Peter’s master prosecuted for abusing him, and fined $500, and put under
a bond of $2000 for good behavior—Peter for a long time has a plan for
running away, and the girls help him in it—“the big eclipse of
1806”—Peter starts at night to run away, and the girls carry him ten
miles on his road—the parting scene—travels all night, and next day
sleeps in a hollow log in the woods—accosted by a man on the
Skeneateles bridge—sleeps in a barn—is discovered—two pain’ters on the
road—discovered and pursued—frightened by a little girl—encounter with
“two black gentlemen with a white ring round their necks”—“Ingens”
chase him—“Utica quite a thrifty little place”—hires out nine
days—Little Falls—hires out on a boat to go to “Snackady”—makes three
trips—is discovered by Morehouse ☜—the women help him to escape to
Albany—hires out on Truesdell’s sloop—meets master in the street—goes
to New York—a reward of $100 offered for him—Capt. comes to take him
back to his master, for “one hundred dollars don’t grow on every
bush”—“feels distressedly”—but Capt. Truesdell promises to protect
him, “as long as grass grows and water runs—he follows the river.
_Author._ “Good evening, Peter,—how do you do to-night?”
_Peter._ “Very well; and how’s the Domine?”
A. “Pretty well. Take a chair and go ahead with your story.”
P. “My mind had been made up for years to git out of my trouble,—but I
thought I’d wait till spring afore I started. Things had got to sich a
state, I see I must either stay and be killed myself, or kill master, or
run away; and I thought ‘twould be the best course to run away; and I
wanted good travellin’, and I concluded I’d wait till the movin’ was
good. In the meantime, Master prosecuted Abers for assaulting him in his
own house, and Abers paid the damages; I don’t know how much; and then
Abers prosecuted master afore the same court, for abusin’ me, on behalf
of the state. His whole family was brought forward and sworn, and
testified agin’ him, and the trial lasted two days. I was brought
forward, and had my shirt took off, to show the scars in my meat; and
the judge says, ‘Peter, how long did he whip you in the barn?’ And I up
and told him the story as straight as I could. Then the lawyers made
their pleas on both sides, and the case was submitted to the jury, and
out they went, and stayed half an hour, and brought in a verdict of
abuse, even unto _murder intent_. The judge says, ‘how so?’ The foreman
on the jury says, ‘because he thrice attempted to kill him with a
rifle.’
“Well, his sentence finally was, to pay five hundred dollars damages, or
to go to jail till he did; and be put under bonds of two thousand
dollars for good behavior in future. The judge gin him half an hour to
decide in; and he sot and sot till his time was up; and then the judge
told the sheriff to take him to jail, and he went to get the hand-cuffs,
and put ’em on to master’s hands; and the judge says, ‘_screw ’em
tight_;’ for you see ‘master hadn’t treated the court with proper
respect,’ the judge said. I should think he had the cuffs on ten
minutes, and then he says, ‘I’ll pay the money;’ and the sheriff off
with the cuffs, and master out with his pocket-book, and counted out the
money to the sheriff, and then he gin bail, and so the matter ended.
“The judge come to me and says, ‘now, Peter, do you be faithful, and if
you are abused come to me, and I’ll take care of it.
“Well, all went home, and arter that master behaved himself pretty
decent towards me, only the gals said he used to say, ‘I wish I’d
_killed_ the dam _nigger_, and then I shouldn’t have this five hundred
dollars to pay.’
“My whole fare was now better, ☞ but I still considered myself a slave,
☜ and that galled my feelin’s, and I determined I’d be free, or die in
the cause; for you see, by this time, I’d larned more of the _rights of
human natur’_, and I felt that I was a man!!
“I had this in contemplation all of three or four years afore I run, and
I swore a heap ’bout it tu. The gals had made me a new suit, and had it
ready for runnin’ a year afore. The gals paid for it, and kept it
secret; and so a woman can keep a secret, arter all; and I had
twenty-one dollars, in specie, that I’d been a gettin’ for five years,
by little and little, fishin’ and chorin’, and catchin’ muskrats, that I
kept from master; and I made ‘Lecta my banker; and every copper and
sixpence I got I put into her hand, and now I’d got things ready for a
start.
“Well, the big eclipse, as they called it, come on the 16th of June,
1806, I believe, and we had curious times, I tell ye. I was in the lot a
hoein’ corn, and it begun to grow dark, right in the day time, and the
birds and whip-poor-wills begun to sing, jist as in the evenin’, and the
hens run to the roost, and I come to the house; and the folks had
smoked-glass lookin’ through at the sun, and I axed ’em ‘what’s the
matter?’ and they said ‘the moon is atwixt us and the sun.’
“Well, thinks says I, ‘that’s rale curious.’ Master looked at it _once_,
and then sot down and groaned, and fetched some very heavy sighs, and
turned pale, and looked solemn; and there was two or three old Dutch
women ‘round there that looked distracted; they hollered and screamed
and took on terribly, and thought the world was a comin’ to an end.
Well, I didn’t find out the secret of that eclipse, till a sea captain
told me, long arter this. I b’lieve this eclipse happened on Tuesday;
and next Sunday night, atwixt twelve and one o’clock, I started, and
detarmined that if ever I went back to Gideon Morehouse’s, _I’d go a
dead man_.
“We all went to bed as usual, but not to sleep; and so, ’bout twelve
‘clock, I went out as still as I could, and tackled up the old horse and
wagon, and oh! how I felt. I was kind’a glad and kind’a sorry, and my
heart patted agin my ribs hard, and I sweat till my old shirt was as wet
as sock. So I hitched the horse away from the house, and went in and
told the gals, and I fetched out my knapsack that had my new clothes in
it, and all on us went out and got in and started off. Oh! I tell ye,
the horse didn’t _creep_; and the gals begins to talk to me and say,
‘now, Peter, you must be honest and true, and faithful to every body,
and that’s the way you’ll gain friends;’ and ‘Lecta says, ‘if you work
for anybody, be careful to please the women folks, and if the women are
on your side, you’ll git along well enough.’
“Well, we drove ten miles, and come to a gate, and ‘twouldn’t do for
them to go through, and so there we parted; and they told me to die
afore I got catched,—and if I did, not to _bring ’em out_. I told them
I’d die five times over afore I’d fetch ’em out; and so ‘Lecta took me
by the hand and kissed me on the cheek, and I kissed her on the _hand_,
for I thought her _face_ warn’t no place for me: and then she squeezes
my hand, and says, ‘God bless you, Peter;’ and Polly did the same, and
there was some cryin’ on both sides. So I helped ’em off, and as we
parted, each one gin me a handsome half-dollar, and I kept one on ’em a
good many years; and, finally, I gin it to my sweet-heart in Santa Cruz,
and I guess she’s got it yit.
“I starts on my journey with a heavy heart, sobbin’ and cryin’, for I
begun to cry as soon as I got out of the wagon. I guess I cried all of
three hours afore mornin’, and I felt so distressedly ’bout leavin’ the
gals I almost wished myself back; but I’d launched out, and I warn’t
agoin’ back _alive_.
“I travelled till daylight, and then, to be undiscovered, I took to the
woods, and stayed there all day, and eat the food I took along in the
knapsack; and a dreadful thunder-storm come, and I crawled, feet first,
into a fell holler old tree, and pulled in my knapsack for a pillar, and
had a good sleep; only a part of the time I cried, and when I come out I
was very dry, and I lays down and drinks a bellyful of water out of a
place made by a crutter’s track, and filled by the rain, and on I went
till I come to Skaneatales Bridge; and ’twas now dark, and when I got
into the middle, a man comes up and says ‘good evenin’, Peter.’ Well, I
stood and says nothin’, only I expected my doom was sealed. He says ‘you
needn’t be scart, Peter,’ and come to, it was a black man I’d known, and
he takes me into his house in the back room, and gin me a good meal. You
see I’d seen him a good many times agoin’ by there with a team. Arter
supper his wife gin me a pair of stockins and half a dollar, and he gin
me half a loaf of wheat bread, and a hunk of biled bacon, and a silver
dollar, and off I started, with a kind of a light heart. I travels all
that night till daylight, and grew tired and sleepy; and on the right
side of the road I see a barn, and so I goes in and lies down on the
hay, and I’d no sooner struck the mow than I fell asleep. When I woke up
the sun was up three hours, and some men were goin’ into the field with
a team, and that ‘woke me up. I looks for a chance to clear, and I sees
a piece of woods off about half a mile, and I gits off; so the barn hid
me from ’em, and I lays my course for these woods, and jist by ’em was a
large piece of wheat, and I gits in and was so hid I stays there all
day; and a part of the time I cried, and sat down, and stood up, and
whistled, and all that, and it come night, I started out, and travelled
till about midnight, and had a plenty to eat yit.
“Well, the moon shone bright, and I was travellin’ on between two high
hills, and the fust thing I hears was the screech of a pain’ter; and if
you’d been there, I guess you’d thought the black boy had turned white.
Well, on the other hill was an answer to this one; and I travelled on,
and every now and then, I heard one holler and t’other answer, but I
kept on the move; and when the moon come out from a cloud it struck on
the hill, and I see one on ’em, and bim’bye, both on ’em got together,
and sich a time I never see atwixt two live things. Their screeches
fairly went _through_ me. Not long arter I come up to a house, and bein’
very dry, I turned into the gate to git a drink of water, and I drawed
up some, and a big black dog come plungin’ out, and in a minute a light
was struck up, and out come a man, and hollered to his dog to ‘_git
out_;’ and he says to me, ‘Good night, Sir; you travel late.’ ‘Yis,
Sir.’ ‘What’s the reason?’ And I had a lie all ready, cut and dried. ‘My
mother lies at the pint of death in the city of New York, and I’m a
hastenin’ down to see her, to git there if I can afore she dies.’ He
rather insisted on my comin’ in, but I declined, and bid him a good
night, and passed on my way. I left the road for fear this man might
think I was _a run-away_, and so pursue me; and on I went to the woods.
I hadn’t got fur afore I hears a horse’s hoofs clatterin’ along the
road; and thinks, says I, ‘I’m ahead of you, now, my sweet feller—_I’m
in the bush_.’ And so I put on; and by daylight I thought I was fur
enough off, and I could travel a heap faster in the road, so I put for
the road; and nothin’ troubled me till ten o’clock. And as I come along
to an old loghouse, a little gal come out, and hollers, ‘Run, nigger,
run, they’re arter ye; you’re a _run-away, I know_.’ I tell you it
struck me with surprise, to think how she knew I was a run-away. I says
nothin’, but she says the same thing agin’; and on I goes till I come to
a turn in the road where I was hid, and I patted the sand nicely for a
spell I tell ye. When I got along a while, I run into a bunch of white
pines; and as I slipped along, I come across one of these ’ere black
gentlemen with a white ring round his neck, and he riz up and seemed
detarmined to have a battle with me. Well, I closed in with him, and
_dispersed_ him quick, with a club; and in about four rods I met
another, and I dispersed him in short order; and got out into the road,
and travelled till night; and come to a gate, and axed the man if I
might _stay with him_. An Ingen man kept the gate, and a kind of a
tavern, tu; and he says, ‘yis;’ and I stayed, and was treated _well_,
and not a question axed. Well, I axed him how fur ’twas to a village,
and he says, ‘six miles to Oneida village,’ and says he, ‘what be you,
an Ingen, or a nigger?’ I says, ‘I guess I’m a kind of a mix:’ and he
put his hand on to my head, and says, ‘well, I guess you’ve got some
nigger blood in ye, I guess I shan’t charge you but half price,’ and so
off I starts. Well, soon I come to a parcel of blackberry bushes, and
out come an Ingen squaw, and says, ‘sago;’ and I answers, ‘sagole,’
that’s a kind of a ‘how de.’ And all along in the bushes was young
Ingens, as thick as toads arter a shower, and I was so scart to think
what I’d meet next, my hair fairly riz on end; and in a minute, right
afore me I see a comin’ about twenty big, trim, strappin’ Ingens, with
their rifles, and tomahawks, and scalpin’ knives, and then I wished I
was back in master’s old kitchen, for I thought they was arter me; and I
put out and run, and a tall Ingen arter me to scare me, and I run my
prettiest for about fifty rods, and then I stubbled my toe agin a stone,
and fell my length, heels over head. But, I up and started agin, and
then the Ingen stopped, and oh! sich a yelp as he gin, and all on ’em
answered him, and off he went and left me, and that made me feel better
than bein’ in old master’s kitchen.
“I travels on and comes to a tavern, and got some breakfast of fresh
salmon, and had a talk with the landlord’s darter, and she was half
Ingen, for her father had married an Ingen woman; and while I was there,
up come four big Ingens arter whiskey, and they had no money, and so
they left a bunch of skins in pawn till they come back. So I paid him
thirty-seven and a half cents and come on. The next time I stopped at a
cake and beer shop, and I told the old woman sich a pitiful story, that
she gin me all I’d bought and a card of gingerbread to boot, and I come
on rejoicin’. They was Yankee folks, and, say what you will, the Yankee
folks are fine fellers where ever you meet ’em.
“Next place I passed was Utica, which was quite a _thrifty little
place_; but I didn’t stop there; and on a little I got a ride with a
teamster down twenty miles, to a place about six miles west of Little
Falls, and there I put up with a man, and he hired me to help him work
nine days and a half, and gin me a dollar a day, and paid me the silver,
and he owned a black boy by the name of Toney. We called him Tone, and
they did abuse him bad enough, poor feller! he was all scars from head
to foot, and I slept with him, and he showed me where they’d cut him to
pieces with a cat-o’-nine-tails. And it did seem, to look at him, as
though he must have been cut up into mince meat, almost!! ☜ !!
“Well, I left him, and got down about two miles on my journey, and there
lay a Durham boat, aground in the Mohawk River; and a man aboard
hollered to me, to come down, and he axed me if I didn’t want to _work
my passage down to Snackady_. I says, ‘_yis, if you’ll pay me for it_!!’
You see I felt very independent jist now, for I begun to feel my oats a
leetle; and so he agreed to give me twenty shillin’s if I would, and so
I agreed tu, and went aboard, and glad enough tu of sich a fat chance of
gittin’ along.
“We come to ‘the Falls,’ and they was a great curiosity I tell ye; and
we got our boat down ’em, through a canal dug round ’em by five or six
locks. Oh! them falls was a fine sight—the water a thunderin’ along all
foam. Well, we had good times a goin’ down, and come to Snackady, the
man wanted to hire me to go trips with him up and down from Utica, and
offered me ten dollars a trip. So we got a load of dry goods and
groceries, and goes back for Utica, and gits there Saturday night. The
captain of the boat was John Munson, and I made three trips with him,
and calculated to have made the fourth, but somethin’ turned up that
warn’t so agreeable. I stayed there Sunday, and Sunday evenin’ about
seven o’clock, I goes up on the hill with one of the hands, to see some
of our colour, and gits back arter a roustin’ time about ten o’clock,
and as soon as I enters the house, Mrs. Munson says, ‘why lord-a-massa
Peter, _your master has been here arter you_, and what shall we do?’ And
I was so thunderstruck, I didn’t know what to say, or do. And says she,
‘you must make your escape the best way you can.’
“I goes up stairs and gathers up my clothes, and the women folks comes
up tu, and while we was there preparin’ my escape, old master and the
sheriff comes in below! and he says to Munson, who lay on the bed, ‘I’m
a goin’ to sarch your house for my nigger;’ and Munson rises up and
says, ‘what the devil do you mean? away with you out of my house. I
knows nothin’ about your nigger, nor am I your nigger’s keeper—besides,
‘afore you sarch my house, you’ve got to bring a legal sarch-warrant,
and now show it or out of my house, or you’ll catch my trotters into
your starn, _quick_ tu.’
“Well, I darn’t listen to hear any thing more, but all a tremblin’, says
I to the women, ‘what in the name of distraction shall I do?’
“Mrs. Munson says, ‘I’ll go down and swing round the well-sweep, and you
jump on, and down head-foremost.’ I flings out my bundle, and up comes
the well-sweep, and I hopped on, and down I went head foremost, jist
like a cat, and put out for the river; and I found Mrs. Munson there
with my clothes, for she’d took ’em as soon as she could, and put out
with ’em for the river. ‘And now Peter,’ says she ‘do you make the best
of your way down to Albany, and travel till you git there, and don’t you
git catched; and so I off, arter thankin’ Mrs. Munson, and I wanted to
thank Mr. Munson tu, for his management, but I couldn’t spend the time,
and I moved some tu; and I got down to Albany by one o’clock at night,
and there lay a sloop right agin’ the wharf, alongside the old stage
tavern; and as I was a wanderin’ along by it, there seemed to be a
colored man standin’ on deck, ’bout fifty years old, and his head was
most as white as flax, and says he as he hails me, ‘where you travellin’
tu, my son?’ I says, ‘I’m bound for New York,’ and I out with my old lie
agin ’bout my mother. You see that lie was like some minister’s
sarmints, that goes round the country and preaches the same old sarmint
till it’s threadbare—but it sarved my turn. ‘Come aboard my son, and
take some refreshments;’ and so I goes down into the cabin, and I feels
kind’a guilty, sorry, and hungry, and my feet was sore, for I’d walked
bare-foot from Snackady; and if you did but know it, it was a dreadful
sandy road, but I wanted no shoes ’bout me that night. Well, pretty soon
my meal was ready, and I had a good cup of coffee, and ham, and eggs,
and arter that, says he, ‘now lay down in my berth;’ and I laid down,
and in two minutes I got fast to sleep, and the first I knew old master
had me by the nape of the neck, and called for some one to help him, and
he had a big chain, and he begins to bind me and I sings out, ‘murder,’
as loud as I could scream, and the old gentleman comes to the berth, and
says, ‘what’s the matter my son?’ and I woke up, and ’twas _a dream_,
and I was so weak I couldn’t hardly speak, and I was cryin’ and my shirt
was as wet as a drownded rat; and the old man says, ‘why, what’s the
matter, Peter? you’re as white as a sheet? ‘I says, ‘nothin’ only a
dream;’ and says he, ‘try to git some sleep my son, nobody shan’t hurt
you.’ And so I catches kind’a cat-naps, and then the old man would chase
me, and I run into the woods; and three or four men was arter me on
white horses, and I run into a muddy slough, and jumped from bog to bog,
and slump into my knees in the mud, and I’d worry and worry to git
through, and at last I did; and then I had to cross a river to git out
of their way, and I swum across it, and it was a pure crystal stream,
and I could see gold stones and little fish on the bottom. Well, I got
to the bank and sets down, and they couldn’t git to me, and I had a good
quiet sleep. Finally, the old man comes to me, and says, ‘come, my son,
git up and eat some breakfast. And I up, and the sun was an hour high,
and more tu. I washes me, and we had some stewed eels and coffee; and we
eat alone, for all the hands and captain was a spendin’ the night among
their friends ashore. And the old man begins to question me out whether
I warn’t a run-away, and I rother denied it in the first place; and he
says, ‘you needn’t be afeard of me. You’re a run-away, and if you’ll
tell me your story, I’ll help you.’ So I up and told him my whole story,
and he says, ‘I know’d you was a run-away when you come aboard last
night, for I was once a slave myself, and now arter breakfast you go
with me, and I’ll show you a good safe place to go and be a cook.’
“So we walked along on the dock, and says he, ‘there comes the Samson,
Captain John Truesdell, I guess he wants you, for I understood his cook
left him in Troy.’
“So the Samson rounded up nigh our’n, and the captain jumps ashore, and
says he, ‘boy do you want a berth?’ and I touches my hat, and says,
‘yis, Sir.’ And he says, ‘can you roast, bake, and bile, &c.?’ I says,
‘I guess so.’ ‘Can you reef a line of veal, and cook a tater?’ ‘Yis,
Sir, all that.’ ‘Well, you are jist the boy I want; ‘what do you ask a
month?’ I says, ‘I don’t know:’ but I’d a gone with him if he hadn’t
agin me a skinned sixpence a month. Well, he looks at me, and slaps me
on the shoulder, and says he, ‘you look like a square-built clever
feller,—I’ll give you eight dollars a month.’
“This colored man looks at me and shakes his head, and holds up all
hands, and fingers, and thumbs, and that’s ten you know. So I axed him
ten dollars a month. And says he, ‘I’ll give it;’ and my heart jumps up
into my mouth. And he claps his hand into his pocket, and took out three
dollars, and says he, ‘now go up to the market and git two quarters
veal, and six shillin’ loaves of bread, and here’s the market basket.’
Well, I thought it kind’a strange that he should trust me, cause I was a
stranger; but I found out arter this, a followin’ the seas, that it was
the natur’ of sailors to be trusty. Well, I off to the market, and I
goes up State-street and looked across on ‘tother side, and who should I
see but _Master and the Sheriff_, a comin’ down; so I pulls my tarpaulin
hat over my eyes, for I’d got all rigged out with a sailor suit on the
Mohawk, and I spurs up, and the grass didn’t grow under my feet any
nother. I does my business, and hastens back as fast as possible, and
got aboard, and the captain made loose, and bore away into the wind, and
made all fast; and the sails filled, and down the river we went like a
bird. A stiff breeze aft, and I was on deck, for I wanted to see, and
the captain comes along and says, ‘boy, you’d better below,’ and down I
went. Well, we run under that breeze down to the overslaugh, and got
aground, and then my joy was turned into sorrow. The captain says to me,
‘boy, you keep ship while I and the hands go back and git _a lighter_,
or we shan’t git off in a week; and he takes all hands into the jolly
boat and starts for the city again. Arter they’d gone I wanders up and
down in the ship, and cried, and thought this runnin’ aground was all
done a purpose to catch me; and I goes down into the cabin and ties all
my clothes up in a snug bundle, and goes into the aft cabin, and opens
the larboard window, and made up my mind that if I see any body come
that looked suspicious, I’d take to the water.
Well, afore long, I see the jolly boat a comin’ down the river, and
every time the oars struck she almost riz out of the water. Three men on
a side and the captain sot steerin’ and as she draws nigher and nigher I
draws myself into a smaller compass, for I was afeard master was aboard
that boat. Well, she comes alongside, but thanks to God no master in
that boat.
“The captain comes on deck and says with a smile, ‘_Peter, you may git
dinner now_.[12] So I goes and gits a good dinner, for I understood
cookin’ pretty well, and they eats, and I tu, and then I clears off the
table, and washes the dishes, and sweeps the cabin, and goes on deck.
And sees a lighter comin’ down the river, and she rounded up and come
alongside, and we made fast, and up hatches and took out the wheat, and
worked till evenin’, and then she swung off; and by mornin’ we’d got all
the freight aboard, and we discharged the lighter and highted all sail,
and the wind was strong aft, and we lowered sail no more till we landed
in New York, and that was the next day at evenin’.
Footnote 12:
What a cheerful air hangs around the path of liberty! I was once
reading this page to a warm-hearted and benevolent Abolitionist, and
when I came to this speech of the captain, he burst into tears as he
exclaimed, “Oh, what a change in that boy’s existence! It seems to me
that such kindness must almost have broken his heart. Oh! a man must
have a bad heart not to desire to see every yoke broken, and all the
oppressed go free.”
“Well, the second night arter this, the captain come down into the
cabin, and says he, ‘Peter I’ve got a story for you.’ ‘Well,’ says I, ‘I
wants to hear it, Sir.’ ‘Well last night there was a small man from
Cayuga county, by the name of Gideon Morehouse ☜ come aboard my sloop,
and says, “you’ve got my nigger concealed aboard your ship, and I’ve got
authority to sarch your vessel;” and he sarched my vessel and every body
and every thing in it, and by good luck _you_ was ashore, or he’d a had
you; for you must be the boy by description.’
“Now I was on the poise whether to tell the truth or not; but I was
rather constrained to lie; but the captain says, ‘tell me the truth,
Peter, for ’twill be better for you in the end; so I up and told him my
whole story, as straight as a compass, and long as a string.
“‘Well’ says he, ‘be a good boy, and I’ll take care on you.’ So we
stayed in New York a few days, and back to Albany, and started for New
York agin and we had fourteen pretty genteel passengers, and the captain
says, ‘now Peter be very attentive to ’em and you’ll git a good many
presents from ’em.’ ‘So I cleaned their boots and waited on ’em, and
when I got to York I carried their baggage round the city, and when I
got to the sloop I counted my money, and had six dollars fifty cents,
jist for bein’ polite, and it’s jist as easy to be polite as any way.
“Well, the next mornin’ the captain comes to me about daylight, and
hollers, ‘up nig, there’s a present for you on deck.’
“So I hops up in great haste and there was stuck on the sign of the
vessel, an advertisement, and ‘reward of one hundred dollars, and all
charges paid for catchin’ a large bull-eyed Negro, &c.’ The captain
reads that to me, and says very seriously, ‘Peter that’s a great reward.
You run down in the cabin and git your breakfast, I must have that
hundred dollars; for one hundred dollars don’t grow on every bush.’
“Well, I started and went down, a sobbin’ and cryin’ to get breakfast,
and calls the captain down to eat, and he sets down and says he, ‘Peter
ain’t you agoin’ to set down and eat somethin’? it will be the last
breakfast you’ll eat with us.’
“I says with a very heavy heart, ‘no Sir, I wants no breakfast.’ Arter
breakfast says he, ‘now clear off the table, and do up all your things
nice and scour your brasses, so that when I get another cook he shan’t
say you was a dirty feller.’ So I goes and obeys all his orders, and I
shed some tears tu, I tell ye; and then I set down and had a
regular-built cryin’ spell, and then the captain comes down and says,
‘you done all your work up nicely?’ ‘Yis Sir,’ ‘well, now go and tie up
all your clothes.’ So I did, and I cried louder than ever about it, and
he says, ‘I guess you han’t got ’em all have ye?’ So he unties my
bundle, and takes all on ’em out one by one, and lays ’em in the berth,
and I cried so you could hear me to the forecastle; and finally he turns
to me a pleasant look and says, ‘Peter put up your clothes; I’ve no idea
of takin’ you back, I’ve done this only to try you; and now I tell you
on the _honor of a man_, as long as you stay with me, and be as faithful
as you have been, nobody shall take you away from me _alive_; and then I
cries ten times worse than ever, I loved the captain so hard. But a
mountain rolled off on me, for I tell you to be took right away in the
bloom of liberty, arter I’d toiled so hard to git it, and then have all
my hopes crushed in a minute, I tell you for awhile I had mor’n I could
waller under. But when I got acquain’ted with the captain, I found him a
rale abolitionist, for he’d fight for a black man any time, and ☞ Oh!
how he did hate slavery: ☜ but then he kind’a loved to run on a body,
and then make ’em feel good agin, and he was always a cuttin’ up some
sich caper as this; but he was a noble man and I love him yit.
“Now I felt that I was raly free ☜ although I knew Morehouse was a
lurkin’ round arter me: _and arter this I called no man master_, but I
knew how to treat my betters. I now begun to ☞ feel somethin’ like a
man, ☜ and the dignity of a _human bein’_ begun to creep over me, and I
_enjoyed_ my liberty when I got it, I can tell you. I didn’t go a
sneakin’ round, and spirit-broken, as I know every man must, if he’s a
slave; but ☞ I couldn’t help standin’ up straight, arter I knew I was
free. ☜ Oh! what a glorious feelin’ that is! and oh! how I pitied my
poor brethren and sisters, that was in chains. I used to set down and
think about it, and cry by the hour; and when I git to thinkin’ about it
now, I wonder how any good folks, and specially christian people, can
hate abolitionists. ☜ I think it must be owin’ to one of two things;
either they don’t know the horrors or miseries of a slave’s life, or
they can’t have much feelin’; for the anti-slavery society is the only
society I know on, that professes to try to set ’em all free; for you
know the colonization folks have give up the idee long ago, that they
can do any thing of any amount that way; and so they say they are agoin’
to enlighten Africa. And I can’t for the life on me see how the
abolitionists is so persecuted; it’s raly wonderful! ☜ But I’m glad I
can pray to God for the poor and oppressed, if I am a black man; and I
think it can’t be a long time afore all the slaves go free—there is so
many thousands of christians all prayin’ for it so arnestly; and so many
papers printed for the slave, and so many sarmints preached for him, and
sich a great struggle agoin’ on for him all over creation. Why all this
is God’s movin’s, and nobody can’t stop God’s chariot wheels.” ☜
A. “Well, Peter, you’ve come to a stopping place now, and I think we’ll
close this book, for I suppose you’ll have some sea stories to tell.”
P. “Yis, Domine. I shall have some long yarns to reel off when I gets my
sails spread out on the brine, for I think the rest of my history is no
touch to my sailor’s life. But one thing, it won’t be so sorrowful, if
’tis strange; for, if I was rocked on the wave, I had this sweet thought
to cheer me, as I lay down on my hammock, ☞ _I’m free_; ☜ and dreams of
liberty hung round my midnight pillow, and I was happy, because I was no
longer Peter Wheeler in chains.”
--------------
_Thoughts suggested by the incidents of the First Book._
It may be profitable and interesting to notice some of the principles
involved in the foregoing story. The history of Peter Wheeler in Chains,
is a rich chapter in the tale of oppression and slavery in America. The
horrors and barbarities here recorded, ought not to go forth before the
citizens of a free nation, without producing an appropriate and powerful
impression, that will give _impulse_ and triumph to the principles of
our constitution. A few plain thoughts occur to the reader of this
history, which we will notice:—
I. We see the necessary and legitimate influence of irresponsible power,
upon its possessor and victims. It is one of the broad principles of the
bible, and of our republican government, that it is not safe to place
irresponsible power in the hands of a fallible being, under any
circumstances; for, in every recorded instance of the world’s history,
it has been abused, and produced unmixed misery.
When young Nero assumed the purple of imperial Rome, his heart revolted
at the thought of tyranny, and when first asked to sign a criminal’s
death-warrant, his hand refused to do its office-work, and he exclaimed,
“Would to God I had never learned to write.” And yet, under the
influence of irresponsible power, he at last became so transformed, that
he illuminated his gardens with the bodies of burning Christians, and
danced to the music of a drunken fiddler while Rome was on fire! As man
is constituted, he is not equal to a possession of unlimited power,
without abusing it. Experience confirms all this, and common sense too.
And if the history of every slaveholder in creation could be unfolded,
we should see that every hour his character acquired new and worse
features. Even if he did not gradually become more hard and tyrannical
in his treatment of his slaves, yet it would be seen that his own heart
was constantly losing its higher and nobler qualities, and the dark
trail of oppression, like the course of the serpent, was leaving its
foul and polluted stain upon all it touched. Slavery _must_ call forth
malignant and unholy passions in the breast, and their repeated exercise
must harden and pollute the heart. It degrades the _whole man_,—for
there is not a faculty or propensity of the being but what is tain’ted
by the foul breath of slavery. The reader must have remarked the steady
and rapid moral defilement which was going on in Peter’s master, till at
last he was plunged into the deepest degradation, which sought _his
death_. Oh! who can conceive of a degradation more complete than that
which made its subject exult in the thought of torturing a poor black
boy, even unto death! There are noble and generous hearts in the South,
who feel, most keenly, the debasing influence of slavery upon the
father’s, and the husband’s, and the lover’s heart; and they are
weeping, in secret places, because every green thing around the social
altar is burned up by this withering blast. The author of this note has
heard the lamentations of daughters and wives, whose homes have been
made desolate by the foul spirit of tyranny, and their longings and
prayers for a brighter day, which shall regenerate the South by
emancipating the slave. Oh! how can man become viler than to hunt down
the poor fugitive slave, like a blood-hound, when he has cast off his
fetters, and is emerging into the light and glory of freedom. The first
impulse of a generous or benevolent heart would be joy, to see the poor
victim break away from his bondage, and go free, in God’s beautiful
world. Let us hear no more of the desire of the South to emancipate
their slaves, when every fugitive is tracked by blood-hounds, till he
crosses the waters of the St. Lawrence, and finds shelter under the
throne of a British Queen. In most instances, slavery will make the
master thirst for the blood of the slave who escapes from his chains;
and let this fact bespeak its influence on his heart.
II. Opposition to anti-slavery principles, is no new thing under the
sun. We should conclude, from the reasoning of some, in these days, that
all efforts made to suppress slavery, which elicit the opposition of the
South, must be wrong, for, say they, “slavery can be destroyed without
any opposition from the slaveholder!”
Monstrous!!! what? the most stupendous structure of selfishness and
abominations on earth, be uptorn without opposition or convulsion! As
well may you say, that God could have emancipated the Hebrews, without
exciting so much opposition from their masters! The truth is, that the
doctrine was never broached till these latter days, that freedom could
be achieved without a struggle. As well say that our fathers could have
achieved the independence of ‘76 without opposition. The experiment was
made for twenty years, by colonizationists, to do away with slavery,
without opposition, and, accordingly, they were obliged to mould their
scheme and plans to suit the South, so as to avoid opposition; and the
South succeeded, and gave them a scheme which would transport to a dark,
and desolate, and heathen shore, to die of starvation, four or five
thousand, while the increase was 700,000, ☜ to say nothing of the old
stock on hand. Good reason why the South should not oppose such a plan.
They would display unutterable folly in their opposition.
_Slavery is one of the strongholds of hell_, and it is not to be torn
down without a struggle, any more than satan will surrender any other
part of his kingdom without opposition. Peter’s master was enraged at
any reproof or interference from others, that came in collision with his
tyranny, and so it is now.
III. We see, also, that the slave, in all ages, thinks so badly of
slavery, that he is disposed to run away, if he can. This is enough to
say about slavery. Men are not disposed to run away from great
blessings. And yet we are told, constantly, by the South, that the
slaves are contented and happy with their masters. Now, if this is true,
it only makes slavery worse; for what kind of a system is that which
degrades a man so low, and prostrates all his better and more glorious
attributes to such degradation, that _the love of liberty is crushed in
his soul_; that no heaven-directed thought is lifted for the high
enjoyments of an intellectual and bright being; that he is stripped of
all that he received from Jehovah, which elevates him above the worm
that crawls at his feet. Oh! fellow-man beware! if you have succeeded so
completely in defacing the lineaments of divinity in the human soul,
that all the glorious objects of creation will not draw forth from his
bosom a thought or a wish after a brighter abode. If the gay carol of
the wild bird, or the fresh breezes of morning which bring it to his
ear, or the stars of heaven, as they roll in their orbits, or the bright
dashing of the unfettered waters which sweep by, or the playful gambols
of the lamb that skips and plays on their banks; or, above all, if the
spirit of the Eternal Father, which breathes nobility and greatness into
the soul of his children, does not fan the fires of liberty in his
bosom; oh! fellow-man, if you have so completely dashed to oblivion and
nothingness, an immortal spirit, you have done a deed at which all hell
would blush; you have covered the throne of the Eternal in mourning. If
this be true, you are worse than you have ever been described.
But, Sir, your whole enginery of death has never accomplished such a
total destruction as this. You may have _degraded mind_, and you _have_,
but oh! thanks to God, you have not made such awful havoc with a
deathless spirit as this. No! you have only poured gall into wounded
spirits; you have only torn open deeply lacerated bosoms;—you have only
plucked the most glorious pearl from man’s diadem; you have only heaped
insult upon a son or a daughter of God Almighty, who is redeemed by the
blood of the Lamb;—and your stroke or bolt of woe, that unchained the
spirit, only open a passage-way for it to the gates of eternal glory.
But, you have done enough God knows! You have done enough to heap up
fuel for your own damnation; and encircled by those faggots, “you shall
burn, and none shall quench them,” through eternal ages, unless you are
cleansed by atoning blood.
The truth is yet to be told. The slave is not contented and happy—more,
no slave in the universe ever was, or can be contented, till God shall
strip him of his divinity which makes him a man. I have conversed with
several thousands in bondage, and many who have got free, and never did
I hear such a sentiment fall from human lips. It is estimated by facts
already in our possession, (viz. the numbers who win their way to
freedom, and those who are advertised as run-aways who are caught,) that
more than fifty thousand slaves attempt their escape from bondage every
year. And yet so anxious are their masters to still bind the chains,
that many of them are chased over one thousand miles. What bare-faced
hypocrisy in a man, to give money to transport to an inhospitable and
barbarous clime, a worn-out slave, and yet to chase _his brother_ one
thousand miles to reduce him again to bondage, or to death!!
IV. _The low and base meanness of slave-holding._ Nothing is accounted
_meaner_ than theft and _stealing_! ☜ And yet ☞ every slaveholder is
necessarily a constant, and perpetual thief. ☜ He steals the slave’s
body and soul. And if there is one kind of theft which is worse than all
others, it is to steal the wages of the poor, three hundred and
sixty-five days in the year! It would be accounted very mean in a rich
man, to employ a poor day laborer and then follow him to his home at
night, after the toils of the day were over, and steal from his pocket
the price of his day’s labor, which he had paid to him to buy bread for
his children, and such a man would be called a wretch all over the
world;—and yet every slaveholder as absolutely steals the slave’s wages
every night—for he goes to his dwelling and family, if he have one,
pennyless after a day of hard toil. It would be considered the worst
kind of _meanness_ to go, and divide, and separate by an impassable
distance the members of a poor family; and yet not a slave lives in the
South, who has not at some time or other, seen the same barbarous
practice in the circle of his own relationship, and love.
It is the necessary and legitimate inference of the master, from the
doctrine of _the right of property in man_, that all the slave possesses
or acquires belongs to the one who owns him. Accordingly, Morehouse had
a _perfect right_ to the broadcloth coat which Mr. Tucker gave Peter for
saving the life of his daughter. The whole difficulty, the grand cause
of all the barbarities of slavery, lies in this unfounded and infamous
claim of the right to own, as property, the image of the Great Jehovah.
Destroy this claim, and slavery must cease forever. Acknowledge it in
_any instance_, or _under any circumstances_, and the flood-gate is
flung wide open to the most tyrannical oppression in an hour. This was
illustrated in the case of Dr. Ely, of Philadelphia, who pretended to be
“opposed to slavery as much as any body,” and yet who still main’tained
_that corner-stone principle of tyranny, “that it is right under certain
circumstances to hold man as property.”_ He removed to a slave state,
and found that “these circumstances” occurred. He _bought a slave,
Ambrose_, with, (as he declared,) _benevolent designs_, intending to
spend the avails of his unrequited labor, in buying others to
emancipate. He was expostulated with by his brethren in the ministry,
and out of it, against the _sin of his conduct in owning a fellow-man_,
and making the innocent labor without reward, to free the enslaved. And
“the hire of the laborer which he kept back cried to God.” He was told
of _the danger of owning a man for an hour_, by a keen-sighted editor of
New York; and this same editor uttered a prophecy which seemed almost
like the voice of inspiration, that God would pour contempt upon such an
unholy experiment, “of doing evil that good might come.” But still the
Doctor passed on, and heeded it not. At length, after that prophecy had
been forgotten by all but the friends of the slave, its fulfilment came
from the shores of the Mississippi, and God had blasted the Doctor’s
unrighteous scheme, and his speculations all failed, and poor Ambrose
was sold to pay his master’s debts. ☜ Then the experiment was fairly,
and one would think, _satisfactorily_ made, and the principle was
settled forever by God’s providence, that “_it is wrong under any
circumstances to hold man as property_.” We want the slaveholder to give
up his unholy, and unfounded claim to the image of God, and when he will
practically acknowledge this principle, then he will cease to be a
slaveholder.
V. We see, in the light of this story, the debasing, degrading, and
withering influence of slavery upon its poor victim. Peter tells the
truth, when he says, “no man can hold up his head _like a man_ if he is
a slave.” Any person who has been on a southern plantation must confess,
that there is a degraded and servile air upon the countenance of all the
slaves. A more abject, low, vacant, inhuman look, cannot be seen in the
face of a being in the world, than you see when you meet a southern
slave. It is not the tame and subdued look of a jaded beast. It is
infinitely more painful to behold a slave than such a spectacle. He
seems to be a man with the soul of a beast; God’s image does not speak
from his dim and lustreless eye, or his lifeless and degraded bearing.
You see a human form, but you cannot see the image of his Maker and
Father there. The slave loses his self-respect, and all regard for his
nature. He is shut out from all the lovely and glorious objects of
creation; and a soul which was made to soar upward in an eternal flight
towards its Sire, is smothered, and debased, and ruined;—its existence
is almost blotted from creation, and when it leaves its abused and
lacerated house of mortality, the world does not feel the loss;—the
departure is unnoticed, except by a few who loved him in life, and are
glad when his pilgrimage is over. The spirit flies, “no marble tells us
whither and he is forgotten, and only a few like himself know that he
ever existed in a green and beautiful world. But “a soul is a deathless
thing,” and that soul shall _speak_ at the last judgment day! It shall
tell its tale of blood to an assembled universe, and that universe shall
pronounce the doom of its murderer. ☜ In forecasting the proceedings of
the last day, I tremble to think I shall be one of its spectators; _not
because I shall be tried_, for I humbly trust I shall have an advocate
there, whose plea the Judge will accept, and whose robe of complete
righteousness shall mantle my naked spirit. But the revelations of that
solemn tribunal, which millions of enslaved Africans shall unfold, will
make the universe turn pale. And I should feel a desire to withdraw
behind the throne, till the sentence had been passed upon all buyers,
and sellers, and owners, of the image of the Omnipotent Judge, and
executed; did I not wish to behold _all the scenes_ of that great day,
and mingle my sympathies with _all the fortunes of that Throne_. For, as
I expect to stand among that mighty company, who shall cluster around
the Judgment Seat, _I do believe, that God’s Book will contain no page
so dark with rebellion and crime, as that which records the story of
American Slavery_! And yet I believe that that Book will embrace the
history of the whole creation.
VI. We see the glorious and hallowed influence of freedom upon man:—
No sooner had Peter escaped from chains, than he began to emerge from
degradation into the dignity of a human being. He breathed an inspiring
and ennobling atmosphere; he felt the greatness and glory of immortal
existence steal over him, and his soul, which had been shrouded in
darkness, begun to lift itself up from a moral sepulchre, and feel the
life-giving energy of a resurrection from despair. It must have been so,
for man’s element is freedom, and it cannot live in any other; deprived
of its necessary element, it will languish and die.
While I am writing this paragraph, Peter Wheeler comes into my room, and
we will hear his own testimony; he says, “Arter I’d got my liberty, I
felt as though I was in a _new world_; although I suffered, for a while,
a good deal, with fear of being catched.
“When I look back, and think how much I suffered by bein’ beat, and
banged, and whipt, and starved; and then my feelin’s arter I got free,
when I held up my head among men, and nobody pinted at me when I went by
and said, ‘there goes this man’s nigger, or that man’s nigger;’ why, I
can’t describe how I felt for two or three years. I was almost crazy
with joy. What I got for work was _my own_, and if I had a dollar, I
would slap my hand on my pocket and say, ‘_that’s my own_;’ and if I
hauled out my turnip, why it ticked for me and not for master, and ’twas
mine tu when it ticked. And I bought clothes, and good ones, and my own
_arnin’s_ paid for ’em. In fact, I breathed, and thought, and acted, all
different, and it was almost like what a person feels when he is changed
from darkness into light. Besides, when gentlemen and ladies put a
handle to my name, and called me _Mr. Wheeler_, why, for months I felt
odd enough; for you see a slave han’t got no name only ‘nig,’ or ‘cuss,’
or ‘skunk,’ or ‘cuffee,’ or ‘darkey;’ and then, besides, I was treated
like a man. And if you show any body any kindness, or attention, or good
will, you improve their characters, for you make them respect you, and
themselves, and the whole human race a sight more than ever. Why,
respect and kindness lifts up any body or thing. Even the beast or dog,
if you show ’em a kindness, they never will forgit it, and they’ll strut
and show pride in treatin’ on you well; and pity if man is of sich a
natur’ that he ain’t as noble as that, then I give it up. Why, arter I
come to myself, and I would git up and find all the family as pleasant
as could be, and I would go out and look, and see the sun rise, and hear
the birds sing, and I felt so joyful that I fairly thought my heart
would leap out of my body, and I would turn on my heel and ask myself
‘is this Peter Wheeler, or ain’t it? and if ’tis me, why how changed I
be.’ I felt as a body would arter a long sickness, when they first got
able to be out, and felt a light mornin’ breeze comin’ on ’em, and a
fresh, cool kind of a feelin’ comin’ over ’em; and they would think they
never see any thing, or felt any thing afore, for all seemed brighter
and more gloriouser than ever; and oh! it does seem to me that no
Christian people in the world can help wantin’ to see all free, for
Christians love to see all God’s crutters happy.
VII. “I b’lieve that one of the wickedest and most awful things in
creation, and the root, and bottom, and heart of all the evil, is
prejudice agin’ color.’ ☜ There is most, or quite as much of this at the
North as there is at the South, for I can speak from experience. There
is that disgrace upon us, that many people think it’s a disgrace to ’em
to have us come into a room where they be, for fear that they will be
_blacked_, or _disgraced_, or _stunk_ up by us poor off-scourin’ of
‘arth. And if I come into a room with a sarver of tea, coffee, rum,
wine, or sich like, they can’t smell any thing; but jist the second I
set down on an equal with ’em, as one of the company, they pretend they
can smell me. But, worse than this, this same disgrace is cast on our
color in the Sanctuary of the Living God. In enemost all the meetin’
houses, you see the ‘nigger pew;’ and when they come to administer the
Lord’s Supper, they send us off into some dark pew, in one corner, by
ourselves, as though they thought we would disgrace ’em, and stink ’em
up, or black ’em, or somethin.’ Why, ’twas only at the last Sacrament in
our Church this took place. All communicants was axed to come and
partake together, and I come down from the gallery, and as I come into
the door, to go and set down among ’em; one of the elders stretched out
his arm, with an air of disdain, and beckoned me away to a corner pew,
where there was no soul within two or three pews on me, as though he had
power to save or cast off. Now think what a struggle I had, when I sot
down, to git my mind into a proper state for the solemn business I was
agoin to do.
“First, I thought it was hard for me to be so cast off by my brethren in
the church, and a feelin’ riz, and I fit agin’ it, and, finally, I
thought I could submit to my fate; and I believed God could see me, and
hear my cry, and accept my love, as well there as though I sot in the
midst on ’em. And it is the strangest thing in the world, too, that
Christian people can act so. There must be some of the love of
Christianity wantin’ in their hearts, or they could not treat a brother
in Christ in that way. As I sot there, I thought, ‘can there be any sich
place as a dark-hole, or black pew, or behind the door, or under the
fence, in heaven? If there is sich a spirit or policy there, I don’t
feel very anxious desire to go there.’ The bible says, ‘God is no
respecter of persons.’ ☜
“And what is worse than all, this spirit is carried to the graveyard;
and for fear that the dead body of a black man shall black up or
disgrace the body of a white, they go and dig holes round under the
fences, and off in a wet corner, or under the barn, and put all of our
colour in ’em; for every one may be an eyewitness if he’ll go to our
graveyard and others; for I have lived now goin’ on fourteen years in
one place, and any colored person who has been buried at all there, has
been buried all along under the fences, and close up to the old barn
that stands there. I know God will receive the souls of sich, jist as
well as though they was buried in the middle of the yard, but I say
this, to let the reader know what a cruel and unholy thing prejudice
agin color is, and what it will do to us poor black people.
“Now I know that all this is the reason why the people of our colour
don’t rise any faster. The scorn, the disgrace that every body flings on
’em, keeps ’em down, and they are sinkin’, and such treatment is enough
to sink the Rocky mountains.
“Now I know from experience, that the better you treat a black man the
better he will behave; for his own pride will keep his ambition up, and
he’ll try to rise; why if you should treat white folks so they’d grow
bad jist as fast. Why, who don’t know that a body will try to git the
good will of those who treat ’em well, so as to make ’em respect ’em
still more? And it’s jist like climbin’ a ladder; you’ll git up a round
any day, but if you keep a knockin’ a man on the head with the club of
prejudice, how in the name of common sense can he climb up.
“Now this is most as bad as slavery; ☜ for slavery keeps the foot on the
black man’s neck all the time, and don’t let ’em rise at all; and
prejudice keeps a knockin’ on him down as fast as he gits up; and we
ought not to go to the South, till we can git the people of the North to
treat our color like men and women. A good many people oppose
abolitionists, and say, ‘why what will you do with the niggers when they
are free? They will become drunken sots and vagabonds like our niggers
at the North; why don’t _they_ rise?’ I can answer that question in a
hurry! The reason is, because they don’t give us the same chance with
white folks; they won’t take us into their schools and colleges, and
seminaries, and we don’t be allowed to go into good society to improve
us; and if we set up business they won’t patronize us; they want us to
be barbers, and cooks and whitewashers and shoeblacks and ostlers,
camp-cullimen, and sich kind of mean low business. We ain’t suffered to
attend any pleasant places, or enjoy the advantages of debating schools
and libraries, and societies, &c. &c., and all these things is jist what
improves the whites so fast. And if we by hook or by crook git into any
sich place, why some feller will step on our toes, and give us a shove,
and say, ‘stand back nig, you can see jist as well a little furder off.
“Now all these things is what keeps us so much in the back ground; for
if we have a chance, we git up in the world as fast as any body. For
there _is_ smart and respectable colored folks; and you sarch out their
history, and you’ll find that they once had a good chance to git
larnin’, and they jumped arter it. I think one of the greatest things
the abolition folks should be arter, is to help the free people of color
to git up in the world, and grow respectable, and educated, and then we
will prove false what our enemies say, ‘that we are better off in chains
than we be in freedom.’”
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BOOK THE SECOND
----------
PETER WHEELER ON THE DEEP.
CHAPTER I.
Beginning of sea stories—sails with Captain Truesdell for the
West-Indies—feelings on leaving the American shore—sun-set at
sea—shake hands with a French frigate—a storm—old Neptune—a bottle or
a shave—caboose—Peter gets two feathers in his cap—St.
Bartholomews—climate—slaves—oranges—turtle—a small pig, “but dam’
old”—weigh anchor for New York—“sail ho!”—a wreck—a sailor on a
buoy—get him aboard—his story—gets well, and turns out to be an
enormous swearer—couldn’t draw a breath without an oath—approach to
New York—quarantine—pass the Narrows—drop anchor—rejoicing times—Peter
jumps ashore “a free nigger.”
_Author._ “Where do you hail from to day, Peter?”
_Peter._ “From the street, where I’ve found some folks that makes me
feel bad.”
A. “What now, Peter?”
P. “Why, there’s some folks that feels envious and flings this in my
face—’Oh! you’ve got to be a mighty big nigger lately, han’t ye? and
you’re agoin’ to have your life wrote.’ And this comes principally from
people of my own colour, only now and then a white person flings in
somethin’ to make it go glib; but the white folk round here generally
treat me very kindly.”
A. “Well, don’t revenge yourself, Peter; bear it like a man and a
christian. Now let us launch out on the deep.”
P. Well, we’ll weigh anchor,—but it won’t do for me to tell every thing
that happened to me in my sea v’iges, for ‘twould fill fifty books; and
so I’ll only tell some things that always seemed to please folks more’n
the rest:
I followed the North River all that summer I run away, and in the fall
of that year Captain John Truesdell sold his sloop and engaged to go out
to sea as master of a large vessel for a company of New York merchants.
“So, on the 22d of October, 1806, at nine o’clock we weighed anchor for
St. Bartholomews, and bore away for the Narrows. Arter we’d got out some
ways, I turned back to take one look at my old native land, and I felt
kind’a streaked, and sorry and grieved, and you may say I felt kind’a
rejoiced tu, for if I was a goin’ away from home and country, out on the
wide waters, I’d got my liberty, and was every day gettin’ it
_stronger_.
“We had a fine ship; she was one of the largest vessels in port, and she
carried twenty guns, for she was rigged to sail for any port, and fight
our own way. We had thirty-seven able-bodied men besides officers; and
in all, with some officers, about fifty men aboard. When we’d been out
nearly two days, towards night, we looked off ashore, and the land
looked bluer and bluer, till all on it disappeared, and nothin’ could be
seen but a wide waste of waters, blue as any thing, and the sun set jist
as though it fell into a bed of gold; and when the moon riz she looked
jist as though she come up out of the ocean; and the next mornin’, when
the mornin’ star rose, he looked like a red hot cinder out of a furnace.
Well, we all looked till we got out of sight of land, and then some went
to cryin’ and _I_ felt rather ticklish; but most on us went to findin’
out some amusements. The sails was all filled handsome, and she bounded
over the waters jist like a bird. Some on us went to playin’ cards, some
dice, and some a tellin’ stories, and he that told the fattest story was
the best feller.
“Next day ’bout nine in the mornin’, we spied a French frigate on our
larboard bow, bearin’ right down upon us, and first she hailed, “ship
ahoy!” Captain answered, and the frigate’s captain says, “what ship?”
“Sally Ann, from New York.” The Frenchman hollered, “drop your peak and
come under our lee.” And he did, and he come on board our ship with
twelve men, and captain took ’em down into the cabin, and hollers for
me, and says, ‘bring twelve bottles of madeira;” and so I did, and
stepped back and listened, and there they talked and jabbered, and I
couldn’t understand ’em any more’n a parcel of skunk blackbirds; but our
captain could talk some French. Well, they stayed aboard I guess, two
hours, and examined the ship all through, and then they left, and
boarded their ship, and they fired us two guns, and we answered ’em with
two stout ones, and then we bore off under a stiff breeze. This is what
sailors calls shakin’ hands, and wishin’ good luck, this firin’ salutes.
“The fifth day about ten o’clock A.M. there comes up a tremendous
thunder storm, and the waves run mountain high, and it blowed as though
the heavens and arth was a comin’ together; and the wind and storm riz
till two o’clock in the arternoon, and _increased_; and we drew an ile
cloth over the hatch comin’s and companion way. And all the sails was
took down, every rag on ’em, and we sailed under bare poles; and the log
was flung out, and we found we was a runnin’ at the rate of fifteen
knots an hour; and there come a sea and swept every thing fore and aft,
and it took me, for I’d just come out of my caboose, and swept my feet
right from under me, but I hung fast to the shrouds; and there wave
arter wave beat agin us, and swept over us clean. And oh! dear me suz,
the lightnin’ struck on the water and sissed like hot iron flung in, and
the thunder crashed like a fallin’ mountain, and the sailors acted some
on ’em pretty decent, and the rest on ’em like crazy folks. They ripped,
and swore, and cussed, and tore distressedly; and one old feller up
aloft reefin’ sail, his head was white as flax, cussed his Maker, ‘cause
he didn’t send it harder.
“Oh! how I trembled when I heard him! Why he scart me a thousand times
worse than the lightnin’. ‘Bout nine at night we tries the pumps, and
finds three feet water in the bold, and then eight men went to pumpin’
till the pumps sucked, and the captain looked pretty serious I tell ye;
and ’bout twelve o’ clock the storm went down, and all was quiet, only
the sea, and that was distressedly angry; and the next mornin’ ’twas as
calm, as the softest evenin’ ye ever see.
“Captain comes round and says, ‘boys, old Neptune will be round to-day,
and make every one pay his bottle or be shaved,’ and sure enough, ’bout
eleven the old feller comes aboard with an old tarpaulin hat on, and his
jacket and breeches all tore to strings, and the water running off on
him, and says, ‘captain you got any of my boys aboard?’ ‘Yis, here’s
one;’ and he p’inted at _me_. ‘Well boy, what have you got for me
to-day?’ ‘A bottle of wine,’ says I; and he says ‘now I’m goin’ to swear
you by the crook of your elbow, and the break of the pump, that you will
let no man pass without a bottle or a shave.’ So he goes round to all on
board and then goes away. The captain told me he was ‘old Neptune, and
lived in the ocean;’ but I was detarmined to foller him; so on I goes
arter him, and I finds him snug hid under the cathead a changin’ his
clothes, and then he comes on deck, and I charged him that he was the
old Neptune, and finally he confessed it, and said ’twas the way all old
sailors did to make every raw hand, when they got to sich a spot in the
ocean, pay his bottle or be shaved with tar, soap, and an iron razor.
“Along in the day, captain calls all hands on deck, and says, ‘we’ve had
a pretty hard time boys, and new we’ll rig a new caboose, and clear up,
and then we’ll splice the main brace and ’twas done quick and well, _for
grog was ahead_.
“The captain says to me, ‘now cook, you go down and draw that ten quart
pail full of wine, and give every man a half a pint; and drink and be
merry boys, but let no man get drunk. Well, I got a good supper, and
arter that a jollier set of fellers you never seed. We was runnin’ under
a stiff breeze from N. W. and all sails well filled; and we had sea
stories, and songs, and music, and all kinds of amusements, and the
captain was as jolly as any body.
“Well, arter bedtime, the captain says, ‘cook, you must be my watch
to-night,’ and he comes and tells me jist how to manage the helm; and he
turns in, and I managed it _well_, for I’d managed his old sloop on the
river, but this was somethin’ more of a circumstance; and afore the
watch was up, I got so I could manage a ship as well as the fattest on
’em, and a tickelder feller you never see.
“In the mornin’ the hands praised me up; and the captain says, ‘why,
he’s the best man aboard, for he can do _my duty_;’ and that made me
feel good, and I got two considerable feathers in my cap that time.
“But I must hurry on. We made St. Bartholomews in nineteen days from New
York, and sold cargo, and took in a load for Porto Rico, and there
filled up with sugar and molasses, and put out for New York. The climate
there was hot enough to scorch all the wool off a nigger’s head. The
fever was ragin’ dreadfully in another part of the island, and we
didn’t, any on us, pretend to go ashore much. The sand was so hot at
noon ‘twould burn your feet, and the white inhabitants didn’t go out at
all in the middle of the day; but the niggers didn’t seem to mind the
heat at all; bare-footed, bare-headed, and half-naked; yis, more’n halt
a considerable, and it seemed the hotter it was the better they liked
it. But they suffered a good deal, and they’d come aboard our ship and
try to make thick with the crew. They talked a broken lingo, kind’a
Ginney, I s’pose; and they called white folks ‘buddee,’ and they’d say,
‘buddee give eat, and I give buddee orange.’ And so at night, they’d
fetch their oranges aboard, and give a heap on ’em for a few
sea-biscuit, and I tell ye, them oranges wan’t slow. One night, five or
six on ’em fetched a big sea turkle aboard, and we bought him and paid a
kag of biscuit for him, and he weighed two hundred and seventy pounds,
and the fellers seemed dreadfully rejoiced, and patted their lips and
bellies, and laughed, and kissed the captain’s feet, and laughed and
seemed tickled enough, and off they went. Next day another feller come
aboard, and says, ‘Cappy, you buy fat pig?’ ‘Yis, and when will you
bring him?’ ‘Mornin’ Cappy.’ So, in the mornin’ he come aboard with his
pig; he was small, but _terrible fat_; and so the captain pays him and
looks at him, and says, ‘Jack, your pig is small.’ ‘Oh! massa, he’s
small, but _dam old_.’ Oh! how the captain laughed! and he used that for
a bye-word all the v’yge.
“Well, we cooked the turkle, and sich meat I never see; there was all
kinds on it, and if we didn’t live fat for some days I miss my guess. I
was a goin’ to throw the shell overboard, but the captain hollered and
stopped me, and so he saved it and sold it in New York for a good sight
of money; and finally, arter bein’ in the islands some time, we weighed
anchor for New York.
“We’d got ’bout half way home, and one day the cabin boy was aloft, and
he cries out, ‘Sail ho!’
“‘Where away?’ ‘Over the starboard quarter.’
“‘How big?’ ‘As big as a pail of water.’
“‘Bear down to her, helmsman, and yon cook, bring my big glass.’ So I
brings it, and ’twas a big jinted thing, and ‘twould bring any thing
ever so fur off as nigh as you pleased. Captain looks and says, ‘It’s a
man on a buoy.’ And as we got nearer, sure enough we could see him; and
the captain cries, ‘down with the small boat, man her strong, put out
for him and handle him carefully.’ And bein’ pretty anxious, I was the
first man aboard, and we come along side on him and lifts up his head,
and he says in a weak voice, ‘Oh! my God’ don’t hurt me!!’ And we lifts
him up, and still he hangs to the buoy, and we told him to let go. And
he says, ‘I will, if you won’t let me fall;’ and we told him we
wouldn’t, and he let go reluctantly, and we took him in; and his breast,
where he lay on the buoy, was _worn to the bone_, where he’d hugged it,
and the motion of the waves had chafed him so. Well, we got him down in
a berth, and the captain tries to talk with him, but he couldn’t speak,
and we changes all the clothes on him that was left, and feeds him with
cracker and wine; and the captain sets and feels of his pulse, and says
once in a while, ‘he’s doin’ well’: and then he fell asleep, and slept
an hour as calm as a baby, and the captain told me to wash him in
Castile soap-suds, and says he, ‘we’ll have a new sailor in a hurry.’
“I prepares my wash and he wakes up, and says, ‘how in the name of God
did I come here?’ so we told him, and the captain says, ‘you hungry?’
‘Yis.’ And I fed him a leetle more and washed him; and oh! how he swore,
it smarted so. ‘Where’s the captain,’ says he. ‘Here.’ ‘_Captain, have
you got any rum?_’ ☜ And so he ordered him some weak sling, and arter
this he seemed a good deal stronger, and then the captain sets his chair
down by him, and asks him who he was and where he come from?
“He says, ‘my name is Tom Wilson, and I was born in Bristol, England,
and lived there till I was sixteen, and then sailed for Boston, and
followed the seas twenty years, and at last was pressed aboard an
English man of war in London. I escaped, and got on board a French ship,
and started for America in a merchantman. We’d made ’bout half v’yge
when a tremendous storm riz, and we was stove all to pieces, and every
body and every thing went down, for all I know, and I took to a big cork
buoy as my only hope. The last I see of the wreck was two days arter
this. Well, I hung to my buoy, and floated on, and on, and it got, calm,
and it got to be the fifth day, and I thought I must give up. I lost all
sense enemost, and didn’t know what did happen, till I beard your boat
come up, and then my heart fluttered; and now is the first time for days
I know what I am about. And this is the second time I have been cast
away and not a man aboard saved but myself. How long I was aboard the
buoy arter I lost my sense, I can’t say, but it seems to me it was
_some_ days, but I an’t sartin. Now captain, if I get well, make me one
of your men.’
“The captain says, ‘I will, Tom.’
“Well, he got up fast, and eat up ‘most all creation, he was so nigh
starved; and when he got able to work ship-tackle, he turns out to be a
great sailor, but an awful wicked man, for every breath heaved out an
oath.
“Well, in twenty-one days from the West-Indies, we made the New York
Light, and then there was rejoicin’ enough I tell ye. I know I was glad
enough, and as soon as we got hauled up, I jumped ashore and the first
thing says I,
“Here’s a Free Nigger.” ☜
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER II.
Peter spends the winter of 1806–7 in New York; sails in June in the
Carnapkin for Bristol; a sea tempest; ship becalmed off the coast of
England; catch a shark and find a lady’s hand, and gold ring and
locket in him; this locket, &c. lead to a trial, and the murderer
hung; the mother of the lady visits the ship; sail for home; Peter
sails with captain Williams on a trading voyage; Gibralter;
description of it; sail to Bristol; chased by a privateer; she
captured by a French frigate; sail for New York; Peter lives a
gentleman at large in “the big city of New York.”
_Author._ “What did you do in New York, Peter?”
_Peter._ “We laid by and unrigged for winter, and the captain sent to
Troy and had his family brought down to the city, and I lived in his
family that winter as servant; and I had fine times tu, for he was a
noble man, and lived as independent as a prince, in Broadway, nigh where
the Astor House stands. I had a fine winter of it, and come spring he
hired the Carnapkin, one of the biggest and best ships in port, and all
rigged. We weighed anchor for Bristol, and this was rare sport for me,
for we was a goin’ to see old John Bull.
“When we’d been out about seven or eight days, we was overhauled by a
tremendous storm from the north-east; and it grew worse and worse, and
about midnight she lay on her beam ends for some time, and we expected
to go to pieces; and the second mate sounded the hold and found four
feet water in her, and that started the hair. We got the pumps a goin’
and pretty soon the captain hollers out, ‘she rights,’ and glad enough
we was; and the carpenter found her leak, and makes all tight, and by
next day all was clear as a bell. The captain found himself off of his
course over two hundred miles, and so he hauls on agin; and in about
twenty days we made sight of the white coast of old England, and there
we was becalmed for two days, and didn’t stir a mile.
“The captain says, ‘now boys, you may go and fish till we git a breeze.’
Well, we hadn’t been out long afore we fell foul of a shark, and the
first thing he knowed he had the harpoon in him, and we got him aboard,
and then we calculated on a great hurrah, and sure enough we did have a
_melancholy_ one tu. The captain says, ‘now let’s have his liver
cooked,’ for you see a shark’s liver is a great dish at sea. And so I
goes to work and cuts him open, and what do you think I found there?
“Why the first thing I found was the _hand of a human person_, and on
the middle finger was a gold ring, and on it ’twas wrote who she was in
Spanish characters. The captain stands by and says, ‘dig carefully a
leetle furder and see what you find.’ So on I dug with my butcher-knife,
and up comes a gold chain; and I pulled away and out come a gold locket,
and it had a lock of hair in it, and a name on it. We hunted along and
found human bones, and nails of fingers partly _dissolved_.
“Well, the captain sings out, ‘fling the monster overboard, for we won’t
have any thing aboard that devours human flesh; and cook you clean that
locket and hand, &c., as clean as you can.’ And so I did, and the hand
we preserved in rum, and the captain kept all of ’em till we got to
port, and then we found out the end on it, and all about it.
“Well, we made port, and then the captain advertises the story of the
shark; and the day arter this there come a splendid carriage to the
dock, and who should it be but a Spanish lady, and she was in great
splendor tu, and she comes aboard and calls for the captain; and he
waits upon her with great respect down into the cabin, and her servant
goes down with her, and she spoke in broken English, and asks him all
about the shark, and then he tells all about it, and then showed her the
hand; and when I brought it she broke out into ‘my God!’ and she seemed
to be grieved and vexed, and broken down, and yit spunky by turns; and
then she’d say, as she looked at the locket and hand and ring, ‘sacra
venga,’ and swear, and her face would look red and pale by turns; and
finally she turns to the captain and says, ‘Sir, this was my child,’ and
says she ‘there was a young Spaniard engaged to my daughter, and they
walked out one evening towards the water-side, and that’s the last I’ve
heard of my child till now. He went to his own lodgings that night and
was inquired of for her, but give no answer, and they made great sarch
for her, but nothin’ could we hear. It always seemed to me he killed
her, but I couldn’t git any evidence of it, and so I let it rest, and
this happened nearly two weeks ago, and to day, you and your crew must
come up and testify to the whole transaction.’ So she left.
That arternoon, four gentlemen come in a coach to the ship, and we had
to go up to the City Hall, I guess ’twas; a large stone building, and it
had great pillars in front on it, and I looked at it _good_ I tell you,
for ’twas the handsomest buildin’ I ever see. So we got there, and they
put us all into a room and locked us up; and we stayed there till two
o’clock, and then a man come and took out the captain, and then me, and
I was sworn, and told the whole story; and then all the crew was fetched
on, and testified the same thing; and the cabin-boy, when he finished
his testimony, says, ‘and I believe this lady was killed and flung
overboard by some body,’ and he said it with some courage, tu; and at
that a young Spaniard of a dark complexion and long black eyebrows that
come round under a curl at the corner of his eye, and oh! how black his
eye was, and he had long mustaches on his upper lip, and a big pair of
whiskers, and I tell you he looked as though he could murder as easy as
you could eat a meal of victuals. But he looked kind’a chopfallen, and
up he got, and says he, ‘I’m the man—I flung her off the wharf, and I
give myself up to the law;’ you see he had been taken and brought to the
bar. Then the king’s Attorney Gineral, spoke to this prisoner, and I
tell you he was dressed splendidly. He had on an elegant blue coat and
satin vest, and black satin pantaloons, and buff pumps, and he had on a
girdle of red morocco, and it had a gold plate in front, and it had a
big star on it, and his head was powdered in great style, and he fixes
his eyes on the Spaniard like a blaze of fire, and says, ‘prisoner,
deliver up that knife in your sleeve;’ and at that the Spaniard slips a
ribbon off of his wrist and drew out a knife like what we call a Bowie
knife in this country, and handed it to the Attorney, and I tell ye if
the Spaniard didn’t look beat!
“And then his lawyer got up and made a smart plea for him and set down;
but then you might know he was a rowin’ agin the tide, for he was a
pleadin’ for the devil himself.
“Then the Attorney Gineral got up, and says, ‘My Lords and Judges, and
Gentlemen of the Jury, &c. &c.’ And if he didn’t make a splendid plea
then I’m no judge—I once could tell all about it, for you see I was all
ear when them big fellers spoke and we all talked it over on the v’yge
so much, and what one forgot ‘tother recollected, and then besides ’twas
published in the Bristol papers; and once I could say it all to a T, and
I only wish I could remember it word for word, it would be sich great
stuff for this book. But my memory has kind’a failed me for a few years;
only I know the Gineral made all on us cry, he talked so fine, and I do
remember the closin’ off sayin’. ‘My Lords, I have now finished the
defence for the crown, and I submit the case to your lordships, feeling
that your verdict will respect the rights of the throne and the
liberties and safety of its loyal subjects. My Lords I have done.’ And
down he sat.
“And there that big room—it was as big as the whole of our big red
barn—was crowded full as it could stick and hold, and there was a’most
all nations on ‘arth there. And I tell you if I didn’t feel fine to git
up afore my lords, (as that ere Attorney Gineral called ’em,) and all
them big bugs, and tell about that poor lady there; _and there agin I
was treated better than I ever was in an American court in my life; for
I never got up in a court room in this country to give testimony or see
a black man, who warn’t rather laughed at by somebody_. Well, when the
Attorney Gineral had finished, three of these ’ere lords I tell on went
into another room, and stayed there a few minutes, and come back, and
then the chief lord of the establishment got up, and drew on a kind of a
black cap, and commanded the attention of all present, and the room was
so still you could hear a pin drop. The prisoner was fetched forward,
and the Judge turns to him and says:—
“‘By the testimony of Captain Truesdell and crew, and by your own
confession, I find you, accordin’ to the laws of our king and country,
_guilty_ of this murder; and have you any thing to offer why sentence of
death should not be pronounced upon you?’ The Spaniard shook his head,
and then the Judge pronounced his doom.
“‘In the Name of the King of the Realm, and by the Authority of Almighty
God, I sentence you to be executed this evening at half-past six
o’clock, until you are _dead_, DEAD, DEAD; and may God have mercy on
your soul.’
“Well, the sheriff took the prisoner and ordered us to be sent back in a
large carriage and four milk white horses to the ship.
Next mornin’ at ten o’clock the Spanish lady came aboard, and went down
in the cabin with the captain, and sot there and talked a good while
about the affair, and cried a good deal, and when she got up she put her
hand into her little huzzy and took out twenty doubloons, and give ’em
to the captain, and told him to divide that with his crew, and she calls
for me and gives me a half-joe, and says she, ‘I give you that for bein’
so good as to find my darter,’ and she went off, and I had a doubloon
and a half-joe, and that night we heard the Spaniard was hung.
“Well, we lay in port about four weeks, and we had fine times and see a
good many big characters, and I was in England arter this, and I see
some of the biggest kind of bugs they got, and I’ll tell about that when
I git to it. Well, we took in a load of goods, and weighed anchor for
home, and had as fine a passage as ever was sailed over the brine. We
made New York and the hands was all paid off, and I had one hundred and
sixty dollars in specie except a little on the Manhattan Bank. Then I
quit Captain Truesdell, and he gin me a recommend, and I hired to
Captain James Williams, and we hadn’t been in port but four weeks afore
I sailed with him for Gaudaloupe. We started in November, on Sunday
mornin’ jist as the bells begun to ring for church, and weighed anchor
for the West Indies, and then I see the difference atwixt the sailor’s
Sunday and a Yorker’s, and it made me feel kind’a serious and rother
bad.
“The captain had started on a tradin’ and carryin’ v’yge; so when we’d
cruised round some months in the West Indies, we took a load and sailed
for Gibralter, and if that Gibralter warn’t a pokerish lookin’ place I
never see one. We come into the bay and cast anchor under the fort, and
they fired three guns over our ship, as a shakin’ hands, to let us know
we was welcome, and then the captain and officers had to go ashore and
account for themselves. As we lay there and looked up, we could see
three tiers of cannon one above another, and soldiers with blue coats
trimmed with red, and horseskin caps (as I calls them) paradin’ there.
And as soon as the captain got leave of tradin’ back and forth from the
governor, all these ’ere cannons was drawn back.