CHANGE OF MASTERS—BENEFITS DERIVED BY THE CHANGE—FAME OF THE FIGHT WITH
COVEY—RECKLESS UNCONCERN—MY ABHORRENCE OF SLAVERY—ABILITY TO READ A
CAUSE OF PREJUDICE—THE HOLIDAYS—HOW SPENT—SHARP HIT AT SLAVERY—EFFECTS
OF HOLIDAYS—A DEVICE OF SLAVERY—DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COVEY AND
FREELAND—AN IRRELIGIOUS MASTER PREFERRED TO A RELIGIOUS ONE—CATALOGUE
OF FLOGGABLE OFFENSES—HARD LIFE AT COVEY’S USEFUL—IMPROVED CONDITION
NOT FOLLOWED BY CONTENTMENT—CONGENIAL SOCIETY AT FREELAND’S—SABBATH
SCHOOL INSTITUTED—SECRECY NECESSARY—AFFECTIONATE RELATIONS OF TUTOR AND
PUPILS—CONFIDENCE AND FRIENDSHIP AMONG SLAVES—I DECLINE PUBLISHING
PARTICULARS OF CONVERSATIONS WITH MY FRIENDS—SLAVERY THE INVITER OF
VENGEANCE.
My term of actual service to Mr. Edward Covey ended on Christmas day,
1834. I gladly left the snakish Covey, although he was now as gentle as
a lamb. My home for the year 1835 was already secured—my next master
was already selected. There is always more or less excitement about the
matter of changing hands, but I had become somewhat reckless. I cared
very little into whose hands I fell—I meant to fight my way. Despite of
Covey, too, the report got abroad, that I was hard to whip; that I was
guilty of kicking back; that though generally a good tempered Negro, I
sometimes “_got the devil in me_.” These sayings were rife in Talbot
county, and they distinguished me among my servile brethren. Slaves,
generally, will fight each other, and die at each other’s hands; but
there are few who are not held in awe by a white man. Trained from the
cradle up, to think and feel that their masters are superior, and
invested with a sort of sacredness, there are few who can outgrow or
rise above the control which that sentiment exercises. I had now got
free from it, and the thing was known. One bad sheep will spoil a whole
flock. Among the slaves, I was a bad sheep. I hated slavery,
slaveholders, and all pertaining to them; and I did not fail to inspire
others with the same feeling, wherever and whenever opportunity was
presented. This made me a marked lad among the slaves, and a suspected
one among the slaveholders. A knowledge of my ability to read and
write, got pretty widely spread, which was very much against me.
The days between Christmas day and New Year’s, are allowed the slaves
as holidays. During these days, all regular work was suspended, and
there was nothing to do but to keep fires, and look after the stock.
This time was regarded as our own, by the grace of our masters, and we,
therefore used it, or abused it, as we pleased. Those who had families
at a distance, were now expected to visit them, and to spend with them
the entire week. The younger slaves, or the unmarried ones, were
expected to see to the cattle, and attend to incidental duties at home.
The holidays were variously spent. The sober, thinking and industrious
ones of our number, would employ themselves in manufacturing corn
brooms, mats, horse collars and baskets, and some of these were very
well made. Another class spent their time in hunting opossums, coons,
rabbits, and other game. But the majority spent the holidays in sports,
ball playing, wrestling, boxing, running foot races, dancing, and
drinking whisky; and this latter mode of spending the time was
generally most agreeable to their masters. A slave who would work
during the holidays, was thought, by his master, undeserving of
holidays. Such an one had rejected the favor of his master. There was,
in this simple act of continued work, an accusation against slaves; and
a slave could not help thinking, that if he made three dollars during
the holidays, he might make three hundred during the year. Not to be
drunk during the holidays, was disgraceful; and he was esteemed a lazy
and improvident man, who could not afford to drink whisky during
Christmas.
The fiddling, dancing and _“jubilee beating_,” was going on in all
directions. This latter performance is strictly southern. It supplies
the place of a violin, or of other musical instruments, and is played
so easily, that almost every farm has its “Juba” beater. The performer
improvises as he beats, and sings his merry songs, so ordering the
words as to have them fall pat with the movement of his hands. Among a
mass of nonsense and wild frolic, once in a while a sharp hit is given
to the meanness of slaveholders. Take the following, for an example:
_We raise de wheat,
Dey gib us de corn;
We bake de bread,
Dey gib us de cruss;
We sif de meal,
Dey gib us de huss;
We peal de meat,
Dey gib us de skin,
And dat’s de way
Dey takes us in.
We skim de pot,
Dey gib us the liquor,
And say dat’s good enough for nigger.
Walk over! walk over!
Tom butter and de fat;
Poor nigger you can’t get over dat;
Walk over_!
This is not a bad summary of the palpable injustice and fraud of
slavery, giving—as it does—to the lazy and idle, the comforts which God
designed should be given solely to the honest laborer. But to the
holiday’s.
Judging from my own observation and experience, I believe these
holidays to be among the most effective means, in the hands of
slaveholders, of keeping down the spirit of insurrection among the
slaves.
To enslave men, successfully and safely, it is necessary to have their
minds occupied with thoughts and aspirations short of the liberty of
which they are deprived. A certain degree of attainable good must be
kept before them. These holidays serve the purpose of keeping the minds
of the slaves occupied with prospective pleasure, within the limits of
slavery. The young man can go wooing; the married man can visit his
wife; the father and mother can see their children; the industrious and
money loving can make a few dollars; the great wrestler can win
laurels; the young people can meet, and enjoy each other’s society; the
drunken man can get plenty of whisky; and the religious man can hold
prayer meetings, preach, pray and exhort during the holidays. Before
the holidays, these are pleasures in prospect; after the holidays, they
become pleasures of memory, and they serve to keep out thoughts and
wishes of a more dangerous character. Were slaveholders at once to
abandon the practice of allowing their slaves these liberties,
periodically, and to keep them, the year round, closely confined to the
narrow circle of their homes, I doubt not that the south would blaze
with insurrections. These holidays are conductors or safety valves to
carry off the explosive elements inseparable from the human mind, when
reduced to the condition of slavery. But for these, the rigors of
bondage would become too severe for endurance, and the slave would be
forced up to dangerous desperation. Woe to the slaveholder when he
undertakes to hinder or to prevent the operation of these electric
conductors. A succession of earthquakes would be less destructive, than
the insurrectionary fires which would be sure to burst forth in
different parts of the south, from such interference.
Thus, the holidays, became part and parcel of the gross fraud, wrongs
and inhumanity of slavery. Ostensibly, they are institutions of
benevolence, designed to mitigate the rigors of slave life, but,
practically, they are a fraud, instituted by human selfishness, the
better to secure the ends of injustice and oppression. The slave’s
happiness is not the end sought, but, rather, the master’s safety. It
is not from a generous unconcern for the slave’s labor that this
cessation from labor is allowed, but from a prudent regard to the
safety of the slave system. I am strengthened in this opinion, by the
fact, that most slaveholders like to have their slaves spend the
holidays in such a manner as to be of no real benefit to the slaves. It
is plain, that everything like rational enjoyment among the slaves, is
frowned upon; and only those wild and low sports, peculiar to
semi-civilized people, are encouraged. All the license allowed, appears
to have no other object than to disgust the slaves with their temporary
freedom, and to make them as glad to return to their work, as they were
to leave it. By plunging them into exhausting depths of drunkenness and
dissipation, this effect is almost certain to follow. I have known
slaveholders resort to cunning tricks, with a view of getting their
slaves deplorably drunk. A usual plan is, to make bets on a slave, that
he can drink more whisky than any other; and so to induce a rivalry
among them, for the mastery in this degradation. The scenes, brought
about in this way, were often scandalous and loathsome in the extreme.
Whole multitudes might be found stretched out in brutal drunkenness, at
once helpless and disgusting. Thus, when the slave asks for a few hours
of virtuous freedom, his cunning master takes advantage of his
ignorance, and cheers him with a dose of vicious and revolting
dissipation, artfully labeled with the name of LIBERTY. We were induced
to drink, I among the rest, and when the holidays were over, we all
staggered up from our filth and wallowing, took a long breath, and went
away to our various fields of work; feeling, upon the whole, rather
glad to go from that which our masters artfully deceived us into the
belief was freedom, back again to the arms of slavery. It was not what
we had taken it to be, nor what it might have been, had it not been
abused by us. It was about as well to be a slave to _master_, as to be
a slave to _rum_ and _whisky._
I am the more induced to take this view of the holiday system, adopted
by slaveholders, from what I know of their treatment of slaves, in
regard to other things. It is the commonest thing for them to try to
disgust their slaves with what they do not want them to have, or to
enjoy. A slave, for instance, likes molasses; he steals some; to cure
him of the taste for it, his master, in many cases, will go away to
town, and buy a large quantity of the _poorest_ quality, and set it
before his slave, and, with whip in hand, compel him to eat it, until
the poor fellow is made to sicken at the very thought of molasses. The
same course is often adopted to cure slaves of the disagreeable and
inconvenient practice of asking for more food, when their allowance has
failed them. The same disgusting process works well, too, in other
things, but I need not cite them. When a slave is drunk, the
slaveholder has no fear that he will plan an insurrection; no fear that
he will escape to the north. It is the sober, thinking slave who is
dangerous, and needs the vigilance of his master, to keep him a slave.
But, to proceed with my narrative.
On the first of January, 1835, I proceeded from St. Michael’s to Mr.
William Freeland’s, my new home. Mr. Freeland lived only three miles
from St. Michael’s, on an old worn out farm, which required much labor
to restore it to anything like a self-supporting establishment.
I was not long in finding Mr. Freeland to be a very different man from
Mr. Covey. Though not rich, Mr. Freeland was what may be called a
well-bred southern gentleman, as different from Covey, as a
well-trained and hardened Negro breaker is from the best specimen of
the first families of the south. Though Freeland was a slaveholder, and
shared many of the vices of his class, he seemed alive to the sentiment
of honor. He had some sense of justice, and some feelings of humanity.
He was fretful, impulsive and passionate, but I must do him the justice
to say, he was free from the mean and selfish characteristics which
distinguished the creature from which I had now, happily, escaped. He
was open, frank, imperative, and practiced no concealments, disdaining
to play the spy. In all this, he was the opposite of the crafty Covey.
Among the many advantages gained in my change from Covey’s to
Freeland’s—startling as the statement may be—was the fact that the
latter gentleman made no profession of religion. I assert _most
unhesitatingly_, that the religion of the south—as I have observed it
and proved it—is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes; the
justifier of the most appalling barbarity; a sanctifier of the most
hateful frauds; and a secure shelter, under which the darkest, foulest,
grossest, and most infernal abominations fester and flourish. Were I
again to be reduced to the condition of a slave, _next_ to that
calamity, I should regard the fact of being the slave of a religious
slaveholder, the greatest that could befall me. For all slaveholders
with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst. I have
found them, almost invariably, the vilest, meanest and basest of their
class. Exceptions there may be, but this is true of religious
slaveholders, _as a class_. It is not for me to explain the fact.
Others may do that; I simply state it as a fact, and leave the
theological, and psychological inquiry, which it raises, to be decided
by others more competent than myself. Religious slaveholders, like
religious persecutors, are ever extreme in their malice and violence.
Very near my new home, on an adjoining farm, there lived the Rev.
Daniel Weeden, who was both pious and cruel after the real Covey
pattern. Mr. Weeden was a local preacher of the Protestant Methodist
persuasion, and a most zealous supporter of the ordinances of religion,
generally. This Weeden owned a woman called “Ceal,” who was a standing
proof of his mercilessness. Poor Ceal’s back, always scantily clothed,
was kept literally raw, by the lash of this religious man and gospel
minister. The most notoriously wicked man—so called in distinction from
church members—could hire hands more easily than this brute. When sent
out to find a home, a slave would never enter the gates of the preacher
Weeden, while a sinful sinner needed a hand. Be have ill, or behave
well, it was the known maxim of Weeden, that it is the duty of a master
to use the lash. If, for no other reason, he contended that this was
essential to remind a slave of his condition, and of his master’s
authority. The good slave must be whipped, to be _kept_ good, and the
bad slave must be whipped, to be _made_ good. Such was Weeden’s theory,
and such was his practice. The back of his slave-woman will, in the
judgment, be the swiftest witness against him.
While I am stating particular cases, I might as well immortalize
another of my neighbors, by calling him by name, and putting him in
print. He did not think that a “chiel” was near, “taking notes,” and
will, doubtless, feel quite angry at having his character touched off
in the ragged style of a slave’s pen. I beg to introduce the reader to
REV. RIGBY HOPKINS. Mr. Hopkins resides between Easton and St.
Michael’s, in Talbot county, Maryland. The severity of this man made
him a perfect terror to the slaves of his neighborhood. The peculiar
feature of his government, was, his system of whipping slaves, as he
said, _in advance_ of deserving it. He always managed to have one or
two slaves to whip on Monday morning, so as to start his hands to their
work, under the inspiration of a new assurance on Monday, that his
preaching about kindness, mercy, brotherly love, and the like, on
Sunday, did not interfere with, or prevent him from establishing his
authority, by the cowskin. He seemed to wish to assure them, that his
tears over poor, lost and ruined sinners, and his pity for them, did
not reach to the blacks who tilled his fields. This saintly Hopkins
used to boast, that he was the best hand to manage a Negro in the
county. He whipped for the smallest offenses, by way of preventing the
commission of large ones.
The reader might imagine a difficulty in finding faults enough for such
frequent whipping. But this is because you have no idea how easy a
matter it is to offend a man who is on the look-out for offenses. The
man, unaccustomed to slaveholding, would be astonished to observe how
many _foggable_ offenses there are in the slaveholder’s catalogue of
crimes; and how easy it is to commit any one of them, even when the
slave least intends it. A slaveholder, bent on finding fault, will
hatch up a dozen a day, if he chooses to do so, and each one of these
shall be of a punishable description. A mere look, word, or motion, a
mistake, accident, or want of power, are all matters for which a slave
may be whipped at any time. Does a slave look dissatisfied with his
condition? It is said, that he has the devil in him, and it must be
whipped out. Does he answer _loudly_, when spoken to by his master,
with an air of self-consciousness? Then, must he be taken down a
button-hole lower, by the lash, well laid on. Does he forget, and omit
to pull off his hat, when approaching a white person? Then, he must, or
may be, whipped for his bad manners. Does he ever venture to vindicate
his conduct, when harshly and unjustly accused? Then, he is guilty of
impudence, one of the greatest crimes in the social catalogue of
southern society. To allow a slave to escape punishment, who has
impudently attempted to exculpate himself from unjust charges,
preferred against him by some white person, is to be guilty of great
dereliction of duty. Does a slave ever venture to suggest a better way
of doing a thing, no matter what? He is, altogether, too officious—wise
above what is written—and he deserves, even if he does not get, a
flogging for his presumption. Does he, while plowing, break a plow, or
while hoeing, break a hoe, or while chopping, break an ax? No matter
what were the imperfections of the implement broken, or the natural
liabilities for breaking, the slave can be whipped for carelessness.
The _reverend_ slaveholder could always find something of this sort, to
justify him in using the lash several times during the week.
Hopkins—like Covey and Weeden—were shunned by slaves who had the
privilege (as many had) of finding their own masters at the end of each
year; and yet, there was not a man in all that section of country, who
made a louder profession of religion, than did MR. RIGBY HOPKINS.
But, to continue the thread of my story, through my experience when at
Mr. William Freeland’s.
My poor, weather-beaten bark now reached smoother water, and gentler
breezes. My stormy life at Covey’s had been of service to me. The
things that would have seemed very hard, had I gone direct to Mr.
Freeland’s, from the home of Master Thomas, were now (after the
hardships at Covey’s) “trifles light as air.” I was still a field hand,
and had come to prefer the severe labor of the field, to the enervating
duties of a house servant. I had become large and strong; and had begun
to take pride in the fact, that I could do as much hard work as some of
the older men. There is much rivalry among slaves, at times, as to
which can do the most work, and masters generally seek to promote such
rivalry. But some of us were too wise to race with each other very
long. Such racing, we had the sagacity to see, was not likely to pay.
We had our times for measuring each other’s strength, but we knew too
much to keep up the competition so long as to produce an extraordinary
day’s work. We knew that if, by extraordinary exertion, a large
quantity of work was done in one day, the fact, becoming known to the
master, might lead him to require the same amount every day. This
thought was enough to bring us to a dead halt when over so much excited
for the race.
At Mr. Freeland’s, my condition was every way improved. I was no longer
the poor scape-goat that I was when at Covey’s, where every wrong thing
done was saddled upon me, and where other slaves were whipped over my
shoulders. Mr. Freeland was too just a man thus to impose upon me, or
upon any one else.
It is quite usual to make one slave the object of especial abuse, and
to beat him often, with a view to its effect upon others, rather than
with any expectation that the slave whipped will be improved by it, but
the man with whom I now was, could descend to no such meanness and
wickedness. Every man here was held individually responsible for his
own conduct.
This was a vast improvement on the rule at Covey’s. There, I was the
general pack horse. Bill Smith was protected, by a positive prohibition
made by his rich master, and the command of the rich slaveholder is LAW
to the poor one; Hughes was favored, because of his relationship to
Covey; and the hands hired temporarily, escaped flogging, except as
they got it over my poor shoulders. Of course, this comparison refers
to the time when Covey _could_ whip me.
Mr. Freeland, like Mr. Covey, gave his hands enough to eat, but, unlike
Mr. Covey, he gave them time to take their meals; he worked us hard
during the day, but gave us the night for rest—another advantage to be
set to the credit of the sinner, as against that of the saint. We were
seldom in the field after dark in the evening, or before sunrise in the
morning. Our implements of husbandry were of the most improved pattern,
and much superior to those used at Covey’s.
Nothwithstanding the improved condition which was now mine, and the
many advantages I had gained by my new home, and my new master, I was
still restless and discontented. I was about as hard to please by a
master, as a master is by slave. The freedom from bodily torture and
unceasing labor, had given my mind an increased sensibility, and
imparted to it greater activity. I was not yet exactly in right
relations. “How be it, that was not first which is spiritual, but that
which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual.” When entombed
at Covey’s, shrouded in darkness and physical wretchedness, temporal
wellbeing was the grand _desideratum;_ but, temporal wants supplied,
the spirit puts in its claims. Beat and cuff your slave, keep him
hungry and spiritless, and he will follow the chain of his master like
a dog; but, feed and clothe him well—work him moderately—surround him
with physical comfort—and dreams of freedom intrude. Give him a _bad_
master, and he aspires to a _good_ master; give him a good master, and
he wishes to become his _own_ master. Such is human nature. You may
hurl a man so low, beneath the level of his kind, that he loses all
just ideas of his natural position; but elevate him a little, and the
clear conception of rights arises to life and power, and leads him
onward. Thus elevated, a little, at Freeland’s, the dreams called into
being by that good man, Father Lawson, when in Baltimore, began to
visit me; and shoots from the tree of liberty began to put forth tender
buds, and dim hopes of the future began to dawn.
I found myself in congenial society, at Mr. Freeland’s. There were
Henry Harris, John Harris, Handy Caldwell, and Sandy Jenkins. 6
Henry and John were brothers, and belonged to Mr. Freeland. They were
both remarkably bright and intelligent, though neither of them could
read. Now for mischief! I had not been long at Freeland’s before I was
up to my old tricks. I early began to address my companions on the
subject of education, and the advantages of intelligence over
ignorance, and, as far as I dared, I tried to show the agency of
ignorance in keeping men in slavery. Webster’s spelling book and the
_Columbian Orator_ were looked into again. As summer came on, and the
long Sabbath days stretched themselves over our idleness, I became
uneasy, and wanted a Sabbath school, in which to exercise my gifts, and
to impart the little knowledge of letters which I possessed, to my
brother slaves. A house was hardly necessary in the summer time; I
could hold my school under the shade of an old oak tree, as well as any
where else. The thing was, to get the scholars, and to have them
thoroughly imbued with the desire to learn. Two such boys were quickly
secured, in Henry and John, and from them the contagion spread. I was
not long bringing around me twenty or thirty young men, who enrolled
themselves, gladly, in my Sabbath school, and were willing to meet me
regularly, under the trees or elsewhere, for the purpose of learning to
read. It was surprising with what ease they provided themselves with
spelling books. These were mostly the cast off books of their young
masters or mistresses. I taught, at first, on our own farm. All were
impressed with the necessity of keeping the matter as private as
possible, for the fate of the St. Michael’s attempt was notorious, and
fresh in the minds of all. Our pious masters, at St. Michael’s, must
not know that a few of their dusky brothers were learning to read the
word of God, lest they should come down upon us with the lash and
chain. We might have met to drink whisky, to wrestle, fight, and to do
other unseemly things, with no fear of interruption from the saints or
sinners of St. Michael’s.
But, to meet for the purpose of improving the mind and heart, by
learning to read the sacred scriptures, was esteemed a most dangerous
nuisance, to be instantly stopped. The slaveholders of St. Michael’s,
like slaveholders elsewhere, would always prefer to see the slaves
engaged in degrading sports, rather than to see them acting like moral
and accountable beings.
Had any one asked a religious white man, in St. Michael’s, twenty years
ago, the names of three men in that town, whose lives were most after
the pattern of our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, the first three would
have been as follows:
GARRISON WEST, _Class Leader_.
WRIGHT FAIRBANKS, _Class Leader_.
THOMAS AULD, _Class Leader_.
And yet, these were men who ferociously rushed in upon my Sabbath
school, at St. Michael’s, armed with mob-like missiles, and I must say,
I thought him a Christian, until he took part in bloody by the lash.
This same Garrison West was my class leader, and I must say, I thought
him a Christian, until he took part in breaking up my school. He led me
no more after that. The plea for this outrage was then, as it is now
and at all times—the danger to good order. If the slaves learnt to
read, they would learn something else, and something worse. The peace
of slavery would be disturbed; slave rule would be endangered. I leave
the reader to characterize a system which is endangered by such causes.
I do not dispute the soundness of the reasoning. It is perfectly sound;
and, if slavery be _right_, Sabbath schools for teaching slaves to read
the bible are _wrong_, and ought to be put down. These Christian class
leaders were, to this extent, consistent. They had settled the
question, that slavery is _right_, and, by that standard, they
determined that Sabbath schools are wrong. To be sure, they were
Protestant, and held to the great Protestant right of every man to
_“search the scriptures”_ for himself; but, then, to all general rules,
there are _exceptions_. How convenient! What crimes may not be
committed under the doctrine of the last remark. But, my dear, class
leading Methodist brethren, did not condescend to give me a reason for
breaking up the Sabbath school at St. Michael’s; it was enough that
they had determined upon its destruction. I am, however, digressing.
After getting the school cleverly into operation, the second time
holding it in the woods, behind the barn, and in the shade of trees—I
succeeded in inducing a free colored man, who lived several miles from
our house, to permit me to hold my school in a room at his house. He,
very kindly, gave me this liberty; but he incurred much peril in doing
so, for the assemblage was an unlawful one. I shall not mention, here,
the name of this man; for it might, even now, subject him to
persecution, although the offenses were committed more than twenty
years ago. I had, at one time, more than forty scholars, all of the
right sort; and many of them succeeded in learning to read. I have met
several slaves from Maryland, who were once my scholars; and who
obtained their freedom, I doubt not, partly in consequence of the ideas
imparted to them in that school. I have had various employments during
my short life; but I look back to _none_ with more satisfaction, than
to that afforded by my Sunday school. An attachment, deep and lasting,
sprung up between me and my persecuted pupils, which made parting from
them intensely grievous; and, when I think that most of these dear
souls are yet shut up in this abject thralldom, I am overwhelmed with
grief.
Besides my Sunday school, I devoted three evenings a week to my fellow
slaves, during the winter. Let the reader reflect upon the fact, that,
in this christian country, men and women are hiding from professors of
religion, in barns, in the woods and fields, in order to learn to read
the _holy bible_. Those dear souls, who came to my Sabbath school, came
_not_ because it was popular or reputable to attend such a place, for
they came under the liability of having forty stripes laid on their
naked backs. Every moment they spend in my school, they were under this
terrible liability; and, in this respect, I was sharer with them. Their
minds had been cramped and starved by their cruel masters; the light of
education had been completely excluded; and their hard earnings had
been taken to educate their master’s children. I felt a delight in
circumventing the tyrants, and in blessing the victims of their curses.
The year at Mr. Freeland’s passed off very smoothly, to outward
seeming. Not a blow was given me during the whole year. To the credit
of Mr. Freeland—irreligious though he was—it must be stated, that he
was the best master I ever had, until I became my own master, and
assumed for myself, as I had a right to do, the responsibility of my
own existence and the exercise of my own powers. For much of the
happiness—or absence of misery—with which I passed this year with Mr.
Freeland, I am indebted to the genial temper and ardent friendship of
my brother slaves. They were, every one of them, manly, generous and
brave, yes; I say they were brave, and I will add, fine looking. It is
seldom the lot of mortals to have truer and better friends than were
the slaves on this farm. It is not uncommon to charge slaves with great
treachery toward each other, and to believe them incapable of confiding
in each other; but I must say, that I never loved, esteemed, or
confided in men, more than I did in these. They were as true as steel,
and no band of brothers could have been more loving. There were no mean
advantages taken of each other, as is sometimes the case where slaves
are situated as we were; no tattling; no giving each other bad names to
Mr. Freeland; and no elevating one at the expense of the other. We
never undertook to do any thing, of any importance, which was likely to
affect each other, without mutual consultation. We were generally a
unit, and moved together. Thoughts and sentiments were exchanged
between us, which might well be called very incendiary, by oppressors
and tyrants; and perhaps the time has not even now come, when it is
safe to unfold all the flying suggestions which arise in the minds of
intelligent slaves. Several of my friends and brothers, if yet alive,
are still in some part of the house of bondage; and though twenty years
have passed away, the suspicious malice of slavery might punish them
for even listening to my thoughts.
The slaveholder, kind or cruel, is a slaveholder still—the every hour
violator of the just and inalienable rights of man; and he is,
therefore, every hour silently whetting the knife of vengeance for his
own throat. He never lisps a syllable in commendation of the fathers of
this republic, nor denounces any attempted oppression of himself,
without inviting the knife to his own throat, and asserting the rights
of rebellion for his own slaves.
The year is ended, and we are now in the midst of the Christmas
holidays, which are kept this year as last, according to the general
description previously given.