Mrs. Flint proclaimed her intention of informing Mrs. Sands who was the
father of my children. She likewise proposed to tell her what an artful
devil I was; that I had made a great deal of trouble in her family;
that when Mr. Sands was at the north, she didn’t doubt I had followed
him in disguise, and persuaded William to run away. She had some reason
to entertain such an idea; for I had written from the north, from time
to time, and I dated my letters from various places. Many of them fell
into Dr. Flint’s hands, as I expected they would; and he must have
come to the conclusion that I travelled about a good deal. He kept a
close watch over my children, thinking they would eventually lead to my
detection.
A new and unexpected trial was in store for me. One day, when Mr. Sands
and his wife were walking in the street, they met Benny. The lady took
a fancy to him, and exclaimed, “What a pretty little negro! Whom does
he belong to?”
Benny did not hear the answer; but he came home very indignant with
the stranger lady, because she had called him a negro. A few days
afterwards, Mr. Sands called on my grandmother, and told her he wanted
her to take the children to his house. He said he had informed his wife
of his relation to them, and told her they were motherless; and she
wanted to see them.
When he had gone, my grandmother came and asked what I would do. The
question seemed a mockery. What _could_ I do? They were Mr. Sands’s
slaves, and their mother was a slave, whom he had represented to be
dead. Perhaps he thought I was. I was too much pained and puzzled
to come to any decision; and the children were carried without my
knowledge. Mrs. Sands had a sister from Illinois staying with her.
This lady, who had no children of her own, was so much pleased with
Ellen, that she offered to adopt her, and bring her up as she would
a daughter. Mrs. Sands wanted to take Benjamin. When grandmother
reported this to me, I was tried almost beyond endurance. Was this
all I was to gain by what I had suffered for the sake of having my
children free? True, the prospect _seemed_ fair; but I knew too well
how lightly slaveholders held such “parental relations.” If pecuniary
troubles should come, or if the new wife required more money than could
conveniently be spared, my children might be thought of as a convenient
means of raising funds. I had no trust in thee, O Slavery! Never should
I know peace till my children were emancipated with all due formalities
of law.
I was too proud to ask Mr. Sands to do any thing for my own benefit;
but I could bring myself to become a supplicant for my children. I
resolved to remind him of the promise he had made me, and to throw
myself upon his honor for the performance of it. I persuaded my
grandmother to go to him, and tell him I was not dead, and that I
earnestly entreated him to keep the promise he had made me; that I had
heard of the recent proposals concerning my children, and did not feel
easy to accept them; that he had promised to emancipate them, and it
was time for him to redeem his pledge. I knew there was some risk in
thus betraying that I was in the vicinity; but what will not a mother
do for her children? He received the message with surprise, and said,
“The children are free. I have never intended to claim them as slaves.
Linda may decide their fate. In my opinion, they had better be sent to
the north. I don’t think they are quite safe here. Dr. Flint boasts
that they are still in his power. He says they were his daughter’s
property, and as she was not of age when they were sold, the contract
is not legally binding.”
So, then, after all I had endured for their sakes, my poor children
were between two fires; between my old master and their new master!
And I was powerless. There was no protecting arm of the law for me to
invoke. Mr. Sands proposed that Ellen should go, for the present, to
some of his relatives, who had removed to Brooklyn, Long Island. It was
promised that she should be well taken care of, and sent to school.
I consented to it, as the best arrangement I could make for her. My
grandmother, of course, negotiated it all; and Mrs. Sands knew of no
other person in the transaction. She proposed that they should take
Ellen with them to Washington, and keep her till they had a good chance
of sending her, with friends, to Brooklyn. She had an infant daughter.
I had had a glimpse of it, as the nurse passed with it in her arms. It
was not a pleasant thought to me, that the bondwoman’s child should
tend her free-born sister; but there was no alternative. Ellen was made
ready for the journey. O, how it tried my heart to send her away, so
young, alone, among strangers! Without a mother’s love to shelter her
from the storms of life; almost without memory of a mother! I doubted
whether she and Benny would have for me the natural affection that
children feel for a parent. I thought to myself that I might perhaps
never see my daughter again, and I had a great desire that she should
look upon me, before she went, that she might take my image with her in
her memory. It seemed to me cruel to have her brought to my dungeon.
It was sorrow enough for her young heart to know that her mother was a
victim of slavery, without seeing the wretched hiding-place to which
it had driven her. I begged permission to pass the last night in one
of the open chambers, with my little girl. They thought I was crazy to
think of trusting such a young child with my perilous secret. I told
them I had watched her character, and I felt sure she would not betray
me; that I was determined to have an interview, and if they would not
facilitate it, I would take my own way to obtain it. They remonstrated
against the rashness of such a proceeding; but finding they could not
change my purpose, they yielded. I slipped through the trap-door into
the storeroom, and my uncle kept watch at the gate, while I passed into
the piazza and went up stairs, to the room I used to occupy. It was
more than five years since I had seen it; and how the memories crowded
on me! There I had taken shelter when my mistress drove me from her
house; there came my old tyrant, to mock, insult, and curse me; there
my children were first laid in my arms; there I had watched over them,
each day with a deeper and sadder love; there I had knelt to God, in
anguish of heart, to forgive the wrong I had done. How vividly it all
came back! And after this long, gloomy interval, I stood there such a
wreck!
In the midst of these meditations, I heard footsteps on the stairs.
The door opened, and my uncle Phillip came in, leading Ellen by the
hand. I put my arms round her, and said, “Ellen, my dear child, I am
your mother.” She drew back a little, and looked at me; then, with
sweet confidence, she laid her cheek against mine, and I folded her to
the heart that had been so long desolated. She was the first to speak.
Raising her head, she said, inquiringly, “You really _are_ my mother?”
I told her I really was; that during all the long time she had not seen
me, I had loved her most tenderly; and that now she was going away, I
wanted to see her and talk with her, that she might remember me. With
a sob in her voice, she said, “I’m glad you’ve come to see me; but why
didn’t you ever come before? Benny and I have wanted so much to see
you! He remembers you, and sometimes he tells me about you. Why didn’t
you come home when Dr. Flint went to bring you?”
I answered, “I couldn’t come before, dear. But now that I am with you,
tell me whether you like to go away.” “I don’t know,” said she, crying.
“Grandmother says I ought not to cry; that I am going to a good place,
where I can learn to read and write, and that by and by I can write her
a letter. But I shan’t have Benny, or grandmother, or uncle Phillip, or
any body to love me. Can’t you go with me? O, _do_ go, dear mother!”
I told her I couldn’t go now; but sometime I would come to her, and
then she and Benny and I would live together, and have happy times. She
wanted to run and bring Benny to see me now. I told her he was going
to the north, before long, with uncle Phillip, and then I would come
to see him before he went away. I asked if she would like to have me
stay all night and sleep with her. “O, yes,” she replied. Then, turning
to her uncle, she said, pleadingly, “_May_ I stay? Please, uncle! She
is my own mother.” He laid his hand on her head, and said, solemnly,
“Ellen, this is the secret you have promised grandmother never to
tell. If you ever speak of it to any body, they will never let you see
your grandmother again, and your mother can never come to Brooklyn.”
“Uncle,” she replied, “I will never tell.” He told her she might stay
with me; and when he had gone, I took her in my arms and told her I was
a slave, and that was the reason she must never say she had seen me.
I exhorted her to be a good child, to try to please the people where
she was going, and that God would raise her up friends. I told her to
say her prayers, and remember always to pray for her poor mother, and
that God would permit us to meet again. She wept, and I did not check
her tears. Perhaps she would never again have a chance to pour her
tears into a mother’s bosom. All night she nestled in my arms, and I
had no inclination to slumber. The moments were too precious to lose
any of them. Once, when I thought she was asleep, I kissed her forehead
softly, and she said, “I am not asleep, dear mother.”
Before dawn they came to take me back to my den. I drew aside the
window curtain, to take a last look of my child. The moonlight shone
on her face, and I bent over her, as I had done years before, that
wretched night when I ran away. I hugged her close to my throbbing
heart; and tears, too sad for such young eyes to shed, flowed down her
cheeks, as she gave her last kiss, and whispered in my ear, “Mother, I
will never tell.” And she never did.
When I got back to my den, I threw myself on the bed and wept there
alone in the darkness. It seemed as if my heart would burst. When
the time for Ellen’s departure drew nigh, I could hear neighbors and
friends saying to her, “Good by, Ellen. I hope your poor mother will
find you out. _Won’t_ you be glad to see her!” She replied, “Yes,
ma’am;” and they little dreamed of the weighty secret that weighed
down her young heart. She was an affectionate child, but naturally
very reserved, except with those she loved, and I felt secure that my
secret would be safe with her. I heard the gate close after her, with
such feelings as only a slave mother can experience. During the day my
meditations were very sad. Sometimes I feared I had been very selfish
not to give up all claim to her, and let her go to Illinois, to be
adopted by Mrs. Sands’s sister. It was my experience of slavery that
decided me against it. I feared that circumstances might arise that
would cause her to be sent back. I felt confident that I should go to
New York myself; and then I should be able to watch over her, and in
some degree protect her.
Dr. Flint’s family knew nothing of the proposed arrangement till after
Ellen was gone, and the news displeased them greatly. Mrs. Flint called
on Mrs. Sands’s sister to inquire into the matter. She expressed her
opinion very freely as to the respect Mr. Sands showed for his wife,
and for his own character, in acknowledging those “young niggers.”
And as for sending Ellen away, she pronounced it to be just as much
stealing as it would be for him to come and take a piece of furniture
out of her parlor. She said her daughter was not of age to sign the
bill of sale, and the children were her property; and when she became
of age, or was married, she could take them, wherever she could lay
hands on them.
Miss Emily Flint, the little girl to whom I had been bequeathed, was
now in her sixteenth year. Her mother considered it all right and
honorable for her, or her future husband, to steal my children; but
she did not understand how any body could hold up their heads in
respectable society, after they had purchased their own children, as
Mr. Sands had done. Dr. Flint said very little. Perhaps he thought that
Benny would be less likely to be sent away if he kept quiet. One of my
letters, that fell into his hands, was dated from Canada; and he seldom
spoke of me now. This state of things enabled me to slip down into the
storeroom more frequently, where I could stand upright, and move my
limbs more freely.
Days, weeks, and months passed, and there came no news of Ellen. I sent
a letter to Brooklyn, written in my grandmother’s name, to inquire
whether she had arrived there. Answer was returned that she had not. I
wrote to her in Washington; but no notice was taken of it. There was
one person there, who ought to have had some sympathy with the anxiety
of the child’s friends at home; but the links of such relations as he
had formed with me, are easily broken and cast away as rubbish. Yet
how protectingly and persuasively he once talked to the poor, helpless
slave girl! And how entirely I trusted him! But now suspicions darkened
my mind. Was my child dead, or had they deceived me, and sold her?
If the secret memoirs of many members of Congress should be published,
curious details would be unfolded. I once saw a letter from a member
of Congress to a slave, who was the mother of six of his children. He
wrote to request that she would send her children away from the great
house before his return, as he expected to be accompanied by friends.
The woman could not read, and was obliged to employ another to read
the letter. The existence of the colored children did not trouble this
gentleman, it was only the fear that friends might recognize in their
features a resemblance to him.
At the end of six months, a letter came to my grandmother, from
Brooklyn. It was written by a young lady in the family, and announced
that Ellen had just arrived. It contained the following message from
her: “I do try to do just as you told me to, and I pray for you every
night and morning.” I understood that these words were meant for me;
and they were a balsam to my heart. The writer closed her letter by
saying, “Ellen is a nice little girl, and we shall like to have her
with us. My cousin, Mr. Sands, has given her to me, to be my little
waiting maid. I shall send her to school, and I hope some day she
will write to you herself.” This letter perplexed and troubled me.
Had my child’s father merely placed her there till she was old enough
to support herself? Or had he given her to his cousin, as a piece of
property? If the last idea was correct, his cousin might return to
the south at any time, and hold Ellen as a slave. I tried to put away
from me the painful thought that such a foul wrong could have been
done to us. I said to myself, “Surely there must be _some_ justice in
man;” then I remembered, with a sigh, how slavery perverted all the
natural feelings of the human heart. It gave me a pang to look on my
light-hearted boy. He believed himself free; and to have him brought
under the yoke of slavery, would be more than I could bear. How I
longed to have him safely out of the reach of its power!