I was soon after taken from Mr. Colburn’s, and hired to Elijah P.
Lovejoy, who was at that time publisher and editor of the “St. Louis
Times.” My work, while with him, was mainly in the printing office,
waiting on the hands, working the press, &c. Mr. Lovejoy was a very good
man, and decidedly the best master that I had ever had. I am chiefly
indebted to him, and to my employment in the printing office, for what
little learning I obtained while in slavery.
Though slavery is thought, by some, to be mild in Missouri, when
compared with the cotton, sugar and rice growing states, yet no part
of our slaveholding country is more noted for the barbarity of its
inhabitants than St Louis. It was here that Col. Harney, a United
States officer, whipped a slave woman to death. It was here that
Francis McIntosh, a free colored man from Pittsburg, was taken from the
steamboat Flora and burned at the stake. During a residence of eight
years in this city, numerous cases of extreme cruelty came under my
own observation;--to record them all would occupy more space than could
possibly be allowed in this little volume. I shall, therefore, give but
a few more in addition to what I have already related.
Capt. J. B. Brant, who resided near my master, had a slave named John.
He was his body servant, carriage driver, &c. On one occasion, while
driving his master through the city--the streets being very muddy, and
the horses going at a rapid rate--some mud spattered upon a gentleman by
the name of Robert More. More was determined to be revenged. Some three
or four months after this occurrence, he purchased John, for the express
purpose, as he said, “to tame the d------d nigger.”
After the purchase he took him to a blacksmith’s shop, and had a ball
and chain fastened to his leg, and then put him to driving a yoke of
oxen, and kept him at hard labor, until the iron around his leg was so
worn into the flesh, that it was thought mortification would ensue. In
addition to this, John told me that his master whipped him regularly
three times a week for the first two months:--and all this to “_tame
him_” more noblelooking man than he was not to be found in all St.
Louis, before he fell into the hands of More; and a more degraded and
spirit-crushed looking being was never seen on a southern plantation,
after he had been subjected to this “_taming_” process for three months.
The last time that I saw him, he had nearly lost the entire use of his
limbs.
While living with Mr. Lovejoy, I was often sent on errands to the office
of the “Missouri Republican,” published by Mr. Edward Charless. Once,
while returning to the office with type, I was attacked by several large
boys, sons of slave-holders, who pelted me with snow-balls. Having the
heavy form of type in my hands, I could not make my escape by running;
so I laid down the type and gave them battle. They gathered around me,
pelting me with stones and sticks, until they overpowered me, and would
have captured me, if I had not resorted to my heels. Upon my retreat
they took possession of the type; and what to do to regain it I could
not devise. Knowing Mr. Lovejoy to be a very humane man, I went to the
office and laid the case before him. He told me to remain in the office.
He took one of the apprentices with him and went after the type,
and soon returned with it; but on his return informed me that Samuel
McKinney had told him he would whip me, because I had hurt his boy.
Soon after, McKinney was seen making his way to the office by one of the
printers, who informed me of the fact, and I made my escape through the
back door.
McKinney not being able to find me on his arrival, left the office in a
great rage, swearing that he would whip me to death. A few days after,
as I was walking along Main street, he seized me by the collar, and
struck me over the head five or six times with a large cane, which
caused the blood to gush from my nose and ears in such a manner that my
clothes were completely saturated with blood. After beating me to his
satisfaction he let me go, and I returned to the office so weak from the
loss of blood that Mr. Lovejoy sent me home to my master. It was five
weeks before I was able to walk again. During this time it was necessary
to have some one to supply my place at the office, and I lost the
situation.
After my recovery, I was hired to Capt. Otis Reynolds, as a waiter on
board the steamboat Enterprise, owned by Messrs. John and Edward Walsh,
commission merchants at St. Louis. This boat was then running on the
upper Mississippi.
My employment on board was to wait on gentlemen, and the captain being
a good man, the situation was a pleasant one to me;--but in passing from
place to place, and seeing new faces every day, and knowing that they
could go where they pleased, I soon became unhappy, and several times
thought of leaving the boat at some landing-place, and trying to make
my escape to Canada, which I had heard much about as a place where the
slave might live, be free, and be protected.
But whenever such thoughts would come into my mind, my resolution would
soon be shaken by the remembrance that my dear mother was a slave in St.
Louis, and I could not bear the idea of leaving her in that condition.
She had often taken me upon her knee, and told me how she had carried me
upon her back to the field when I was an infant--how often she had been
whipped for leaving her work to nurse me--and how happy I would appear
when she would take me into her arms. When these thoughts came over me,
I would resolve never to leave the land of slavery without my mother.
I thought that to leave her in slavery, after she had undergone and
suffered so much for me, would be proving recreant to the duty which I
owed to her. Besides this, I had three brothers and a sister there--two
of my brothers having died.
My mother, my brothers Joseph and Millford, and my sister Elizabeth,
belonged to Mr. Isaac Mansfield, formerly from one of the free states,
(Massachusetts, I believe.) He was a tinner by trade, and carried on
a large manufacturing establishment. Of all my relatives, mother was
first, and sister next. One evening, while visiting them, I made some
allusion to a proposed journey to Canada, and sister took her seat by my
side, and taking my hand in hers, said, with tears in her eyes--
“Brother, you are not going to leave mother and your dear sister here
without a friend, are you?”
I looked into her face, as the tears coursed swiftly down her cheeks,
and bursting into tears myself, said--
“No, I will never desert you and mother!”
She clasped my hand in hers, and said--
“Brother, you have often declared that you would not end your days in
slavery. I see no possible way in which you can escape with us; and now,
brother, you are on a steamboat where there is some chance for you to
escape to a land of liberty. I beseech you not to let us hinder you. If
we cannot get our liberty, we do not wish to be the means of keeping you
from a land of freedom.”
I could restrain my feelings no longer, and an outburst of my own
feelings caused her to cease speaking upon that subject. In opposition
to their wishes, I pledged myself not to leave them in the hand of the
oppressor. I took leave of them, and returned to the boat, and laid down
in my bunk; but “sleep departed from mine eyes, and slumber from mine
eyelids.”
A few weeks after, on our downward passage, the boat took on board,
at Hannibal, a drove of slaves, bound for the New Orleans market. They
numbered from fifty to sixty, consisting of men and women from eighteen
to forty years of age. A drove of slaves on a southern steamboat, bound
for the cotton or sugar regions, is an occurrence so common, that no
one, not even the passengers, appear to notice it, though they clank
their chains at every step. There was, however, one in this gang that
attracted the attention of the passengers and crew. It was a beautiful
girl, apparently about twenty years of age, perfectly white, with
straight light hair and blue eyes. But it was not the whiteness of her
skin that created such a sensation among those who gazed upon her--it
was her almost unparalleled beauty. She had been on the boat but a short
time before the attention of all the passengers, including the ladies,
had been called to her, and the common topic of conversation was about
the beautiful slave-girl. She was not in chains. The man who claimed
this article of human merchandise was a Mr. Walker--a well known
slave-trader, residing in St. Louis. There was a general anxiety among
the passengers and crew to learn the history of the girl. Her master
kept close by her side, and it would have been considered impudent
for any of the passengers to have spoken to her, and the crew were not
allowed to have any conversation with them. When we reached St. Louis,
the slaves were removed to a boat bound for New Orleans, and the history
of the beautiful slave-girl remained a mystery.
I remained on the boat during the season, and it was not an unfrequent
occurrence to have on board gangs of slaves on their way to the cotton,
sugar and rice plantations of the south.
Toward the latter part of the summer Captain Reynolds left the boat, and
I was sent home. I was then placed on the farm, under Mr. Haskell, the
overseer. As I had been some time out of the field, and not accustomed
to work in the burning sun, it was very hard; but I was compelled to
keep up with the best of the hands.
I found a great difference between the work in a steamboat cabin and
that in a corn-field.
My master, who was then living in the city, soon after removed to
the farm, when I was taken out of the field to work in the house as a
waiter. Though his wife was very peevish, and hard to please, I much
preferred to be under her control than the overseer’s. They brought with
them Mr. Sloane, a Presbyterian minister; Miss Martha Tulley, a niece of
theirs from Kentucky; and their nephew William. The latter had been in
the family a number of years, but the others were all newcomers.
Mr. Sloane was a young minister, who had been at the South but a short
time, and it seemed as if his whole aim was to please the slaveholders,
especially my master and mistress. He was intending to make a visit
during the winter, and he not only tried to please them, but I think he
succeeded admirably. When they wanted singing, he sung; when they wanted
praying, he prayed; when they wanted a story told, he told a story.
Instead of his teaching my master theology, my master taught theology to
him. While I was with Captain Reynolds my master “got religion,” and
new laws were made on the plantation. Formerly we had the privilege of
hunting, fishing, making splint brooms, baskets, &c., on Sunday; but
this was all stopped. Every Sunday we were all compelled to attend
meeting. Master was so religious that he induced some others to join him
in hiring a preacher to preach to the slaves.