FATHER HENSON'S STORY
OF HIS OWN LIFE.
[Illustration: Josiah Henson]
TRUTH STRANGER THAN FICTION.
FATHER HENSON'S STORY
OF
HIS OWN LIFE.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY MRS. H. B. STOWE.
BOSTON:
JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY.
CLEVELAND, OHIO:
HENRY P. B. JEWETT.
1858.
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1858, by
JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court
for the District of Massachusetts
LITHOTYPED BY COWLES AND COMPANY,
17 WASHINGTON STREET,
BOSTON.
Press of Geo. C. Rand & Avery.
PREFACE.
The numerous friends of the author of this little work will need no
greater recommendation than his name to make it welcome. Among all
the singular and interesting records to which the institution of
American slavery has given rise, we know of none more striking, more
characteristic and instructive, than that of JOSIAH HENSON.
Born a slave--a slave in effect in a heathen land--and under a heathen
master, he grew up without Christian light or knowledge, and like
the Gentiles spoken of by St. Paul, "without the law did by nature
the things that are written in the law." One sermon, one offer of
salvation by Christ, was sufficient for him, as for the Ethiopian
eunuch, to make him at once a believer from the heart and a preacher
of Jesus.
To the great Christian doctrine of forgiveness of enemies and the
returning of good for evil, he was by God's grace made a faithful
witness, under circumstances that try men's souls and make us all
who read it say, "lead us not into such temptation." We earnestly
commend this portion of his narrative to those who, under much smaller
temptations, think themselves entitled to render evil for evil.
The African race appear as yet to have been companions only of the
sufferings of Christ. In the melancholy scene of his death--while
Europe in the person of the Roman delivered him unto death, and Asia
in the person of the Jew clamored for his execution--Africa was
represented in the person of Simon the Cyrenean, who came patiently
bearing after him the load of the cross; and ever since then poor
Africa has been toiling on, bearing the weary cross of contempt and
oppression after Jesus. But they who suffer with him shall also reign;
and when the unwritten annals of slavery shall appear in the judgment,
many Simons who have gone meekly bearing their cross after Jesus to
unknown graves, shall rise to thrones and crowns! Verily a day shall
come when he shall appear for these his hidden ones, and then "many
that are last shall be first, and the first shall be last."
Our excellent friend has prepared this edition of his works for the
purpose of redeeming from slavery a beloved brother, who has groaned
for many years under the yoke of a hard master. Whoever would help
Jesus, were he sick or in prison, may help him now in the person of
these his little ones, his afflicted and suffering children. The work
is commended to the kind offices of all who love our Lord Jesus Christ
in sincerity.
H. B. STOWE.
ANDOVER, MASS., April 5, 1858.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
MY BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD.
Earliest memories.--Born in Maryland.--My father's
first appearance.--Attempted outrage on my mother.--My
father's fight with an overseer.--One hundred
stripes and his ear cut off.--Throws away his banjo
and becomes morose.--Sold South, 1
CHAPTER II.
MY FIRST GREAT TRIAL.
Origin of my name.--A kind master.--He is drowned.--My
mother's prayers.--A slave auction.--Torn
from my mother.--Severe sickness.--A cruel master.--Sold
again and restored to my mother, 8
CHAPTER III.
MY BOYHOOD AND YOUTH.
Early employment.--Slave-life.--Food, lodging,
clothing.--Amusements.--Gleams of sunshine.--My
knight-errantry.--Become an overseer and general
superintendent, 16
CHAPTER IV.
MY CONVERSION.
A good man.--Hear a sermon for the first time.--Its
effects upon me.--Prayer and communion.--Its first
fruits, 25
CHAPTER V.
MAIMED FOR LIFE.
Taking care of my drunken master.--His fight with an
overseer.--Rescue him.--Am terribly beaten by the
overseer.--My master seeks redress at law, but
fails.--Sufferings then and since.--Retain my post as
superintendent, 31
CHAPTER VI.
A RESPONSIBLE JOURNEY.
My marriage.--Marriage of my master.--His ruin.--Comes
to me for aid.--A great enterprise undertaken.--Long
and successful journey.--Incidents by the
way.--Struggle between inclination and duty.--Duty
triumphant, 42
CHAPTER VII.
A NEW HOME.
Become a Methodist preacher.--My poor companions
sold.--My agony.--Sent for again.--Interview with
a kind Methodist preacher.--Visit free soil and begin
my struggle for freedom, 55
CHAPTER VIII.
RETURN TO MARYLAND.
Reception from my old master.--A slave again.--Appeal
to an old friend.--Buy my freedom.--Cheated and
betrayed.--Back to Kentucky, and a slave again, 66
CHAPTER IX.
TAKEN SOUTH, AWAY FROM WIFE AND CHILDREN.
Start for New Orleans.--Study navigation on the
Mississippi.--The captain struck blind.--Find some
of my old companions.--The lower depths, 79
CHAPTER X.
A TERRIBLE TEMPTATION.
Sigh for death.--A murder in my heart.--The axe
raised.--Conscience speaks and I am saved.--God
be praised! 86
CHAPTER XI.
PROVIDENTIAL DELIVERANCE.
Offered for sale.--Examined by purchasers.--Plead
with my young master in vain.--Man's extremity,
God's opportunity.--Good for evil.--Return North.--My
increased value.--Resolve to be a slave no longer, 93
CHAPTER XII.
ESCAPE FROM BONDAGE.
Solitary Musings.--Preparations for flight.--A long
good-night to master.--A dark night on the river.--Night
journeys in Indiana.--On the brink of starvation.--A
kind woman.--A new style of drinking cup.--Reach
Cincinnati, 102
CHAPTER XIII.
JOURNEY TO CANADA.
Good Samaritans.--Alone in the wilderness.--Meet
some Indians.--Reach Sandusky.--Another friend.--All
aboard.--Buffalo.--A "free nigger."--Frenzy of joy
on reaching Canada, 113
CHAPTER XIV.
NEW SCENES AND A NEW HOME.
A poor man in a strange land.--Begin to acquire
property.--Resume preaching.--Boys go to school.--What
gave me a desire to learn to read.--A day of
prayer in the woods, 128
CHAPTER XV.
LIFE IN CANADA.
Condition of the blacks in Canada.--A tour of
exploration.--Appeal to the Legislature.--Improvements, 138
CHAPTER XVI.
CONDUCTING SLAVES TO CANADA.
Sympathy for the slaves.--James Lightfoot.--My first
mission to the South.--A Kentucky company of
fugitives.--Safe at home, 144
CHAPTER XVII.
SECOND JOURNEY ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD.
A shower of stars.--Kentuckians.--A stratagem.--A
providence.--Conducted across the Miami River by a
cow.--Arrival at Cincinnati.--One of the party taken
ill.--We leave him to die.--Meet a "friend."--A poor
white man.--A strange impression.--Once more in Canada, 150
CHAPTER XVIII.
HOME AT DAWN.
Condition in Canada.--Efforts in behalf of my
people.--Rev. Mr. Wilson.--A convention of
blacks.--Manual-labor school, 165
CHAPTER XIX.
LUMBERING OPERATIONS.
Industrial project.--Find some able friends in
Boston.--Procure funds and construct a saw-mill.--Sales
of lumber in Boston.--Incident in the Custom House, 173
CHAPTER XX.
VISIT TO ENGLAND.
Debt on the institution.--A new pecuniary
enterprise.--Letters of recommendation to
England.--Personal difficulties.--Called an
impostor.--Triumphant victory over these troubles, 179
CHAPTER XXI.
THE WORLD'S FAIR IN LONDON.
My contribution to the great exhibition.--Difficulty
with the American superintendent.--Happy release.--The
great crowd.--A call from the Queen.--Medal awarded to me, 187
CHAPTER XXII.
VISITS TO THE RAGGED SCHOOLS.
Speech at Sunday School Anniversary.--Interview with
Lord Grey.--Interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury,
and dinner with Lord John Russell, the great events of
my life, 194
CHAPTER XXIII.
CLOSING UP MY LONDON AGENCY.
My narrative published.--Letter from home apprising
me of the sickness of my wife.--Departure from
London.--Arrival at home.--Meeting with my family.--The
great sorrow of my life, the death of my wife, 203
CHAPTER XXIV.
CLOSING CHAPTER.
Containing an accurate account of the past and present
condition of the fugitive slaves in Canada, with some
remarks on their future prospects, 209
FATHER HENSON'S STORY
OF
HIS OWN LIFE.
CHAPTER I.
MY BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD.
EARLIEST MEMORIES.--BORN IN MARYLAND.--MY FATHER'S FIRST
APPEARANCE.--ATTEMPTED OUTRAGE ON MY MOTHER.--MY FATHER'S
FIGHT WITH AN OVERSEER.--ONE HUNDRED STRIPES AND HIS EAR
CUT OFF.--THROWS AWAY HIS BANJO AND BECOMES MOROSE.--SOLD
SOUTH.
The story of my life, which I am about to record, is one full
of striking incident. Keener pangs, deeper joys, more singular
vicissitudes, few have been led in God's providence to experience.
As I look back on it through the vista of more than sixty years, and
scene on scene it rises before me, an ever fresh wonder fills my
mind. I delight to recall it. I dwell on it as did the Jews on the
marvellous history of their rescue from the bondage of Egypt. Time
has touched with its mellowing fingers its sterner features. The
sufferings of the past are now like a dream, and the enduring lessons
left behind make me to praise God that my soul has been tempered by
him in so fiery a furnace and under such heavy blows.
I was born June 15th, 1789, in Charles county, Maryland, on a farm
belonging to Mr. Francis Newman, about a mile from Port Tobacco. My
mother was a slave of Dr. Josiah McPherson, but hired to the Mr.
Newman to whom my father belonged. The only incident I can remember
which occurred while my mother continued on Mr. Newman's farm, was
the appearance one day of my father with his head bloody and his back
lacerated. He was beside himself with mingled rage and suffering. The
explanation I picked up from the conversation of others only partially
explained the matter to my mind; but as I grew older I understood it
all. It seemed the overseer had sent my mother away from the other
field hands to a retired place, and after trying persuasion in vain,
had resorted to force to accomplish a brutal purpose. Her screams
aroused my father at his distant work, and running up, he found his
wife struggling with the man. Furious at the sight, he sprung upon
him like a tiger. In a moment the overseer was down, and, mastered by
rage, my father would have killed him but for the entreaties of my
mother, and the overseer's own promise that nothing should ever be
said of the matter. The promise was kept--like most promises of the
cowardly and debased--as long as the danger lasted.
The laws of slave states provide means and opportunities for revenge
so ample, that miscreants like him never fail to improve them. "A
nigger has struck a white man;" that is enough to set a whole county
on fire; no question is asked about the provocation. The authorities
were soon in pursuit of my father. The fact of the sacrilegious act
of lifting a hand against the sacred temple of a white man's body--a
profanity as blasphemous in the eye of a slave-state tribunal as
was among the Jews the entrance of a Gentile dog into the Holy of
Holies--this was all it was necessary to establish. And the penalty
followed: one hundred lashes on the bare back, and to have the right
ear nailed to the whipping-post, and then severed from the body. For a
time my father kept out of the way, hiding in the woods, and at night
venturing into some cabin in search of food. But at length the strict
watch set baffled all his efforts. His supplies cut off, he was fairly
starved out, and compelled by hunger to come back and give himself up.
The day for the execution of the penalty was appointed. The negroes
from the neighboring plantations were summoned, for their moral
improvement, to witness the scene. A powerful blacksmith named Hewes
laid on the stripes. Fifty were given, during which the cries of my
father might be heard a mile, and then a pause ensued. True, he had
struck a white man, but as valuable property he must not be damaged.
Judicious men felt his pulse. Oh! he could stand the whole. Again and
again the thong fell on his lacerated back. His cries grew fainter and
fainter, till a feeble groan was the only response to the final blows.
His head was then thrust against the post, and his right ear fastened
to it with a tack; a swift pass of a knife, and the bleeding member
was left sticking to the place. Then came a hurra from the degraded
crowd, and the exclamation, "That's what he's got for striking a white
man." A few said, "it's a damned shame;" but the majority regarded it
as but a proper tribute to their offended majesty.
It may be difficult for you, reader, to comprehend such brutality, and
in the name of humanity you may protest against the truth of these
statements. To you, such cruelty inflicted on a man seems fiendish.
Ay, on a _man_; there hinges the whole. In the estimation of the
illiterate, besotted poor whites who constituted the witnesses of such
scenes in Charles County, Maryland, the man who did not feel rage
enough at hearing of "a nigger" striking a white to be ready to burn
him alive, was only fit to be lynched out of the neighborhood. A blow
at one white man is a blow at all; is the muttering and upheaving of
volcanic fires, which underlie and threaten to burst forth and utterly
consume the whole social fabric. Terror is the fiercest nurse of
cruelty. And when, in this our day, you find tender English women and
Christian English divines fiercely urging that India should be made
one pool of Sepoy blood, pause a moment before you lightly refuse to
believe in the existence of such ferocious passions in the breasts of
tyrannical and cowardly slave-drivers.
Previous to this affair my father, from all I can learn, had been
a good-humored and light-hearted man, the ringleader in all fun at
corn-huskings and Christmas buffoonery. His banjo was the life of
the farm, and all night long at a merry-making would he play on it
while the other negroes danced. But from this hour he became utterly
changed. Sullen, morose, and dogged, nothing could be done with
him. The milk of human kindness in his heart was turned to gall. He
brooded over his wrongs. No fear or threats of being sold to the far
south--the greatest of all terrors to the Maryland slave--would render
him tractable. So off he was sent to Alabama. What was his after fate
neither my mother nor I have ever learned; the great day will reveal
all. This was the first chapter in my history.