NOTHING LOST BY THE ATTEMPT TO RUN AWAY—COMRADES IN THEIR OLD
HOMES—REASONS FOR SENDING ME AWAY—RETURN TO BALTIMORE—CONTRAST BETWEEN
TOMMY AND THAT OF HIS COLORED COMPANION—TRIALS IN GARDINER’S SHIP
YARD—DESPERATE FIGHT—ITS CAUSES—CONFLICT BETWEEN WHITE AND BLACK
LABOR—DESCRIPTION OF THE OUTRAGE—COLORED TESTIMONY NOTHING—CONDUCT OF
MASTER HUGH—SPIRIT OF SLAVERY IN BALTIMORE—MY CONDITION IMPROVES—NEW
ASSOCIATIONS—SLAVEHOLDER’S RIGHT TO TAKE HIS WAGES—HOW TO MAKE A
CONTENTED SLAVE.
Well! dear reader, I am not, as you may have already 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—I dare not say or think who—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 is well that ends well.” My affectionate comrades,
Henry and John Harris, are still with Mr. William Freeland. Charles
Roberts and Henry Baily are safe at their homes. I have not, therefore,
any thing 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—namely: that they had been allured into the wicked scheme of
making their escape, by me; and that, but for me, they would never have
dreamed of a thing so shocking! My friends had nothing to regret,
either; for while they were watched more closely on account of what had
happened, they were, doubtless, treated more kindly than before, and
got new assurances that they would be legally emancipated, some day,
provided their behavior should make them deserving, from that time
forward. Not a blow, as I learned, was struck any one of them. As for
Master William Freeland, good, unsuspecting soul, he did not believe
that 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 down. 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 that he would have proved as good as his word, had the warning
given not been promptly taken. 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 of destruction to slavery,
which, before, had been looked upon as a wall of security by
slaveholders. But Master Billy could not get Mr. Freeland to see
matters precisely as he did; nor could he get Master Thomas so excited
as he was himself. The latter—I must say it to his credit—showed much
humane feeling in his part of the transaction, and atoned for much that
had been harsh, cruel and unreasonable in his former treatment of me
and others. His clemency was quite unusual and unlooked for. “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_. All this I can easily believe, 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 for the Eastern Shore just three years before.
The loving relations between me and Mas’ Tommy 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 scarcely
considered me inferior to himself certainly, as good as any other boy
with whom he played; but the time had come when his _friend_ must
become his _slave_. So we were cold, and we 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, and 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 had induced his mother to say, “Oh! Tommy is always safe,
when he is with Freddy,” must be confined to a single condition. He
could grow, and become a MAN; I could grow, though I could _not_ become
a man, but must remain, all my life, a minor—a mere boy. Thomas Auld,
Junior, obtained a situation on board the brig “Tweed,” and went to
sea. I know not what has become of him; he certainly has my good wishes
for his welfare and prosperity. There were few persons to whom I was
more sincerely attached than to him, and there are few in the world I
would be more pleased to meet.
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 here to learn to calk, a trade of which I
already had some knowledge, gained while in Mr. Hugh Auld’s ship-yard,
when he was a master builder. Gardiner’s, however, proved a very
unfavorable place for the accomplishment of that 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. G. 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 about seventy or eighty were
regular carpenters—privileged men. Speaking of my condition here I
wrote, years ago—and I have now no reason to vary the picture as
follows:
There was no time to learn any thing. Every man had to do that which he
knew how to do. In entering the ship-yard, my orders from Mr. Gardiner
were, to do whatever the carpenters commanded me to do. This was
placing me at the beck and call of about seventy-five men. I was to
regard all these as masters. Their word was to be my law. My situation
was a most trying one. At times I needed a dozen pair of hands. I was
called a dozen ways in the space of a single minute. 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.”—
“Hurra, Fred.! run and bring me a cold chisel.”—“I say, Fred., bear a
hand, and get up a fire as quick as lightning under that
steam-box.”—“Halloo, 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, dear reader, is a glance at the school which was mine, during,
the first eight months of my stay at Baltimore. At the end of the eight
months, Master Hugh refused longer to allow me to remain with Mr.
Gardiner. The circumstance which led to his taking me away, was a
brutal outrage, committed upon me by the white apprentices of the
ship-yard. The fight was a desperate one, and I came out of it most
shockingly mangled. I was cut and bruised in sundry places, and my left
eye was nearly knocked out of its socket. The facts, leading to this
barbarous outrage upon me, illustrate a phase of slavery destined to
become an important element in the overthrow of the slave system, and I
may, therefore state them with some minuteness. That phase is this:
_the conflict of slavery with the interests of the white mechanics and
laborers of the south_. In the country, this conflict is not so
apparent; but, in cities, such as Baltimore, Richmond, New Orleans,
Mobile, &c., it is seen pretty clearly. The slaveholders, with a
craftiness peculiar to themselves, by encouraging the enmity of the
poor, laboring white man against the blacks, succeeds 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, is this: the
latter belongs to _one_ slaveholder, and the former belongs to _all_
the slaveholders, collectively. The white slave has taken from him, by
indirection, what the black slave has taken from him, directly, and
without ceremony. Both are plundered, and by the same plunderers. The
slave is robbed, by his master, of all his earnings, above what is
required for his bare physical necessities; and the white man is robbed
by the slave system, of the just results of his labor, because he is
flung into competition with a class of laborers who work without wages.
The competition, and its injurious consequences, will, one day, array
the nonslaveholding white people of the slave states, against the slave
system, and make them the most effective workers against the great
evil. At present, the slaveholders blind them to this competition, by
keeping alive their prejudice against the slaves, _as men_—not against
them _as slaves_. They appeal to their pride, often denouncing
emancipation, as tending to place the white man, on an equality with
Negroes, and, by this means, they succeed in drawing off the minds of
the poor whites from the real fact, that, by the rich slave-master,
they are already regarded as but a single remove from equality with the
slave. The impression is cunningly made, that slavery is the only power
that can 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 is allowed
to abuse and whip the former, without hinderance. But—as I have
suggested—this state of facts prevails _mostly_ in the country. In the
city of Baltimore, there are not unfrequent murmurs, that educating the
slaves to be mechanics may, in the end, give slavemasters power to
dispense with the services of the poor white man altogether. 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 people at all; but it was too
much to strike directly at the interest of the slaveholders; and,
therefore proving their servility and cowardice they dealt their blows
on the poor, 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 before I went there, white and black ship
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. To outward seeming, all hands were well satisfied.
Some of the blacks were first rate workmen, and were given jobs
requiring highest skill. All at once, however, the white carpenters
knocked off, and swore that they would no longer work on the same stage
with free Negroes. Taking advantage of the heavy contract resting upon
Mr. Gardiner, to have the war 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 the cowardly 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 any thing, without coupling the call with a
curse, and Edward North, the biggest in every thing, 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,
while I could keep them from combining, I succeeded 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 day light. The attack was made suddenly, and simultaneously. One
came in front, armed with a brick; there was one at each side, and one
behind, and they closed up 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 (I know not which) planted a blow with his boot in
my left eye, which, for a time, seemed to have burst my eyeball. 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 sufficient 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 frenzied 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: not fewer than fifty white men stood by,
and saw this brutal and shameless 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—d 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, in that ship yard, so murderous was
the spirit which prevailed there. On two occasions, while there, I came
near losing my life. 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 then lost my life. A son of old Tom Lanman (the latter’s double
murder I have elsewhere charged upon him), in the spirit of his
miserable father, made an assault upon me, but the blow with his maul
missed me. After the united assault 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 chances 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 colored people, at that time, in any other part of Maryland. The
whole sentiment of Baltimore was murderous.
After making my escape from the ship yard, I went straight home, and
related the story of the outrage to Master Hugh Auld; and it is due to
him to say, 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
the latter in a somewhat similar plight, from the hands of _“Brother
Edward Covey.”_ He listened attentively to my narration of the
circumstances leading to the ruffianly outrage, and gave many proofs of
his strong indignation at what was done. Hugh was a rough, but
manly-hearted fellow, and, at this time, his best nature showed itself.
The heart of my once almost over-kind mistress, Sophia, was again
melted in pity toward 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, 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 the
murderous assault, and my suffering, that it furnished and occasion for
the manifestation, once more, of the orignally(sic) characteristic
kindness of my mistress. Her affectionate heart was not yet dead,
though much hardened by time and by circumstances.
As for Master Hugh’s part, as I have said, he was furious about it; and
he gave expression to his fury in the usual forms of speech in that
locality. He poured curses on the heads of the whole ship yard company,
and swore that he would have satisfaction for the outrage. 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
committed on me _as a man_. I inferred as much as 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 it all, and instead of drawing up his warrant, he
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 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
arrest a single murderer. Master Hugh, for once, was compelled to say,
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 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 come and volunteer their evidence.
The slightest manifestation 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 any thing done, 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 again to work.
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 now do for me, was to take me into Mr.
Price’s yard, and afford me the facilities there, for completing the
trade which I had began to learn at Gardiner’s. Here I rapidly became
expert in the use of my calking 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 now
free from the vexatious assalts(sic) of the apprentices at Mr.
Gardiner’s; and free from the perils of plantation life, and once more
in a 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 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 that condition
by the shortest route. I was living among _free men;_ and was, in all
respects, equal to them by nature and by 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, earned 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 nonslaveholder—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 that 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.