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[Illustration: H. C. BRUCE.]
THE NEW MAN.
TWENTY-NINE YEARS A SLAVE.
TWENTY-NINE YEARS A FREE MAN.
RECOLLECTIONS OF
H. C. BRUCE.
YORK, PA.
P. ANSTADT & SONS,
1895.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1895, by
H C BRUCE,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
PREFACE.
The author offers to the public this little book, containing his
personal recollections of slavery, with the modest hope that it will be
found to present an impartial and unprejudiced view of that system. His
experience taught him that all masters were not cruel, and that all
slaves were not maltreated. There were brutal masters and there were
mean, trifling lazy slaves. While some masters cruelly whipped, half fed
and overworked their slaves, there were many others who provided for
their slaves with fatherly care, saw that they were well fed and
clothed, and would neither whip them themselves, nor permit others to do
so.
Having reached the age of twenty-nine before he could call himself a
free man, and having been peculiarly fortunate in all his surroundings
during the period of his slavery, the author considers himself competent
to deal with all concerned, fairly and without prejudice, and he will
feel more than repaid for his labor, if he can throw even some little
new light upon this much mooted question. He believes that we are too
far removed now from the heart burnings and cruelties of that system of
slavery, horrible as it was, and too far removed from that bloody strife
that destroyed the system, root and branch, to let our accounts of it
now be colored by its memories. Freedom has been sweet indeed to the
ex-bondman. It has been one glorious harvest of good things, and he
fervently prays for grace to forget the past and for strength to go
forward to resolutely meet the future.
The author early became impressed with the belief, which has since
settled into deep conviction, that just as the whites were divided into
two great classes, so the slaves were divided. There are certain
characteristics of good blood, that manifest themselves in the honor and
ability and other virtues of their possessors, and these virtues could
be seen as often exemplified beneath black skins as beneath white ones.
There were those slaves who would have suffered death rather than submit
to dishonor; who, though they knew they suffered a great wrong in their
enslavement, gave their best services to their masters, realizing,
philosophically, that the wisest course was to make the best of their
unfortunate situation. They would not submit to punishment, but would
fight or run away rather than be whipped.
On the other hand there was a class of Negroes among the slaves who were
lazy and mean. They were as untrue to their fellows as to themselves.
Like the poor whites to whom they were analogous in point of blood, they
had little or no honor, no high sense of duty, little or no appreciation
of the domestic virtues, and since their emancipation, both of these
inferior blooded classes have been content to grovel in the mire of
degradation.
The “poor white” class was held in slavery, just as real as the blacks,
and their degradation was all the more condemnable, because being white,
all the world was open to them, yet they _from choice_, remained in the
South, in this position of _quasi_ slavery.
During the slave days these poor whites seemed to live for no higher
purpose than to spy on the slaves, and to lie on them. Their ambitions
were gratified if they could be overseers, or slave drivers, or
“padrollers” as the slaves called them. This class was conceived and
born of a poor blood, whose inferiority linked its members for all time
to things mean and low. They were the natural enemies of the slaves, and
to this day they have sought to belittle and humiliate the ambitious
freeman, by the long catalogue of laws framed with the avowed intention
of robbing him of his manhood rights. It is they who cry out about
“social equality,” knowing full well, that the high-toned Negro would
not associate with him if he could.
If there had been no superior blooded class of blacks in the South,
during the dark and uncertain days of the war, there would not have been
the history of that band of noble selfsacrificing heroes, who guarded
with untiring and unquestioned faith, the homes and honor of the
families of the very men who were fighting to tighten their chains. No
brighter pages of history will ever be written, than those which record
the services of the slaves, who were left in charge of their masters’
homes. These men will be found in every case to have been those, who as
slaves would not be whipped, nor suffer punishment; who would protect
the honor of their own women at any cost; but who would work with
honesty and fidelity at any task imposed upon them.
The author’s recollections begin with the year 1842, and he will
endeavor to show how slaves were reared and treated as he saw it. His
recollections will include something of the industrial conditions amidst
which he was reared. He will discuss from the standpoint of the slave,
the conditions which led to the war, his status during the war, and will
record his experiences and observations regarding the progress of the
Negro since emancipation.
It is his belief, that one of the most stupendous of the wrongs which
the Negro has suffered, was in turning the whole army of slaves loose in
a hostile country, without money, without friends, without experience in
home getting or even self-support. Their two hundred and fifty years of
unrequited labor counted for naught. They were free but penniless in the
land which they had made rich.
But though they were robbed of the reward of their labor, though they
have been denied their common rights, though they have been
discriminated against in every walk of life and in favor of every breed
of foreign anarchist and socialist, though they have been made to feel
the measured hate of the poor white man’s venom, yet through it all they
have been true; true to the country they _owe_ (?) so little, true to
the flag that denies them protection, true to the government that
practically disowns them, true to their honor, fidelity and loyalty, the
birthrights of superior blood.
H. C. BRUCE,
WASHINGTON, D. C.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Correct Date of Birth.--Reasons Ex-Slaves Cannot give their
Ages.--Childhood Days in Slavery.--Emigration to Missouri in
1844.--Return to Virginia in 1847.--Life in the New Country.--Hunting,
Fishing and Playing.--Treed by Wild Hogs.--Narrow Escape from
Abolitionists at Cincinnati, Ohio, and Service as a Slave for Seventeen
Years Thereafter as a Result 11
CHAPTER II.
Happy Days Spent Till Thirteen Years Old.--The Old Millpond and
the Trusted Old Slave Miller.--Slave Children Treated Tenderly and
Kindly.--Overseer’s Brutality Checked by Old Mistress.--Whipped on
Account of a Lie Told by a Poor White Man.--Status of Poor White
Trash.--Fewer Liberties Than Slaves.--No Association or Intermarriage
with the Ruling Class.--Hauled to the Polls and Forced to Vote as the
Master Class Directed.--Poor Whites as Well as the Slaves Freed by
the War.--Both Classes Equally Illiterate.--The Old Master Class and
the Colored People Can Live in Peace, were it not for the Poor White
Trash 24
CHAPTER III.
Runaway Negroes.--Cause and Effect.--Some Dangerous to Capture.--Mean
Masters and Good Ones.--The Good and the Mean Slave.--The Unruly and
Fighting Class, Who Would not Submit.--Inferior and Superior Blood and
How Divided.--The Typical Poor Whites Have Inferior Blood in Their
Veins.--Superior Blood in Slave Veins.--How Superior Blooded Slaves
Took in Their Situation and Spent Life in Their Master’s Service and
are the Better Class of Colored Citizens To-day.--Blood Will Tell,
Regardless of the Color of the Individual in Whose Veins it Flows 32
CHAPTER IV.
Visit to the Old Home, July, 1893.--Great Changes Since
1849.--Plantations Deserted.--Masters and Slaves Gone.--Land Returned
Almost to Primeval Condition.--Few Old Inhabitants Found.--Old Major
Still Active at Ninety-five Years.--That old Public Highway, that was
the Pride of the Community.--Its Old Bed Cut in Gullies or Grown up in
Forest.--What Railroads Have Done for that Country and the South 43
CHAPTER V.
Extent to Which Education Has Stamped Out Belief in Superstition,
Voodooism, Tricking and Conjuring Among Colored People.--More Dense the
Ignorance the More Prosperous the Business of the Conjurer.--All Pains
and Aches Due to Tricking.--Conjurers Boast of Their Ability to do the
Impossible, and How They Were Feared.--A Live Scorpion Taken Out of a
Man’s Leg.--A Noted Old Conjurer Places His “Jack” Under the Master’s
Door Step, Which Prevents Him from Carrying His Slaves out of the
Country.--Slaves in Missouri not Believers in Voodooism Much.--Indians
Believe in Spirit Dance, Colored in Voodooism and the White People in
Witchcraft 52
CHAPTER VI.
Carried to the Cotton Fields of Mississippi in 1849.--Cotton Picking
Under a Mean Overseer and Method of Treatment.--Good Masters Even in
That State.--Master Decides to Carry His Slaves Back to Missouri, Which
Causes Great Rejoicing.--Handshaking When they Reached Brunswick,
Mo.--Work in a Tobacco Factory.--Positive Refusal to go with Master
to Texas in 1855.--His Anger, but Final Acquiescence.--Pleasant Life
in Tobacco Factories Because Master did not whip his Slaves nor Allow
it to be Done by Others.--White and Colored preachers.--Rev. Uncle
Tom Ewing and his Objectionable Prayer.--Virtue and Marital Relations
Encouraged by Masters Among Slaves.--High Toned Slaves.--Death by
Suicide rather than Disgrace 60
CHAPTER VII.
Status of Free Negroes in Missouri Prior to the War.--Had but
Little More Liberties than Slaves.--Guardians to Attend to their
Business.--Could not Leave Home without a Pass.--Free Davy an
Exception.--Respected and Treated like a Man by all who Knew
Him.--Blood will Tell and he had Superior Blood.--Free Born People
Considered Themselves Better than Those Freed by the War.--Bitter
Feeling Between the two Classes ended Several Years after the War.--The
War Freed Both Classes.--Rev. Jesse Mills and Rev. Moses White,
Ex-Slaves and Failure to get Assignments.--Rev. W. A. Moore and J. W.
Wilson, Ex-Slaves Occupying good Charges 76
CHAPTER VIII.
Life on a Farm and Master hard to Please.--Slaves Raised their Own
Crop which Master sold for Them.--Good Old Father Ashby Treated his
Slaves Kindly while Rev. S. J. M. Beebe was the Meanest Master in the
Neighborhood.--Chas. Cabell, Called Hard Master.--Personal Experience
Shows he had a Lazy lot of Slaves.--Ill-treated beast of Burden and
Ill-treated Slaves are much Alike.--Dan Kellogg as a Free Sailer Before
the War and as a Rebel Bushwhacker During it 82
CHAPTER IX.
Campaign of 1860, more Exciting than the Hard Cider One of 1840.--Bob
Toombs’ Declaration.--Split in the National Democratic Party at
Charleston, S. C., April 23, 1860.--Cause and Results.--Lincoln
Elected.--Missouri’s Vote for S. A. Douglass.--Higher Power than Man
in Control.--All Classes Suffered by the War, but Neutrals Most.--Poor
Illiterate Whites out as Patrols to Keep Slaves Quiet.--Fun with those
Patrols who Could not Read Passes.--Lindsey Watts, and How He Fooled
Them.--Who Set the Town on Fire?--No Judas Among Slaves.--They Believed
the War was for their Freedom.--Best Blood Went South to Shoot and
be Shot at While Cowards Remained as Bushwhackers.--James Long, the
Original Lincoln Man.--His Misfortune a Blessing.--Slave Property a
Dead Weight to Owners After 1862.--Business of Negro Traders at an End
for Ever.--Master’s Slave his best Friend After All.--Master’s Property
Stolen by White Thieves in Uncle Sam’s Uniform.--Young Master Returns
after the War, Broken in Health, Cash and Disfranchised 93
CHAPTER X.
Enlistment of Colored Troops at Brunswick, Mo., from 1863 to the Close
of the War and how Assigned.--Master gave his Slaves free Passes to
Induce them to Remain with Him and out of the Army.--Contract to Remain
with Him One Year Broken, and the Cause.--Elopement with the Girl I
Loved.--Exciting Chase Thirty Miles on Horseback, Armed with a Pair of
Colt’s Navies.--Pursued by the Girl’s Master and His Friends.--Laclede
Reached in Safety and Pursuers Fooled.--Full History of Flight, Escape,
Marriage by Rev. John Turner of Leavenworth, Kansas.--Visit to Old
Master in January, 1865.--Found him Dejected.--Farm Rifled by Thieves
Dressed as Soldiers, but They Left Him the Land 107
CHAPTER XI.
New Problem to Solve.--Self Sustenance and Economy.--All Bills to Pay
and Furnish Necessaries.--Difference Between White Men in a Free State
and Old Master Class in Dealing with Ex-Slaves.--Great Confidence in
the Word of Old Master Class, Who Would Not Lie to Slaves.--Cheated by
White Men in Kansas.--Has Old Master Class Degenerated?--Colored People
set Free Without a Dollar or Next Meal and Told to “Root Hog or Die”
by a Great Christian Nation.--Who Made this Country Tenable for the
White Man and Whose Service Brought Millions of Dollars to it, which
Benefited the North as well as the South?--Jealousy of Unskilled White
Laborers caused Prejudice Against Colored People.--Poor White Trash and
Foreign Laborers are the Colored People’s Enemies.--Irish Enmity and
the Cause.--Similar past History Should have Made them Friends, Rather
than Enemies.--Lynching not Done by Old Master Class.--Opening of the
Eyes of the Old Master Class.--Is it Too Late? 112
CHAPTER XII.
The Progress Made by the Colored People, Morally, from 1865 to
1894.--They are the Equals in Scholarship of any Other Class
of Students.--There is no Such Thing as a Negro Race in This
Country.--They are Colored Americans, Nothing More.--This is Their
Home and They Are Here to Stay by the Will of God.--Old Flag is
His.--He has Defended it in the Past and Will Defend it Again.--He
Will Stand or Fall With the Loyalist.--How Colored Families Were
Established.--Their Names.--They are the Equals of any Other Class
With no More Cash.--Contented and Faithful Laborers.--They are Not
Anarchists, But can be Relied Upon in Case of War.--Can Same be Said of
Other Adopted Citizens?--The Negro Will Stand by the True Americans in
all Cases.--Why Should Colored Loyalists Suffer Injustice at the Hands
of the American People?--Not Treated Fairly by the Press.--Injustice
of Mine Owners and Manufacturers.--All the Colored People Ask of the
Americans is Fair Play in the Race of Life, With its Other Adopted
Citizens 128
CHAPTER XIII.
The Colored People are Charged with Being Imitators and it is
Admitted.--Mistakes made by Following White People.--Advice Given in
Good Faith.--The Hand Should be Trained With the Head.--Have we as
Many Colored Artisans Now as we had at the Close of the War?--History
of Tuskeegee Industrial Institute and its Founder.--How Managed.--Not
a White Man in It.--$15,000, Donated to it by a Southern White Woman,
Descendent of the Old Master Class.--Similar Institutions Springing up
in the Southland 137
CHAPTER XIV
Need of Money and How to Get It.--Business Houses and How to Sustain
Them.--Take the Jew for a Pattern.--We are Producers.--He Is Not, yet
Accumulates Capital.--Our Preachers, Teachers and Leaders Should Lead
us to be a United People.--Prejudice due to Condition, not Color.--We
are Responsible for our Children’s Idle Condition.--Failure to Educate
the Hand as Well as the Head.--White Men Have Used the Advantage we
Gave them.--Duty of Our Ministers not Fulfilled.--We Cannot Always Rely
Upon White Philanthropists, But Must Help Ourselves 143
CHAPTER XV.
Went Into Business in 1866, Which was Destroyed by Fire With
Great Loss.--Reopened and Burnt Out Again, Losing Six Hundred
Dollars.--Reopened and After Three Years Failed.--Went Into Politics
and Beaten by Twenty-Five Votes by Ex Governor Glick, For the Kansas
Legislature.--Pressed for Cash to Buy Bread.--Elected Doorkeeper State
Senate in 1881.--Foreman on Construction Train, A. N. R. R.--Appointed
to Position at Washington.--Promoted Three Times.--Personal Experience
in Pension Office.--Different Commissioners Compared.--Gen. J. C.
Black, the Ideal One.--Advice to New Appointees and What They May
Expect.--Life in Washington as a Clerk.--Old Clerks are the Reliables
and Cannot be Displaced 155
CHAPTER I.
My mother often told me that I was born, March 3rd, of the year that
Martin Van Buren was elected President of the United States, and I have
therefore always regarded March 3rd, 1836, as the date of my birth.
Those who are familiar with the customs that obtained at the South in
the days of slavery, will readily understand why so few of the ex-slaves
can give the correct date of their birth, for, being uneducated, they
were unable to keep records themselves, and their masters, having no
special interest in the matter, saw no necessity for such records. So
that the slave parents, in order to approximate the birth of a child,
usually associated it with the occurrence of some important event, such,
for instance, as “the year the stars fell,” (1833), the death of some
prominent man, the marriage of one of the master’s children, or some
notable historical event. Thus by recalling any one of these
occurrences, the age of their own children was determined. Not being
able to read and write, they were compelled to resort to the next best
thing within reach, memory, the only diary in which the records of their
marriages, births and deaths were registered, and which was also the
means by which their mathematical problems were solved, their accounts
kept, when they had any to keep.
Of course there were thousands of such cases as E. M. Dillard’s, the one
which I shall mention, but as his case will represent theirs, I will
speak of his only. He was an intimate acquaintance of mine, a man born a
slave, freed by the emancipation proclamation when over thirty years
old, without even a knowledge of the alphabet, but he had a practical
knowledge of men and business matters, which enabled him to acquire a
comfortable living, a nice home, to educate his children and conduct a
small business of his own. But the greatest wonder about this man was
the exactness and correct business way in which he conducted it in
buying and selling, and especially in casting up accounts, seemingly
with care, accuracy, and rapidity as any educated man could have done.
But it was the result of a good memory and a full share of brain.
The memories of slaves were simply wonderful. They were not unmindful,
nor indifferent as to occurrences of interest transpiring around them,
but as the principal medium through which we obtain information was
entirely closed to them, of course their knowledge of matters and things
must necessarily have been confined within a very narrow limit; but when
anything of importance transpired within their knowledge, they knowing
the date thereof, could, by reference to it as a basis, approximate the
date of some other event in question. Then there were a great many old
men among them that might be called sages, men who knew the number of
days in each month, in each year, could tell the exact date when Easter
and Whit Sunday would come, because most masters gave Monday following
each of these Sundays as a holiday to slaves.
These old sages determined dates by means of straight marks and notches,
made on a long stick with a knife, and were quite accurate in arriving
at correct dates. I have often seen the sticks upon which they kept
their records, but failed to understand the system upon which they based
their calculations, yet I found them eminently correct. It was too
intricate for me.
My parents belonged to Lemuel Bruce, who died about the year 1836,
leaving two children, William Bruce and Rebecca Bruce, who went to live
with their aunt, Mrs. Prudence Perkinson; he also left two families of
slaves, and they were divided between his two children; my mother’s
family fell to Miss Rebecca, and the other family, the head of which was
known as Bristo, was left to William B. Bruce. Then it was that family
ties were broken, the slaves were all hired out, my mother to one man
and my father to another. I was too young then to know anything about
it, and have to rely entirely on what I have heard my mother and others
older than myself say.
My personal recollections go back to the year 1841, when my mother was
hired to a lady, Mrs. Ludy Waddel by name. Miss Rebecca Bruce married
Mr. Pettis Perkinson, and soon after her slaves were taken to their new
home, then known as the Rowlett Place, at which point we began a new
life. It is but simple justice to Mr. Perkinson to say, that though
springing from a family known in that part of the country as hard
task-masters, he was himself a kind and considerate man. His father had
given him some ten or twelve slaves, among whom were two boys about my
own age. As we were quite young, we were tenderly treated.
To state that slave children under thirteen years of age were tenderly
treated probably requires further explanation. During the crop season in
Virginia, slave men and women worked in the fields daily, and such
females as had sucklings were allowed to come to them three times a day
between sun rise and sun set, for the purpose of nursing their babes,
who were left in the care of an old woman, who was assigned to the care
of these children because she was too old or too feeble for field work.
Such old women usually had to care for, and prepare the meals of all
children under working age. They were furnished with plenty of good,
wholesome food by the master, who took special care to see that it was
properly cooked and served to them as often as they desired it.
On very large plantations there were many such old women, who spent the
remainder of their lives caring for children of younger women. Masters
took great pride in their gangs of young slaves, especially when they
looked “fat and sassy,” and would often have them come to the great
house yard to play, particularly when they had visitors. Freed from
books and mental worry of all kinds, and having all the outdoor
exercise they wanted, the slave children had nothing to do but eat, play
and grow, and physically speaking, attain to good size and height, which
was the special wish and aim of their masters, because a tall,
well-proportioned slave man or woman, in case of a sale, would always
command the highest price paid. So then it is quite plain, that it was
not only the master’s pride, but his financial interest as well, to have
these children enjoy every comfort possible, which would aid in their
physical make up, and to see to it that they were tenderly treated.
But Mr. Perkinson’s wife lived but a short time, dying in 1842. She left
one child, William E. Perkinson, known in his later life as Judge W. E.
Perkinson, of Brunswick, Missouri. Mr. Perkinson built a new house for
himself, “The great house,” and quarters for his slaves on his own land,
near what is now known as Green Bay, Prince Edward County, Virginia. But
I don’t think that Mrs. Perkinson lived to occupy the new house. My
mother was assigned to a cabin at the new place during the spring of
1842. But after the death of his young wife, Mr. Perkinson became
greatly dissatisfied with his home and its surroundings, showing that
all that was dear to him was gone, and that he longed for a change, and
being persuaded by his brother-in-law, W. B. Bruce, who was preparing to
go to the western country, as Missouri and Kentucky were then called, he
decided to break up his Virginia home, and take his slaves to Missouri,
in company with Mr. W. B. Bruce.
The time to start was agreed upon, and those old enough to work were
given a long holiday from January to April, 1844, when we left our old
Virginia home, bound for Chariton County, Missouri. In this event there
were no separations of husbands and wives, because of the fact that my
father and Bristo were both dead, and they were the only married men in
the Bruce family.
Among the slaves that were given to Mr. Perkinson by his father was only
one married man, uncle Watt, as we called him, and he and his wife and
children were carried along with the rest of us.
I shall never forget the great preparations made for our start to the
West. There were three large wagons in the outfit, one for the whites
and two for the slaves. The whites in the party were Messrs. Perkinson,
Bruce, Samuel Wooten, and James Dorsell. The line of march was struck
early in April, 1844. I remember that I was delighted with the beautiful
sceneries, towns, rivers, people in their different styles of costumes,
and so many strange things that I saw on that trip from our old home to
Louisville. But the most wonderful experience to me was, when we took a
steamer at Louisville for St. Louis. The idea of a house floating on the
water was a new one to me, at least, and I doubt very much whether any
of the white men of the party had ever seen a steamboat before.
I am unable to recall the route, and the many sights, and incidents of
that long trip of nearly fifteen hundred miles, and shall not attempt to
describe it. But finally we reached our destination, which was the home
of Jack Perkinson, brother of Mr. Pettis Perkinson, about June or July,
1844. His place was located about seven or eight miles from Keytesville,
Missouri. At that time this country was sparsely settled; a farm house
could be only seen in every eight or ten miles. I was greatly pleased
with the country; for there was plenty of everything to live on, game,
fish, wild fruits, and berries. The only drawback to our pleasure was
Jack Perkinson, who was the meanest man I had ever seen. He had about
thirty-five slaves on his large farm and could and did raise more noise,
do more thrashing of men, women and children, than any other man in that
county.
Our folks were soon hired out to work in the tobacco factories at
Keytesville, except the old women, and such children as were too small
to be put to work. I was left at this place with my mother and her
younger children and was happy. I was too young to be put to work, and
there being on the farm four or five boys about my age, spent my time
with them hunting and fishing. There was a creek near by in which we
caught plenty of fish. We made lines of hemp grown on the farm and hooks
of bent pins. When we got a bite, up went the pole and quite often the
fish, eight or ten feet in the air. We never waited for what is called a
good bite, for if we did the fish would get the bait and escape capture,
or get off when hooked if not thrown quickly upon the land. But fish
then were very plentiful and not as scary as now. The hardest job with
us was digging bait. We often brought home as much as five pounds of
fish in a day.
There was game in abundance, but our hunting was always for young
rabbits and squirrels, and we hunted them with hounds brought with us
from Virginia. I had never before seen so many squirrels. The trees
there were usually small and too far apart for them to jump from tree to
tree, and when we saw one “treed” by the dogs, one of us climbed up and
forced it to jump, and when it did, in nine cases out of ten the dogs
would catch it. We often got six or eight in a day’s hunting.
Another sport which we enjoyed was gathering the eggs of prairie
chickens. On account of the danger of snake bites, we were somewhat
restricted in the pursuit of this pleasure, being forbidden to go far
away from the cabins. Their eggs were not quite as large as the domestic
hen’s, but are of a very fine flavor.
North of Jack Perkinson’s farm was a great expanse of prairie four or
five miles wide and probably twenty or thirty long--indeed it might have
been fifty miles long. There were a great many snakes of various sizes
and kinds, but the most dangerous and the one most dreaded was the
rattlesnake, whose bite was almost certain death in those days, but for
which now the doctors have found so many cures that we seldom hear of a
death from that cause. When allowed to go or when we could steal away,
which we very often did, we usually took a good sized basket and found
eggs enough to fill it before returning. We saw a great many snakes,
killing some and passing others by, especially the large ones. There
were thousands of prairie chickens scattered over this plain, and eggs
were easily found. One thing was in our favor; these wild chickens never
selected very tall grass for nests. But it almost makes me shudder now,
when I think of it, and remember that we were barefooted at the time,
with reptiles on every side, some of which would crawl away or into
their holes while others would show fight. But none of us were bitten by
them. On these prairies large herds of deer could be seen in almost any
direction. I have seen as many as one hundred together. Jack Perkinson
was not a hunter, kept no gun, and of course we had none, so we could
not get any deer. There were a great many wolves around that place and I
stood in mortal fear of them, but never had any encounter with one. They
usually prowled about at night and kept the young slave men from going
to balls or parties.
The most vicious wild animal I met or encountered was the hog. There
were a great many of them around the farm, especially in the timber
south of it. In that timber were some very large hickory nuts--the
finest I ever saw. I remember one occasion when we were out gathering
nuts, having our dogs with us. They went a short distance from us, but
very soon we heard them barking and saw them running toward us followed
by a drove of wild hogs in close proximity. We hardly had time to climb
trees for safety. I was so closely pressed that an old boar caught my
foot, pulling off the shoe, but I held on to the limb of the tree and
climbed out of danger, although minus my shoe. One minute later and I
would not have been here to pen these lines, for those hogs would have
torn and eaten me in short order. From my safe position in the tree I
looked down on those vicious wild animals tearing up my shoe. We had
escaped immediate death, but were greatly frightened because the hogs
lay down under the trees and night was coming on. We had shouted for
help but could not make ourselves heard. Every time our dogs came near,
some big boar would chase them away and come back to the drove. We
reasoned together, and came to the conclusion that if we would drive the
dogs farther away the hogs would leave. Being up trees we could see our
dogs for some distance away and we drove them back. After a while the
hogs seemed to have forgotten us. A few large ones got up, commenced
rooting and grunting, and soon the drove moved on. When they had gotten
a hundred yards away we slid down, and then such a race for the fence
and home. It was a close call. But we kept that little fun mum, for if
Jack Perkinson had learned of his narrow escape from the loss of two or
three Negro boys worth five or six hundred dollars each, he would have
given us a severe whipping.
About January 1, 1845, my mother and her children, including myself and
those younger, were hired to one James Means, a brickmaker, living near
Huntsville, Randolph County, Missouri. I remember the day when he came
after us with a two-horse team. He had several children, the eldest
being a boy. Although Cyrus was a year older than I, he could not lick
me. He and I had to feed the stock and haul trees to be cut into wood
for fire, which his father had felled in the timber. Mr. Means also
owned a girl about fourteen years old called Cat, and as soon as spring
came he commenced work on the brick yard with Cat and me as offbearers.
This, being my first real work, was fun for a while, but soon became
very hard and I got whipped nearly every day, not because I did not
work, but because I could not stand it. Having to carry a double mold
all day long in the hot sun I broke down. Finally Mr. Means made for my
special benefit two single molds, and after that I received no more
punishment from him.
Mr. Perkinson soon became disgusted with Missouri, and leaving his
slaves in the care of W. B. Bruce to be hired out yearly, went back to
Virginia. Some said it was a widow, Mrs. Wooten, who took him back,
while others believed that it was because he could not stand the cursing
and whipping of slaves carried on by his brother Jack whom he could not
control. This man, Jack Perkinson, died about the year 1846, and left a
wife and three children. Although he had borne the reputation of being
the hardest master in that county, his wife was quite different. When
she took charge of the estate, she hired out the slaves, most of them to
the tobacco factory owners, and really received more money yearly for
them than when they worked upon the farm. After her death the estate
passed to her children and was managed by the eldest son, Pettis, who
was very kind to his slaves until they became free by the Emancipation
Proclamation. I am informed that the very best of friendship still
exists between the whites and blacks of that family.
In January, 1846, with my older brothers I was hired to Judge Applegate,
who conducted a tobacco factory at Keytesville, Missouri. I was then
about ten years old, and although I had worked at Mr. Mean’s place, I
had done no steady work, because I was allowed many liberties, but at
Judge Applegate’s I was kept busy every minute from sunrise to sunset,
without being allowed to speak a word to anyone. I was too young then to
be kept in such close confinement. It was so prison-like to be compelled
to sit during the entire year under a large bench or table filled with
tobacco, and tie lugs all day long except during the thirty minutes
allowed for breakfast and the same time allowed for dinner. I often fell
asleep. I could not keep awake even by putting tobacco into my eyes. I
was punished by the overseer, a Mr. Blankenship, every time he caught me
napping, which was quite often during the first few months. But I soon
became used to that kind of work and got along very well the balance of
that year.
Orders had been sent to W. B. Bruce by Mr. Perkinson to bring his slaves
back to Virginia, and about March, 1847, he started with us contrary to
our will. But what could we do? Nothing at all. We finally got started
by steamboat from Brunswick to St. Louis, Missouri, and thence to
Cincinnati, Ohio. Right here I must tell a little incident that
happened, which explains why we were not landed at Cincinnati, but taken
to the Kentucky side of the river, where we remained until the steamboat
finished her business there and crossed over and took us on board again.
Deck passage on the steamer had been secured for us by W. B. Bruce, and
there were on the same deck some poor white people. Just before reaching
Cincinnati, Ohio, some of these whites told my mother and other older
ones, that when the boat landed at Cincinnati the abolitionists would
come aboard and even against their will take them away. Of course our
people did not know what the word abolitionist meant; they evidently
thought it meant some wild beast or Negro-trader, for they feared both
and were greatly frightened--so much so that they went to W. B. Bruce
and informed him of what they had been told. He was greatly excited and
went to the captain of the boat. I am unable to state what passed
between them, but my mother says he paid the captain a sum of money to
have us landed on the Kentucky side of the river. At any rate I know we
were put ashore opposite Cincinnati, and remained there until the
streamer transacted its business at Cincinnati and then crossed over and
picked us up. The story told us by the white deck passengers had a great
deal of truth in it. I have since learned that a slave could not remain
a slave one minute after touching the free soil of that state, and that
its jurisdiction extended to low water mark of the Ohio River. Slaves in
transit had been taken from steamers and given their freedom in just
such cases as the one named above. A case of this kind had been taken
upon appeal to the Supreme Court of the state of Ohio, and a decision
handed down in favor of the freedom of the slave. The ignorance of these
women caused me to work as a slave for seventeen years afterwards.