APPRENTICESHIP LIFE.
Nothing lost in my attempt to run away--Comrades at home--Reasons
for sending me away--Return to Baltimore--Tommy changed--Caulking
in Gardiner’s ship yard--Desperate fight--Its causes--Conflict
between white and black labor--Outrage--Testimony--Master Hugh--
Slavery in Baltimore--My condition improves--New associations--
Slaveholder’s right to the slave’s wages--How to make a discontented
slave.
Well, dear reader, I am not, as you have probably inferred, a loser
by the general upstir described in the foregoing chapter. The little
domestic revolution, notwithstanding the sudden snub it got by the
treachery of somebody, did not, after all, end so disastrously as when
in the iron cage at Easton I conceived it would. The prospect from that
point did look about as dark as any that ever cast its gloom over the
vision of the anxious, out-looking human spirit. “All’s well that ends
well!” My affectionate friends, Henry and John Harris, are still with
Mr. Freeland. Charles Roberts and Henry Bailey are safe at their homes.
I have not, therefore, anything to regret on their account. Their
masters have mercifully forgiven them, probably on the ground suggested
in the spirited little speech of Mrs. Freeland made to me just before
leaving for the jail. My friends had nothing to regret, either: for
while they were watched more closely, they were doubtless treated more
kindly than before, and got new assurances that they should some day
be legally emancipated, provided their behavior from that time forward
should make them deserving. Not a blow was struck any one of them. As
for Master Freeland, good soul, he did not believe we were intending to
run away at all. Having given--as he thought--no occasion to his boys
to leave him, he could not think it probable that they had entertained
a design so grievous. This, however, was not the view taken of the
matter by “Mas’ Billy,” as we used to call the soft-spoken but crafty
and resolute Mr. William Hamilton. He had no doubt that the crime had
been meditated, and regarding me as the instigator of it, he frankly
told Master Thomas that he must remove me from that neighborhood or
he would shoot me. He would not have one so dangerous as “Frederick”
tampering with his slaves. William Hamilton was not a man whose threat
might be safely disregarded. I have no doubt he would have proved
as good as his word, had the warning given been disregarded. He was
furious at the thought of such a piece of high-handed _theft_ as we
were about to perpetrate--the stealing of our own bodies and souls.
The feasibility of the plan, too, could the first steps have been
taken, was marvelously plain. Besides, this was a _new_ idea, this use
of the Bay. Slaves escaping, until now, had taken to the woods; they
had never dreamed of profaning and abusing the waters of the noble
Chesapeake by making them the highway from slavery to freedom. Here was
a broad road leading to the destruction of slavery, which had hitherto
been looked upon as a wall of security by the slaveholders. But Master
Billy could not get Mr. Freeland to see matters precisely as he did,
nor could he get Master Thomas excited as he was. The latter, I must
say it to his credit, showed much humane feeling, and atoned for much
that had been harsh, cruel, and unreasonable in his former treatment
of me and of others. My “Cousin Tom” told me that while I was in jail
Master Thomas was very unhappy, and that the night before his going
up to release me he had walked the floor nearly all night, evincing
great distress; that very tempting offers had been made to him by the
negro-traders, but he had rejected them all, saying that _money could
not tempt him to sell me to the far south_. I can easily believe all
this, for he seemed quite reluctant to send me away at all. He told me
that he only consented to do so because of the very strong prejudice
against me in the neighborhood, and that he feared for my safety if I
remained there.
Thus after three years spent in the country, roughing it in the field,
and experiencing all sorts of hardships, I was again permitted to
return to Baltimore, the very place of all others, short of a free
State, where I most desired to live. The three years spent in the
country had made some difference in me, and in the household of Master
Hugh. “Little Tommy” was no longer little Tommy; and I was not the
slender lad who had left the Eastern Shore just three years before. The
loving relations between Master Tommy and myself were broken up. He was
no longer dependent on me for protection, but felt himself a _man_,
with other and more suitable associates. In childhood he had considered
me scarcely inferior to himself,--certainly quite as good as any other
boy with whom he played--but the time had come when his _friend_ must
be his slave. So we were cold to each other, and parted. It was a sad
thing to me, that loving each other as we had done, we must now take
different roads. To him a thousand avenues were open. Education had
made him acquainted with all the treasures of the world, and liberty
had flung open the gates thereunto; but I, who had attended him seven
years, had watched over him with the care of a big brother, fighting
his battles in the street, and shielding him from harm to an extent
which induced his mother to say, “Oh, Tommy is always safe when he is
with Freddy”--I must be confined to a single condition. He had grown
and become a _man_: I, though grown to the stature of manhood, must all
my life remain a minor--a mere boy. Thomas Auld, junior, obtained a
situation on board the brig Tweed, and went to sea. I have since heard
of his death.
There were few persons to whom I was more sincerely attached than to
him.
Very soon after I went to Baltimore to live, Master Hugh succeeded in
getting me hired to Mr. William Gardiner, an extensive ship-builder
on Fell’s Point. I was placed there to learn to calk, a trade of
which I already had some knowledge, gained while in Mr. Hugh Auld’s
ship-yard. Gardiner’s, however, proved a very unfavorable place for the
accomplishment of the desired object. Mr. Gardiner was that season
engaged in building two large man-of-war vessels, professedly for the
Mexican government. These vessels were to be launched in the month of
July of that year, and in failure thereof Mr. Gardiner would forfeit
a very considerable sum of money. So when I entered the ship-yard,
all was hurry and driving. There were in the yard about one hundred
men; of these, seventy or eighty were regular carpenters--privileged
men. There was no time for a raw hand to learn anything. Every man
had to do that which he knew how to do, and in entering the yard Mr.
Gardiner had directed me to do whatever the carpenters told me to do.
This was placing me at the beck and call of about seventy-five men. I
was to regard all these as my masters. Their word was to be my law.
My situation was a trying one. I was called a dozen ways in the space
of a single minute. I needed a dozen pairs of hands. Three or four
voices would strike my ear at the same moment. It was “Fred, come
help me to cant this timber here,”--“Fred, come carry this timber
yonder,”--“Fred, bring that roller here,”--“Fred, go get a fresh
can of water,”--“Fred, come help saw off the end of this timber,”--
“Fred, go quick and get the crow-bar,”--“Fred, hold on the end of this
fall,”--“Fred, go to the blacksmith’s shop and get a new punch,”--
“Halloo, Fred! run and bring me a cold-chisel,”--“I say, Fred, bear a
hand, and get up a fire under the steam-box as quick as lightning,”--
“Hullo, nigger! come turn this grindstone,”--“Come, come; move, move!
and _bowse_ this timber forward,”--“I say, darkey, blast your eyes!
why don’t you heat up some pitch?”--“Halloo! halloo! halloo! (three
voices at the same time)”--“Come here; go there; hold on where you
are. D----n you, if you move I’ll knock your brains out!” Such, my
dear reader, is a glance at the school which was mine during the first
eight months of my stay at Gardiner’s ship-yard. At the end of eight
months Master Hugh refused longer to allow me to remain with Gardiner.
The circumstances which led to this refusal was the committing of
an outrage upon me, by the white apprentices of the ship-yard. The
fight was a desperate one, and I came out of it shockingly mangled.
I was cut and bruised in sundry places, and my left eye was nearly
knocked out of its socket. The facts which led to this brutal outrage
upon me, illustrate a phase of slavery which was destined to become
an important element in the overthrow of the slave system, and I may
therefore state them with some minuteness. That phase was this--the
conflict of slavery with the interests of white mechanics and laborers.
In the country this conflict was not so apparent; but in cities, such
as Baltimore, Richmond, New Orleans, Mobile, etc., it was seen pretty
clearly. The slaveholders, with a craftiness peculiar to themselves,
by encouraging the enmity of the poor laboring white man against the
blacks, succeeded in making the said white man almost as much a slave
as the black slave himself. The difference between the white slave and
the black slave was this: the latter belonged to one slaveholder, and
the former belonged to the slaveholders collectively. The white slave
had taken from him by indirection what the black slave had taken from
him directly and without ceremony. Both were plundered, and by the same
plunderers. The slave was robbed by his master of all his earnings,
above what was required for his bare physical necessities, and the
white laboring man was robbed by the slave system, of the just results
of his labor, because he was flung into competition with a class of
laborers who worked without wages. The slaveholders blinded them to
this competition by keeping alive their prejudice against the slaves
as _men_--not against them as _slaves_. They appealed to their pride,
often denouncing emancipation as tending to place the white working
man on an equality with negroes, and by this means they succeeded in
drawing off the minds of the poor whites from the real fact, that by
the rich slave-master, they were already regarded as but a single
remove from equality with the slave. The impression was cunningly made
that slavery was the only power that could prevent the laboring white
man from falling to the level of the slave’s poverty and degradation.
To make this enmity deep and broad between the slave and the poor
white man, the latter was allowed to abuse and whip the former without
hindrance. But, as I have said, this state of affairs prevailed
_mostly_ in the country. In the city of Baltimore there were not
unfrequent murmurs that educating slaves to be mechanics might, in the
end, give slave-masters power to dispose altogether with the services
of the poor white man. But with characteristic dread of offending the
slaveholders, these poor white mechanics in Mr. Gardiner’s ship-yard,
instead of applying the natural, honest remedy for the apprehended
evil, and objecting at once to work there by the side of slaves,
made a cowardly attack upon the free colored mechanics, saying they
were eating the bread which should be eaten by American freemen, and
swearing that they would not work with them. The feeling was _really_
against having their labor brought into competition with that of the
colored freeman, and aimed to prevent him from serving himself, in the
evening of life, with the trade with which he had served his master,
during the more vigorous portion of his days. Had they succeeded
in driving the black freemen out of the ship-yard, they would have
determined also upon the removal of the black slaves. The feeling was
very bitter toward all colored people in Baltimore about this time
(1836), and they--free and slave--suffered all manner of insult and
wrong.
Until a very little while before I went there white and black
carpenters worked side by side in the ship-yards of Mr. Gardiner,
Mr. Duncan, Mr. Walter Price, and Mr. Robb. Nobody seemed to see any
impropriety in it. Some of the blacks were first rate workmen and were
given jobs requiring the highest skill. All at once, however, the white
carpenters knocked off and swore that they would no longer work on
the same stage with negroes. Taking advantage of the heavy contract
resting upon Mr. Gardiner to have the vessels for Mexico ready to
launch in July, and of the difficulty of getting other hands at that
season of the year, they swore they would not strike another blow for
him unless he would discharge his free colored workmen. Now, although
this movement did not extend to me _in form_, it did reach me in
_fact_. The spirit which it awakened was one of malice and bitterness
toward colored people _generally_, and I suffered with the rest, and
suffered severely. My fellow-apprentices very soon began to feel it to
be degrading to work with me. They began to put on high looks and to
talk contemptuously and maliciously of “the niggers,” saying that they
would take the “country,” that they “ought to be killed.” Encouraged
by workmen who, knowing me to be a slave, made no issue with Mr.
Gardiner about my being there, these young men did their utmost to make
it impossible for me to stay. They seldom called me to do anything
without coupling the call with a curse, and Edward North, the biggest
in everything, rascality included, ventured to strike me, whereupon I
picked him up and threw him into the dock. Whenever any of them struck
me I struck back again, regardless of consequences. I could manage any
of them _singly_, and so long as I could keep them from combining I got
on very well. In the conflict which ended my stay at Mr. Gardiner’s I
was beset by four of them at once--Ned North, Ned Hays, Bill Stewart,
and Tom Humphreys. Two of them were as large as myself, and they came
near killing me, in broad daylight. One came in front, armed with a
brick; there was one at each side and one behind, and they closed up
all around me. I was struck on all sides; and while I was attending to
those in front I received a blow on my head from behind, dealt with
a heavy hand-spike. I was completely stunned by the blow, and fell
heavily on the ground among the timbers. Taking advantage of my fall
they rushed upon me and began to pound me with their fists. I let them
lay on for a while after I came to myself, with a view of gaining
strength. They did me little damage so far; but finally getting tired
of that sport I gave a sudden surge, and despite their weight I rose
to my hands and knees. Just as I did this one of their number planted
a blow with his boot in my left eye, which for a time seemed to have
burst my eye-ball. When they saw my eye completely closed, my face
covered with blood, and I staggering under the stunning blows they had
given me, they left me. As soon as I gathered strength I picked up the
hand-spike and madly enough attempted to pursue them; but here the
carpenters interfered and compelled me to give up my pursuit. It was
impossible to stand against so many.
Dear reader, you can hardly believe the statement, but it is true,
and therefore I write it down; no fewer than fifty white men stood by
and saw this brutal and shameful outrage committed, and not a man of
them all interposed a single word of mercy. There were four against
one, and that one’s face was beaten and battered most horribly, and
no one said, “that is enough;” but some cried out, “Kill him! kill
him! kill the d----n nigger! knock his brains out! he struck a white
person!” I mention this inhuman outcry to show the character of the
men and the spirit of the times at Gardiner’s ship-yard; and, indeed,
in Baltimore generally, in 1836. As I look back to this period, I am
almost amazed that I was not murdered outright, so murderous was the
spirit which prevailed there. On two other occasions while there I came
near losing my life, on one of which I was driving bolts in the hold
through the keelson with Hays. In its course the bolt bent. Hays cursed
me, and said that it was my blow which bent the bolt. I denied this,
and charged it upon him. In a fit of rage he seized an adze and darted
toward me. I met him with a maul and parried his blow, or I should have
lost my life.
After the united attack of North, Stewart, Hays, and Humphreys, finding
that the carpenters were as bitter toward me as the apprentices, and
that the latter were probably set on by the former, I found my only
chance for life was in flight. I succeeded in getting away without
an additional blow. To strike a white man was death by lynch law, in
Gardiner’s ship-yard; nor was there much of any other law toward the
colored people at that time in any other part of Maryland.
After making my escape from the ship-yard I went straight home and
related my story to Master Hugh; and to his credit I say it, that his
conduct, though he was not a religious man, was every way more humane
than that of his brother Thomas, when I went to him in a somewhat
similar plight, from the hands of his “Brother Edward Covey.” Master
Hugh listened attentively to my narration of the circumstances leading
to the ruffianly assault, and gave many evidences of his strong
indignation at what was done. He was a rough but manly-hearted fellow,
and at this time his best nature showed itself.
The heart of my once kind mistress Sophia was again melted in pity
towards me. My puffed-out eye and my scarred and blood-covered face
moved the dear lady to tears. She kindly drew a chair by me, and with
friendly and consoling words, she took water and washed the blood from
my face. No mother’s hand could have been more tender than hers. She
bound up my head and covered my wounded eye with a lean piece of fresh
beef. It was almost compensation for all I suffered that it occasioned
the manifestation once more of the originally characteristic kindness
of my mistress. Her affectionate heart was not yet dead, though much
hardened by time and circumstances.
As for Master Hugh he was furious, and gave expression to his feelings
in the forms of speech usual in that locality. He poured curses on
the whole of the ship-yard company, and swore that he would have
satisfaction. His indignation was really strong and healthy; but
unfortunately it resulted from the thought that his rights of property,
in my person, had not been respected, more than from any sense of the
outrage perpetrated upon me _as a man_. I had reason to think this from
the fact that he could, himself, beat and mangle when it suited him to
do so.
Bent on having satisfaction, as he said, just as soon as I got a little
the better of my bruises Master Hugh took me to Esquire Watson’s office
on Bond street, Fell’s Point, with a view to procuring the arrest of
those who had assaulted me. He related the outrage to the magistrate
as I had related it to him, and seemed to expect that a warrant would
at once be issued for the arrest of the lawless ruffians. Mr. Watson
heard all he had to say, then coolly inquired, “Mr. Auld, who saw this
assault of which you speak?” “It was done, sir, in the presence of a
ship-yard full of hands.” “Sir,” said Mr. Watson, “I am sorry, but I
cannot move in this matter, except upon the oath of white witnesses.”
“But here’s the boy; look at his head and face,” said the excited
Master Hugh; “_they_ show _what_ has been done.” But Watson insisted
that he was not authorized to do anything, unless white witnesses of
the transaction would come forward and testify to what had taken place.
He could issue no warrant on my word, against white persons, and if I
had been killed in the presence of a _thousand blacks_, their testimony
combined would have been insufficient to condemn a single murderer.
Master Hugh was compelled to say, for once, that this state of things
was _too bad_, and he left the office of the magistrate disgusted.
Of course it was impossible to get any white man to testify against
my assailants. The carpenters saw what was done; but the actors were
but the agents of their malice, and did only what the carpenters
sanctioned. They had cried with one accord, “Kill the nigger! kill
the nigger!” Even those who may have pitied me, if any such were
among them, lacked the moral courage to volunteer their evidence. The
slightest show of sympathy or justice toward a person of color was
denounced as abolitionism; and the name of abolitionist subjected its
bearer to frightful liabilities. “D----n abolitionists,” and “kill the
niggers,” were the watch-words of the foul-mouthed ruffians of those
days. Nothing was done, and probably there would not have been had I
been killed in the affray. The laws and the morals of the Christian
city of Baltimore afforded no protection to the sable denizens of that
city.
Master Hugh, on finding he could get no redress for the cruel wrong,
withdrew me from the employment of Mr. Gardiner and took me into his
own family, Mrs. Auld kindly taking care of me and dressing my wounds
until they were healed and I was ready to go to work again.
While I was on the Eastern Shore, Master Hugh had met with reverses
which overthrew his business; and he had given up ship-building in
his own yard, on the City Block, and was now acting as foreman of Mr.
Walter Price. The best he could do for me was to take me into Mr.
Price’s yard, and afford me the facilities there for completing the
trade which I began to learn at Gardiner’s. Here I rapidly became
expert in the use of calker’s tools, and in the course of a single
year, I was able to command the highest wages paid to journeymen
calkers in Baltimore.
The reader will observe that I was now of some pecuniary value to my
master. During the busy season I was bringing six and seven dollars per
week. I have sometimes brought him as much as nine dollars a week, for
the wages were a dollar and a half per day.
After learning to calk, I sought my own employment, made my own
contracts, and collected my own earnings--giving Master Hugh no
trouble in any part of the transactions to which I was a party.
Here, then, were better days for the Eastern Shore _slave_. I was free
from the vexatious assaults of the apprentices at Mr. Gardiner’s, and
free from the perils of plantation life, and once more in favorable
condition to increase my little stock of education, which had been at a
dead stand since my removal from Baltimore. I had on the Eastern Shore
been only a teacher, when in company with other slaves, but now there
were colored persons here who could instruct me. Many of the young
calkers could read, write, and cipher. Some of them had high notions
about mental improvement, and the free ones on Fell’s Point organized
what they called the “East Baltimore Mental Improvement Society.” To
this society, notwithstanding it was intended that only free persons
should attach themselves, I was admitted, and was several times
assigned a prominent part in its debates. I owe much to the society of
these young men.
The reader already knows enough of the _ill_ effects of good treatment
on a slave to anticipate what was now the case in my improved
condition. It was not long before I began to show signs of disquiet
with slavery, and to look around for means to get out of it by the
shortest route. I was living among _freemen_, and was in all respects
equal to them by nature and attainments. _Why should I be a slave?_
There was _no_ reason why I should be the thrall of any man. Besides,
I was now getting, as I have said, a dollar and fifty cents per day.
I contracted for it, worked for it, collected it; it was paid to me,
and it was _rightfully_ my own; and yet upon every returning Saturday
night, this money--my own hard earnings, every cent of it--was
demanded of me and taken from me by Master Hugh. He did not earn it;
he had no hand in earning it; why, then, should he have it? I owed
him nothing. He had given me no schooling, and I had received from
him only my food and raiment; and for these my services were supposed
to pay from the first. The right to take my earnings was the right of
the robber. He had the power to compel me to give him the fruits of my
labor, and this _power_ was his only right in the case. I became more
and more dissatisfied with this state of things, and in so becoming I
only gave proof of the same human nature which every reader of this
chapter in my life--slaveholder, or non-slaveholder--is conscious of
possessing.
To make a contented slave, you must make a thoughtless one. It is
necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as
possible, to annihilate his power of reason. He must be able to detect
no inconsistencies in slavery. The man who takes his earnings must be
able to convince him that he has a perfect right to do so. It must not
depend upon mere force: the slave must know no higher law than his
master’s will. The whole relationship must not only demonstrate to his
mind its necessity, but its absolute rightfulness. If there be one
crevice through which a single drop can fall, it will certainly rust
off the slave’s chain.