After emancipation had been decreed by the State, some years
before the time fixed for its consummation, Isabella's master told
her if she would do well, and be faithful, he would give her 'free
papers,' one year before she was legally free by statute. In the
year 1826, she had a badly diseased hand, which greatly diminished
her usefulness; but on the arrival of July 4, 1827, the time
specified for her receiving her 'free papers,' she claimed the
fulfilment of her master's promise; but he refused granting it, on
account (as he alleged) of the loss he had sustained by her hand.
She plead that she had worked all the time, and done many
things she was not wholly able to do, although she knew she had
been less useful than formerly; but her master remained inflexible.
Her very faithfulness probably operated against her now,
and he found it less easy than he thought to give up the profits
of his faithful Bell, who had so long done him efficient service.
But Isabella inwardly determined that she would remain quietly
with him only until she had spun his wool-about one
hundred pounds-and then she would leave him, taking the rest
of the time to herself. 'Ah!' she says, with emphasis that cannot
be written, 'the slaveholders are TERRIBLE for promising to give
you this or that, or such and such a privilege, if you will do thus
and so; and when the time of fulfilment comes, and one claims
the promise, they, forsooth, recollect nothing of the kind: and
you are, like as not, taunted with being a LIAR; or, at best, the
slave is accused of not having performed his part or condition of
the contract.' 'Oh!' said she, 'I have felt as if I could not live
through the operation sometimes. Just think of us! so eager for our
pleasures, and just foolish enough to keep feeding and feeding
ourselves up with the idea that we should get what had been thus
fairly promised; and when we think it is almost in our hands, find
ourselves flatly denied! Just think! how could we bear it? Why,
there was Charles Brodhead promised his slave Ned, that when
harvesting was over, he might go and see his wife, who lived
some twenty or thirty miles off. So Ned worked early and late,
and as soon as the harvest was all in, he claimed the promised
boon. His master said, he had merely told him he 'would see if
he could go, when the harvest was over; but now he saw that
he could not go.' But Ned, who still claimed a positive promise,
on which he had fully depended, went on cleaning his shoes. His
master asked him if he intended going, and on his replying 'yes,'
took up a sled-stick that lay near him, and gave him such a blow
on the head as broke his skull, killing him dead on the spot. The
poor colored people all felt struck down by the blow.' Ah! and
well they might. Yet it was but one of a long series of bloody,
and other most effectual blows, struck against their liberty and
their lives. * But to return from our digression.
The subject of this narrative was to have been free July 4,
1827, but she continued with her master till the wool was spun,
and the heaviest of the 'fall's work' closed up, when she concluded
to take her freedom into her own hands, and seek her
fortune in some other place.
Note:
*Yet no official notice was taken of his more than brutal murder.