EXPERIENCE IN ST. MICHAELS.
St. Michaels and its inhabitants--Capt. Auld--His new wife--
Suffering from hunger--Forced to steal--Argument in vindication
thereof--Southern camp-meeting--What Capt. Auld did there--
Hopes--Suspicions--The result--Faith and works at variance--
Position in the church--Poor Cousin Henny--Methodist preachers--
Their disregard of the slaves--One exception--Sabbath-school--
How and by whom broken up--Sad change in my prospects--Covey, the
negro-breaker.
St. Michaels, the village in which was now my new home, compared
favorably with villages in slave States generally, at this time--
1833. There were a few comfortable dwellings in it, but the place as
a whole wore a dull, slovenly, enterprise-forsaken aspect. The mass
of the buildings were of wood; they had never enjoyed the artificial
adornment of paint, and time and storms had worn off the bright color
of the wood, leaving them almost as black as buildings charred by a
conflagration.
St. Michaels had, in former years, enjoyed some reputation as a
ship-building community, but that business had almost entirely given
place to oyster fishing for the Baltimore and Philadelphia markets, a
course of life highly unfavorable to morals, industry, and manners.
Miles river was broad, and its oyster fishing grounds were extensive,
and the fishermen were out often all day and a part of the night,
during autumn, winter, and spring. This exposure was an excuse for
carrying with them, in considerable quantities, spirituous liquors,
the then supposed best antidote for cold. Each canoe was supplied with
its jug of rum, and tippling among this class of the citizens became
general. This drinking habit, in an ignorant population, fostered
coarseness, vulgarity, and an indolent disregard for the social
improvement of the place, so that it was admitted by the few sober
thinking people who remained there, that St. Michaels was an unsaintly,
as well as unsightly place.
I went to St. Michaels to live in March, 1833. I know the year, because
it was the one succeeding the first cholera in Baltimore, and was also
the year of that strange phenomenon when the heavens seemed about to
part with its starry train. I witnessed this gorgeous spectacle, and
was awestruck. The air seemed filled with bright descending messengers
from the sky. It was about daybreak when I saw this sublime scene. I
was not without the suggestion, at the moment, that it might be the
harbinger of the coming of the Son of man; and in my then state of mind
I was prepared to hail Him as my friend and deliverer. I had read that
the “stars shall fall from heaven,” and they were now falling. I was
suffering very much in my mind. It did seem that every time the young
tendrils of my affection became attached they were rudely broken by
some unnatural outside power; and I was looking away to heaven for the
rest denied me on earth.
But to my story. It was now more than seven years since I had lived
with Master Thomas Auld, in the family of my old master, Capt. Anthony,
on the home plantation of Col. Lloyd. As I knew him then it was as the
husband of old master’s daughter; I had now to know him as my master.
All my lessons concerning his temper and disposition, and the best
methods of pleasing him, were yet to be learned. Slaveholders, however,
were not very ceremonious in approaching a slave, and my ignorance of
the new material in the shape of a master was but transient. Nor was
my new mistress long in making known her animus. Unlike Miss Lucretia,
whom I remembered with the tenderness which departed blessings leave,
Mrs. Rowena Auld was cold and cruel, as her husband was stingy, and
possessed the power to make him as cruel as herself, while she could
easily descend to the level of his meanness.
As long as I had lived in Mr. Hugh Auld’s family, whatever changes
had come over them there had been always a bountiful supply of food;
and now, for the first time in seven years, I realized the pitiless
pinchings of hunger. So wretchedly starved were we that we were
compelled to live at the expense of our neighbors, or to steal from the
home larder. This was a hard thing to do; but after much reflection
I reasoned myself into the conviction that there was no other way to
do, and that after all there was no wrong in it. Considering that my
labor and person were the property of Master Thomas, and that I was
deprived of the necessaries of life--necessaries obtained by my own
labor, it was easy to deduce the right to supply myself with what was
my own. It was simply appropriating what was my own to the use of my
master, since the health and strength derived from such food were
exerted in his service. To be sure, this was stealing, according to the
law and gospel I heard from the pulpit; but I had begun to attach less
importance to what dropped from that quarter on such points. It was not
always convenient to steal from Master, and the same reason why I might
innocently steal from him did not seem to justify me in stealing from
others. In the case of my master it was a question of removal--the
taking his meat out of one tub and putting it in another; the ownership
of the meat was not affected by the transaction. At first he owned it
in the tub, and last he owned it in me. His meat-house was not always
open. There was a strict watch kept in that point, and the key was
carried in Mrs. Auld’s pocket. We were oftentimes severely pinched with
hunger, when meat and bread were mouldering under the lock and key.
This was so, when she knew we were nearly half-starved; and yet with
saintly air would she kneel with her husband and pray each morning that
a merciful God would “bless them in basket and store, and save them at
last in His kingdom.” But I proceed with my argument.
It was necessary that the right to steal from others should be
established; and this could only rest upon a wider range of
generalization than that which supposed the right to steal from my
master. It was some time before I arrived at this clear right. To
give some idea of my train of reasoning, I will state the case as I
laid it out in my mind. “I am,” I thought, “not only the slave of
Master Thomas, but I am the slave of society at large. Society at
large has bound itself, in form and in fact, to assist Master Thomas
in robbing me of my rightful liberty, and of the just reward of my
labor; therefore, whatever rights I have against Master Thomas I have
equally against those confederated with him in robbing me of liberty.
As society has marked me out as privileged plunder, on the principle
of self-preservation, I am justified in plundering in turn. Since each
slave belongs to all, all must therefore belong to each.” I reasoned
further, that within the bounds of his just earnings the slave was
fully justified in helping himself to the gold and silver, and the best
apparel of his master, or that of any other slaveholder; and that such
taking was not stealing, in any just sense of the word.
The morality of free society could have no application to slave
society. Slaveholders made it almost impossible for the slave to commit
any crime, known either to the laws of God or to the laws of man. If he
stole he but took his own; if he killed his master, he only imitated
the heroes of the revolution. Slaveholders I held to be individually
and collectively responsible for all the evils which grew out of the
horrid relation, and I believed they would be so held in the sight of
God. To make a man a slave was to rob him of moral responsibility.
Freedom of choice is the essence of all accountability; but my kind
readers are probably less concerned about what were my opinions than
about that which more nearly touched my personal experience, albeit my
opinions have, in some sort, been the outgrowth of my experience.
When I lived with Capt. Auld I thought him incapable of a noble action.
His leading characteristic was intense selfishness. I think he was
fully aware of this fact himself, and often tried to conceal it.
Capt. Auld was not a born slaveholder--not a birthright member of the
slaveholding oligarchy. He was only a slaveholder by marriage-right;
and of all slaveholders these were by far the most exacting. There
was in him all the love of domination, the pride of mastery, and
the swagger of authority; but his rule lacked the vital element of
consistency. He could be cruel; but his methods of showing it were
cowardly, and evinced his meanness, rather than his spirit. His
commands were strong, his enforcements weak.
Slaves were not insensible to the whole-souled qualities of a generous,
dashing slaveholder, who was fearless of consequences, and they
preferred a master of this bold and daring kind, even with the risk of
being shot down for impudence, to the fretful little soul who never
used the lash but at the suggestion of a love of gain.
Slaves too, readily distinguished between the birthright bearing of
the original slaveholder, and the assumed attitudes of the accidental
slaveholder; and while they could have no respect for either, they
despised the latter more than the former.
The luxury of having slaves to wait upon him was new to Master Thomas,
and for it he was wholly unprepared. He was a slaveholder, without the
ability to hold or manage his slaves. Failing to command their respect,
both himself and wife were ever on the alert lest some indignity should
be offered him by the slaves.
It was in the month of August, 1833, when I had become almost desperate
under the treatment of Master Thomas, and entertained more strongly
than ever the oft-repeated determination to run away,--a circumstance
occurred which seemed to promise brighter and better days for us all.
At a Methodist camp-meeting, held in the Bay side (a famous place for
camp-meetings) about eight miles from St. Michaels, Master Thomas
came out with a profession of religion. He had long been an object
of interest to the church, and to the ministers, as I had seen by
the repeated visits and lengthy exhortations of the latter. He was
a fish quite worth catching, for he had money and standing. In the
community of St. Michaels, he was equal to the best citizen. He was
strictly-temperate, and there was little to do for him, to give him
the appearance of piety, and to make him a pillar of the church. Well,
the camp-meeting continued a week; people gathered from all parts of
the country, and two steamboats came loaded from Baltimore. The ground
was happily chosen; seats were arranged; a stand erected; a rude altar
fenced in, fronting the preacher’s stand, with straw in it, making a
soft kneeling-place for the accommodation of mourners. This place would
have held at least one hundred persons. In front and on the sides of
the preacher’s stand, and outside the long rows of seats, rose the
first class of stately tents, each vieing with the other in strength,
neatness, and capacity for accommodation. Behind this first circle of
tents, was another less imposing, which reached round the camp-ground
to the speaker’s stand. Outside this second class of tents were covered
wagons, ox-carts, and vehicles of every shape and size. These served
as tents to their owners. Outside of these, huge fires were burning in
all directions, where roasting and boiling and frying were going on,
for the benefit of those who were attending to their spiritual welfare
within the circle. _Behind_ the preacher’s stand, a narrow space was
marked out for the use of the colored people. There were no seats
provided for this class of persons, and if the preachers addressed them
at all, it was in an _aside_. After the preaching was over, at every
service, an invitation was given to mourners to come forward into the
pen; and in some cases, ministers went out to persuade men and women to
come in. By one of these ministers, Master Thomas was persuaded to go
inside the pen. I was deeply interested in that matter, and followed;
and though colored people were not allowed either in the pen, or in
front of the preacher’s stand, I ventured to take my stand at a sort of
half-way place between the blacks and whites, where I could distinctly
see the movements of the mourners, and especially the progress of
Master Thomas. “If he has got religion,” thought I, “he will emancipate
his slaves; or, if he should not do so much as this, he will at any
rate behave towards us more kindly, and feed us more generously than
he has heretofore done.” Appealing to my own religious experience,
and judging my master by what was true in my own case, I could not
regard him as soundly converted, unless some such good results followed
his profession of religion. But in my expectations I was doubly
disappointed: Master Thomas was _Master Thomas_ still. The fruits of
his righteousness were to show themselves in no such way as I had
anticipated. His conversion was not to change his relation toward men--
at any rate not toward BLACK men--but toward God. My faith, I confess,
was not great. There was something in his appearance that in my mind
cast a doubt over his conversion. Standing where I did, I could see
his every movement. I watched very narrowly while he remained in the
pen; and although I saw that his face was extremely red, and his hair
disheveled, and though I heard him groan, and saw a stray tear halting
on his cheek, as if inquiring, “which way shall I go?”--I could not
wholly confide in the genuineness of the conversion. The hesitating
behavior of that tear-drop, and its loneliness, distressed me, and cast
a doubt upon the whole transaction, of which it was a part. But people
said, “Capt. Auld has come through,” and it was for me to hope for the
best. I was bound to do this in charity, for I, too, was religious, and
had been in the church full three years, although now I was not more
than sixteen years old. Slaveholders might sometimes have confidence in
the piety of some of their slaves, but the slaves seldom had confidence
in the piety of their masters. “He can’t go to heaven without blood on
his skirts,” was a settled point in the creed of every slave; which
rose superior to all teaching to the contrary, and stood forever as a
fixed fact. The highest evidence the slaveholder could give the slave
of his acceptance with God, was the emancipation of his slaves. This
was proof to us that he was willing to give up all to God, and for the
sake of God, and not to do this was, in our estimation, an evidence of
hard-heartedness, and was wholly inconsistent with the idea of genuine
conversion. I had read somewhere in the Methodist Discipline, the
following question and answer: “Question. What shall be done for the
extirpation of slavery?” “Answer. We declare that we are as much as
ever convinced of the great evil of slavery; therefore, no slaveholder
shall be eligible to any official station in our church.” These words
sounded in my ears for a long time, and encouraged me to hope. But as I
have before said, I was doomed to disappointment. Master Thomas seemed
to be aware of my hopes and expectations concerning him. I have thought
before now that he looked at me in answer to my glances, as much as to
say, “I will teach you, young man, that though I have parted with my
sins, I have not parted with my sense. I shall hold my slaves, and go
to heaven too.”
There was always a scarcity of good nature about the man; but now
his whole countenance was _soured_ all over with the _seemings_ of
piety and he became more rigid and stringent in his exactions. If
religion had any effect at all on him, it made him more cruel and
hateful in all his ways. Do I judge him harshly? God forbid. Capt.
Auld made the greatest professions of piety. His house was literally
a house of prayer. In the morning and in the evening loud prayers
and hymns were heard there, in which both himself and wife joined;
yet no more nor better meal was distributed at the quarters, no more
attention was paid to the moral welfare of the kitchen, and nothing
was done to make us feel that the heart of Master Thomas was one whit
better than it was before he went into the little pen, opposite the
preacher’s stand on the camp-ground. Our hopes, too, founded on the
discipline, soon vanished; for he was taken into the church at once,
and before he was out of his term of probation, he lead in class. He
quite distinguished himself among the brethren as a fervent exhorter.
His progress was almost as rapid as the growth of the fabled vine of
Jack and the bean-stalk. No man was more active in revivals, or would
go more miles to assist in carrying them on, and in getting outsiders
interested in religion. His house, being one of the holiest in St.
Michaels, became the “preachers’ home.” They evidently liked to share
his hospitality; for while he _starved_ us, he stuffed them--three or
four of these “ambassadors” being there not unfrequently at a time--
all living on the fat of the land, while we in the kitchen were worse
than hungry. Not often did we get a smile of recognition from these
holy men. They seemed about as unconcerned about our getting to heaven,
as about our getting out of slavery. To this general charge, I must
make one exception--the Reverend George Cookman. Unlike Rev. Messrs.
Storks, Ewry, Nicky, Humphrey, and Cooper (all of whom were on the
St. Michaels circuit), he kindly took an interest in our temporal and
spiritual welfare. Our souls and our bodies were alike sacred in his
sight, and he really had a good deal of genuine anti-slavery feeling
mingled with his colonization ideas. There was not a slave in our
neighborhood who did not love and venerate Mr. Cookman. It was pretty
generally believed that he had been instrumental in bringing one of the
largest slaveholders in that neighborhood--Mr. Samuel Harrison--to
emancipate all his slaves, and the general impression about Mr. Cookman
was, that whenever he met slaveholders he labored faithfully with
them, as a religious duty, to induce them to liberate their bondmen.
When this good man was at our house, we were all sure to be called in
to prayers in the morning; and he was not slow in making inquiries
as to the state of our minds, nor in giving us a word of exhortation
and of encouragement. Great was the sorrow of all the slaves when
this faithful preacher of the gospel was removed from the circuit. He
was an eloquent preacher, and possessed what few ministers, south of
Mason and Dixon’s line, possessed or dared to show; viz., a warm and
philanthropic heart. This Mr. Cookman was an Englishman by birth, and
perished on board the ill-fated steamship “President,” while on his way
to England.
But to my experience with Master Thomas after his conversion. In
Baltimore I could occasionally get into a Sabbath-school, amongst the
free children, and receive lessons with the rest; but having learned
to read and write already, I was more a teacher than a scholar, even
there. When, however, I went back to the eastern shore and was at the
house of Master Thomas, I was not allowed either to teach or to be
taught. The whole community, with but one single exception, among the
whites, frowned upon everything like imparting instruction, either to
slaves or to free colored persons. That single exception, a pious young
man named Wilson, asked me one day if I would like to assist him in
teaching a little Sabbath-school, at the house of a free colored man
named James Mitchell. The idea was to me a delightful one, and I told
him I would gladly devote as much of my Sabbaths as I could command
to that most laudable work. Mr. Wilson soon mustered up a dozen old
spelling-books and a few testaments, and we commenced operations, with
some twenty scholars in our school. Here, thought I, is something worth
living for; here is a chance for usefulness. The first Sunday passed
delightfully, and I spent the week after very joyously. I could not go
to Baltimore, where I and the little company of young friends who had
been so much to me there, and from whom I felt parted forever, but I
could make a little Baltimore here. At our second meeting I learned
there were some objections to the existence of our school; and sure
enough, we had scarcely got to work--_good_ work, simply teaching a
few colored children how to read the gospel of the Son of God--when
in rushed a mob, headed by two class-leaders, Mr. Wright Fairbanks
and Mr. Garrison West, and with them Master Thomas. They were armed
with sticks and other missiles, and drove us off, commanding us never
to meet for such a purpose again. One of this pious crew told me that
as for me, I wanted to be another Nat. Turner, and if I did not look
out I should get as many balls in me as Nat. did into him. Thus ended
the Sabbath-school; and the reader will not be surprised that this
conduct, on the part of class-leaders and professedly holy men, did not
serve to strengthen my religious convictions. The cloud over my St.
Michaels home grew heavier and blacker than ever.
It was not merely the agency of Master Thomas in breaking up our
Sabbath-school, that shook my confidence in the power of that kind of
southern religion to make men wiser or better, but I saw in him all
the cruelty and meanness _after_ his conversion which he had exhibited
before time. His cruelty and meanness were especially displayed in
his treatment of my unfortunate cousin Henny, whose lameness made her
a burden to him. I have seen him tie up this lame and maimed woman
and whip her in a manner most brutal and shocking; and then with
blood-chilling blasphemy he would quote the passage of scripture, “That
servant which knew his lord’s will and prepared not himself, neither
did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.” He would
keep this lacerated woman tied up by her wrists to a bolt in the joist,
three, four, and five hours at a time. He would tie her up early in
the morning, whip her with a cowskin before breakfast, leave her tied
up, go to his store, and returning to dinner repeat the castigation,
laying on the rugged lash on flesh already raw by repeated blows. He
seemed desirous to get the poor girl out of existence, or at any rate
off his hands. In proof of this, he afterwards gave her away to his
sister Sarah (Mrs. Cline), but as in the case of Mr. Hugh, Henny was
soon returned on his hands. Finally, upon a pretense that he could do
nothing for her (I use his own words), he “set her adrift to take care
of herself.” Here was a recently converted man, holding with tight
grasp the well-framed and able-bodied slaves left him by old master--
the persons who in freedom could have taken care of themselves; yet
turning loose the only cripple among them, virtually to starve and die.
No doubt, had Master Thomas been asked by some pious northern brother,
_why_ he held slaves? his reply would have been precisely that which
many another slaveholder has returned to the same inquiry, viz.: “I
hold my slaves for their own good.”
The many differences springing up between Master Thomas and myself,
owing to the clear perception I had of his character, and the boldness
with which I defended myself against his capricious complaints, led
him to declare that I was unsuited to his wants; that my city life had
affected me perniciously; that in fact it had almost ruined me for
every good purpose, and had fitted me for everything bad. One of my
greatest faults, or offences, was that of letting his horse get away
and go down to the farm which belonged to his father-in-law. The animal
had a liking for that farm with which I fully sympathized. Whenever I
let it out it would go dashing down the road to Mr. Hamilton’s as if
going on a grand frolic. My horse gone, of course I must go after it.
The explanation of our mutual attachment to the place is the same--
the horse found good pasturage, and I found there plenty of bread. Mr.
Hamilton had his faults, but starving his slaves was not one of them.
He gave food in abundance, and of excellent quality. In Mr. Hamilton’s
cook--Aunt Mary--I found a generous and considerate friend. She never
allowed me to go there without giving me bread enough to make good the
deficiencies of a day or two. Master Thomas at last resolved to endure
my behavior no longer; he could keep neither me nor his horse, we liked
so well to be at his father-in-law’s farm. I had now lived with him
nearly nine months, and he had given me a number of severe whippings,
without any visible improvement in my character or conduct, and now he
was resolved to put me out, as he said, “_to be broken_.”
There was, in the Bay-side, very near the camp-ground where my master
received his religious impressions, a man named Edward Covey, who
enjoyed the reputation of being a first rate hand at breaking young
negroes. This Covey was a poor man, a farm renter; and his reputation
of being a good hand to break in slaves was of immense pecuniary
advantage to him, since it enabled him to get his farm tilled with
very little expense, compared with what it would have cost him
otherwise. Some slaveholders thought it an advantage to let Mr. Covey
have the government of their slaves a year or two, almost free of
charge, for the sake of the excellent training they had under his
management. Like some horse-breakers noted for their skill, who ride
the best horses in the country without expense, Mr. Covey could have
under him the most fiery bloods of the neighborhood, for the simple
reward of returning them to their owners _well broken_. Added to the
natural fitness of Mr. Covey for the duties of his profession, he was
said “to enjoy religion,” and he was as strict in the cultivation of
piety as he was in the cultivation of his farm. I was made aware of
these traits in his character by some one who had been under his hand,
and while I could not look forward to going to him with any degree of
pleasure, I was glad to get away from St. Michaels. I believed I should
get enough to eat at Covey’s, even if I suffered in other respects,
and this to a hungry man is not a prospect to be regarded with
indifference.