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THE
FUGITIVE BLACKSMITH;
OR,
EVENTS IN THE HISTORY
OF
JAMES W.C. PENNINGTON,
PASTOR OF A PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, NEW YORK,
FORMERLY A SLAVE IN THE STATE OF MARYLAND, UNITED STATES.
"Let mine outcasts dwell with thee, Moab; be thou a covert
to them from the face of the spoiler."--ISAIAH xvi. 4.
Second Edition.
LONDON:
CHARLES GILPIN, 5, BISHOPSGATE WITHOUT.
1849
[_Transcriber's Note: This project was transcribed from a contemporary
printing of the work, not from the 1849 edition. Certain spellings may
have been modernized and typographic and printer's errors changed from the
original._]
MR. CHARLES GILPIN,
MY DEAR SIR,
The information just communicated to me by you, that another edition of
my little book, "The Fugitive Blacksmith," is called for, has agreeably
surprised me. The British public has laid me under renewed obligations
by this mark of liberality, which I hasten to acknowledge. I would avail
myself of this moment also, to acknowledge the kindness of the gentlemen
of the newspaper press for the many favourable reviews which my little
book has received. It is to them I am indebted, in no small degree, for
the success with which I have been favoured in getting the book before
the notice of the public.
Yours truly,
J.W.C. PENNINGTON.
_Hoxton, Oct. 15th, 1849._
PREFACE.
The brief narrative I here introduce to the public, consists of outline
notes originally thrown together to guide my memory when lecturing on this
part of the subject of slavery. This will account for its style, and will
also show that the work is not full.
The question may be asked, Why I have published anything so long after my
escape from slavery? I answer I have been induced to do so on account of
the increasing disposition to overlook the fact, that THE SIN of slavery
lies in the chattel principle, or relation. Especially have I felt anxious
to save professing Christians, and my brethren in the ministry, from
falling into a great mistake. My feelings are always outraged when I hear
them speak of "kind masters,"--"Christian masters,"--"the mildest form of
slavery,"--"well fed and clothed slaves," as extenuations of slavery; I am
satisfied they either mean to pervert the truth, or they do not know what
they say. The being of slavery, its soul and body, lives and moves in the
chattel principle, the property principle, the bill of sale principle; the
cart-whip, starvation, and nakedness, are its inevitable consequences to
a greater or less extent, warring with the dispositions of men.
There lies a skein of silk upon a lady's work-table. How smooth and
handsome are the threads. But while that lady goes out to make a call, a
party of children enter the apartment, and in amusing themselves, tangle
the skein of silk, and now who can untangle it? The relation between
master and slave is even as delicate as a skein of silk: it is liable to
be entangled at any moment.
The mildest form of slavery, if there be such a form, looking at the
chattel principle as the definition of slavery, is comparatively the worst
form. For it not only keeps the slave in the most unpleasant apprehension,
like a prisoner in chains awaiting his trial; but it actually, in a great
majority of cases, where kind masters do exist, trains him under the most
favourable circumstances the system admits of, and then plunges him into
the worst of which it is capable.
It is under the mildest form of slavery, as it exists in Maryland,
Virginia, and Kentucky, that the finest specimens of coloured females are
reared. There are no mothers who rear, and educate in the natural graces,
finer daughters than the Ethiopian women, who have the least chance to
give scope to their maternal affections. But what is generally the fate of
such female slaves? When they are not raised for the express purpose of
supplying the market of a class of economical Louisian and Mississippi
gentlemen, who do not wish to incur the expense of rearing legitimate
families, they are, nevertheless, on account of their attractions, exposed
to the most shameful degradation, by the young masters in the families
where it is claimed they are so well off. My master once owned a beautiful
girl about twenty-four. She had been raised in a family where her mother
was a great favourite. She was her mother's darling child. Her master was
a lawyer of eminent abilities and great fame, but owing to habits of
intemperance, he failed in business, and my master purchased this girl for
a nurse. After he had owned her about a year, one of his sons became
attached to her, for no honourable purposes; a fact which was not only
well-known among all of the slaves, but which became a source of
unhappiness to his mother and sisters.
The result was, that poor Rachel had to be sold to "Georgia." Never shall
I forget the heart-rending scene, when one day one of the men was ordered
to get "the one-horse cart ready to go into town;" Rachel, with her few
articles of clothing, was placed in it, and taken into the very town where
her parents lived, and there sold to the traders before their weeping
eyes. That same son who had degraded her, and who was the cause of her
being sold, acted as salesman, and bill of saleman. While this cruel
business was being transacted, my master stood aside, and the girl's
father, a pious member and exhorter in the Methodist Church, a venerable
grey-headed man, with his hat off, besought that he might be allowed to
get some one in the place to purchase his child. But no; my master was
invincible. His reply was, "She has offended in my family, and I can only
restore confidence by sending her out of hearing." After lying in prison a
short time, her new owner took her with others to the far South, where her
parents heard no more of her.
Here was a girl born and reared under the mildest form of slavery. Her
original master was reputed to be even indulgent. He lived in a town, and
was a high-bred gentleman, and a lawyer. He had but a few slaves, and had
no occasion for an overseer, those negro leeches, to watch and drive them;
but when he became embarrassed by his own folly, the chattel principle
doomed this girl to be sold at the same sale with his books, house, and
horses. With my master she found herself under far more stringent
discipline than she had been accustomed to, and finally degraded, and sold
where her condition could not be worse, and where she had not the least
hope of ever bettering it.
This case presents the legitimate working of the great chattel principle.
It is no accidental result--it is the fruit of the tree. You cannot
constitute slavery without the chattel principle--and with the chattel
principle you cannot save it from these results. Talk not then about kind
and christian masters. They are not masters of the system. The system is
master of them; and the slaves are their vassals.
These storms rise on the bosom of the calmed waters of the system. You are
a slave, a being in whom another owns property. Then you may rise with his
pride, but remember the day is at hand when you must also fall with his
folly. To-day you may be pampered by his meekness; but to-morrow you will
suffer in the storm of his passions.
In the month of September, 1848, there appeared in my study, one morning,
in New York City, an aged coloured man of tall and slender form. I saw
depicted on his countenance anxiety bordering on despair, still I was
confident that he was a man whose mind was accustomed to faith. When I
learned that he was a native of my own state, Maryland, having been born
in the county of Montgomery, I at once became much interested in him. He
had been sent to me by my friend, William Harned, Esq., of the
Anti-Slavery Office, 61, John Street. He put into my hand the following
bill of distress:--
"Alexander, Virginia, _September 5th, 1848._
"The bearer, Paul Edmondson, is the father of two girls, Mary Jane and
Emily Catherine Edmondson. These girls have been purchased by us, and
once sent to the South; and upon the positive assurance that the money
for them would be raised if they were brought back, they were returned.
Nothing, it appears, has as yet been done in this respect by those who
promised, and we are on the very eve of sending them south a second
time; and we are candid in saying, that if they go again, we will not
regard any promises made in relation to them.
"The father wishes to raise money to pay for them, and intends to appeal
to the liberality of the humane and the good to aid him, and has
requested us to state in writing the _conditions upon which we will
sell his daughters_.
"We expect to start our servants to the South in a few days; if the sum
of twelve hundred dollars be raised and paid us in fifteen days, or we
be assured of that sum, then we will retain them for twenty-five days
more, to give an opportunity for raising the other thousand and fifty
dollars, otherwise we shall be compelled to send them along with our
other servants.
(Signed) "BRUIN AND HILL."
The old man also showed me letters from other individuals, and one from
the Rev. Matthew A. Turner, pastor of Asbury Chapel, where himself and his
daughters were members. He was himself free, but his wife was a slave.
Those two daughters were two out of fifteen children he had raised for the
owner of his wife. These two girls had been sold, along with four
brothers, to the traders, for an attempt to escape to the North, and gain
their freedom.
On the next Sabbath evening, I threw the case before my people, and the
first fifty dollars of the sum was raised to restore the old man his
daughters. Subsequently the case was taken up under the management of a
committee of ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, consisting of
the Rev. Gr. Peck, D.D., Rev. E.E. Griswold, and Rev. D. Curry, and the
entire sum of 2,250 dollars, (£450.) was raised for two girls, fourteen
and sixteen years of age!
But why this enormous sum for two mere children? Ah, reader, they were
reared under the mildest form of slavery known to the laws of Maryland!
The mother is an invalid, and allowed to live with her free husband; but
she is a woman of excellent mind, and has bestowed great pains upon her
daughters. If you would know, then, why these girls were held at such a
price, even to their own father, read the following extract of a letter
from one who was actively engaged in behalf of them, and who had several
interviews with the traders to induce them to reduce the price, but
without success. Writing from Washington, D.C., September 12th, 1848, this
gentleman says to William Harned, "The truth is, _and is confessed to be,
that their destination is prostitution_; of this you would be satisfied on
seeing them: they are of elegant form, and fine faces."
And such, dear reader, is the sad fate of hundreds of my young
countrywomen, natives of my native state. Such is the fate of many who are
not only reared under the mildest form of slavery, but of those who have
been made acquainted with the milder system of the Prince of Peace.
When Christians, and Christian ministers, then, talk about the "mildest
form of slavery,"--"Christian masters," &c., I say my feelings are
outraged. It is a great mistake to offer these as an extenuation of the
system. It is calculated to mislead the public mind. The opinion seems to
prevail, that the negro, after having toiled as a slave for centuries to
enrich his white brother, to lay the foundation of his proud institutions,
after having been sunk as low as slavery can sink him, needs now only a
second-rate civilization, a lower standard of civil and religious
privileges than the whites claim for themselves.
During the last year or two, we have heard of nothing but revolutions, and
the enlargements of the eras of freedom, on both sides of the Atlantic.
Our white brethren everywhere are reaching out their hands to grasp more
freedom. In the place of absolute monarchies they have limited monarchies,
and in the place of limited monarchies they have republics: so tenacious
are they of their own liberties.
But when we speak of slavery, and complain of the wrong it is doing us,
and ask to have the yoke removed, we are told, "O, you must not be
impatient, you must not create undue excitement. You are not so badly off,
for many of your masters are kind Christian masters." Yes, sirs, many of
our masters are professed Christians; and what advantage is that to us?
The grey heads of our fathers are brought down by scores to the grave in
sorrow, on account of their young and tender sons, who are sold to the far
South, where they have to toil without requite to supply the world's
market with _cotton, sugar, rice, tobacco, &c_. Our venerable mothers are
borne down with poignant grief at the fate of their children. Our sisters,
if not by the law, are by common consent made the prey of vile men, who
can bid the highest.
In all the bright achievements we have obtained in the great work of
emancipation, if we have not settled the fact that the chattel principle
is wrong, and cannot be maintained upon Christian ground, then we have
wrought and triumphed to little purpose, and we shall have to do our first
work over again.
It is this that has done all the mischief connected with slavery; it is
this that threatens still further mischief. Whatever may be the ill or
favoured condition of the slave in the matter of mere personal treatment,
it is the chattel relation that robs him of his manhood, and transfers his
ownership in himself to another. It is this that transfers the
proprietorship of his wife and children to another. It is this that throws
his family history into utter confusion, and leaves him without a single
record to which he may appeal in vindication of his character, or honour.
And has a man no sense of honour because he was born a slave? Has he no
need of character?
Suppose insult, reproach, or slander, should render it necessary for him
to appeal to the history of his family in vindication of his character,
where will he find that history? He goes to his native state, to his
native county, to his native town; but no where does he find any record of
himself _as a man_. On looking at the family record of his old, kind,
Christian, master, there he finds his name on a catalogue with the horses,
cows, hogs and dogs. However humiliating and degrading it may be to his
feelings to find his name written down among the beasts of the field,
_that_ is just the place, and the _only_ place assigned to it by the
chattel relation. I beg our Anglo-Saxon brethren to accustom themselves to
think that we need something more than mere kindness. We ask for justice,
truth and honour as other men do.
My coloured brethren are now widely awake to the degradation which they
suffer in having property vested in their persons, and they are also
conscious of the deep and corrupting disgrace of having our wives and
children owned by other men--men, who have shown to the world that their
own virtue is not infallible, and who have given us no flattering
encouragement to entrust that of our wives and daughters to them.
I have great pleasure in stating that my dear friend W.W., spoken of in
this narrative, to whom I am so deeply indebted, is still living. I have
been twice to see him within four years, and have regular correspondence
with him. In one of the last letters I had from him, he authorises me to
use his name in connection with this narrative in these words,--"As for
using my name, by reference or otherwise, in thy narrative, it is at thy
service. I know thee so well James, that I am not afraid of thy making a
bad use of it, nor am I afraid or ashamed to have it known that I took
thee in and gave thee aid, when I found thee travelling alone and in
want.--W.W."
On the second page of the same sheet I have a few lines from his excellent
lady, in which she says, "James, I hope thee will not attribute my long
silence in writing to indifference. No such feeling can ever exist towards
thee in our family. Thy name is mentioned almost every day. Each of the
children claims the next letter from thee. It will be for thee to decide
which shall have it.--P.W."
In a postscript following this, W.W. says again:--"Understand me, James,
that thee is at full liberty to use my name in any way thee wishes in thy
narrative. We have a man here from the eastern shore of thy state. He is
trying to learn as fast as thee did when here.--W.W."
I hope the reader will pardon me for introducing these extracts. My only
apology is, the high gratification I feel in knowing that this family has
not only been greatly prospered in health and happiness, but that I am
upon the most intimate and pleasant terms with all its members, and that
they all still feel a deep and cordial interest in my welfare.
There is another distinguished individual whose sympathy has proved very
gratifying to me in my situation--I mean that true friend of the negro,
_Gerrit Smith, Esq._ I was well acquainted with the family in which Mr.
Smith married in Maryland. My attention has been fixed upon him for the
last ten years, for I have felt confident that God had set him apart for
some great good to the negro. In a letter dated Peterborough, November
7th, 1848, he says:--
"J.W.C. PENNINGTON,
"Slight as is my _personal_ acquaintance with you, I nevertheless am
well acquainted with you. I am familiar with many passages in your
history--all that part of your history extending from the time when, a
sturdy blacksmith, you were running away from Maryland oppression, down
to the present, when you are the successor of my lamented friend,
Theodore S. Wright. Let me add that my acquaintance with you has
inspired me with a high regard for your wisdom and integrity."
Give us a few more such men in America, and slavery will soon be
numbered among the things that were. A few men who will not only have
the moral courage to aim the severing blow at the chattel relation
between master and slave, without parley, palliation or compromise; but
who have also the christian fidelity to brave public scorn and
contumely, to seize a coloured man by the hand, and elevate him to the
position from whence the avarice and oppression of the whites have
degraded him. These men have the right view of the subject. They see
that in every case where the relation between master and slave is
broken, slavery is weakened, and that every coloured man elevated,
becomes a step in the ladder upon which his whole people are to ascend.
They would not have us accept of some modified form of liberty, while
the old mischief working chattel relation remains unbroken, untouched
and unabrogated.
J.W.C. PENNINGTON.
_13, Princes Square, London, August 15th_, 1849.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
My birth and parentage--The treatment of Slaves generally in Maryland 1
CHAPTER II.
The flight 14
CHAPTER III.
A dreary night in the woods--Critical situation the next day 31
CHAPTER IV.
The good woman of the toll-gate directs me to W.W.--My cordial reception
by him 40
CHAPTER V.
Seven months' residence in the family of J.K., a member of the Society
of Friends in Chester County, Pennsylvania--Removal to New York--Becomes
a convert to religion--Becomes a teacher 49
CHAPTER VI.
Some account of the family I left in slavery--Proposal to purchase
myself and parents--How met by my old master 58
CHAPTER VII.
The feeding, clothing, and religious instruction of the slaves in the
part of Maryland where I lived 65
APPENDIX 74
THE FUGITIVE BLACKSMITH.
CHAPTER I.
MY BIRTH AND PARENTAGE.--THE TREATMENT OF SLAVES GENERALLY IN MARYLAND.
I was born in the state of Maryland, which is one of the smallest and most
northern of the slave-holding states; the products of this state are
wheat, rye, Indian corn, tobacco, with some hemp, flax, &c. By looking at
the map, it will be seen that Maryland, like Virginia her neighbour, is
divided by the Chesapeake Bay into eastern and western shores. My
birthplace was on the eastern shore, where there are seven or eight small
counties; the farms are small, and tobacco is mostly raised.
At an early period in the history of Maryland, her lands began to be
exhausted by the bad cultivation peculiar to slave states; and hence she
soon commenced the business of breeding slaves for the more southern
states. This has given an enormity to slavery, in Maryland, differing from
that which attaches to the system in Louisiana, and equalled by none of
the kind, except Virginia and Kentucky, and not by either of these in
extent.
My parents did not both belong to the same owner: my father belonged to a
man named ----; my mother belonged to a man named ----. This not only made
me a slave, but made me the slave of him to whom my mother belonged; as
the primary law of slavery is, that the child shall follow the condition
of the mother.
When I was about four years of age, my mother, an older brother and
myself, were given to a son of my master, who had studied for the medical
profession, but who had now married wealthy, and was about to settle as a
wheat planter in Washington County, on the western shore. This began the
first of our family troubles that I knew anything about, as it occasioned
a separation between my mother and the only two children she then had, and
my father, to a distance of about two hundred miles. But this separation
did not continue long; my father being a valuable slave, my master was
glad to purchase him.
About this time, I began to feel another evil of slavery--I mean the want
of parental care and attention. My parents were not able to give any
attention to their children during the day. I often suffered much from
_hunger_ and other similar causes. To estimate the sad state of a slave
child, you must look at it as a helpless human being thrown upon the world
without the benefit of its natural guardians. It is thrown into the world
without a social circle to flee to for hope, shelter, comfort, or
instruction. The social circle, with all its heaven-ordained blessings, is
of the utmost importance to the _tender child_; but of this, the slave
child, however tender and delicate, is robbed.
There is another source of evil to slave children, which I cannot forbear
to mention here, as one which early embittered my life,--I mean the
tyranny of the master's children. My master had two sons, about the ages
and sizes of my older brother and myself. We were not only required to
recognise these young sirs as our young masters, but _they_ felt
themselves to be such; and, in consequence of this feeling, they sought to
treat us with the same air of authority that their father did the older
slaves.
Another evil of slavery that I felt severely about this time, was the
tyranny and abuse of the overseers. These men seem to look with an evil
eye upon children. I was once visiting a menagerie, and being struck with
the fact, that the lion was comparatively indifferent to every one around
his cage, while he eyed with peculiar keenness a little boy I had; the
keeper informed me that such was always the case. Such is true of those
human beings in the slave states, called overseers. They seem to take
pleasure in torturing the children of slaves, long before they are large
enough to be put at the hoe, and consequently under the whip.
We had an overseer, named Blackstone; he was an extremely cruel man to the
working hands. He always carried a long hickory whip, a kind of pole. He
kept three or four of these in order, that he might not at any time be
without one.
I once found one of these hickories lying in the yard, and supposing that
he had thrown it away, I picked it up, and boy-like, was using it for a
horse; he came along from the field, and seeing me with it, fell upon me
with the one he then had in his hand, and flogged me most cruelly. From
that, I lived in constant dread of that man; and he would show how much he
delighted in cruelty by chasing me from my play with threats and
imprecations. I have lain for hours in a wood, or behind a fence, to hide
from his eye.
At this time my days were extremely dreary. When I was nine years of age,
myself and my brother were hired out from home; my brother was placed with
a pump-maker, and I was placed with a stonemason. We were both in a town
some six miles from home. As the men with whom we lived were not
slaveholders, we enjoyed some relief from the peculiar evils of slavery.
Each of us lived in a family where there was no other negro.
The slaveholders in that state often hire the children of their slaves out
to non-slaveholders, not only because they save themselves the expense of
taking care of them, but in this way they get among their slaves useful
trades. They put a bright slave-boy with a tradesman, until he gets such a
knowledge of the trade as to be able to do his own work, and then he takes
him home. I remained with the stonemason until I was eleven years of age:
at this time I was taken home. This was another serious period in my
childhood; I was separated from my older brother, to whom I was much
attached; he continued at his place, and not only learned the trade to
great perfection, but finally became the property of the man with whom he
lived, so that our separation was permanent, as we never lived nearer
after, than six miles. My master owned an excellent blacksmith, who had
obtained his trade in the way I have mentioned above. When I returned home
at the age of eleven, I was set about assisting to do the mason-work of a
new smith's shop. This being done, I was placed at the business, which I
soon learned, so as to be called a "first-rate blacksmith." I continued to
work at this business for nine years, or until I was twenty-one, with the
exception of the last seven months.
In the spring of 1828, my master sold me to a Methodist man, named ----,
for the sum of seven hundred dollars. It soon proved that he had not work
enough to keep me employed as a smith, and he offered me for sale again.
On hearing of this, my old master re-purchased me, and proposed to me to
undertake the carpentering business. I had been working at this trade six
months with a white workman, who was building a large barn when I left. I
will now relate the abuses which occasioned me to fly.
Three or four of our farm hands had their wives and families on other
plantations. In such cases, it is the custom in Maryland to allow the men
to go on Saturday evening to see their families, stay over the Sabbath,
and return on Monday morning, not later than "half-an-hour by sun." To
overstay their time is a grave fault, for which, especially at busy
seasons, they are punished.
One Monday morning, two of these men had not been so fortunate as to get
home at the required time: one of them was an uncle of mine. Besides
these, two young men who had no families, and for whom no such provision
of time was made, having gone somewhere to spend the Sabbath, were absent.
My master was greatly irritated, and had resolved to have, as he said, "a
general whipping-match among them."
Preparatory to this, he had a rope in his pocket, and a cowhide in his
hand, walking about the premises, and speaking to every one he met in a
very insolent manner, and finding fault with some without just cause. My
father, among other numerous and responsible duties, discharged that of
shepherd to a large and valuable flock of Merino sheep. This morning he
was engaged in the tenderest of a shepherd's duties;--a little lamb, not
able to go alone, lost its mother; he was feeding it by hand. He had been
keeping it in the house for several days. As he stooped over it in the
yard, with a vessel of new milk he had obtained, with which to feed it, my
master came along, and without the least provocation, began by asking,
"Bazil, have you fed the flock?"
"Yes, sir."
"Were you away yesterday?"
"No, sir."
"Do you know why these boys have not got home this morning yet?"
"No, sir, I have not seen any of them since Saturday night."
"By the Eternal, I'll make them know their hour. The fact is, I have too
many of you; my people are getting to be the most careless, lazy, and
worthless in the country."
"Master," said my father, "I am always at my post; Monday morning never
finds me off the plantation."
"Hush, Bazil! I shall have to sell some of you; and then the rest will
have enough to do; I have not work enough to keep you all tightly
employed; I have too many of you."
All this was said in an angry, threatening, and exceedingly insulting
tone. My father was a high-spirited man, and feeling deeply the insult,
replied to the last expression,--"If I am one too many, sir, give me a
chance to get a purchaser, and I am willing to be sold when it may suit
you."
"Bazil, I told you to hush!" and suiting the action to the word, he drew
forth the "cowhide" from under his arm, fell upon him with most savage
cruelty, and inflicted fifteen or twenty severe stripes with all his
strength, over his shoulders and the small of his back. As he raised
himself upon his toes, and gave the last stripe, he said, "By the * * * I
will make you know that I am master of your tongue as well as of your
time!"
Being a tradesman, and just at that time getting my breakfast, I was near
enough to hear the insolent words that were spoken to my father, and to
hear, see, and even count the savage stripes inflicted upon him.
Let me ask any one of Anglo-Saxon blood and spirit, how would you expect a
_son_ to feel at such a sight?
This act created an open rupture with our family--each member felt the
deep insult that had been inflicted upon our head; the spirit of the whole
family was roused; we talked of it in our nightly gatherings, and showed
it in our daily melancholy aspect. The oppressor saw this, and with the
heartlessness that was in perfect keeping with the first insult, commenced
a series of tauntings, threatenings, and insinuations, with a view to
crush the spirit of the whole family.
Although it was sometime after this event before I took the decisive step,
yet in my mind and spirit, I never was a _Slave_ after it.
Whenever I thought of the great contrast between my father's employment on
that memorable Monday morning, (feeding the little lamb,) and the
barbarous conduct of my master, I could not help cordially despising the
proud abuser of my sire; and I believe he discovered it, for he seemed to
have diligently sought an occasion against me. Many incidents occurred to
convince me of this, too tedious to mention; but there is one I will
mention, because it will serve to show the state of feeling that existed
between us, and how it served to widen the already open breach.
I was one day shoeing a horse in the shop yard. I had been stooping for
some time under the weight of the horse, which was large, and was very
tired; meanwhile, my master had taken his position on a little hill just
in front of me, and stood leaning back on his cane, with his hat drawn
ever his eyes. I put down the horse's foot, and straightened myself up to
rest a moment, and without knowing that he was there, my eye caught his.
This threw him into a panic of rage; he would have it that I was watching
him. "What are you rolling your white eyes at me for, you lazy rascal?" He
came down upon me with his cane, and laid on over my shoulders, arms, and
legs, about a dozen severe blows, so that my limbs and flesh were sore for
several weeks; and then after several other offensive epithets, left me.
This affair my mother saw from her cottage, which was near; I being one of
the oldest sons of my parents, our family was now mortified to the lowest
degree. I had always aimed to be trustworthy; and feeling a high degree of
mechanical pride, I had aimed to do my work with dispatch and skill, my
blacksmith's pride and taste was one thing that had reconciled me so long
to remain a slave. I sought to distinguish myself in the finer branches of
the business by invention and finish; I frequently tried my hand at making
guns and pistols, putting blades in penknives, making fancy hammers,
hatchets, sword-canes, &c., &c. Besides I used to assist my father at
night in making straw-hats and willow-baskets, by which means we supplied
our family with little articles of food, clothing and luxury, which slaves
in the mildest form of the system never get from the master; but after
this, I found that my mechanic's pleasure and pride were gone. I thought
of nothing but the family disgrace under which we were smarting, and how
to get out of it.
Perhaps I may as well extend this note a little. The reader will observe
that I have not said much about my master's cruel treatment; I have aimed
rather to shew the cruelties incident to the system. I have no disposition
to attempt to convict him of having been one of the most cruel
masters--that would not be true--his prevailing temper was kind, but he
was a perpetualist. He was opposed to emancipation; thought free negroes a
great nuisance, and was, as respects discipline, a thorough slaveholder.
He would not tolerate a look or a word from a slave like insubordination.
He would suppress it at once, and at any risk. When he thought it
necessary to secure unqualified obedience, he would strike a slave with
any weapon, flog him on the bare back, and sell. And this was the kind of
discipline he also empowered his overseers and sons to use.
I have seen children go from our plantations to join the chained-gang on
its way from Washington to Louisiana; and I have seen men and women
flogged--I have seen the overseers strike a man with a hay-fork--nay more,
men have been maimed by shooting! Some dispute arose one morning between
the overseer and one of the farm hands, when the former made at the slave
with a hickory club; the slave taking to his heels, started for the woods;
as he was crossing the yard, the overseer turned, snatched his gun which
was near, and fired at the flying slave, lodging several shots in the
calf of one leg. The poor fellow continued his flight, and got into the
woods; but he was in so much pain that he was compelled to come out in the
evening, and give himself up to his master, thinking he would not allow
him to be punished as he had been shot. He was locked up that night; the
next morning the overseer was allowed to tie him up and flog him; his
master then took his instruments and picked the shot out of his leg, and
told him, it served him just right.
My master had a deeply pious and exemplary slave, an elderly man, who one
day had a misunderstanding with the overseer, when the latter attempted to
flog him. He fled to the woods; it was noon; at evening he came home
orderly. The next morning, my master, taking one of his sons with him, a
rope and cowhide in his hand, led the poor old man away into the stable;
tied him up, and ordered the son to lay on thirty-nine lashes, which he
did, making the keen end of the cowhide lap around and strike him in the
tenderest part of his side, till the blood sped out, as if a lance had
been used.
While my master's son was thus engaged, the sufferer's little daughter, a
child six years of age, stood at the door, weeping in agony for the fate
of her father. I heard the old man articulating in a low tone of voice; I
listened at the intervals between the stripes, and lo! he was praying!
When the last lash was laid on, he was let down; and leaving him to put on
his clothes, they passed out of the door, and drove the man's weeping
child away! I was mending a hinge to one of the barn doors; I saw and
heard what I have stated. Six months after, this same man's eldest
daughter, a girl fifteen years old, was sold to slave-traders, where he
never saw her more.
This poor slave and his wife were both Methodists, so was the wife of the
young master who flogged him. My old master was an Episcopalian.
These are only a few of the instances which came under my own notice
during my childhood and youth on our plantations; as to those which
occurred on other plantations in the neighbourhood, I could state any
number.
I have stated that my master was watching the movements of our family very
closely. Sometime after the difficulties began, we found that he also had
a confidential slave assisting him in the business. This wretched fellow,
who was nearly white, and of Irish descent, informed our master of the
movements of each member of the family by day and by night, and on
Sundays. This stirred the spirit of my mother, who spoke to our
fellow-slave, and told him he ought to be ashamed to be engaged in such
low business.
Master hearing of this, called my father, mother, and myself before him,
and accused us of an attempt to resist and intimidate his "confidential
servant." Finding that only my mother had spoken to him, he swore that if
she ever spoke another word to him, he would flog her.
I knew my mother's spirit and my master's temper as well. Our social state
was now perfectly intolerable. We were on the eve of a general fracas.
This last scene occurred on Tuesday; and on Saturday evening following,
without counsel or advice from any one, I determined to fly.