Peter emancipated by his old Master’s Will—but is stolen and sold at
auction, and bid off by GIDEON MOREHOUSE ☜—Hagar tries to buy her
brother back—parting scene—his reception at his new Master’s—sudden
change in fortune—Master’s cruelty—the Muskrat skins—prepare to go
into “the new countries”—start on the journey—“incidents of travel” on
the road—Mr. Sterling, who is a sterling-good man, tries to buy
Peter—gives him a pocket full of “Bungtown coppers”—abuse—story of the
Blue Mountain—Oswego—Mr. Cooper, an Abolitionist—journey’s end—Cayuga
county, New York.
_Author._ “Well, Peter, I’ve come up to your house this morning, to
write another chapter in the book; and you can go on with your boots
while I write, and so we’ll kill two birds with one stone.”
_Peter._ “Well, I felt distressedly when mistress died, and I cried, and
mourned, and wept, night and day. I was now in my eleventh year. While
she lived I worked in the house, but, as soon as she died, I was put
into the field; and so, on her death, I entered into what I call the
field of trouble; and now my story will show ye what stuff men and women
is made of.
“My master didn’t _own_ me, for I was made free by my old master’s
_will_, who died when I was _little_; and, in his will, he liberated my
mother, who had always been a slave and all her posterity; so that as
soon as old master died, I _was free by law—but pity me if slavery folks
regard law that ever I see_: ☜ for slavery is a tramplin’ on all laws.
Well, arter mother was free, she got a comfortable livin’ till her
death. In that will I was set free, but I lived with master till after
mistress’ death, and then I was _stole_, and in this way. Master got
uneasy and thought he could do better than to stay in that country, and
so he advertised his plantation for sale. It run somethin’ like this, on
the notice he writ:
‘FOR SALE,
‘A plantation well stocked with oxen, horses, sheep, hogs,
fowls, &c.—and ☞ one young, smart nigger, sound every way. ☜’
“You see they put me on the stock-list!! Well, when the day came that I
was to be sold, oh! how I felt! I knew it warn’t _right_, but what could
_I_ do? _I was a black boy._ They sold one thing, and then another, and
bim’bye they made me mount a table, and then the auctioneer cries out:—
‘Here’s a smart, active, sound, well trained, young nigger—he’s a first
rate body servant, good cook, and all that; now give us a _bid_:’ and
one man bid $50, and another $60; and so they went on. Sister Hagar, she
was four years older than me, come up and got on to the table with me,
(they dassent sell her,) and she began to cry, and sob, and pity me, and
says she, ‘oh Peter, you ain’t agoin’ way off, be ye, ‘mong the wild
Ingens at the west, be ye?’ You see there was some talk, that a man
would buy me, who was a goin’ out into York State, and you know there
was a _sight_ of Ingens here then, and folks was as ‘fraid to go to York
State then, as they be now to go to Texas—and so Hagar put her arms
round my neck, and oh! how she cried; $95 cries out one man; $100 cries
another, and so they kept a bidden’ while Hagar and I kept a cryin’ and
finally, ☞ GIDEON MOREHOUSE ☜ (oh! it fairly makes my blood run cold, to
speak that name, to this day,) well, he bid $110, and took me—master
made him promise to school me three quarters, or he’d not give him a
bill of sale; so he promised to do it, and I was his ☞ Property. ☜ And
that’s all a slaveholder’s word is good for, for he never sent me to
school a day in his life. Now, how could that man get any _right_ to me,
when he bought me as _stolen property_; or how could any body have even
a _legal right_ to me? why no more as I see than you would have to my
cow, if you should buy her of a man that stole her out of my barn. And
yit that’s the way that every slaveholder gits his right to every slave,
for a body must know that a feller _owns himself_. But I gin up long ago
all idee of slavery folks thinkin’ any thing ’bout _law_. ☜
“Well, I should think I stood on that table two hours, for I know when I
come down, my eyes ached with cryin’ and my legs with standin’ and tears
run down my feet, and fairly made a puddle there. Sister Hagar, she was
a very lovin’ sister, and she felt distressedly to think her brother was
a goin’ to be sold; and so she went round and borrowed and begged all
the money she could, and that, with what she had afore, made 110 Mexican
dollars, jist what I sold for, and she comes to my new master, and says
she, ‘Sir, I’ve got $110 to buy my brother back agin, and I don’t want
him to go off to the west, and wont you please Sir, be so kind, as sell
me back my brother?’ ‘Away with ye,’ he hollered, ‘I’ll not take short
of 150 silver dollars, and bring me that or nothin’;’ and so Hagar tried
hard to raise so much, but she couldn’t, and oh! how she cried, and come
to me and sobbed, and hung round my neck, and took on dreadfully, and
wouldn’t be pacified; and besides, mother stood by, and see it all, and
felt distressedly, as you know a mother must; but, what could _she_ do?
she was a _black woman_. ☞ Now, how would your mother feel to see you
sold into bondage? Why, arter mistress died, it did seem to me that
master become _a very devil_—he ‘bused me and other folks most
all-killin’ly. He married a fine gal as soon arter mistress’ death as
she would have him; and she had 400 silver dollars, and a good many
other things, and he took her money and went off to Philadelphia, and
sold some of his property, and the rest at this auction I tell on; and
then told her she must leave the premises, and another man come on to
’em, and she had to go; and she and Hagar lived together a good many
year, and got their livin’ by spinnin’ and weavin’, and she was _almost_
broken-hearted all the time; and when I got way off into the new
countries, I hears from Hagar, that she died _clear_ broken-hearted.
Well, I was sold a Friday, and master was to take me to Morehouse’s a
Sunday; Sunday come, and I was _obliged_ to go. I parted from mother,
and never see her agin, till I heard she was dead; but you must know how
I felt, so I won’t describe it. She felt distressedly, and gin me a good
deal of good advice, but oh! ’twas a sorrowful day for our little
family, I tell ye, Mr. L——.
“Well, I got to my new master’s, and all was mighty good, and the
children says, “Oh! dis black boy fader bought, and he shall sleep with
me;” and the children most worshipped me, and mistress gin me a great
hunk of gingerbread, and I thought I had the nicest place in the world.
But my joy was soon turned into sorrow. I slept that night on a straw
bed, and nothin’ but an old ragged coverlid over me; and next morning I
didn’t go down to make a fire, for old master always used to do that
himself; and so when I comes down, master scolds at me, and boxes my
ears pretty hard, and says, ‘I didn’t buy you to play the gentleman, you
black son of a bitch—I got ye to work.’
“Well, I began to grow home-sick; and when he was cross and abusive, I
used to think of mistress.
“Master was a cabinet-maker; and so next day, says he, ‘I’m agoin’ to
make you larn the trade,’ and he sets me to planin’ rough cherry boards;
and when it come night, my arms was so lame I couldn’t lift ’em to my
head, pushin’ the jack-plane; and he kept me at this cabinet work till
the first day of May, when I got so I could make a pretty decent
bedstead. I come to live with him the first of March, and now he begins
to fix and git ready for to move out to the new countries. Well, when we
was a packin’ up the tools, I happened to hit a chisel agin’ a hammer,
and dull it a little, and he gets mad, and cuffs me, and thrashes me
’bout the shop, and swears like a pirate. I says, ‘Master, I sartinly
didn’t mean to do it.’ ‘You lie, you black devil, you did,’ he says;
‘and if you say another word, I’ll split your head open with the
broad-axe.’ Well, _I felt bad ’nough_, but said nothin’. He advertised
all his property pretty much, and sold it at vendue; and now we was
nearly ready for a start. Master had promised to let me go and see
sister Hagar, and mother, a few days afore we started; and as he was
gone, mistress told me I might go. So I had liberty, and I detarmined to
use it. I had catched six large muskrats, and had the skins, and thinks
I to myself, what’s mine is _my own_; and so I went up stairs, and wraps
a paper round ’em, and flings ’em out the window, and puts out with them
for town, and sold ’em for a quarter of a dollar a piece. I went Friday;
but I didn’t see mother, for she was gone away, and Sunday I spent
visiting Hagar, and that night I got home. While I was gone they had
found out the skins was a missin’; and soon as I’d got home, I see
somethin’ was to pay; for master looked dreadful _wrothy_ when I come
in, and none of the family said a word, ‘how de,’ nor nothing, only
Lecta, one of the gals, asked me how the folks did, and if I had a good
visit; and she kept a talkin’, and finally, the old lady kind a scowled
at her, (you see the muskrat skins set hard on her stomach,) and
finally, master looked at me cross enough to turn milk sour, and says
he, ‘Nigger, do you know anything ’bout them skins?’ Says I, ‘No, Sir;’
and I lied, it’s true, but I was _scart_. And says he, ‘you lie, you
black devil.’ So I stuck to it, and kept a stickin’ to it, and he kept a
growing madder, and says he, ‘If you don’t own it, I’ll whip your guts
out.’ So he goes and gits a long whip and bed-cord, and that scart me
worser yit, and I _had to own it_, and I confessed I had the money I got
for ’em, all but a sixpence I had spent for gingerbread; and he searched
my pocket, and took it all away, and _half a dollar besides, that Mary
Brown gin me to remember her by_!! ☜—and then he gin me five or six cuts
over the head, and says he, ‘Now, you dam nigger, if I catch you in
another such lie, I’ll cut your dam hide off on ye;’ and then he drives
me off to bed, without any supper; and he says, ‘If you ain’t down
_airly_ to make a fire, I’ll be up arter ye with a raw hide.’
“Well, next day we went to fixin’ two kivered wagons for the journey;
and, arter we’d got all fixed to start, he sends me over to his mother’s
to shell some seed corn, upstairs, in a tub. Well, I hadn’t slept ’nough
long back, and so, in spite of my teeth, I got to sleep in the tub. He
comes over there, and finds me asleep in the tub, and he takes up a
flail staff and hits me over the head, and cussed and swore, and telled
his mother to see I didn’t git to sleep, nor have anything to eat in all
day. Well, arter he’d gone, the old lady called me down, and gin me a
good fat meal, and telled me to go up and shell corn as fast as I could.
Well, I did, and it come night—I got a good supper, and put out for
home; and I’ve always found the women cleverer than the men—they’re
kind’a tender-hearted, ye know.
“Well, we got ready, and off we started, and I guess ’twas the 9th of
May; and I drove a team of four horses, and it had the _chist_ of tools
and family; and he drove another team, full of other things, and his
brother-in-law, Mr. Abers, who was agoin’ out to larn the trade; and
Abers was mighty good to me.
“Well, we started for York State, and one night we stayed in Newark, and
I thought ’twas a dreadful handsome place; for you could see New York
and Brooklyn from there, and the waters round New York, that’s the
handsomest waters I ever see, and I have seen hundreds of harbors.
“Next day we got to a place called Long Cummin, and put up at a Mr.
Starling’s, and he kept a store and tavern, and they was fine folks. In
the evenin’ Mr. Starling comes into the kitchen where I was a sittin’ by
the fire, holdin’ one of the children in my lap, and he slaps me on the
shoulder, and master comes in too, and says he, ‘Morehouse, what will
you take for that boy, cash down? I want him for the store and tavern,
and run arrants, &c.’ Master says, ‘I don’t want to sell him.’—’Well,’
says Starling, ‘I’ll give you $200 cash in hand.’ Master says, ‘I
wouldn’t take 500 silver dollars for that boy, for I mean to have the
workin’ of that nigger myself.’ ‘Well,’ says Starling, ‘you’d better
take that, or you won’t git anything, for he’ll be running off
bi’m’bye.’ And I tell ye, I begun to think ’bout it myself, about that
time. Well, I went to bed, and thought about it, and wanted to stay with
Starling; and next mornin’ Mrs. Starling comes to master, and says she,
‘I guess you’d better sell that boy to my husband, for he’s jist the boy
we want to git:’ and says I, ‘Master, I wants to stay here, and I wish
you’d sell me to these ’ere folks;’—and with that he up and kicked me,
and says he, ‘If I hear any more of that from _you_, I’ll tie ye up, and
tan your black hide; and now go, and up with the teams.’ Well, when we
got all ready to start, I wanted to stay, and I boohooed and boohooed;
and Mr. Starling says to master, ‘I want your boy to come in the store a
minute;’ and I went in, and he out with a bag of Bungtown coppers, and
gin me a hull pocket full, and says he, ‘Peter, I wish you could live
with me, but you can’t; and you must be a good boy, and when you git to
be a man you’ll see better times, I hope;’ and I cried, and took on
dreadfully, and bellowed jist like a bull; for you know, when a body’s
grieved, it makes a body feel a good deal worse to have a body pity ’em.
I see there was no hope, and I mounted the box, and took the lines, and
driv off; but I felt as bad as though I had been goin’ to my funeral.
Oh! it seemed to me they was all happy there, and they was so kind to
me, and they seemed to be so good, it almost broke my heart: I had every
thing to eat—broiled shad, cake, apple pie, (I used to be a great hand
for apple pie,) rice pudden’ and raisins in it, beefsteak, and all that;
and the children kept a runnin’ round the table, and sayin’, ‘Peter must
have this, and Peter must have that;’ and I kept a thinkin’ as I drove
on, how they all kept flocking round me when we come away, and I cried
’bout it two or three days, and every time master come up, he’d give me
a lick over my ears, ‘cause I was a cryin’. If I should die I couldn’t
think of the next place where we stayed all night. We travelled thirty
miles, and the tavern keeper’s name was Henry Williams. Well, the day
arter, we had a very steep hill to go down, and the leaders run on fast,
and I couldn’t hold ’em, and when we got to the bottom, master hollered,
‘Stop!’ and up he come, and _whipped me dreadfully_, and _kicked me with
a pair of heavy boots_ so hard in my back, I was so lame I couldn’t
hardly walk for three or four days, and everybody asked me what was the
matter. The next place we stopped at, the tavern keeper’s folks was old,
and real clever; and master telled ’em not to let me have any supper but
buttermilk, and that set me to cryin’, and I boohooed a considerable;
and the darter says, ‘Come, mother, let’s give Peter a good supper, and
his master will pay for it, tu;’ and so they did; and as I was a settin’
by the fire, she axed me, and I telled her all ’bout how I was treated,
and says she, ‘Why don’t you run away, Peter? I wouldn’t stay with sich
a man: I’d run, if I had to stay in the woods.’ Next mornin’ the old man
was mad ’nough when he see the bill for my buttermilk, and swore a good
deal ’bout it. Next day we come to the ‘Beach Woods,’ and ’twas the
roughest road you ever see, and the wheels would go down in the mud up
to the hubs, then up on a log; and he’d make me lift the wheels as hard
as I any way could, and he wouldn’t lift a pound, and stood over me with
his whip, and sung out, ‘_lift, you black devil, lift_.’ And I did lift,
till I could fairly see stars, and go back and forth from one wagon to
t’other, he to whip, and I to lift; and so we kept a tuggin’ through the
day till night. That night we stayed to a _black man’s tavern_; and when
we come up, and see ’twas a black man’s house, master was mad ’nough;
but he couldn’t git any furder that night, and so he had to be an
abolitionist once in his life, any how!!! Well, he didn’t drive that
nigger round, I tell ye, he was on tu good footin’: he owned a farm, and
fine house, and we had as good fare there as any where on the road.
“The next day the goin’ was so bad we couldn’t git out of the woods, and
we had to stay there all night; and oh! what times we _did_ see; I
lifted and strained till I _was_ dead: and that night we slept in the
wagons—the women took possession of one, and we of t’other; and the
woods was alive with wolves and panthers; and such a howlin’ and
screamin’ you never heard; but we builds up a large fire, and that kept
’em off. We lay on our faces in the wagon, with our rifles loaded,
cocked and primed; and when them ’ere varmints howled, the horses
trembled so the harnesses fairly shook on ’em: but there warn’t any more
sleep there that night, than there would be in that fire.
“Next day we worried through, and stopped at a house, and got some
breakfast of bears’ meat and hasty pudden’; and it come night, we made
the ‘Blue Mountain;’ and on the top of it was some good folks; we stayed
there one night, and Mr. Cooper, the landlord, come out to the barn, and
axed me if I was _hired_ out to that man, or _belonged_ to him? ‘Well,’
said he, ‘if you did but know it, you are free now, for you are in a
free state, and it’s agin’ the law to bring a slave from another state
into this; and where be you goin’?’ ‘To Cayuga County,’ says I. ‘Well,
when you git there, du you show him your backsides, and tell him to help
himself.’
The next night we stayed in Owego; but I’m afore my story, for goin’
down the Blue Mountain next day, the leaders run, and I couldn’t hold
’em if I should be shot, and they broke one arm off of the block tongue.
Well, I stopped, and master comes runnin’ up, and he fell on, and struck
me, and mauled me most awfully; and jist then a man come up on
horseback, and says he to master, ‘If you want to _kill_ that boy, why
don’t ye beat his brains out with an axe and done with it—but don’t maul
him so; for _you_ know, and _I_ know, for I see it all myself, that that
boy ain’t able to hold that team, and I shouldn’t a thought it strange
if they had dashed every thing to pieces.’ Well, master was mad ’nough,
for that was a dreadful rebuke; and says he, ‘You’d better make off with
yourself, and mind your own business.’ The man says, ‘I don’t mean to
quarrel with you, and I won’t; but I think ye act more like a _devil_
than a _man_! ☜ So off he went; and _I love that man yit_!
Next night we stayed in Owego; and the tavern keeper, a fine man, had a
talk with me arter bed-time; and says he, ‘Peter, your master can’t
touch a hair of your head, and if you want to be free you can, for we’ve
tried that experiment here lately; and we’ve got a good many slaves free
in this way, and they’re doing well. But if you want to run away, why
_run_; but wait awhile, for you are a boy yit, and _there are folks in_
York State, mean ’nough to catch you and send you back to your master!’
☜ [3]
Footnote 3:
Yes, and there are folks, yes judges and dough faced politicians
enough in _the state now_ who would blast all the hopes that led a
poor slave on from his chains; and when he was just stepping across
the threshold of the temple of freedom, dash him to degradation and
slavery, and pollute that threshold with his blood. Until a fugitive
from tyranny shall be safe in the asylum of the oppressed and the home
of liberty, let us not be told to go to the south. And who are the men
who would, who _have_ done this? Certainly not _philanthropists_; for
the philanthropist loves to make his brother man happy, and will
always _strike_ for his freedom. Certainly not _Christians_; for it
was one of the most explicit enactments of God, when he established
his theocracy upon earth, and incorporated into the code of his
government, that “Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant
that is escaped from his master unto thee.” (Deut. xxii. 15.) And can
a man, who respects and regards the laws of heaven, turn traitor to
God, and prostrate, at one fell swoop, all the claims of benevolence
the fugitive slave imposes, when he lifts his fetter-galled arms to
his brother, and cries, “Oh! help me to freedom—to liberty—to heaven?”
“Well, I parted from that man, and I resolved that I would run away, but
take his advice, and not run till I could clear the coop for good. Well,
we finally got to the end of our journey, and put up at Henry Ludlow’s
house, in Milton township, and county of Cayuga, and State of New York.”
A. “Well, Peter, I think we can afford to stop writing now, for I’m
fairly tired out. Good bye, Peter.”
P. “Good bye, Domine.”
* * * * *
As I came away from the lowly cottage of Peter Wheeler, and thought of
the toils and barbarities of a life of slavery, and returned to the
sweet and endearing charities of my own quiet home, tenderness subdued
my spirit; and I could not but repeat, with emotions of the deepest
gratitude, those sweet lines of my childhood:
‘I was not born a little slave,
To labor in the sun;
And wish I were but in my grave,
And all my labor done.’
Oh! I exclaimed as I entered my study, and sat down before a bright,
cheerful fireside, and was greeted with the kind look of an affectionate
wife, as the storm howled over the mountains, Oh! God made man to be
_free_, and he must be a _wretch_, and not a man, who can quench all
this social light forever. I hate not slavery so much for its fetters,
and whips, and starvation, as for the blight and mildew it casts upon
the social and moral condition of man. Oh! enslave not a soul—a
deathless spirit—trample not upon a mind, ’tis an _immortal thing_. Man
perchance may light anew the torch he quenches, but the soul! Oh!
tremble and beware—lay not rude hands upon God’s image there—I thought
of the vast territory that stretches from the Atlantic to the foot of
the Rocky Mountains, and from our Southern border to the heart of our
Capitol, as one mighty altar of Mammon—where so much social light is
sacrificed and blotted from the universe; where so many deathless
spirits, that God made free as the mountain wild bird, are chained down
forever, and I kneeled around my family altar, and I could not help
uttering a prayer from the depths of my soul, for the millions of _God’s
creatures, and my brethren_, who pass lives of loneliness and sorrow in
a world which has been lighted up with the Redeemer’s salvation. What a
scene for man to look at when he prays: A God who loves to make all his
creatures happy! A world which groans because man is a sinner! A man who
loves to make his brother wretched! Oh! thought I, if prayer can reach a
father’s ear to-night, one yoke shall be broken, and one oppressed slave
shall go free.
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