not till the 9th of March, 1829, that I received my manumission papers
in due form of law. I was prepared to start immediately on my return
to Kentucky, and on the 10th, as I was getting ready in the morning
for my journey, my master accosted me in a very pleasant and friendly
manner, and entered into conversation with me about my plans. He asked
me what I was going to do with my freedom certificate; whether I was
going to show it if I were questioned on the road. I told him yes,
that I supposed it was given to me for that very purpose. “Ah,” said
he, “you do not understand the dangers to which you are exposed. You
may meet with some ruffian slave-purchaser who will rob you of that
piece of paper, and destroy it. You will then be thrown into prison,
and sold for your jail fees, before any of your friends can know it.
Why should you show it at all? You can go to Kentucky in perfect safety
with your pass. Let me enclose that valuable document for you under
cover to my brother, and nobody will dare to break a seal, for that
is a State prison matter; and when you arrive in Kentucky you will
have it all safe and sound.” This seemed most friendly advice, and I
felt very grateful for his kindness. I accordingly saw him enclose
my precious piece of paper in two or three envelopes, seal it with
three seals, and direct it to his brother in Daviess County, Kentucky,
in my care. Leaving immediately for Wheeling, to which place I was
obliged to travel on foot, I there took boat, and in due time reached
my destination. I was arrested repeatedly on the way, but by insisting
always upon being carried before a magistrate, I succeeded in escaping
all serious impediments by means of my pass, which was quite regular,
and could not be set aside by any responsible authority.
It so happened that the boat which took me down from Louisville, landed
me about dark, and my walk of five miles brought me to the plantation
at bed-time. I went directly to my own cabin, where I found my wife and
little ones well; and of course, we had a good deal to communicate to
each other. Letters had reached the “great house,” as the master’s was
always called, long before I had arrived, telling them what I had been
doing, and the children of the family had been eager to communicate
the great news to my wife,--how I had been preaching, and raising
money, and making a bargain for my freedom. It was not long before
Charlotte began to tell me with much excitement what she had heard, and
to question me about how I had raised the money I had paid, and how I
expected to get the remainder of the _thousand dollars_ I was to give
for my freedom. I could scarcely believe my ears; but before telling
her how the case exactly was, I questioned her again and again as to
what she had heard. She persisted in repeating the same story as she
had heard it from my master’s letters, and I began to perceive the
trick that had been played upon me, and to see the management by which
Isaac R. had contrived that the only evidence of my freedom should be
kept from every eye but that of his brother Amos, who was instructed
to retain it till I had made up six hundred and fifty dollars, the
balance I was reported to have agreed to pay. Indignation is a faint
word to express my deep sense of such villainy. I was without the means
of setting myself right. The only witness to the truth was my friend
Frank, who was a thousand miles off; and I could neither write to him,
nor get any one else to do it. Every man about me who could write was a
slaveholder; and what chance had I to be believed, or to get evidence
to the truth. In this dilemma I resolved not to deliver the paper to
Amos, and told my wife I had not seen it since I was in Louisville. It
might be in my bag, and perhaps it was lost; but at all events I did
not wish to see it again at present; and if she should find it, and put
it in some place which I did not know, it would be the best disposition
of it. In a few minutes she went out, and I remained in ignorance where
it was, till circumstances, presently to be mentioned, rendered it
necessary for me to have it again.
The next morning I went up to the house, and showed myself to Mr. Amos,
who welcomed me with apparent cordiality, and who, I have no doubt,
was really glad to see me, as my time and labor were important to him.
We had a long conversation, and after rallying me, as his brother had
done, about my being turned fine gentleman, he entered upon the subject
of my freedom, and told me what Isaac had written to him about the
price I was to pay, how much I had already made up, &c. I found my wife
was right. He then asked me if I had not a paper for him. I told him
I certainly had received something for him, of which I had taken the
greatest care; but that the last time I had seen it was at Louisville,
and that now it was not in my bag, and I did not know what had become
of it. I could not conceive how it could be lost, and yet I could not
find it. He expressed great concern, and sent me back to the landing to
see if it had been dropped on the way. When the search proved in vain,
he told me that, after all, it was of no consequence, for whenever I
made up the money, his brother would renew the paper. “But,” said he,
“you have given too much for yourself. Isaac has been too hard upon
you, and I don’t see how you are going to get so much in Kentucky.”
All this was very smooth and pleasant to a man who was in a frenzy
of grief at the base and apparently irremediable trick that had been
played upon him. I consoled myself as well as I could, and set about
my work again, with as quiet a mind as I could command, resolved to
trust in God, and never despair. Things went on as usual for about a
year, when, one day, Mr. Amos told me that his brother kept writing
to him about his want of money; and intimated that perhaps I might be
ready to pay another instalment of my price. I told him I had nothing,
as he knew very well, and that he never had said what he would allow
me, or whether he would allow me anything for my labor in his service.
That put an end to the conversation at the time, for he did not like
the idea of paying for the labor I had bestowed on his farm, the care
of his stock and of his people. It was not long, however, before the
subject was brought up again, and he said Isaac was perpetually telling
him he must have money, and added that I must get ready to go to New
Orleans with his son Amos, a young man about twenty-one years of age,
who was going down the river with a flat boat, and was nearly ready
to start; in fact he was to leave the next day, and I must go and take
care of him, and help him dispose of the cargo. The intimation was
enough. Though it was not distinctly stated, yet I well knew what was
intended, and my heart sunk within me at the near prospect of this
fatal blight to all my long-cherished hopes. There was no alternative
but death itself; and I thought that there was hope as long as there
was life, and I would not despair even yet. The expectation of my fate,
however, produced the degree of misery nearest to that of despair;
and it is in vain for me to attempt to describe the wretchedness I
experienced as I made ready to go on board the flat boat. I had little
preparation to make, to be sure; and there was but one thing that
seemed to me important. I asked my wife to sew up my manumission paper
securely in a piece of cloth, and to sew that again round my person. I
thought that having possession of it might be the means of saving me
yet, and I would not neglect any thing that offered the smallest chance
of escape from the frightful servitude that threatened me.
My wife and children accompanied me to the landing, where I bade
them an adieu, which might be for life, and then stepped into the
boat, which I found manned by three white men, who had been hired for
the trip. Mr. Amos and myself were the only other persons on board.
The load consisted of beef-cattle, pigs, poultry, corn, whiskey,
and other articles from the farm, and from some of the neighboring
estates, which were to be sold as we dropped down the river, wherever
they could be disposed of to the greatest advantage. It was a common
trading voyage to New Orleans, in which I was embarked, the interest
of which consisted not in the incidents that occurred, not in storms,
or shipwreck, or external disaster of any sort; but in the storm of
passions contending within me, and the imminent risk of the shipwreck
of my soul, which was impending over me nearly the whole period of the
voyage. One circumstance, only, I will mention, illustrating, as other
events of my life have often done, the counsel of the Saviour, “He that
will be chief among you, let him be your servant.”
We were, of course, all bound to take our trick at the helm in turn,
sometimes under direction of the captain, and sometimes on our own
responsibility, as he could not be always awake. In the daytime there
was less difficulty than at night, when it required some one who knew
the river, to avoid sand-bars and snags, and the captain was the only
person on board who had this knowledge. But whether by day or by night,
as I was the only negro on the boat, I was made to stand at least three
tricks to any other person’s one; so that from being much with the
captain, and frequently thrown upon my own exertions, I learnt the art
of steering and managing the boat far better than the rest. I watched
the manœuvres necessary to shoot by a sawyer, to land on a bank, or
avoid a snag, or a steamboat, in the rapid current of the Mississippi,
till I could do it as well as the captain. After a while the captain
had a disease of the eyes, by which they became very much inflamed and
swollen. He was soon rendered totally blind, and unable to perform
his share of duty. This disorder is not an infrequent consequence of
exposure to the intense light of the sun, doubled as it is by the
reflection from the river. I was the person who could best take his
place, and I was, in fact, master of the boat from that time till our
arrival at New Orleans.
After the captain became blind, we were obliged to lie by at night,
as none of the rest of us had been down the river before; and it was
necessary to keep watch all night, to prevent depredations by the
negroes on shore, who used frequently to attack such boats as ours, for
the sake of the provisions on board. As I paced backwards and forwards
on the deck, during my watch, it may well be believed I revolved many
a painful and passionate thought. After all that I had done for Isaac
and Amos R., after all the regard they professed for me, and the value
they could not but put upon me, such a return as this for my services,
such an evidence of their utter inattention to my claims upon them,
and the intense selfishness with which they were ready to sacrifice
me, at any moment, to their supposed interest, turned my blood to
gall and wormwood, and changed me from a lively, and I will say, a
pleasant-tempered fellow, into a savage, morose, dangerous slave. I was
going not at all as a lamb to the slaughter, but I felt myself becoming
more ferocious every day; and as we approached the place where this
iniquity was to be consummated, I became more and more agitated with
an almost uncontrollable fury. I had met, on the passage, with some
of my Maryland acquaintance who had been sold off to this region; and
their haggard and wasted appearance told a piteous story of excessive
labor and insufficient food. I said to myself, “If this is to be my
lot, I cannot survive it long. I am not so young as these men, and if
it has brought them to such a condition, it will soon kill me. I am to
be taken by my masters and owners, who ought to be my grateful friends,
to a place and a condition where my life is to be shortened, as well as
made more wretched. Why should I not prevent this wrong, if I can, by
shortening their lives, or those of their agents in accomplishing such
detestable injustice? I can do the last easily enough. They have no
suspicion of me, and they are at this moment under my control, and in
my power. There are many ways in which I can despatch them and escape,
and I feel that I should be justified in availing myself of the first
good opportunity.” These were not thoughts which just flitted across
my mind’s eye, and then disappeared. They fashioned themselves into
shapes which grew larger, and seemed firmer, every time they presented
themselves; and at length my mind was made up to convert the phantom
shadow into a positive reality. I resolved to kill my four companions,
take what money there was in the boat, then to scuttle the craft, and
escape to the north. It was a poor plan, may-be, and would very likely
have failed; but it was as well contrived, under the circumstances, as
the plans of murderers usually are; and blinded by passion, and stung
to madness as I was, I could not see any difficulty about it. One dark,
rainy night, within a few days of New Orleans, my hour seemed to have
come. I was alone on the deck; Mr. Amos and the hands were all asleep
below, and I crept down noiselessly, got hold of an axe, entered the
cabin, and looking by the aid of the dim light there for my victims, my
eye fell upon Master Amos, who was nearest to me; my hand slid along
the axe-handle, I raised it to strike the fatal blow,--when suddenly
the thought came to me, “What! commit _murder_! and you a Christian?”
I had not called it murder before. It was self-defence,--it was
preventing others from murdering me,--it was justifiable, it was even
praiseworthy. But now, all at once, the truth burst upon me that it
was a crime. I was going to kill a young man, who had done nothing to
injure me, but obey commands which he could not resist; I was about to
lose the fruit of all my efforts at self-improvement, the character
I had acquired, and the peace of mind which had never deserted me.
Ah this came upon me instantly, and with a distinctness which made
me almost think I heard it whispered in my ear; and I believe I even
turned my head to listen. I shrunk back, laid down the axe, crept up on
deck again, and thanked God, as I have done every day since, that I had
not committed murder.
My feelings were still agitated, but they were changed. I was filled
with shame and remorse for the design I had entertained, and with the
fear that my companions would detect it in my face, or that a careless
word would betray my guilty thoughts. I remained on deck all night,
instead of rousing one of the men to relieve me, and nothing brought
composure to my mind, but the solemn resolution I then made to resign
myself to the will of God, and take with thankfulness, if I could, but
with submission, at all events, whatever he might decide should be my
lot. I reflected that if my life were reduced to a brief term, I should
have less to suffer, and that it was better to die with a Christian’s
hope, and a quiet conscience, than to live with the incessant
recollection of a crime that would destroy the value of life, and under
the weight of a secret that would crush out the satisfaction that might
be expected from freedom and every other blessing.
It was long before I recovered my self-control and serenity; but I
believe no one but those to whom I have told the story myself, ever
suspected me of having entertained such thoughts for a moment.
In a few days after this tremendous crisis we arrived in New Orleans,
and the little that remained of our cargo was soon sold, the men were
discharged, and nothing was left but to dispose of me, and break up
the boat, and then Mr. Amos would take passage on a steamboat, and go
home. There was no longer any disguise about the purpose of selling
me. Mr. Amos acknowledged that such were his instructions, and he set
about fulfilling them. Several planters came to the boat to look at me;
and I was sent of some hasty errand, that they might see how I could
run. My points were canvassed as those of a horse would have been;
and doubtless some account of my human faculties was thrown into the
discussion of the bargain, that my value as a domestic animal might be
enhanced. Amos had talked, with apparent kindness, about getting me a
good master, who would employ me as a coachman, or as a house-servant;
but as time passed on I could discern no particular effort of the kind.
At length every thing was wound up but this single affair. The boat
was to be sold, and I was to be sold, the next day, and Amos was to
set off on his return, at six o’clock in the afternoon. I could not
sleep that night, which seemed long enough to me, though it was one of
the shortest in the year. The slow way in which we had come down had
brought us to the long days and the heat of June; and everybody knows
what the climate of New Orleans is at that time of the year.
A little before daylight master Amos awoke indisposed. His stomach was
disordered, but he lay down again, thinking it would pass off. In a
little while he was up again, and felt more sick than before, and it
was soon evident that the river fever was upon him. He became rapidly
worse, and by eight o’clock in the morning he was utterly prostrate;
his head was on my lap, and he was begging me to help him, to do
something for him, to save him. The tables were turned. He was now
rather more dependent upon me than I had been upon him the day before.
He entreated me to despatch matters, to sell the flat boat, in which
we two had been living by ourselves for some days, and to get him and
his trunk, containing the proceeds of the trip, on board the steamer
as quick as possible, and especially not to desert him so long as he
lived, nor to suffer his body, if he died, to be thrown into the river.
I attended to all his requests, and by twelve o’clock that day, he was
in one of the cabins of the steamer appropriated to sick passengers.
All was done which could be done for the comfort and relief of any
one in such a desperate condition. But he was reduced to extremity.
He ceased to grow worse after a day or two, and he must speedily have
died, if he had not; but his strength was so entirely gone, that he
could neither speak, nor move a limb; and could only indicate his wish
for a teaspoonful of gruel, or something to moisten his throat, by
a feeble motion of his lips. I nursed him carefully and constantly.
Nothing else could have saved his life. It hung by a thread for a long
time. We were as much as twelve days in reaching home, for the water
was low at that season, particularly in the Ohio river; and when we
arrived at our landing he was still unable to speak, and could only be
moved on a sheet, or a litter. Something of this sort was soon fixed
up at the landing, on which he could be carried to the house, which
was five miles off; and I got a party of the slaves belonging to the
estate to form relays for the purpose. As we approached the house, the
surprise at seeing me back again, and the perplexity to imagine what I
was bringing along, with such a party, were extreme; but the discovery
was soon made which explained the strange appearance; and the grief
of father and mother, and brothers and sisters, made itself seen and
heard. Loud and long were the lamentations over poor Amos; and when
the family came a little to themselves, great were the commendations
bestowed upon me, for my care of him and of the property.
We arrived home about the tenth of July, but it was not till the middle
of August that Amos was well enough to move out of his chamber, though
he had been convalescent all the while. As soon as he could speak, he
told all I had done for him, and said, “If I had sold him, I should
have died;” but it never seemed to occur to him or the rest of the
family that they were under any, the slightest, obligation to me on
that account. I had done well as a slave, and to have it acknowledged,
and to be praised for it, was compensation enough for me. My merits,
whatever they were, instead of exciting sympathy, or any feeling of
attachment to me, seemed only to enhance my money value to them. This
was not the view which I took of the case myself; and as soon as Amos
began to recover, I began to meditate upon a plan of escape from the
danger, in which I constantly stood, of a repetition of the attempt to
sell me in the highest market. Providence seemed to have interfered
once to defeat the scheme, but I could not expect such extraordinary
circumstances to be repeated, and I was bound to do every thing in
my power to secure myself and my family from the wicked conspiracy
of Isaac and Amos R. against my life, as well as against my natural
rights in my own person, and those which I had acquired, under even
the barbarous laws of slavery, by the money I had paid for myself. If
Isaac would only have been honest enough to adhere to his own bargain,
I would have adhered to mine, and paid him all I had promised. But
his attempt to kidnap me again, after having pocketed three-fourths
of my market value, absolved me from all obligation, in my opinion,
to pay him any more, or to continue in a position which exposed me
to his machinations. I determined to make my escape to Canada, about
which I had heard something, as beyond the limits of the United States;
for, notwithstanding there were free States in the Union, I felt that
I should be safer under an entirely foreign jurisdiction. The slave
States had their emissaries in the others, and I feared that I might
fall into their hands, and need a stronger protection than might be
afforded me by public opinion in the northern States at that time.
It was not without long thought on the subject that I devised a plan
of escape; but when I had fully made up my mind, I communicated my
intention to my wife, who was too much terrified by the dangers of the
attempt to do any thing, at first, but endeavor to dissuade me from it,
and try to make me contented with my condition as it was. In vain I
explained to her the liability we were in of being separated from our
children as well as from each other; and presented every argument which
had weighed with my own mind, and had at last decided me. She had not
gone through my trials, and female timidity overcame her sense of the
evils she had experienced. I argued the matter with her, at various
times, till I was satisfied that argument alone would not prevail;
and then I said to her, very deliberately, that though it was a cruel
thing for me to part with her, yet I would do it, and take all the
children with me but the youngest, rather than run the risk of forcible
separation from them all, and of a much worse captivity besides, which
we were constantly exposed to here. She wept and entreated, but found I
was resolute, and after a whole night spent in talking over the matter,
I left her to go to my work for the day. I had not gone far when I
heard her voice calling me;--I waited till she came up to me, and then,
finding me as determined as ever, she said, at last, she would go with
me. It was an immense relief to my nerves, and my tears flowed as fast
as hers had done before. I rode off with a heart a good deal lighter.
She was living, at the time, near the landing I have mentioned; for the
plantation extended the whole five miles from the house to the river,
and there were several different farms, all of which I was overseeing,
and, therefore, riding about from one to another every day. The oldest
boy was at the house with Master Amos, the rest were all with her.
Her consent was given on Thursday morning, and on the night of the
following Saturday, I had decided to set out, as it would then be
several days before I should be missed, and I should get a good start.
Some time previously I had got my wife to make me a large knapsack,
big enough to hold the two smallest children; and I had arranged it
that she should lead the second boy, while the oldest was stout enough
to go by himself, and to help me carry the necessary food. I used to
pack the little ones on my back, of an evening, after I had got through
my day’s work, and trot round the cabin with them, and go some little
distance from it, in order to accustom both them and myself to the task
before us.
At length the eventful night came. I went up to the house to ask leave
to take Tom home with me that he might have his clothes mended. No
objection was made, and I bade Master Amos “goodnight” for the last
time. It was about the middle of September, and by nine o’clock in
the evening all was ready. It was a dark, moonless night, and we got
into the little skiff in which I had induced a fellow-slave to take
us across the river. It was an agitating and solemn moment. The good
fellow who was rowing us over, said this affair might end in his death;
“but,” said he, “you will not be brought back alive, will you?” “Not if
I can help it,” I answered. “And if you are overpowered and return,”
he asked, “will you conceal my part of the business?” “That I will, so
help me God,” I replied. “Then I am easy,” he answered, “and wish you
success.” We landed on the Indiana shore, and I began to feel that I
was my own master. But in what circumstances of fear and misery still!
We were to travel by night, and rest by day, in the woods and bushes.
We were thrown absolutely upon our own poor and small resources, and
were to rely on our own strength alone. The population was not so
numerous as now, nor so well disposed to the slave. We dared look to no
one for help. But my courage was equal to the occasion, and we trudged
on cautiously and steadily, and as fast as the darkness, and the
feebleness of my wife and boys would allow.