteristics whereby Mr. Douglass has won first rank among these remarkable men, and is still rising toward highest rank among living Americans, are abundantly laid bare in the book before us. Like the autobiography of Hugh Miller, it carries us so far back into early childhood, as to throw light upon the question, "when positive and persistent memory begins in the human being." And, like Hugh Miller, he must have been a shy old-fashioned child, occasionally oppressed by what he could not well account for, peering and poking about among the layers of right and wrong, of tyrant and thrall, and the wonderfulness of that hopeless tide of things which brought power to one race, and unrequited toil to another, until, finally, he stumbled upon his "first-found Ammonite," hidden away down in the depths of his own nature, and which revealed to him the fact that liberty and right, for all men, were anterior to slavery and wrong. When his knowledge of the world was bounded by the visible horizon on Col. Lloyd's plantation, and while every thing around him bore a fixed, iron stamp, as if it had always been so, this was, for one so young, a notable discovery.
To his uncommon memory, then, we must add a keen and accurate insight into men and things; an original breadth of common sense which enabled him to see, and weigh, and compare whatever passed before him, and which kindled a desire to search out and define their relations to other things not so patent, but which never
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succumbed to the marvelous nor the supernatural; a sacred thirst for liberty
and for learning, first as a means of attaining liberty, then as an end in itself
most desirable; a will; an unfaltering energy and determination to obtain what
his soul pronounced desirable; a majestic self-hood; determined courage; a deep
and agonizing sympathy with his embruted, crushed and bleeding fellow slaves,
and an extraordinary depth of passion, together with that rare alliance between
passion and intellect, which enables the former, when deeply roused, to excite,
develop and sustain the latter.
With these original gifts in view, let us look at his schooling; the fearful discipline through which it pleased God to prepare him for the high calling on which he has since entered -- the advocacy of emancipation by the people who are not slaves. And for this special mission, his plantation education was better than any he could have acquired in any lettered school. What he needed, was facts and experiences, welded to acutely wrought up sympathies, and these he could not elsewhere have obtained, in a manner so peculiarly adapted to his nature. His physical being was well trained, also, running wild until advanced into boyhood; hard work and light diet, thereafter, and a skill in handicraft in youth.
For his special mission, then, this was, considered in connection with his natural gifts, a good schooling; and, for his special mission, he doubtless "left school" just at the proper moment. Had he remained longer in slavery -- had he fretted under bonds until the ripening of manhood and its passions, until the drear agony of slave-wife and slave-children had been piled upon his already bitter experiences -- then, not only would his own history have had another termination, but the drama of American slavery would have been essentially varied; for I cannot resist the belief, that the boy who learned to read and write as he did, who taught his fellow slaves these precious acquirements as he did, who plotted for their mutual escape as he did, would, when a man at bay, strike a blow which would make slavery reel and stagger. Furthermore, blows and insults he bore, at the moment, without resentment; deep but suppressed emotion rendered him insensible to their sting; but it was afterward, when the memory of them went seething through his brain, breeding a fiery indignation at his injured self-hood, that the resolve came to resist, and the time fixed when to resist, and
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the plot laid, how to resist; and he always kept his self-pledged word. In what
he undertook, in this line, he looked fate in the face, and had a cool, keen
look at the relation of means to ends. Henry Bibb, to avoid chastisement, strewed
his master's bed with charmed leaves and was whipped. Frederick Douglass quietly
pocketed a like fetiche, compared his muscles with those of Covey -- and whipped
him.
In the history of his life in bondage, we find, well developed, that inherent and continuous energy of character which will ever render him distinguished. What his hand found to do, he did with his might; even while conscious that he was wronged out of his daily earnings, he worked, and worked hard. At his daily labor he went with a will; with keen, well set eye, brawny chest, lithe figure, and fair sweep of arm, he would have been king among calkers, had that been his mission.
It must not be overlooked, in this glance at his education, that Mr. Douglass lacked one aid to which so many men of mark have been deeply indebted -- he had neither a mother's care, nor a mother's culture, save that which slavery grudgingly meted out to him. Bitter nurse! may not even her features relax with human feeling, when she gazes at such offspring! How susceptible he was to the kindly influences of mother-culture, may be gathered from his own words, on page 57: "It has been a life-long standing grief to me, that I know so little of my mother, and that I was so early separated from her. The counsels of her love must have been beneficial to me. The side view of her face is imaged on my memory, and I take few steps in life, without feeling her presence; but the image is mute, and I have no striking words of hers treasured up."
From the depths of chattel slavery in Maryland, our author escaped into the caste-slavery of the north, in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Here he found oppression assuming another, and hardly less bitter, form; of that very handicraft which the greed of slavery had taught him, his half-freedom denied him the exercise for an honest living; he found himself one of a class -- free colored men -- whose position he has described in the following words:
"Aliens are we in our native land. The fundamental principles of the republic, to which the humblest white man, whether born here or elsewhere, may appeal with confidence, in the hope of
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awakening a favorable response, are held to be inapplicable to us. The glorious
doctrines of your revolutionary fathers, and the more glorious teachings of
the Son of God, are construed and applied against us. We are literally scourged
beyond the beneficent range of both authorities, human and divine. * * * * American
humanity hates us, scorns us, disowns and denies, in a thousand ways, our very
personality. The outspread wing of American christianity, apparently broad enough
to give shelter to a perishing world, refuses to cover us. To us, its bones
are brass, and its features iron. In running thither for shelter and succor,
we have only fled from the hungry blood-hound to the devouring wolf -- from
a corrupt and selfish world, to a hollow and hypocritical church." -- Speech
before American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, May, 1854.
Four years or more, from 1837 to 1841, he struggled on, in New Bedford, sawing wood, rolling casks, or doing what labor he might, to support himself and young family; four years he brooded over the scars which slavery and semi-slavery had inflicted upon his body and soul; and then, with his wounds yet unhealed, he fell among the Garrisonians -- a glorious waif to those most ardent reformers. It happened one day, at Nantucket, that he, diffidently and reluctantly, was led to address an anti-slavery meeting. He was about the age when the younger Pitt entered the House of Commons; like Pitt, too, he stood up a born orator.
William Lloyd Garrison, who was happily present, writes thus of Mr. Douglass' maiden effort; "I shall never forget his first speech at the convention -- the extraordinary emotion it excited in my own mind -- the powerful impression it created upon a crowded auditory, completely taken by surprise. * * * I think I never hated slavery so intensely as at that moment; certainly, my perception of the enormous outrage which is inflicted by it on the godlike nature of its victims, was rendered far more clear than ever. There stood one in physical proportions and stature commanding and exact -- in intellect richly endowed -- in natural eloquence a prodigy."1
It is of interest to compare Mr. Douglass's account of this meeting with Mr. Garrison's. Of the two, I think the latter the most correct. It must have been a grand burst of eloquence! The pent
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up agony, indignation and pathos of an abused and harrowed boyhood and youth,
bursting out in all their freshness and overwhelming earnestness!
This unique introduction to its great leader, led immediately to the employment of Mr. Douglass as an agent by the American Anti-Slavery Society. So far as his self-relying and independent character would permit, he became, after the strictest sect, a Garrisonian. It is not too much to say, that he formed a complement which they needed, and they were a complement equally necessary to his "make-up." With his deep and keen sensitiveness to wrong, and his wonderful memory, he came from the land of bondage full of its woes and its evils, and painting them in characters of living light; and, on his part, he found, told out in sound Saxon phrase, all those principles of justice and right and liberty, which had dimly brooded over the dreams of his youth, seeking definite forms and verbal expression. It must have been an electric flashing of thought, and a knitting of soul, granted to but few in this life, and will be a life-long memory to those who participated in it. In the society, moreover, of Wendell Phillips, Edmund Quincy, William Lloyd Garrison, and other men of earnest faith and refined culture, Mr. Douglass enjoyed the high advantage of their assistance and counsel in the labor of self-culture, to which he now addressed himself with wonted energy. Yet, these gentlemen, although proud of Frederick Douglass, failed to fathom, and bring out to the light of day, the highest qualities of his mind; the force of their own education stood in their own way: they did not delve into the mind of a colored man for capacities which the pride of race led them to believe to be restricted to their own Saxon blood. Bitter and vindictive sarcasm, irresistible mimicry, and a pathetic narrative of his own experiences of slavery, were the intellectual manifestations which they encouraged him to exhibit on the platform or in the lecture desk.
A visit to England, in 1845, threw Mr. Douglass among men and women of earnest souls and high culture, and who, moreover, had never drank of the bitter waters of American caste. For the first time in his life, he breathed an atmosphere congenial to the longings of his spirit, and felt his manhood free and unrestricted. The cordial and manly greetings of the British and Irish audiences in
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public, and the refinement and elegance of the social circles in which he mingled,
not only as an equal, but as a recognized man of genius, were, doubtless, genial
and pleasant resting places in his hitherto thorny and troubled journey through
life. There are joys on the earth, and, to the wayfaring fugitive from American
slavery or American caste, this is one of them.
But his sojourn in England was more than a joy to Mr. Douglass. Like the platform at Nantucket, it awakened him to the consciousness of new powers that lay in him. From the pupilage of Garrisonism he rose to the dignity of a teacher and a thinker; his opinions on the broader aspects of the great American question were earnestly and incessantly sought, from various points of view, and he must, perforce, bestir himself to give suitable answer. With that prompt and truthful perception which has led their sisters in all ages of the world to gather at the feet and support the hands of reformers, the gentlewomen of England2 were foremost to encourage and strengthen him to carve out for himself a path fitted to his powers and energies, in the life-battle against slavery and caste to which he was pledged. And one stirring thought, inseparable from the British idea of the evangel of freedom, must have smote his ear from every side --
"Hereditary bondmen! know ye not
Who would be free, themselves mast strike the blow?"
The result of this visit was, that on his return to the United States, he established a newspaper. This proceeding was sorely against the wishes and the advice of the leaders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, but our author had fully grown up to the conviction of a truth which they had once promulged, but now forgotten, to wit: that in their own elevation -- self-elevation -- colored men have a blow to strike "on their own hook," against slavery and caste. Differing from his Boston friends in this matter, diffident
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in his own abilities, reluctant at their dissuadings, how beautiful is the loyalty
with which he still clung to their principles in all things else, and even in
this.
Now came the trial hour. Without cordial support from any large body of men or party on this side the Atlantic, and too far distant in space and immediate interest to expect much more, after the much already done, on the other side, he stood up, almost alone, to the arduous labor and heavy expenditure of editor and lecturer. The Garrison party, to which he still adhered, did not want a colored newspaper -- there was an odor of caste about it; the Liberty party could hardly be expected to give warm support to a man who smote their principles as with a hammer; and the wide gulf which separated the free colored people from the Garrisonians, also separated them from their brother, Frederick Douglass.
The arduous nature of his labors, from the date of the establishment of his paper, may be estimated by the fact, that anti-slavery papers in the United States, even while organs of, and when supported by, anti-slavery parties, have, with a single exception, failed to pay expenses. Mr. Douglass has maintained, and does maintain, his paper without the support of any party, and even in the teeth of the opposition of those from whom he had reason to expect counsel and encouragement. He has been compelled, at one and the same time, and almost constantly, during the past seven years, to contribute matter to its columns as editor, and to raise funds for its support as lecturer. It is within bounds to say, that he has expended twelve thousand dollars of his own hard earned money, in publishing this paper, a larger sum than has been contributed by any one individual for the general advancement of the colored people. There had been many other papers published and edited by colored men, beginning as far back as 1827, when the Rev. Samuel E. Cornish and John B. Russworm (a graduate of Bowdoin college, and afterward Governor of Cape Palmas) published the Freedom's Journal, in New York City; probably not less than one hundred newspaper enterprises have been started in the United States, by free colored men, born free, and some of them of liberal education and fair talents for this work; but, one after another, they have fallen through, although, in several instances, anti-slavery
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friends contributed to their support.3 It had almost been given up, as an impracticable
thing, to maintain a colored newspaper, when Mr. Douglass, with fewest early
advantages of all his competitors, essayed, and has proved the thing perfectly
practicable, and, moreover, of great public benefit. This paper, in addition
to its power in holding up the hands of those to whom it is especially devoted,
also affords irrefutable evidence of the justice, safety and practicability
of Immediate Emancipation; it further proves the immense loss which slavery
inflicts on the land while it dooms such energies as his to the hereditary degradation
of slavery.
It has been said in this Introduction, that Mr. Douglass had raised himself by his own efforts to the highest position in society. As a successful editor, in our land, he occupies this position. Our editors rule the land, and he is one of them. As an orator and thinker, his position is equally high, in the opinion of his countrymen. If a stranger in the United States would seek its most distinguished men -- the movers of public opinion -- he will find their names mentioned, and their movements chronicled, under the head of "BY MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH, in the daily papers. The keen caterers for the public attention, set down, in this column, such men only as have won high mark in the public esteem. During the past winter -- 1854-5 -- very frequent mention of Frederick Douglass was made under this head in the daily papers; his name glided as often -- this week from Chicago, next week from Boston -- over the lightning wires, as the name of any other man, of whatever note. To no man did the people more widely nor more earnestly say, "Tell me thy thought!" And, somehow or other, revolution seemed to follow in his wake. His were not the mere words of eloquence which Kossuth speaks of, that delight the ear and then pass away. No! They were work-able, do-able words, that brought forth fruits in the revolution in Illinois, and in the passage of the franchise resolutions by the Assembly of New York.
And the secret of his power, what is it? He is a Representative American man -- a type of his countrymen. Naturalists tell us that a full grown man is a resultant or representative of all animated nature on this globe; beginning with the early embryo state, then
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representing the lowest forms of organic life,4 and passing through every subordinate
grade or type, until he reaches the last and highest -- manhood. In like manner,
and to the fullest extent, has Frederick Douglass passed through every gradation
of rank comprised in our national make-up, and bears upon his person and upon
his soul every thing that is American. And he has not only full sympathy with
every thing American; his proclivity or bent, to active toil and visible progress,
are in the strictly national direction, delighting to outstrip "all creation."
Nor have the natural gifts, already named as his, lost anything by his severe training. When unexcited, his mental processes are probably slow, but singularly clear in perception, and wide in vision, the unfailing memory bringing up all the facts in their every aspect; incongruities he lays hold of incontinently, and holds up on the edge of his keen and telling wit. But this wit never descends to frivolity; it is rigidly in the keeping of his truthful common sense, and always used in illustration or proof of some point which could not so readily be reached any other way. "Beware of a Yankee when he is feeding," is a shaft that strikes home in a matter never so laid bare by satire before. "The Garrisonian views of disunion, if carried to a successful issue, would only place the people of the north in the same relation to American slavery which they now bear to the slavery of Cuba or the Brazils," is a statement, in a few words, which contains the result and the evidence of an argument which might cover pages, but could not carry stronger conviction, nor be stated in less pregnable form. In proof of this, I may say, that having been submitted to the attention of the Garrisonians in print, in March, it was repeated before them at their business meeting in May -- the platform, par excellence, on which they invite free fight, a l'outrance, to all comers. It was given out in the clear, ringing tones, wherewith the hall of shields was wont to resound of old, yet neither Garrison, nor Phillips, nor May, nor Remond, nor Foster, nor Burleigh, with his subtle steel of "the ice brook's temper," ventured to break a lance upon it! The doctrine of the dissolution of the Union, as a means for the abolition of American slavery, was silenced upon the lips that gave it birth, and in the presence
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of an array of defenders who compose the keenest intellects in the land.
"The man who is right is a majority" is an aphorism struck out by Mr. Douglass in that great gathering of the friends of freedom, at Pittsburgh, in 1852, where he towered among the highest, because, with abilities inferior to none, and moved more deeply than any, there was neither policy nor party to trammel the outpourings of his soul. Thus we find, opposed to all disadvantages which a black man in the United States labors and struggles under, is this one vantage ground -- when the chance comes, and the audience where he may have a say, he stands forth the freest, most deeply moved and most earnest of all men.
It has been said of Mr. Douglass, that his descriptive and declamatory powers, admitted to be of the very highest order, take precedence of his logical force. Whilst the schools might have trained him to the exhibition of the formulas of deductive logic, nature and circumstances forced him into the exercise of the higher faculties required by induction. The first ninety pages of this "Life in Bondage," afford specimens of observing, comparing, and careful classifying, of such superior character, that it is difficult to believe them the results of a child's thinking; he questions the earth, and the children and the slaves around him again and again, and finally looks to "God in the sky" for the why and the wherefore of the unnatural thing, slavery. "Yes, if indeed thou art, wherefore dost thou suffer us to be slain?" is the only prayer and worship of the God-forsaken Dodos in the heart of Africa. Almost the same was his prayer. One of his earliest observations was that white children should know their ages, while the colored children were ignorant of theirs; and the songs of the slaves grated on his inmost soul, because a something told him that harmony in sound, and music of the spirit, could not consociate with miserable degradation.
To such a mind, the ordinary processes of logical deduction are like proving that two and two make four. Mastering the intermediate steps by an intuitive glance, or recurring to them as Ferguson resorted to geometry, it goes down to the deeper relation of things, and brings out what may seem, to some, mere statements, but which are new and brilliant generalizations, each resting on a broad and stable basis. Thus, Chief Justice Marshall gave his decisions, and
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then told Brother Story to look up the authorities -- and they never differed
from him. Thus, also, in his "Lecture on the Anti-Slavery Movement,"
delivered before the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society, Mr. Douglass presents
a mass of thought, which, without any showy display of logic on his part, requires
an exercise of the reasoning faculties of the reader to keep pace with him.
And his "Claims of the Negro Ethnologically Considered," is full of
new and fresh thoughts on the dawning science of race-history.
If, as has been stated, his intellection is slow, when unexcited, it is most prompt and rapid when he is thoroughly aroused. Memory, logic, wit, sarcasm, invective pathos and bold imagery of rare structural beauty, well up as from a copious fountain, yet each in its proper place, and contributing to form a whole, grand in itself, yet complete in the minutest proportions. It is most difficult to hedge him in a corner, for his positions are taken so deliberately, that it is rare to find a point in them undefended aforethought. Professor Reason tells me the following: "On a recent visit of a public nature, to Philadelphia, and in a meeting composed mostly of his colored brethren, Mr. Douglass proposed a comparison of views in the matters of the relations and duties of `our people;' he holding that prejudice was the result of condition, and could be conquered by the efforts of the degraded themselves. A gentleman present, distinguished for logical acumen and subtlety, and who had devoted no small portion of the last twenty-five years to the study and elucidation of this very question, held the opposite view, that prejudice is innate and unconquerable. He terminated a series of well dove-tailed, Socratic questions to Mr. Douglass, with the following: `If the legislature at Harrisburgh should awaken, to-morrow morning, and find each man's skin turned black and his hair woolly, what could they do to remove prejudice?' `Immediately pass laws entitling black men to all civil, political and social privileges,' was the instant reply -- and the questioning ceased."
The most remarkable mental phenomenon in Mr. Douglass, is his style in writing and speaking. In March, 1855, he delivered an address in the assembly chamber before the members of the legislature of the state of New York. An eye witness5 describes the crowded and most intelligent audience, and their rapt attention to the speaker,
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as the grandest scene he ever witnessed in the capitol. Among those whose eyes
were riveted on the speaker full two hours and a half, were Thurlow Weed and
Lieutenant Governor Raymond; the latter, at the conclusion of the address, exclaimed
to a friend, "I would give twenty thousand dollars, if I could deliver
that address in that manner." Mr. Raymond is a first class graduate of
Dartmouth, a rising politician, ranking foremost in the legislature; of course,
his ideal of oratory must be of the most polished and finished description.
The style of Mr. Douglass in writing, is to me an intellectual puzzle. The strength, affluence and terseness may easily be accounted for, because the style of a man is the man; but how are we to account for that rare polish in his style of writing, which, most critically examined, seems the result of careful early culture among the best classics of our language; it equals if it does not surpass the style of Hugh Miller, which was the wonder of the British literary public, until he unraveled the mystery in the most interesting of autobiographies. But Frederick Douglass was still calking the seams of Baltimore clippers, and had only written a "pass," at the age when Miller's style was already formed.
I asked William Whipper, of Pennsylvania, the gentleman alluded to above, whether he thought Mr. Douglass's power inherited from the Negroid, or from what is called the Caucasian side of his make up? After some reflection, he frankly answered, "I must admit, although sorry to do so, that the Caucasian predominates." At that time, I almost agreed with him; but, facts narrated in the first part of this work, throw a different light on this interesting question.
We are left in the dark as to who was the paternal ancestor of our author; a fact which generally holds good of the Romuluses and Remuses who are to inaugurate the new birth of our republic. In the absence of testimony from the Caucasian side, we must see what evidence is given on the other side of the house.
"My grandmother, though advanced in years, * * * was yet a woman of power and spirit. She was marvelously straight in figure, elastic and muscular." (p. 46.)
After describing her skill in constructing nets, her perseverance in using them, and her wide-spread fame in the agricultural way
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he adds, "It happened to her -- as it will happen to any careful and thrifty
person residing in an ignorant and improvident neighborhood -- to enjoy the
reputation of being born to good luck." And his grandmother was a black
woman.
"My mother was tall, and finely proportioned; of deep black, glossy complexion; had regular features; and among other slaves was remarkably sedate in her manners." "Being a field hand, she was obliged to walk twelve miles and return, between nightfall and daybreak, to see her children" (p. 54.) "I shall never forget the indescribable expression of her countenance when I told her that I had had no food since morning. * * * There was pity in her glance at me, and a fiery indignation at Aunt Katy at the same time; * * * * she read Aunt Katy a lecture which she never forgot." (p. 56.) "I learned after my mother's death, that she could read, and that she was the only one of all the slaves and colored people in Tuckahoe who enjoyed that advantage. How she acquired this knowledge, I know not, for Tuckahoe is the last place in the world where she would be apt to find facilities for learning." (p. 57.) "There is, in Prichard's Natural History of Man, the head of a figure -- on page 157 -- the features of which so resemble those of my mother, that I often recur to it with something of the feeling which I suppose others experience when looking upon the pictures of dear departed ones." (p. 52.)
The head alluded to is copied from the statue of Ramses the Great, an Egyptian king of the nineteenth dynasty. The authors of the Types of Mankind give a side view of the same on page 148, remarking that the profile, "like Napoleon's, is superbly European!" The nearness of its resemblance to Mr. Douglass' mother rests upon the evidence of his memory, and judging from his almost marvelous feats of recollection of forms and outlines recorded in this book, this testimony may be admitted.
These facts show that for his energy, perseverance, eloquence, invective, sagacity, and wide sympathy, he is indebted to his Negro blood. The very marvel of his style would seem to be a development of that other marvel -- how his mother learned to read. The versatility of talent which he wields, in common with Dumas, Ira Aldridge, and Miss Greenfield, would seem to be the result of the grafting of the Anglo-Saxon on good, original, Negro stock. If the
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friends of "Caucasus" choose to claim, for that region, what remains
after this analysis -- to wit: combination -- they are welcome to it. They will
forgive me for reminding them that the term "Caucasian" is dropped
by recent writers on Ethnology; for the people about Mount Caucasus, are, and
have ever been, Mongols. The great "white race" now seek paternity,
according to Dr. Pickering, in Arabia -- "Arida Nutrix" of the best
breed of horses &c. Keep on, gentlemen; you will find yourselves in Africa,
by-and-by. The Egyptians, like the Americans, were a mixed race, with some Negro
blood circling around the throne, as well as in the mud hovels.
This is the proper place to remark of our author, that the same strong self-hood, which led him to measure strength with Mr. Covey, and to wrench himself from the embrace of the Garrisonians, and which has borne him through many resistances to the personal indignities offered him as a colored man, sometimes becomes a hyper-sensitiveness to such assaults as men of his mark will meet with, on paper. Keen and unscrupulous opponents have sought, and not unsuccessfully, to pierce him in this direction; for well they know, that if assailed, he will smite back.
It is not without a feeling of pride, dear reader, that I present you with this book. The son of a self-emancipated bond-woman, I feel joy in introducing to you my brother, who has rent his own bonds, and who, in his every relation -- as a public man, as a husband and as a father -- is such as does honor to the land which gave him birth. I shall place this book in the hands of the only child spared me, bidding him to strive and emulate its noble example. You may do likewise. It is an American book, for Americans, in the fullest sense of the idea. It shows that the worst of our institutions, in its worst aspect, cannot keep down energy, truthfulness, and earnest struggle for the right. It proves the justice and practicability of Immediate Emancipation. It shows that any man in our land, "no matter in what battle his liberty may have been cloven down, * * * * no matter what complexion an Indian or an African sun may have burned upon him," not only may "stand forth redeemed and disenthralled," but may also stand up a candidate for the highest suffrage of a great people -- the tribute of their honest, hearty admiration. Reader, Vale!
New York; May 23, 1855. JAMES M'CUNE SMITH
[1] Letter, Introduction to Life of Frederick Douglass, Boston, 1841.
[2] One of these ladies, impelled by the same noble spirit which carried Miss Nightingale to Scutari, has devoted her time, her untiring energies, to a great extent her means, and her high literary abilities, to the advancement and support of Frederick Douglass' Paper, the only organ of the downtrodden, edited and published by one of themselves, in the United States.
[3] Mr. Stephen Myers, of Albany, deserves mention as one of the most persevering among the colored editorial fraternity.
[4] The German physiologists have even discovered vegetable matter -- starch -- in the human body. See Med. Chirurgical Rev., Oct., 1854, p. 339.
[5] Mr. Wm. H. Topp, of Albany.
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LIFE AS A SLAVE.
CHAPTER I.
THE AUTHOR'S CHILDHOOD.
PLACE OF BIRTH -- CHARACTER OF THE DISTRICT -- TUCKAHOE -- ORIGIN OF THE NAME
-- CHOPTANK RIVER -- TIME OF BIRTH -- GENEALOGICAL TREES -- MODE OF COUNTING
TIME -- NAMES OF GRANDPARENTS -- THEIR POSITION -- GRAND-MOTHER ESPECIALLY ESTEEMED
-- "BORN TO GOOD LUCK" -- SWEET POTATOES -- SUPERSTITION -- THE LOG
CABIN -- ITS CHARMS -- SEPARATING CHILDREN -- MY AUNTS -- THEIR NAMES -- FIRST
KNOWLEDGE OF BEING A SLAVE -- OLD MASTER -- GRIEFS AND JOYS OF CHILDHOOD --
COMPARATIVE HAPPINESS OF THE SLAVE-BOY AND THE SON OF A SLAVEHOLDER.
In Talbot county, Eastern Shore, Maryland, near Easton, the county town of that county, there is a small district of country, thinly populated, and remarkable for nothing that I know of more than for the worn-out, sandy, desert-like appearance of its soil, the general dilapidation of its farms and fences, the indigent and spiritless character of its inhabitants, and the prevalence of ague and fever.
The name of this singularly unpromising and truly famine stricken district is Tuckahoe, a name well known to all Marylanders, black and white. It was given to this section of country probably, at the first, merely in derision; or it may possibly have been
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applied to it, as I have heard, because some one of its earlier inhabitants
had been guilty of the petty meanness of stealing a hoe -- or taking a hoe that
did not belong to him. Eastern Shore men usually pronounce the word took, as
tuck; Took-a-hoe, therefore, is, in Maryland parlance, Tuckahoe. But, whatever
may have been its origin -- and about this I will not be positive -- that name
has stuck to the district in question; and it is seldom mentioned but with contempt
and derision, on account of the barrenness of its soil, and the ignorance, indolence,
and poverty of its people. Decay and ruin are everywhere visible, and the thin
population of the place would have quitted it long ago, but for the Choptank
river, which runs through it, from which they take abundance of shad and herring,
and plenty of ague and fever.
It was in this dull, flat, and unthrifty district, or neighborhood, surrounded by a white population of the lowest order, indolent and drunken to a proverb, and among slaves, who seemed to ask, "Oh! what's the use?" every time they lifted a hoe, that I -- without any fault of mine was born, and spent the first years of my childhood.
The reader will pardon so much about the place of my birth, on the score that it is always a fact of some importance to know where a man is born, if, indeed, it be important to know anything about him. In regard to the time of my birth, I cannot be as definite as I have been respecting the place. Nor, indeed, can I impart much knowledge concerning my parents. Genealogical trees do not flourish among slaves. A person of some consequence here in the north, sometimes
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designated father, is literally abolished in slave law and slave practice. It
is only once in a while that an exception is found to this statement. I never
met with a slave who could tell me how old he was. Few slave-mothers know anything
of the months of the year, nor of the days of the month. They keep no family
records, with marriages, births, and deaths. They measure the ages of their
children by spring time, winter time, harvest time, planting time, and the like;
but these soon become undistinguishable and forgotten. Like other slaves, I
cannot tell how old I am. This destitution was among my earliest troubles. I
learned when I grew up, that my master -- and this is the case with masters
generally -- allowed no questions to be put to him, by which a slave might learn
his age. Such questions deemed evidence of impatience, and even of impudent
curiosity. From certain events, however, the dates of which I have since learned,
I suppose myself to have been born about the year 1817.
The first experience of life with me that I now remember -- and I remember it but hazily -- began in the family of my grandmother and grandfather. Betsey and Isaac Baily. They were quite advanced in life, and had long lived on the spot where they then resided. They were considered old settlers in the neighborhood, and, from certain circumstances, I infer that my grandmother, especially, was held in high esteem, far higher than is the lot of most colored persons in the slave states. She was a good nurse, and a capital hand at making nets for catching shad and herring; and these nets were in great demand, not
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only in Tuckahoe, but at Denton and Hillsboro, neighboring villages. She was
not only good at making the nets, but was also somewhat famous for her good
fortune in taking the fishes referred to. I have known her to be in the water
half the day. Grandmother was likewise more provident than most of her neighbors
in the preservation of seedling sweet potatoes, and it happened to her -- as
it will happen to any careful and thrifty person residing in an ignorant and
improvident community -- to enjoy the reputation of having been born to "good
luck." Her "good luck" was owing to the exceeding care which
she took in preventing the succulent root from getting bruised in the digging,
and in placing it beyond the reach of frost, by actually burying it under the
hearth of her cabin during the winter months. In the time of planting sweet
potatoes, "Grandmother Betty," as she was familiarly called, was sent
for in all directions, simply to place the seedling potatoes in the hills; for
superstition had it, that if "Grandmamma Betty but touches them at planting,
they will be sure to grow and flourish." This high reputation was full
of advantage to her, and to the children around her. Though Tuckahoe had but
few of the good things of life, yet of such as it did possess grandmother got
a full share, in the way of presents. If good potato crops came after her planting,
she was not forgotten by those for whom she planted; and as she was remembered
by others, so she remembered the hungry little ones around her.
The dwelling of my grandmother and grandfather had few pretensions. It was a log hut, or cabin,
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built of clay, wood, and straw. At a distance it resembled -- though it was
smaller, less commodious and less substantial -- the cabins erected in the western
states by the first settlers. To my child's eye, however, it was a noble structure,
admirably adapted to promote the comforts and conveniences of its inmates. A
few rough, Virginia fence-rails, flung loosely over the rafters above, answered
the triple purpose of floors, ceilings, and bedsteads. To be sure, this upper
apartment was reached only by a ladder -- but what in the world for climbing
could be better than a ladder? To me, this ladder was really a high invention,
and possessed a sort of charm as I played with delight upon the rounds of it.
In this little hut there was a large family of children: I dare not say how
many. My grandmother -- whether because too old for field service, or because
she had so faithfully discharged the duties of her station in early life, I
know not -- enjoyed the high privilege of living in a cabin, separate from the
quarter, with no other burden than her own support, and the necessary care of
the little children, imposed. She evidently esteemed it a great fortune to live
so. The children were not her own, but her grandchildren -- the children of
her daughters. She took delight in having them around her, and in attending
to their few wants. The practice of separating children from their mother, and
hiring the latter out at distances too great to admit of their meeting, except
at long intervals, is a marked feature of the cruelty and barbarity of the slave
system. But it is in harmony with the grand aim of slavery, which, always and
everywhere, is to
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reduce man to a level with the brute. It is a successful method of obliterating
from the mind and heart of the slave, all just ideas of the sacredness of the
family, as an institution.
Most of the children, however, in this instance, being the children of my grandmother's daughters, the notions of family, and the reciprocal duties and benefits of the relation, had a better chance of being understood than where children are placed -- as they often are in the hands of strangers, who have no care for them, apart from the wishes of their masters. The daughters of my grandmother were five in number. Their names were JENNY, ESTHER, MILLY, PRISCILLA, and HARRIET. The daughter last named was my mother, of whom the reader shall learn more by-and-by.
Living here, with my dear old grandmother and grandfather, it was a long time before I knew myself to be a slave. I knew many other things before I knew that. Grandmother and grandfather were the greatest people in the world to me; and being with them so snugly in their own little cabin -- I supposed it be their own -- knowing no higher authority over me or the other children than the authority of grandmamma, for a time there was nothing to disturb me; but, as I grew larger and older, I learned by degrees the sad fact, that the "little hut," and the lot on which it stood, belonged not to my dear old grandparents, but to some person who lived a great distance off, and who was called, by grandmother, "OLD MASTER." I further learned the sadder fact, that not only the house and lot, but that grandmother herself,
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(grandfather was free,) and all the little children around her, belonged to
this mysterious personage, called by grandmother, with every mark of reverence,
"Old Master." Thus early did clouds and shadows begin to fall upon
my path. Once on the track -- troubles never come singly -- I was not long in
finding out another fact, still more grievous to my childish heart. I was told
that this "old master," whose name seemed ever to be mentioned with
fear and shuddering, only allowed the children to live with grandmother for
a limited time, and that in fact as soon as they were big enough, they were
promptly taken away, to live with the said "old master." These were
distressing revelations indeed; and though I was quite too young to comprehend
the full import of the intelligence, and mostly spent my childhood days in gleesome
sports with the other children, a shade of disquiet rested upon me.
The absolute power of this distant "old master" had touched my young spirit with but the point of its cold, cruel iron, and left me something to brood over after the play and in moments of repose. Grandmammy was, indeed, at that time, all the world to me; and the thought of being separated from her, in any considerable time, was more than an unwelcome intruder. It was intolerable.
Children have their sorrows as well as men and women; and it would be well to remember this in our dealings with them. SLAVE-children are children, and prove no exceptions to the general rule. The liability to be separated from my grandmother, seldom or never to see her again, haunted me. I dreaded
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the thought of going to live with that mysterious "old master," whose
name I never heard mentioned with affection, but always with fear. I look back
to this as among the heaviest of my childhood's sorrows. My grandmother! my
grandmother! and the little hut, and the joyous circle under her care, but especially
she, who made us sorry when she left us but for an hour, and glad on her return,
-- how could I leave her and the good old home?
But the sorrows of childhood, like the pleasures of after life, are transient. It is not even within the power of slavery to write indelible sorrow, at a single dash, over the heart of a child.
"The tear down childhood's cheek that flows,
Is like the dew-drop on the rose --
When next the summer breeze comes by,
And waves the bush -- the flower is dry."
There is, after all, but little difference in the measure of contentment felt by the slave-child neglected and the slaveholder's child cared for and petted. The spirit of the All Just mercifully holds the balance for the young.
The slaveholder, having nothing to fear from impotent childhood, easily affords to refrain from cruel inflictions; and if cold and hunger do not pierce the tender frame, the first seven or eight years of the slave-boy's life are about as full of sweet content as those of the most favored and petted white children of the slaveholder. The slave-boy escapes many troubles which befall and vex his white brother. He seldom has to listen to lectures on propriety of behavior,
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or on anything else. He is never chided for handling his little knife and fork
improperly or awkwardly, for he uses none. He is never reprimanded for soiling
the table-cloth, for he takes his meals on the clay floor. He never has the
misfortune, in his games or sports, of soiling or tearing his clothes, for he
has almost none to soil or tear. He is never expected to act like a nice little
gentleman, for he is only a rude little slave. Thus, freed from all restraint,
the slave-boy can be, in his life and conduct, a genuine boy, doing whatever
his boyish nature suggests; enacting, by turns, all the strange antics and freaks
of horses, dogs, pigs, and barn-door fowls, without in any manner compromising
his dignity, or incurring reproach of any sort. He literally runs wild; has
no pretty little verses to learn in the nursery; no nice little speeches to
make for aunts, uncles, or cousins, to show how smart he is; and, if he can
only manage to keep out of the way of the heavy feet and fists of the older
slave boys, he may trot on, in his joyous and roguish tricks, as happy as any
little heathen under the palm trees of Africa. To be sure, he is occasionally
reminded, when he stumbles in the path of his master -- and this he early learns
to avoid -- that he is eating his "white bread," and that he will
be made to "see sights" by-and-by. The threat is soon forgotten; the
shadow soon passes, and our sable boy continues to roll in the dust, or play
in the mud, as bests suits him, and in the veriest freedom. If he feels uncomfortable,
from mud or from dust, the coast is clear; he can plunge into the river or the
pond, without the ceremony of undressing, or the fear
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of wetting his clothes; his little tow-linen shirt -- for that is all he has
on -- is easily dried; and it needed ablution as much as did his skin. His food
is of the coarsest kind, consisting for the most part of cornmeal mush, which
often finds it way from the wooden tray to his mouth in an oyster shell. His
days, when the weather is warm, are spent in the pure, open air, and in the
bright sunshine. He always sleeps in airy apartments; he seldom has to take
powders, or to be paid to swallow pretty little sugar-coated pills, to cleanse
his blood, or to quicken his appetite. He eats no candies; gets no lumps of
loaf sugar; always relishes his food; cries but little, for nobody cares for
his crying; learns to esteem his bruises but slight, because others so esteem
them. In a word, he is, for the most part of the first eight years of his life,
a spirited, joyous, uproarious, and happy boy, upon whom troubles fall only
like water on a duck's back. And such a boy, so far as I can now remember, was
the boy whose life in slavery I am now narrating.
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CHAPTER II.
THE AUTHOR REMOVED FROM HIS FIRST HOME.
THE NAME "OLD MASTER" A TERROR -- COLONEL LLOYD'S PLANTATION -- WYE
RIVER -- WHENCE ITS NAME -- POSITION OF THE LLOYDS -- HOME ATTRACTION -- MEET
OFFERING -- JOURNEY FROM TUCKAHOE TO WYE RIVER -- SCENE ON REACHING OLD MASTER'S
-- DEPARTURE OF GRANDMOTHER -- STRANGE MEETING OF SISTERS AND BROTHERS -- REFUSAL
TO BE COMFORTED -- SWEET SLEEP.
That mysterious individual referred to in the first chapter as an object of terror among the inhabitants of our little cabin, under the ominous title of "old master," was really a man of some consequence. He owned several farms in Tuckahoe; was the chief clerk and butler on the home plantation of Col. Edward Lloyd; had overseers on his own farms; and gave directions to overseers on the farms belonging to Col. Lloyd. This plantation is situated on Wye river -- the river receiving its name, doubtless, from Wales, where the Lloyds originated. They (the Lloyds) are an old and honored family in Maryland, exceedingly wealthy. The home plantation, where they have resided, perhaps for a century or more, is one of the largest, most fertile, and best appointed, in the state.
About this plantation, and about that queer old master -- who must be something more than a man,
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and something worse than an angel -- the reader will easily imagine that I was
not only curious, but eager, to know all that could be known. Unhappily for
me, however, all the information I could get concerning him increased my great
dread of being carried thither -- of being separated from and deprived of the
protection of my grandmother and grandfather. It was, evidently, a great thing
to go to Col. Lloyd's; and I was not without a little curiosity to see the place;
but no amount of coaxing could induce in me the wish to remain there. The fact
is, such was my dread of leaving the little cabin, that I wished to remain little
forever, for I knew the taller I grew the shorter my stay. The old cabin, with
its rail floor and rail bedsteads upstairs, and its clay floor downstairs, and
its dirt chimney, and windowless sides, and that most curious piece of workmanship
dug in front of the fireplace, beneath which grandmammy placed the sweet potatoes
to keep them from the frost, was MY HOME -- the only home I ever had; and I
loved it, and all connected with it. The old fences around it, and the stumps
in the edge of the woods near it, and the squirrels that ran, skipped, and played
upon them, were objects of interest and affection. There, too, right at the
side of the hut, stood the old well, with its stately and skyward-pointing beam,
so aptly placed between the limbs of what had once been a tree, and so nicely
balanced that I could move it up and down with only one hand, and could get
a drink myself without calling for help. Where else in the world could such
a well be found, and where could
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such another home be met with? Nor were these all the attractions of the place.
Down in a little valley, not far from grandmammy's cabin, stood Mr. Lee's mill,
where the people came often in large numbers to get their corn ground. It was
a watermill; and I never shall be able to tell the many things thought and felt,
while I sat on the bank and watched that mill, and the turning of that ponderous
wheel. The mill-pond, too, had its charms; and with my pinhook, and thread line,
I could get nibbles, if I could catch no fish. But, in all my sports and plays,
and in spite of them, there would, occasionally, come the painful foreboding
that I was not long to remain there, and that I must soon be called away to
the home of old master.
I was A SLAVE -- born a slave and though the fact was in comprehensible to me, it conveyed to my mind a sense of my entire dependence on the will of somebody I had never seen; and, from some cause or other, I had been made to fear this somebody above all else on earth. Born for another's benefit, as the firstling of the cabin flock I was soon to be selected as a meet offering to the fearful and inexorable demigod, whose huge image on so many occasions haunted my childhood's imagination. When the time of my departure was decided upon, my grandmother, knowing my fears, and in pity for them, kindly kept me ignorant of the dreaded event about to transpire. Up to the morning (a beautiful summer morning) when we were to start, and, indeed, during the whole journey -- a journey which, child as I was, I remember as well as if it were yesterday -- she kept the sad fact
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hidden from me. This reserve was necessary; for, could I have known all, I should
have given grandmother some trouble in getting me started. As it was, I was
helpless, and she -- dear woman! -- led me along by the hand, resisting, with
the reserve and solemnity of a priestess, all my inquiring looks to the last.
The distance from Tuckahoe to Wye river -- where my old master lived -- was full twelve miles, and the walk was quite a severe test of the endurance of my young legs. The journey would have proved too severe for me, but that my dear old grandmother -- blessings on her memory! -- afforded occasional relief by "toting" me (as Marylanders have it) on her shoulder. My grandmother, though advanced in years -- as was evident from more than one gray hair, which peeped from between the ample and graceful folds of her newly-ironed bandana turban -- was yet a woman of power and spirit. She was marvelously straight in figure, elastic, and muscular. I seemed hardly to be a burden to her. She would have "toted" me farther, but that I felt myself too much of a man to allow it, and insisted on walking. Releasing dear grandmamma from carrying me, did not make me altogether independent of her, when we happened to pass through portions of the somber woods which lay between Tuckahoe and Wye river. She often found me increasing the energy of my grip, and holding her clothing, lest something should come out of the woods and eat me up. Several old logs and stumps imposed upon me, and got themselves taken for wild beasts. I could see their legs, eyes, and ears,
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or I could see something like eyes, legs, and ears, till I got close enough
to them to see that the eyes were knots, washed white with rain, and the legs
were broken limbs, and the ears, only ears owing to the point from which they
were seen. Thus early I learned that the point from which a thing is viewed
is of some importance.
As the day advanced the heat increased; and it was not until the afternoon that we reached the much dreaded end of the journey. I found myself in the midst of a group of children of many colors; black, brown, copper colored, and nearly white. I had not seen so many children before. Great houses loomed up in different directions, and a great many men and women were at work in the fields. All this hurry, noise, and singing was very different from the stillness of Tuckahoe. As a new comer, I was an object of special interest; and, after laughing and yelling around me, and playing all sorts of wild tricks, they (the children) asked me to go out and play with them. This I refused to do, preferring to stay with grandmamma. I could not help feeling that our being there boded no good to me. Grandmamma looked sad. She was soon to lose another object of affection, as she had lost many before. I knew she was unhappy, and the shadow fell from her brow on me, though I knew not the cause.
All suspense, however, must have an end; and the end of mine, in this instance, was at hand. Affectionately patting me on the head, and exhorting me to be a good boy, grandmamma told me to go and play with the little children. "They are kin to you,"
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said she; "go and play with them." Among a number of cousins were
Phil, Tom, Steve, and Jerry, Nance and Betty.
Grandmother pointed out my brother PERRY, my sister SARAH, and my sister ELIZA, who stood in the group. I had never seen my brother nor my sisters before; and, though I had sometimes heard of them, and felt a curious interest in them, I really did not understand what they were to me, or I to them. We were brothers and sisters, but what of that? Why should they be attached to me, or I to them? Brothers and sisters we were by blood; but slavery had made us strangers. I heard the words brother and sisters, and knew they must mean something; but slavery had robbed these terms of their true meaning. The experience through which I was passing, they had passed through before. They had already been initiated into the mysteries of old master's domicile, and they seemed to look upon me with a certain degree of compassion; but my heart clave to my grandmother. Think it not strange, dear reader, that so little sympathy of feeling existed between us. The conditions of brotherly and sisterly feeling were wanting -- we had never nestled and played together. My poor mother, like many other slave-women, had many children, but NO FAMILY! The domestic hearth, with its holy lessons and precious endearments, is abolished in the case of a slave-mother and her children. "Little children, love one another," are words seldom heard in a slave cabin.
I really wanted to play with my brother and sisters, but they were strangers to me, and I was full of
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fear that grandmother might leave without taking me with her. Entreated to do
so, however, and that, too, by my dear grandmother, I went to the back part
of the house, to play with them and the other children. Play, however, I did
not, but stood with my back against the wall, witnessing the playing of the
others. At last, while standing there, one of the children, who had been in
the kitchen, ran up to me, in a sort of roguish glee, exclaiming, "Fed,
Fed! grandmammy gone! grandmammy gone!" I could not believe it; yet, fearing
the worst, I ran into the kitchen, to see for myself, and found it even so.
Grandmammy had indeed gone, and was now far away, "clean" out of sight.
I need not tell all that happened now. Almost heart-broken at the discovery,
I fell upon the ground, and wept a boy's bitter tears, refusing to be comforted.
My brother and sisters came around me, and said, "Don't cry," and
gave me peaches and pears, but I flung them away, and refused all their kindly
advances. I had never been deceived before; and I felt not only grieved at parting
-- as I supposed forever -- with my grandmother, but indignant that a trick
had been played upon me in a matter so serious.
It was now late in the afternoon. The day had been an exciting and wearisome one, and I knew not how or where, but I suppose I sobbed myself to sleep. There is a healing in the angel wing of sleep, even for the slave-boy; and its balm was never more welcome to any wounded soul than it was to mine, the first night I spent at the domicile of old master. The reader may be surprised that I narrate so minutely
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an incident apparently so trivial, and which must have occurred when I was not
more than seven years old; but as I wish to give a faithful history of my experience
in slavery, I cannot withhold a circumstance which, at the time, affected me
so deeply. Besides, this was, in fact, my first introduction to the realities
of slavery.
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CHAPTER III.
THE AUTHOR'S PARENTAGE.
MY FATHER SHROUDED IN MYSTERY -- MY MOTHER -- HER PERSONAL APPEARANCE -- INTERFERENCE
OF SLAVERY WITH THE NATURAL AFFECTIONS OF MOTHER AND CHILDREN -- SITUATION OF
MY MOTHER -- HER NIGHTLY VISITS TO HER BOY -- STRIKING INCIDENT -- HER DEATH
-- HER PLACE OF BURIAL.
If the reader will now be kind enough to allow me time to grow bigger, and afford me an opportunity for my experience to become greater, I will tell him something, by-and-by, of slave life, as I saw, felt, and heard it, on Col. Edward Lloyd's plantation, and at the house of old master, where I had now, despite of myself, most suddenly, but not unexpectedly, been dropped. Meanwhile, I will redeem my promise to say something more of my dear mother.
I say nothing of father, for he is shrouded in a mystery I have never been able to penetrate. Slavery does away with fathers, as it does away with families. Slavery has no use for either fathers or families, and its laws do not recognize their existence in the social arrangements of the plantation. When they do exist, they are not the outgrowths of slavery, but are antagonistic to that system. The order of civilization is reversed here. The name of the child is not expected to be that of its father, and his condition
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does not necessarily affect that of the child. He may be the slave of Mr. Tilgman;
and his child, when born, may be the slave of Mr. Gross. He may be a freeman;
and yet his child may be a chattel. He may be white, glorying in the purity
of his Anglo-Saxon blood; and his child may be ranked with the blackest slaves.
Indeed, he may be, and often is, master and father to the same child. He can
be father without being a husband, and may sell his child without incurring
reproach, if the child be by a woman in whose veins courses one thirty-second
part of African blood. My father was a white man, or nearly white. It was sometimes
whispered that my master was my father.
But to return, or rather, to begin. My knowledge of my mother is very scanty, but very distinct. Her personal appearance and bearing are ineffaceably stamped upon my memory. She was tall, and finely proportioned; of deep black, glossy complexion; had regular features, and, among the other slaves, was remarkably sedate in her manners. There is in Prichard's Natural History of Man, the head of a figure -- on page 157 -- the features of which so resemble those of my mother, that I often recur to it with something of the feeling which I suppose others experience when looking upon the pictures of dear departed ones.
Yet I cannot say that I was very deeply attached to my mother; certainly not so deeply as I should have been had our relations in childhood been different. We were separated, according to the common custom, when I was but an infant, and, of course, before I knew my mother from any one else.
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The germs of affection with which the Almighty, in his wisdom and mercy, arms
the hopeless infant against the ills and vicissitudes of his lot, had been directed
in their growth toward that loving old grandmother, whose gentle hand and kind
deportment it was in the first effort of my infantile understanding to comprehend
and appreciate. Accordingly, the tenderest affection which a beneficent Father
allows, as a partial compensation to the mother for the pains and lacerations
of her heart, incident to the maternal relation, was, in my case, diverted from
its true and natural object, by the envious, greedy, and treacherous hand of
slavery. The slave-mother can be spared long enough from the field to endure
all the bitterness of a mother's anguish, when it adds another name to a master's
ledger, but not long enough to receive the joyous reward afforded by the intelligent
smiles of her child. I never think of this terrible interference of slavery
with my infantile affections, and its diverting them from their natural course,
without feelings to which I can give no adequate expression.
I do not remember to have seen my mother at my grandmother's at any time. I remember her only in her visits to me at Col. Lloyd's plantation, and in the kitchen of my old master. Her visits to me there were few in number, brief in duration, and mostly made in the night. The pains she took, and the toil she endured, to see me, tells me that a true mother's heart was hers, and that slavery had difficulty in paralyzing it with unmotherly indifference.
My mother was hired out to a Mr. Stewart, who lived about twelve miles from old master's, and, being
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a field hand, she seldom had leisure, by day, for the performance of the journey.
The nights and the distance were both obstacles to her visits. She was obliged
to walk, unless chance flung into her way an opportunity to ride; and the latter
was sometimes her good luck. But she always had to walk one way or the other.
It was a greater luxury than slavery could afford, to allow a black slave-mother
a horse or a mule, upon which to travel twenty-four miles, when she could walk
the distance. Besides, it is deemed a foolish whim for a slave-mother to manifest
concern to see her children, and, in one point of view, the case is made out
-- she can do nothing for them. She has no control over them; the master is
even more than the mother, in all matters touching the fate of her child. Why,
then, should she give herself any concern? She has no responsibility. Such is
the reasoning, and such the practice. The iron rule of the plantation, always
passionately and violently enforced in that neighborhood, makes flogging the
penalty of failing to be in the field before sunrise in the morning, unless
special permission be given to the absenting slave. "I went to see my child,"
is no excuse to the ear or heart of the overseer.
One of the visits of my mother to me, while at Col. Lloyd's, I remember very vividly, as affording a bright gleam of a mother's love, and the earnestness of a mother's care.
"I had on that day offended "Aunt Katy," (called "Aunt" by way of respect,) the cook of old master's establishment. I do not now remember the nature of my offense in this instance, for my offenses were
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numerous in that quarter, greatly depending, however, upon the mood of Aunt
Katy, as to their heinousness; but she had adopted, that day, her favorite mode
of punishing me, namely, making me go without food all day -- that is, from
after breakfast. The first hour or two after dinner, I succeeded pretty well
in keeping up my spirits; but though I made an excellent stand against the foe,
and fought bravely during the afternoon, I knew I must be conquered at last,
unless I got the accustomed reenforcement of a slice of corn bread, at sundown.
Sundown came, but no bread, and, in its stead, their came the threat, with a
scowl well suited to its terrible import, that she "meant to starve the
life out of me!" Brandishing her knife, she chopped off the heavy slices
for the other children, and put the loaf away, muttering, all the while, her
savage designs upon myself. Against this disappointment, for I was expecting
that her heart would relent at last, I made an extra effort to maintain my dignity;
but when I saw all the other children around me with merry and satisfied faces,
I could stand it no longer. I went out behind the house, and cried like a fine
fellow! When tired of this, I returned to the kitchen, sat by the fire, and
brooded over my hard lot. I was too hungry to sleep. While I sat in the corner,
I caught sight of an ear of Indian corn on an upper shelf of the kitchen. I
watched my chance, and got it, and, shelling off a few grains, I put it back
again. The grains in my hand, I quickly put in some ashes, and covered them
with embers, to roast them. All this I did at the risk of getting a brutal thumping,
for Aunt Katy could beat, as well as starve me. My corn was not long in
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roasting, and, with my keen appetite, it did not matter even if the grains were
not exactly done. I eagerly pulled them out, and placed them on my stool, in
a clever little pile. Just as I began to help myself to my very dry meal, in
came my dear mother. And now, dear reader, a scene occurred which was altogether
worth beholding, and to me it was instructive as well as interesting. The friendless
and hungry boy, in his extremest need -- and when he did not dare to look for
succor -- found himself in the strong, protecting arms of a mother; a mother
who was, at the moment (being endowed with high powers of manner as well as
matter) more than a match for all his enemies. I shall never forget the indescribable
expression of her countenance, when I told her that I had had no food since
morning; and that Aunt Katy said she "meant to starve the life out of me."
There was pity in her glance at me, and a fiery indignation at Aunt Katy at
the same time; and, while she took the corn from me, and gave me a large ginger
cake, in its stead, she read Aunt Katy a lecture which she never forgot. My
mother threatened her with complaining to old master in my behalf; for the latter,
though harsh and cruel himself, at times, did not sanction the meanness, injustice,
partiality and oppressions enacted by Aunt Katy in the kitchen. That night I
learned the fact, that I was, not only a child, but somebody's child. The "sweet
cake" my mother gave me was in the shape of a heart, with a rich, dark
ring glazed upon the edge of it. I was victorious, and well off for the moment;
prouder, on my mother's knee, than a king upon his throne. But my triumph was
short. I dropped off to
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sleep, and waked in the morning only to find my mother gone, and myself left
at the mercy of the sable virago, dominant in my old master's kitchen, whose
fiery wrath was my constant dread.
I do not remember to have seen my mother after this occurrence. Death soon ended the little communication that had existed between us; and with it, I believe, a life judging from her weary, sad, down-cast countenance and mute demeanor -- full of heartfelt sorrow. I was not allowed to visit her during any part of her long illness; nor did I see her for a long time before she was taken ill and died. The heartless and ghastly form of slavery rises between mother and child, even at the bed of death. The mother, at the verge of the grave, may not gather her children, to impart to them her holy admonitions, and invoke for them her dying benediction. The bond-woman lives as a slave, and is left to die as a beast; often with fewer attentions than are paid to a favorite horse. Scenes of sacred tenderness, around the death-bed, never forgotten, and which often arrest the vicious and confirm the virtuous during life, must be looked for among the free, though they sometimes occur among the slaves. It has been a life-long, standing grief to me, that I knew so little of my mother; and that I was so early separated from her. The counsels of her love must have been beneficial to me. The side view of her face is imaged on my memory, and I take few steps in life, without feeling her presence; but the image is mute, and I have no striking words of her's treasured up.
I learned, after my mother's death, that she could
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read, and that she was the only one of all the slaves and colored people in
Tuckahoe who enjoyed that advantage. How she acquired this knowledge, I know
not, for Tuckahoe is the last place in the world where she would be apt to find
facilities for learning. I can, therefore, fondly and proudly ascribe to her
an earnest love of knowledge. That a "field hand" should learn to
read, in any slave state, is remarkable; but the achievement of my mother, considering
the place, was very extraordinary; and, in view of that fact, I am quite willing,
and even happy, to attribute any love of letters I possess, and for which I
have got -- despite of prejudices only too much credit, not to my admitted Anglo-Saxon
paternity, but to the native genius of my sable, unprotected, and uncultivated
mother -- a woman, who belonged to a race whose mental endowments it is, at
present, fashionable to hold in disparagement and contempt.
Summoned away to her account, with the impassable gulf of slavery between us during her entire illness, my mother died without leaving me a single intimation of who my father was. There was a whisper, that my master was my father; yet it was only a whisper, and I cannot say that I ever gave it credence. Indeed, I now have reason to think he was not; nevertheless, the fact remains, in all its glaring odiousness, that, by the laws of slavery, children, in all cases, are reduced to the condition of their mothers. This arrangement admits of the greatest license to brutal slaveholders, and their profligate sons, brothers, relations and friends, and gives to the pleasure of sin, the additional attraction of profit. A whole volume might
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be written on this single feature of slavery, as I have observed it.
One might imagine, that the children of such connections, would fare better, in the hands of their masters, than other slaves. The rule is quite the other way; and a very little reflection will satisfy the reader that such is the case. A man who will enslave his own blood, may not be safely relied on for magnanimity. Men do not love those who remind them of their sins unless they have a mind to repent -- and the mulatto child's face is a standing accusation against him who is master and father to the child. What is still worse, perhaps, such a child is a constant offense to the wife. She hates its very presence, and when a slaveholding woman hates, she wants not means to give that hate telling effect. Women -- white women, I mean -- are IDOLS at the south, not WIVES, for the slave women are preferred in many instances; and if these idols but nod, or lift a finger, woe to the poor victim: kicks, cuffs and stripes are sure to follow. Masters are frequently compelled to sell this class of their slaves, out of deference to the feelings of their white wives; and shocking and scandalous as it may seem for a man to sell his own blood to the traffickers in human flesh, it is often an act of humanity toward the slave-child to be thus removed from his merciless tormentors.
It is not within the scope of the design of my simple story, to comment upon every phase of slavery not within my experience as a slave.
But, I may remark, that, if the lineal descendants of Ham are only to be enslaved, according to the
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scriptures, slavery in this country will soon become an unscriptural institution;
for thousands are ushered into the world, annually, who -- like myself -- owe
their existence to white fathers, and, most frequently, to their masters, and
master's sons. The slave-woman is at the mercy of the fathers, sons or brothers
of her master. The thoughtful know the rest.
After what I have now said of the circumstances of my mother, and my relations to her, the reader will not be surprised, nor be disposed to censure me, when I tell but the simple truth, viz: that I received the tidings of her death with no strong emotions of sorrow for her, and with very little regret for myself on account of her loss. I had to learn the value of my mother long after her death, and by witnessing the devotion of other mothers to their children.
There is not, beneath the sky, an enemy to filial affection so destructive as slavery. It had made my brothers and sisters strangers to me; it converted the mother that bore me, into a myth; it shrouded my father in mystery, and left me without an intelligible beginning in the world.
My mother died when I could not have been more than eight or nine years old, on one of old master's farms in Tuckahoe, in the neighborhood of Hillsborough. Her grave is, as the grave of the dead at sea, unmarked, and without stone or stake.
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CHAPTER IV.
A GENERAL SURVEY OF THE SLAVE PLANTATION.
ISOLATION OF LLOYD S PLANTATION -- PUBLIC OPINION THERE NO PROTECTION TO THE
SLAVE -- ABSOLUTE POWER OF THE OVERSEER -- NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL CHARMS OF
THE PLACE -- ITS BUSINESS-LIKE APPEARANCE -- SUPERSTITION ABOUT THE BURIAL GROUND
-- GREAT IDEAS OF COL. LLOYD -- ETIQUETTE AMONG SLAVES -- THE COMIC SLAVE DOCTOR
-- PRAYING AND FLOGGING -- OLD MASTER LOSING ITS TERRORS -- HIS BUSINESS --
CHARACTER OF AUNT KATY -- SUFFERINGS FROM HUNGER -- OLD MASTER'S HOME -- JARGON
OF THE PLANTATION -- GUINEA SLAVES -- MASTER DANIEL -- FAMILY OF COL. LLOYD
-- FAMILY OF CAPT. ANTHONY -- HIS SOCIAL POSITION -- NOTIONS OF RANK AND STATION.
It is generally supposed that slavery, in the state of Maryland, exists in its mildest form, and that it is totally divested of those harsh and terrible peculiarities, which mark and characterize the slave system, in the southern and south-western states of the American union. The argument in favor of this opinion, is the contiguity of the free states, and the exposed condition of slavery in Maryland to the moral, religious and humane sentiment of the free states.
I am not about to refute this argument, so far as it relates to slavery in that state, generally; on the contrary, I am willing to admit that, to this general point, the arguments is well grounded. Public opinion is, indeed, an unfailing restraint upon the cruelty and barbarity of masters, overseers, and slave-drivers, whenever and wherever it can reach them; but there
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are certain secluded and out-of-the-way places, even in the state of Maryland,
seldom visited by a single ray of healthy public sentiment -- where slavery,
wrapt in its own congenial, midnight darkness, can, and does, develop all its
malign and shocking characteristics; where it can be indecent without shame,
cruel without shuddering, and murderous without apprehension or fear of exposure.
Just such a secluded, dark, and out-of-the-way place, is the "home plantation" of Col. Edward Lloyd, on the Eastern Shore, Maryland. It is far away from all the great thoroughfares, and is proximate to no town or village. There is neither school-house, nor town-house in its neighborhood. The school-house is unnecessary, for there are no children to go to school. The children and grand-children of Col. Lloyd were taught in the house, by a private tutor -- a Mr. Page a tall, gaunt sapling of a man, who did not speak a dozen words to a slave in a whole year. The overseers' children go off somewhere to school; and they, therefore, bring no foreign or dangerous influence from abroad, to embarrass the natural operation of the slave system of the place. Not even the mechanics -- through whom there is an occasional out-burst of honest and telling indignation, at cruelty and wrong on other plantations -- are white men, on this plantation. Its whole public is made up of, and divided into, three classes -- SLAVEHOLDERS, SLAVES and OVERSEERS. Its blacksmiths, wheelwrights, shoemakers, weavers, and coopers, are slaves. Not even commerce, selfish and iron-hearted at it is, and ready, as it ever is, to side with the strong against the weak --
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the rich against the poor -- is trusted or permitted within its secluded precincts.
Whether with a view of guarding against the escape of its secrets, I know not,
but it is a fact, the every leaf and grain of the produce of this plantation,
and those of the neighboring farms belonging to Col. Lloyd, are transported
to Baltimore in Col. Lloyd's own vessels; every man and boy on board of which
-- except the captain -- are owned by him. In return, everything brought to
the plantation, comes through the same channel. Thus, even the glimmering and
unsteady light of trade, which sometimes exerts a civilizing influence, is excluded
from this "tabooed" spot.
Nearly all the plantations or farms in the vicinity of the "home plantation" of Col. Lloyd, belong to him; and those which do not, are owned by personal friends of his, as deeply interested in maintaining the slave system, in all its rigor, as Col. Lloyd himself. Some of his neighbors are said to be even more stringent than he. The Skinners, the Peakers, the Tilgmans, the Lockermans, and the Gipsons, are in the same boat; being slaveholding neighbors, they may have strengthened each other in their iron rule. They are on intimate terms, and their interests and tastes are identical.
Public opinion in such a quarter, the reader will see, is not likely to very efficient in protecting the slave from cruelty. On the contrary, it must increase and intensify his wrongs. Public opinion seldom differs very widely from public practice. To be a restraint upon cruelty and vice, public opinion must emanate from a
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humane and virtuous community. To no such humane and virtuous community, is
Col. Lloyd's plantation exposed. That plantation is a little nation of its own,
having its own language, its own rules, regulations and customs. The laws and
institutions of the state, apparently touch it nowhere. The troubles arising
here, are not settled by the civil power of the state. The overseer is generally
accuser, judge, jury, advocate and executioner. The criminal is always dumb.
The overseer attends to all sides of a case.
There are no conflicting rights of property, for all the people are owned by one man; and they can themselves own no property. Religion and politics are alike excluded. One class of the population is too high to be reached by the preacher; and the other class is too low to be cared for by the preacher. The poor have the gospel preached to them, in this neighborhood, only when they are able to pay for it. The slaves, having no money, get no gospel. The politician keeps away, because the people have no votes, and the preacher keeps away, because the people have no money. The rich planter can afford to learn politics in the parlor, and to dispense with religion altogether.
In its isolation, seclusion, and self-reliant independence, Col. Lloyd's plantation resembles what the baronial domains were during the middle ages in Europe. Grim, cold, and unapproachable by all genial influences from communities without, there it stands; full three hundred years behind the age, in all that relates to humanity and morals.
This, however, is not the only view that the place presents. Civilization is shut out, but nature cannot be. Though separated from the rest of the world;
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though public opinion, as I have said, seldom gets a chance to penetrate its
dark domain; though the whole place is stamped with its own peculiar, ironlike
individuality; and though crimes, high-handed and atrocious, may there be committed,
with almost as much impunity as upon the deck of a pirate ship -- it is, nevertheless,
altogether, to outward seeming, a most strikingly interesting place, full of
life, activity, and spirit; and presents a very favorable contrast to the indolent
monotony and languor of Tuckahoe. Keen as was my regret and great as was my
sorrow at leaving the latter, I was not long in adapting myself to this, my
new home. A man's troubles are always half disposed of, when he finds endurance
his only remedy. I found myself here; there was no getting away; and what remained
for me, but to make the best of it? Here were plenty of children to play with,
and plenty of places of pleasant resort for boys of my age, and boys older.
The little tendrils of affection, so rudely and treacherously broken from around
the darling objects of my grandmother's hut, gradually began to extend, and
to entwine about the new objects by which I now found myself surrounded.
There was a windmill (always a commanding object to a child's eye) on Long Point -- a tract of land dividing Miles river from the Wye a mile or more from my old master's house. There was a creek to swim in, at the bottom of an open flat space, of twenty acres or more, called "the Long Green" -- a very beautiful play-ground for the children.
In the river, a short distance from the shore, lying quietly at anchor, with her small boat dancing at her
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stern, was a large sloop -- the Sally Lloyd; called by that name in honor of
a favorite daughter of the colonel. The sloop and the mill were wondrous things,
full of thoughts and ideas. A child cannot well look at such objects without
thinking.
Then here were a great many houses; human habitations, full of the mysteries of life at every stage of it. There was the little red house, up the road, occupied by Mr. Sevier, the overseer. A little nearer to my old master's, stood a very long, rough, low building, literally alive with slaves, of all ages, conditions and sizes. This was called "the Longe Quarter." Perched upon a hill, across the Long Green, was a very tall, dilapidated, old brick building -- the architectural dimensions of which proclaimed its erection for a different purpose -- now occupied by slaves, in a similar manner to the Long Quarter. Besides these, there were numerous other slave houses and huts, scattered around in the neighborhood, every nook and corner of which was completely occupied. Old master's house, a long, brick building, plain, but substantial, stood in the center of the plantation life, and constituted one independent establishment on the premises of Col. Lloyd.
Besides these dwellings, there were barns, stables, store-houses, and tobacco-houses; blacksmiths' shops, wheelwrights' shops, coopers' shops -- all objects of interest; but, above all, there stood the grandest building my eyes had then ever beheld, called, by every one on the plantation, the "Great House." This was occupied by Col. Lloyd and his family. They occupied it; I enjoyed it. The great house
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was surrounded by numerous and variously shaped out-buildings. There were kitchens,
wash-houses, dairies, summer-house, green-houses, hen-houses, turkey-houses,
pigeon-houses, and arbors, of many sizes and devices, all neatly painted, and
altogether interspersed with grand old trees, ornamental and primitive, which
afforded delightful shade in summer, and imparted to the scene a high degree
of stately beauty. The great house itself was a large, white, wooden building,
with wings on three sides of it. In front, a large portico, extending the entire
length of the building, and supported by a long range of columns, gave to the
whole establishment an air of solemn grandeur. It was a treat to my young and
gradually opening mind, to behold this elaborate exhibition of wealth, power,
and vanity. The carriage entrance to the house was a large gate, more than a
quarter of a mile distant from it; the intermediate space was a beautiful lawn,
very neatly trimmed, and watched with the greatest care. It was dotted thickly
over with delightful trees, shrubbery, and flowers. The road, or lane, from
the gate to the great house, was richly paved with white pebbles from the beach,
and, in its course, formed a complete circle around the beautiful lawn. Carriages
going in and retiring from the great house, made the circuit of the lawn, and
their passengers were permitted to behold a scene of almost Eden-like beauty.
Outside this select inclosure, were parks, where as about the residences of
the English nobility -- rabbits, deer, and other wild game, might be seen, peering
and playing about, with none to molest them or make them afraid. The
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tops of the stately poplars were often covered with the red-winged black-birds,
making all nature vocal with the joyous life and beauty of their wild, warbling
notes. These all belonged to me, as well as to Col. Edward Lloyd, and for a
time I greatly enjoyed them.
A short distance from the great house, were the stately mansions of the dead, a place of somber aspect. Vast tombs, embowered beneath the weeping willow and the fir tree, told of the antiquities of the Lloyd family, as well as of their wealth. Superstition was rife among the slaves about this family burying ground. Strange sights had been seen there by some of the older slaves. Shrouded ghosts, riding on great black horses, had been seen to enter; balls of fire had been seen to fly there at midnight, and horrid sounds had been repeatedly heard. Slaves know enough of the rudiments of theology to believe that those go to hell who die slaveholders; and they often fancy such persons wishing themselves back again, to wield the lash. Tales of sights and sounds, strange and terrible, connected with the huge black tombs, were a very great security to the grounds about them, for few of the slaves felt like approaching them even in the day time. It was a dark, gloomy and forbidding place, and it was difficult to feel that the spirits of the sleeping dust there deposited, reigned with the blest in the realms of eternal peace.
The business of twenty or thirty farms was transacted at this, called, by way of eminence, "great house farm." These farms all belonged to Col. Lloyd, as did, also, the slaves upon them. Each farm was under the management of an overseer. As I have
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said of the overseer of the home plantation, so I may say of the overseers on
the smaller ones; they stand between the slave and all civil constitutions --
their word is law, and is implicitly obeyed.
The colonel, at this time, was reputed to be, and he apparently was, very rich. His slaves, alone, were an immense fortune. These, small and great, could not have been fewer than one thousand in number, and though scarcely a month passed without the sale of one or more lots to the Georgia traders, there was no apparent diminution in the number of his human stock: the home plantation merely groaned at a removal of the young increase, or human crop, then proceeded as lively as ever. Horse-shoeing, cart-mending, plow-repairing, coopering, grinding, and weaving, for all the neighboring farms, were performed here, and slaves were employed in all these branches. "Uncle Tony" was the blacksmith; "Uncle Harry" was the cartwright; "Uncle Abel" was the shoemaker; and all these had hands to assist them in their several departments.
These mechanics were called "uncles" by all the younger slaves, not because they really sustained that relationship to any, but according to plantation etiquette, as a mark of respect, due from the younger to the older slaves. Strange, and even ridiculous as it may seem, among a people so uncultivated, and with so many stern trials to look in the face, there is not to be found, among any people, a more rigid enforcement of the law of respect to elders, than they maintain. I set this down as partly constitutional with my race, and partly conventional. There is no better
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material in the world for making a gentleman, than is furnished in the African.
He shows to others, and exacts for himself, all the tokens of respect which
he is compelled to manifest toward his master. A young slave must approach the
company of the older with hat in hand, and woe betide him, if he fails to acknowledge
a favor, of any sort, with the accustomed "tank'ee," &c. So uniformly
are good manners enforced among slaves, I can easily detect a "bogus"
fugitive by his manners.
Among other slave notabilities of the plantation, was one called by everybody Uncle Isaac Copper. It is seldom that a slave gets a surname from anybody in Maryland; and so completely has the south shaped the manners of the north, in this respect, that even abolitionists make very little of the surname of a Negro. The only improvement on the "Bills," "Jacks," "Jims," and "Neds" of the south, observable here is, that "William," "John," "James," "Edward," are substituted. It goes against the grain to treat and address a Negro precisely as they would treat and address a white man. But, once in a while, in slavery as in the free states, by some extraordinary circumstance, the Negro has a surname fastened to him, and holds it against all conventionalities. This was the case with Uncle Isaac Copper. When the "uncle" was dropped, he generally had the prefix "doctor," in its stead. He was our doctor of medicine, and doctor of divinity as well. Where he took his degree I am unable to say, for he was not very communicative to inferiors, and I was emphatically such, being but a boy seven or eight years old. He
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was too well established in his profession to permit questions as to his native
skill, or his attainments. One qualification he undoubtedly had -- he was a
confirmed cripple; and he could neither work, nor would he bring anything if
offered for sale in the market. The old man, though lame, was no sluggard. He
was a man that made his crutches do him good service. He was always on the alert,
looking up the sick, and all such as were supposed to need his counsel. His
remedial prescriptions embraced four articles. For diseases of the body, Epsom
salts and castor oil; for those of the soul, the Lord's Prayer, and hickory
switches!
I was not long at Col. Lloyd's before I was placed under the care of Doctor Issac Copper. I was sent to him with twenty or thirty other children, to learn the "Lord's Prayer." I found the old gentleman seated on a huge three-legged oaken stool, armed with several large hickory switches; and, from his position, he could reach -- lame as he was -- any boy in the room. After standing awhile to learn what was expected of us, the old gentleman, in any other than a devotional tone, commanded us to kneel down. This done, he commenced telling us to say everything he said. "Our Father" -- this was repeated after him with promptness and uniformity; "Who art in heaven" -- was less promptly and uniformly repeated; and the old gentleman paused in the prayer, to give us a short lecture upon the consequences of inattention, both immediate and future, and especially those more immediate. About these he was absolutely certain, for he held in his right hand the means of
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bringing all his predictions and warnings to pass. On he proceeded with the
prayer; and we with our thick tongues and unskilled ears, followed him to the
best of our ability. This, however, was not sufficient to please the old gentleman.
Everybody, in the south, wants the privilege of whipping somebody else. Uncle
Isaac shared the common passion of his country, and, therefore, seldom found
any means of keeping his disciples in order short of flogging. "Say everything
I say;" and bang would come the switch on some poor boy's undevotional
head. "What you looking at there" -- "Stop that pushing"
-- and down again would come the lash.
The whip is all in all. It is supposed to secure obedience to the slaveholder, and is held as a sovereign remedy among the slaves themselves, for every form of disobedience, temporal or spiritual. Slaves, as well as slaveholders, use it with an unsparing hand. Our devotions at Uncle Isaac's combined too much of the tragic and comic, to make them very salutary in a spiritual point of view; and it is due to truth to say, I was often a truant when the time for attending the praying and flogging of Doctor Isaac Copper came on.
The windmill under the care of Mr. Kinney, a kind hearted old Englishman, was to me a source of infinite interest and pleasure. The old man always seemed pleased when he saw a troop of darkey little urchins, with their tow-linen shirts fluttering in the breeze, approaching to view and admire the whirling wings of his wondrous machine. From the mill we could see other objects of deep interest. These were,
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the vessels from St. Michael's, on their way to Baltimore. It was a source of
much amusement to view the flowing sails and complicated rigging, as the little
crafts dashed by, and to speculate upon Baltimore, as to the kind and quality
of the place. With so many sources of interest around me, the reader may be
prepared to learn that I began to think very highly of Col. L.'s plantation.
It was just a place to my boyish taste. There were fish to be caught in the
creek, if one only had a hook and line; and crabs, clams and oysters were to
be caught by wading, digging and raking for them. Here was a field for industry
and enterprise, strongly inviting; and the reader may be assured that I entered
upon it with spirit.
Even the much dreaded old master, whose merciless fiat had brought me from Tuckahoe, gradually, to my mind, parted with his terrors. Strange enough, his reverence seemed to take no particular notice of me, nor of my coming. Instead of leaping out and devouring me, he scarcely seemed conscious of my presence. The fact is, he was occupied with matters more weighty and important than either looking after or vexing me. He probably thought as little of my advent, as he would have thought of the addition of a single pig to his stock!
As the chief butler on Col. Lloyd's plantation, his duties were numerous and perplexing. In almost all important matters he answered in Col. Lloyd's stead. The overseers of all the farms were in some sort under him, and received the law from his mouth. The colonel himself seldom addressed an overseer, or allowed
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an overseer to address him. Old master carried the keys of all store houses;
measured out the allowance for each slave at the end of every month; superintended
the storing of all goods brought to the plantation; dealt out the raw material
to all the handicraftsmen; shipped the grain, tobacco, and all saleable produce
of the plantation to market, and had the general over-sight of the coopers'
shop, wheelwrights' shop, blacksmiths' shop, and shoemakers' shop. Besides the
care of these, he often had business for the plantation which required him to
be absent two and three days.
Thus largely employed, he had little time, and perhaps as little disposition, to interfere with the children individually. What he was to Col. Lloyd, he made Aunt Katy to him. When he had anything to say or do about us, it was said or done in a wholesale manner; disposing of us in classes or sizes, leaving all minor details to Aunt Katy, a person of whom the reader has already received no very favorable impression. Aunt Katy was a woman who never allowed herself to act greatly within the margin of power granted to her, no matter how broad that authority might be. Ambitious, ill-tempered and cruel, she found in her present position an ample field for the exercise of her ill-omened qualities. She had a strong hold on old master she was considered a first rate cook, and she really was very industrious. She was, therefore, greatly favored by old master, and as one mark of his favor, she was the only mother who was permitted to retain her children around her. Even to these children she was often fiendish in her brutality.
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She pursued her son Phil, one day, in my presence, with a huge butcher knife,
and dealt a blow with its edge which left a shocking gash on his arm, near the
wrist. For this, old master did sharply rebuke her, and threatened that if she
ever should do the like again, he would take the skin off her back. Cruel, however,
as Aunt Katy was to her own children, at times she was not destitute of maternal
feeling, as I often had occasion to know, in the bitter pinches of hunger I
had to endure. Differing from the practice of Col. Lloyd, old master, instead
of allowing so much for each slave, committed the allowance for all to the care
of Aunt Katy, to be divided after cooking it, amongst us. The allowance, consisting
of coarse corn-meal, was not very abundant -- indeed, it was very slender; and
in passing through Aunt Katy's hands, it was made more slender still, for some
of us. William, Phil and Jerry were her children, and it is not to accuse her
too severely, to allege that she was often guilty of starving myself and the
other children, while she was literally cramming her own. Want of food was my
chief trouble the first summer at my old master's. Oysters and clams would do
very well, with an occasional supply of bread, but they soon failed in the absence
of bread. I speak but the simple truth, when I say, I have often been so pinched
with hunger, that I have fought with the dog -- "Old Nep" -- for the
smallest crumbs that fell from the kitchen table, and have been glad when I
won a single crumb in the combat. Many times have I followed, with eager step,
the waiting-girl when she went out to shake the table cloth, to get
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the crumbs and small bones flung out for the cats. The water, in which meat
had been boiled, was as eagerly sought for by me. It was a great thing to get
the privilege of dipping a piece of bread in such water; and the skin taken
from rusty bacon, was a positive luxury. Nevertheless, I sometimes got full
meals and kind words from sympathizing old slaves, who knew my sufferings, and
received the comforting assurance that I should be a man some day. "Never
mind, honey -- better day comin'," was even then a solace, a cheering consolation
to me in my troubles. Nor were all the kind words I received from slaves. I
had a friend in the parlor, as well, and one to whom I shall be glad to do justice,
before I have finished this part of my story.
I was not long at old master's, before I learned that his surname was Anthony, and that he was generally called "Captain Anthony" -- a title which he probably acquired by sailing a craft in the Chesapeake Bay. Col. Lloyd's slaves never called Capt. Anthony "old master," but always Capt. Anthony; and me they called "Captain Anthony Fred." There is not, probably, in the whole south, a plantation where the English language is more imperfectly spoken than on Col. Lloyd's. It is a mixture of Guinea and everything else you please. At the time of which I am now writing, there were slaves there who had been brought from the coast of Africa. They never used the "s" in indication of the possessive case. "Cap'n Ant'ney Tom," "Lloyd Bill," "Aunt Rose Harry," means "Captain Anthony's Tom," "Lloyd's Bill," &c. "Oo you dem long to?" means, "Whom do you
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belong to?" "Oo dem got any peachy?" means, "Have you got
any peaches?" I could scarcely understand them when I first went among
them, so broken was their speech; and I am persuaded that I could not have been
dropped anywhere on the globe, where I could reap less, in the way of knowledge,
from my immediate associates, than on this plantation. Even "MAS' DANIEL,"
by his association with his father's slaves, had measurably adopted their dialect
and their ideas, so far as they had ideas to be adopted. The equality of nature
is strongly asserted in childhood, and childhood requires children for associates.
Color makes no difference with a child. Are you a child with wants, tastes and
pursuits common to children, not put on, but natural? then, were you black as
ebony you would be welcome to the child of alabaster whiteness. The law of compensation
holds here, as well as elsewhere. Mas' Daniel could not associate with ignorance
without sharing its shade; and he could not give his black playmates his company,
without giving them his intelligence, as well. Without knowing this, or caring
about it, at the time, I, for some cause or other, spent much of my time with
Mas' Daniel, in preference to spending it with most of the other boys.
Mas' Daniel was the youngest son of Col. Lloyd; his older brothers were Edward and Murray -- both grown up, and fine looking men. Edward was especially esteemed by the children, and by me among the rest; not that he ever said anything to us or for us, which could be called especially kind;
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it was enough for us, that he never looked nor acted scornfully toward us. There
were also three sisters, all married; one to Edward Winder; a second to Edward
Nicholson; a third to Mr. Lownes.
The family of old master consisted of two sons, Andrew and Richard; his daughter, Lucretia, and her newly married husband, Capt. Auld. This was the house family. The kitchen family consisted of Aunt Katy, Aunt Esther, and ten or a dozen children, most of them older than myself. Capt. Anthony was not considered a rich slaveholder, but was pretty well off in the world. He owned about thirty "head" of slaves, and three farms in Tuckahoe. The most valuable part of his property was his slaves, of whom he could afford to sell one every year. This crop, therefore, brought him seven or eight hundred dollars a year, besides his yearly salary, and other revenue from his farms.
The idea of rank and station was rigidly maintained on Col. Lloyd's plantation. Our family never visited the great house, and the Lloyds never came to our home. Equal non-intercourse was observed between Capt. Anthony's family and that of Mr. Sevier, the overseer.
Such, kind reader, was the community, and such the place, in which my earliest and most lasting impressions of slavery, and of slave-life, were received; of which impressions you will learn more in the coming chapters of this book.
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CHAPTER V.
GRADUAL INITIATION INTO THE MYSTERIES OF SLAVERY.
GROWING ACQUAINTANCE WITH OLD MASTER -- HIS CHARACTER -- EVILS OF UNRESTRAINED
PASSION -- APPARENT TENDERNESS -- OLD MASTER A MAN OF TROUBLE -- CUSTOM OF MUTTERING
TO HIMSELF -- NECESSITY OF BEING AWARE OF HIS WORDS -- THE SUPPOSED OBTUSENESS
OF SLAVE-CHILDREN -- BRUTAL OUTRAGE -- DRUNKEN OVERSEER -- SLAVEHOLDER'S IMPATIENCE
-- WISDOM OF APPEALING TO SUPERIORS -- THE SLAVEHOLDER S WRATH BAD AS THAT OF
THE OVERSEER -- A BASE AND SELFISH ATTEMPT TO BREAK UP A COURTSHIP -- A HARROWING
SCENE.
Although my old master -- Capt. Anthony -- gave me at first, (as the reader will have already seen) very little attention, and although that little was of a remarkably mild and gentle description, a few months only were sufficient to convince me that mildness and gentleness were not the prevailing or governing traits of his character. These excellent qualities were displayed only occasionally. He could, when it suited him, appear to be literally insensible to the claims of humanity, when appealed to by the helpless against an aggressor, and he could himself commit outrages, deep, dark and nameless. Yet he was not by nature worse than other men. Had he been brought up in a free state, surrounded by the just restraints of free society -- restraints which are necessary to the freedom of all its members, alike and equally -- Capt. Anthony might have been as humane
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a man, and every way as respectable, as many who now oppose the slave system;
certainly as humane and respectable as are members of society generally. The
slaveholder, as well as the slave, is the victim of the slave system. A man's
character greatly takes its hue and shape from the form and color of things
about him. Under the whole heavens there is no relation more unfavorable to
the development of honorable character, than that sustained by the slaveholder
to the slave. Reason is imprisoned here, and passions run wild. Like the fires
of the prairie, once lighted, they are at the mercy of every wind, and must
burn, till they have consumed all that is combustible within their remorseless
grasp. Capt. Anthony could be kind, and, at times, he even showed an affectionate
disposition. Could the reader have seen him gently leading me by the hand --
as he sometimes did -- patting me on the head, speaking to me in soft, caressing
tones and calling me his "little Indian boy," he would have deemed
him a kind old man, and really, almost fatherly. But the pleasant moods of a
slaveholder are remarkably brittle; they are easily snapped; they neither come
often, nor remain long. His temper is subjected to perpetual trials; but, since
these trials are never borne patiently, they add nothing to his natural stock
of patience.
Old master very early impressed me with the idea that he was an unhappy man. Even to my child's eye, he wore a troubled, and at times, a haggard aspect. His strange movements excited my curiosity, and awakened my compassion. He seldom walked alone
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without muttering to himself; and he occasionally stormed about, as if defying
an army of invisible foes. "He would do this, that, and the other; he'd
be d -- d if he did not," -- was the usual form of his threats. Most of
his leisure was spent in walking, cursing and gesticulating, like one possessed
by a demon. Most evidently, he was a wretched man, at war with his own soul,
and with all the world around him. To be overheard by the children, disturbed
him very little. He made no more of our presence, than of that of the ducks
and geese which he met on the green. He little thought that the little black
urchins around him, could see, through those vocal crevices, the very secrets
of his heart. Slaveholders ever underrate the intelligence with which they have
to grapple. I really understood the old man's mutterings, attitudes and gestures,
about as well as he did himself. But slaveholders never encourage that kind
of communication, with the slaves, by which they might learn to measure the
depths of his knowledge. Ignorance is a high virtue in a human chattel; and
as the master studies to keep the slave ignorant, the slave is cunning enough
to make the master think he succeeds. The slave fully appreciates the saying,
"where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." When old master's
gestures were violent, ending with a threatening shake of the head, and a sharp
snap of his middle finger and thumb, I deemed it wise to keep at a respectable
distance from him; for, at such times, trifling faults stood, in his eyes, as
momentous offenses; and, having both the power and the disposition, the victim
had only to
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be near him to catch the punishment, deserved or undeserved.
One of the first circumstances that opened my eyes to the cruelty and wickedness of slavery, and the heartlessness of my old master, was the refusal of the latter to interpose his authority, to protect and shield a young woman, who had been most cruelly abused and beaten by his overseer in Tuckahoe. This overseer -- a Mr. Plummer -- was a man like most of his class, little better than a human brute; and, in addition to his general profligacy and repulsive coarseness, the creature was a miserable drunkard. He was, probably, employed by my old master, less on account of the excellence of his services, than for the cheap rate at which they could be obtained. He was not fit to have the management of a drove of mules. In a fit of drunken madness, he committed the outrage which brought the young woman in question down to my old master's for protection. This young woman was the daughter of Milly, an own aunt of mine. The poor girl, on arriving at our house, presented a pitiable appearance. She had left in haste, and without preparation; and, probably, without the knowledge of Mr. Plummer. She had traveled twelve miles, bare-footed, bare-necked and bare-headed. Her neck and shoulders were covered with scars, newly made; and not content with marring her neck and shoulders, with the cowhide, the cowardly brute had dealt her a blow on the head with a hickory club, which cut a horrible gash, and left her face literally covered with blood. In this condition, the poor young woman came down, to implore protection at
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the hands of my old master. I expected to see him boil over with rage at the
revolting deed, and to hear him fill the air with curses upon the brutal Plummer;
but I was disappointed. He sternly told her, in an angry tone, he "believed
she deserved every bit of it," and, if she did not go home instantly, he
would himself take the remaining skin from her neck and back. Thus was the poor
girl compelled to return, without redress, and perhaps to receive an additional
flogging for daring to appeal to old master against the overseer.
Old master seemed furious at the thought of being troubled by such complaints. I did not, at that time, understand the philosophy of his treatment of my cousin. It was stern, unnatural, violent. Had the man no bowels of compassion? Was he dead to all sense of humanity? No. I think I now understand it. This treatment is a part of the system, rather than a part of the man. Were slaveholders to listen to complaints of this sort against the overseers, the luxury of owning large numbers of slaves, would be impossible. It would do away with the office of overseer, entirely; or, in other words, it would convert the master himself into an overseer. It would occasion great loss of time and labor, leaving the overseer in fetters, and without the necessary power to secure obedience to his orders. A privilege so dangerous as that of appeal, is, therefore, strictly prohibited; and any one exercising it, runs a fearful hazard. Nevertheless, when a slave has nerve enough to exercise it, and boldly approaches his master, with a well-founded
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complaint against an overseer, though he may be repulsed, and may even have
that of which he complains repeated at the time, and, though he may be beaten
by his master, as well as by the overseer, for his temerity, in the end the
policy of complaining is, generally, vindicated by the relaxed rigor of the
overseer's treatment. The latter becomes more careful, and less disposed to
use the lash upon such slaves thereafter. It is with this final result in view,
rather than with any expectation of immediate good, that the outraged slave
is induced to meet his master with a complaint. The overseer very naturally
dislikes to have the ear of the master disturbed by complaints; and, either
upon this consideration, or upon advice and warning privately given him by his
employers, he generally modifies the rigor of his rule, after an outbreak of
the kind to which I have been referring.
Howsoever the slaveholder may allow himself to act toward his slave, and, whatever cruelty he may deem it wise, for example's sake, or for the gratification of his humor, to inflict, he cannot, in the absence of all provocation, look with pleasure upon the bleeding wounds of a defenseless slave-woman. When he drives her from his presence without redress, or the hope of redress, he acts, generally, from motives of policy, rather than from a hardened nature, or from innate brutality. Yet, let but his own temper be stirred, his own passions get loose, and the slave-owner will go far beyond the overseer in cruelty. He will convince the slave that his wrath is far more terrible and boundless, and vastly more to be dreaded, than that of the underling overseer. What may have been
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mechanically and heartlessly done by the overseer, is now done with a will.
The man who now wields the lash is irresponsible. He may, if he pleases, cripple
or kill, without fear of consequences; except in so far as it may concern profit
or loss. To a man of violent temper -- as my old master was -- this was but
a very slender and inefficient restraint. I have seen him in a tempest of passion,
such as I have just described -- a passion into which entered all the bitter
ingredients of pride, hatred, envy, jealousy, and the thirst for revenge.
The circumstances which I am about to narrate, and which gave rise to this fearful tempest of passion, are not singular nor isolated in slave life, but are common in every slaveholding community in which I have lived. They are incidental to the relation of master and slave, and exist in all sections of slave-holding countries.
The reader will have noticed that, in enumerating the names of the slaves who lived with my old master, Esther is mentioned. This was a young woman who possessed that which is ever a curse to the slave-girl; namely -- personal beauty. She was tall, well formed, and made a fine appearance. The daughters of Col. Lloyd could scarcely surpass her in personal charms. Esther was courted by Ned Roberts, and he was as fine looking a young man, as she was a woman. He was the son of a favorite slave of Col. Lloyd. Some slaveholders would have been glad to promote the marriage of two such persons; but, for some reason or other, my old master took it upon him to break up the growing intimacy between Esther and Edward.
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He strictly ordered her to quit the company of said Roberts, telling her that
he would punish her severely if he ever found her again in Edward's company.
This unnatural and heartless order was, of course, broken. A woman's love is
not to be annihilated by the peremptory command of any one, whose breath is
in his nostrils. It was impossible to keep Edward and Esther apart. Meet they
would, and meet they did. Had old master been a man of honor and purity, his
motives, in this matter, might have been viewed more favorably. As it was, his
motives were as abhorrent, as his methods were foolish and contemptible. It
was too evident that he was not concerned for the girl's welfare. It is one
of the damning characteristics of the slave system, that it robs its victims
of every earthly incentive to a holy life. The fear of God, and the hope of
heaven, are found sufficient to sustain many slave-women, amidst the snares
and dangers of their strange lot; but, this side of God and heaven, a slave-woman
is at the mercy of the power, caprice and passion of her owner. Slavery provides
no means for the honorable continuance of the race. Marriage as imposing obligations
on the parties to it -- has no existence here, except in such hearts as are
purer and higher than the standard morality around them. It is one of the consolations
of my life, that I know of many honorable instances of persons who maintained
their honor, where all around was corrupt.
Esther was evidently much attached to Edward, and abhorred -- as she had reason to do -- the tyrannical and base behavior of old master. Edward was young, and fine looking, and he loved and courted her.
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He might have been her husband, in the high sense just alluded to; but WHO and
what was this old master? His attentions were plainly brutal and selfish, and
it was as natural that Esther should loathe him, as that she should love Edward.
Abhorred and circumvented as he was, old master, having the power, very easily
took revenge. I happened to see this exhibition of his rage and cruelty toward
Esther. The time selected was singular. It was early in the morning, when all
besides was still, and before any of the family, in the house or kitchen, had
left their beds. I saw but few of the shocking preliminaries, for the cruel
work had begun before I awoke. I was probably awakened by the shrieks and piteous
cries of poor Esther. My sleeping place was on the floor of a little, rough
closet, which opened into the kitchen; and through the cracks of its unplaned
boards, I could distinctly see and hear what was going on, without being seen
by old master. Esther's wrists were firmly tied, and the twisted rope was fastened
to a strong staple in a heavy wooden joist above, near the fireplace. Here she
stood, on a bench, her arms tightly drawn over her breast. Her back and shoulders
were bare to the waist. Behind her stood old master, with cowskin in hand, preparing
his barbarous work with all manner of harsh, coarse, and tantalizing epithets.
The screams of his victim were most piercing. He was cruelly deliberate, and
protracted the torture, as one who was delighted with the scene. Again and again
he drew the hateful whip through his hand, adjusting it with a view of dealing
the most pain-giving blow. Poor Esther had never yet been severely
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whipped, and her shoulders were plump and tender. Each blow, vigorously laid
on, brought screams as well as blood. "Have mercy; Oh! have mercy"
she cried; "I won't do so no more;" but her piercing cries seemed
only to increase his fury. His answers to them are too coarse and blasphemous
to be produced here. The whole scene, with all its attendants, was revolting
and shocking, to the last degree; and when the motives of this brutal castigation
are considered, -- language has no power to convey a just sense of its awful
criminality. After laying on some thirty or forty stripes, old master untied
his suffering victim, and let her get down. She could scarcely stand, when untied.
From my heart I pitied her, and -- child though I was -- the outrage kindled
in me a feeling far from peaceful; but I was hushed, terrified, stunned, and
could do nothing, and the fate of Esther might be mine next. The scene here
described was often repeated in the case of poor Esther, and her life, as I
knew it, was one of wretchedness.
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CHAPTER VI.
TREATMENT OF SLAVES ON LLOYD'S PLANTATION.
EARLY REFLECTIONS ON SLAVERY -- PRESENTIMENT OF ONE DAY BEING A FREEMAN -- COMBAT
BETWEEN AN OVERSEER AND A SLAVEWOMAN -- THE ADVANTAGES OF RESISTANCE -- ALLOWANCE
DAY ON THE HOME PLANTATION -- THE SINGING OF SLAVES -- AN EXPLANATION -- THE
SLAVES FOOD AND CLOTHING -- NAKED CHILDREN -- LIFE IN THE QUARTER -- DEPRIVATION
OF SLEEP -- NURSING CHILDREN CARRIED TO THE FIELD -- DESCRIPTION OF THE COWSKIN
-- THE ASH-CAKE -- MANNER OF MAKING IT -- THE DINNER HOUR -- THE CONTRAST.
The heart-rending incidents, related in the foregoing chapter, led me, thus early, to inquire into the nature and history of slavery. Why am I a slave? Why are some people slaves, and others masters? Was there ever a time this was not so? How did the relation commence? These were the perplexing questions which began now to claim my thoughts, and to exercise the weak powers of my mind, for I was still but a child, and knew less than children of the same age in the free states. As my questions concerning these things were only put to children a little older, and little better informed than myself, I was not rapid in reaching a solid footing. By some means I learned from these inquiries that "God, up in the sky," made every body; and that he made white people to be masters and mistresses, and black people to be slaves. This did not satisfy me, nor lessen my interest in the subject. I was told, too,
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that God was good, and that He knew what was best for me, and best for everybody.
This was less satisfactory than the first statement; because it came, point
blank, against all my notions of goodness. It was not good to let old master
cut the flesh off Esther, and make her cry so. Besides, how did people know
that God made black people to be slaves? Did they go up in the sky and learn
it? or, did He come down and tell them so? All was dark here. It was some relief
to my hard notions of the goodness of God, that, although he made white men
to be slaveholders, he did not make them to be bad slaveholders, and that, in
due time, he would punish the bad slaveholders; that he would, when they died,
send them to the bad place, where they would be "burnt up." Nevertheless,
I could not reconcile the relation of slavery with my crude notions of goodness.
Then, too, I found that there were puzzling exceptions to this theory of slavery on both sides, and in the middle. I knew of blacks who were not slaves; I knew of whites who were not slaveholders; and I knew of persons who were nearly white, who were slaves. Color, therefore, was a very unsatisfactory basis for slavery.
Once, however, engaged in the inquiry, I was not very long in finding out the true solution of the matter. It was not color, but crime, not God, but man, that afforded the true explanation of the existence of slavery; nor was I long in finding out another important truth, viz: what man can make, man can unmake. The appalling darkness faded away, and I was master of the subject. There were slaves here,
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direct from Guinea; and there were many who could say that their fathers and
mothers were stolen from Africa -- forced from their homes, and compelled to
serve as slaves. This, to me, was knowledge; but it was a kind of knowledge
which filled me with a burning hatred of slavery, increased my suffering, and
left me without the means of breaking away from my bondage. Yet it was knowledge
quite worth possessing. I could not have been more than seven or eight years
old, when I began to make this subject my study. It was with me in the woods
and fields; along the shore of the river, and wherever my boyish wanderings
led me; and though I was, at that time, quite ignorant of the existence of the
free states, I distinctly remember being, even then, most strongly impressed
with the idea of being a freeman some day. This cheering assurance was an inborn
dream of my human nature a constant menace to slavery -- and one which all the
powers of slavery were unable to silence or extinguish.
Up to the time of the brutal flogging of my Aunt Esther -- for she was my own aunt -- and the horrid plight in which I had seen my cousin from Tuckahoe, who had been so badly beaten by the cruel Mr. Plummer, my attention had not been called, especially, to the gross features of slavery. I had, of course, heard of whippings and of savage rencontres between overseers and slaves, but I had always been out of the way at the times and places of their occurrence. My plays and sports, most of the time, took me from the corn and tobacco fields, where the great body of the hands were at work, and where scenes of cruelty were
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enacted and witnessed. But, after the whipping of Aunt Esther, I saw many cases
of the same shocking nature, not only in my master's house, but on Col. Lloyd's
plantation. One of the first which I saw, and which greatly agitated me, was
the whipping of a woman belonging to Col. Lloyd, named Nelly. The offense alleged
against Nelly, was one of the commonest and most indefinite in the whole catalogue
of offenses usually laid to the charge of slaves, viz: "impudence."
This may mean almost anything, or nothing at all, just according to the caprice
of the master or overseer, at the moment. But, whatever it is, or is not, if
it gets the name of "impudence," the party charged with it is sure
of a flogging. This offense may be committed in various ways; in the tone of
an answer; in answering at all; in not answering; in the expression of countenance;
in the motion of the head; in the gait, manner and bearing of the slave. In
the case under consideration, I can easily believe that, according to all slaveholding
standards, here was a genuine instance of impudence. In Nelly there were all
the necessary conditions for committing the offense. She was a bright mulatto,
the recognized wife of a favorite "hand" on board Col. Lloyd's sloop,
and the mother of five sprightly children. She was a vigorous and spirited woman,
and one of the most likely, on the plantation, to be guilty of impudence. My
attention was called to the scene, by the noise, curses and screams that proceeded
from it; and, on going a little in that direction, I came upon the parties engaged
in the skirmish. Mr. Siever, the overseer, had hold of Nelly, when I caught
sight of them; he
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was endeavoring to drag her toward a tree, which endeavor Nelly was sternly
resisting; but to no purpose, except to retard the progress of the overseer's
plans. Nelly -- as I have said -- was the mother of five children; three of
them were present, and though quite small (from seven to ten years old, I should
think) they gallantly came to their mother's defense, and gave the overseer
an excellent pelting with stones. One of the little fellows ran up, seized the
overseer by the leg and bit him; but the monster was too busily engaged with
Nelly, to pay any attention to the assaults of the children. There were numerous
bloody marks on Mr. Sevier's face, when I first saw him, and they increased
as the struggle went on. The imprints of Nelly's fingers were visible, and I
was glad to see them. Amidst the wild screams of the children -- "Let my
mammy go" -- "let my mammy go" -- there escaped, from between
the teeth of the bullet-headed overseer, a few bitter curses, mingled with threats,
that "he would teach the d -- d b -- h how to give a white man impudence."
There is no doubt that Nelly felt herself superior, in some respects, to the
slaves around her. She was a wife and a mother; her husband was a valued and
favorite slave. Besides, he was one of the first hands on board of the sloop,
and the sloop hands -- since they had to represent the plantation abroad --
were generally treated tenderly. The overseer never was allowed to whip Harry;
why then should he be allowed to whip Harry's wife? Thoughts of this kind, no
doubt, influenced her; but, for whatever reason, she nobly resisted, and, unlike
most of the slaves, seemed determined to make her whipping
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cost Mr. Sevier as much as possible. The blood on his (and her) face, attested
her skill, as well as her courage and dexterity in using her nails. Maddened
by her resistance, I expected to see Mr. Sevier level her to the ground by a
stunning blow; but no; like a savage bull-dog -- which he resembled both in
temper and appearance -- he maintained his grip, and steadily dragged his victim
toward the tree, disregarding alike her blows, and the cries of the children
for their mother's release. He would, doubtless, have knocked her down with
his hickory stick, but that such act might have cost him his place. It is often
deemed advisable to knock a man slave down, in order to tie him, but it is considered
cowardly and inexcusable, in an overseer, thus to deal with a woman. He is expected
to tie her up, and to give her what is called, in southern parlance, a "genteel
flogging," without any very great outlay of strength or skill. I watched,
with palpitating interest, the course of the preliminary struggle, and was saddened
by every new advantage gained over her by the ruffian. There were times when
she seemed likely to get the better of the brute, but he finally overpowered
her, and succeeded in getting his rope around her arms, and in firmly tying
her to the tree, at which he had been aiming. This done, and Nelly was at the
mercy of his merciless lash; and now, what followed, I have no heart to describe.
The cowardly creature made good his every threat; and wielded the lash with
all the hot zest of furious revenge. The cries of the woman, while undergoing
the terrible infliction, were mingled with those of the children, sounds which
I hope the reader
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may never be called upon to hear. When Nelly was untied, her back was covered
with blood. The red stripes were all over her shoulders. She was whipped --
severely whipped; but she was not subdued, for she continued to denounce the
overseer, and to call him every vile name. He had bruised her flesh, but had
left her invincible spirit undaunted. Such floggings are seldom repeated by
the same overseer. They prefer to whip those who are most easily whipped. The
old doctrine that submission is the very best cure for outrage and wrong, does
not hold good on the slave plantation. He is whipped oftenest, who is whipped
easiest; and that slave who has the courage to stand up for himself against
the overseer, although he may have many hard stripes at the first, becomes,
in the end, a freeman, even though he sustain the formal relation of a slave.
"You can shoot me but you can't whip me," said a slave to Rigby Hopkins;
and the result was that he was neither whipped nor shot. If the latter had been
his fate, it would have been less deplorable than the living and lingering death
to which cowardly and slavish souls are subjected. I do not know that Mr. Sevier
ever undertook to whip Nelly again. He probably never did, for it was not long
after his attempt to subdue her, that he was taken sick, and died. The wretched
man died as he had lived, unrepentant; and it was said -- with how much truth
I know not -- that in the very last hours of his life, his ruling passion showed
itself, and that when wrestling with death, he was uttering horrid oaths, and
flourishing the cowskin, as though he was tearing the flesh off some helpless
slave. One thing is certain,
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that when he was in health, it was enough to chill the blood, and to stiffen
the hair of an ordinary man, to hear Mr. Sevier talk. Nature, or his cruel habits,
had given to his face an expression of unusual savageness, even for a slave-driver.
Tobacco and rage had worn his teeth short, and nearly every sentence that escaped
their compressed grating, was commenced or concluded with some outburst of profanity.
His presence made the field alike the field of blood, and of blasphemy. Hated
for his cruelty, despised for his cowardice, his death was deplored by no one
outside his own house -- if indeed it was deplored there; it was regarded by
the slaves as a merciful interposition of Providence. Never went there a man
to the grave loaded with heavier curses. Mr. Sevier's place was promptly taken
by a Mr. Hopkins, and the change was quite a relief, he being a very different
man. He was, in all respects, a better man than his predecessor; as good as
any man can be, and yet be an overseer. His course was characterized by no extraordinary
cruelty; and when he whipped a slave, as he sometimes did, he seemed to take
no especial pleasure in it, but, on the contrary, acted as though he felt it
to be a mean business. Mr. Hopkins stayed but a short time; his place much to
the regret of the slaves generally -- was taken by a Mr. Gore, of whom more
will be said hereafter. It is enough, for the present, to say, that he was no
improvement on Mr. Sevier, except that he was less noisy and less profane.
I have already referred to the business-like aspect of Col. Lloyd's plantation. This business-like appearance was much increased on the two days at the end
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of each month, when the slaves from the different farms came to get their monthly
allowance of meal and meat. These were gala days for the slaves, and there was
much rivalry among them as to who should be elected to go up to the great house
farm for the allowance, and, indeed, to attend to any business at this (for
them) the capital. The beauty and grandeur of the place, its numerous slave
population, and the fact that Harry, Peter and Jake the sailors of the sloop
-- almost always kept, privately, little trinkets which they bought at Baltimore,
to sell, made it a privilege to come to the great house farm. Being selected,
too, for this office, was deemed a high honor. It was taken as a proof of confidence
and favor; but, probably, the chief motive of the competitors for the place,
was, a desire to break the dull monotony of the field, and to get beyond the
overseer's eye and lash. Once on the road with an ox team, and seated on the
tongue of his cart, with no overseer to look after him, the slave was comparatively
free; and, if thoughtful, he had time to think. Slaves are generally expected
to sing as well as to work. A silent slave is not liked by masters or overseers.
"Make a noise," "make a noise," and "bear a hand,"
are the words usually addressed to the slaves when there is silence amongst
them. This may account for the almost constant singing heard in the southern
states. There was, generally, more or less singing among the teamsters, as it
was one means of letting the overseer know where they were, and that they were
moving on with the work. But, on allowance day, those who visited the great
house farm were peculiarly
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excited and noisy. While on their way, they would make the dense old woods,
for miles around, reverberate with their wild notes. These were not always merry
because they were wild. On the contrary, they were mostly of a plaintive cast,
and told a tale of grief and sorrow. In the most boisterous outbursts of rapturous
sentiment, there was ever a tinge of deep melancholy. I have never heard any
songs like those anywhere since I left slavery, except when in Ireland. There
I heard the same wailing notes, and was much affected by them. It was during
the famine of 1845-6. In all the songs of the slaves, there was ever some expression
in praise of the great house farm; something which would flatter the pride of
the owner, and, possibly, draw a favorable glance from him.
"I am going away to the great house farm,
O yea! O yea! O yea!
My old master is a good old master,
O yea! O yea! O yea!"
This they would sing, with other words of their own improvising -- jargon to others, but full of meaning to themselves. I have sometimes thought, that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress truly spiritual-minded men and women with the soul-crushing and death-dealing character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of its mere physical cruelties. They speak to the heart and to the soul of the thoughtful. I cannot better express my sense of them now, than ten years ago, when, in sketching my life, I thus spoke of this feature of my plantation experience:
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I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meanings of those rude, and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle, so that I neither saw or heard as those without might see and hear. They told a tale which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; they were tones, loud, long and deep, breathing the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains. The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirits, and filled my heart with ineffable sadness. The mere recurrence, even now, afflicts my spirit, and while I am writing these lines, my tears are falling. To those songs I trace my first glimmering conceptions of the dehumanizing character of slavery. I can never get rid of that conception. Those songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds. If any one wishes to be impressed with a sense of the soul-killing power of slavery, let him go to Col. Lloyd's plantation, and, on allowance day, place himself in the deep, pine woods, and there let him, in silence, thoughtfully analyze the sounds that shall pass through the chambers of his soul, and if he is not thus impressed, it will only be because "there is no flesh in his obdurate heart."
The remark is not unfrequently made, that slaves are the most contended and happy laborers in the world. They dance and sing, and make all manner of joyful noises -- so they do; but it is a great mistake to suppose them happy because they sing. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows, rather than the joys, of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. Such is the constitution of the human mind, that, when pressed
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to extremes, it often avails itself of the most opposite methods. Extremes meet
in mind as in matter. When the slaves on board of the "Pearl" were
overtaken, arrested, and carried to prison -- their hopes for freedom blasted
-- as they marched in chains they sang, and found (as Emily Edmunson tells us)
a melancholy relief in singing. The singing of a man cast away on a desolate
island, might be as appropriately considered an evidence of his contentment
and happiness, as the singing of a slave. Sorrow and desolation have their songs,
as well as joy and peace. Slaves sing more to make themselves happy, than to
express their happiness.
It is the boast of slaveholders, that their slaves enjoy more of the physical comforts of life than the peasantry of any country in the world. My experience contradicts this. The men and the women slaves on Col. Lloyd's farm, received, as their monthly allowance of food, eight pounds of pickled pork, or their equivalent in fish. The pork was often tainted, and the fish was of the poorest quality -- herrings, which would bring very little if offered for sale in any northern market. With their pork or fish, they had one bushel of Indian meal -- unbolted -- of which quite fifteen per cent was fit only to feed pigs. With this, one pint of salt was given; and this was the entire monthly allowance of a full grown slave, working constantly in the open field, from morning until night, every day in the month except Sunday, and living on a fraction more than a quarter of a pound of meat per day, and less than a peck of corn-meal per week. There is no kind of work that a man can do
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which requires a better supply of food to prevent physical exhaustion, than
the field-work of a slave. So much for the slave's allowance of food; now for
his raiment. The yearly allowance of clothing for the slaves on this plantation,
consisted of two tow-linen shirts -- such linen as the coarsest crash towels
are made of; one pair of trowsers of the same material, for summer, and a pair
of trowsers and a jacket of woolen, most slazily put together, for winter; one
pair of yarn stockings, and one pair of shoes of the coarsest description. The
slave's entire apparel could not have cost more than eight dollars per year.
The allowance of food and clothing for the little children, was committed to
their mothers, or to the older slavewomen having the care of them. Children
who were unable to work in the field, had neither shoes, stockings, jackets
nor trowsers given them. Their clothing consisted of two coarse tow-linen shirts
-- already described -- per year; and when these failed them, as they often
did, they went naked until the next allowance day. Flocks of little children
from five to ten years old, might be seen on Col. Lloyd's plantation, as destitute
of clothing as any little heathen on the west coast of Africa; and this, not
merely during the summer months, but during the frosty weather of March. The
little girls were no better off than the boys; all were nearly in a state of
nudity.
As to beds to sleep on, they were known to none of the field hands; nothing but a coarse blanket -- not so good as those used in the north to cover horses -- was given them, and this only to the men and women. The children stuck themselves in holes and corners,
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about the quarters; often in the corner of the huge chimneys, with their feet
in the ashes to keep them warm. The want of beds, however, was not considered
a very great privation. Time to sleep was of far greater importance, for, when
the day's work is done, most of the slaves have their washing, mending and cooking
to do; and, having few or none of the ordinary facilities for doing such things,
very many of their sleeping hours are consumed in necessary preparations for
the duties of the coming day.
The sleeping apartments -- if they may be called such -- have little regard to comfort or decency. Old and young, male and female, married and single, drop down upon the common clay floor, each covering up with his or her blanket, -- the only protection they have from cold or exposure. The night, however, is shortened at both ends. The slaves work often as long as they can see, and are late in cooking and mending for the coming day; and, at the first gray streak of morning, they are summoned to the field by the driver's horn.
More slaves are whipped for oversleeping than for any other fault. Neither age nor sex finds any favor. The overseer stands at the quarter door, armed with stick and cowskin, ready to whip any who may be a few minutes behind time. When the horn is blown, there is a rush for the door, and the hindermost one is sure to get a blow from the overseer. Young mothers who worked in the field, were allowed an hour, about ten o'clock in the morning, to go home to nurse their children. Sometimes they were compelled to take their children with them, and to leave them in the
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corner of the fences, to prevent loss of time in nursing them. The overseer
generally rides about the field on horseback. A cowskin and a hickory stick
are his constant companions. The cowskin is a kind of whip seldom seen in the
northern states. It is made entirely of untanned, but dried, ox hide, and is
about as hard as a piece of well-seasoned live oak. It is made of various sizes,
but the usual length is about three feet. The part held in the hand is nearly
an inch in thickness; and, from the extreme end of the butt or handle, the cowskin
tapers its whole length to a point. This makes it quite elastic and springy.
A blow with it, on the hardest back, will gash the flesh, and make the blood
start. Cowskins are painted red, blue and green, and are the favorite slave
whip. I think this whip worse than the "cat-o'nine-tails." It condenses
the whole strength of the arm to a single point, and comes with a spring that
makes the air whistle. It is a terrible instrument, and is so handy, that the
overseer can always have it on his person, and ready for use. The temptation
to use it is ever strong; and an overseer can, if disposed, always have cause
for using it. With him, it is literally a word and a blow, and, in most cases,
the blow comes first.
As a general rule, slaves do not come to the quarters for either breakfast or dinner, but take their "ash cake" with them, and eat it in the field. This was so on the home plantation; probably, because the distance from the quarter to the field, was sometimes two, and even three miles.
The dinner of the slaves consisted of a huge piece of ash cake, and a small piece of pork, or two salt
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herrings. Not having ovens, nor any suitable cooking utensils, the slaves mixed
their meal with a little water, to such thickness that a spoon would stand erect
in it; and, after the wood had burned away to coals and ashes, they would place
the dough between oak leaves and lay it carefully in the ashes, completely covering
it; hence, the bread is called ash cake. The surface of this peculiar bread
is covered with ashes, to the depth of a sixteenth part of an inch, and the
ashes, certainly, do not make it very grateful to the teeth, nor render it very
palatable. The bran, or coarse part of the meal, is baked with the fine, and
bright scales run through the bread. This bread, with its ashes and bran, would
disgust and choke a northern man, but it is quite liked by the slaves. They
eat it with avidity, and are more concerned about the quantity than about the
quality. They are far too scantily provided for, and are worked too steadily,
to be much concerned for the quality of their food. The few minutes allowed
them at dinner time, after partaking of their coarse repast, are variously spent.
Some lie down on the "turning row," and go to sleep; others draw together,
and talk; and others are at work with needle and thread, mending their tattered
garments. Sometimes you may hear a wild, hoarse laugh arise from a circle, and
often a song. Soon, however, the overseer comes dashing through the field. "Tumble
up! Tumble up, and to work, work," is the cry; and, now, from twelve o'clock
(mid-day) till dark, the human cattle are in motion, wielding their clumsy hoes;
hurried on by no hope of reward, no sense of gratitude, no love of children,
no prospect of bettering
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their condition; nothing, save the dread and terror of the slave-driver's lash.
So goes one day, and so comes and goes another.
But, let us now leave the rough usage of the field, where vulgar coarseness and brutal cruelty spread themselves and flourish, rank as weeds in the tropics; where a vile wretch, in the shape of a man, rides, walks, or struts about, dealing blows, and leaving gashes on broken-spirited men and helpless women, for thirty dollars per month -- a business so horrible, hardening and disgraceful, that, rather, than engage in it, a decent man would blow his own brains out -- and let the reader view with me the equally wicked, but less repulsive aspects of slave life; where pride and pomp roll luxuriously at ease; where the toil of a thousand men supports a single family in easy idleness and sin. This is the great house; it is the home of the LLOYDS! Some idea of its splendor has already been given -- and, it is here that we shall find that height of luxury which is the opposite of that depth of poverty and physical wretchedness that we have just now been contemplating. But, there is this difference in the two extremes; viz: that in the case of the slave, the miseries and hardships of his lot are imposed by others, and, in the master's case, they are imposed by himself. The slave is a subject, subjected by others; the slaveholder is a subject, but he is the author of his own subjection. There is more truth in the saying, that slavery is a greater evil to the master than to the slave, than many, who utter it, suppose. The self-executing laws of eternal justice follow close on the heels of the evil-doer here, as well as elsewhere;
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making escape from all its penalties impossible. But, let others philosophize;
it is my province here to relate and describe; only allowing myself a word or
two, occasionally, to assist the reader in the proper understanding of the facts
narrated.
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CHAPTER VII.
LIFE IN THE GREAT HOUSE.
COMFORTS AND LUXURIES -- ELABORATE EXPENDITURE -- HOUSE SERVANTS -- MEN SERVANTS
AND MAID SERVANTS -- APPEARANCES -- SLAVE ARISTOCRACY -- STABLE AND CARRIAGE
HOUSE -- BOUNDLESS HOSPITALITY -- FRAGRANCE OF RICH DISHES -- THE DECEPTIVE
CHARACTER OF SLAVERY -- SLAVES SEEM HAPPY -- SLAVES AND SLAVEHOLDERS ALIKE WRETCHED
-- FRETFUL DISCONTENT OF SLAVEHOLDERS -- FAULT-FINDING -- OLD BARNEY -- HIS
PROFESSION -- WHIPPING -- HUMILIATING SPECTACLE -- CASE EXCEPTIONAL -- WILLIAM
WILKS -- SUPPOSED SON OF COL. LLOYD -- CURIOUS INCIDENT -- SLAVES PREFER RICH
MASTERS TO POOR ONES.
The close-fisted stinginess that fed the poor slave on coarse corn-meal and tainted meat; that clothed him in crashy tow-linen, and hurried him to toil through the field, in all weathers, with wind and rain beating through his tattered garments; that scarcely gave even the young slave-mother time to nurse her hungry infant in the fence corner; wholly vanishes on approaching the sacred precincts of the great house, the home of the Lloyds. There the scriptural phrase finds an exact illustration; the highly favored inmates of this mansion are literally arrayed "in purple and fine linen," and fare sumptuously every day! The table groans under the heavy and blood-bought luxuries gathered with painstaking care, at home and abroad. Fields, forests, rivers and seas, are made tributary here. Immense wealth, and its lavish expenditure, fill the great house with all that can please the
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eye, or tempt the taste. Here, appetite, not food, is the great desideratum.
Fish, flesh and fowl, are here in profusion. Chickens, of all breeds; ducks,
of all kinds, wild and tame, the common, and the huge Muscovite; Guinea fowls,
turkeys, geese, and pea fowls, are in their several pens, fat and fatting for
the destined vortex. The graceful swan, the mongrels, the black-necked wild
goose; partridges, quails, pheasants and pigeons; choice water fowl, with all
their strange varieties, are caught in this huge family net. Beef, veal, mutton
and venison, of the most select kinds and quality, roll bounteously to this
grand consumer. The teeming riches of the Chesapeake bay, its rock, perch, drums,
crocus, trout, oysters, crabs, and terrapin, are drawn hither to adorn the glittering
table of the great house. The dairy, too, probably the finest on the Eastern
Shore of Maryland -- supplied by cattle of the best English stock, imported
for the purpose, pours its rich donations of fragant cheese, golden butter,
and delicious cream, to heighten the attraction of the gorgeous, unending round
of feasting. Nor are the fruits of the earth forgotten or neglected. The fertile
garden, many acres in size, constituting a separate establishment, distinct
from the common farm -- with its scientific gardener, imported from Scotland
(a Mr. McDermott) with four men under his direction, was not behind, either
in the abundance or in the delicacy of its contributions to the same full board.
The tender asparagus, the succulent celery, and the delicate cauliflower; egg
plants, beets, lettuce, parsnips, peas, and French beans, early and late; radishes,
cantelopes, melons of all kinds; the fruits and flowers of all
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climes and of all descriptions, from the hardy apple of the north, to the lemon
and orange of the south, culminated at this point. Baltimore gathered figs,
raisins, almonds and juicy grapes from Spain. Wines and brandies from France;
teas of various flavor, from China; and rich, aromatic coffee from Java, all
conspired to swell the tide of high life, where pride and indolence rolled and
lounged in magnificence and satiety.
Behind the tall-backed and elaborately wrought chairs, stand the servants, men and maidens -- fifteen in number -- discriminately selected, not only with a view to their industry and faith fulness, but with special regard to their personal appearance, their graceful agility and captivating address. Some of these are armed with fans, and are fanning reviving breezes toward the over-heated brows of the alabaster ladies; others watch with eager eye, and with fawn-like step anticipate and supply wants before they are sufficiently formed to be announced by word or sign.
These servants constituted a sort of black aristocracy on Col. Lloyd's plantation. They resembled the field hands in nothing, except in color, and in this they held the advantage of a velvet-like glossiness, rich and beautiful. The hair, too, showed the same advantage. The delicate colored maid rustled in the scarcely worn silk of her young mistress, while the servant men were equally well attired from the over-flowing wardrobe of their young masters; so that, in dress, as well as in form and feature, in manner and speech, in tastes and habits, the distance between these favored few, and the sorrow and hunger-smitten
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multitudes of the quarter and the field, was immense; and this is seldom passed
over.
Let us now glance at the stables and the carriage house, and we shall find the same evidences of pride and luxurious extravagance. Here are three splendid coaches, soft within and lustrous without. Here, too, are gigs, phaetons, barouches, sulkeys and sleighs. Here are saddles and harnesses -- beautifully wrought and silver mounted -- kept with every care. In the stable you will find, kept only for pleasure, full thirty-five horses, of the most approved blood for speed and beauty. There are two men here constantly employed in taking care of these horses. One of these men must be always in the stable, to answer every call from the great house. Over the way from the stable, is a house built expressly for the hounds -- a pack of twenty-five or thirty -- whose fare would have made glad the heart of a dozen slaves. Horses and hounds are not the only consumers of the slave's toil. There was practiced, at the Lloyd's, a hospitality which would have astonished and charmed any health-seeking northern divine or merchant, who might have chanced to share it. Viewed from his own table, and not from the field, the colonel was a model of generous hospitality. His house was, literally, a hotel, for weeks during the summer months. At these times, especially, the air was freighted with the rich fumes of baking, boiling, roasting and broiling. The odors I shared with the winds; but the meats were under a more stringent monopoly except that, occasionally, I got a cake from Mas' Daniel. In Mas' Daniel I had a friend at court, from whom I learned many things
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which my eager curiosity was excited to know. I always knew when company was
expected, and who they were, although I was an outsider, being the property,
not of Col. Lloyd, but of a servant of the wealthy colonel. On these occasions,
all that pride, taste and money could do, to dazzle and charm, was done.
Who could say that the servants of Col. Lloyd were not well clad and cared for, after witnessing one of his magnificent entertainments? Who could say that they did not seem to glory in being the slaves of such a master? Who, but a fanatic, could get up any sympathy for persons whose every movement was agile, easy and graceful, and who evinced a consciousness of high superiority? And who would ever venture to suspect that Col. Lloyd was subject to the troubles of ordinary mortals? Master and slave seem alike in their glory here? Can it all be seeming? Alas! it may only be a sham at last! This immense wealth; this gilded splendor; this profusion of luxury; this exemption from toil; this life of ease; this sea of plenty; aye, what of it all? Are the pearly gates of happiness and sweet content flung open to such suitors? far from it! The poor slave, on his hard, pine plank, but scantily covered with his thin blanket, sleeps more soundly than the feverish voluptuary who reclines upon his feather bed and downy pillow. Food, to the indolent lounger, is poison, not sustenance. Lurking beneath all their dishes, are invisible spirits of evil, ready to feed the self-deluded gormandizers which aches, pains, fierce temper, uncontrolled passions, dyspepsia, rheumatism, lumbago and gout; and
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of these the Lloyds got their full share. To the pampered love of ease, there
is no resting place. What is pleasant today, is repulsive tomorrow; what is
soft now, is hard at another time; what is sweet in the morning, is bitter in
the evening. Neither to the wicked, nor to the idler, is there any solid peace:
"Troubled, like the restless sea."
I had excellent opportunities of witnessing the restless discontent and the capricious irritation of the Lloyds. My fondness for horses -- not peculiar to me more than to other boys attracted me, much of the time, to the stables. This establishment was especially under the care of "old" and "young" Barney -- father and son. Old Barney was a fine looking old man, of a brownish complexion, who was quite portly, and wore a dignified aspect for a slave. He was, evidently, much devoted to his profession, and held his office an honorable one. He was a farrier as well as an ostler; he could bleed, remove lampers from the mouths of the horses, and was well instructed in horse medicines. No one on the farm knew, so well as Old Barney, what to do with a sick horse. But his gifts and acquirements were of little advantage to him. His office was by no means an enviable one. He often got presents, but he got stripes as well; for in nothing was Col. Lloyd more unreasonable and exacting, than in respect to the management of his pleasure horses. Any supposed inattention to these animals were sure to be visited with degrading punishment. His horses and dogs fared better than his men. Their beds must be softer and cleaner than those of his human cattle. No excuse could shield
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Old Barney, if the colonel only suspected something wrong about his horses;
and, consequently, he was often punished when faultless. It was absolutely painful
to listen to the many unreasonable and fretful scoldings, poured out at the
stable, by Col. Lloyd, his sons and sons-in-law. Of the latter, he had three
-- Messrs. Nicholson, Winder and Lownes. These all lived at the great house
a portion of the year, and enjoyed the luxury of whipping the servants when
they pleased, which was by no means unfrequently. A horse was seldom brought
out of the stable to which no objection could be raised. "There was dust
in his hair;" "there was a twist in his reins;" "his mane
did not lie straight;" "he had not been properly grained;" "his
head did not look well;" "his fore-top was not combed out;" "his
fetlocks had not been properly trimmed;" something was always wrong. Listening
to complaints, however groundless, Barney must stand, hat in hand, lips sealed,
never answering a word. He must make no reply, no explanation; the judgment
of the master must be deemed infallible, for his power is absolute and irresponsible.
In a free state, a master, thus complaining without cause, of his ostler, might
be told -- "Sir, I am sorry I cannot please you, but, since I have done
the best I can, your remedy is to dismiss me." Here, however, the ostler
must stand, listen and tremble. One of the most heart-saddening and humiliating
scenes I ever witnessed, was the whipping of Old Barney, by Col. Lloyd himself.
Here were two men, both advanced in years; there were the silvery locks of Col.
L., and there was the bald and toil-worn brow of Old Barney;
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master and slave; superior and inferior here, but equals at the bar of God;
and, in the common course of events, they must both soon meet in another world,
in a world where all distinctions, except those based on obedience and disobedience,
are blotted out forever. "Uncover your head!" said the imperious master;
he was obeyed. "Take off your jacket, you old rascal!" and off came
Barney's jacket. "Down on your knees!" down knelt the old man, his
shoulders bare, his bald head glistening in the sun, and his aged knees on the
cold, damp ground. In his humble and debasing attitude, the master -- that master
to whom he had given the best years and the best strength of his life -- came
forward, and laid on thirty lashes, with his horse whip. The old man bore it
patiently, to the last, answering each blow with a slight shrug of the shoulders,
and a groan. I cannot think that Col. Lloyd succeeded in marring the flesh of
Old Barney very seriously, for the whip was a light, riding whip; but the spectacle
of an aged man -- a husband and a father -- humbly kneeling before a worm of
the dust, surprised and shocked me at the time; and since I have grown old enough
to think on the wickedness of slavery, few facts have been of more value to
me than this, to which I was a witness. It reveals slavery in its true color,
and in its maturity of repulsive hatefulness. I owe it to truth, however, to
say, that this was the first and the last time I ever saw Old Barney, or any
other slave, compelled to kneel to receive a whipping.
I saw, at the stable, another incident, which I will relate, as it is illustrative of a phase of slavery to which I have already referred in another connection. Besides
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two other coachmen, Col. Lloyd owned one named William, who, strangely enough,
was often called by his surname, Wilks, by white and colored people on the home
plantation. Wilks was a very fine looking man. He was about as white as anybody
on the plantation; and in manliness of form, and comeliness of features, he
bore a very striking resemblance to Mr. Murray Lloyd. It was whispered, and
pretty generally admitted as a fact, that William Wilks was a son of Col. Lloyd,
by a highly favored slave-woman, who was still on the plantation. There were
many reasons for believing this whisper, not only in William's appearance, but
in the undeniable freedom which he enjoyed over all others, and his apparent
consciousness of being something more than a slave to his master. It was notorious,
too, that William had a deadly enemy in Murray Lloyd, whom he so much resembled,
and that the latter greatly worried his father with importunities to sell William.
Indeed, he gave his father no rest until he did sell him, to Austin Woldfolk,
the great slave-trader at that time. Before selling him, however, Mr. L. tried
what giving William a whipping would do, toward making things smooth; but this
was a failure. It was a compromise, and defeated itself; for, immediately after
the infliction, the heart-sickened colonel atoned to William for the abuse,
by giving him a gold watch and chain. Another fact, somewhat curious, is, that
though sold to the remorseless Woldfolk, taken in irons to Baltimore and cast
into prison, with a view to being driven to the south, William, by some means
-- always a mystery to me -- outbid all his purchasers,
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paid for himself, and now resides in Baltimore, a FREEMAN. Is there not room
to suspect, that, as the gold watch was presented to atone for the whipping,
a purse of gold was given him by the same hand, with which to effect his purchase,
as an atonement for the indignity involved in selling his own flesh and blood.
All the circumstances of William, on the great house farm, show him to have
occupied a different position from the other slaves, and, certainly, there is
nothing in the supposed hostility of slaveholders to amalgamation, to forbid
the supposition that William Wilks was the son of Edward Lloyd. Practical amalgamation
is common in every neighborhood where I have been in slavery.
Col. Lloyd was not in the way of knowing much of the real opinions and feelings of his slaves respecting him. The distance between him and them was far too great to admit of such knowledge. His slaves were so numerous, that he did not know them when he saw them. Nor, indeed, did all his slaves know him. In this respect, he was inconveniently rich. It is reported of him, that, while riding along the road one day, he met a colored man, and addressed him in the usual way of speaking to colored people on the public highways of the south: "Well, boy, who do you belong to?" "To Col. Lloyd," replied the slave. "Well, does the colonel treat you well?" "No, sir," was the ready reply. "What? does he work you too hard?" "Yes, sir." "Well, don't he give enough to eat?" "Yes, sir, he gives me enough, such as it is." The colonel, after ascertaining where the slave belonged, rode on; the slave
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also went on about his business, not dreaming that he had been conversing with
his master. He thought, said and heard nothing more of the matter, until two
or three weeks afterwards. The poor man was then informed by his overseer, that,
for having found fault with his master, he was now to be sold to a Georgia trader.
He was immediately chained and handcuffed; and thus, without a moment's warning
he was snatched away, and forever sundered from his family and friends, by a
hand more unrelenting than that of death. This is the penalty of telling the
simple truth, in answer to a series of plain questions. It is partly in consequence
of such facts, that slaves, when inquired of as to their condition and the character
of their masters, almost invariably say they are contented, and that their masters
are kind. Slaveholders have been known to send spies among their slaves, to
ascertain, if possible, their views and feelings in regard to their condition.
The frequency of this had the effect to establish among the slaves the maxim,
that a still tongue makes a wise head. They suppress the truth rather than take
the consequence of telling it, and, in so doing, they prove themselves a part
of the human family. If they have anything to say of their master, it is, generally,
something in his favor, especially when speaking to strangers. I was frequently
asked, while a slave, if I had a kind master, and I do not remember ever to
have given a negative reply. Nor did I, when pursuing this course, consider
myself as uttering what was utterly false; for I always measured the kindness
of my master by the standard of kindness
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set up by slaveholders around us. However, slaves are like other people, and
imbibe similar prejudices. They are apt to think their condition better than
that of others. Many, under the influence of this prejudice, think their own
masters are better than the masters of other slaves; and this, too, in some
cases, when the very reverse is true. Indeed, it is not uncommon for slaves
even to fall out and quarrel among themselves about the relative kindness of
their masters, contending for the superior goodness of his own over that of
others. At the very same time, they mutually execrate their masters, when viewed
separately. It was so on our plantation. When Col. Lloyd's slaves met those
of Jacob Jepson, they seldom parted without a quarrel about their masters; Col.
Lloyd's slaves contending that he was the richest, and Mr. Jepson's slaves that
he was the smartest, man of the two. Col. Lloyd's slaves would boost his ability
to buy and sell Jacob Jepson; Mr. Jepson's slaves would boast his ability to
whip Col. Lloyd. These quarrels would almost always end in a fight between the
parties; those that beat were supposed to have gained the point at issue. They
seemed to think that the greatness of their masters was transferable to themselves.
To be a SLAVE, was thought to be bad enough; but to be a poor man's slave, was
deemed a disgrace, indeed.
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CHAPTER VIII.
A CHAPTER OF HORRORS.
AUSTIN GORE -- A SKETCH OF HIS CHARACTER -- OVERSEERS AS A CLASS -- THEIR PECULIAR
CHARACTERISTICS -- THE MARKED INDIVIDUALITY OF AUSTIN GORE -- HIS SENSE OF DUTY
-- HOW HE WHIPPED -- MURDER OF POOR DENBY -- HOW IT OCCURRED -- SENSATION --
HOW GORE MADE PEACE WITH COL. LLOYD -- THE MURDER UNPUNISHED -- ANOTHER DREADFUL
MURDER NARRATED -- NO LAWS FOR THE PROTECTION OF SLAVES CAN BE ENFORCED IN THE
SOUTHERN STATES.
As I have already intimated elsewhere, the slaves on Col. Lloyd's plantation, whose hard lot, under Mr. Sevier, the reader has already noticed and deplored, were not permitted to enjoy the comparatively moderate rule of Mr. Hopkins. The latter was succeeded by a very different man. The name of the new overseer was Austin Gore. Upon this individual I would fix particular attention; for under his rule there was more suffering from violence and bloodshed than had -- according to the older slaves ever been experienced before on this plantation. I confess, I hardly know how to bring this man fitly before the reader. He was, it is true, an overseer, and possessed, to a large extent, the peculiar characteristics of his class; yet, to call him merely an overseer, would not give the reader a fair notion of the man. I speak of overseers as a class. They are such. They are as distinct from the slaveholding gentry of the south, as are the fishwomen of Paris, and the coal-heavers of London,
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distinct from other members of society. They constitute a separate fraternity
at the south, not less marked than is the fraternity of Park Lane bullies in
New York. They have been arranged and classified by that great law of attraction,
which determines the spheres and affinities of men; which ordains, that men,
whose malign and brutal propensities predominate over their moral and intellectual
endowments, shall, naturally, fall into those employments which promise the
largest gratification to those predominating instincts or propensities. The
office of overseer takes this raw material of vulgarity and brutality, and stamps
it as a distinct class of southern society. But, in this class, as in all other
classes, there are characters of marked individuality, even while they bear
a general resemblance to the mass. Mr. Gore was one of those, to whom a general
characterization would do no manner of justice. He was an overseer; but he was
something more. With the malign and tyrannical qualities of an overseer, he
combined something of the lawful master. He had the artfulness and the mean
ambition of his class; but he was wholly free from the disgusting swagger and
noisy bravado of his fraternity. There was an easy air of independence about
him; a calm self-possession, and a sternness of glance, which might well daunt
hearts less timid than those of poor slaves, accustomed from childhood and through
life to cower before a driver's lash. The home plantation of Col. Lloyd afforded
an ample field for the exercise of the qualifications for overseership, which
he possessed in such an eminent degree.
Mr. Gore was one of those overseers, who could
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torture the slightest word or look into impudence; he had the nerve, not only
to resent, but to punish, promptly and severely. He never allowed himself to
be answered back, by a slave. In this, he was as lordly and as imperious as
Col. Edward Lloyd, himself; acting always up to the maxim, practically maintained
by slaveholders, that it is better that a dozen slaves suffer under the lash,
without fault, than that the master or the overseer should seem to have been
wrong in the presence of the slave. Everything must be absolute here. Guilty
or not guilty, it is enough to be accused, to be sure of a flogging. The very
presence of this man Gore was painful, and I shunned him as I would have shunned
a rattlesnake. His piercing, black eyes, and sharp, shrill voice, ever awakened
sensations of terror among the slaves. For so young a man (I describe him as
he was, twenty-five or thirty years ago) Mr. Gore was singularly reserved and
grave in the presence of slaves. He indulged in no jokes, said no funny things,
and kept his own counsels. Other overseers, how brutal soever they might be,
were, at times, inclined to gain favor with the slaves, by indulging a little
pleasantry; but Gore was never known to be guilty of any such weakness. He was
always the cold, distant, unapproachable overseer of Col. Edward Lloyd's plantation,
and needed no higher pleasure than was involved in a faithful discharge of the
duties of his office. When he whipped, he seemed to do so from a sense of duty,
and feared no consequences. What Hopkins did reluctantly, Gore did with alacrity.
There was a stern will, an iron-like reality, about this Gore, which would have
easily made him the chief of a band of pirates, had his environments been favorable
to such a course of life. All the coolness, savage barbarity and freedom from
moral restraint, which are necessary in the character of a pirate-chief, centered,
I think, in this man Gore. Among many other deeds of shocking cruelty which
he perpetrated, while I was at Mr. Lloyd's, was the murder of a young colored
man, named Denby. He was sometimes called Bill Denby, or Demby; (I write from
sound, and the sounds on Lloyd's plantation are not very certain.) I knew him
well. He was a powerful young man, full of animal spirits, and, so far as I
know, he was among the most valuable of Col. Lloyd's slaves. In something --
I know not what -- he offended this Mr. Austin Gore, and, in accordance with
the custom of the latter, he under took to flog him. He gave Denby but few stripes;
the latter broke away from him and plunged into the creek, and, standing there
to the depth of his neck in water, he refused to come out at the order of the
overseer; whereupon, for this refusal, Gore shot him dead! It is said that Gore
gave Denby three calls, telling him that if he did not obey the last call, he
would shoot him. When the third call was given, Denby stood his ground firmly;
and this raised the question, in the minds of the by-standing slaves -- "Will
he dare to shoot?" Mr. Gore, without further parley, and without making
any further effort to induce Denby to come out of the water, raised his gun
deliberately to his face, took deadly aim at his standing victim, and, in an
instant, poor Denby was numbered with the dead. His mangled body sank out of
sight, and only his warm, red blood marked the place where he had stood.
This devilish outrage, this fiendish murder, produced, as it was well calculated to do, a tremendous sensation. A thrill of horror flashed through every soul on the plantation, if I may except the guilty wretch who had committed the hell-black deed. While the slaves generally were panic-struck, and howling with alarm, the murderer himself was calm and collected, and appeared as though nothing unusual had happened. The atrocity roused my old master, and he spoke out, in reprobation of it; but the whole thing proved to be less than a nine days' wonder. Both Col. Lloyd and my old master arraigned Gore for his cruelty in the matter, but this amounted to nothing. His reply, or explanation -- as I remember to have heard it at the time was, that the extraordinary expedient was demanded by necessity; that Denby had become unmanageable; that he had set a dangerous example to the other slaves; and that, without some such prompt measure as that to which he had resorted, were adopted, there would be an end to all rule and order on the plantation. That very convenient covert for all manner of cruelty and outrage that cowardly alarm-cry, that the slaves would "take the place," was pleaded, in extenuation of this revolting crime, just as it had been cited in defense of a thousand similar ones. He argued, that if one slave refused to be corrected, and was allowed to escape with his life, when he had been told that he should lose it if he persisted in his course, the other slaves would soon copy his example; the result of which would be, the
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freedom of the slaves, and the enslavement of the whites. I have every reason
to believe that Mr. Gore's defense, or explanation, was deemed satisfactory
-- at least to Col. Lloyd. He was continued in his office on the plantation.
His fame as an overseer went abroad, and his horrid crime was not even submitted
to judicial investigation. The murder was committed in the presence of slaves,
and they, of course, could neither institute a suit, nor testify against the
murderer. His bare word would go further in a court of law, than the united
testimony of ten thousand black witnesses.
All that Mr. Gore had to do, was to make his peace with Col. Lloyd. This done, and the guilty perpetrator of one of the most foul murders goes unwhipped of justice, and uncensured by the community in which he lives. Mr. Gore lived in St. Michael's, Talbot county, when I left Maryland; if he is still alive he probably yet resides there; and I have no reason to doubt that he is now as highly esteemed, and as greatly respected, as though his guilty soul had never been stained with innocent blood. I am well aware that what I have now written will by some be branded as false and malicious. It will be denied, not only that such a thing ever did transpire, as I have now narrated, but that such a thing could happen in Maryland. I can only say -- believe it or not -- that I have said nothing but the literal truth, gainsay it who may.
I speak advisedly when I say this, -- that killing a slave, or any colored person, in Talbot county, Maryland, is not treated as a crime, either by the courts or the community. Mr. Thomas Lanman, ship carpenter,
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of St. Michael's, killed two slaves, one of whom he butchered with a hatchet,
by knocking his brains out. He used to boast of the commission of the awful
and bloody deed. I have heard him do so, laughingly, saying, among other things,
that he was the only benefactor of his country in the company, and that when
"others would do as much as he had done, we should be relieved of the d
-- d niggers."
As an evidence of the reckless disregard of human life where the life is that of a slave I may state the notorious fact, that the wife of Mr. Giles Hicks, who lived but a short distance from Col. Lloyd's, with her own hands murdered my wife's cousin, a young girl between fifteen and sixteen years of age -- mutilating her person in a most shocking manner. The atrocious woman, in the paroxysm of her wrath, not content with murdering her victim, literally mangled her face, and broke her breast bone. Wild, however, and infuriated as she was, she took the precaution to cause the slave-girl to be buried; but the facts of the case coming abroad, very speedily led to the disinterment of the remains of the murdered slave-girl. A coroner's jury was assembled, who decided that the girl had come to her death by severe beating. It was ascertained that the offense for which this girl was thus hurried out of the world, was this: she had been set that night, and several preceding nights, to mind Mrs. Hicks's baby, and having fallen into a sound sleep, the baby cried, waking Mrs. Hicks, but not the slave-girl. Mrs. Hicks, becoming infuriated at the girl's tardiness, after calling several times, jumped from her bed and seized a piece of firewood from the fireplace;
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and then, as she lay fast asleep, she deliberately pounded in her skull and
breast-bone, and thus ended her life. I will not say that this most horrid murder
produced no sensation in the community. It did produce a sensation; but, incredible
to tell, the moral sense of the community was blunted too entirely by the ordinary
nature of slavery horrors, to bring the murderess to punishment. A warrant was
issued for her arrest, but, for some reason or other, that warrant was never
served. Thus did Mrs. Hicks not only escape condign punishment, but even the
pain and mortification of being arraigned before a court of justice.
Whilst I am detailing the bloody deeds that took place during my stay on Col. Lloyd's plantation, I will briefly narrate another dark transaction, which occurred about the same time as the murder of Denby by Mr. Gore.
On the side of the river Wye, opposite from Col. Lloyd's, there lived a Mr. Beal Bondley, a wealthy slaveholder. In the direction of his land, and near the shore, there was an excellent oyster fishing ground, and to this, some of the slaves of Col. Lloyd occasionally resorted in their little canoes, at night, with a view to make up the deficiency of their scanty allowance of food, by the oysters that they could easily get there. This, Mr. Bondley took it into his head to regard as a trespass, and while an old man belonging to Col. Lloyd was engaged in catching a few of the many millions of oysters that lined the bottom of that creek, to satisfy his hunger, the villainous Mr. Bondley, lying in ambush, without the slightest ceremony, discharged
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the contents of his musket into the back and shoulders of the poor old man.
As good fortune would have it, the shot did not prove mortal, and Mr. Bondley
came over, the next day, to see Col. Lloyd -- whether to pay him for his property,
or to justify himself for what he had done, I know not; but this I can say,
the cruel and dastardly transaction was speedily hushed up; there was very little
said about it at all, and nothing was publicly done which looked like the application
of the principle of justice to the man whom chance, only, saved from being an
actual murderer. One of the commonest sayings to which my ears early became
accustomed, on Col. Lloyd's plantation and elsewhere in Maryland, was, that
it was "worth but half a cent to kill a nigger, and a half a cent to bury
him;" and the facts of my experience go far to justify the practical truth
of this strange proverb. Laws for the protection of the lives of the slaves,
are, as they must needs be, utterly incapable of being enforced, where the very
parties who are nominally protected, are not permitted to give evidence, in
courts of law, against the only class of persons from whom abuse, outrage and
murder might be reasonably apprehended. While I heard of numerous murders committed
by slaveholders on the Eastern Shores of Maryland, I never knew a solitary instance
in which a slaveholder was either hung or imprisoned for having murdered a slave.
The usual pretext for killing a slave is, that the slave has offered resistance.
Should a slave, when assaulted, but raise his hand in self defense, the white
assaulting party is fully justified by southern, or Maryland, public opinion,
in shooting the slave
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down. Sometimes this is done, simply because it is alleged that the slave has
been saucy. But here I leave this phase of the society of my early childhood,
and will relieve the kind reader of these heart-sickening details.
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CHAPTER IX.
PERSONAL TREATMENT OF THE AUTHOR.
MISS LUCRETIA -- HER KINDNESS -- HOW IT WAS MANIFESTED -- "IKE" --
A BATTLE WITH HIM -- THE CONSEQUENCES THEREOF -- MISS LUCRETIA'S BALSAM -- BREAD
-- HOW I OBTAINED IT -- BEAMS OF SUNLIGHT AMIDST THE GENERAL DARKNESS -- SUFFERING
FROM COLD -- HOW WE TOOK OUR MEALS -- ORDERS TO PREPARE FOR BALTIMORE -- OVERJOYED
AT THE THOUGHT OF QUITTING THE PLANTATION -- EXTRAORDINARY CLEANSING -- COUSIN
TOM'S VERSION OF BALTIMORE -- ARRIVAL THERE -- KIND RECEPTION GIVEN ME BY MRS.
SOPHIA AULD -- LITTLE TOMMY -- MY NEW POSITION -- MY NEW DUTIES -- A TURNING
POINT IN MY HISTORY.
I have nothing cruel or shocking to relate of my own personal experience, while I remained on Col. Lloyd's plantation, at the home of my old master. An occasional cuff from Aunt Katy, and a regular whipping from old master, such as any heedless and mischievous boy might get from his father, is all that I can mention of this sort. I was not old enough to work in the field, and, there being little else than field work to perform, I had much leisure. The most I had to do, was, to drive up the cows in the evening, to keep the front yard clean, and to perform small errands for my young mistress, Lucretia Auld. I have reasons for thinking this lady was very kindly disposed toward me, and, although I was not often the object of her attention, I constantly regarded her as my friend, and was always glad when it was my privilege to do her a service. In a family where there
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was so much that was harsh, cold and indifferent, the slightest word or look
of kindness passed, with me, for its full value. Miss Lucretia -- as we all
continued to call her long after her marriage -- had bestowed upon me such words
and looks as taught me that she pitied me, if she did not love me. In addition
to words and looks, she sometimes gave me a piece of bread and butter; a thing
not set down in the bill of fare, and which must have been an extra ration,
planned aside from either Aunt Katy or old master, solely out of the tender
regard and friendship she had for me. Then, too, I one day got into the wars
with Uncle Able's son, "Ike," and had got sadly worsted; in fact,
the little rascal had struck me directly in the forehead with a sharp piece
of cinder, fused with iron, from the old blacksmith's forge, which made a cross
in my forehead very plainly to be seen now. The gash bled very freely, and I
roared very loudly and betook myself home. The coldhearted Aunt Katy paid no
attention either to my wound or my roaring, except to tell me it served me right;
I had no business with Ike; it was good for me; I would now keep away "from
dem Lloyd niggers." Miss Lucretia, in this state of the case, came forward;
and, in quite a different spirit from that manifested by Aunt Katy, she called
me into the parlor (an extra privilege of itself) and, without using toward
me any of the hard-hearted and reproachful epithets of my kitchen tormentor,
she quietly acted the good Samaritan. With her own soft hand she washed the
blood from my head and face, fetched her own balsam bottle, and with the balsam
wetted a nice piece of white
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linen, and bound up my head. The balsam was not more healing to the wound in
my head, than her kindness was healing to the wounds in my spirit, made by the
unfeeling words of Aunt Katy. After this, Miss Lucretia was my friend. I felt
her to be such; and I have no doubt that the simple act of binding up my head,
did much to awaken in her mind an interest in my welfare. It is quite true,
that this interest was never very marked, and it seldom showed itself in anything
more than in giving me a piece of bread when I was hungry; but this was a great
favor on a slave plantation, and I was the only one of the children to whom
such attention was paid. When very hungry, I would go into the back yard and
play under Miss Lucretia's window. When pretty severely pinched by hunger, I
had a habit of singing, which the good lady very soon came to understand as
a petition for a piece of bread. When I sung under Miss Lucretia's window, I
was very apt to get well paid for my music. The reader will see that I now had
two friends, both at important points -- Mas' Daniel at the great house, and
Miss Lucretia at home. From Mas' Daniel I got protection from the bigger boys;
and from Miss Lucretia I got bread, by singing when I was hungry, and sympathy
when I was abused by that termagant, who had the reins of government in the
kitchen. For such friendship I felt deeply grateful, and bitter as are my recollections
of slavery, I love to recall any instances of kindness, any sunbeams of humane
treatment, which found way to my soul through the iron grating of my house of
bondage. Such beams seem all the brighter from
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the general darkness into which they penetrate, and the impression they make
is vividly distinct and beautiful.
As I have before intimated, I was seldom whipped -- and never severely -- by my old master. I suffered little from the treatment I received, except from hunger and cold. These were my two great physical troubles. I could neither get a sufficiency of food nor of clothing; but I suffered less from hunger than from cold. In hottest summer and coldest winter, I was kept almost in a state of nudity; no shoes, no stockings, no jacket, no trowsers; nothing but coarse sackcloth or tow-linen, made into a sort of shirt, reaching down to my knees. This I wore night and day, changing it once a week. In the day time I could protect myself pretty well, by keeping on the sunny side of the house; and in bad weather, in the corner of the kitchen chimney. The great difficulty was, to keep warm during the night. I had no bed. The pigs in the pen had leaves, and the horses in the stable had straw, but the children had no beds. They lodged anywhere in the ample kitchen. I slept, generally, in a little closet, without even a blanket to cover me. In very cold weather. I sometimes got down the bag in which corn meal was usually carried to the mill, and crawled into that. Sleeping there, with my head in and feet out, I was partly protected, though not comfortable. My feet have been so cracked with the frost, that the pen with which I am writing might be laid in the gashes. The manner of taking our meals at old master's, indicated but little refinement. Our corn-meal mush, when sufficiently
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cooled, was placed in a large wooden tray, or trough, like those used in making
maple sugar here in the north. This tray was set down, either on the floor of
the kitchen, or out of doors on the ground; and the children were called, like
so many pigs; and like so many pigs they would come, and literally devour the
mush -- some with oyster shells, some with pieces of shingles, and none with
spoons. He that eat fastest got most, and he that was strongest got the best
place; and few left the trough really satisfied. I was the most unlucky of any,
for Aunt Katy had no good feeling for me; and if I pushed any of the other children,
or if they told her anything unfavorable of me, she always believed the worst,
and was sure to whip me.
As I grew older and more thoughtful, I was more and more filled with a sense of my wretchedness. The cruelty of Aunt Katy, the hunger and cold I suffered, and the terrible reports of wrong and outrage which came to my ear, together with what I almost daily witnessed, led me, when yet but eight or nine years old, to wish I had never been born. I used to contrast my condition with the black-birds, in whose wild and sweet songs I fancied them so happy! Their apparent joy only deepened the shades of my sorrow. There are thoughtful days in the lives of children -- at least there were in mine when they grapple with all the great, primary subjects of knowledge, and reach, in a moment, conclusions which no subsequent experience can shake. I was just as well aware of the unjust, unnatural and murderous character of slavery, when nine years old, as I am now. Without
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any appeal to books, to laws, or to authorities of any kind, it was enough to
accept God as a father, to regard slavery as a crime.
I was not ten years old when I left Col. Lloyd's plantation for Baltimore. I left that plantation with inexpressible joy. I never shall forget the ecstacy with which I received the intelligence from my friend, Miss Lucretia, that my old master had determined to let me go to Baltimore to live with Mr. Hugh Auld, a brother to Mr. Thomas Auld, my old master's son-in-law. I received this information about three days before my departure. They were three of the happiest days of my childhood. I spent the largest part of these three days in the creek, washing off the plantation scurf, and preparing for my new home. Mrs. Lucretia took a lively interest in getting me ready. She told me I must get all the dead skin off my feet and knees, before I could go to Baltimore, for the people there were very cleanly, and would laugh at me if I looked dirty; and, besides, she was intending to give me a pair of trowsers, which I should not put on unless I got all the dirt off. This was a warning to which I was bound to take heed; for the thought of owning a pair of trowsers, was great, indeed. It was almost a sufficient motive, not only to induce me to scrub off the mange (as pig drovers would call it) but the skin as well. So I went at it in good earnest, working for the first time in the hope of reward. I was greatly excited, and could hardly consent to sleep, lest I should be left. The ties that, ordinarily, bind children to their homes, were all severed, or they never had any existence in
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my case, at least so far as the home plantation of Col. L. was concerned. I
therefore found no severe trail at the moment of my departure, such as I had
experienced when separated from my home in Tuckahoe. My home at my old master's
was charmless to me; it was not home, but a prison to me; on parting from it,
I could not feel that I was leaving anything which I could have enjoyed by staying.
My mother was now long dead; my grandmother was far away, so that I seldom saw
her; Aunt Katy was my unrelenting tormentor; and my two sisters and brothers,
owing to our early separation in life, and the family-destroying power of slavery,
were, comparatively, stran gers to me. The fact of our relationship was almost
blotted out. I looked for home elsewhere, and was confident of finding none
which I should relish less than the one I was leaving. If, however, I found
in my new home to which I was going with such blissful anticipations -- hardship,
whipping and nakedness, I had the questionable consolation that I should not
have escaped any one of these evils by remaining under the management of Aunt
Katy. Then, too, I thought, since I had endured much in this line on Lloyd's
plantation, I could endure as much elsewhere, and especially at Baltimore; for
I had something of the feeling about that city which is expressed in the saying,
that being "hanged in England, is better than dying a natural death in
Ireland." I had the strongest desire to see Baltimore. My cousin Tom --
a boy two or three years older than I -- had been there, and though not fluent
(he stuttered immoderately) in speech, he had inspired me with that desire,
by his
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eloquent description of the place. Tom was, sometimes, Capt. Auld's cabin boy;
and when he came from Baltimore, he was always a sort of hero amongst us, at
least till his Baltimore trip was forgotten. I could never tell him of anything,
or point out anything that struck me as beautiful or powerful, but that he had
seen something in Baltimore far surpassing it. Even the great house itself,
with all its pictures within, and pillars without, he had the hardihood to say
"was nothing to Baltimore." He bought a trumpet (worth six pence)
and brought it home; told what he had seen in the windows of stores; that he
had heard shooting crackers, and seen soldiers; that he had seen a steamboat;
that there were ships in Baltimore that could carry four such sloops as the
"Sally Lloyd." He said a great deal about the market-house; he spoke
of the bells ringing; and of many other things which roused my curiosity very
much; and, indeed, which heightened my hopes of happiness in my new home.
We sailed out of Miles river for Baltimore early on a Saturday morning. I remember only the day of the week; for, at that time, I had no knowledge of the days of the month, nor, indeed, of the months of the year. On setting sail, I walked aft, and gave to Col. Lloyd's plantation what I hoped would be the last look I should ever give to it, or to any place like it. My strong aversion to the great farm, was not owing to my own personal suffering, but the daily suffering of others, and to the certainty that I must, sooner or later, be placed under the barbarous rule of an overseer, such as the accomplished Gore, or the
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brutal and drunken Plummer. After taking this last view, I quitted the quarter
deck, made my way to the bow of the sloop, and spent the remainder of the day
in looking ahead; interesting myself in what was in the distance, rather than
what was near by or behind. The vessels, sweeping along the bay, were very interesting
objects. The broad bay opened like a shoreless ocean on my boyish vision, filling
me with wonder and admiration.
Late in the afternoon, we reached Annapolis, the capital of the state, stopping there not long enough to admit of my going ashore. It was the first large town I had ever seen; and though it was inferior to many a factory village in New England, my feelings, on seeing it, were excited to a pitch very little below that reached by travelers at the first view of Rome. The dome of the state house was especially imposing, and surpassed in grandeur the appearance of the great house. The great world was opening upon me very rapidly, and I was eagerly acquainting myself with its multifarious lessons.
We arrived in Baltimore on Sunday morning, and landed at Smith's wharf, not far from Bowly's wharf. We had on board the sloop a large flock of sheep, for the Baltimore market; and, after assisting in driving them to the slaughter house of Mr. Curtis, on Loudon Slater's Hill, I was speedily conducted by Rich -- one of the hands belonging to the sloop -- to my new home in Alliciana street, near Gardiner's ship-yard, on Fell's Point. Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Auld, my new mistress and master, were both at home, and met me at the door with their rosy cheeked little son, Thomas, to take
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care of whom was to constitute my future occupation. In fact, it was to "little
Tommy," rather than to his parents, that old master made a present of me;
and though there was no legal form or arrangement entered into, I have no doubt
that Mr. and Mrs. Auld felt that, in due time, I should be the legal property
of their bright-eyed and beloved boy, Tommy. I was struck with the appearance,
especially, of my new mistress. Her face was lighted with the kindliest emotions;
and the reflex influence of her countenance, as well as the tenderness with
which she seemed to regard me, while asking me sundry little questions, greatly
delighted me, and lit up, to my fancy, the pathway of my future. Miss Lucretia
was kind; but my new mistress, "Miss Sophy," surpassed her in kindness
of manner. Little Thomas was affectionately told by his mother, that "there
was his Freddy," and that "Freddy would take care of him;" and
I was told to "be kind to little Tommy" -- an injunction I scarcely
needed, for I had already fallen in love with the dear boy; and with these little
ceremonies I was initiated into my new home, and entered upon my peculiar duties,
with not a cloud above the horizon.
I may say here, that I regard my removal from Col. Lloyd's plantation as one of the most interesting and fortunate events of my life. Viewing it in the light of human likelihoods, it is quite probable that, but for the mere circumstance of being thus removed before the rigors of slavery had fastened upon me; before my young spirit had been crushed under the iron control of the slave-driver, instead of being, today,
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a FREEMAN, I might have been wearing the galling chains of slavery. I have sometimes
felt, however, that there was something more intelligent than chance, and something
more certain than luck, to be seen in the circumstance. If I have made any progress
in knowledge; if I have cherished any honorable aspirations, or have, in any
manner, worthily discharged the duties of a member of an oppressed people; this
little circumstance must be allowed its due weight in giving my life that direction.
I have ever regarded it as the first plain manifestation of that
"Divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough hew them as we will."
I was not the only boy on the plantation that might have been sent to live in Baltimore. There was a wide margin from which to select. There were boys younger, boys older, and boys of the same age, belonging to my old master some at his own house, and some at his farm -- but the high privilege fell to my lot.
I may be deemed superstitious and egotistical, in regarding this event as a special interposition of Divine Providence in my favor; but the thought is a part of my history, and I should be false to the earliest and most cherished sentiments of my soul, if I suppressed, or hesitated to avow that opinion, although it may be characterized as irrational by the wise, and ridiculous by the scoffer. From my earliest recollections of serious matters, I date the entertainment of something like an ineffaceable conviction, that slavery would not always be able to
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hold me within its foul embrace; and this conviction, like a word of living
faith, strengthened me through the darkest trials of my lot. This good spirit
was from God; and to him I offer thanksgiving and praise.
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CHAPTER X.
LIFE IN BALTIMORE.
CITY ANNOYANCES -- PLANTATION REGRETS -- MY MISTRESS, MISS SOPHA -- HER HISTORY
-- HER KINDNESS TO ME -- MY MASTER, HUGH AULD -- HIS SOURNESS -- MY INCREASED
SENSITIVENESS -- MY COMFORTS -- MY OCCUPATION -- THE BANEFUL EFFECTS OF SLAVEHOLDING
ON MY DEAR AND GOOD MISTRESS -- HOW SHE COMMENCED TEACHING ME TO READ -- WHY
SHE CEASED TEACHING ME -- CLOUDS GATHERING OVER MY BRIGHT PROSPECTS -- MASTER
AULD'S EXPOSITION OF THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF SLAVERY -- CITY SLAVES -- PLANTATION
SLAVES -- THE CONTRAST -- EXCEPTIONS -- MR. HAMILTON'S TWO SLAVES, HENRIETTA
AND MARY -- MRS. HAMILTON'S CRUEL TREATMENT OF THEM -- THE PITEOUS ASPECT THEY
PRESENTED -- NO POWER MUST COME BETWEEN THE SLAVE AND THE SLAVEHOLDER.
Once in Baltimore, with hard brick pavements under my feet, which almost raised blisters, by their very heat, for it was in the height of summer; walled in on all sides by towering brick buildings; with troops of hostile boys ready to pounce upon me at every street corner; with new and strange objects glaring upon me at every step, and with startling sounds reaching my ears from all directions, I for a time thought that, after all, the home plantation was a more desirable place of residence than my home on Alliciana street, in Baltimore. My country eyes and ears were confused and bewildered here; but the boys were my chief trouble. They chased me, and called me "Eastern Shore man," till really I almost wished myself back on the Eastern Shore. I had to undergo a sort
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of moral acclimation, and when that was over, I did much better. My new mistress
happily proved to be all she seemed to be, when, with her husband, she met me
at the door, with a most beaming, benignant countenance. She was, naturally,
of an excellent disposition, kind, gentle and cheerful. The supercilious contempt
for the rights and feelings of the slave, and the petulance and bad humor which
generally characterize slaveholding ladies, were all quite absent from kind
"Miss" Sophia's manner and bearing toward me. She had, in truth, never
been a slaveholder, but had -- a thing quite unusual in the south -- depended
almost entirely upon her own industry for a living. To this fact the dear lady,
no doubt, owed the excellent preservation of her natural goodness of heart,
for slavery can change a saint into a sinner, and an angel into a demon. I hardly
knew how to behave toward "Miss Sopha," as I used to call Mrs. Hugh
Auld. I had been treated as a pig on the plantation; I was treated as a child
now. I could not even approach her as I had formerly approached Mrs. Thomas
Auld. How could I hang down my head, and speak with bated breath, when there
was no pride to scorn me, no coldness to repel me, and no hatred to inspire
me with fear? I therefore soon learned to regard her as something more akin
to a mother, than a slaveholding mistress. The crouching servility of a slave,
usually so acceptable a quality to the haughty slaveholder, was not understood
nor desired by this gentle woman. So far from deeming it impudent in a slave
to look her straight in the face, as some slaveholding ladies do, she seemed
ever to say, "look up,
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child; don't be afraid; see, I am full of kindness and good will toward you."
The hands belonging to Col. Lloyd's sloop, esteemed it a great privilege to
be the bearers of parcels or messages to my new mistress; for whenever they
came, they were sure of a most kind and pleasant reception. If little Thomas
was her son, and her most dearly beloved child, she, for a time, at least, made
me something like his half-brother in her affections. If dear Tommy was exalted
to a place on his mother's knee, "Feddy" was honored by a place at
his mother's side. Nor did he lack the caressing strokes of her gentle hand,
to convince him that, though motherless, he was not friendless. Mrs. Auld was
not only a kind-hearted woman, but she was remarkably pious; frequent in her
attendance of public worship, much given to reading the bible, and to chanting
hymns of praise, when alone. Mr. Hugh Auld was altogether a different character.
He cared very little about religion, knew more of the world, and was more of
the world, than his wife. He set out, doubtless to be -- as the world goes --
a respectable man, and to get on by becoming a successful ship builder, in that
city of ship building. This was his ambition, and it fully occupied him. I was,
of course, of very little consequence to him, compared with what I was to good
Mrs. Auld; and, when he smiled upon me, as he sometimes did, the smile was borrowed
from his lovely wife, and, like all borrowed light, was transient, and vanished
with the source whence it was derived. While I must characterize Master Hugh
as being a very sour man, and of forbidding appearance, it is due to him to
acknowledge, that he was never
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very cruel to me, according to the notion of cruelty in Maryland. The first
year or two which I spent in his house, he left me almost exclusively to the
management of his wife. She was my law-giver. In hands so tender as hers, and
in the absence of the cruelties of the plantation, I became, both physically
and mentally, much more sensitive to good and ill treatment; and, perhaps, suffered
more from a frown from my mistress, than I formerly did from a cuff at the hands
of Aunt Katy. Instead of the cold, damp floor of my old master's kitchen, I
found myself on carpets; for the corn bag in winter, I now had a good straw
bed, well furnished with covers; for the coarse corn-meal in the morning, I
now had good bread, and mush occasionally; for my poor tow-lien shirt, reaching
to my knees, I had good, clean clothes. I was really well off. My employment
was to run errands, and to take care of Tommy; to prevent his getting in the
way of carriages, and to keep him out of harm's way generally. Tommy, and I,
and his mother, got on swimmingly together, for a time. I say for a time, because
the fatal poison of irresponsible power, and the natural influence of slavery
customs, were not long in making a suitable impression on the gentle and loving
disposition of my excellent mistress. At first, Mrs. Auld evidently regarded
me simply as a child, like any other child; she had not come to regard me as
property. This latter thought was a thing of conventional growth. The first
was natural and spontaneous. A noble nature, like hers, could not, instantly,
be wholly perverted; and it took several years to change the natural sweetness
of her
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temper into fretful bitterness. In her worst estate, however, there were, during
the first seven years I lived with her, occasional returns of her former kindly
disposition.
The frequent hearing of my mistress reading the bible for she often read aloud when her husband was absent soon awakened my curiosity in respect to this mystery of reading, and roused in me the desire to learn. Having no fear of my kind mistress before my eyes, (she had then given me no reason to fear,) I frankly asked her to teach me to read; and, without hesitation, the dear woman began the task, and very soon, by her assistance, I was master of the alphabet, and could spell words of three or four letters. My mistress seemed almost as proud of my progress, as if I had been her own child; and, supposing that her husband would be as well pleased, she made no secret of what she was doing for me. Indeed, she exultingly told him of the aptness of her pupil, of her intention to persevere in teaching me, and of the duty which she felt it to teach me, at least to read the bible. Here arose the first cloud over my Baltimore prospects, the precursor of drenching rains and chilling blasts.
Master Hugh was amazed at the simplicity of his spouse, and, probably for the first time, he unfolded to her the true philosophy of slavery, and the peculiar rules necessary to be observed by masters and mistresses, in the management of their human chattels. Mr. Auld promptly forbade continuance of her instruction; telling her, in the first place, that the thing itself was unlawful; that it was also unsafe, and could only lead to mischief. To use his own words,
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further, he said, "if you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell;"
"he should know nothing but the will of his master, and learn to obey it."
"if you teach that nigger -- speaking of myself -- how to read the bible,
there will be no keeping him;" "it would forever unfit him for the
duties of a slave;" and "as to himself, learning would do him no good,
but probably, a great deal of harm -- making him disconsolate and unhappy."
"If you learn him now to read, he'll want to know how to write; and, this
accomplished, he'll be running away with himself." Such was the tenor of
Master Hugh's oracular exposition of the true philosophy of training a human
chattel; and it must be confessed that he very clearly comprehended the nature
and the requirements of the relation of master and slave. His discourse was
the first decidedly anti-slavery lecture to which it had been my lot to listen.
Mrs. Auld evidently felt the force of his remarks; and, like an obedient wife,
began to shape her course in the direction indicated by her husband. The effect
of his words, on me, was neither slight nor transitory. His iron sentences --
cold and harsh -- sunk deep into my heart, and stirred up not only my feelings
into a sort of rebellion, but awakened within me a slumbering train of vital
thought. It was a new and special revelation, dispelling a painful mystery,
against which my youthful understanding had struggled, and struggled in vain,
to wit: the white man's power to perpetuate the enslavement of the black man.
"Very well," thought I; "knowledge unfits a child to be a slave."
I instinctively assented to the proposition;
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and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom.
This was just what I needed; and I got it at a time, and from a source, whence
I least expected it. I was saddened at the thought of losing the assistance
of my kind mistress; but the information, so instantly derived, to some extent
compensated me for the loss I had sustained in this direction. Wise as Mr. Auld
was, he evidently underrated my comprehension, and had little idea of the use
to which I was capable of putting the impressive lesson he was giving to his
wife. He wanted me to be a slave; I had already voted against that on the home
plantation of Col. Lloyd. That which he most loved I most hated; and the very
determination which he expressed to keep me in ignorance, only rendered me the
more resolute in seeking intelligence. In learning to read, therefore, I am
not sure that I do not owe quite as much to the opposition of my master, as
to the kindly assistance of my amiable mistress. I acknowledge the benefit rendered
me by the one, and by the other; believing, that but for my mistress, I might
have grown up in ignorance.
I had resided but a short time in Baltimore, before I observed a marked difference in the manner of treating slaves, generally, from which I had witnessed in that isolated and out-of-the-way part of the country where I began life. A city slave is almost a free citizen, in Baltimore, compared with a slave on Col. Lloyd's plantation. He is much better fed and clothed, is less dejected in his appearance, and enjoys privileges altogether unknown to the whip-driven slave on the plantation. Slavery dislikes a dense population,
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in which there is a majority of non-slaveholders. The general sense of decency
that must pervade such a population, does much to check and prevent those outbreaks
of atrocious cruelty, and those dark crimes without a name, almost openly perpetrated
on the plantation. He is a desperate slaveholder who will shock the humanity
of his non-slaveholding neighbors, by the cries of the lacerated slaves; and
very few in the city are willing to incur the odium of being cruel masters.
I found, in Baltimore, that no man was more odious to the white, as well as
to the colored people, than he, who had the reputation of starving his slaves.
Work them, flog them, if need be, but don't starve them. These are, however,
some painful exceptions to this rule. While it is quite true that most of the
slaveholders in Baltimore feed and clothe their slaves well, there are others
who keep up their country cruelties in the city.
An instance of this sort is furnished in the case of a family who lived directly opposite to our house, and were named Hamilton. Mrs. Hamilton owned two slaves. Their names were Henrietta and Mary. They had always been house slaves. One was aged about twenty-two, and the other about fourteen. They were a fragile couple by nature, and the treatment they received was enough to break down the constitution of a horse. Of all the dejected, emaciated, mangled and excoriated creatures I ever saw, those two girls -- in the refined, church going and Christian city of Baltimore were the most deplorable. Of stone must that heart be made, that could look upon Henrietta and Mary, without being sickened
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to the core with sadness. Especially was Mary a heart-sickening object. Her
head, neck and shoulders, were literally cut to pieces. I have frequently felt
her head, and found it nearly covered over with festering sores, caused by the
lash of her cruel mistress. I do not know that her master ever whipped her,
but I have often been an eye witness of the revolting and brutal inflictions
by Mrs. Hamilton; and what lends a deeper shade to this woman's conduct, is
the fact, that, almost in the very moments of her shocking outrages of humanity
and decency, she would charm you by the sweetness of her voice and her seeming
piety. She used to sit in a large rocking chair, near the middle of the room,
with a heavy cowskin, such as I have elsewhere described; and I speak within
the truth when I say, that these girls seldom passed that chair, during the
day, without a blow from that cowskin, either upon their bare arms, or upon
their shoulders. As they passed her, she would draw her cowskin and give them
a blow, saying, "move faster, you black jip!" and, again, "take
that, you black jip!" continuing, "if you don't move faster, I will
give you more." Then the lady would go on, singing her sweet hymns, as
though her righteous soul were sighing for the holy realms of paradise.
Added to the cruel lashings to which these poor slave-girls were subjected -- enough in themselves to crush the spirit of men -- they were, really, kept nearly half starved; they seldom knew what it was to eat a full meal, except when they got it in the kitchens of neighbors, less mean and stingy than the
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psalm-singing Mrs. Hamilton. I have seen poor Mary contending for the offal,
with the pigs in the street. So much was the poor girl pinched, kicked, cut
and pecked to pieces, that the boys in the street knew her only by the name
of "pecked," a name derived from the scars and blotches on her neck,
head and shoulders.
It is some relief to this picture of slavery in Baltimore, to say -- what is but the simple truth -- that Mrs. Hamilton's treatment of her slaves was generally condemned, as disgraceful and shocking; but while I say this, it must also be remembered, that the very parties who censured the cruelty of Mrs. Hamilton, would have condemned and promptly punished any attempt to interfere with Mrs. Hamilton's right to cut and slash her slaves to pieces. There must be no force between the slave and the slaveholder, to restrain the power of the one, and protect the weakness of the other; and the cruelty of Mrs. Hamilton is as justly chargeable to the upholders of the slave system, as drunkenness is chargeable on those who, by precept and example, or by indifference, uphold the drinking system.
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CHAPTER XI.
"A CHANGE CAME O'ER THE SPIRIT OF MY DREAM."
HOW I LEARNED TO READ -- MY MISTRESS -- HER SLAVEHOLDING DUTIES -- THEIR DEPLORABLE
EFFECTS UPON HER ORIGINALLY NOBLE NATURE -- THE CONFLICT IN HER MIND -- HER
FINAL OPPOSITION TO MY LEARNING TO READ -- TOO LATE -- SHE HAD GIVEN ME THE
INCH, I WAS RESOLVED TO TAKE THE ELL -- HOW I PURSUED MY EDUCATION -- MY TUTORS
-- HOW I COMPENSATED THEM -- WHAT PROGRESS I MADE -- SLAVERY -- WHAT I HEARD
SAID ABOUT IT -- THIRTEEN YEARS OLD -- THE Columbian Orator -- A RICH SCENE
-- A DIALOGUE -- SPEECHES OF CHATHAM, SHERIDAN, PITT AND FOX -- KNOWLEDGE EVER
INCREASING -- MY EYES OPENED -- LIBERTY -- HOW I PINED FOR IT -- MY SADNESS
-- THE DISSATISFACTION OF MY POOR MISTRESS -- MY HATRED OF SLAVERY -- ONE UPAS
TREE OVERSHADOWED US BOTH.
I lived in the family of Master Hugh, at Baltimore, seven years, during which time -- as the almanac makers say of the weather -- my condition was variable. The most interesting feature of my history here, was my learning to read and write, under somewhat marked disadvantages. In attaining this knowledge, I was compelled to resort to indirections by no means congenial to my nature, and which were really humiliating to me. My mistress -- who, as the reader has already seen, had begun to teach me was suddenly checked in her benevolent design, by the strong advice of her husband. In faithful compliance with this advice, the good lady had not only ceased to instruct me, herself, but had set her face as a flint against my learning to read by any means. It is due,
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however, to my mistress to say, that she did not adopt this course in all its
stringency at the first. She either thought it unnecessary, or she lacked the
depravity indispensable to shutting me up in mental darkness. It was, at least,
necessary for her to have some training, and some hardening, in the exercise
of the slaveholder's prerogative, to make her equal to forgetting my human nature
and character, and to treating me as a thing destitute of a moral or an intellectual
nature. Mrs. Auld -- my mistress -- was, as I have said, a most kind and tender-hearted
woman; and, in the humanity of her heart, and the simplicity of her mind, she
set out, when I first went to live with her, to treat me as she supposed one
human being ought to treat another.
It is easy to see, that, in entering upon the duties of a slaveholder, some little experience is needed. Nature has done almost nothing to prepare men and women to be either slaves or slaveholders. Nothing but rigid training, long persisted in, can perfect the character of the one or the other. One cannot easily forget to love freedom; and it is as hard to cease to respect that natural love in our fellow creatures. On entering upon the career of a slaveholding mistress, Mrs. Auld was singularly deficient; nature, which fits nobody for such an office, had done less for her than any lady I had known. It was no easy matter to induce her to think and to feel that the curly-headed boy, who stood by her side, and even leaned on her lap; who was loved by little Tommy, and who loved little Tommy in turn; sustained to her only the relation of a chattel. I was more than that, and she felt
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me to be more than that. I could talk and sing; I could laugh and weep; I could
reason and remember; I could love and hate. I was human, and she, dear lady,
knew and felt me to be so. How could she, then, treat me as a brute, without
a mighty struggle with all the noble powers of her own soul. That struggle came,
and the will and power of the husband was victorious. Her noble soul was overthrown;
but, he that overthrew it did not, himself, escape the consequences. He, not
less than the other parties, was injured in his domestic peace by the fall.
When I went into their family, it was the abode of happiness and contentment. The mistress of the house was a model of affec tion and tenderness. Her fervent piety and watchful uprightness made it impossible to see her without thinking and feeling -- "that woman is a Christian." There was no sorrow nor suffering for which she had not a tear, and there was no innocent joy for which she did not a smile. She had bread for the hungry, clothes for the naked, and comfort for every mourner that came within her reach. Slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these excellent qualities, and her home of its early happiness. Conscience cannot stand much violence. Once thoroughly broken down, who is he that can repair the damage? It may be broken toward the slave, on Sunday, and toward the master on Monday. It cannot endure such shocks. It must stand entire, or it does not stand at all. If my condition waxed bad, that of the family waxed not better. The first step, in the wrong direction, was the violence done to nature
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and to conscience, in arresting the benevolence that would have enlightened
my young mind. In ceasing to instruct me, she must begin to justify herself
to herself; and, once consenting to take sides in such a debate, she was riveted
to her position. One needs very little knowledge of moral philosophy, to see
where my mistress now landed. She finally became even more violent in her opposition
to my learning to read, than was her husband himself. She was not satisfied
with simply doing as well as her husband had commanded her, but seemed resolved
to better his instruction. Nothing appeared to make my poor mistress -- after
her turning toward the downward path -- more angry, than seeing me, seated in
some nook or corner, quietly reading a book or a newspaper. I have had her rush
at me, with the utmost fury, and snatch from my hand such newspaper or book,
with something of the wrath and consternation which a traitor might be supposed
to feel on being discovered in a plot by some dangerous spy.
Mrs. Auld was an apt woman, and the advice of her husband, and her own experience, soon demonstrated, to her entire satisfaction, that education and slavery are incompatible with each other. When this conviction was thoroughly established, I was most narrowly watched in all my movements. If I remained in a separate room from the family for any considerable length of time, I was sure to be suspected of having a book, and was at once called upon to give an account of myself. All this, however, was entirely too late. The first, and never to be retraced, step had been taken. In teaching me the alphabet, in the
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days of her simplicity and kindness, my mistress had given me the "inch,"
and now, no ordinary precaution could prevent me from taking the "ell."
Seized with a determination to learn to read, at any cost, I hit upon many expedients to accomplish the desired end. The plea which I mainly adopted, and the one by which I was most successful, was that of using my young white playmates, with whom I met in the streets as teachers. I used to carry, almost constantly, a copy of Webster's spelling book in my pocket; and, when sent of errands, or when play time was allowed me, I would step, with my young friends, aside, and take a lesson in spelling. I generally paid my tuition fee to the boys, with bread, which I also carried in my pocket. For a single biscuit, any of my hungry little comrades would give me a lesson more valuable to me than bread. Not every one, however, demanded this consideration, for there were those who took pleasure in teaching me, whenever I had a chance to be taught by them. I am strongly tempted to give the names of two or three of those little boys, as a slight testimonial of the gratitude and affection I bear them, but prudence forbids; not that it would injure me, but it might, possibly, embarrass them; for it is almost an unpardonable offense to do any thing, directly or indirectly, to promote a slave's freedom, in a slave state. It is enough to say, of my warm-hearted little play fellows, that they lived on Philpot street, very near Durgin & Bailey's shipyard.
Although slavery was a delicate subject, and very cautiously talked about among grown up people in Maryland, I frequently talked about it -- and that very
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freely -- with the white boys. I would, sometimes, say to them, while seated
on a curb stone or a cellar door, "I wish I could be free, as you will
be when you get to be men." "You will be free, you know, as soon as
you are twenty-one, and can go where you like, but I am a slave for life. Have
I not as good a right to be free as you have?" Words like these, I observed,
always troubled them; and I had no small satisfaction in wringing from the boys,
occasionally, that fresh and bitter condemnation of slavery, that springs from
nature, unseared and unperverted. Of all consciences let me have those to deal
with which have not been bewildered by the cares of life. I do not remember
ever to have met with a boy, while I was in slavery, who defended the slave
system; but I have often had boys to console me, with the hope that something
would yet occur, by which I might be made free. Over and over again, they have
told me, that "they believed I had as good a right to be free as they had;"
and that "they did not believe God ever made any one to be a slave."
The reader will easily see, that such little conversations with my play fellows,
had no tendency to weaken my love of liberty, nor to render me contented with
my condition as a slave.
When I was about thirteen years old, and had succeeded in learning to read, every increase of knowledge, especially respecting the FREE STATES, added something to the almost intolerable burden of the thought -- I AM A SLAVE FOR LIFE. To my bondage I saw no end. It was a terrible reality, and I shall never be able to tell how sadly that thought chafed my young spirit. Fortunately, or unfortunately,
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about this time in my life, I had made enough money to buy what was then a very
popular school book, viz: the Columbian Orator. I bought this addition to my
library, of Mr. Knight, on Thames street, Fell's Point, Baltimore, and paid
him fifty cents for it. I was first led to buy this book, by hearing some little
boys say they were going to learn some little pieces out of it for the Exhibition.
This volume was, indeed, a rich treasure, and every opportunity afforded me,
for a time, was spent in diligently perusing it. Among much other interesting
matter, that which I had perused and reperused with unflagging satisfaction,
was a short dialogue between a master and his slave. The slave is represented
as having been recaptured, in a second attempt to run away; and the master opens
the dialogue with an upbraiding speech, charging the slave with ingratitude,
and demanding to know what he has to say in his own defense. Thus upbraided,
and thus called upon to reply, the slave rejoins, that he knows how little anything
that he can say will avail, seeing that he is completely in the hands of his
owner; and with noble resolution, calmly says, "I submit to my fate."
Touched by the slave's answer, the master insists upon his further speaking,
and recapitulates the many acts of kindness which he has performed toward the
slave, and tells him he is permitted to speak for himself. Thus invited to the
debate, the quondam slave made a spirited defense of himself, and thereafter
the whole argument, for and against slavery, was brought out. The master was
vanquished at every turn in the argument; and seeing himself to be thus vanquished,
he
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generously and meekly emancipates the slave, with his best wishes for his prosperity.
It is scarcely necessary to say, that a dialogue, with such an origin, and such
an ending -- read when the fact of my being a slave was a constant burden of
grief -- powerfully affected me; and I could not help feeling that the day might
come, when the well-directed answers made by the slave to the master, in this
instance, would find their counterpart in myself.
This, however, was not all the fanaticism which I found in this Columbian Orator. I met there one of Sheridan's mighty speeches, on the subject of Catholic Emancipation, Lord Chatham's speech on the American war, and speeches by the great William Pitt and by Fox. These were all choice documents to me, and I read them, over and over again, with an interest that was ever increasing, because it was ever gaining in intelligence; for the more I read them, the better I understood them. The reading of these speeches added much to my limited stock of language, and enabled me to give tongue to many interesting thoughts, which had frequently flashed through my soul, and died away for want of utterance. The mighty power and heart-searching directness of truth, penetrating even the heart of a slaveholder, compelling him to yield up his earthly interests to the claims of eternal justice, were finely illustrated in the dialogue, just referred to; and from the speeches of Sheridan, I got a bold and powerful denunciation of oppression, and a most brilliant vindication of the rights of man. Here was, indeed, a noble acquisition. If I ever wavered under the consideration, that the Almighty,
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in some way, ordained slavery, and willed my enslavement for his own glory,
I wavered no longer. I had now penetrated the secret of all slavery and oppression,
and had ascertained their true foundation to be in the pride, the power and
the avarice of man. The dialogue and the speeches were all redolent of the principles
of liberty, and poured floods of light on the nature and character of slavery.
With a book of this kind in my hand, my own human nature, and the facts of my
experience, to help me, I was equal to a contest with the religious advocates
of slavery, whether among the whites or among the colored people, for blindness,
in this matter, is not confined to the former. I have met many religious colored
people, at the south, who are under the delusion that God requires them to submit
to slavery, and to wear their chains with meekness and humility. I could entertain
no such nonsense as this; and I almost lost my patience when I found any colored
man weak enough to believe such stuff. Nevertheless, the increase of knowledge
was attended with bitter, as well as sweet results. The more I read, the more
I was led to abhor and detest slavery, and my enslavers. "Slaveholders,"
thought I, "are only a band of successful robbers, who left their homes
and went into Africa for the purpose of stealing and reducing my people to slavery."
I loathed them as the meanest and the most wicked of men. As I read, behold!
the very discontent so graphically predicted by Master Hugh, had already come
upon me. I was no longer the light-hearted, gleesome boy, full of mirth and
play, as when I landed first at Baltimore. Knowledge had
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come; light had penetrated the moral dungeon where I dwelt; and, behold! there
lay the bloody whip, for my back, and here was the iron chain; and my good,
kind master, he was the author of my situation. The revelation haunted me, stung
me, and made me gloomy and miserable. As I writhed under the sting and torment
of this knowledge, I almost envied my fellow slaves their stupid contentment.
This knowledge opened my eyes to the horrible pit, and revealed the teeth of
the frightful dragon that was ready to pounce upon me, but it opened no way
for my escape. I have often wished myself a beast, or a bird -- anything, rather
than a slave. I was wretched and gloomy, beyond my ability to describe. I was
too thoughtful to be happy. It was this everlasting thinking which distressed
and tormented me; and yet there was no getting rid of the subject of my thoughts.
All nature was redolent of it. Once awakened by the silver trump of knowledge,
my spirit was roused to eternal wakefulness. Liberty! the inestimable birthright
of every man, had, for me, converted every object into an asserter of this great
right. It was heard in every sound, and beheld in every object. It was ever
present, to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition. The more beautiful
and charming were the smiles of nature, the more horrible and desolate was my
condition. I saw nothing without seeing it, and I heard nothing without hearing
it. I do not exaggerate, when I say, that it looked from every star, smiled
in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm.
I have no doubt that my state of mind had something
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to do with the change in the treatment adopted, by my once kind mistress toward
me. I can easily believe, that my leaden, downcast, and discontented look, was
very offensive to her. Poor lady! She did not know my trouble, and I dared not
tell her. Could I have freely made her acquainted with the real state of my
mind, and given her the reasons therefor, it might have been well for both of
us. Her abuse of me fell upon me like the blows of the false prophet upon his
ass; she did not know that an angel stood in the way; and -- such is the relation
of master and slave I could not tell her. Nature had made us friends; slavery
made us enemies. My interests were in a direction opposite to hers, and we both
had our private thoughts and plans. She aimed to keep me ignorant; and I resolved
to know, although knowledge only increased my discontent. My feelings were not
the result of any marked cruelty in the treatment I received; they sprung from
the consideration of my being a slave at all. It was slavery -- not its mere
incidents -- that I hated. I had been cheated. I saw through the attempt to
keep me in ignorance; I saw that slaveholders would have gladly made me believe
that they were merely acting under the authority of God, in making a slave of
me, and in making slaves of others; and I treated them as robbers and deceivers.
The feeding and clothing me well, could not atone for taking my liberty from
me. The smiles of my mistress could not remove the deep sorrow that dwelt in
my young bosom. Indeed, these, in time, came only to deepen my sorrow. She had
changed; and the reader will see that I had changed, too. We
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were both victims to the same overshadowing evil -- she, as mistress, I, as
slave. I will not censure her harshly; she cannot censure me, for she knows
I speak but the truth, and have acted in my opposition to slavery, just as she
herself would have acted, in a reverse of circumstances.
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CHAPTER XII.
RELIGIOUS NATURE AWAKENED.
ABOLITIONISTS SPOKEN OF -- MY EAGERNESS TO KNOW WHAT THIS WORD MEANT -- MY CONSULTATION
OF THE DICTIONARY -- INCENDIARY INFORMATION -- HOW AND WHERE DERIVED -- THE
ENIGMA SOLVED -- NATHANIEL TURNER'S INSURRECTION -- THE CHOLERA -- RELIGION
-- FIRST AWAKENED BY A METHODIST MINISTER NAMED HANSON -- MY DEAR AND GOOD OLD
COLORED FRIEND, LAWSON -- HIS CHARACTER AND OCCUPATION -- HIS INFLUENCE OVER
ME -- OUR MUTUAL ATTACHMENT -- THE COMFORT I DERIVED FROM HIS TEACHING -- NEW
HOPES AND ASPIRATIONS -- HEAVENLY LIGHT AMIDST EARTHLY DARKNESS -- THE TWO IRISHMEN
ON THE WHARF -- THEIR CONVERSATION -- HOW I LEARNED TO WRITE -- WHAT WERE MY
AIMS.
Whilst in the painful state of mind described in the foregoing chapter, almost regretting my very existence, because doomed to a life of bondage, so goaded and so wretched, at times, that I was even tempted to destroy my own life, I was keenly sensitive and eager to know any, and every thing that transpired, having any relation to the subject of slavery. I was all ears, all eyes, whenever the words slave, slavery, dropped from the lips of any white person, and the occasions were not unfrequent when these words became leading ones, in high, social debate, at our house. Every little while, I could hear Master Hugh, or some of his company, speaking with much warmth and excitement about "abolitionists." Of who or what these were, I was totally ignorant. I found, however, that whatever they might be, they were most
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cordially hated and soundly abused by slaveholders, of every grade. I very soon
discovered, too, that slavery was, in some sort, under consideration, whenever
the abolitionists were alluded to. This made the term a very interesting one
to me. If a slave, for instance, had made good his escape from slavery, it was
generally alleged, that he had been persuaded and assisted by the abolitionists.
If, also, a slave killed his master -- as was sometimes the case -- or struck
down his overseer, or set fire to his master's dwelling, or committed any violence
or crime, out of the common way, it was certain to be said, that such a crime
was the legitimate fruits of the abolition movement. Hearing such charges often
repeated, I, naturally enough, received the impression that abolition -- whatever
else it might be -- could not be unfriendly to the slave, nor very friendly
to the slaveholder. I therefore set about finding out, if possible, who and
what the abolitionists were, and why they were so obnoxious to the slaveholders.
The dictionary afforded me very little help. It taught me that abolition was
the "act of abolishing;" but it left me in ignorance at the very point
where I most wanted information -- and that was, as to the thing to be abolished.
A city newspaper, the Baltimore American, gave me the incendiary information
denied me by the dictionary. In its columns I found, that, on a certain day,
a vast number of petitions and memorials had been presented to congress, praying
for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and for the abolition
of the slave trade between the states of the Union. This was enough. The vindictive
bitterness,
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the marked caution, the studied reverse, and the cumbrous ambiguity, practiced
by our white folks, when alluding to this subject, was now fully explained.
Ever, after that, when I heard the words "abolition," or "abolition
movement," mentioned, I felt the matter one of a personal concern; and
I drew near to listen, when I could do so, without seeming too solicitous and
prying. There was HOPE in those words. Ever and anon, too, I could see some
terrible denunciation of slavery, in our papers -- copied from abolition papers
at the north -- and the injustice of such denunciation commented on. These I
read with avidity. ABOLITIONISM -- THE ENIGMA SOLVED> I had a deep satisfaction
in the thought, that the rascality of slaveholders was not concealed from the
eyes of the world, and that I was not alone in abhorring the cruelty and brutality
of slavery. A still deeper train of thought was stirred. I saw that there was
fear, as well as rage, in the manner of speaking of the abolitionists. The latter,
therefore, I was compelled to regard as having some power in the country; and
I felt that they might, possibly, succeed in their designs. When I met with
a slave to whom I deemed it safe to talk on the subject, I would impart to him
so much of the mystery as I had been able to penetrate. Thus, the light of this
grand movement broke in upon my mind, by degrees; and I must say, that, ignorant
as I then was of the philosophy of that movement, I believe in it from the first
-- and I believed in it, partly, because I saw that it alarmed the consciences
of slaveholders. The insurrection of Nathaniel Turner had been quelled, but
the alarm and terror had not subsided. The cholera was on its way,
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and the thought was present, that God was angry with the white people because
of their slaveholding wickedness, and, therefore, his judgments were abroad
in the land. It was impossible for me not to hope much from the abolition movement,
when I saw it supported by the Almighty, and armed with DEATH!
Previous to my contemplation of the anti-slavery movement, and its probable results, my mind had been seriously awakened to the subject of religion. I was not more than thirteen years old, when I felt the need of God, as a father and protector. My religious nature was awakened by the preaching of a white Methodist minister, named Hanson. He thought that all men, great and small, bond and free, were sinners in the sight of God; that they were, by nature, rebels against His government; and that they must repent of their sins, and be reconciled to God, through Christ. I cannot say that I had a very distinct notion of what was required of me; but one thing I knew very well -- I was wretched, and had no means of making myself otherwise. Moreover, I knew that I could pray for light. I consulted a good colored man, named Charles Johnson; and, in tones of holy affection, he told me to pray, and what to pray for. I was, for weeks, a poor, brokenhearted mourner, traveling through the darkness and misery of doubts and fears. I finally found that change of heart which comes by "casting all one's care" upon God, and by having faith in Jesus Christ, as the Redeemer, Friend, and Savior of those who diligently seek Him.
After this, I saw the world in a new light. I
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seemed to live in a new world, surrounded by new objects, and to be animated
by new hopes and desires. I loved all mankind -- slaveholders not excepted;
though I abhorred slavery more than ever. My great concern was, now, to have
the world converted. The desire for knowledge increased, and especially did
I want a thorough acquaintance with the contents of the bible. I have gathered
scattered pages from this holy book, from the filthy street gutters of Baltimore,
and washed and dried them, that in the moments of my leisure, I might get a
word or two of wisdom from them. While thus religiously seeking knowledge, I
became acquainted with a good old colored man, named Lawson. A more devout man
than he, I never saw. He drove a dray for Mr. James Ramsey, the owner of a rope-walk
on Fell's Point, Baltimore. This man not only prayed three time a day, but he
prayed as he walked through the streets, at his work -- on his dray everywhere.
His life was a life of prayer, and his words (when he spoke to his friends,)
were about a better world. Uncle Lawson lived near Master Hugh's house; and,
becoming deeply attached to the old man, I went often with him to prayer-meeting,
and spent much of my leisure time with him on Sunday. The old man could read
a little, and I was a great help to him, in making out the hard words, for I
was a better reader than he. I could teach him "the letter," but he
could teach me "the spirit;" and high, refreshing times we had together,
in singing, praying and glorifying God. These meetings with Uncle Lawson went
on for a long time, without the knowledge of Master Hugh or
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my mistress. Both knew, however, that I had become religious, and they seemed
to respect my conscientious piety. My mistress was still a professor of religion,
and belonged to class. Her leader was no less a person than the Rev. Beverly
Waugh, the presiding elder, and now one of the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal
church. Mr. Waugh was then stationed over Wilk street church. I am careful to
state these facts, that the reader may be able to form an idea of the precise
influences which had to do with shaping and directing my mind.
In view of the cares and anxieties incident to the life she was then leading, and, especially, in view of the separation from religious associations to which she was subjected, my mistress had, as I have before stated, become lukewarm, and needed to be looked up by her leader. This brought Mr. Waugh to our house, and gave me an opportunity to hear him exhort and pray. But my chief instructor, in matters of religion, was Uncle Lawson. He was my spiritual father; and I loved him intensely, and was at his house every chance I got.
This pleasure was not long allowed me. Master Hugh became averse to my going to Father Lawson's, and threatened to whip me if I ever went there again. I now felt myself persecuted by a wicked man; and I would go to Father Lawson's, notwithstanding the threat. The good old man had told me, that the "Lord had a great work for me to do;" and I must prepare to do it; and that he had been shown that I must preach the gospel. His words made a deep impression on my mind, and I verily felt that some such
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work was before me, though I could not see how I should ever engage in its performance.
"The good Lord," he said, "would bring it to pass in his own
good time," and that I must go on reading and studying the scriptures.
The advice and the suggestions of Uncle Lawson, were not without their influence
upon my character and destiny. He threw my thoughts into a channel from which
they have never entirely diverged. He fanned my already intense love of knowledge
into a flame, by assuring me that I was to be a useful man in the world. When
I would say to him, "How can these things be and what can _I_ do?"
his simple reply was, "Trust in the Lord." When I told him that "I
was a slave, and a slave FOR LIFE," he said, "the Lord can make you
free, my dear. All things are possible with him, only have faith in God."
"Ask, and it shall be given." "If you want liberty," said
the good old man, "ask the Lord for it, in faith, AND HE WILL GIVE IT TO
YOU."
Thus assured, and cheered on, under the inspiration of hope, I worked and prayed with a light heart, believing that my life was under the guidance of a wisdom higher than my own. With all other blessings sought at the mercy seat, I always prayed that God would, of His great mercy, and in His own good time, deliver me from my bondage.
I went, one day, on the wharf of Mr. Waters; and seeing two Irishmen unloading a large scow of stone, or ballast I went on board, unasked, and helped them. When we had finished the work, one of the men came to me, aside, and asked me a number of questions, and among them, if I were a slave. I told him
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"I was a slave, and a slave for life." The good Irishman gave his
shoulders a shrug, and seemed deeply affected by the statement. He said, "it
was a pity so fine a little fellow as myself should be a slave for life."
They both had much to say about the matter, and expressed the deepest sympathy
with me, and the most decided hatred of slavery. They went so far as to tell
me that I ought to run away, and go to the north; that I should find friends
there, and that I would be as free as anybody. I, however, pretended not to
be interested in what they said, for I feared they might be treacherous. White
men have been known to encourage slaves to escape, and then -- to get the reward
-- they have kidnapped them, and returned them to their masters. And while I
mainly inclined to the notion that these men were honest and meant me no ill,
I feared it might be otherwise. I nevertheless remembered their words and their
advice, and looked forward to an escape to the north, as a possible means of
gaining the liberty for which my heart panted. It was not my enslavement, at
the then present time, that most affected me; the being a slave for life, was
the saddest thought. I was too young to think of running away immediately; besides,
I wished to learn how to write, before going, as I might have occasion to write
my own pass. I now not only had the hope of freedom, but a foreshadowing of
the means by which I might, some day, gain that inestimable boon. Meanwhile,
I resolved to add to my educational attainments the art of writing.
After this manner I began to learn to write: I was much in the ship yard -- Master Hugh's, and that of
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Durgan & Bailey -- and I observed that the carpenters, after hewing and
getting a piece of timber ready for use, wrote on it the initials of the name
of that part of the ship for which it was intended. When, for instance, a piece
of timber was ready for the starboard side, it was marked with a capital "S."
A piece for the larboard side was marked "L;" larboard forward, "L.
F.;" larboard aft, was marked "L. A.;" starboard aft, "S.
A.;" and starboard forward "S. F." I soon learned these letters,
and for what they were placed on the timbers.
My work was now, to keep fire under the steam box, and to watch the ship yard while the carpenters had gone to dinner. This interval gave me a fine opportunity for copying the letters named. I soon astonished myself with the ease with which I made the letters; and the thought was soon present, "if I can make four, I can make more." But having made these easily, when I met boys about Bethel church, or any of our play-grounds, I entered the lists with them in the art of writing, and would make the letters which I had been so fortunate as to learn, and ask them to "beat that if they could." With playmates for my teachers, fences and pavements for my copy books, and chalk for my pen and ink, I learned the art of writing. I, however, afterward adopted various methods of improving my hand. The most successful, was copying the italics in Webster's spelling book, until I could make them all without looking on the book. By this time, my little "Master Tommy" had grown to be a big boy, and had written over a number of copy books, and brought them
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home. They had been shown to the neighbors, had elicited due praise, and were
now laid carefully away. Spending my time between the ship yard and house, I
was as often the lone keeper of the latter as of the former. When my mistress
left me in charge of the house, I had a grand time; I got Master Tommy's copy
books and a pen and ink, and, in the ample spaces between the lines, I wrote
other lines, as nearly like his as possible. The process was a tedious one,
and I ran the risk of getting a flogging for marring the highly prized copy
books of the oldest son. In addition to those opportunities, sleeping, as I
did, in the kitchen loft -- a room seldom visited by any of the family -- I
got a flour barrel up there, and a chair; and upon the head of that barrel I
have written (or endeavored to write) copying from the bible and the Methodist
hymn book, and other books which had accumulated on my hands, till late at night,
and when all the family were in bed and asleep. I was supported in my endeavors
by renewed advice, and by holy promises from the good Father Lawson, with whom
I continued to meet, and pray, and read the scriptures. Although Master Hugh
was aware of my going there, I must say, for his credit, that he never executed
his threat to whip me, for having thus, innocently, employed-my leisure time.
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CHAPTER XIII.
THE VICISSITUDES OF SLAVE LIFE.
DEATH OF OLD MASTER'S SON RICHARD, SPEEDILY FOLLOWED BY THAT OF OLD MASTER --
VALUATION AND DIVISION OF ALL THE PROPERTY, INCLUDING THE SLAVES -- MY PRESENCE
REQUIRED AT HILLSBOROUGH TO BE APPRAISED AND ALLOTTED TO A NEW OWNER -- MY SAD
PROSPECTS AND GRIEF -- PARTING -- THE UTTER POWERLESSNESS OF THE SLAVES TO DECIDE
THEIR OWN DESTINY -- A GENERAL DREAD OF MASTER ANDREW -- HIS WICKEDNESS AND
CRUELTY -- MISS LUCRETIA MY NEW OWNER -- MY RETURN TO BALTIMORE -- JOY UNDER
THE ROOF OF MASTER HUGH -- DEATH OF MRS. LUCRETIA -- MY POOR OLD GRANDMOTHER
-- HER SAD FATE -- THE LONE COT IN THE WOODS -- MASTER THOMAS AULD'S SECOND
MARRIAGE -- AGAIN REMOVED FROM MASTER HUGH'S -- REASONS FOR REGRETTING THE CHANGE
-- A PLAN OF ESCAPE ENTERTAINED.
I must now ask the reader to go with me a little back in point of time, in my humble story, and to notice another circumstance that entered into my slavery experience, and which, doubtless, has had a share in deepening my horror of slavery, and increasing my hostility toward those men and measures that practically uphold the slave system.
It has already been observed, that though I was, after my removal from Col. Lloyd's plantation, in form the slave of Master Hugh, I was, in fact, and in law, the slave of my old master, Capt. Anthony. Very well.
In a very short time after I went to Baltimore, my old master's youngest son, Richard, died; and, in
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three years and six months after his death, my old master himself died, leaving
only his son, Andrew, and his daughter, Lucretia, to share his estate. The old
man died while on a visit to his daughter, in Hillsborough, where Capt. Auld
and Mrs. Lucretia now lived. The former, having given up the command of Col.
Lloyd's sloop, was now keeping a store in that town.
Cut off, thus unexpectedly, Capt. Anthony died intestate; and his property must now be equally divided between his two children, Andrew and Lucretia.
The valuation and the division of slaves, among contending heirs, is an important incident in slave life. The character and tendencies of the heirs, are generally well understood among the slaves who are to be divided, and all have their aversions and preferences. But, neither their aversions nor their preferences avail them anything.
On the death of old master, I was immediately sent for, to be valued and divided with the other property. Personally, my concern was, mainly, about my possible removal from the home of Master Hugh, which, after that of my grandmother, was the most endeared to me. But, the whole thing, as a feature of slavery, shocked me. It furnished me anew insight into the unnatural power to which I was subjected. My detestation of slavery, already great, rose with this new conception of its enormity.
That was a sad day for me, a sad day for little Tommy, and a sad day for my dear Baltimore mistress and teacher, when I left for the Eastern Shore, to be valued and divided. We, all three, wept bitterly that
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day; for we might be parting, and we feared we were parting, forever. No one
could tell among which pile of chattels I should be flung. Thus early, I got
a foretaste of that painful uncertainty which slavery brings to the ordinary
lot of mortals. Sickness, adversity and death may interfere with the plans and
purposes of all; but the slave has the added danger of changing homes, changing
hands, and of having separations unknown to other men. Then, too, there was
the intensified degradation of the spectacle. What an assemblage! Men and women,
young and old, married and single; moral and intellectual beings, in open contempt
of their humanity, level at a blow with OLD MASTER'S PROPERTY> horses, sheep,
horned cattle and swine! Horses and men -- cattle and women -- pigs and children
-- all holding the same rank in the scale of social existence; and all subjected
to the same narrow inspection, to ascertain their value in gold and silver --
the only standard of worth applied by slaveholders to slaves! How vividly, at
that moment, did the brutalizing power of slavery flash before me! Personality
swallowed up in the sordid idea of property! Manhood lost in chattelhood!
After the valuation, then came the division. This was an hour of high excitement and distressing anxiety. Our destiny was now to be fixed for life, and we had no more voice in the decision of the question, than the oxen and cows that stood chewing at the haymow. One word from the appraisers, against all preferences or prayers, was enough to sunder all the ties of friendship and affection, and even to separate husbands and wives, parents and children. We were all
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appalled before that power, which, to human seeming, could bless or blast us
in a moment. Added to the dread of separation, most painful to the majority
of the slaves, we all had a decided horror of the thought of falling into the
hands of Master Andrew. He was distinguished for cruelty and intemperance.
Slaves generally dread to fall into the hands of drunken owners. Master Andrew was almost a confirmed sot, and had already, by his reckless mismanagement and profligate dissipation, wasted a large portion of old master's property. To fall into his hands, was, therefore, considered merely as the first step toward being sold away to the far south. He would spend his fortune in a few years, and his farms and slaves would be sold, we thought, at public outcry; and we should be hurried away to the cotton fields, and rice swamps, of the sunny south. This was the cause of deep consternation.
The people of the north, and free people generally, I think, have less attachment to the places where they are born and brought up, than have the slaves. Their freedom to go and come, to be here and there, as they list, prevents any extravagant attachment to any one particular place, in their case. On the other hand, the slave is a fixture; he has no choice, no goal, no destination; but is pegged down to a single spot, and must take root here, or nowhere. The idea of removal elsewhere, comes, generally, in the shape of a threat, and in punishment of crime. It is, therefore, attended with fear and dread. A slave seldom thinks of bettering his condition by being sold, and hence he looks upon separation from his native place, with
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none of the enthusiasm which animates the bosoms of young freemen, when they
contemplate a life in the far west, or in some distant country where they intend
to rise to wealth and distinction. Nor can those from whom they separate, give
them up with that cheerfulness with which friends and relations yield each other
up, when they feel that it is for the good of the departing one that he is removed
from his native place. Then, too, there is correspondence, and there is, at
least, the hope of reunion, because reunion is possible. But, with the slave,
all these mitigating circumstances are wanting. There is no improvement in his
condition probable, -- no correspondence possible, -- no reunion attainable.
His going out into the world, is like a living man going into the tomb, who,
with open eyes, sees himself buried out of sight and hearing of wife, children
and friends of kindred tie.
In contemplating the likelihoods and possibilities of our circumstances, I probably suffered more than most of my fellow servants. I had known what it was to experience kind, and even tender treatment; they had known nothing of the sort. Life, to them, had been rough and thorny, as well as dark. They had -- most of them -- lived on my old master's farm in Tuckahoe, and had felt the reign of Mr. Plummer's rule. The overseer had written his character on the living parchment of most of their backs, and left them callous; my back (thanks to my early removal from the plantation to Baltimore) was yet tender. I had left a kind mistress at Baltimore, who was almost a mother to me. She was in tears when we parted, and the probabilities of ever seeing her again, trembling
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in the balance as they did, could not be viewed without alarm and agony. The
thought of leaving that kind mistress forever, and, worse still, of being the
slave of Andrew Anthony -- a man who, but a few days before the division of
the property, had, in my presence, seized my brother Perry by the throat, dashed
him on the ground, and with the heel of his boot stamped him on the head, until
the blood gushed from his nose and ears -- was terrible! This fiendish proceeding
had no better apology than the fact, that Perry had gone to play, when Master
Andrew wanted him for some trifling service. This cruelty, too, was of a piece
with his general character. After inflicting his heavy blows on my brother,
on observing me looking at him with intense astonishment, he said, "That
is the way I will serve you, one of these days;" meaning, no doubt, when
I should come into his possession. This threat, the reader may well suppose,
was not very tranquilizing to my feelings. I could see that he really thirsted
to get hold of me. But I was there only for a few days. I had not received any
orders, and had violated none, and there was, therefore, no excuse for flogging
me.
At last, the anxiety and suspense were ended; and they ended, thanks to a kind Providence, in accordance with my wishes. I fell to the portion of Mrs. Lucretia -- the dear lady who bound up my head, when the savage Aunt Katy was adding to my sufferings her bitterest maledictions.
Capt. Thomas Auld and Mrs. Lucretia at once decided on my return to Baltimore. They knew how sincerely and warmly Mrs. Hugh Auld was attached
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to me, and how delighted Mr. Hugh's son would be to have me back; and, withal,
having no immediate use for one so young, they willingly let me off to Baltimore.
I need not stop here to narrate my joy on returning to Baltimore, nor that of little Tommy; nor the tearful joy of his mother; nor the evident satisfaction of Master Hugh. I was just one month absent from Baltimore, before the matter was decided; and the time really seemed full six months.
One trouble over, and on comes another. The slave's life is full of uncertainty. I had returned to Baltimore but a short time, when the tidings reached me, that my friend, Mrs. Lucretia, who was only second in my regard to Mrs. Hugh Auld, was dead, leaving her husband and only one child -- a daughter, named Amanda.
Shortly after the death of Mrs. Lucretia, strange to say, Master Andrew died, leaving his wife and one child. Thus, the whole family of Anthonys was swept away; only two children remained. All this happened within five years of my leaving Col. Lloyd's.
No alteration took place in the condition of the slaves, in consequence of these deaths, yet I could not help feeling less secure, after the death of my friend, Mrs. Lucretia, than I had done during her life. While she lived, I felt that I had a strong friend to plead for me in any emergency. Ten years ago, while speaking of the state of things in our family, after the events just named, I used this language:
"Now all the property of my old master, slaves included,
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was in the hands of strangers -- strangers who had nothing to do in accumulating
it. Not a slave was left free. All remained slaves, from youngest to oldest.
If any one thing in my experience, more than another, served to deepen my conviction
of the infernal character of slavery, and to fill me with unutterable loathing
of slaveholders, it was their base ingratitude to my poor old grandmother. She
had served my old master faithfully from youth to old age. She had been the
source of all his wealth; she had peopled his plantation with slaves; she had
become a great-grandmother in his service. She had rocked him in infancy, attended
him in childhood, served him through life, and at his death wiped from his icy
brow the cold death-sweat, and closed his eyes forever. She was nevertheless
left a slave -- a slave for life -- a slave in the hands of strangers; and in
their hands she saw her children, her grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren,
divided, like so many sheep, without being gratified with the small privilege
of a single word, as to their or her own destiny. And, to cap the climax of
their base ingratitude and fiendish barbarity, my grandmother, who was now very
old, having outlived my old master and all his children, having seen the beginning
and end of all of them, and her present owners finding she was of but little
value, her frame already racked with the pains of old age, and complete helplessness
fast stealing over her once active limbs, they took her to the woods, built
her a little hut, put up a little mud-chimney, and then made her welcome to
the privilege of supporting herself there in perfect loneliness; thus virtually
turning her out to die! If my poor old grandmother now lives, she lives to suffer
in utter loneliness; she lives to remember and mourn over the loss of children,
the loss of grandchildren, and the loss of great-grandchildren. They are, in
the language of the slave's poet, Whittier --
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'Gone, gone, sold and gone,
To the rice swamp dank and lone,
Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings,
Where the noisome insect stings,
Where the fever-demon strews
Poison with the falling dews,
Where the sickly sunbeams glare
Through the hot and misty air: --
Gone, gone, sold and gone
To the rice swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia hills and waters --
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!'
"The hearth is desolate. The children, the unconscious children, who once sang and danced in her presence, are gone. She gropes her way, in the darkness of age, for a drink of water. Instead of the voices of her children, she hears by day the moans of the dove, and by night the screams of the hideous owl. All is gloom. The grave is at the door. And now, when weighed down by the pains and aches of old age, when the head inclines to the feet, when the beginning and ending of human existence meet, and helpless infancy and painful old age combine together -- at this time, this most needful time, the time for the exercise of that tenderness and affection which children only can exercise toward a declining parent -- my poor old grandmother, the devoted mother of twelve children, is left all alone, in yonder little hut, before a few dim embers."
Two years after the death of Mrs. Lucretia, Master Thomas married his second wife. Her name was Rowena Hamilton, the eldest daughter of Mr. William Hamilton, a rich slaveholder on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, who lived about five miles from St. Michael's, the then place of my master's residence.
Not long after his marriage, Master Thomas had a
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misunderstanding with Master Hugh, and, as a means of punishing his brother,
he ordered him to send me home.
As the ground of misunderstanding will serve to illustrate the character of southern chivalry, and humanity, I will relate it.
Among the children of my Aunt Milly, was a daughter, named Henny. When quite a child, Henny had fallen into the fire, and burnt her hands so bad that they were of very little use to her. Her fingers were drawn almost into the palms of her hands. She could make out to do something, but she was considered hardly worth the having -- of little more value than a horse with a broken leg. This unprofitable piece of human property, ill shapen, and disfigured, Capt. Auld sent off to Baltimore, making his brother Hugh welcome to her services.
After giving poor Henny a fair trial, Master Hugh and his wife came to the conclusion, that they had no use for the crippled servant, and they sent her back to Master Thomas. Thus, the latter took as an act of ingratitude, on the part of his brother; and, as a mark of his displeasure, he required him to send me immediately to St. Michael's, saying, if he cannot keep "Hen," he shall not have "Fred."
Here was another shock to my nerves, another breaking up of my plans, and another severance of my religious and social alliances. I was now a big boy. I had become quite useful to several young colored men, who had made me their teacher. I had taught some of them to read, and was accustomed to spend many of my leisure hours with them. Our attachment
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was strong, and I greatly dreaded the separation. But regrets, especially in
a slave, are unavailing. I was only a slave; my wishes were nothing, and my
happiness was the sport of my masters.
My regrets at now leaving Baltimore, were not for the same reasons as when I before left that city, to be valued and handed over to my proper owner. My home was not now the pleasant place it had formerly been. A change had taken place, both in Master Hugh, and in his once pious and affectionate wife. The influence of brandy and bad company on him, and the influence of slavery and social isolation upon her, had wrought disastrously upon the characters of both. Thomas was no longer "little Tommy," but was a big boy, and had learned to assume the airs of his class toward me. My condition, therefore, in the house of Master Hugh, was not, by any means, so comfortable as in former years. My attachments were now outside of our family. They were felt to those to whom I imparted instruction, and to those little white boys from whom I received instruction. There, too, was my dear old father, the pious Lawson, who was, in christian graces, the very counterpart of "Uncle" Tom. The resemblance is so perfect, that he might have been the original of Mrs. Stowe's christian hero. The thought of leaving these dear friends, greatly troubled me, for I was going without the hope of ever returning to Baltimore again; the feud between Master Hugh and his brother being bitter and irreconcilable, or, at least, supposed to be so.
In addition to thoughts of friends from whom I was parting, as I supposed, forever, I had the grief of
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neglected chances of escape to brood over. I had put off running away, until
now I was to be placed where the opportunities for escaping were much fewer
than in a large city like Baltimore.
On my way from Baltimore to St. Michael's, down the Chesapeake bay, our sloop -- the "Amanda" -- was passed by the steamers plying between that city and Philadelphia, and I watched the course of those steamers, and, while going to St. Michael's, I formed a plan to escape from slavery; of which plan, and matters connected therewith the kind reader shall learn more hereafter.
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CHAPTER XIV.
EXPERIENCE IN ST. MICHAEL'S
THE VILLAGE -- ITS INHABITANTS -- THEIR OCCUPATION AND LOW PROPENSITIES -- CAPTAIN
THOMAS AULD -- HIS CHARACTER -- HIS SECOND WIFE, ROWENA -- WELL MATCHED -- SUFFERINGS
FROM HUNGER -- OBLIGED TO TAKE FOOD -- MODE OF ARGUMENT IN VINDICATION THEREOF
-- NO MORAL CODE OF FREE SOCIETY CAN APPLY TO SLAVE SOCIETY -- SOUTHERN CAMP
MEETING -- WHAT MASTER THOMAS DID THERE -- HOPES -- SUSPICIONS ABOUT HIS CONVERSION
-- THE RESULT -- FAITH AND WORKS ENTIRELY AT VARIANCE -- HIS RISE AND PROGRESS
IN THE CHURCH -- POOR COUSIN "HENNY" -- HIS TREATMENT OF HER -- THE
METHODIST PREACHERS -- THEIR UTTER DISREGARD OF US -- ONE EXCELLENT EXCEPTION
-- REV. GEORGE COOKMAN -- SABBATH SCHOOL -- HOW BROKEN UP AND BY WHOM -- A FUNERAL
PALL CAST OVER ALL MY PROSPECTS -- COVEY THE NEGRO-BREAKER.
St. Michael's, the village in which was now my new home, compared favorably with villages in slave states, generally. There were a few comfortable dwellings in it, but the place, as a whole, wore a dull, slovenly, enterprise-forsaken aspect. The mass of the buildings were wood; they had never enjoyed the artificial adornment of paint, and time and storms had worn off the bright color of the wood, leaving them almost as black as buildings charred by a conflagration.
St. Michael's had, in former years, (previous to 1833, for that was the year I went to reside there,) enjoyed some reputation as a ship building community, but that business had almost entirely given place to oyster fishing, for the Baltimore and Philadelphia markets -- a course of life highly unfavorable to morals,
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industry, and manners. Miles river was broad, and its oyster fishing grounds
were extensive; and the fishermen were out, often, all day, and a part of the
night, during autumn, winter and spring. This exposure was an excuse for carrying
with them, in considerable quantities, spirituous liquors, the then supposed
best antidote for cold. Each canoe was supplied with its jug of rum; and tippling,
among this class of the citizens of St. Michael's, became general. This drinking
habit, in an ignorant population, fostered coarseness, vulgarity and an indolent
disregard for the social improvement of the place, so that it was admitted,
by the few sober, thinking people who remained there, that St. Michael's had
become a very unsaintly, as well as unsightly place, before I went there to
reside.
I left Baltimore for St. Michael's in the month of March, 1833. I know the year, because it was the one succeeding the first cholera in Baltimore, and was the year, also, of that strange phenomenon, when the heavens seemed about to part with its starry train. I witnessed this gorgeous spectacle, and was awe-struck. The air seemed filled with bright, descending messengers from the sky. It was about daybreak when I saw this sublime scene. I was not without the suggestion, at the moment, that it might be the harbinger of the coming of the Son of Man; and, in my then state of mind, I was prepared to hail Him as my friend and deliverer. I had read, that the "stars shall fall from heaven"; and they were now falling. I was suffering much in my mind. It did seem that every time the young tendrils of my affection became attached, they were rudely
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broken by some unnatural outside power; and I was beginning to look away to
heaven for the rest denied me on earth.
But, to my story. It was now more than seven years since I had lived with Master Thomas Auld, in the family of my old master, on Col. Lloyd's plantation. We were almost entire strangers to each other; for, when I knew him at the house of my old master, it was not as a master, but simply as "Captain Auld," who had married old master's daughter. All my lessons concerning his temper and disposition, and the best methods of pleasing him, were yet to be learnt. Slaveholders, however, are not very ceremonious in approaching a slave; and my ignorance of the new material in shape of a master was but transient. Nor was my mistress long in making known her animus. She was not a "Miss Lucretia," traces of whom I yet remembered, and the more especially, as I saw them shining in the face of little Amanda, her daughter, now living under a step-mother's government. I had not forgotten the soft hand, guided by a tender heart, that bound up with healing balsam the gash made in my head by Ike, the son of Abel. Thomas and Rowena, I found to be a well-matched pair. He was stingy, and she was cruel; and -- what was quite natural in such cases -- she possessed the ability to make him as cruel as herself, while she could easily descend to the level of his meanness. In the house of Master Thomas, I was made -- for the first time in seven years to feel the pinchings of hunger, and this was not very easy to bear.
For, in all the changes of Master Hugh's family,
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there was no change in the bountifulness with which they supplied me with food.
Not to give a slave enough to eat, is meanness intensified, and it is so recognized
among slaveholders generally, in Maryland. The rule is, no matter how coarse
the food, only let there be enough of it. This is the theory, and -- in the
part of Maryland I came from -- the general practice accords with this theory.
Lloyd's plantation was an exception, as was, also, the house of Master Thomas
Auld.
All know the lightness of Indian corn-meal, as an article of food, and can easily judge from the following facts whether the statements I have made of the stinginess of Master Thomas, are borne out. There were four slaves of us in the kitchen, and four whites in the great house Thomas Auld, Mrs. Auld, Hadaway Auld (brother of Thomas Auld) and little Amanda. The names of the slaves in the kitchen, were Eliza, my sister; Priscilla, my aunt; Henny, my cousin; and myself. There were eight persons in the family. There was, each week, one half bushel of corn-meal brought from the mill; and in the kitchen, corn-meal was almost our exclusive food, for very little else was allowed us. Out of this bushel of corn-meal, the family in the great house had a small loaf every morning; thus leaving us, in the kitchen, with not quite a half a peck per week, apiece. This allowance was less than half the allowance of food on Lloyd's plantation. It was not enough to subsist upon; and we were, therefore, reduced to the wretched necessity of living at the expense of our neighbors. We were compelled either to beg, or to steal, and we did both. I frankly confess, that while
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I hated everything like stealing, as such, I nevertheless did not hesitate to
take food, when I was hungry, wherever I could find it. Nor was this practice
the mere result of an unreasoning instinct; it was, in my case, the result of
a clear apprehension of the claims of morality. I weighed and considered the
matter closely, before I ventured to satisfy my hunger by such means. Considering
that my labor and person were the property of Master Thomas, and that I was
by him deprived of the necessaries of life necessaries obtained by my own labor
-- it was easy to deduce the right to supply myself with what was my own. It
was simply appropriating what was my own to the use of my master, since the
health and strength derived from such food were exerted in his service. To be
sure, this was stealing, according to the law and gospel I heard from St. Michael's
pulpit; but I had already begun to attach less importance to what dropped from
that quarter, on that point, while, as yet, I retained my reverence for religion.
It was not always convenient to steal from master, and the same reason why I
might, innocently, steal from him, did not seem to justify me in stealing from
others. In the case of my master, it was only a question of removal -- the taking
his meat out of one tub, and putting it into another; the ownership of the meat
was not affected by the transaction. At first, he owned it in the tub, and last,
he owned it in me. His meat house was not always open. There was a strict watch
kept on that point, and the key was on a large bunch in Rowena's pocket. A great
many times have we, poor creatures, been severely pinched with hunger,
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when meat and bread have been moulding under the lock, while the key was in
the pocket of our mistress. This had been so when she knew we were nearly half
starved; and yet, that mistress, with saintly air, would kneel with her husband,
and pray each morning that a merciful God would bless them in basket and in
store, and save them, at last, in his kingdom. But I proceed with the argument.
It was necessary that right to steal from others should be established; and this could only rest upon a wider range of generalization than that which supposed the right to steal from my master.
It was sometime before I arrived at this clear right. The reader will get some idea of my train of reasoning, by a brief statement of the case. "I am," thought I, "not only the slave of Thomas, but I am the slave of society at large. Society at large has bound itself, in form and in fact, to assist Master Thomas in robbing me of my rightful liberty, and of the just reward of my labor; therefore, whatever rights I have against Master Thomas, I have, equally, against those confederated with him in robbing me of liberty. As society has marked me out as privileged plunder, on the principle of self-preservation I am justified in plundering in turn. Since each slave belongs to all; all must, therefore, belong to each."
I shall here make a profession of faith which may shock some, offend others, and be dissented from by all. It is this: Within the bounds of his just earnings, I hold that the slave is fully justified in helping himself to the gold and silver, and the best apparel of
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his master, or that of any other slaveholder; and that such taking is not stealing
in any just sense of that word.
The morality of free society can have no application to slave society. Slaveholders have made it almost impossible for the slave to commit any crime, known either to the laws of God or to the laws of man. If he steals, he takes his own; if he kills his master, he imitates only the heroes of the revolution. Slaveholders I hold to be individually and collectively responsible for all the evils which grow out of the horrid relation, and I believe they will be so held at the judgment, in the sight of a just God. Make a man a slave, and you rob him of moral responsibility. Freedom of choice is the essence of all accountability. But my kind readers are, probably, less concerned about my opinions, than about that which more nearly touches my personal experience; albeit, my opinions have, in some sort, been formed by that experience.
Bad as slaveholders are, I have seldom met with one so entirely destitute of every element of character capable of inspiring respect, as was my present master, Capt. Thomas Auld.
When I lived with him, I thought him incapable of a noble action. The leading trait in his character was intense selfishness. I think he was fully aware of this fact himself, and often tried to conceal it. Capt. Auld was not a born slaveholder -- not a birthright member of the slaveholding oligarchy. He was only a slaveholder by marriage-right; and, of all slaveholders, these latter are, by far, the most exacting. There was in him all the love of domination, the pride of mastery, and the swagger of authority,
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but his rule lacked the vital element of consistency. He could be cruel; but
his methods of showing it were cowardly, and evinced his meanness rather than
his spirit. His commands were strong, his enforcement weak.
Slaves are not insensible to the whole-souled characteristics of a generous, dashing slaveholder, who is fearless of consequences; and they prefer a master of this bold and daring kind -- even with the risk of being shot down for impudence to the fretful, little soul, who never uses the lash but at the suggestion of a love of gain.
Slaves, too, readily distinguish between the birthright bearing of the original slaveholder and the assumed attitudes of the accidental slaveholder; and while they cannot respect either, they certainly despise the latter more than the former.
The luxury of having slaves wait upon him was something new to Master Thomas; and for it he was wholly unprepared. He was a slaveholder, without the ability to hold or manage his slaves. We seldom called him "master," but generally addressed him by his "bay craft" title -- Capt. Auld." It is easy to see that such conduct might do much to make him appear awkward, and, consequently, fretful. His wife was especially solicitous to have us call her husband "master." Is your master at the store?" -- "Where is your master?" -- "Go and tell your master" -- "I will make your master acquainted with your conduct" -- she would say; but we were inapt scholars. Especially were I and my sister Eliza inapt in this particular. Aunt Priscilla was less stubborn
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and defiant in her spirit than Eliza and myself; and, I think, her road was
less rough than ours.
In the month of August, 1833, when I had almost become desperate under the treatment of Master Thomas, and when I entertained more strongly than ever the oft-repeated determination to run away, a circumstance occurred which seemed to promise brighter and better days for us all. At a Methodist camp-meeting, held in the Bay Side (a famous place for campmeetings) about eight miles from St. Michael's, Master Thomas came out with a profession of religion. He had long been an object of interest to the church, and to the ministers, as I had seen by the repeated visits and lengthy exhortations of the latter. He was a fish quite worth catching, for he had money and standing. In the community of St. Michael's he was equal to the best citizen. He was strictly temperate; perhaps, from principle, but most likely, from interest. There was very little to do for him, to give him the appearance of piety, and to make him a pillar in the church. Well, the camp-meeting continued a week; people gathered from all parts of the county, and two steamboat loads came from Baltimore. The ground was happily chosen; seats were arranged; a stand erected; a rude altar fenced in, fronting the preachers' stand, with straw in it for the accommodation of mourners. This latter would hold at least one hundred persons. In front, and on the sides of the preachers' stand, and outside the long rows of seats, rose the first class of stately tents, each vieing with the other in strength, neatness, and capacity for accommodating its inmates. Behind this
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first circle of tents was another, less imposing, which reached round the camp-ground
to the speakers' stand. Outside this second class of tents were covered wagons,
ox carts, and vehicles of every shape and size. These served as tents to their
owners. Outside of these, huge fires were burning, in all directions, where
roasting, and boiling, and frying, were going on, for the benefit of those who
were attending to their own spiritual welfare within the circle. Behind the
preachers' stand, a narrow space was marked out for the use of the colored people.
There were no seats provided for this class of persons; the preachers addressed
them, "over the left," if they addressed them at all. After the preaching
was over, at every service, an invitation was given to mourners to come into
the pen; and, in some cases, ministers went out to persuade men and women to
come in. By one of these ministers, Master Thomas Auld was persuaded to go inside
the pen. I was deeply interested in that matter, and followed; and, though colored
people were not allowed either in the pen or in front of the preachers' stand,
I ventured to take my stand at a sort of half-way place between the blacks and
whites, where I could distinctly see the movements of mourners, and especially
the progress of Master Thomas.
"If he has got religion," thought I, "he will emancipate his slaves; and if he should not do so much as this, he will, at any rate, behave toward us more kindly, and feed us more generously than he has heretofore done." Appealing to my own religious experience, and judging my master by what was
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true in my own case, I could not regard him as soundly converted, unless some
such good results followed his profession of religion.
But in my expectations I was doubly disappointed; Master Thomas was Master Thomas still. The fruits of his righteousness were to show themselves in no such way as I had anticipated. His conversion was not to change his relation toward men -- at any rate not toward BLACK men -- but toward God. My faith, I confess, was not great. There was something in his appearance that, in my mind, cast a doubt over his conversion. Standing where I did, I could see his every movement. I watched narrowly while he remained in the little pen; and although I saw that his face was extremely red, and his hair disheveled, and though I heard him groan, and saw a stray tear halting on his cheek, as if inquiring "which way shall I go?" -- I could not wholly confide in the genuineness of his conversion. The hesitating behavior of that tear-drop and its loneliness, distressed me, and cast a doubt upon the whole transaction, of which it was a part. But people said, "Capt. Auld had come through," and it was for me to hope for the best. I was bound to do this, in charity, for I, too, was religious, and had been in the church full three years, although now I was not more than sixteen years old. Slaveholders may, sometimes, have confidence in the piety of some of their slaves; but the slaves seldom have confidence in the piety of their masters. "He cant go to heaven with our blood in his skirts," is a settled point in the creed of every slave; rising superior to all teaching to the contrary, and standing
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forever as a fixed fact. The highest evidence the slaveholder can give the slave
of his acceptance with God, is the emancipation of his slaves. This is proof
that he is willing to give up all to God, and for the sake of God. Not to do
this, was, in my estimation, and in the opinion of all the slaves, an evidence
of half-heartedness, and wholly inconsistent with the idea of genuine conversion.
I had read, also, somewhere in the Methodist Discipline, the following question
and answer:
"Question. What shall be done for the extirpation of slavery?
"Answer. We declare that we are much as ever convinced of the great evil of slavery; therefore, no slaveholder shall be eligible to any official station in our church."
These words sounded in my ears for a long time, and encouraged me to hope. But, as I have before said, I was doomed to disappointment. Master Thomas seemed to be aware of my hopes and expectations concerning him. I have thought, before now, that he looked at me in answer to my glances, as much as to say, "I will teach you, young man, that, though I have parted with my sins, I have not parted with my sense. I shall hold my slaves, and go to heaven too."
Possibly, to convince us that we must not presume too much upon his recent conversion, he became rather more rigid and stringent in his exactions. There always was a scarcity of good nature about the man; but now his whole countenance was soured over with the seemings of piety. His religion,
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therefore, neither made him emancipate his slaves, nor caused him to treat them
with greater humanity. If religion had any effect on his character at all, it
made him more cruel and hateful in all his ways. The natural wickedness of his
heart had not been removed, but only reinforced, by the profession of religion.
Do I judge him harshly? God forbid. Facts are facts. Capt. Auld made the greatest
profession of piety. His house was, literally, a house of prayer. In the morning,
and in the evening, loud prayers and hymns were heard there, in which both himself
and his wife joined; yet, no more meal was brought from the mill, no more attention
was paid to the moral welfare of the kitchen; and nothing was done to make us
feel that the heart of Master Thomas was one whit better than it was before
he went into the little pen, opposite to the preachers' stand, on the camp ground.
Our hopes (founded on the discipline) soon vanished; for the authorities let him into the church at once, and before he was out of his term of probation, I heard of his leading class! He distinguished himself greatly among the brethren, and was soon an exhorter. His progress was almost as rapid as the growth of the fabled vine of Jack's bean. No man was more active than he, in revivals. He would go many miles to assist in carrying them on, and in getting outsiders interested in religion. His house being one of the holiest, if not the happiest in St. Michael's, became the "preachers' home." These preachers evidently liked to share Master Thomas's hospitality; for while he starved us, he stuffed them. Three or four of these
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ambassadors of the gospel -- according to slavery -- have been there at a time;
all living on the fat of the land, while we, in the kitchen, were nearly starving.
Not often did we get a smile of recognition from these holy men. They seemed
almost as unconcerned about our getting to heaven, as they were about our getting
out of slavery. To this general charge there was one exception -- the Rev. GEORGE
COOKMAN. Unlike Rev. Messrs. Storks, Ewry, Hickey, Humphrey and Cooper (all
whom were on the St. Michael's circuit) he kindly took an interest in our temporal
and spiritual welfare. Our souls and our bodies were all alike sacred in his
sight; and he really had a good deal of genuine anti-slavery feeling mingled
with his colonization ideas. There was not a slave in our neighborhood that
did not love, and almost venerate, Mr. Cookman. It was pretty generally believed
that he had been chiefly instrumental in bringing one of the largest slaveholders
-- Mr. Samuel Harrison -- in that neighborhood, to emancipate all his slaves,
and, indeed, the general impression was, that Mr. Cookman had labored faithfully
with slaveholders, whenever he met them, to induce them to emancipate their
bondmen, and that he did this as a religious duty. When this good man was at
our house, we were all sure to be called in to prayers in the morning; and he
was not slow in making inquiries as to the state of our minds, nor in giving
us a word of exhortation and of encouragement. Great was the sorrow of all the
slaves, when this faithful preacher of the gospel was removed from the Talbot
county circuit. He was an eloquent preacher, and possessed what few ministers,
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south of Mason Dixon's line, possess, or dare to show, viz: a warm and philanthropic
heart. The Mr. Cookman, of whom I speak, was an Englishman by birth, and perished
while on his way to England, on board the ill-fated "President". Could
the thousands of slaves in Maryland know the fate of the good man, to whose
words of comfort they were so largely indebted, they would thank me for dropping
a tear on this page, in memory of their favorite preacher, friend and benefactor.
But, let me return to Master Thomas, and to my experience, after his conversion. In Baltimore, I could, occasionally, get into a Sabbath school, among the free children, and receive lessons, with the rest; but, having already learned both to read and to write, I was more of a teacher than a pupil, even there. When, however, I went back to the Eastern Shore, and was at the house of Master Thomas, I was neither allowed to teach, nor to be taught. The whole community -- with but a single exception, among the whites -- frowned upon everything like imparting instruction either to slaves or to free colored persons. That single exception, a pious young man, named Wilson, asked me, one day, if I would like to assist him in teaching a little Sabbath school, at the house of a free colored man in St. Michael's, named James Mitchell. The idea was to me a delightful one, and I told him I would gladly devote as much of my Sabbath as I could command, to that most laudable work. Mr. Wilson soon mustered up a dozen old spelling books, and a few testaments; and we commenced operations, with some twenty scholars, in our
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Sunday school. Here, thought I, is something worth living for; here is an excellent
chance for usefulness; and I shall soon have a company of young friends, lovers
of knowledge, like some of my Baltimore friends, from whom I now felt parted
forever.
Our first Sabbath passed delightfully, and I spent the week after very joyously. I could not go to Baltimore, but I could make a little Baltimore here. At our second meeting, I learned that there was some objection to the existence of the Sabbath school; and, sure enough, we had scarcely got at work -- good work, simply teaching a few colored children how to read the gospel of the Son of God -- when in rushed a mob, headed by Mr. Wright Fairbanks and Mr. Garrison West -- two class-leaders -- and Master Thomas; who, armed with sticks and other missiles, drove us off, and commanded us never to meet for such a purpose again. One of this pious crew told me, that as for my part, I wanted to be another Nat Turner; and if I did not look out, I should get as many balls into me, as Nat did into him. Thus ended the infant Sabbath school, in the town of St. Michael's. The reader will not be surprised when I say, that the breaking up of my Sabbath school, by these class-leaders, and professedly holy men, did not serve to strengthen my religious convictions. The cloud over my St. Michael's home grew heavier and blacker than ever.
It was not merely the agency of Master Thomas, in breaking up and destroying my Sabbath school, that shook my confidence in the power of southern religion to make men wiser or better; but I saw in him all the cruelty and meanness, after his conversion,
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which he had exhibited before he made a profession of religion. His cruelty
and meanness were especially displayed in his treatment of my unfortunate cousin,
Henny, whose lameness made her a burden to him. I have no extraordinary personal
hard usage toward myself to complain of, against him, but I have seen him tie
up the lame and maimed woman, and whip her in a manner most brutal, and shocking;
and then, with blood-chilling blasphemy, he would quote the passage of scripture,
"That servant which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither
did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes." Master would
keep this lacerated woman tied up by her wrists, to a bolt in the joist, three,
four and five hours at a time. He would tie her up early in the morning, whip
her with a cowskin before breakfast; leave her tied up; go to his store, and,
returning to his dinner, repeat the castigation; laying on the rugged lash,
on flesh already made raw by repeated blows. He seemed desirous to get the poor
girl out of existence, or, at any rate, off his hands. In proof of this, he
afterwards gave her away to his sister Sarah (Mrs. Cline) but, as in the case
of Master Hugh, Henny was soon returned on his hands. Finally, upon a pretense
that he could do nothing with her (I use his own words) he "set her adrift,
to take care of herself." Here was a recently converted man, holding, with
tight grasp, the well-framed, and able bodied slaves left him by old master
-- the persons, who, in freedom, could have taken care of themselves; yet, turning
loose the only cripple among them, virtually to starve and die.
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No doubt, had Master Thomas been asked, by some pious northern brother, why
he continued to sustain the relation of a slaveholder, to those whom he retained,
his answer would have been precisely the same as many other religious slaveholders
have returned to that inquiry, viz: "I hold my slaves for their own good."
Bad as my condition was when I lived with Master Thomas, I was soon to experience a life far more goading and bitter. The many differences springing up between myself and Master Thomas, owing to the clear perception I had of his character, and the boldness with which I defended myself against his capricious complaints, led him to declare that I was unsuited to his wants; that my city life had affected me perniciously; that, in fact, it had almost ruined me for every good purpose, and had fitted me for everything that was bad. One of my greatest faults, or offenses, was that of letting his horse get away, and go down to the farm belonging to his father-in-law. The animal had a liking for that farm, with which I fully sympathized. Whenever I let it out, it would go dashing down the road to Mr. Hamilton's, as if going on a grand frolic. My horse gone, of course I must go after it. The explanation of our mutual attachment to the place is the same; the horse found there good pasturage, and I found there plenty of bread. Mr. Hamilton had his faults, but starving his slaves was not among them. He gave food, in abundance, and that, too, of an excellent quality. In Mr. Hamilton's cook -- Aunt Mary -- I found a most generous and considerate friend. She never allowed me to go
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there without giving me bread enough to make good the deficiencies of a day
or two. Master Thomas at last resolved to endure my behavior no longer; he could
neither keep me, nor his horse, we liked so well to be at his father-in-law's
farm. I had now lived with him nearly nine months, and he had given me a number
of severe whippings, without any visible improvement in my character, or my
conduct; and now he was resolved to put me out -- as he said -- "to be
broken."
There was, in the Bay Side, very near the camp ground, where my master got his religious impressions, a man named Edward Covey, who enjoyed the execrated reputation, of being a first rate hand at breaking young Negroes. This Covey was a poor man, a farm renter; and this reputation (hateful as it was to the slaves and to all good men) was, at the same time, of immense advantage to him. It enabled him to get his farm tilled with very little expense, compared with what it would have cost him without this most extraordinary reputation. Some slaveholders thought it an advantage to let Mr. Covey have the government of their slaves a year or two, almost free of charge, for the sake of the excellent training such slaves got under his happy management! Like some horse breakers, noted for their skill, who ride the best horses in the country without expense, Mr. Covey could have under him, the most fiery bloods of the neighborhood, for the simple reward of returning them to their owners, well broken. Added to the natural fitness of Mr. Covey for the duties of his profession, he was said to "enjoy religion,"
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and was as strict in the cultivation of piety, as he was in the cultivation
of his farm. I was made aware of his character by some who had been under his
hand; and while I could not look forward to going to him with any pleasure,
I was glad to get away from St. Michael's. I was sure of getting enough to eat
at Covey's, even if I suffered in other respects. This, to a hungry man, is
not a prospect to be regarded with indifference.
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CHAPTER XV.
COVEY, THE NEGRO BREAKER.
JOURNEY TO MY NEW MASTER'S -- MEDITATIONS BY THE WAY -- VIEW OF COVEY'S RESIDENCE
-- THE FAMILY -- MY AWKWARDNESS AS A FIELD HAND -- A CRUEL BEATING -- WHY IT
WAS GIVEN -- DESCRIPTION OF COVEY -- FIRST ADVENTURE AT OX DRIVING -- HAIR BREADTH
ESCAPES -- OX AND MAN ALIKE PROPERTY -- COVEY'S MANNER OF PROCEEDING TO WHIP
-- HARD LABOR BETTER THAN THE WHIP FOR BREAKING DOWN THE SPIRIT -- CUNNING AND
TRICKERY OF COVEY -- FAMILY WORSHIP -- SHOCKING CONTEMPT FOR CHASTITY -- I AM
BROKEN DOWN -- GREAT MENTAL AGITATION IN CONTRASTING THE FREEDOM OF THE SHIPS
WITH HIS OWN SLAVERY -- ANGUISH BEYOND DESCRIPTION.
The morning of the first of January, 1834, with its chilling wind and pinching frost, quite in harmony with the winter in my own mind, found me, with my little bundle of clothing on the end of a stick, swung across my shoulder, on the main road, bending my way toward Covey's, whither I had been imperiously ordered by Master Thomas. The latter had been as good as his word, and had committed me, without reserve, to the mastery of Mr. Edward Covey. Eight or ten years had now passed since I had been taken from my grandmother's cabin, in Tuckahoe; and these years, for the most part, I had spent in Baltimore, where -- as the reader has already seen -- I was treated with comparative tenderness. I was now about to sound profounder depths in slave life. The
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rigors of a field, less tolerable than the field of battle, awaited me. My new
master was notorious for his fierce and savage disposition, and my only consolation
in going to live with him was, the certainty of finding him precisely as represented
by common fame. There was neither joy in my heart, nor elasticity in my step,
as I started in search of the tyrant's home. Starvation made me glad to leave
Thomas Auld's, and the cruel lash made me dread to go to Covey's. Escape was
impossible; so, heavy and sad, I paced the seven miles, which separated Covey's
house from St. Michael's -- thinking much by the solitary way -- averse to my
condition; but thinking was all I could do. Like a fish in a net, allowed to
play for a time, I was now drawn rapidly to the shore, secured at all points.
"I am," thought I, "but the sport of a power which makes no account,
either of my welfare or of my happiness. By a law which I can clearly comprehend,
but cannot evade nor resist, I am ruthlessly snatched from the hearth of a fond
grandmother, and hurried away to the home of a mysterious `old master;' again
I am removed from there, to a master in Baltimore; thence am I snatched away
to the Eastern Shore, to be valued with the beasts of the field, and, with them,
divided and set apart for a possessor; then I am sent back to Baltimore; and
by the time I have formed new attachments, and have begun to hope that no more
rude shocks shall touch me, a difference arises between brothers, and I am again
broken up, and sent to St. Michael's; and now, from the latter place, I am footing
my way to the home of a new master, where, I am given to understand, that,
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like a wild young working animal, I am to be broken to the yoke of a bitter
and life-long bondage."
With thoughts and reflections like these, I came in sight of a small wood-colored building, about a mile from the main road, which, from the description I had received, at starting, I easily recognized as my new home. The Chesapeake bay -- upon the jutting banks of which the little wood-colored house was standing -- white with foam, raised by the heavy north-west wind; Poplar Island, covered with a thick, black pine forest, standing out amid this half ocean; and Kent Point, stretching its sandy, desert-like shores out into the foam-cested bay -- were all in COVEY'S RESIDENCE -- THE FAMILY> sight, and deepened the wild and desolate aspect of my new home.
The good clothes I had brought with me from Baltimore were now worn thin, and had not been replaced; for Master Thomas was as little careful to provide us against cold, as against hunger. Met here by a north wind, sweeping through an open space of forty miles, I was glad to make any port; and, therefore, I speedily pressed on to the little wood-colored house. The family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Covey; Miss Kemp (a broken-backed woman) a sister of Mrs. Covey; William Hughes, cousin to Edward Covey; Caroline, the cook; Bill Smith, a hired man; and myself. Bill Smith, Bill Hughes, and myself, were the working force of the farm, which consisted of three or four hundred acres. I was now, for the first time in my life, to be a field hand; and in my new employment I found myself even more awkward than a green country boy may be supposed to be,
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upon his first entrance into the bewildering scenes of city life; and my awkwardness
gave me much trouble. Strange and unnatural as it may seem, I had been at my
new home but three days, before Mr. Covey (my brother in the Methodist church)
gave me a bitter foretaste of what was in reserve for me. I presume he thought,
that since he had but a single year in which to complete his work, the sooner
he began, the better. Perhaps he thought that by coming to blows at once, we
should mutually better understand our relations. But to whatever motive, direct
or indirect, the cause may be referred, I had not been in his possession three
whole days, before he subjected me to a most brutal chastisement. Under his
heavy blows, blood flowed freely, and wales were left on my back as large as
my little finger. The sores on my back, from this flogging, continued for weeks,
for they were kept open by the rough and coarse cloth which I wore for shirting.
The occasion and details of this first chapter of my experience as a field hand,
must be told, that the reader may see how unreasonable, as well as how cruel,
my new master, Covey, was. The whole thing I found to be characteristic of the
man; and I was probably treated no worse by him than scores of lads who had
previously been committed to him, for reasons similar to those which induced
my master to place me with him. But, here are the facts connected with the affair,
precisely as they occurred.
On one of the coldest days of the whole month of January, 1834, I was ordered, at day break, to get a load of wood, from a forest about two miles from the
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house. In order to perform this work, Mr. Covey gave me a pair of unbroken oxen,
for, it seems, his breaking abilities had not been turned in this direction;
and I may remark, in passing, that working animals in the south, are seldom
so well trained as in the north. In due form, and with all proper ceremony,
I was introduced to this huge yoke of unbroken oxen, and was carefully told
which was "Buck," and which was "Darby" -- which was the
"in hand," and which was the "off hand" ox. The master of
this important ceremony was no less a person than Mr. Covey, himself; and the
introduction was the first of the kind I had ever had. My life, hitherto, had
led me away from horned cattle, and I had no knowledge of the art of managing
them. What was meant by the "in ox," as against the "off ox,"
when both were equally fastened to one cart, and under one yoke, I could not
very easily divine; and the difference, implied by the names, and the peculiar
duties of each, were alike Greek to me. Why was not the "off ox" called
the "in ox?" Where and what is the reason for this distinction in
names, when there is none in the things themselves? After initiating me into
the "woa," "back" "gee," "hither" --
the entire spoken language between oxen and driver -- Mr. Covey took a rope,
about ten feet long and one inch thick, and placed one end of it around the
horns of the "in hand ox," and gave the other end to me, telling me
that if the oxen started to run away, as the scamp knew they would, I must hold
on to the rope and stop them. I need not tell any one who is acquainted with
either the strength of the disposition of an untamed ox, that
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this order was about as unreasonable as a command to shoulder a mad bull! I
had never driven oxen before, and I was as awkward, as a driver, as it is possible
to conceive. It did not answer for me to plead ignorance, to Mr. Covey; there
was something in his manner that quite forbade that. He was a man to whom a
slave seldom felt any disposition to speak. Cold, distant, morose, with a face
wearing all the marks of captious pride and malicious sternness, he repelled
all advances. Covey was not a large man; he was only about five feet ten inches
in height, I should think; short necked, round shoulders; of quick and wiry
motion, of thin and wolfish visage; with a pair of small, greenish-gray eyes,
set well back under a forehead without dignity, and constantly in motion, and
floating his passions, rather than his thoughts, in sight, but denying them
utterance in words. The creature presented an appearance altogether ferocious
and sinister, disagreeable and forbidding, in the extreme. When he spoke, it
was from the corner of his mouth, and in a sort of light growl, like a dog,
when an attempt is made to take a bone from him. The fellow had already made
me believe him even worse than he had been presented. With his directions, and
without stopping to question, I started for the woods, quite anxious to perform
my first exploit in driving, in a creditable manner. The distance from the house
to the woods gate a full mile, I should think -- was passed over with very little
difficulty; for although the animals ran, I was fleet enough, in the open field,
to keep pace with them; especially as they pulled me along at the end of the
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rope; but, on reaching the woods, I was speedily thrown into a distressing plight.
The animals took fright, and started off ferociously into the woods, carrying
the cart, full tilt, against trees, over stumps, and dashing from side to side,
in a manner altogether frightful. As I held the rope, I expected every moment
to be crushed between the cart and the huge trees, among which they were so
furiously dashing. After running thus for several minutes, my oxen were, finally,
brought to a stand, by a tree, against which they dashed themselves with great
violence, upsetting the cart, and entangling themselves among sundry young saplings.
By the shock, the body of the cart was flung in one direction, and the wheels
and tongue in another, and all in the greatest confusion. There I was, all alone,
in a thick wood, to which I was a stranger; my cart upset and shattered; my
oxen entangled, wild, and enraged; and I, poor soul! but a green hand, to set
all this disorder right. I knew no more of oxen than the ox driver is supposed
to know of wisdom. After standing a few moments surveying the damage and disorder,
and not without a presentiment that this trouble would draw after it others,
even more distressing, I took one end of the cart body, and, by an extra outlay
of strength, I lifted it toward the axle-tree, from which it had been violently
flung; and after much pulling and straining, I succeeded in getting the body
of the cart in its place. This was an important step out of the difficulty,
and its performance increased my courage for the work which remained to be done.
The cart was provided with an ax, a tool with which I had become pretty
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well acquainted in the ship yard at Baltimore. With this, I cut down the saplings
by which my oxen were entangled, and again pursued my journey, with my heart
in my mouth, lest the oxen should again take it into their senseless heads to
cut up a caper. My fears were groundless. Their spree was over for the present,
and the rascals now moved off as soberly as though their behavior had been natural
and exemplary. On reaching the part of the forest where I had been, the day
before, chopping wood, I filled the cart with a heavy load, as a security against
another running away. But, the neck of an ox is equal in strength to iron. It
defies all ordinary burdens, when excited. Tame and docile to a proverb, when
well trained, the ox is the most sullen and intractable of animals when but
half broken to the yoke.
I now saw, in my situation, several points of similarity with that of the oxen. They were property, so was I; they were to be broken, so was I. Covey was to break me, I was to break them; break and be broken -- such is life.
Half the day already gone, and my face not yet homeward! It required only two day's experience and observation to teach me, that such apparent waste of time would not be lightly over-looked by Covey. I therefore hurried toward home; but, on reaching the lane gate, I met with the crowning disaster for the day. This gate was a fair specimen of southern handicraft. There were two huge posts, eighteen inches in diameter, rough hewed and square, and the heavy gate was so hung on one of these, that it opened only about half the proper distance. On
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arriving here, it was necessary for me to let go the end of the rope on the
horns of the "in hand ox;" and now as soon as the gate was open, and
I let go of it to get the rope, again, off went my oxen -- making nothing of
their load -- full tilt; and in doing so they caught the huge gate between the
wheel and the cart body, literally crushing it to splinters, and coming only
within a few inches of subjecting me to a similar crushing, for I was just in
advance of the wheel when it struck the left gate post. With these two hair-breadth
escape, I thought I could successfully explain to Mr. Covey the delay, and avert
apprehended punishment. I was not without a faint hope of being commended for
the stern resolution which I had displayed in accomplishing the difficult task
-- a task which, I afterwards learned, even Covey himself would not have undertaken,
without first driving the oxen for some time in the open field, preparatory
to their going into the woods. But, in this I was disappointed. On coming to
him, his countenance assumed an aspect of rigid displeasure, and, as I gave
him a history of the casualties of my trip, his wolfish face, with his greenish
eyes, became intensely ferocious. "Go back to the woods again," he
said, muttering something else about wasting time. I hastily obeyed; but I had
not gone far on my way, when I saw him coming after me. My oxen now behaved
themselves with singular propriety, opposing their present conduct to my representation
of their former antics. I almost wished, now that Covey was coming, they would
do something in keeping with the character I had given them; but no, they had
already
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had their spree, and they could afford now to be extra good, readily obeying
my orders, and seeming to understand them quite as well as I did myself. On
reaching the woods, my tormentor -- who seemed all the way to be remarking upon
the good behavior of his oxen -- came up to me, and ordered me to stop the cart,
accompanying the same with the threat that he would now teach me how to break
gates, and idle away my time, when he sent me to the woods. Suiting the action
to the word, Covey paced off, in his own wiry fashion, to a large, black gum
tree, the young shoots of which are generally used for ox goads, they being
exceedingly tough. Three of these goads, from four to six feet long, he cut
off, and trimmed up, with his large jack-knife. This done, he ordered me to
take off my clothes. To this unreasonable order I made no reply, but sternly
refused to take off my clothing. "If you will beat me," thought I,
"you shall do so over my clothes." After many threats, which made
no impression on me, he rushed at me with something of the savage fierceness
of a wolf, tore off the few and thinly worn clothes I had on, and proceeded
to wear out, on my back, the heavy goads which he had cut from the gum tree.
This flogging was the first of a series of floggings; and though very severe,
it was less so than many which came after it, and these, for offenses far lighter
than the gate breaking
I remained with Mr. Covey one year (I cannot say I lived with him) and during the first six months that I was there, I was whipped, either with sticks or cowskins, every week. Aching bones and a sore back
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were my constant companions. Frequent as the lash was used, Mr. Covey thought
less of it, as a means of breaking down my spirit, than that of hard and long
continued labor. He worked me steadily, up to the point of my powers of endurance.
From the dawn of day in the morning, till the darkness was complete in the evening,
I was kept at hard work, in the field or the woods. At certain seasons of the
year, we were all kept in the field till eleven and twelve o'clock at night.
At these times, Covey would attend us in the field, and urge us on with words
or blows, as it seemed best to him. He had, in his life, been an overseer, and
he well understood the business of slave driving. There was no deceiving him.
He knew just what a man or boy could do, and he held both to strict account.
When he pleased, he would work himself, like a very Turk, making everything
fly before him. It was, however, scarcely necessary for Mr. Covey to be really
present in the field, to have his work go on industriously. He had the faculty
of making us feel that he was always present. By a series of adroitly managed
surprises, which he practiced, I was prepared to expect him at any moment. His
plan was, never to approach the spot where his hands were at work, in an open,
manly and direct manner. No thief was ever more artful in his devices than this
man Covey. He would creep and crawl, in ditches and gullies; hide behind stumps
and bushes, and practice so much of the cunning of the serpent, that Bill Smith
and I -- between ourselves -- never called him by any other name than "the
snake." We fancied that in his eyes and his gait we could see a
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snakish resemblance. One half of his proficiency in the art of Negro breaking,
consisted, I should think, in this species of cunning. We were never secure.
He could see or hear us nearly all the time. He was, to us, behind every stump,
tree, bush and fence on the plantation. He carried this kind of trickery so
far, that he would sometimes mount his horse, and make believe he was going
to St. Michael's; and, in thirty minutes afterward, you might find his horse
tied in the woods, and the snake-like Covey lying flat in the ditch, with his
head lifted above its edge, or in a fence corner, watching every movement of
the slaves! I have known him walk up to us and give us special orders, as to
our work, in advance, as if he were leaving home with a view to being absent
several days; and before he got half way to the house, he would avail himself
of our inattention to his movements, to turn short on his heels, conceal himself
behind a fence corner or a tree, and watch us until the going down of the sun.
Mean and contemptible as is all this, it is in keeping with the character which
the life of a slaveholder is calculated to produce. There is no earthly inducement,
in the slave's condition, to incite him to labor faithfully. The fear of punishment
is the sole motive for any sort of industry, with him. Knowing this fact, as
the slaveholder does, and judging the slave by himself, he naturally concludes
the slave will be idle whenever the cause for this fear is absent. Hence, all
sorts of petty deceptions are practiced, to inspire this fear.
But, with Mr. Covey, trickery was natural. Everything in the shape of learning or religion, which
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he possessed, was made to conform to this semi-lying propensity. He did not
seem conscious that the practice had anything unmanly, base or contemptible
about it. It was a part of an important system, with him, essential to the relation
of master and slave. I thought I saw, in his very religious devotions, this
controlling element of his character. A long prayer at night made up for the
short prayer in the morning; and few men could seem more devotional than he,
when he had nothing else to do.
Mr. Covey was not content with the cold style of family worship, adopted in these cold latitudes, which begin and end with a simple prayer. No! the voice of praise, as well as of prayer, must be heard in his house, night and morning. At first, I was called upon to bear some part in these exercises; but the repeated flogging given me by Covey, turned the whole thing into mockery. He was a poor singer, and mainly relied on me for raising the hymn for the family, and when I failed to do so, he was thrown into much confusion. I do not think that he ever abused me on account of these vexations. His religion was a thing altogether apart from his worldly concerns. He knew nothing of it as a holy principle, directing and controlling his daily life, making the latter conform to the requirements of the gospel. One or two facts will illustrate his character better than a volume of generalities.
I have already said, or implied, that Mr. Edward Covey was a poor man. He was, in fact, just commencing to lay the foundation of his fortune, as fortune is regarded in a slave state. The first condition of wealth
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and respectability there, being the ownership of human property, every nerve
is strained, by the poor man, to obtain it, and very little regard is had to
the manner of obtaining it. In pursuit of this object, pious as Mr. Covey was,
he proved himself to be as unscrupulous and base as the worst of his neighbors.
In the beginning, he was only able -- as he said -- "to buy one slave;"
and, scandalous and shocking as is the fact, he boasted that he bought her simply
"as a breeder." But the worst is not told in this naked statement.
This young woman (Caroline was her name) was virtually compelled by Mr. Covey
to abandon herself to the object for which he had purchased her; and the result
was, the birth of twins at the end of the year. At this addition to his human
stock, both Edward Covey and his wife, Susan, were ecstatic with joy. No one
dreamed of reproaching the woman, or of finding fault with the hired man --
Bill Smith -- the father of the children, for Mr. Covey himself had locked the
two up together every night, thus inviting the result.
But I will pursue this revolting subject no further. No better illustration of the unchaste and demoralizing character of slavery can be found, than is furnished in the fact that this professedly Christian slaveholder, amidst all his prayers and hymns, was shamelessly and boastfully encouraging, and actually compelling, in his own house, undisguised and unmitigated fornication, as a means of increasing his human stock. I may remark here, that, while this fact will be read with disgust and shame at the north, it will be laughed at, as smart and praiseworthy in Mr. Covey, at the
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south; for a man is no more condemned there for buying a woman and devoting
her to this life of dishonor, than for buying a cow, and raising stock from
her. The same rules are observed, with a view to increasing the number and quality
of the former, as of the latter.
I will here reproduce what I said of my own experience in this wretched place, more than ten years ago:
"If at any one time of my life, more than another, I was made to drink the bitterest dregs of slavery, that time was during the first six months of my stay with Mr. Covey. We were worked all weathers. It was never too hot or too cold; it could never rain, blow, snow, or hail too hard for us to work in the field. Work, work, work, was scarcely more the order of the day than the night. The longest days were too short for him, and the shortest nights were too long for him. I was somewhat unmanageable when I first went there; but a few months of his discipline tamed me. Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me. I was broken in body, soul and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed; my intellect languished; the disposition to read departed; the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!
"Sunday was my only leisure time. I spent this in a sort of beast-like stupor, between sleep and wake, under some large tree. At times, I would rise up, a flash of energetic freedom would dart through my soul, accompanied with a faint beam of hope, flickered for a moment, and then vanished. I sank down again, mourning over my wretched condition. I was sometimes prompted to take my life, and that of Covey, but was prevented by a combination of hope and fear. My sufferings on this plantation seem now like a dream rather than a stern reality.
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"Our house stood within a few rods of the Chesapeake bay, whose broad bosom
was ever white with sails from every quarter of the habitable globe. Those beautiful
vessels, robed in purest white, so delightful to the eye of freemen, were to
me so many shrouded ghosts, to terrify and torment me with thoughts of my wretched
condition. I have often, in the deep stillness of a summer's Sabbath, stood
all alone upon the banks of that noble bay, and traced, with saddened heart
and tearful eye, the countless number of sails moving off to the mighty ocean.
The sight of these always affected me powerfully. My thoughts would compel utterance;
and there, with no audience but the Almighty, I would pour out my soul's complaint
in my rude way, with an apostrophe to the moving multitude of ships:
"'You are loosed from your moorings, and free; I am fast in my chains, and am a slave! You move merrily before the gentle gale, and I sadly before the bloody whip! You are freedom's swift-winged angels, that fly around the world; I am confined in bands of iron! O, that I were free! O, that I were on one of your gallant decks, and under your protecting wing! Alas! betwixt me and you the turbid waters roll. Go on, go on. O that I could also go! Could I but swim! If I could fly! O, why was I born a man, of whom to make a brute! The glad ship is gone; she hides in the dim distance. I am left in the hottest hell of unending slavery. O God, save me! God, deliver me! Let me be free! Is there any God? Why am I a slave? I will run away. I will not stand it. Get caught, or get clear, I'll try it. I had as well die with ague as with fever. I have only one life to lose. I had as well be killed running as die standing. Only think of it; one hundred miles straight north, and I am free! Try it? Yes! God helping me, I will. It cannot be that I shall live and die a slave. I will take to the water. This very bay shall yet bear me into freedom. The steamboats steered in a north-east coast from North
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Point. I will do the same; and when I get to the head of the bay, I will turn
my canoe adrift, and walk straight through Delaware into Pennsylvania. When
I get there, I shall not be required to have a pass; I will travel without being
disturbed. Let but the first opportunity offer, and come what will, I am off.
Meanwhile, I will try to bear up under the yoke. I am not the only slave in
the world. Why should I fret? I can bear as much as any of them. Besides, I
am but a boy, and all boys are bound to some one. It may be that my misery in
slavery will only increase my happiness when I get free. There is a better day
coming.'"
I shall never be able to narrate the mental experience through which it was my lot to pass during my stay at Covey's. I was completely wrecked, changed and bewildered; goaded almost to madness at one time, and at another reconciling myself to my wretched condition. Everything in the way of kindness, which I had experienced at Baltimore; all my former hopes and aspirations for usefulness in the world, and the happy moments spent in the exercises of religion, contrasted with my then present lot, but increased my anguish.
I suffered bodily as well as mentally. I had neither sufficient time in which to eat or to sleep, except on Sundays. The overwork, and the brutal chastisements of which I was the victim, combined with that ever-gnawing and soul-devouring thought -- "I am a slave -- a slave for life -- a slave with no rational ground to hope for freedom" -- rendered me a living embodiment of mental and physical wretchedness.
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CHAPTER XVI.
ANOTHER PRESSURE OF THE TYRANT'S VICE.
EXPERIENCE AT COVEY'S SUMMED UP -- FIRST SIX MONTHS SEVERER THAN THE SECOND
-- PRELIMINARIES TO THE CHANCE -- REASONS FOR NARRATING THE CIRCUMSTANCES --
SCENE IN TREADING YARD -- TAKEN ILL -- UNUSUAL BRUTALITY OF COVEY -- ESCAPE
TO ST. MICHAEL'S -- THE PURSUIT -- SUFFERING IN THE WOODS -- DRIVEN BACK AGAIN
TO COVEY'S -- BEARING OF MASTER THOMAS -- THE SLAVE IS NEVER SICK -- NATURAL
TO EXPECT SLAVES TO FEIGN SICKNESS -- LAZINESS OF SLAVEHOLDERS.
The foregoing chapter, with all its horrid incidents and shocking features, may be taken as a fair representation of the first six months of my life at Covey's. The reader has but to repeat, in his own mind, once a week, the scene in the woods, where Covey subjected me to his merciless lash, to have a true idea of my bitter experience there, during the first period of the breaking process through which Mr. Covey carried me. I have no heart to repeat each separate transaction, in which I was victim of his violence and brutality. Such a narration would fill a volume much larger than the present one. I aim only to give the reader a truthful impression of my slave life, without unnecessarily affecting him with harrowing details.
As I have elsewhere intimated that my hardships were much greater during the first six months of my stay at Covey's, than during the remainder of the year,
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and as the change in my condition was owing to causes which may help the reader
to a better understanding of human nature, when subjected to the terrible extremities
of slavery, I will narrate the circumstances of this change, although I may
seem thereby to applaud my own courage. You have, dear reader, seen me humbled,
degraded, broken down, enslaved, and brutalized, and you understand how it was
done; now let us see the converse of all this, and how it was brought about;
and this will take us through the year 1834.
On one of the hottest days of the month of August, of the year just mentioned, had the reader been passing through Covey's farm, he might have seen me at work, in what is there called the "treading yard" -- a yard upon which wheat is trodden out from the straw, by the horses' feet. I was there, at work, feeding the "fan," or rather bringing wheat to the fan, while Bill Smith was feeding. Our force consisted of Bill Hughes, Bill Smith, and a slave by the name of Eli; the latter having been hired for this occasion. The work was simple, and required strength and activity, rather than any skill or intelligence, and yet, to one entirely unused to such work, it came very hard. The heat was intense and overpowering, and there was much hurry to get the wheat, trodden out that day, through the fan; since, if that work was done an hour before sundown, the hands would have, according to a promise of Covey, that hour added to their night's rest. I was not behind any of them in the wish to complete the day's work before sundown, and, hence, I struggled with all my might to get the work forward. The
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promise of one hour's repose on a week day, was sufficient to quicken my pace,
and to spur me on to extra endeavor. Besides, we had all planned to go fishing,
and I certainly wished to have a hand in that. But I was disappointed, and the
day turned out to be one of the bitterest I ever experienced. About three o'clock,
while the sun was pouring down his burning rays, and not a breeze was stirring,
I broke down; my strength failed me; I was seized with a violent aching of the
head, attended with extreme dizziness, and trembling in every limb. Finding
what was coming, and feeling it would never do to stop work, I nerved myself
up, and staggered on until I fell by the side of the wheat fan, feeling that
the earth had fallen upon me. This brought the entire work to a dead stand.
There was work for four; each one had his part to perform, and each part depended
on the other, so that when one stopped, all were compelled to stop. Covey, who
had now become my dread, as well as my tormentor, was at the house, about a
hundred yards from where I was fanning, and instantly, upon hearing the fan
stop, he came down to the treading yard, to inquire into the cause of our stopping.
Bill Smith told him I was sick, and that I was unable longer to bring wheat
to the fan.
I had, by this time, crawled away, under the side of a post-and-rail fence, in the shade, and was exceeding ill. The intense heat of the sun, the heavy dust rising from the fan, the stooping, to take up the wheat from the yard, together with the hurrying, to get through, had caused a rush of blood to my head. In this condition, Covey finding out where I was, came
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to me; and, after standing over me a while, he asked me what the matter was.
I told him as well as I could, for it was with difficulty that I could speak.
He then gave me a savage kick in the side, which jarred my whole frame, and
commanded me to get up. The man had obtained complete control over me; and if
he had commanded me to do any possible thing, I should, in my then state of
mind, have endeavored to comply. I made an effort to rise, but fell back in
the attempt, before gaining my feet. The brute now gave me another heavy kick,
and again told me to rise. I again tried to rise, and succeeded in gaining my
feet; but upon stooping to get the tub with which I was feeding the fan, I again
staggered and fell to the ground; and I must have so fallen, had I been sure
that a hundred bullets would have pierced me, as the consequence. While down,
in this sad condition, and perfectly helpless, the merciless Negro breaker took
up the hickory slab, with which Hughes had been striking off the wheat to a
level with the sides of the half bushel measure (a very hard weapon) and with
the sharp edge of it, he dealt me a heavy blow on my head which made a large
gash, and caused the blood to run freely, saying, at the same time, "If
you have got the headache, I'll cure you." This done, he ordered me again
to rise, but I made no effort to do so; for I had made up my mind that it was
useless, and that the heartless monster might now do his worst; he could but
kill me, and that might put me out of my misery. Finding me unable to rise,
or rather despairing of my doing so, Covey left me, with a view to getting on
with the work without me. I
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was bleeding very freely, and my face was soon covered with my warm blood. Cruel
and merciless as was the motive that dealt that blow, dear reader, the wound
was fortunate for me. Bleeding was never more efficacious. The pain in my head
speedily abated, and I was soon able to rise. Covey had, as I have said, now
left me to my fate; and the question was, shall I return to my work, or shall
I find my way to St. Michael's, and make Capt. Auld acquainted with the atrocious
cruelty of his brother Covey, and beseech him to get me another master? Remembering
the object he had in view, in placing me under the management of Covey, and
further, his cruel treatment of my poor crippled cousin, Henny, and his meanness
in the matter of feeding and clothing his slaves, there was little ground to
hope for a favorable reception at the hands of Capt. Thomas Auld. Nevertheless,
I resolved to go straight to Capt. Auld, thinking that, if not animated by motives
of humanity, he might be induced to interfere on my behalf from selfish considerations.
"He cannot," thought I, "allow his property to be thus bruised
and battered, marred and defaced; and I will go to him, and tell him the simple
truth about the matter." In order to get to St. Michael's, by the most
favorable and direct road, I must walk seven miles; and this, in my sad condition,
was no easy performance. I had already lost much blood; I was exhausted by over
exertion; my sides were sore from the heavy blows planted there by the stout
boots of Mr. Covey; and I was, in every way, in an unfavorable plight for the
journey. I however watched my chance, while the cruel and
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cunning Covey was looking in an opposite direction, and started off, across
the field, for St. Michael's. This was a daring step; if it failed, it would
only exasperate Covey, and increase the rigors of my bondage, during the remainder
of my term of service under him; but the step was taken, and I must go forward.
I succeeded in getting nearly half way across the broad field, toward the woods,
before Mr. Covey observed me. I was still bleeding, and the exertion of running
had started the blood afresh. "Come back! Come back!" vociferated
Covey, with threats of what he would do if I did not return instantly. But,
disregarding his calls and his threats, I pressed on toward the woods as fast
as my feeble state would allow. Seeing no signs of my stopping, Covey caused
his horse to be brought out and saddled, as if he intended to pursue me. The
race was now to be an unequal one; and, thinking I might be overhauled by him,
if I kept the main road, I walked nearly the whole distance in the woods, keeping
far enough from the road to avoid detection and pursuit. But, I had not gone
far, before my little strength again failed me, and I laid down. The blood was
still oozing from the wound in my head; and, for a time, I suffered more than
I can describe. There I was, in the deep woods, sick and emaciated, pursued
by a wretch whose character for revolting cruelty beggars all opprobrious speech
-- bleeding, and almost bloodless. I was not without the fear of bleeding to
death. The thought of dying in the woods, all alone, and of being torn to pieces
by the buzzards, had not yet been rendered tolerable by my many troubles and
hardships,
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and I was glad when the shade of the trees, and the cool evening breeze, combined
with my matted hair to stop the flow of blood. After lying there about three
quarters of an hour, brooding over the singular and mournful lot to which I
was doomed, my mind passing over the whole scale or circle of belief and unbelief,
from faith in the overruling providence of God, to the blackest atheism, I again
took up my journey toward St. Michael's, more weary and sad than in the morning
when I left Thomas Auld's for the home of Mr. Covey. I was bare-footed and bare-headed,
and in MASTER THOMAS> my shirt sleeves. The way was through bogs and briers,
and I tore my feet often during the journey. I was full five hours in going
the seven or eight miles; partly, because of the difficulties of the way, and
partly, because of the feebleness induced by my illness, bruises and loss of
blood. On gaining my master's store, I presented an appearance of wretchedness
and woe, fitted to move any but a heart of stone. From the crown of my head
to the sole of my feet, there were marks of blood. My hair was all clotted with
dust and blood, and the back of my shirt was literally stiff with the same.
Briers and thorns had scarred and torn my feet and legs, leaving blood marks
there. Had I escaped from a den of tigers, I could not have looked worse than
I did on reaching St. Michael's. In this unhappy plight, I appeared before my
professedly Christian master, humbly to invoke the interposition of his power
and authority, to protect me from further abuse and violence. I had begun to
hope, during the latter part of my tedious journey toward St. Michael's, that
Capt. Auld would
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now show himself in a nobler light than I had ever before seen him. I was disappointed.
I had jumped from a sinking ship into the sea; I had fled from the tiger to
something worse. I told him all the circumstances, as well as I could; how I
was endeavoring to please Covey; how hard I was at work in the present instance;
how unwilling I sunk down under the heat, toil and pain; the brutal manner in
which Covey had kicked me in the side; the gash cut in my head; my hesitation
about troubling him (Capt. Auld) with complaints; but, that now I felt it would
not be best longer to conceal from him the outrages committed on me from time
to time by Covey. At first, master Thomas seemed somewhat affected by the story
of my wrongs, but he soon repressed his feelings and became cold as iron. It
was impossible -- as I stood before him at the first -- for him to seem indifferent.
I distinctly saw his human nature asserting its conviction against the slave
system, which made cases like mine possible; but, as I have said, humanity fell
before the systematic tyranny of slavery. He first walked the floor, apparently
much agitated by my story, and the sad spectacle I presented; but, presently,
it was his turn to talk. He began moderately, by finding excuses for Covey,
and ending with a full justification of him, and a passionate condemnation of
me. "He had no doubt I deserved the flogging. He did not believe I was
sick; I was only endeavoring to get rid of work. My dizziness was laziness,
and Covey did right to flog me, as he had done." After thus fairly annihilating
me, and rousing himself by his own eloquence,
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he fiercely demanded what I wished him to do in the case!
With such a complete knock-down to all my hopes, as he had given me, and feeling, as I did, my entire subjection to his power, I had very little heart to reply. I must not affirm my innocence of the allegations which he had piled up against me; for that would be impudence, and would probably call down fresh violence as well as wrath upon me. The guilt of a slave is always, and everywhere, presumed; and the innocence of the slaveholder or the slave employer, is always asserted. The word of the slave, against this presumption, is generally treated as impudence, worthy of punishment. "Do you contradict me, you rascal?" is a final silencer of counter statements from the lips of a slave.
Calming down a little in view of my silence and hesitation, and, perhaps, from a rapid glance at the picture of misery I presented, he inquired again, "what I would have him do?" Thus invited a second time, I told Master Thomas I wished him to allow me to get a new home and to find a new master; that, as sure as I went back to live with Mr. Covey again, I should be killed by him; that he would never forgive my coming to him (Capt. Auld) with a complaint against him (Covey); that, since I had lived with him, he almost crushed my spirit, and I believed that he would ruin me for future service; that my life was not safe in his hands. This, Master Thomas (my brother in the church) regarded as "nonsense." "There was no danger of Mr. Covey's killing me; he was a good man, industrious and religious,
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and he would not think of removing me from that home; "besides," said
he and this I found was the most distressing thought of all to him -- "if
you should leave Covey now, that your year has but half expired, I should lose
your wages for the entire year. You belong to Mr. Covey for one year, and you
must go back to him, come what will. You must not trouble me with any more stories
about Mr. Covey; and if you do not go immediately home, I will get hold of you
myself." This was just what I expected, when I found he had prejudged the
case against me. "But, Sir," I said, "I am sick and tired, and
I cannot get home to-night." At this, he again relented, and finally he
allowed me to remain all night at St. Michael's; but said I must be off early
in the morning, and concluded his directions by making me swallow a huge dose
of epsom salts -- about the only medicine ever administered to slaves.
It was quite natural for Master Thomas to presume I was feigning sickness to escape work, for he probably thought that were he in the place of a slave with no wages for his work, no praise for well doing, no motive for toil but the lash -- he would try every possible scheme by which to escape labor. I say I have no doubt of this; the reason is, that there are not, under the whole heavens, a set of men who cultivate such an intense dread of labor as do the slaveholders. The charge of laziness against the slave is ever on their lips, and is the standing apology for every species of cruelty and brutality. These men literally "bind heavy burdens, grievous to be borne, and lay them
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on men's shoulders; but they, themselves, will not move them with one of their
fingers."
My kind readers shall have, in the next chapter -- what they were led, perhaps, to expect to find in this -- namely: an account of my partial disenthrallment from the tyranny of Covey, and the marked change which it brought about.
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CHAPTER XVII.
THE LAST FLOGGING.
A SLEEPLESS NIGHT -- RETURN TO COVEY'S -- PURSUED BY COVEY -- THE CHASE DEFEATED
-- VENGEANCE POSTPONED -- MUSINGS IN THE WOODS -- THE ALTERNATIVE -- DEPLORABLE
SPECTACLE -- NIGHT IN THE WOODS -- EXPECTED ATTACK -- ACCOSTED BY SANDY, A FRIEND,
NOT A HUNTER -- SANDY'S HOSPITALITY -- THE "ASH CAKE" SUPPER -- THE
INTERVIEW WITH SANDY -- HIS ADVICE -- SANDY A CONJURER AS WELL AS A CHRISTIAN
-- THE MAGIC ROOT -- STRANGE MEETING WITH COVEY -- HIS MANNER -- COVEY'S SUNDAY
FACE -- MY DEFENSIVE RESOLVE -- THE FIGHT -- THE VICTORY, AND ITS RESULTS.
Sleep itself does not always come to the relief of the weary in body, and the broken in spirit; especially when past troubles only foreshadow coming disasters. The last hope had been extinguished. My master, who I did not venture to hope would protect me as a man, had even now refused to protect me as his property; and had cast me back, covered with reproaches and bruises, into the hands of a stranger to that mercy which was the soul of the religion he professed. May the reader never spend such a night as that allotted to me, previous to the morning which was to herald my return to the den of horrors from which I had made a temporary escape.
I remained all night -- sleep I did not -- at St. Michael's; and in the morning (Saturday) I started off, according to the order of Master Thomas, feeling that
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I had no friend on earth, and doubting if I had one in heaven. I reached Covey's
about nine o'clock; and just as I stepped into the field, before I had reached
the house, Covey, true to his snakish habits, darted out at me from a fence
corner, in which he had secreted himself, for the purpose of securing me. He
was amply provided with a cowskin and a rope; and he evidently intended to tie
me up, and to wreak his vengeance on me to the fullest extent. I should have
been an easy prey, had he succeeded in getting his hands upon me, for I had
taken no refreshment since noon on Friday; and this, together with the pelting,
excitement, and the loss of blood, had reduced my strength. I, however, darted
back into the woods, before the ferocious hound could get hold of me, and buried
myself in a thicket, where he lost sight of me. The corn-field afforded me cover,
in getting to the woods. But for the tall corn, Covey would have overtaken me,
and made me his captive. He seemed very much chagrined that he did not catch
me, and gave up the chase, very reluctantly; for I could see his angry movements,
toward the house from which he had sallied, on his foray.
Well, now I am clear of Covey, and of his wrathful lash, for present. I am in the wood, buried in its somber gloom, and hushed in its solemn silence; hid from all human eyes; shut in with nature and nature's God, and absent from all human contrivances. Here was a good place to pray; to pray for help for deliverance -- a prayer I had often made before. But how could I pray? Covey could pray -- Capt. Auld could pray -- I would fain pray; but doubts (arising
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partly from my own neglect of the means of grace, and partly from the sham religion
which everywhere prevailed, cast in my mind a doubt upon all religion, and led
me to the conviction that prayers were unavailing and delusive) prevented my
embracing the opportunity, as a religious one. Life, in itself, had almost become
burdensome to me. All my outward relations were against me; I must stay here
and starve (I was already hungry) or go home to Covey's, and have my flesh torn
to pieces, and my spirit humbled under the cruel lash of Covey. This was the
painful alternative presented to me. The day was long and irksome. My physical
condition was deplorable. I was weak, from the toils of the previous day, and
from the want of food and rest; and had been so little concerned about my appearance,
that I had not yet washed the blood from my garments. I was an object of horror,
even to myself. Life, in Baltimore, when most oppressive, was a paradise to
this. What had I done, what had my parents done, that such a life as this should
be mine? That day, in the woods, I would have exchanged my manhood for the brutehood
of an ox.
Night came. I was still in the woods, unresolved what to do. Hunger had not yet pinched me to the point of going home, and I laid myself down in the leaves to rest; for I had been watching for hunters all day, but not being molested during the day, I expected no disturbance during the night. I had come to the conclusion that Covey relied upon hunger to drive me home; and in this I was quite correct -- the
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facts showed that he had made no effort to catch me, since morning.
During the night, I heard the step of a man in the woods. He was coming toward the place where I lay. A person lying still has the advantage over one walking in the woods, in the day time, and this advantage is much greater at night. I was not able to engage in a physical struggle, and I had recourse to the common resort of the weak. I hid myself in the leaves to prevent discovery. But, as the night rambler in the woods drew nearer, I found him to be a friend, not an enemy; it was a slave of Mr. William Groomes, of Easton, a kind hearted fellow, named "Sandy." Sandy lived with Mr. Kemp that year, about four miles from St. Michael's. He, like myself had been hired out by the year; but, unlike myself, had not been hired out to be broken. Sandy was the husband of a free woman, who lived in the lower part of "Potpie Neck," and he was now on his way through the woods, to see her, and to spend the Sabbath with her.
As soon as I had ascertained that the disturber of my solitude was not an enemy, but the good-hearted Sandy -- a man as famous among the slaves of the neighborhood for his good nature, as for his good sense I came out from my hiding place, and made myself known to him. I explained the circumstances of the past two days, which had driven me to the woods, and he deeply compassionated my distress. It was a bold thing for him to shelter me, and I could not ask him to do so; for, had I been found in his hut, he would have suffered the penalty of thirty-nine lashes on his bare back, if not something worse. But
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Sandy was too generous to permit the fear of punishment to prevent his relieving
a brother bondman from hunger and exposure; and, therefore, on his own motion,
I accompanied him to his home, or rather to the home of his wife -- for the
house and lot were hers. His wife was called up -- for it was now about midnight
-- a fire was made, some Indian meal was soon mixed with salt and water, and
an ash cake was baked in a hurry to relieve my hunger. Sandy's wife was not
behind him in kindness -- both seemed to esteem it a privilege to succor me;
for, although I was hated by Covey and by my master, I was loved by the colored
people, because they thought I was hated for my knowledge, and persecuted because
I was feared. I was the only slave now in that region who could read and write.
There had been one other man, belonging to Mr. Hugh Hamilton, who could read
(his name was "Jim"), but he, poor fellow, had, shortly after my coming
into the neighborhood, been sold off to the far south. I saw Jim ironed, in
the cart, to be carried to Easton for sale -- pinioned like a yearling for the
slaughter. My knowledge was now the pride of my brother slaves; and, no doubt,
Sandy felt something of the general interest in me on that account. The supper
was soon ready, and though I have feasted since, with honorables, lord mayors
and aldermen, over the sea, my supper on ash cake and cold water, with Sandy,
was the meal, of all my life, most sweet to my taste, and now most vivid in
my memory.
Supper over, Sandy and I went into a discussion of what was possible for me, under the perils and hardships
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which now overshadowed my path. The question was, must I go back to Covey, or
must I now tempt to run away? Upon a careful survey, the latter was found to
be impossible; for I was on a narrow neck of land, every avenue from which would
bring me in sight of pursuers. There was the Chesapeake bay to the right, and
"Pot-pie" river to the left, and St. Michael's and its neighborhood
occupying the only space through which there was any retreat.
I found Sandy an old advisor. He was not only a religious man, but he professed to believe in a system for which I have no name. He was a genuine African, and had inherited some of the so-called magical powers, said to be possessed by African and eastern nations. He told me that he could help me; that, in those very woods, there was an herb, which in the morning might be found, possessing all the powers required for my protection (I put his thoughts in my own language); and that, if I would take his advice, he would procure me the root of the herb of which he spoke. He told me further, that if I would take that root and wear it on my right side, it would be impossible for Covey to strike me a blow; that with this root about my person, no white man could whip me. He said he had carried it for years, and that he had fully tested its virtues. He had never received a blow from a slaveholder since he carried it; and he never expected to receive one, for he always meant to carry that root as a protection. He knew Covey well, for Mrs. Covey was the daughter of Mr. Kemp; and he (Sandy) had heard of the barbarous treatment
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to which I was subjected, and he wanted to do something for me.
Now all this talk about the root, was to me, very absurd and ridiculous, if not positively sinful. I at first rejected the idea that the simple carrying a root on my right side (a root, by the way, over which I walked every time I went into the woods) could possess any such magic power as he ascribed to it, and I was, therefore, not disposed to cumber my pocket with it. I had a positive aversion to all pretenders to "divination." It was beneath one of my intelligence to countenance such dealings with the devil, as this power implied. But, with all my learning -- it was really precious little -- Sandy was more than a match for me. "My book learning," he said, "had not kept Covey off me" (a powerful argument just then) and he entreated me, with flashing eyes, to try this. If it did me no good, it could do me no harm, and it would cost me nothing, any way. Sandy was so earnest, and so confident of the good qualities of this weed, that, to please him, rather than from any conviction of its excellence, I was induced to take it. He had been to me the good Samaritan, and had, almost providentially, found me, and helped me when I could not help myself; how did I know but that the hand of the Lord was in it? With thoughts of this sort, I took the roots from Sandy, and put them in my right hand pocket.
This was, of course, Sunday morning. Sandy now urged me to go home, with all speed, and to walk up bravely to the house, as though nothing had happened. I saw in Sandy too deep an insight into human
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nature, with all his superstition, not to have some respect for his advice;
and perhaps, too, a slight gleam or shadow of his superstition had fallen upon
me. At any rate, I started off toward Covey's, as directed by Sandy. Having,
the previous night, poured my griefs into Sandy's ears, and got him enlisted
in my behalf, having made his wife a sharer in my sorrows, and having, also,
become well refreshed by sleep and food, I moved off, quite courageously, toward
the much dreaded Covey's. Singularly enough, just as I entered his yard gate,
I met him and his wife, dressed in their Sunday best -- looking as smiling as
angels -- on their way to church. The manner of Covey astonished me. There was
something really benignant in his countenance. He spoke to me as never before;
told me that the pigs had got into the lot, and he wished me to drive them out;
inquired how I was, and seemed an altered man. This extraordinary conduct of
Covey, really made me begin to think that Sandy's herb had more virtue in it
than I, in my pride, had been willing to allow; and, had the day been other
than Sunday, I should have attributed Covey's altered manner solely to the magic
power of the root. I suspected, however, that the Sabbath, and not the root,
was the real explanation of Covey's manner. His religion hindered him from breaking
the Sabbath, but not from breaking my skin. He had more respect for the day
than for the man, for whom the day was mercifully given; for while he would
cut and slash my body during the week, he would not hesitate, on Sunday, to
teach me the value
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of my soul, or the way of life and salvation by Jesus Christ.
All went well with me till Monday morning; and then, whether the root had lost its virtue, or whether my tormentor had gone deeper into the black art than myself (as was sometimes said of him), or whether he had obtained a special indulgence, for his faithful Sabbath day's worship, it is not necessary for me to know, or to inform the reader; but, this I may say -- the pious and benignant smile which graced Covey's face on Sunday, wholly disappeared on Monday. Long before daylight, I was called up to go and feed, rub, and curry the horses. I obeyed the call, and would have so obeyed it, had it been made at an earlier hour, for I had brought my mind to a firm resolve, during that Sunday's reflection, viz: to obey every order, however unreasonable, if it were possible, and, if Mr. Covey should then undertake to beat me, to defend and protect myself to the best of my ability. My religious views on the subject of resisting my master, had suffered a serious shock, by the savage persecution to which I had been subjected, and my hands were no longer tied by my religion. Master Thomas's indifference had served the last link. I had now to this extent "backslidden" from this point in the slave's religious creed; and I soon had occasion to make my fallen state known to my Sunday-pious brother, Covey.
Whilst I was obeying his order to feed and get the horses ready for the field, and when in the act of going up the stable loft for the purpose of throwing down some blades, Covey sneaked into the stable, in his
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peculiar snake-like way, and seizing me suddenly by the leg, he brought me to
the stable floor, giving my newly mended body a fearful jar. I now forgot my
roots, and remembered my pledge to stand up in my own defense. The brute was
endeavoring skillfully to get a slip-knot on my legs, before I could draw up
my feet. As soon as I found what he was up to, I gave a sudden spring (my two
day's rest had been of much service to me,) and by that means, no doubt, he
was able to bring me to the floor so heavily. He was defeated in his plan of
tying me. While down, he seemed to think he had me very securely in his power.
He little thought he was -- as the rowdies say -- "in" for a "rough
and tumble" fight; but such was the fact. Whence came the daring spirit
necessary to grapple with a man who, eight-and-forty hours before, could, with
his slightest word have made me tremble like a leaf in a storm, I do not know;
at any rate, I was resolved to fight, and, what was better still, I was actually
hard at it. The fighting madness had come upon me, and I found my strong fingers
firmly attached to the throat of my cowardly tormentor; as heedless of consequences,
at the moment, as though we stood as equals before the law. The very color of
the man was forgotten. I felt as supple as a cat, and was ready for the snakish
creature at every turn. Every blow of his was parried, though I dealt no blows
in turn. I was strictly on the defensive, preventing him from injuring me, rather
than trying to injure him. I flung him on the ground several times, when he
meant to have hurled me there. I held him
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so firmly by the throat, that his blood followed my nails. He held me, and I
held him.
All was fair, thus far, and the contest was about equal. My resistance was entirely unexpected, and Covey was taken all aback by it, for he trembled in every limb. "Are you going to resist, you scoundrel?" said he. To which, I returned a polite "Yes sir;" steadily gazing my interrogator in the eye, to meet the first approach or dawning of the blow, which I expected my answer would call forth. But, the conflict did not long remain thus equal. Covey soon cried out lustily for help; not that I was obtaining any marked advantage over him, or was injuring him, but because he was gaining none over me, and was not able, single handed, to conquer me. He called for his cousin Hughs, to come to his assistance, and now the scene was changed. I was compelled to give blows, as well as to parry them; and, since I was, in any case, to suffer for resistance, I felt (as the musty proverb goes) that "I might as well be hanged for an old sheep as a lamb." I was still defensive toward Covey, but aggressive toward Hughs; and, at the first approach of the latter, I dealt a blow, in my desperation, which fairly sickened my youthful assailant. He went off, bending over with pain, and manifesting no disposition to come within my reach again. The poor fellow was in the act of trying to catch and tie my right hand, and while flattering himself with success, I gave him the kick which sent him staggering away in pain, at the same time that I held Covey with a firm hand.
Taken completely by surprise, Covey seemed to
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have lost his usual strength and coolness. He was frightened, and stood puffing
and blowing, seemingly unable to command words or blows. When he saw that poor
Hughes was standing half bent with pain -- his courage quite gone the cowardly
tyrant asked if I "meant to persist in my resistance." I told him
"I did mean to resist, come what might;" that I had been by him treated
like a brute, during the last six months; and that I should stand it no longer.
With that, he gave me a shake, and attempted to drag me toward a stick of wood,
that was lying just outside the stable door. He meant to knock me down with
it; but, just as he leaned over to get the stick, I seized him with both hands
by the collar, and, with a vigorous and sudden snatch, I brought my assailant
harmlessly, his full length, on the not overclean ground -- for we were now
in the cow yard. He had selected the place for the fight, and it was but right
that he should have all the advantages of his own selection.
By this time, Bill, the hiredman, came home. He had been to Mr. Hemsley's, to spend the Sunday with his nominal wife, and was coming home on Monday morning, to go to work. Covey and I had been skirmishing from before daybreak, till now, that the sun was almost shooting his beams over the eastern woods, and we were still at it. I could not see where the matter was to terminate. He evidently was afraid to let me go, lest I should again make off to the woods; otherwise, he would probably have obtained arms from the house, to frighten me. Holding me, Covey called upon Bill for assistance. The scene here, had something comic about it. "Bill," who knew precisely
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what Covey wished him to do, affected ignorance, and pretended he did not know
what to do. "What shall I do, Mr. Covey," said Bill. "Take hold
of him -- take hold of him!" said Covey. With a toss of his head, peculiar
to Bill, he said, "indeed, Mr. Covey I want to go to work." "This
is your work," said Covey; "take hold of him." Bill replied,
with spirit, "My master hired me here, to work, and not to help you whip
Frederick." It was now my turn to speak. "Bill," said I, "don't
put your hands on me." To which he replied, "My GOD! Frederick, I
ain't goin' to tech ye," and Bill walked off, leaving Covey and myself
to settle our matters as best we might.
But, my present advantage was threatened when I saw Caroline (the slave-woman of Covey) coming to the cow yard to milk, for she was a powerful woman, and could have mastered me very easily, exhausted as I now was. As soon as she came into the yard, Covey attempted to rally her to his aid. Strangely -- and, I may add, fortunately -- Caroline was in no humor to take a hand in any such sport. We were all in open rebellion, that morning. Caroline answered the command of her master to "take hold of me," precisely as Bill had answered, but in her, it was at greater peril so to answer; she was the slave of Covey, and he could do what he pleased with her. It was not so with Bill, and Bill knew it. Samuel Harris, to whom Bill belonged, did not allow his slaves to be beaten, unless they were guilty of some crime which the law would punish. But, poor Caroline, like myself, was at the mercy of the merciless Covey; nor
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did she escape the dire effects of her refusal. He gave her several sharp blows.
Covey at length (two hours had elapsed) gave up the contest. Letting me go, he said -- puffing and blowing at a great rate -- "Now, you scoundrel, go to your work; I would not have whipped you half so much as I have had you not resisted." The fact was, he had not whipped me at all. He had not, in all the scuffle, drawn a single drop of blood from me. I had drawn blood from him; and, even without this satisfaction, I should have been victorious, because my aim had not been to injure him, but to prevent his injuring me.
During the whole six months that I lived with Covey, after this transaction, he never laid on me the weight of his finger in anger. He would, occasionally, say he did not want to have to get hold of me again -- a declaration which I had no difficulty in believing; and I had a secret feeling, which answered, "You need not wish to get hold of me again, for you will be likely to come off worse in a second fight than you did in the first."
Well, my dear reader, this battle with Mr. Covey -- undignified as it was, and as I fear my narration of it is -- was the turning point in my "life as a slave." It rekindled in my breast the smouldering embers of liberty; it brought up my Baltimore dreams, and revived a sense of my own manhood. I was a changed being after that fight. I was nothing before; I WAS A MAN NOW. It recalled to life my crushed self-respect and my self-confidence, and inspired me with a renewed determination to be A FREEMAN. A man, without
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force, is without the essential dignity of humanity. Human nature is so constituted,
that it cannot honor a helpless man, although it can pity him; and even this
it cannot do long, if the signs of power do not arise.
He can only understand the effect of this combat on my spirit, who has himself incurred something, hazarded something, in repelling the unjust and cruel aggressions of a tyrant. Covey was a tyrant, and a cowardly one, withal. After resisting him, I felt as I had never felt before. It was a resurrection from the dark and pestiferous tomb of slavery, to the heaven of comparative freedom. I was no longer a servile coward, trembling under the frown of a brother worm of the dust, but, my long-cowed spirit was roused to an attitude of manly independence. I had reached the point, at which I was not afraid to die. This spirit made me a freeman in fact, while I remained a slave in form. When a slave cannot be flogged he is more than half free. He has a domain as broad as his own manly heart to defend, and he is really "a power on earth." While slaves prefer their lives, with flogging, to instant death, they will always find Christians enough, like unto Covey, to accommodate that preference. From this time, until that of my escape from slavery, I was never fairly whipped. Several attempts were made to whip me, but they were always unsuccessful. Bruises I did get, as I shall hereafter inform the reader; but the case I have been describing, was the end of the brutification to which slavery had subjected me.
The reader will be glad to know why, after I had
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so grievously offended Mr. Covey, he did not have me taken in hand by the authorities;
indeed, why the law of Maryland, which assigns hanging to the slave who resists
his master, was not put in force against me; at any rate, why I was not taken
up, as is usual in such cases, and publicly whipped, for an example to other
slaves, and as a means of deterring me from committing the same offense again.
I confess, that the easy manner in which I got off, for a long time, a surprise
to me, and I cannot, even now, fully explain the cause.
The only explanation I can venture to suggest, is the fact, that Covey was, probably, ashamed to have it known and confessed that he had been mastered by a boy of sixteen. Mr. Covey enjoyed the unbounded and very valuable reputation, of being a first rate overseer and Negro breaker. By means of this reputation, he was able to procure his hands for very trifling compensation, and with very great ease. His interest and his pride mutually suggested the wisdom of passing the matter by, in silence. The story that he had undertaken to whip a lad, and had been resisted, was, of itself, sufficient to damage him; for his bearing should, in the estimation of slaveholders, be of that imperial order that should make such an occurrence impossible. I judge from these circumstances, that Covey deemed it best to give me the go-by. It is, perhaps, not altogether creditable to my natural temper, that, after this conflict with Mr. Covey, I did, at times, purposely aim to provoke him to an attack, by refusing to keep with the other hands in the field,
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but I could never bully him to another battle. I had made up my mind to do him
serious damage, if he ever again attempted to lay violent hands on me.
"Hereditary bondmen, know ye not
Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow?
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CHAPTER XVIII.
NEW RELATIONS AND DUTIES.
CHANGE OF MASTERS -- BENEFITS DERIVED BY THE CHANGE -- FAME OF THE FIGHT WITH
COVEY -- RECKLESS UNCONCERN -- MY ABHORRENCE OF SLAVERY -- ABILITY TO READ A
CAUSE OF PREJUDICE -- THE HOLIDAYS -- HOW SPENT -- SHARP HIT AT SLAVERY -- EFFECTS
OF HOLIDAYS -- A DEVICE OF SLAVERY -- DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COVEY AND FREELAND
-- AN IRRELIGIOUS MASTER PREFERRED TO A RELIGIOUS ONE -- CATALOGUE OF FLOGGABLE
OFFENSES -- HARD LIFE AT COVEY'S USEFUL -- IMPROVED CONDITION NOT FOLLOWED BY
CONTENTMENT -- CONGENIAL SOCIETY AT FREELAND'S -- SABBATH SCHOOL INSTITUTED
-- SECRECY NECESSARY -- AFFECTIONATE RELATIONS OF TUTOR AND PUPILS -- CONFIDENCE
AND FRIENDSHIP AMONG SLAVES -- I DECLINE PUBLISHING PARTICULARS OF CONVERSATIONS
WITH MY FRIENDS -- SLAVERY THE INVITER OF VENGEANCE.
My term of actual service to Mr. Edward Covey ended on Christmas day, 1834. I gladly left the snakish Covey, although he was now as gentle as a lamb. My home for the year 1835 was already secured -- my next master was already selected. There is always more or less excitement about the matter of changing hands, but I had become somewhat reckless. I cared very little into whose hands I fell -- I meant to fight my way. Despite of Covey, too, the report got abroad, that I was hard to whip; that I was guilty of kicking back; that though generally a good tempered Negro, I sometimes "got the devil in me." These sayings were rife in Talbot county, and they distinguished me among my servile brethren. Slaves, generally,
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will fight each other, and die at each other's hands; but there are few who
are not held in awe by a white man. Trained from the cradle up, to think and
feel that their masters are superior, and invested with a sort of sacredness,
there are few who can outgrow or rise above the control which that sentiment
exercises. I had now got free from it, and the thing was known. One bad sheep
will spoil a whole flock. Among the slaves, I was a bad sheep. I hated slavery,
slaveholders, and all pertaining to them; and I did not fail to inspire others
with the same feeling, wherever and whenever opportunity was presented. This
made me a marked lad among the slaves, and a suspected one among the slaveholders.
A knowledge of my ability to read and write, got pretty widely spread, which
was very much against me.
The days between Christmas day and New Year's, are allowed the slaves as holidays. During these days, all regular work was suspended, and there was nothing to do but to keep fires, and look after the stock. This time was regarded as our own, by the grace of our masters, and we, therefore used it, or abused it, as we pleased. Those who had families at a distance, were now expected to visit them, and to spend with them the entire week. The younger slaves, or the unmarried ones, were expected to see to the cattle, and attend to incidental duties at home. The holidays were variously spent. The sober, thinking and industrious ones of our number, would employ themselves in manufacturing corn brooms, mats, horse collars and baskets, and some of these were very well made. Another class spent their time in hunting
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opossums, coons, rabbits, and other game. But the majority spent the holidays
in sports, ball playing, wrestling, boxing, running foot races, dancing, and
drinking whisky; and this latter mode of spending the time was generally most
agreeable to their masters. A slave who would work during the holidays, was
thought, by his master, undeserving of holidays. Such an one had rejected the
favor of his master. There was, in this simple act of continued work, an accusation
against slaves; and a slave could not help thinking, that if he made three dollars
during the holidays, he might make three hundred during the year. Not to be
drunk during the holi EFFECTS OF HOLIDAYS> days, was disgraceful; and he
was esteemed a lazy and improvident man, who could not afford to drink whisky
during Christmas.
The fiddling, dancing and "jubilee beating," was going on in all directions. This latter performance is strictly southern. It supplies the place of a violin, or of other musical instruments, and is played so easily, that almost every farm has its "Juba" beater. The performer improvises as he beats, and sings his merry songs, so ordering the words as to have them fall pat with the movement of his hands. Among a mass of nonsense and wild frolic, once in a while a sharp hit is given to the meanness of slaveholders. Take the following, for an example:
"We raise de wheat,
Dey gib us de corn;
We bake de bread,
Dey gib us de cruss;
We sif de meal,
Dey gib us de huss;
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We peal de meat,
Dey gib us de skin,
And dat's de way
Dey takes us in.
We skim de pot,
Dey gib us the liquor,
And say dat's good enough for nigger.
Walk over! walk over!
Tom butter and de fat;
Poor nigger you can't get over dat;
Walk over!"
This is not a bad summary of the palpable injustice and fraud of slavery, giving -- as it does -- to the lazy and idle, the comforts which God designed should be given solely to the honest laborer. But to the holiday's.
Judging from my own observation and experience, I believe these holidays to be among the most effective means, in the hands of slaveholders, of keeping down the spirit of insurrection among the slaves.
To enslave men, successfully and safely, it is necessary to have their minds occupied with thoughts and aspirations short of the liberty of which they are deprived. A certain degree of attainable good must be kept before them. These holidays serve the purpose of keeping the minds of the slaves occupied with prospective pleasure, within the limits of slavery. The young man can go wooing; the married man can visit his wife; the father and mother can see their children; the industrious and money loving can make a few dollars; the great wrestler can win laurels; the young people can meet, and enjoy each other's society; the drunken man can get plenty of whisky;
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and the religious man can hold prayer meetings, preach, pray and exhort during
the holidays. Before the holidays, these are pleasures in prospect; after the
holidays, they become pleasures of memory, and they serve to keep out thoughts
and wishes of a more dangerous character. Were slaveholders at once to abandon
the practice of allowing their slaves these liberties, periodically, and to
keep them, the year round, closely confined to the narrow circle of their homes,
I doubt not that the south would blaze with insurrections. These holidays are
conductors or safety valves to carry off the explosive elements inseparable
from the human mind, when reduced to the condition of slavery. But for these,
the rigors of bondage would become too severe for endurance, and the slave would
be forced up to dangerous desperation. Woe to the slaveholder when he undertakes
to hinder or to prevent the operation of these electric conductors. A succession
of earthquakes would be less destructive, than the insurrectionary fires which
would be sure to burst forth in different parts of the south, from such interference.
Thus, the holidays, became part and parcel of the gross fraud, wrongs and inhumanity of slavery. Ostensibly, they are institutions of benevolence, designed to mitigate the rigors of slave life, but, practically, they are a fraud, instituted by human selfishness, the better to secure the ends of injustice and oppression. The slave's happiness is not the end sought, but, rather, the master's safety. It is not from a generous unconcern for the slave's labor that this cessation from labor is allowed, but from a prudent regard to the
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safety of the slave system. I am strengthened in this opinion, by the fact,
that most slaveholders like to have their slaves spend the holidays in such
a manner as to be of no real benefit to the slaves. It is plain, that everything
like rational enjoyment among the slaves, is frowned upon; and only those wild
and low sports, peculiar to semi-civilized people, are encouraged. All the license
allowed, appears to have no other object than to disgust the slaves with their
temporary freedom, and to make them as glad to return to their work, as they
were to leave it. By plunging them into exhausting depths of drunkenness and
dissipation, this effect is almost certain to follow. I have known slaveholders
resort to cunning tricks, with a view of getting their slaves deplorably drunk.
A usual plan is, to make bets on a slave, that he can drink more whisky than
any other; and so to induce a rivalry among them, for the mastery in this degradation.
The scenes, brought about in this way, were often scandalous and loathsome in
the extreme. Whole multitudes might be found stretched out in brutal drunkenness,
at once helpless and disgusting. Thus, when the slave asks for a few hours of
virtuous freedom, his cunning master takes advantage of his ignorance, and cheers
him with a dose of vicious and revolting dissipation, artfully labeled with
the name of LIBERTY. We were induced to drink, I among the rest, and when the
holidays were over, we all staggered up from our filth and wallowing, took a
long breath, and went away to our various fields of work; feeling, upon the
whole, rather glad to go from that which our masters artfully deceived us into
the belief was freedom,
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back again to the arms of slavery. It was not what we had taken it to be, nor
what it might have been, had it not been abused by us. It was about as well
to be a slave to master, as to be a slave to rum and whisky.
I am the more induced to take this view of the holiday system, adopted by slaveholders, from what I know of their treatment of slaves, in regard to other things. It is the commonest thing for them to try to disgust their slaves with what they do not want them to have, or to enjoy. A slave, for instance, likes molasses; he steals some; to cure him of the taste for it, his master, in many cases, will go away to town, and buy a large quantity of the poorest quality, and set it before his slave, and, with whip in hand, compel him to eat it, until the poor fellow is made to sicken at the very thought of molasses. The same course is often adopted to cure slaves of the disagreeable and inconvenient practice of asking for more food, when their allowance has failed them. The same disgusting process works well, too, in other things, but I need not cite them. When a slave is drunk, the slaveholder has no fear that he will plan an insurrection; no fear that he will escape to the north. It is the sober, thinking slave who is dangerous, and needs the vigilance of his master, to keep him a slave. But, to proceed with my narrative.
On the first of January, 1835, I proceeded from St. Michael's to Mr. William Freeland's, my new home. Mr. Freeland lived only three miles from St. Michael's, on an old worn out farm, which required much labor
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to restore it to anything like a self-supporting establishment.
I was not long in finding Mr. Freeland to be a very different man from Mr. Covey. Though not rich, Mr. Freeland was what may be called a well-bred southern gentleman, as different from Covey, as a well-trained and hardened Negro breaker is from the best specimen of the first families of the south. Though Freeland was a slaveholder, and shared many of the vices of his class, he seemed alive to the sentiment of honor. He had some sense of justice, and some feelings of humanity. He was fretful, impulsive and passionate, but I must do him the justice to say, he was free from the mean and selfish characteristics which distinguished the creature from which I had now, happily, escaped. He was open, frank, imperative, and practiced no concealments, disdaining to play the spy. In all this, he was the opposite of the crafty Covey.
Among the many advantages gained in my change from Covey's to Freeland's -- startling as the statement may be -- was the fact that the latter gentleman made no profession of religion. I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the south -- as I have observed it and proved it -- is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes; the justifier of the most appalling barbarity; a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds; and a secure shelter, under which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal abominations fester and flourish. Were I again to be reduced to the condition of a slave, next to that calamity, I should regard the fact of being the slave of a religious slaveholder, the
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greatest that could befall me. For all slaveholders with whom I have ever met,
religious slaveholders are the worst. I have found them, almost invariably,
the vilest, meanest and basest of their class. Exceptions there may be, but
this is true of religious slaveholders, as a class. It is not for me to explain
the fact. Others may do that; I simply state it as a fact, and leave the theological,
and psychological inquiry, which it raises, to be decided by others more competent
than myself. Religious slaveholders, like religious persecutors, are ever extreme
in their malice and violence. Very near my new home, on an adjoining farm, there
lived the Rev. Daniel Weeden, who was both pious and cruel after the real Covey
pattern. Mr. Weeden was a local preacher of the Protestant Methodist persuasion,
and a most zealous supporter of the ordinances of religion, generally. This
Weeden owned a woman called "Ceal," who was a standing proof of his
mercilessness. Poor Ceal's back, always scantily clothed, was kept literally
raw, by the lash of this religious man and gospel minister. The most notoriously
wicked man -- so called in distinction from church members -- could hire hands
more easily than this brute. When sent out to find a home, a slave would never
enter the gates of the preacher Weeden, while a sinful sinner needed a hand.
Behave ill, or behave well, it was the known maxim of Weeden, that it is the
duty of a master to use the lash. If, for no other reason, he contended that
this was essential to remind a slave of his condition, and of his master's authority.
The good slave must be whipped, to be kept good, and the bad slave must be
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whipped, to be made good. Such was Weeden's theory, and such was his practice.
The back of his slave-woman will, in the judgment, be the swiftest witness against
him.
While I am stating particular cases, I might as well immortalize another of my neighbors, by calling him by name, and putting him in print. He did not think that a "chiel" was near, "taking notes," and will, doubtless, feel quite angry at having his character touched off in the ragged style of a slave's pen. I beg to introduce the reader to REV. RIGBY HOPKINS. Mr. Hopkins resides between Easton and St. Michael's, in Talbot county, Maryland. The severity of this man made him a perfect terror to the slaves of his neighborhood. The peculiar feature of his government, was, his system of whipping slaves, as he said, in advance of deserving it. He always managed to have one or two slaves to whip on Monday morning, so as to start his hands to their work, under the inspiration of a new assurance on Monday, that his preaching about kindness, mercy, brotherly love, and the like, on Sunday, did not interfere with, or prevent him from establishing his authority, by the cowskin. He seemed to wish to assure them, that his tears over poor, lost and ruined sinners, and his pity for them, did not reach to the blacks who tilled his fields. This saintly Hopkins used to boast, that he was the best hand to manage a Negro in the county. He whipped for the smallest offenses, by way of preventing the commission of large ones.
The reader might imagine a difficulty in finding faults enough for such frequent whipping. But this
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is because you have no idea how easy a matter it is to offend a man who is on
the look-out for offenses. The man, unaccustomed to slaveholding, would be astonished
to observe how many foggable offenses there are in the slaveholder's catalogue
of crimes; and how easy it is to commit any one of them, even when the slave
least intends it. A slaveholder, bent on finding fault, will hatch up a dozen
a day, if he chooses to do so, and each one of these shall be of a punishable
description. A mere look, word, or motion, a mistake, accident, or want of power,
are all matters for which a slave may be whipped at any time. Does a slave look
dissatisfied with his condition? It is said, that he has the devil in him, and
it must be whipped out. Does he answer loudly, when spoken to by his master,
with an air of self-consciousness? Then, must he be taken down a button-hole
lower, by the lash, well laid on. Does he forget, and omit to pull off his hat,
when approaching a white person? Then, he must, or may be, whipped for his bad
manners. Does he ever venture to vindicate his conduct, when harshly and unjustly
accused? Then, he is guilty of impudence, one of the greatest crimes in the
social catalogue of southern society. To allow a slave to escape punishment,
who has impudently attempted to exculpate himself from unjust charges, preferred
against him by some white person, is to be guilty of great dereliction of duty.
Does a slave ever venture to suggest a better way of doing a thing, no matter
what? He is, altogether, too officious -- wise above what is written -- and
he deserves, even if he does not get, a flogging for his presumption. Does he,
while plowing,
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break a plow, or while hoeing, break a hoe, or while chopping, break an ax?
No matter what were the imperfections of the implement broken, or the natural
liabilities for breaking, the slave can be whipped for carelessness. The reverend
slaveholder could always find something of this sort, to justify him in using
the lash several times during the week. Hopkins -- like Covey and Weeden --
were shunned by slaves who had the privilege (as many had) of finding their
own masters at the end of each year; and yet, there was not a man in all that
section of country, who made a louder profession of religion, than did MR. RIGBY
HOPKINS.
But, to continue the thread of my story, through my experience when at Mr. William Freeland's.
My poor, weather-beaten bark now reached smoother water, and gentler breezes. My stormy life at Covey's had been of service to me. The things that would have seemed very hard, had I gone direct to Mr. Freeland's, from the home of Master Thomas, were now (after the hardships at Covey's) "trifles light as air." I was still a field hand, and had come to prefer the severe labor of the field, to the enervating duties of a house servant. I had become large and strong; and had begun to take pride in the fact, that I could do as much hard work as some of the older men. There is much rivalry among slaves, at times, as to which can do the most work, and masters generally seek to promote such rivalry. But some of us were too wise to race with each other very long. Such racing, we had the sagacity to see, was not likely to pay. We had our times for measuring
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each other's strength, but we knew too much to keep up the competition so long
as to produce an extraordinary day's work. We knew that if, by extraordinary
exertion, a large quantity of work was done in one day, the fact, becoming known
to the master, might lead him to require the same amount every day. This thought
was enough to bring us to a dead halt when over so much excited for the race.
At Mr. Freeland's, my condition was every way improved. I was no longer the poor scape-goat that I was when at Covey's, where every wrong thing done was saddled upon me, and where other slaves were whipped over my shoulders. Mr. Freeland was too just a man thus to impose upon me, or upon any one else.
It is quite usual to make one slave the object of especial abuse, and to beat him often, with a view to its effect upon others, rather than with any expectation that the slave whipped will be improved by it, but the man with whom I now was, could descend to no such meanness and wickedness. Every man here was held individually responsible for his own conduct.
This was a vast improvement on the rule at Covey's. There, I was the general pack horse. Bill Smith was protected, by a positive prohibition made by his rich master, and the command of the rich slaveholder is LAW to the poor one; Hughes was favored, because of his relationship to Covey; and the hands hired temporarily, escaped flogging, except as they got it over my poor shoulders. Of course, this comparison refers to the time when Covey could whip me.
Mr. Freeland, like Mr. Covey, gave his hands enough to eat, but, unlike Mr. Covey, he gave them
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time to take their meals; he worked us hard during the day, but gave us the
night for rest -- another advantage to be set to the credit of the sinner, as
against that of the saint. We were seldom in the field after dark in the evening,
or before sunrise in the morning. Our implements of husbandry were of the most
improved pattern, and much superior to those used at Covey's.
Nothwithstanding the improved condition which was now mine, and the many advantages I had gained by my new home, and my new master, I was still restless and discontented. I was about as hard to please by a master, as a master is by slave. The freedom from bodily torture and unceasing labor, had given my mind an increased sensibility, and imparted to it greater activity. I was not yet exactly in right relations. "How be it, that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual." When entombed at Covey's, shrouded in darkness and physical wretchedness, temporal wellbeing was the grand desideratum; but, temporal wants supplied, the spirit puts in its claims. Beat and cuff your slave, keep him hungry and spiritless, and he will follow the chain of his master like a dog; but, feed and clothe him well -- work him moderately -- surround him with physical comfort -- and dreams of freedom intrude. Give him a bad master, and he aspires to a good master; give him a good master, and he wishes to become his own master. Such is human nature. You may hurl a man so low, beneath the level of his kind, that he loses all just ideas of his natural position; but elevate him a little, and
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the clear conception of rights arises to life and power, and leads him onward.
Thus elevated, a little, at Freeland's, the dreams called into being by that
good man, Father Lawson, when in Baltimore, began to visit me; and shoots from
the tree of liberty began to put forth tender buds, and dim hopes of the future
began to dawn.
I found myself in congenial society, at Mr. Freeland's. There were Henry Harris, John Harris, Handy Caldwell, and Sandy Jenkins.6
Henry and John were brothers, and belonged to Mr. Freeland. They were both remarkably bright and intelligent, though neither of them could read. Now for mischief! I had not been long at Freeland's before I was up to my old tricks. I early began to address my companions on the subject of education, and the advantages of intelligence over ignorance, and, as far as I dared, I tried to show the agency of ignorance in keeping men in slavery. Webster's spelling book and the Columbian Orator were looked into again. As summer came on, and the long Sabbath days stretched themselves over our idleness, I became uneasy, and wanted a Sabbath school, in which to exercise my gifts, and to impart the little knowledge of letters which I possessed, to my brother slaves. A house was hardly necessary in the summer time; I could hold my school under the shade
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of an old oak tree, as well as any where else. The thing was, to get the scholars,
and to have them thoroughly imbued with the desire to learn. Two such boys were
quickly secured, in Henry and John, and from them the contagion spread. I was
not long bringing around me twenty or thirty young men, who enrolled themselves,
gladly, in my Sabbath school, and were willing to meet me regularly, under the
trees or elsewhere, for the purpose of learning to read. It was surprising with
what ease they provided themselves with spelling books. These were mostly the
cast off books of their young masters or mistresses. I taught, at first, on
our own farm. All were impressed with the necessity of keeping the matter as
private as possible, for the fate of the St. Michael's attempt was notorious,
and fresh in the minds of all. Our pious masters, at St. Michael's, must not
know that a few of their dusky brothers were learning to read the word of God,
lest they should come down upon us with the lash and chain. We might have met
to drink whisky, to wrestle, fight, and to do other unseemly things, with no
fear of interruption from the saints or sinners of St. Michael's.
But, to meet for the purpose of improving the mind and heart, by learning to read the sacred scriptures, was esteemed a most dangerous nuisance, to be instantly stopped. The slaveholders of St. Michael's, like slaveholders elsewhere, would always prefer to see the slaves engaged in degrading sports, rather than to see them acting like moral and accountable beings.
Had any one asked a religious white man, in St.
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Michael's, twenty years ago, the names of three men in that town, whose lives
were most after the pattern of our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, the first
three would have been as follows:
GARRISON WEST, Class Leader.
WRIGHT FAIRBANKS, Class Leader.
THOMAS AULD, Class Leader.
And yet, these were men who ferociously rushed in upon my Sabbath school, at
St. Michael's, armed with mob-like missiles, and I must say, I thought him a
Christian, until he took part in bloody by the lash. This same Garrison West
was my class leader, and I must say, I thought him a Christian, until he took
part in breaking up my school. He led me no more after that. The plea for this
outrage was then, as it is now and at all times -- the danger to good order.
If the slaves learnt to read, they would learn something else, and something
worse. The peace of slavery would be disturbed; slave rule would be endangered.
I leave the reader to characterize a system which is endangered by such causes.
I do not dispute the soundness of the reasoning. It is perfectly sound; and,
if slavery be right, Sabbath schools for teaching slaves to read the bible are
wrong, and ought to be put down. These Christian class leaders were, to this
extent, consistent. They had settled the question, that slavery is right, and,
by that standard, they determined that Sabbath schools are wrong. To be sure,
they were Protestant, and held to the great Protestant right of every man to
"search the scriptures" for himself; but, then, to all general rules,
there are exceptions. How convenient! What crimes may not
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be committed under the doctrine of the last remark. But, my dear, class leading
Methodist brethren, did not condescend to give me a reason for breaking up the
Sabbath school at St. Michael's; it was enough that they had determined upon
its destruction. I am, however, digressing.
After getting the school cleverly into operation, the second time holding it in the woods, behind the barn, and in the shade of trees -- I succeeded in inducing a free colored man, who lived several miles from our house, to permit me to hold my school in a room at his house. He, very kindly, gave me this liberty; but he incurred much peril in doing so, for the assemblage was an unlawful one. I shall not mention, here, the name of this man; for it might, even now, subject him to persecution, although the offenses were committed more than twenty years ago. I had, at one time, more than forty scholars, all of the right sort; and many of them succeeded in learning to read. I have met several slaves from Maryland, who were once my scholars; and who obtained their freedom, I doubt not, partly in consequence of the ideas imparted to them in that school. I have had various employments during my short life; but I look back to none with more satisfaction, than to that afforded by my Sunday school. An attachment, deep and lasting, sprung up between me and my persecuted pupils, which made parting from them intensely grievous; and, when I think that most of these dear souls are yet shut up in this abject thralldom, I am overwhelmed with grief.
Besides my Sunday school, I devoted three evenings
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a week to my fellow slaves, during the winter. Let the reader reflect upon the
fact, that, in this christian country, men and women are hiding from professors
of religion, in barns, in the woods and fields, in order to learn to read the
holy bible. Those dear souls, who came to my Sabbath school, came not because
it was popular or reputable to attend such a place, for they came under the
liability of having forty stripes laid on their naked backs. Every moment they
spend in my school, they were under this terrible liability; and, in this respect,
I was sharer with them. Their minds had been cramped and starved by their cruel
masters; the light of education had been completely excluded; and their hard
earnings had been taken to educate their master's children. I felt a delight
in circumventing the tyrants, and in blessing the victims of their curses.
The year at Mr. Freeland's passed off very smoothly, to outward seeming. Not a blow was given me during the whole year. To the credit of Mr. Freeland -- irreligious though he was -- it must be stated, that he was the best master I ever had, until I became my own master, and assumed for myself, as I had a right to do, the responsibility of my own existence and the exercise of my own powers. For much of the happiness -- or absence of misery -- with which I passed this year with Mr. Freeland, I am indebted to the genial temper and ardent friendship of my brother slaves. They were, every one of them, manly, generous and brave, yes; I say they were brave, and I will add, fine looking. It is seldom the lot of mortals to have truer and better friends than were the slaves
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on this farm. It is not uncommon to charge slaves with great treachery toward
each other, and to believe them incapable of confiding in each other; but I
must say, that I never loved, esteemed, or confided in men, more than I did
in these. They were as true as steel, and no band of brothers could have been
more loving. There were no mean advantages taken of each other, as is sometimes
the case where slaves are situated as we were; no tattling; no giving each other
bad names to Mr. Freeland; and no elevating one at the expense of the other.
We never undertook to do any thing, of any importance, which was likely to affect
each other, without mutual consultation. We were generally a unit, and moved
together. Thoughts and sentiments were exchanged between us, which might well
be called very incendiary, by oppressors and tyrants; and perhaps the time has
not even now come, when it is safe to unfold all the flying suggestions which
arise in the minds of intelligent slaves. Several of my friends and brothers,
if yet alive, are still in some part of the house of bondage; and though twenty
years have passed away, the suspicious malice of slavery might punish them for
even listening to my thoughts.
The slaveholder, kind or cruel, is a slaveholder still -- the every hour violator of the just and inalienable rights of man; and he is, therefore, every hour silently whetting the knife of vengeance for his own throat. He never lisps a syllable in commendation of the fathers of this republic, nor denounces any attempted oppression of himself, without inviting the knife to his
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own throat, and asserting the rights of rebellion for his own slaves.
The year is ended, and we are now in the midst of the Christmas holidays, which are kept this year as last, according to the general description previously given.
[6] This is the same man who gave me the roots to prevent my being whipped
by Mr. Covey. He was "a clever soul." We used frequently to talk about
the fight with Covey, and as often as we did so, he would claim my success as
the result of the roots which he gave me. This superstition is very common among
the more ignorant slaves. A slave seldom dies, but that his death is attributed
to trickery.
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CHAPTER XIX.
THE RUN-AWAY PLOT.
NEW YEAR'S THOUGHTS AND MEDITATIONS -- AGAIN BOUGHT BY FREELAND -- NO AMBITION
TO BE A SLAVE -- KINDNESS NO COMPENSATION FOR SLAVERY -- INCIPIENT STEPS TOWARD
ESCAPE -- CONSIDERATIONS LEADING THERETO -- IRRECONCILABLE HOSTILITY TO SLAVERY
-- SOLEMN VOW TAKEN -- PLAN DIVULGED TO THE SLAVES -- Columbian Orator -- SCHEME
GAINS FAVOR, DESPITE PRO-SLAVERY PREACHING -- DANGER OF DISCOVERY -- SKILL OF
SLAVEHOLDERS IN READING THE MINDS OF THEIR SLAVES -- SUSPICION AND COERCION
-- HYMNS WITH DOUBLE MEANING -- VALUE, IN DOLLARS, OF OUR COMPANY -- PRELIMINARY
CONSULTATION -- PASS-WORD -- CONFLICTS OF HOPE AND FEAR -- DIFFICULTIES TO BE
OVERCOME -- IGNORANCE OF GEOGRAPHY -- SURVEY OF IMAGINARY DIFFICULTIES -- EFFECT
ON OUR MINDS -- PATRICK HENRY -- SANDY BECOMES A DREAMER -- ROUTE TO THE NORTH
LAID OUT -- OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED -- FRAUDS PRACTICED ON FREEMEN -- PASSES WRITTEN
-- ANXIETIES AS THE TIME DREW NEAR -- DREAD OF FAILURE -- APPEALS TO COMRADES
-- STRANGE PRESENTIMENT -- COINCIDENCE -- THE BETRAYAL DISCOVERED -- THE MANNER
OF ARRESTING US -- RESISTANCE MADE BY HENRY HARRIS -- ITS EFFECT -- THE UNIQUE
SPEECH OF MRS. FREELAND -- OUR SAD PROCESSION TO PRISON -- BRUTAL JEERS BY THE
MULTITUDE ALONG THE ROAD -- PASSES EATEN -- THE DENIAL -- SANDY TOO WELL LOVED
TO BE SUSPECTED -- DRAGGED BEHIND HORSES -- THE JAIL A RELIEF -- A NEW SET OF
TORMENTORS -- SLAVE-TRADERS -- JOHN, CHARLES AND HENRY RELEASED -- ALONE IN
PRISON -- I AM TAKEN OUT, AND SENT TO BALTIMORE.
I am now at the beginning of the year 1836, a time favorable for serious thoughts. The mind naturally occupies itself with the mysteries of life in all its phases -- the ideal, the real and the actual. Sober people look both ways at the beginning of the year, surveying the errors of the past, and providing against possible errors of the future. I, too, was thus exercised. I had little pleasure in retrospect, and the
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prospect was not very brilliant. "Notwithstanding," thought I, "the
many resolutions and prayers I have made, in behalf of freedom, I am, this first
day of the year 1836, still a slave, still wandering in the depths of spirit-devouring
thralldom. My faculties and powers of body and soul are not my own, but are
the property of a fellow mortal, in no sense superior to me, except that he
has the physical power to compel me to be owned and controlled by him. By the
combined physical force of the community, I am his slave -- a slave for life."
With thoughts like these, I was perplexed and chafed; they rendered me gloomy
and disconsolate. The anguish of my mind may not be written.
At the close of the year 1835, Mr. Freeland, my temporary master, had bought me of Capt. Thomas Auld, for the year 1836. His promptness in securing my services, would have been flattering to my vanity, had I been ambitious to win the reputation of being a valuable slave. Even as it was, I felt a slight degree of complacency at the circumstance. It showed he was as well pleased with me as a slave, as I was with him as a master. I have already intimated my regard for Mr. Freeland, and I may say here, in addressing northern readers -- where is no selfish motive for speaking in praise of a slaveholder -- that Mr. Freeland was a man of many excellent qualities, and to me quite preferable to any master I ever had.
But the kindness of the slavemaster only gilds the chain of slavery, and detracts nothing from its weight or power. The thought that men are made for other
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and better uses than slavery, thrives best under the gentle treatment of a kind
master. But the grim visage of slavery can assume no smiles which can fascinate
the partially enlightened slave, into a forgetfulness of his bondage, nor of
the desirableness of liberty.
I was not through the first month of this, my second year with the kind and gentlemanly Mr. Freeland, before I was earnestly considering and advising plans for gaining that freedom, which, when I was but a mere child, I had ascertained to be the natural and inborn right of every member of the human family. The desire for this freedom had been benumbed, while I was under the brutalizing dominion of Covey; and it had been postponed, and rendered inoperative, by my truly pleasant Sunday school engagements with my friends, during the year 1835, at Mr. Freeland's. It had, however, never entirely subsided. I hated slavery, always, and the desire for freedom only needed a favorable breeze, to fan it into a blaze, at any moment. The thought of only being a creature of the present and the past, troubled me, and I longed to have a future -- a future with hope in it. To be shut up entirely to the past and present, is abhorrent to the human mind; it is to the soul -- whose life and happiness is unceasing progress -- what the prison is to the body; a blight and mildew, a hell of horrors. The dawning of this, another year, awakened me from my temporary slumber, and roused into life my latent, but long cherished aspirations for freedom. I was now not only ashamed to be contented in slavery, but ashamed to seem to be contented, and in my present favorable condition, under the mild rule of
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Mr. F., I am not sure that some kind reader will not condemn me for being over
ambitious, and greatly wanting in proper humility, when I say the truth, that
I now drove from me all thoughts of making the best of my lot, and welcomed
only such thoughts as led me away from the house of bondage. The intense desires,
now felt, to be free, quickened by my present favorable circumstances, brought
me to the determination to act, as well as to think and speak. Accordingly,
at the beginning of this year 1836, I took upon me a solemn vow, that the year
which had now dawned upon me should not close, without witnessing an earnest
attempt, on my part, to gain my liberty. This vow only bound me to make my escape
individually; but the year spent with Mr. Freeland had attached me, as with
"hooks of steel," to my brother slaves. The most affectionate and
confiding friendship existed between us; and I felt it my duty to give them
an opportunity to share in my virtuous determination by frankly disclosing to
them my plans and purposes. Toward Henry and John Harris, I felt a friendship
as strong as one man can feel for another; for I could have died with and for
them. To them, therefore, with a suitable degree of caution, I began to disclose
my sentiments and plans; sounding them, the while on the subject of running
away, provided a good chance should offer. I scarcely need tell the reader,
that I did my very best to imbue the minds of my dear friends with my own views
and feelings. Thoroughly awakened, now, and with a definite vow upon me, all
my little reading, which had any bearing on the subject of human rights, was
rendered
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available in my communications with my friends. That (to me) gem of a book,
the Columbian Orator, with its eloquent orations and spicy dialogues, denouncing
oppression and slavery -- telling of what had been dared, done and suffered
by men, to obtain the inestimable boon of liberty -- was still fresh in my memory,
and whirled into the ranks of my speech with the aptitude of well trained soldiers,
going through the drill. The fact is, I here began my public speaking. I canvassed,
with Henry and John, the subject of slavery, and dashed against it the condemning
brand of God's eternal justice, which it every hour violates. My fellow servants
were neither indifferent, dull, nor inapt. Our feelings were more alike than
our opinions. All, however, were ready to act, when a feasible plan should be
proposed. "Show us how the thing is to be done," said they, "and
all is clear."
We were all, except Sandy, quite free from slaveholding priestcraft. It was in vain that we had been taught from the pulpit at St. Michael's, the duty of obedience to our masters; to recognize God as the author of our enslavement; to regard running away an offense, alike against God and man; to deem our enslavement a merciful and beneficial arrangement; to esteem our condition, in this country, a paradise to that from which we had been snatched in Africa; to consider our hard hands and dark color as God's mark of displeasure, and as pointing us out as the proper subjects of slavery; that the relation of master and slave was one of reciprocal benefits; that our work was not more serviceable to our masters, than our master's thinking was serviceable to us. I
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say, it was in vain that the pulpit of St. Michael's had constantly inculcated
these plausib]e doctrine. Nature laughed them to scorn. For my own part, I had
now become altogether too big for my chains. Father Lawson's solemn words, of
what I ought to be, and might be, in the providence of God, had not fallen dead
on my soul. I was fast verging toward manhood, and the prophecies of my childhood
were still unfulfilled. The thought, that year after year had passed away, and
my resolutions to run away had failed and faded -- that I was still a slave,
and a slave, too, with chances for gaining my freedom diminished and still diminishing
-- was not a matter to be slept over easily; nor did I easily sleep over it.
But here came a new trouble. Thoughts and purposes so incendiary as those I now cherished, could not agitate the mind long, without danger of making themselves manifest to scrutinizing and unfriendly beholders. I had reason to fear that my sable face might prove altogether too transparent for the safe concealment of my hazardous enterprise. Plans of greater moment have leaked through stone walls, and revealed their projectors. But, here was no stone wall to hide my purpose. I would have given my poor, tell tale face for the immoveable countenance of an Indian, for it was far from being proof against the daily, searching glances of those with whom I met.
It is the interest and business of slaveholders to study human nature, with a view to practical results, and many of them attain astonishing proficiency in discerning the thoughts and emotions of slaves. They have to deal not with earth, wood, or stone, but with
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men; and, by every regard they have for their safety and prosperity, they must
study to know the material on which they are at work. So much intellect as the
slaveholder has around him, requires watching. Their safety depends upon their
vigilance. Conscious of the injustice and wrong they are every hour perpetrating,
and knowing what they themselves would do if made the victims of such wrongs,
they are looking out for the first signs of the dread retribution of justice.
They watch, therefore, with skilled and practiced eyes, and have learned to
read, with great accuracy, the state of mind and heart of the slaves, through
his sable face. These uneasy sinners are quick to inquire into the matter, where
the slave is concerned. Unusual sobriety, apparent abstraction, sullenness and
indifference -- indeed, any mood out of the common way -- afford ground for
suspicion and inquiry. Often relying on their superior position and wisdom,
they hector and torture the slave into a confession, by affecting to know the
truth of their accusations. "You have got the devil in you," say they,
"and we will whip him out of you." I have often been put thus to the
torture, on bare suspicion. This system has its disadvantages as well as their
opposite. The slave is sometimes whipped into the confession of offenses which
he never committed. The reader will see that the good old rule -- "a man
is to be held innocent until proved to be guilty" -- does not hold good
on the slave plantation. Suspicion and torture are the approved methods of getting
at the truth, here. It was necessary for me, therefore, to
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keep a watch over my deportment, lest the enemy should get the better of me.
But with all our caution and studied reserve, I am not sure that Mr. Freeland did not suspect that all was not right with us. It did seem that he watched us more narrowly, after the plan of escape had been conceived and discussed amongst us. Men seldom see themselves as others see them; and while, to ourselves, everything connected with our contemplated escape appeared concealed, Mr. Freeland may have, with the peculiar prescience of a slaveholder, mastered the huge thought which was disturbing our peace in slavery.
I am the more inclined to think that he suspected us, because, prudent as we were, as I now look back, I can see that we did many silly things, very well calculated to awaken suspicion. We were, at times, remarkably buoyant, singing hymns and making joyous exclamations, almost as triumphant in their tone as if we reached a land of freedom and safety. A keen observer might have detected in our repeated singing of
"O Canaan, sweet Canaan,
I am bound for the land of Canaan,"
something more than a hope of reaching heaven. We meant to reach the north -- and the north was our Canaan.
"I thought I heard them say,
There were lions in the way,
I don't expect to stay
Much longer here.
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Run to Jesus -- shun the danger --
I don't expect to stay
Much longer here,"
was a favorite air, and had a double meaning. In the lips of some, it meant the expectation of a speedy summons to a world of spirits; but, in the lips of our company, it simply meant, a speedy pilgrimage toward a free state, and deliverance from all the evils and dangers of slavery.
I had succeeded in winning to my (what slaveholders would call wicked) scheme, a company of five young men, the very flower of the neighborhood, each one of whom would have commanded one thousand dollars in the home market. At New Orleans, they would have brought fifteen hundred dollars a piece, and, perhaps, more. The names of our party were as follows: Henry Harris; John Harris, brother to Henry; Sandy Jenkins, of root memory; Charles Roberts, and Henry Bailey. I was the youngest, but one, of the party. I had, however, the advantage of them all, in experience, and in a knowledge of letters. This gave me great influence over them. Perhaps not one of them, left to himself, would have dreamed of escape as a possible thing. Not one of them was self-moved in the matter. They all wanted to be free; but the serious thought of running away, had not entered into their minds, until I won them to the undertaking. They all were tolerably well off -- for slaves -- and had dim hopes of being set free, some day, by their masters. If any one is to blame for disturbing the quiet of the slaves and slave-masters of the neighborhood of St. Michael's, I am the man.
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I claim to be the instigator of the high crime (as the slaveholders regard it)
and I kept life in it, until life could be kept in it no longer.
Pending the time of our contemplated departure out of our Egypt, we met often by night, and on every Sunday. At these meetings we talked the matter over; told our hopes and fears, and the difficulties discovered or imagined; and, like men of sense, we counted the cost of the enterprise to which we were committing ourselves.
These meetings must have resembled, on a small scale, the meetings of revolutionary conspirators, in their primary condition. We were plotting against our (so called) lawful rulers; with this difference that we sought our own good, and not the harm of our enemies. We did not seek to overthrow them, but to escape from them. As for Mr. Freeland, we all liked him, and would have gladly remained with him, as freeman. LIBERTY was our aim; and we had now come to think that we had a right to liberty, against every obstacle even against the lives of our enslavers.
We had several words, expressive of things, important to us, which we understood, but which, even if distinctly heard by an outsider, would convey no certain meaning. I have reasons for suppressing these pass-words, which the reader will easily divine. I hated the secrecy; but where slavery is powerful, and liberty is weak, the latter is driven to concealment or to destruction.
The prospect was not always a bright one. At times, we were almost tempted to abandon the enterprise, and to get back to that comparative peace of
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mind, which even a man under the gallows might feel, when all hope of escape
had vanished. Quiet bondage was felt to be better than the doubts, fears and
uncertainties, which now so sadly perplexed and disturbed us.
The infirmities of humanity, generally, were represented in our little band. We were confident, bold and determined, at times; and, again, doubting, timid and wavering; whistling, like the boy in the graveyard, to keep away the spirits.
To look at the map, and observe the proximity of Eastern Shore, Maryland, to Delaware and Pennsylvania, it may seem to the reader quite absurd, to regard the proposed escape as a formidable undertaking. But to understand, some one has said a man must stand under. The real distance was great enough, but the imagined distance was, to our ignorance, even greater. Every slaveholder seeks to impress his slave with a belief in the boundlessness of slave territory, and of his own almost illimitable power. We all had vague and indistinct notions of the geography of the country.
The distance, however, is not the chief trouble. The nearer are the lines of a slave state and the borders of a free one, the greater the peril. Hired kidnappers infest these borders. Then, too, we knew that merely reaching a free state did not free us; that, wherever caught, we could be returned to slavery. We could see no spot on this side the ocean, where we could be free. We had heard of Canada, the real Canaan of the American bondmen, simply as a country to which the wild goose and the swan repaired at
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the end of winter, to escape the heat of summer, but not as the home of man.
I knew something of theology, but nothing of geography. I really did not, at
that time, know that there was a state of New York, or a state of Massachusetts.
I had heard of Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey, and all the southern states,
but was ignorant of the free states, generally. New York city was our northern
limit, and to go there, and be forever harassed with the liability of being
hunted down and returned to slavery -- with the certainty of being treated ten
times worse than we had ever been treated before was a prospect far from delightful,
and it might well cause some hesitation about engaging in the enterprise. The
case, sometimes, to our excited visions, stood thus: At every gate through which
we had to pass, we saw a watchman; at every ferry, a guard; on every bridge,
a sentinel; and in every wood, a patrol or slave-hunter. We were hemmed in on
every side. The good to be sought, and the evil to be shunned, were flung in
the balance, and weighed against each other. On the one hand, there stood slavery;
a stern reality, glaring frightfully upon us, with the blood of millions in
his polluted skirts -- terrible to behold -- greedily devouring our hard earnings
and feeding himself upon our flesh. Here was the evil from which to escape.
On the other hand, far away, back in the hazy distance, where all forms seemed
but shadows, under the flickering light of the north star -- behind some craggy
hill or snow-covered mountain -- stood a doubtful freedom, half frozen, beckoning
us to her icy domain. This was the good to be sought. The inequality was as
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great as that between certainty and uncertainty. This, in itself, was enough
to stagger us; but when we came to survey the untrodden road, and conjecture
the many possible difficulties, we were appalled, and at times, as I have said,
were upon the point of giving over the struggle altogether.
The reader can have little idea of the phantoms of trouble which flit, in such circumstances, before the uneducated mind of the slave. Upon either side, we saw grim death assuming a variety of horrid shapes. Now, it was starvation, causing us, in a strange and friendless land, to eat our own flesh. Now, we were contending with the waves (for our journey was in part by water) and were drowned. Now, we were hunted by dogs, and overtaken and torn to pieces by their merciless fangs. We were stung by scorpions -- chased by wild beasts -- bitten by snakes; and, worst of all, after having succeeded in swimming rivers -- encountering wild beasts -- sleeping in the woods -- suffering hunger, cold, heat and nakedness -- we supposed ourselves to be overtaken by hired kidnappers, who, in the name of the law, and for their thrice accursed reward, would, perchance, fire upon us -- kill some, wound others, and capture all. This dark pic ture, drawn by ignorance and fear, at times greatly shook our determination, and not unfrequently caused us to
"Rather bear those ills we had
Than fly to others which we knew not of."
I am not disposed to magnify this circumstance in my experience, and yet I think I shall seem to be so
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disposed, to the reader. No man can tell the intense agony which is felt by
the slave, when wavering on the point of making his escape. All that he has
is at stake; and even that which he has not, is at stake, also. The life which
he has, may be lost, and the liberty which he seeks, may not be gained.
Patrick Henry, to a listening senate, thrilled by his magic eloquence, and ready to stand by him in his boldest flights, could say, GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH, and this saying was a sublime one, even for a freeman; but, incomparably more sublime, is the same sentiment, when practically asserted by men accustomed to the lash and chain -- men whose sensibilities must have become more or less deadened by their bondage. With us it was a doubtful liberty, at best, that we sought; and a certain, lingering death in the rice swamps and sugar fields, if we failed. Life is not lightly regarded by men of sane minds. It is precious, alike to the pauper and to the prince -- to the slave, and to his master; and yet, I believe there was not one among us, who would not rather have been shot down, than pass away life in hopeless bondage.
In the progress of our preparations, Sandy, the root man, became troubled. He began to have dreams, and some of them were very distressing. One of these, which happened on a Friday night, was, to him, of great significance; and I am quite ready to confess, that I felt somewhat damped by it myself. He said, "I dreamed, last night, that I was roused from sleep, by strange noises, like the voices of a swarm of angry birds, that caused a roar as they passed, which fell
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upon my ear like a coming gale over the tops of the trees. Looking up to see
what it could mean," said Sandy, "I saw you, Frederick, in the claws
of a huge bird, surrounded by a large number of birds, of all colors and sizes.
These were all picking at you, while you, with your arms, seemed to be trying
to protect your eyes. Passing over me, the birds flew in a south-westerly direction,
and I watched them until they were clean out of sight. Now, I saw this as plainly
as I now see you; and furder, honey, watch de Friday night dream; dare is sumpon
in it, shose you born; dare is, indeed, honey."
I confess I did not like this dream; but I threw off concern about it, by attributing it to the general excitement and perturbation consequent upon our contemplated plan of escape. I could not, however, shake off its effect at once. I felt that it boded me no good. Sandy was unusually emphatic and oracular, and his manner had much to do with the impression made upon me.
The plan of escape which I recommended, and to which my comrades assented, was to take a large canoe, owned by Mr. Hamilton, and, on the Saturday night previous to the Easter holidays, launch out into the Chesapeake bay, and paddle for its head -- a distance of seventy miles with all our might. Our course, on reaching this point, was, to turn the canoe adrift, and bend our steps toward the north star, till we reached a free state.
There were several objections to this plan. One was, the danger from gales on the bay. In rough weather, the waters of the Chesapeake are much agitated,
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and there is danger, in a canoe, of being swamped by the waves. Another objection
was, that the canoe would soon be missed; the absent persons would, at once,
be suspected of having taken it; and we should be pursued by some of the fast
sailing bay craft out of St. Michael's. Then, again, if we reached the head
of the bay, and turned the canoe adrift, she might prove a guide to our track,
and bring the land hunters after us.
These and other objections were set aside, by the stronger ones which could be urged against every other plan that could then be suggested. On the water, we had a chance of being regarded as fishermen, in the service of a master. On the other hand, by taking the land route, through the counties adjoining Delaware, we should be subjected to all manner of interruptions, and many very disagreeable questions, which might give us serious trouble. Any white man is authorized to stop a man of color, on any road, and examine him, and arrest him, if he so desires.
By this arrangement, many abuses (considered such even by slaveholders) occur. Cases have been known, where freemen have been called upon to show their free papers, by a pack of ruffians -- and, on the presentation of the papers, the ruffians have torn them up, and seized their victim, and sold him to a life of endless bondage.
The week before our intended start, I wrote a pass for each of our party, giving them permission to visit Baltimore, during the Easter holidays. The pass ran after this manner:
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"This is to certify, that I, the undersigned, have given the bearer, my servant, John, full liberty to go to Baltimore, to spend the Easter holidays.
"W. H.
"Near St. Michael's, Talbot county, Maryland."
Although we were not going to Baltimore, and were intending to land east of North Point, in the direction where I had seen the Philadelphia steamers go, these passes might be made useful to us in the lower part of the bay, while steering toward Baltimore. These were not, however, to be shown by us, until all other answers failed to satisfy the inquirer. We were all fully alive to the importance of being calm and self-possessed, when accosted, if accosted we should be; and we more times than one rehearsed to each other how we should behave in the hour of trial.
These were long, tedious days and nights. The suspense was painful, in the extreme. To balance probabilities, where life and liberty hang on the result, requires steady nerves. I panted for action, and was glad when the day, at the close of which we were to start, dawned upon us. Sleeping, the night before, was out of the question. I probably felt more deeply than any of my companions, because I was the instigator of the movement. The responsibility of the whole enterprise rested on my shoulders. The glory of success, and the shame and confusion of failure, could not be matters of indifference to me. Our food was prepared; our clothes were packed up; we were all ready to go, and impatient for Saturday morning -- considering that the last morning of our bondage.
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I cannot describe the tempest and tumult of my brain, that morning. The reader
will please to bear in mind, that, in a slave state, an unsuccessful runaway
is not only subjected to cruel torture, and sold away to the far south, but
he is frequently execrated by the other slaves. He is charged with making the
condition of the other slaves intolerable, by laying them all under the suspicion
of their masters -- subjecting them to greater vigilance, and imposing greater
limitations on their privileges. I dreaded murmurs from this quarter. It is
difficult, too, for a slavemaster to believe that slaves escaping have not been
aided in their flight by some one of their fellow slaves. When, therefore, a
slave is missing, every slave on the place is closely examined as to his knowledge
of the undertaking; and they are sometimes even tortured, to make them disclose
what they are suspected of knowing of such escape.
Our anxiety grew more and more intense, as the time of our intended departure for the north drew nigh. It was truly felt to be a matter of life and death with us; and we fully intended to fight as well as run, if necessity should occur for that extremity. But the trial hour was not yet to come. It was easy to resolve, but not so easy to act. I expected there might be some drawing back, at the last. It was natural that there should be; therefore, during the intervening time, I lost no opportunity to explain away difficulties, to remove doubts, to dispel fears, and to inspire all with firmness. It was too late to look back; and now was the time to go forward. Like most other men, we had done the talking part
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of our work, long and well; and the time had come to act as if we were in earnest,
and meant to be as true in action as in words. I did not forget to appeal to
the pride of my comrades, by telling them that, if after having solemnly promised
to go, as they had done, they now failed to make the attempt, they would, in
effect, brand themselves with cowardice, and might as well sit down, fold their
arms, and acknowledge themselves as fit only to be slaves. This detestable character,
all were unwilling to assume. Every man except Sandy (he, much to our regret,
withdrew) stood firm; and at our last meeting we pledged ourselves afresh, and
in the most solemn manner, that, at the time appointed, we would certainly start
on our long journey for a free country. This meeting was in the middle of the
week, at the end of which we were to start.
Early that morning we went, as usual, to the field, but with hearts that beat quickly and anxiously. Any one intimately acquainted with us, might have seen that all was not well with us, and that some monster lingered in our thoughts. Our work that morning was the same as it had been for several days past -- drawing out and spreading manure. While thus engaged, I had a sudden presentiment, which flashed upon me like lightning in a dark night, revealing to the lonely traveler the gulf before, and the enemy behind. I instantly turned to Sandy Jenkins, who was near me, and said to him, "Sandy, we are betrayed; something has just told me so." I felt as sure of it, as if the officers were there in sight. Sandy said, "Man, dat is strange; but I feel just as you do." If my mother -- then long in her grave -- had appeared
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before me, and told me that we were betrayed, I could not, at that moment, have
felt more certain of the fact.
In a few minutes after this, the long, low and distant notes of the horn summoned us from the field to breakfast. I felt as one may be supposed to feel before being led forth to be executed for some great offense. I wanted no breakfast; but I went with the other slaves toward the house, for form's sake. My feelings were not disturbed as to the right of running away; on that point I had no trouble, whatever. My anxiety arose from a sense of the consequences of failure.
In thirty minutes after that vivid presentiment came the apprehended crash. On reaching the house, for breakfast, and glancing my eye toward the lane gate, the worst was at once made known. The lane gate off Mr. Freeland's house, is nearly a half mile from the door, and shaded by the heavy wood which bordered the main road. I was, however, able to descry four white men, and two colored men, approaching. The white men were on horseback, and the colored men were walking behind, and seemed to be tied. "It is all over with us," thought I, "we are surely betrayed." I now became composed, or at least comparatively so, and calmly awaited the result. I watched the ill-omened company, till I saw them enter the gate. Successful flight was impossible, and I made up my mind to stand, and meet the evil, whatever it might be; for I was not without a slight hope that things might turn differently from what I at first expected. In a few moments, in
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came Mr. William Hamilton, riding very rapidly, and evidently much excited.
He was in the habit of riding very slowly, and was seldom known to gallop his
horse. This time, his horse was nearly at full speed, causing the dust to roll
thick behind him. Mr. Hamilton, though one of the most resolute men in the whole
neighborhood, was, nevertheless, a remarkably mild spoken man; and, even when
greatly excited, his language was cool and circumspect. He came to the door,
and inquired if Mr. Freeland was in. I told him that Mr. Freeland was at the
barn. Off the old gentleman rode, toward the barn, with unwonted speed. Mary,
the cook, was at a loss to know what was the matter, and I did not profess any
skill in making her understand. I knew she would have united, as readily as
any one, in cursing me for bringing trouble into the family; so I held my peace,
leaving matters to develop themselves, without my assistance. In a few moments,
Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Freeland came down from the barn to the house; and, just
as they made their appearance in the front yard, three men (who proved to be
constables) came dashing into the lane, on horseback, as if summoned by a sign
requiring quick work. A few seconds brought them into the front yard, where
they hastily dismounted, and tied their horses. This done, they joined Mr. Freeland
and Mr. Hamilton, who were standing a short distance from the kitchen. A few
moments were spent, as if in consulting how to proceed, and then the whole party
walked up to the kitchen door. There was now no one in the kitchen but myself
and John Harris. Henry and Sandy were yet at the barn.
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Mr. Freeland came inside the kitchen door, and with an agitated voice, called
me by name, and told me to come forward; that there was some gentlemen who wished
to see me. I stepped toward them, at the door, and asked what they wanted, when
the constables grabbed me, and told me that I had better not resist; that I
had been in a scrape, or was said to have been in one; that they were merely
going to take me where I could be examined; that they were going to carry me
to St. Michael's, to have me brought before my master. They further said, that,
in case the evidence against me was not true, I should be acquitted. I was now
firmly tied, and completely at the mercy of my captors. Resistance was idle.
They were five in number, armed to the very teeth. When they had secured me,
they next turned to John Harris, and, in a few moments, succeeded in tying him
as firmly as they had already tied me. They next turned toward Henry Harris,
who had now returned from the barn. "Cross your hands," said the constables,
to Henry. "I won't" said Henry, in a voice so firm and clear, and
in a manner so determined, as for a moment to arrest all proceedings. "Won't
you cross your hands?" said Tom Graham, the constable. "No I won't,"
said Henry, with increasing emphasis. Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Freeland, and the officers,
now came near to Henry. Two of the constables drew out their shining pistols,
and swore by the name of God, that he should cross his hands, or they would
shoot him down. Each of these hired ruffians now cocked their pistols, and,
with fingers apparently on the triggers, presented their deadly weapons to the
breast of the unarmed
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slave, saying, at the same time, if he did not cross his hands, they would "blow
his d -- d heart out of him."
"Shoot! shoot me!" said Henry. "You can't kill me but once. Shoot! -- shoot! and be d -- d. I won't be tied." This, the brave fellow said in a voice as defiant and heroic in its tone, as was the language itself; and, at the moment of saying this, with the pistols at his very breast, he quickly raised his arms, and dashed them from the puny hands of his assassins, the weapons flying in opposite directions. Now came the struggle. All hands was now rushed upon the brave fellow, and, after beating him for some time, they succeeded in overpowering and tying him. Henry put me to shame; he fought, and fought bravely. John and I had made no resistance. The fact is, I never see much use in fighting, unless there is a reasonable probability of whipping somebody. Yet there was something almost providential in the resistance made by the gallant Henry. But for that resistance, every soul of us would have been hurried off to the far south. Just a moment previous to the trouble with Henry, Mr. Hamilton mildly said -- and this gave me the unmistakable clue to the cause of our arrest -- "Perhaps we had now better make a search for those protections, which we understand Frederick has written for himself and the rest." Had these passes been found, they would have been point blank proof against us, and would have confirmed all the statements of our betrayer. Thanks to the resistance of Henry, the excitement produced by the scuffle drew all attention in that direction, and I succeeded in flinging my pass, unobserved, into the fire.
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The confusion attendant upon the scuffle, and the apprehension of further trouble,
perhaps, led our captors to forego, for the present, any search for "those
protections" which Frederick was said to have written for his companions;
so we were not yet convicted of the purpose to run away; and it was evident
that there was some doubt, on the part of all, whether we had been guilty of
such a purpose.
Just as we were all completely tied, and about ready to start toward St. Michael's, and thence to jail, Mrs. Betsey Freeland (mother to William, who was very much attached -- after the southern fashion -- to Henry and John, they having been reared from childhood in her house) came to the kitchen door, with her hands full of biscuits -- for we had not had time to take our breakfast that morning -- and divided them between Henry and John. This done, the lady made the following parting address to me, looking and pointing her bony finger at me. "You devil! you yellow devil! It was you that put it into the heads of Henry and John to run away. But for you, you long legged yellow devil, Henry and John would never have thought of running away." I gave the lady a look, which called forth a scream of mingled wrath and terror, as she slammed the kitchen door, and went in, leaving me, with the rest, in hands as harsh as her own broken voice.
Could the kind reader have been quietly riding along the main road to or from Easton, that morning, his eye would have met a painful sight. He would have seen five young men, guilty of no crime, save that of preferring liberty to a life of bondage, drawn
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along the public highway -- firmly bound together -- tramping through dust and
heat, bare-footed and bare-headed -- fastened to three strong horses, whose
riders were armed to the teeth, with pistols and daggers -- on their way to
prison, like felons, and suffering every possible insult from the crowds of
idle, vulgar people, who clustered around, and heartlessly made their failure
the occasion for all manner of ribaldry and sport. As I looked upon this crowd
of vile persons, and saw myself and friends thus assailed and persecuted, I
could not help seeing the fulfillment of Sandy's dream. I was in the hands of
moral vultures, and firmly held in their sharp talons, and was hurried away
toward Easton, in a south-easterly direction, amid the jeers of new birds of
the same feather, through every neighborhood we passed. It seemed to me (and
this shows the good understanding between the slaveholders and their allies)
that every body we met knew the cause of our arrest, and were out, awaiting
our passing by, to feast their vindictive eyes on our misery and to gloat over
our ruin. Some said, I ought to be hanged, and others, I ought to be burnt,
others, I ought to have the "hide" taken from my back; while no one
gave us a kind word or sympathizing look, except the poor slaves, who were lifting
their heavy hoes, and who cautiously glanced at us through the post-and-rail
fences, behind which they were at work. Our sufferings, that morning, can be
more easily imagined than described. Our hopes were all blasted, at a blow.
The cruel injustice, the victorious crime, and the helplessness of innocence,
led me to ask, in my ignorance and weakness "Where now is the God
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of justice and mercy? And why have these wicked men the power thus to trample
upon our rights, and to insult our feelings?" And yet, in the next moment,
came the consoling thought, "The day of oppressor will come at last."
Of one thing I could be glad -- not one of my dear friends, upon whom I had
brought this great calamity, either by word or look, reproached me for having
led them into it. We were a band of brothers, and never dearer to each other
than now. The thought which gave us the most pain, was the probable separation
which would now take place, in case we were sold off to the far south, as we
were likely to be. While the constables were looking forward, Henry and I, being
fastened together, could occasionally exchange a word, without being observed
by the kidnappers who had us in charge. "What shall I do with my pass?"
said Henry. "Eat it with your biscuit," said I; "it won't do
to tear it up." We were now near St. Michael's. The direction concerning
the passes was passed around, and executed. "Own nothing!" said I.
"Own nothing!" was passed around and enjoined, and assented to. Our
confidence in each other was unshaken; and we were quite resolved to succeed
or fail together -- as much after the calamity which had befallen us, as before.
On reaching St. Michael's, we underwent a sort of examination at my master's store, and it was evident to my mind, that Master Thomas suspected the truthfulness of the evidence upon which they had acted in arresting us; and that he only affected, to some extent, the positiveness with which he asserted our guilt. There was nothing said by any of our company, which
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could, in any manner, prejudice our cause; and there was hope, yet, that we
should be able to return to our homes -- if for nothing else, at least to find
out the guilty man or woman who had betrayed us.
To this end, we all denied that we had been guilty of intended flight. Master Thomas said that the evidence he had of our intention to run away, was strong enough to hang us, in a case of murder. "But," said I, "the cases are not equal. If murder were committed, some one must have committed it -- the thing is done! In our case, nothing has been done! We have not run away. Where is the evidence against us? We were quietly at our work." I talked thus, with unusual freedom, to bring out the evidence against us, for we all wanted, above all things, to know the guilty wretch who had betrayed us, that we might have something tangible upon which to pour the execrations. From something which dropped, in the course of the talk, it appeared that there was but one witness against us -- and that that witness could not be produced. Master Thomas would not tell us who his informant was; but we suspected, and suspected one person only. Several circumstances seemed to point SANDY out, as our betrayer. His entire knowledge of our plans his participation in them -- his withdrawal from us -- his dream, and his simultaneous presentiment that we were betrayed -- the taking us, and the leaving him -- were calculated to turn suspicion toward him; and yet, we could not suspect him. We all loved him too well to think it possible that he could have betrayed us. So we rolled the guilt on other shoulders.
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We were literally dragged, that morning, behind horses, a distance of fifteen
miles, and placed in the Easton jail. We were glad to reach the end of our journey,
for our pathway had been the scene of insult and mortification. Such is the
power of public opinion, that it is hard, even for the innocent, to feel the
happy consolations of innocence, when they fall under the maledictions of this
power. How could we regard ourselves as in the right, when all about us denounced
us as criminals, and had the power and the disposition to treat us as such.
In jail, we were placed under the care of Mr. Joseph Graham, the sheriff of the county. Henry, and John, and myself, were placed in one room, and Henry Baily and Charles Roberts, in another, by themselves. This separation was intended to deprive us of the advantage of concert, and to prevent trouble in jail.
Once shut up, a new set of tormentors came upon us. A swarm of imps, in human shape the slave-traders, deputy slave-traders, and agents of slave-traders -- that gather in every country town of the state, watching for chances to buy human flesh (as buzzards to eat carrion) flocked in upon us, to ascertain if our masters had placed us in jail to be sold. Such a set of debased and villainous creatures, I never saw before, and hope never to see again. I felt myself surrounded as by a pack of fiends, fresh from perdition. They laughed, leered, and grinned at us; saying, "Ah! boys, we've got you, havn't we? So you were about to make your escape? Where were you going to?" After taunting us, and jeering at us,
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as long as they liked, they one by one subjected us to an examination, with
a view to ascertain our value; feeling our arms and legs, and shaking us by
the shoulders to see if we were sound and healthy; impudently asking us, "how
we would like to have them for masters?" To such questions, we were, very
much to their annoyance, quite dumb, disdaining to answer them. For one, I detested
the whisky-bloated gamblers in human flesh; and I believe I was as much detested
by them in turn. One fellow told me, "if he had me, he would cut the devil
out of me pretty quick."
These Negro buyers are very offensive to the genteel southern Christian public. They are looked upon, in respectable Maryland society, as necessary, but detestable characters. As a class, they are hardened ruffians, made such by nature and by occupation. Their ears are made quite familiar with the agonizing cry of outraged and woe-smitted humanity. Their eyes are forever open to human misery. They walk amid desecrated affections, insulted virtue, and blasted hopes. They have grown intimate with vice and blood; they gloat over the wildest illustrations of their soul-damning and earth-polluting business, and are moral pests. Yes; they are a legitimate fruit of slavery; and it is a puzzle to make out a case of greater villainy for them, than for the slaveholders, who make such a class possible. They are mere hucksters of the surplus slave produce of Maryland and Virginia coarse, cruel, and swaggering bullies, whose very breathing is of blasphemy and blood.
Aside from these slave-buyers, who infested the
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prison, from time to time, our quarters were much more comfortable than we had
any right to expect they would be. Our allowance of food was small and coarse,
but our room was the best in the jail -- neat and spacious, and with nothing
about it necessarily reminding us of being in prison, but its heavy locks and
bolts and the black, iron lattice-work at the windows. We were prisoners of
state, compared with most slaves who are put into that Easton jail. But the
place was not one of contentment. Bolts, bars and grated windows are not acceptable
to freedom-loving people of any color. The suspense, too, was painful. Every
step on the stairway was listened to, in the hope that the comer would cast
a ray of light on our fate. We would have given the hair off our heads for half
a dozen words with one of the waiters in Sol. Lowe's hotel. Such waiters were
in the way of hearing, at the table, the probable course of things. We could
see them flitting about in their white jackets in front of this hotel, but could
speak to none of them.
Soon after the holidays were over, contrary to all our expectations, Messrs. Hamilton and Freeland came up to Easton; not to make a bargain with the "Georgia traders," nor to send us up to Austin Woldfolk, as is usual in the case of run-away salves, but to release Charles, Henry Harris, Henry Baily and John Harris, from prison, and this, too, without the infliction of a single blow. I was now left entirely alone in prison. The innocent had been taken, and the guilty left. My friends were separated from me, and apparently forever. This circumstance caused me
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more pain than any other incident connected with our capture and imprisonment.
Thirty-nine lashes on my naked and bleeding back, would have been joyfully borne,
in preference to this separation from these, the friends of my youth. And yet,
I could not but feel that I was the victim of something like justice. Why should
these young men, who were led into this scheme by me, suffer as much as the
instigator? I felt glad that they were leased from prison, and from the dread
prospect of a life (or death I should rather say) in the rice swamps. It is
due to the noble Henry, to say, that he seemed almost as reluctant to leave
the prison with me in it, as he was to be tied and dragged to prison. But he
and the rest knew that we should, in all the likelihoods of the case, be separated,
in the event of being sold; and since we were now completely in the hands of
our owners, we all concluded it would be best to go peaceably home.
Not until this last separation, dear reader, had I touched those profounder depths of desolation, which it is the lot of slaves often to reach. I was solitary in the world, and alone within the walls of a stone prison, left to a fate of life-long misery. I had hoped and expected much, for months before, but my hopes and expectations were now withered and blasted. The ever dreaded slave life in Georgia, Louisiana and Alabama -- from which escape is next to impossible now, in my loneliness, stared me in the face. The possibility of ever becoming anything but an abject slave, a mere machine in the hands of an owner, had now fled, and it seemed to me it had fled forever. A life of living death, beset with the innumerable
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