A FREE WOMAN REDUCED TO SLAVERY
ALTHESA found in Henry Morton a kind and affectionate husband;
and his efforts to purchase her mother, although unsuccessful,
had doubly endeared him to her. Having from the commencement
resolved not to hold slaves, or rather not to own any, they were
compelled to hire servants for their own use. Five years had
passed away, and their happiness was increased by two lovely
daughters. Mrs. Morton was seated, one bright afternoon, busily
engaged with her needle, and near her sat Salome, a servant that
she had just taken into her employ. The woman was perfectly
white; so much so, that Mrs. Morton had expressed her
apprehensions to her husband, when the woman first came, that she
was not born a slave. The mistress watched the servant, as the
latter sat sewing upon some coarse work, and saw the large silent
tear in her eye. This caused an uneasiness to the mistress, and
she said, "Salome, don't you like your situation here?" "Oh yes,
madam," answered the woman in a quick tone, and then tried to
force a smile. "Why is it that you often look sad, and with tears
in your eyes?" The mistress saw that she had touched a tender
chord, and continued, "I am your friend; tell me your sorrow,
and, if I can, I will help you." As the last sentence was
escaping the lips of the mistress, the slave woman put her check
apron to her face and wept. Mrs. Morton saw plainly that there
was cause for this expression of grief, and pressed the woman
more closely. "Hear me, then," said the woman calming herself:
"I will tell you why I sometimes weep. I was born in Germany, on
the banks of the Rhine. Ten years ago my father came to this
country, bringing with him my mother and myself. He was poor, and
I, wishing to assist all I could, obtained a situation as nurse
to a lady in this city. My father got employment as a labourer on
the wharf, among the steamboats; but he was soon taken ill with
the yellow fever, and died. My mother then got a situation for
herself, while I remained with my first employer. When the hot
season came on, my master, with his wife, left New Orleans until
the hot season was over, and took me with them. They stopped at a
town on the banks of the Mississippi river, and said they should
remain there some weeks. One day they went out for a ride, and
they had not been one more than half an hour, when two men came
into the room and told me that they had bought me, and that I was
their slave. I was bound and taken to prison, and that night put
on a steamboat and taken up the Yazoo river, and set to work on a
farm. I was forced to take up with a Negro, and by him had three
children. A year since my master's daughter was married, and I
was given to her. She came with her husband to this city, and I
have ever since been hired out."
"Unhappy woman," whispered Althesa, "why did you not tell me this
before?" "I was afraid," replied Salome, "for I was once severely
flogged for telling a stranger that I was not born a slave." On
Mr. Morton's return home, his wife communicated to him the story
which the slave woman had told her an hour before, and begged
that something might be done to rescue her from the situation she
was then in. In Louisiana as well as many others of the slave
states, great obstacles are thrown in the way of persons who have
been wrongfully reduced to slavery regaining their freedom. A
person claiming to be free must prove his right to his liberty.
This, it will be seen, throws the burden of proof upon the slave,
who, in all probability, finds it out of his power to procure
such evidence. And if any free person shall attempt to aid a
freeman in re-gaining his freedom, he is compelled to enter into
security in the sum of one thousand dollars, and if the person
claiming to be free shall fail to establish such fact, the
thousand dollars are forfeited to the state. This cruel and
oppressive law has kept many a freeman from espousing the cause
of persons unjustly held as slaves. Mr. Morton inquired and found
that the woman's story was true, as regarded the time she had
lived with her present owner; but the latter not only denied that
she was free, but immediately removed her from Morton's. Three
months after Salome had been removed from Morton's and let out to
another family, she was one morning cleaning the door steps, when
a lady passing by, looked at the slave and thought she recognised
some one that she had seen before. The lady stopped and asked the
woman if she was a slave. "I am," said she. "Were you born a
slave?" "No, I was born in Germany." "What's the name of the ship
in which you came to this country?" inquired the lady. "I don't
know," was the answer. "Was it the Amazon?" At the sound of
this name, the slave woman was silent for a moment, and then the
tears began to flow freely down her careworn cheeks. "Would you
know Mrs. Marshall, who was a passenger in the Amazon, if you
should see her?" inquired the lady. At this the woman gazed at
the lady with a degree of intensity that can be imagined better
than described, and then fell at the lady's feet. The lady was
Mrs. Marshall. She had crossed the Atlantic in the same ship with
this poor woman. Salome, like many of her countrymen, was a
beautiful singer, and had often entertained Mrs. Marshall and the
other lady passengers on board the Amazon. The poor woman was
raised from the ground by Mrs. Marshall, and placed upon the door
step that she had a moment before been cleaning. "I will do my
utmost to rescue you from the horrid life of a slave," exclaimed
the lady, as she took from her pocket her pencil, and wrote down
the number of the house, and the street in which the German woman
was working as a slave.
After a long and tedious trial of many days, it was decided that
Salome Miller was by birth a free woman, and she was set at
liberty. The good and generous Althesa had contributed some of
the money toward bringing about the trial, and had done much to
cheer on Mrs. Marshall in her benevolent object. Salome Miller
is free, but where are her three children? They are still slaves,
and in all human probability will die as such.
This, reader, is no fiction; if you think so, look over the files
of the New Orleans newspapers of the years 1845-6, and you will
there see reports of the trial.