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My Bondage and My Freedom

by Frederick Douglass · English · Gutenberg #202 · 779,571 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: My Bondage and My Freedom

Author: Frederick Douglass


        
Release date: July 2, 2008 [eBook #202]
                Most recently updated: June 12, 2022

Language: English

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MY BONDAGE and MY FREEDOM

By Frederick Douglass


By a principle essential to Christianity, a PERSON is eternally
differenced from a THING; so that the idea of a HUMAN BEING,
necessarily excludes the idea of PROPERTY IN THAT BEING. —COLERIDGE

Entered according to Act of Congress in 1855 by Frederick Douglass in
the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the Northern District of
New York

TO
HONORABLE GERRIT SMITH,
AS A SLIGHT TOKEN OF
ESTEEM FOR HIS CHARACTER,
ADMIRATION FOR HIS GENIUS AND BENEVOLENCE,
AFFECTION FOR HIS PERSON, AND
GRATITUDE FOR HIS FRIENDSHIP,
AND AS
A Small but most Sincere Acknowledgement of
HIS PRE-EMINENT SERVICES IN BEHALF OF THE RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES
OF AN
AFFLICTED, DESPISED AND DEEPLY OUTRAGED PEOPLE,
BY RANKING SLAVERY WITH PIRACY AND MURDER,
AND BY
DENYING IT EITHER A LEGAL OR CONSTITUTIONAL EXISTENCE,
This Volume is Respectfully Dedicated,
BY HIS FAITHFUL AND FIRMLY ATTACHED FRIEND,

FREDERICK DOUGLAS.
ROCHESTER, N.Y.




CONTENTS

 MY BONDAGE and MY FREEDOM
 EDITOR’S PREFACE
 INTRODUCTION

 CHAPTER I. _Childhood_
 CHAPTER II. _Removed from My First Home_
 CHAPTER III. _Parentage_
 CHAPTER IV. _A General Survey of the Slave Plantation_
 CHAPTER V. _Gradual Initiation to the Mysteries of Slavery_
 CHAPTER VI. _Treatment of Slaves on Lloyd’s Plantation_
 CHAPTER VII. _Life in the Great House_
 CHAPTER VIII. _A Chapter of Horrors_
 CHAPTER IX. _Personal Treatment_
 CHAPTER X. _Life in Baltimore_
 CHAPTER XI. _“A Change Came O’er the Spirit of My Dream”_
 CHAPTER XII. _Religious Nature Awakened_
 CHAPTER XIII. _The Vicissitudes of Slave Life_
 CHAPTER XIV. _Experience in St. Michael’s_
 CHAPTER XV. _Covey, the Negro Breaker_
 CHAPTER XVI. _Another Pressure of the Tyrant’s Vice_
 CHAPTER XVII. _The Last Flogging_
 CHAPTER XVIII. _New Relations and Duties_
 CHAPTER XIX. _The Run-Away Plot_
 CHAPTER XX. _Apprenticeship Life_
 CHAPTER XXI. _My Escape from Slavery_

 LIFE as a FREEMAN
 CHAPTER XXII. _Liberty Attained_
 CHAPTER XXIII. _Introduced to the Abolitionists_
 CHAPTER XXIV. _Twenty-One Months in Great Britain_
 CHAPTER XXV. _Various Incidents_

 RECEPTION SPEECH [10]. At Finsbury Chapel, Moorfields, England, May 12,
 Dr. Campbell’s Reply
 LETTER TO HIS OLD MASTER. [11]. To My Old Master, Thomas Auld
 THE NATURE OF SLAVERY. Extract from a Lecture on Slavery, at Rochester,
 INHUMANITY OF SLAVERY. Extract from A Lecture on Slavery, at Rochester,
 WHAT TO THE SLAVE IS THE FOURTH OF JULY?. Extract from an Oration, at
 THE INTERNAL SLAVE TRADE. Extract from an Oration, at Rochester, July
 THE SLAVERY PARTY. Extract from a Speech Delivered before the A. A. S.
 THE ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT. Extracts from a Lecture before Various

 FOOTNOTES




MY BONDAGE and MY FREEDOM




EDITOR’S PREFACE


If the volume now presented to the public were a mere work of ART, the
history of its misfortune might be written in two very simple words—TOO
LATE. The nature and character of slavery have been subjects of an
almost endless variety of artistic representation; and after the
brilliant achievements in that field, and while those achievements are
yet fresh in the memory of the million, he who would add another to the
legion, must possess the charm of transcendent excellence, or apologize
for something worse than rashness. The reader is, therefore, assured,
with all due promptitude, that his attention is not invited to a work
of ART, but to a work of FACTS—Facts, terrible and almost incredible,
it may be yet FACTS, nevertheless.

I am authorized to say that there is not a fictitious name nor place in
the whole volume; but that names and places are literally given, and
that every transaction therein described actually transpired.

Perhaps the best Preface to this volume is furnished in the following
letter of Mr. Douglass, written in answer to my urgent solicitation for
such a work:

ROCHESTER, N. Y. _July_ 2, 1855.


DEAR FRIEND: I have long entertained, as you very well know, a somewhat
positive repugnance to writing or speaking anything for the public,
which could, with any degree of plausibilty, make me liable to the
imputation of seeking personal notoriety, for its own sake.
Entertaining that feeling very sincerely, and permitting its control,
perhaps, quite unreasonably, I have often refused to narrate my
personal experience in public anti-slavery meetings, and in
sympathizing circles, when urged to do so by friends, with whose views
and wishes, ordinarily, it were a pleasure to comply. In my letters and
speeches, I have generally aimed to discuss the question of Slavery in
the light of fundamental principles, and upon facts, notorious and open
to all; making, I trust, no more of the fact of my own former
enslavement, than circumstances seemed absolutely to require. I have
never placed my opposition to slavery on a basis so narrow as my own
enslavement, but rather upon the indestructible and unchangeable laws
of human nature, every one of which is perpetually and flagrantly
violated by the slave system. I have also felt that it was best for
those having histories worth the writing—or supposed to be so—to commit
such work to hands other than their own. To write of one’s self, in
such a manner as not to incur the imputation of weakness, vanity, and
egotism, is a work within the ability of but few; and I have little
reason to believe that I belong to that fortunate few.

These considerations caused me to hesitate, when first you kindly urged
me to prepare for publication a full account of my life as a slave, and
my life as a freeman.

Nevertheless, I see, with you, many reasons for regarding my
autobiography as exceptional in its character, and as being, in some
sense, naturally beyond the reach of those reproaches which honorable
and sensitive minds dislike to incur. It is not to illustrate any
heroic achievements of a man, but to vindicate a just and beneficent
principle, in its application to the whole human family, by letting in
the light of truth upon a system, esteemed by some as a blessing, and
by others as a curse and a crime. I agree with you, that this system is
now at the bar of public opinion—not only of this country, but of the
whole civilized world—for judgment. Its friends have made for it the
usual plea—“not guilty;” the case must, therefore, proceed. Any facts,
either from slaves, slaveholders, or by-standers, calculated to
enlighten the public mind, by revealing the true nature, character, and
tendency of the slave system, are in order, and can scarcely be
innocently withheld.

I see, too, that there are special reasons why I should write my own
biography, in preference to employing another to do it. Not only is
slavery on trial, but unfortunately, the enslaved people are also on
trial. It is alleged, that they are, naturally, inferior; that they are
_so low_ in the scale of humanity, and so utterly stupid, that they are
unconscious of their wrongs, and do not apprehend their rights.
Looking, then, at your request, from this stand-point, and wishing
everything of which you think me capable to go to the benefit of my
afflicted people, I part with my doubts and hesitation, and proceed to
furnish you the desired manuscript; hoping that you may be able to make
such arrangements for its publication as shall be best adapted to
accomplish that good which you so enthusiastically anticipate.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

There was little necessity for doubt and hesitation on the part of Mr.
Douglass, as to the propriety of his giving to the world a full account
of himself. A man who was born and brought up in slavery, a living
witness of its horrors; who often himself experienced its cruelties;
and who, despite the depressing influences surrounding his birth, youth
and manhood, has risen, from a dark and almost absolute obscurity, to
the distinguished position which he now occupies, might very well
assume the existence of a commendable curiosity, on the part of the
public, to know the facts of his remarkable history.

EDITOR




INTRODUCTION


When a man raises himself from the lowest condition in society to the
highest, mankind pay him the tribute of their admiration; when he
accomplishes this elevation by native energy, guided by prudence and
wisdom, their admiration is increased; but when his course, onward and
upward, excellent in itself, furthermore proves a possible, what had
hitherto been regarded as an impossible, reform, then he becomes a
burning and a shining light, on which the aged may look with gladness,
the young with hope, and the down-trodden, as a representative of what
they may themselves become. To such a man, dear reader, it is my
privilege to introduce you.

The life of Frederick Douglass, recorded in the pages which follow, is
not merely an example of self-elevation under the most adverse
circumstances; it is, moreover, a noble vindication of the highest aims
of the American anti-slavery movement. The real object of that movement
is not only to disenthrall, it is, also, to bestow upon the Negro the
exercise of all those rights, from the possession of which he has been
so long debarred.

But this full recognition of the colored man to the right, and the
entire admission of the same to the full privileges, political,
religious and social, of manhood, requires powerful effort on the part
of the enthralled, as well as on the part of those who would
disenthrall them. The people at large must feel the conviction, as well
as admit the abstract logic, of human equality; the Negro, for the
first time in the world’s history, brought in full contact with high
civilization, must prove his title first to all that is demanded for
him; in the teeth of unequal chances, he must prove himself equal to
the mass of those who oppress him—therefore, absolutely superior to his
apparent fate, and to their relative ability. And it is most cheering
to the friends of freedom, today, that evidence of this equality is
rapidly accumulating, not from the ranks of the half-freed colored
people of the free states, but from the very depths of slavery itself;
the indestructible equality of man to man is demonstrated by the ease
with which black men, scarce one remove from barbarism—if slavery can
be honored with such a distinction—vault into the high places of the
most advanced and painfully acquired civilization. Ward and Garnett,
Wells Brown and Pennington, Loguen and Douglass, are banners on the
outer wall, under which abolition is fighting its most successful
battles, because they are living exemplars of the practicability of the
most radical abolitionism; for, they were all of them born to the doom
of slavery, some of them remained slaves until adult age, yet they all
have not only won equality to their white fellow citizens, in civil,
religious, political and social rank, but they have also illustrated
and adorned our common country by their genius, learning and eloquence.

The characteristics whereby Mr. Douglass has won first rank among these
remarkable men, and is still rising toward highest rank among living
Americans, are abundantly laid bare in the book before us. Like the
autobiography of Hugh Miller, it carries us so far back into early
childhood, as to throw light upon the question, “when positive and
persistent memory begins in the human being.” And, like Hugh Miller, he
must have been a shy old-fashioned child, occasionally oppressed by
what he could not well account for, peering and poking about among the
layers of right and wrong, of tyrant and thrall, and the wonderfulness
of that hopeless tide of things which brought power to one race, and
unrequited toil to another, until, finally, he stumbled upon his
“first-found Ammonite,” hidden away down in the depths of his own
nature, and which revealed to him the fact that liberty and right, for
all men, were anterior to slavery and wrong. When his knowledge of the
world was bounded by the visible horizon on Col. Lloyd’s plantation,
and while every thing around him bore a fixed, iron stamp, as if it had
always been so, this was, for one so young, a notable discovery.

To his uncommon memory, then, we must add a keen and accurate insight
into men and things; an original breadth of common sense which enabled
him to see, and weigh, and compare whatever passed before him, and
which kindled a desire to search out and define their relations to
other things not so patent, but which never succumbed to the marvelous
nor the supernatural; a sacred thirst for liberty and for learning,
first as a means of attaining liberty, then as an end in itself most
desirable; a will; an unfaltering energy and determination to obtain
what his soul pronounced desirable; a majestic self-hood; determined
courage; a deep and agonizing sympathy with his embruted, crushed and
bleeding fellow slaves, and an extraordinary depth of passion, together
with that rare alliance between passion and intellect, which enables
the former, when deeply roused, to excite, develop and sustain the
latter.

With these original gifts in view, let us look at his schooling; the
fearful discipline through which it pleased God to prepare him for the
high calling on which he has since entered—the advocacy of emancipation
by the people who are not slaves. And for this special mission, his
plantation education was better than any he could have acquired in any
lettered school. What he needed, was facts and experiences, welded to
acutely wrought up sympathies, and these he could not elsewhere have
obtained, in a manner so peculiarly adapted to his nature. His physical
being was well trained, also, running wild until advanced into boyhood;
hard work and light diet, thereafter, and a skill in handicraft in
youth.

For his special mission, then, this was, considered in connection with
his natural gifts, a good schooling; and, for his special mission, he
doubtless “left school” just at the proper moment. Had he remained
longer in slavery—had he fretted under bonds until the ripening of
manhood and its passions, until the drear agony of slave-wife and
slave-children had been piled upon his already bitter experiences—then,
not only would his own history have had another termination, but the
drama of American slavery would have been essentially varied; for I
cannot resist the belief, that the boy who learned to read and write as
he did, who taught his fellow slaves these precious acquirements as he
did, who plotted for their mutual escape as he did, would, when a man
at bay, strike a blow which would make slavery reel and stagger.
Furthermore, blows and insults he bore, at the moment, without
resentment; deep but suppressed emotion rendered him insensible to
their sting; but it was afterward, when the memory of them went
seething through his brain, breeding a fiery indignation at his injured
self-hood, that the resolve came to resist, and the time fixed when to
resist, and the plot laid, how to resist; and he always kept his
self-pledged word. In what he undertook, in this line, he looked fate
in the face, and had a cool, keen look at the relation of means to
ends. Henry Bibb, to avoid chastisement, strewed his master’s bed with
charmed leaves and _was whipped_. Frederick Douglass quietly pocketed a
like _fetiche_, compared his muscles with those of Covey—and _whipped
him_.

In the history of his life in bondage, we find, well developed, that
inherent and continuous energy of character which will ever render him
distinguished. What his hand found to do, he did with his might; even
while conscious that he was wronged out of his daily earnings, he
worked, and worked hard. At his daily labor he went with a will; with
keen, well set eye, brawny chest, lithe figure, and fair sweep of arm,
he would have been king among calkers, had that been his mission.

It must not be overlooked, in this glance at his education, that Mr.
Douglass lacked one aid to which so many men of mark have been deeply
indebted—he had neither a mother’s care, nor a mother’s culture, save
that which slavery grudgingly meted out to him. Bitter nurse! may not
even her features relax with human feeling, when she gazes at such
offspring! How susceptible he was to the kindly influences of
mother-culture, may be gathered from his own words, on page 57: “It has
been a life-long standing grief to me, that I know so little of my
mother, and that I was so early separated from her. The counsels of her
love must have been beneficial to me. The side view of her face is
imaged on my memory, and I take few steps in life, without feeling her
presence; but the image is mute, and I have no striking words of hers
treasured up.”

From the depths of chattel slavery in Maryland, our author escaped into
the caste-slavery of the north, in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Here he
found oppression assuming another, and hardly less bitter, form; of
that very handicraft which the greed of slavery had taught him, his
half-freedom denied him the exercise for an honest living; he found
himself one of a class—free colored men—whose position he has described
in the following words:

“Aliens are we in our native land. The fundamental principles of the
republic, to which the humblest white man, whether born here or
elsewhere, may appeal with confidence, in the hope of awakening a
favorable response, are held to be inapplicable to us. The glorious
doctrines of your revolutionary fathers, and the more glorious
teachings of the Son of God, are construed and applied against us. We
are literally scourged beyond the beneficent range of both authorities,
human and divine. * * * * American humanity hates us, scorns us,
disowns and denies, in a thousand ways, our very personality. The
outspread wing of American christianity, apparently broad enough to
give shelter to a perishing world, refuses to cover us. To us, its
bones are brass, and its features iron. In running thither for shelter
and succor, we have only fled from the hungry blood-hound to the
devouring wolf—from a corrupt and selfish world, to a hollow and
hypocritical church.”—_Speech before American and Foreign Anti-Slavery
Society, May_, 1854.

Four years or more, from 1837 to 1841, he struggled on, in New Bedford,
sawing wood, rolling casks, or doing what labor he might, to support
himself and young family; four years he brooded over the scars which
slavery and semi-slavery had inflicted upon his body and soul; and
then, with his wounds yet unhealed, he fell among the Garrisonians—a
glorious waif to those most ardent reformers. It happened one day, at
Nantucket, that he, diffidently and reluctantly, was led to address an
anti-slavery meeting. He was about the age when the younger Pitt
entered the House of Commons; like Pitt, too, he stood up a born
orator.

William Lloyd Garrison, who was happily present, writes thus of Mr.
Douglass’ maiden effort; “I shall never forget his first speech at the
convention—the extraordinary emotion it excited in my own mind—the
powerful impression it created upon a crowded auditory, completely
taken by surprise. * * * I think I never hated slavery so intensely as
at that moment; certainly, my perception of the enormous outrage which
is inflicted by it on the godlike nature of its victims, was rendered
far more clear than ever. There stood one in physical proportions and
stature commanding and exact—in intellect richly endowed—in natural
eloquence a prodigy.” 1

It is of interest to compare Mr. Douglass’s account of this meeting
with Mr. Garrison’s. Of the two, I think the latter the most correct.
It must have been a grand burst of eloquence! The pent up agony,
indignation and pathos of an abused and harrowed boyhood and youth,
bursting out in all their freshness and overwhelming earnestness!

This unique introduction to its great leader, led immediately to the
employment of Mr. Douglass as an agent by the American Anti-Slavery
Society. So far as his self-relying and independent character would
permit, he became, after the strictest sect, a Garrisonian. It is not
too much to say, that he formed a complement which they needed, and
they were a complement equally necessary to his “make-up.” With his
deep and keen sensitiveness to wrong, and his wonderful memory, he came
from the land of bondage full of its woes and its evils, and painting
them in characters of living light; and, on his part, he found, told
out in sound Saxon phrase, all those principles of justice and right
and liberty, which had dimly brooded over the dreams of his youth,
seeking definite forms and verbal expression. It must have been an
electric flashing of thought, and a knitting of soul, granted to but
few in this life, and will be a life-long memory to those who
participated in it. In the society, moreover, of Wendell Phillips,
Edmund Quincy, William Lloyd Garrison, and other men of earnest faith
and refined culture, Mr. Douglass enjoyed the high advantage of their
assistance and counsel in the labor of self-culture, to which he now
addressed himself with wonted energy. Yet, these gentlemen, although
proud of Frederick Douglass, failed to fathom, and bring out to the
light of day, the highest qualities of his mind; the force of their own
education stood in their own way: they did not delve into the mind of a
colored man for capacities which the pride of race led them to believe
to be restricted to their own Saxon blood. Bitter and vindictive
sarcasm, irresistible mimicry, and a pathetic narrative of his own
experiences of slavery, were the intellectual manifestations which they
encouraged him to exhibit on the platform or in the lecture desk.

A visit to England, in 1845, threw Mr. Douglass among men and women of
earnest souls and high culture, and who, moreover, had never drank of
the bitter waters of American caste. For the first time in his life, he
breathed an atmosphere congenial to the longings of his spirit, and
felt his manhood free and unrestricted. The cordial and manly greetings
of the British and Irish audiences in public, and the refinement and
elegance of the social circles in which he mingled, not only as an
equal, but as a recognized man of genius, were, doubtless, genial and
pleasant resting places in his hitherto thorny and troubled journey
through life. There are joys on the earth, and, to the wayfaring
fugitive from American slavery or American caste, this is one of them.

But his sojourn in England was more than a joy to Mr. Douglass. Like
the platform at Nantucket, it awakened him to the consciousness of new
powers that lay in him. From the pupilage of Garrisonism he rose to the
dignity of a teacher and a thinker; his opinions on the broader aspects
of the great American question were earnestly and incessantly sought,
from various points of view, and he must, perforce, bestir himself to
give suitable answer. With that prompt and truthful perception which
has led their sisters in all ages of the world to gather at the feet
and support the hands of reformers, the gentlewomen of England 2 were
foremost to encourage and strengthen him to carve out for himself a
path fitted to his powers and energies, in the life-battle against
slavery and caste to which he was pledged. And one stirring thought,
inseparable from the British idea of the evangel of freedom, must have
smote his ear from every side—

Hereditary bondmen! know ye not
Who would be free, themselves mast strike the blow?


The result of this visit was, that on his return to the United States,
he established a newspaper. This proceeding was sorely against the
wishes and the advice of the leaders of the American Anti-Slavery
Society, but our author had fully grown up to the conviction of a truth
which they had once promulged, but now forgotten, to wit: that in their
own elevation—self-elevation—colored men have a blow to strike “on
their own hook,” against slavery and caste. Differing from his Boston
friends in this matter, diffident in his own abilities, reluctant at
their dissuadings, how beautiful is the loyalty with which he still
clung to their principles in all things else, and even in this.

Now came the trial hour. Without cordial support from any large body of
men or party on this side the Atlantic, and too far distant in space
and immediate interest to expect much more, after the much already
done, on the other side, he stood up, almost alone, to the arduous
labor and heavy expenditure of editor and lecturer. The Garrison party,
to which he still adhered, did not want a _colored_ newspaper—there was
an odor of _caste_ about it; the Liberty party could hardly be expected
to give warm support to a man who smote their principles as with a
hammer; and the wide gulf which separated the free colored people from
the Garrisonians, also separated them from their brother, Frederick
Douglass.

The arduous nature of his labors, from the date of the establishment of
his paper, may be estimated by the fact, that anti-slavery papers in
the United States, even while organs of, and when supported by,
anti-slavery parties, have, with a single exception, failed to pay
expenses. Mr. Douglass has maintained, and does maintain, his paper
without the support of any party, and even in the teeth of the
opposition of those from whom he had reason to expect counsel and
encouragement. He has been compelled, at one and the same time, and
almost constantly, during the past seven years, to contribute matter to
its columns as editor, and to raise funds for its support as lecturer.
It is within bounds to say, that he has expended twelve thousand
dollars of his own hard earned money, in publishing this paper, a
larger sum than has been contributed by any one individual for the
general advancement of the colored people. There had been many other
papers published and edited by colored men, beginning as far back as
1827, when the Rev. Samuel E. Cornish and John B. Russworm (a graduate
of Bowdoin college, and afterward Governor of Cape Palmas) published
the _Freedom’s Journal_, in New York City; probably not less than one
hundred newspaper enterprises have been started in the United States,
by free colored men, born free, and some of them of liberal education
and fair talents for this work; but, one after another, they have
fallen through, although, in several instances, anti-slavery friends
contributed to their support. 3 It had almost been given up, as an
impracticable thing, to maintain a colored newspaper, when Mr.
Douglass, with fewest early advantages of all his competitors, essayed,
and has proved the thing perfectly practicable, and, moreover, of great
public benefit. This paper, in addition to its power in holding up the
hands of those to whom it is especially devoted, also affords
irrefutable evidence of the justice, safety and practicability of
Immediate Emancipation; it further proves the immense loss which
slavery inflicts on the land while it dooms such energies as his to the
hereditary degradation of slavery.

It has been said in this Introduction, that Mr. Douglass had raised
himself by his own efforts to the highest position in society. As a
successful editor, in our land, he occupies this position. Our editors
rule the land, and he is one of them. As an orator and thinker, his
position is equally high, in the opinion of his countrymen. If a
stranger in the United States would seek its most distinguished men—the
movers of public opinion—he will find their names mentioned, and their
movements chronicled, under the head of “BY MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH,” in the
daily papers. The keen caterers for the public attention, set down, in
this column, such men only as have won high mark in the public esteem.
During the past winter—1854-5—very frequent mention of Frederick
Douglass was made under this head in the daily papers; his name glided
as often—this week from Chicago, next week from Boston—over the
lightning wires, as the name of any other man, of whatever note. To no
man did the people more widely nor more earnestly say, _“Tell me thy
thought!”_ And, somehow or other, revolution seemed to follow in his
wake. His were not the mere words of eloquence which Kossuth speaks of,
that delight the ear and then pass away. No! They were _work_-able,
_do_-able words, that brought forth fruits in the revolution in
Illinois, and in the passage of the franchise resolutions by the
Assembly of New York.

And the secret of his power, what is it? He is a Representative
American man—a type of his countrymen. Naturalists tell us that a full
grown man is a resultant or representative of all animated nature on
this globe; beginning with the early embryo state, then representing
the lowest forms of organic life, 4 and passing through every
subordinate grade or type, until he reaches the last and
highest—manhood. In like manner, and to the fullest extent, has
Frederick Douglass passed through every gradation of rank comprised in
our national make-up, and bears upon his person and upon his soul every
thing that is American. And he has not only full sympathy with every
thing American; his proclivity or bent, to active toil and visible
progress, are in the strictly national direction, delighting to
outstrip “all creation.”

Nor have the natural gifts, already named as his, lost anything by his
severe training. When unexcited, his mental processes are probably
slow, but singularly clear in perception, and wide in vision, the
unfailing memory bringing up all the facts in their every aspect;
incongruities he lays hold of incontinently, and holds up on the edge
of his keen and telling wit. But this wit never descends to frivolity;
it is rigidly in the keeping of his truthful common sense, and always
used in illustration or proof of some point which could not so readily
be reached any other way. “Beware of a Yankee when he is feeding,” is a
shaft that strikes home in a matter never so laid bare by satire
before. “The Garrisonian views of disunion, if carried to a successful
issue, would only place the people of the north in the same relation to
American slavery which they now bear to the slavery of Cuba or the
Brazils,” is a statement, in a few words, which contains the result and
the evidence of an argument which might cover pages, but could not
carry stronger conviction, nor be stated in less pregnable form. In
proof of this, I may say, that having been submitted to the attention
of the Garrisonians in print, in March, it was repeated before them at
their business meeting in May—the platform, _par excellence_, on which
they invite free fight, _a l’outrance_, to all comers. It was given out
in the clear, ringing tones, wherewith the hall of shields was wont to
resound of old, yet neither Garrison, nor Phillips, nor May, nor
Remond, nor Foster, nor Burleigh, with his subtle steel of “the ice
brook’s temper,” ventured to break a lance upon it! The doctrine of the
dissolution of the Union, as a means for the abolition of American
slavery, was silenced upon the lips that gave it birth, and in the
presence of an array of defenders who compose the keenest intellects in
the land.

_“The man who is right is a majority”_ is an aphorism struck out by Mr.
Douglass in that great gathering of the friends of freedom, at
Pittsburgh, in 1852, where he towered among the highest, because, with
abilities inferior to none, and moved more deeply than any, there was
neither policy nor party to trammel the outpourings of his soul. Thus
we find, opposed to all disadvantages which a black man in the United
States labors and struggles under, is this one vantage ground—when the
chance comes, and the audience where he may have a say, he stands forth
the freest, most deeply moved and most earnest of all men.

It has been said of Mr. Douglass, that his descriptive and declamatory
powers, admitted to be of the very highest order, take precedence of
his logical force. Whilst the schools might have trained him to the
exhibition of the formulas of deductive logic, nature and circumstances
forced him into the exercise of the higher faculties required by
induction. The first ninety pages of this “Life in Bondage,” afford
specimens of observing, comparing, and careful classifying, of such
superior character, that it is difficult to believe them the results of
a child’s thinking; he questions the earth, and the children and the
slaves around him again and again, and finally looks to _“God in the
sky”_ for the why and the wherefore of the unnatural thing, slavery.
_“Yes, if indeed thou art, wherefore dost thou suffer us to be slain?”_
is the only prayer and worship of the God-forsaken Dodos in the heart
of Africa. Almost the same was his prayer. One of his earliest
observations was that white children should know their ages, while the
colored children were ignorant of theirs; and the songs of the slaves
grated on his inmost soul, because a something told him that harmony in
sound, and music of the spirit, could not consociate with miserable
degradation.

To such a mind, the ordinary processes of logical deduction are like
proving that two and two make four. Mastering the intermediate steps by
an intuitive glance, or recurring to them as Ferguson resorted to
geometry, it goes down to the deeper relation of things, and brings out
what may seem, to some, mere statements, but which are new and
brilliant generalizations, each resting on a broad and stable basis.
Thus, Chief Justice Marshall gave his decisions, and then told Brother
Story to look up the authorities—and they never differed from him.
Thus, also, in his “Lecture on the Anti-Slavery Movement,” delivered
before the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society, Mr. Douglass
presents a mass of thought, which, without any showy display of logic
on his part, requires an exercise of the reasoning faculties of the
reader to keep pace with him. And his “Claims of the Negro
Ethnologically Considered,” is full of new and fresh thoughts on the
dawning science of race-history.

If, as has been stated, his intellection is slow, when unexcited, it is
most prompt and rapid when he is thoroughly aroused. Memory, logic,
wit, sarcasm, invective pathos and bold imagery of rare structural
beauty, well up as from a copious fountain, yet each in its proper
place, and contributing to form a whole, grand in itself, yet complete
in the minutest proportions. It is most difficult to hedge him in a
corner, for his positions are taken so deliberately, that it is rare to
find a point in them undefended aforethought. Professor Reason tells me
the following: “On a recent visit of a public nature, to Philadelphia,
and in a meeting composed mostly of his colored brethren, Mr. Douglass
proposed a comparison of views in the matters of the relations and
duties of ‘our people;’ he holding that prejudice was the result of
condition, and could be conquered by the efforts of the degraded
themselves. A gentleman present, distinguished for logical acumen and
subtlety, and who had devoted no small portion of the last twenty-five
years to the study and elucidation of this very question, held the
opposite view, that prejudice is innate and unconquerable. He
terminated a series of well dove-tailed, Socratic questions to Mr.
Douglass, with the following: ‘If the legislature at Harrisburgh should
awaken, to-morrow morning, and find each man’s skin turned black and
his hair woolly, what could they do to remove prejudice?’ ‘Immediately
pass laws entitling black men to all civil, political and social
privileges,’ was the instant reply—and the questioning ceased.”

The most remarkable mental phenomenon in Mr. Douglass, is his style in
writing and speaking. In March, 1855, he delivered an address in the
assembly chamber before the members of the legislature of the state of
New York. An eye witness 5 describes the crowded and most intelligent
audience, and their rapt attention to the speaker, as the grandest
scene he ever witnessed in the capitol. Among those whose eyes were
riveted on the speaker full two hours and a half, were Thurlow Weed and
Lieutenant Governor Raymond; the latter, at the conclusion of the
address, exclaimed to a friend, “I would give twenty thousand dollars,
if I could deliver that address in that manner.” Mr. Raymond is a first
class graduate of Dartmouth, a rising politician, ranking foremost in
the legislature; of course, his ideal of oratory must be of the most
polished and finished description.

The style of Mr. Douglass in writing, is to me an intellectual puzzle.
The strength, affluence and terseness may easily be accounted for,
because the style of a man is the man; but how are we to account for
that rare polish in his style of writing, which, most critically
examined, seems the result of careful early culture among the best
classics of our language; it equals if it does not surpass the style of
Hugh Miller, which was the wonder of the British literary public, until
he unraveled the mystery in the most interesting of autobiographies.
But Frederick Douglass was still calking the seams of Baltimore
clippers, and had only written a “pass,” at the age when Miller’s style
was already formed.

I asked William Whipper, of Pennsylvania, the gentleman alluded to
above, whether he thought Mr. Douglass’s power inherited from the
Negroid, or from what is called the Caucasian side of his make up?
After some reflection, he frankly answered, “I must admit, although
sorry to do so, that the Caucasian predominates.” At that time, I
almost agreed with him; but, facts narrated in the first part of this
work, throw a different light on this interesting question.

We are left in the dark as to who was the paternal ancestor of our
author; a fact which generally holds good of the Romuluses and Remuses
who are to inaugurate the new birth of our republic. In the absence of
testimony from the Caucasian side, we must see what evidence is given
on the other side of the house.

“My grandmother, though advanced in years, * * * was yet a woman of
power and spirit. She was marvelously straight in figure, elastic and
muscular.” (p. 46.)

After describing her skill in constructing nets, her perseverance in
using them, and her wide-spread fame in the agricultural way he adds,
“It happened to her—as it will happen to any careful and thrifty person
residing in an ignorant and improvident neighborhood—to enjoy the
reputation of being born to good luck.” And his grandmother was a black
woman.

“My mother was tall, and finely proportioned; of deep black, glossy
complexion; had regular features; and among other slaves was remarkably
sedate in her manners.” “Being a field hand, she was obliged to walk
twelve miles and return, between nightfall and daybreak, to see her
children” (p. 54.) “I shall never forget the indescribable expression
of her countenance when I told her that I had had no food since
morning. * * * There was pity in her glance at me, and a fiery
indignation at Aunt Katy at the same time; * * * * she read Aunt Katy a
lecture which she never forgot.” (p. 56.) “I learned after my mother’s
death, that she could read, and that she was the _only_ one of all the
slaves and colored people in Tuckahoe who enjoyed that advantage. How
she acquired this knowledge, I know not, for Tuckahoe is the last place
in the world where she would be apt to find facilities for learning.”
(p. 57.) “There is, in _Prichard’s Natural History of Man_, the head of
a figure—on page 157—the features of which so resemble those of my
mother, that I often recur to it with something of the feeling which I
suppose others experience when looking upon the pictures of dear
departed ones.” (p. 52.)

The head alluded to is copied from the statue of Ramses the Great, an
Egyptian king of the nineteenth dynasty. The authors of the _Types of
Mankind_ give a side view of the same on page 148, remarking that the
profile, “like Napoleon’s, is superbly European!” The nearness of its
resemblance to Mr. Douglass’ mother rests upon the evidence of his
memory, and judging from his almost marvelous feats of recollection of
forms and outlines recorded in this book, this testimony may be
admitted.

These facts show that for his energy, perseverance, eloquence,
invective, sagacity, and wide sympathy, he is indebted to his Negro
blood. The very marvel of his style would seem to be a development of
that other marvel—how his mother learned to read. The versatility of
talent which he wields, in common with Dumas, Ira Aldridge, and Miss
Greenfield, would seem to be the result of the grafting of the
Anglo-Saxon on good, original, Negro stock. If the friends of
“Caucasus” choose to claim, for that region, what remains after this
analysis—to wit: combination—they are welcome to it. They will forgive
me for reminding them that the term “Caucasian” is dropped by recent
writers on Ethnology; for the people about Mount Caucasus, are, and
have ever been, Mongols. The great “white race” now seek paternity,
according to Dr. Pickering, in Arabia—“Arida Nutrix” of the best breed
of horses &c. Keep on, gentlemen; you will find yourselves in Africa,
by-and-by. The Egyptians, like the Americans, were a _mixed race_, with
some Negro blood circling around the throne, as well as in the mud
hovels.

This is the proper place to remark of our author, that the same strong
self-hood, which led him to measure strength with Mr. Covey, and to
wrench himself from the embrace of the Garrisonians, and which has
borne him through many resistances to the personal indignities offered
him as a colored man, sometimes becomes a hyper-sensitiveness to such
assaults as men of his mark will meet with, on paper. Keen and
unscrupulous opponents have sought, and not unsuccessfully, to pierce
him in this direction; for well they know, that if assailed, he will
smite back.

It is not without a feeling of pride, dear reader, that I present you
with this book. The son of a self-emancipated bond-woman, I feel joy in
introducing to you my brother, who has rent his own bonds, and who, in
his every relation—as a public man, as a husband and as a father—is
such as does honor to the land which gave him birth. I shall place this
book in the hands of the only child spared me, bidding him to strive
and emulate its noble example. You may do likewise. It is an American
book, for Americans, in the fullest sense of the idea. It shows that
the worst of our institutions, in its worst aspect, cannot keep down
energy, truthfulness, and earnest struggle for the right. It proves the
justice and practicability of Immediate Emancipation. It shows that any
man in our land, “no matter in what battle his liberty may have been
cloven down, * * * * no matter what complexion an Indian or an African
sun may have burned upon him,” not only may “stand forth redeemed and
disenthralled,” but may also stand up a candidate for the highest
suffrage of a great people—the tribute of their honest, hearty
admiration. Reader, _Vale! New York_

JAMES M’CUNE SMITH




CHAPTER I. _Childhood_


PLACE OF BIRTH—CHARACTER OF THE DISTRICT—TUCKAHOE—ORIGIN OF THE
NAME—CHOPTANK RIVER—TIME OF BIRTH—GENEALOGICAL TREES—MODE OF COUNTING
TIME—NAMES OF GRANDPARENTS—THEIR POSITION—GRANDMOTHER ESPECIALLY
ESTEEMED—“BORN TO GOOD LUCK”—SWEET POTATOES—SUPERSTITION—THE LOG
CABIN—ITS CHARMS—SEPARATING CHILDREN—MY AUNTS—THEIR NAMES—FIRST
KNOWLEDGE OF BEING A SLAVE—OLD MASTER—GRIEFS AND JOYS OF
CHILDHOOD—COMPARATIVE HAPPINESS OF THE SLAVE-BOY AND THE SON OF A
SLAVEHOLDER.


In Talbot county, Eastern Shore, Maryland, near Easton, the county town
of that county, there is a small district of country, thinly populated,
and remarkable for nothing that I know of more than for the worn-out,
sandy, desert-like appearance of its soil, the general dilapidation of
its farms and fences, the indigent and spiritless character of its
inhabitants, and the prevalence of ague and fever.

The name of this singularly unpromising and truly famine stricken
district is Tuckahoe, a name well known to all Marylanders, black and
white. It was given to this section of country probably, at the first,
merely in derision; or it may possibly have been applied to it, as I
have heard, because some one of its earlier inhabitants had been guilty
of the petty meanness of stealing a hoe—or taking a hoe that did not
belong to him. Eastern Shore men usually pronounce the word _took_, as
_tuck; Took-a-hoe_, therefore, is, in Maryland parlance, _Tuckahoe_.
But, whatever may have been its origin—and about this I will not be
positive—that name has stuck to the district in question; and it is
seldom mentioned but with contempt and derision, on account of the
barrenness of its soil, and the ignorance, indolence, and poverty of
its people. Decay and ruin are everywhere visible, and the thin
population of the place would have quitted it long ago, but for the
Choptank river, which runs through it, from which they take abundance
of shad and herring, and plenty of ague and fever.

It was in this dull, flat, and unthrifty district, or neighborhood,
surrounded by a white population of the lowest order, indolent and
drunken to a proverb, and among slaves, who seemed to ask, _“Oh! what’s
the use?”_ every time they lifted a hoe, that I—without any fault of
mine was born, and spent the first years of my childhood.

The reader will pardon so much about the place of my birth, on the
score that it is always a fact of some importance to know where a man
is born, if, indeed, it be important to know anything about him. In
regard to the _time_ of my birth, I cannot be as definite as I have
been respecting the _place_. Nor, indeed, can I impart much knowledge
concerning my parents. Genealogical trees do not flourish among slaves.
A person of some consequence here in the north, sometimes designated
_father_, is literally abolished in slave law and slave practice. It is
only once in a while that an exception is found to this statement. I
never met with a slave who could tell me how old he was. Few
slave-mothers know anything of the months of the year, nor of the days
of the month. They keep no family records, with marriages, births, and
deaths. They measure the ages of their children by spring time, winter
time, harvest time, planting time, and the like; but these soon become
undistinguishable and forgotten. Like other slaves, I cannot tell how
old I am. This destitution was among my earliest troubles. I learned
when I grew up, that my master—and this is the case with masters
generally—allowed no questions to be put to him, by which a slave might
learn his age. Such questions deemed evidence of impatience, and even
of impudent curiosity. From certain events, however, the dates of which
I have since learned, I suppose myself to have been born about the year
1817.

The first experience of life with me that I now remember—and I remember
it but hazily—began in the family of my grandmother and grandfather.
Betsey and Isaac Baily. They were quite advanced in life, and had long
lived on the spot where they then resided. They were considered old
settlers in the neighborhood, and, from certain circumstances, I infer
that my grandmother, especially, was held in high esteem, far higher
than is the lot of most colored persons in the slave states. She was a
good nurse, and a capital hand at making nets for catching shad and
herring; and these nets were in great demand, not only in Tuckahoe, but
at Denton and Hillsboro, neighboring villages. She was not only good at
making the nets, but was also somewhat famous for her good fortune in
taking the fishes referred to. I have known her to be in the water half
the day. Grandmother was likewise more provident than most of her
neighbors in the preservation of seedling sweet potatoes, and it
happened to her—as it will happen to any careful and thrifty person
residing in an ignorant and improvident community—to enjoy the
reputation of having been born to “good luck.” Her “good luck” was
owing to the exceeding care which she took in preventing the succulent
root from getting bruised in the digging, and in placing it beyond the
reach of frost, by actually burying it under the hearth of her cabin
during the winter months. In the time of planting sweet potatoes,
“Grandmother Betty,” as she was familiarly called, was sent for in all
directions, simply to place the seedling potatoes in the hills; for
superstition had it, that if “Grandmamma Betty but touches them at
planting, they will be sure to grow and flourish.” This high reputation
was full of advantage to her, and to the children around her. Though
Tuckahoe had but few of the good things of life, yet of such as it did
possess grandmother got a full share, in the way of presents. If good
potato crops came after her planting, she was not forgotten by those
for whom she planted; and as she was remembered by others, so she
remembered the hungry little ones around her.

The dwelling of my grandmother and grandfather had few pretensions. It
was a log hut, or cabin, built of clay, wood, and straw. At a distance
it resembled—though it was smaller, less commodious and less
substantial—the cabins erected in the western states by the first
settlers. To my child’s eye, however, it was a noble structure,
admirably adapted to promote the comforts and conveniences of its
inmates. A few rough, Virginia fence-rails, flung loosely over the
rafters above, answered the triple purpose of floors, ceilings, and
bedsteads. To be sure, this upper apartment was reached only by a
ladder—but what in the world for climbing could be better than a
ladder? To me, this ladder was really a high invention, and possessed a
sort of charm as I played with delight upon the rounds of it. In this
little hut there was a large family of children: I dare not say how
many. My grandmother—whether because too old for field service, or
because she had so faithfully discharged the duties of her station in
early life, I know not—enjoyed the high privilege of living in a cabin,
separate from the quarter, with no other burden than her own support,
and the necessary care of the little children, imposed. She evidently
esteemed it a great fortune to live so. The children were not her own,
but her grandchildren—the children of her daughters. She took delight
in having them around her, and in attending to their few wants. The
practice of separating children from their mother, and hiring the
latter out at distances too great to admit of their meeting, except at
long intervals, is a marked feature of the cruelty and barbarity of the
slave system. But it is in harmony with the grand aim of slavery,
which, always and everywhere, is to reduce man to a level with the
brute. It is a successful method of obliterating from the mind and
heart of the slave, all just ideas of the sacredness of _the family_,
as an institution.

Most of the children, however, in this instance, being the children of
my grandmother’s daughters, the notions of family, and the reciprocal
duties and benefits of the relation, had a better chance of being
understood than where children are placed—as they often are in the
hands of strangers, who have no care for them, apart from the wishes of
their masters. The daughters of my grandmother were five in number.
Their names were JENNY, ESTHER, MILLY, PRISCILLA, and HARRIET. The
daughter last named was my mother, of whom the reader shall learn more
by-and-by.

Living here, with my dear old grandmother and grandfather, it was a
long time before I knew myself to be _a slave_. I knew many other
things before I knew that. Grandmother and grandfather were the
greatest people in the world to me; and being with them so snugly in
their own little cabin—I supposed it be their own—knowing no higher
authority over me or the other children than the authority of
grandmamma, for a time there was nothing to disturb me; but, as I grew
larger and older, I learned by degrees the sad fact, that the “little
hut,” and the lot on which it stood, belonged not to my dear old
grandparents, but to some person who lived a great distance off, and
who was called, by grandmother, “OLD MASTER.” I further learned the
sadder fact, that not only the house and lot, but that grandmother
herself, (grandfather was free,) and all the little children around
her, belonged to this mysterious personage, called by grandmother, with
every mark of reverence, “Old Master.” Thus early did clouds and
shadows begin to fall upon my path. Once on the track—troubles never
come singly—I was not long in finding out another fact, still more
grievous to my childish heart. I was told that this “old master,” whose
name seemed ever to be mentioned with fear and shuddering, only allowed
the children to live with grandmother for a limited time, and that in
fact as soon as they were big enough, they were promptly taken away, to
live with the said “old master.” These were distressing revelations
indeed; and though I was quite too young to comprehend the full import
of the intelligence, and mostly spent my childhood days in gleesome
sports with the other children, a shade of disquiet rested upon me.

The absolute power of this distant “old master” had touched my young
spirit with but the point of its cold, cruel iron, and left me
something to brood over after the play and in moments of repose.
Grandmammy was, indeed, at that time, all the world to me; and the
thought of being separated from her, in any considerable time, was more
than an unwelcome intruder. It was intolerable.

Children have their sorrows as well as men and women; and it would be
well to remember this in our dealings with them. SLAVE-children _are_
children, and prove no exceptions to the general rule. The liability to
be separated from my grandmother, seldom or never to see her again,
haunted me. I dreaded the thought of going to live with that mysterious
“old master,” whose name I never heard mentioned with affection, but
always with fear. I look back to this as among the heaviest of my
childhood’s sorrows. My grandmother! my grandmother! and the little
hut, and the joyous circle under her care, but especially _she_, who
made us sorry when she left us but for an hour, and glad on her
return,—how could I leave her and the good old home?

But the sorrows of childhood, like the pleasures of after life, are
transient. It is not even within the power of slavery to write
_indelible_ sorrow, at a single dash, over the heart of a child.

The tear down childhood’s cheek that flows,
Is like the dew-drop on the rose—
When next the summer breeze comes by,
And waves the bush—the flower is dry.


There is, after all, but little difference in the measure of
contentment felt by the slave-child neglected and the slaveholder’s
child cared for and petted. The spirit of the All Just mercifully holds
the balance for the young.

The slaveholder, having nothing to fear from impotent childhood, easily
affords to refrain from cruel inflictions; and if cold and hunger do
not pierce the tender frame, the first seven or eight years of the
slave-boy’s life are about as full of sweet content as those of the
most favored and petted _white_ children of the slaveholder. The
slave-boy escapes many troubles which befall and vex his white brother.
He seldom has to listen to lectures on propriety of behavior, or on
anything else. He is never chided for handling his little knife and
fork improperly or awkwardly, for he uses none. He is never reprimanded
for soiling the table-cloth, for he takes his meals on the clay floor.
He never has the misfortune, in his games or sports, of soiling or
tearing his clothes, for he has almost none to soil or tear. He is
never expected to act like a nice little gentleman, for he is only a
rude little slave. Thus, freed from all restraint, the slave-boy can
be, in his life and conduct, a genuine boy, doing whatever his boyish
nature suggests; enacting, by turns, all the strange antics and freaks
of horses, dogs, pigs, and barn-door fowls, without in any manner
compromising his dignity, or incurring reproach of any sort. He
literally runs wild; has no pretty little verses to learn in the
nursery; no nice little speeches to make for aunts, uncles, or cousins,
to show how smart he is; and, if he can only manage to keep out of the
way of the heavy feet and fists of the older slave boys, he may trot
on, in his joyous and roguish tricks, as happy as any little heathen
under the palm trees of Africa. To be sure, he is occasionally
reminded, when he stumbles in the path of his master—and this he early
learns to avoid—that he is eating his _“white bread,”_ and that he will
be made to _“see sights”_ by-and-by. The threat is soon forgotten; the
shadow soon passes, and our sable boy continues to roll in the dust, or
play in the mud, as bests suits him, and in the veriest freedom. If he
feels uncomfortable, from mud or from dust, the coast is clear; he can
plunge into the river or the pond, without the ceremony of undressing,
or the fear of wetting his clothes; his little tow-linen shirt—for that
is all he has on—is easily dried; and it needed ablution as much as did
his skin. His food is of the coarsest kind, consisting for the most
part of cornmeal mush, which often finds it way from the wooden tray to
his mouth in an oyster shell. His days, when the weather is warm, are
spent in the pure, open air, and in the bright sunshine. He always
sleeps in airy apartments; he seldom has to take powders, or to be paid
to swallow pretty little sugar-coated pills, to cleanse his blood, or
to quicken his appetite. He eats no candies; gets no lumps of loaf
sugar; always relishes his food; cries but little, for nobody cares for
his crying; learns to esteem his bruises but slight, because others so
esteem them. In a word, he is, for the most part of the first eight
years of his life, a spirited, joyous, uproarious, and happy boy, upon
whom troubles fall only like water on a duck’s back. And such a boy, so
far as I can now remember, was the boy whose life in slavery I am now
narrating.




CHAPTER II. _Removed from My First Home_


THE NAME “OLD MASTER” A TERROR—COLONEL LLOYD’S PLANTATION—WYE
RIVER—WHENCE ITS NAME—POSITION OF THE LLOYDS—HOME ATTRACTION—MEET
OFFERING—JOURNEY FROM TUCKAHOE TO WYE RIVER—SCENE ON REACHING OLD
MASTER’S—DEPARTURE OF GRANDMOTHER—STRANGE MEETING OF SISTERS AND
BROTHERS—REFUSAL TO BE COMFORTED—SWEET SLEEP.


That mysterious individual referred to in the first chapter as an
object of terror among the inhabitants of our little cabin, under the
ominous title of “old master,” was really a man of some consequence. He
owned several farms in Tuckahoe; was the chief clerk and butler on the
home plantation of Col. Edward Lloyd; had overseers on his own farms;
and gave directions to overseers on the farms belonging to Col. Lloyd.
This plantation is situated on Wye river—the river receiving its name,
doubtless, from Wales, where the Lloyds originated. They (the Lloyds)
are an old and honored family in Maryland, exceedingly wealthy. The
home plantation, where they have resided, perhaps for a century or
more, is one of the largest, most fertile, and best appointed, in the
state.

About this plantation, and about that queer old master—who must be
something more than a man, and something worse than an angel—the reader
will easily imagine that I was not only curious, but eager, to know all
that could be known. Unhappily for me, however, all the information I
could get concerning him increased my great dread of being carried
thither—of being separated from and deprived of the protection of my
grandmother and grandfather. It was, evidently, a great thing to go to
Col. Lloyd’s; and I was not without a little curiosity to see the
place; but no amount of coaxing could induce in me the wish to remain
there. The fact is, such was my dread of leaving the little cabin, that
I wished to remain little forever, for I knew the taller I grew the
shorter my stay. The old cabin, with its rail floor and rail bedsteads
upstairs, and its clay floor downstairs, and its dirt chimney, and
windowless sides, and that most curious piece of workmanship dug in
front of the fireplace, beneath which grandmammy placed the sweet
potatoes to keep them from the frost, was MY HOME—the only home I ever
had; and I loved it, and all connected with it. The old fences around
it, and the stumps in the edge of the woods near it, and the squirrels
that ran, skipped, and played upon them, were objects of interest and
affection. There, too, right at the side of the hut, stood the old
well, with its stately and skyward-pointing beam, so aptly placed
between the limbs of what had once been a tree, and so nicely balanced
that I could move it up and down with only one hand, and could get a
drink myself without calling for help. Where else in the world could
such a well be found, and where could such another home be met with?
Nor were these all the attractions of the place. Down in a little
valley, not far from grandmammy’s cabin, stood Mr. Lee’s mill, where
the people came often in large numbers to get their corn ground. It was
a watermill; and I never shall be able to tell the many things thought
and felt, while I sat on the bank and watched that mill, and the
turning of that ponderous wheel. The mill-pond, too, had its charms;
and with my pinhook, and thread line, I could get _nibbles_, if I could
catch no fish. But, in all my sports and plays, and in spite of them,
there would, occasionally, come the painful foreboding that I was not
long to remain there, and that I must soon be called away to the home
of old master.

I was A SLAVE—born a slave and though the fact was incomprehensible to
me, it conveyed to my mind a sense of my entire dependence on the will
of _somebody_ I had never seen; and, from some cause or other, I had
been made to fear this somebody above all else on earth. Born for
another’s benefit, as the _firstling_ of the cabin flock I was soon to
be selected as a meet offering to the fearful and inexorable _demigod_,
whose huge image on so many occasions haunted my childhood’s
imagination. When the time of my departure was decided upon, my
grandmother, knowing my fears, and in pity for them, kindly kept me
ignorant of the dreaded event about to transpire. Up to the morning (a
beautiful summer morning) when we were to start, and, indeed, during
the whole journey—a journey which, child as I was, I remember as well
as if it were yesterday—she kept the sad fact hidden from me. This
reserve was necessary; for, could I have known all, I should have given
grandmother some trouble in getting me started. As it was, I was
helpless, and she—dear woman!—led me along by the hand, resisting, with
the reserve and solemnity of a priestess, all my inquiring looks to the
last.

The distance from Tuckahoe to Wye river—where my old master lived—was
full twelve miles, and the walk was quite a severe test of the
endurance of my young legs. The journey would have proved too severe
for me, but that my dear old grandmother—blessings on her
memory!—afforded occasional relief by “toting” me (as Marylanders have
it) on her shoulder. My grandmother, though advanced in years—as was
evident from more than one gray hair, which peeped from between the
ample and graceful folds of her newly-ironed bandana turban—was yet a
woman of power and spirit. She was marvelously straight in figure,
elastic, and muscular. I seemed hardly to be a burden to her. She would
have “toted” me farther, but that I felt myself too much of a man to
allow it, and insisted on walking. Releasing dear grandmamma from
carrying me, did not make me altogether independent of her, when we
happened to pass through portions of the somber woods which lay between
Tuckahoe and Wye river. She often found me increasing the energy of my
grip, and holding her clothing, lest something should come out of the
woods and eat me up. Several old logs and stumps imposed upon me, and
got themselves taken for wild beasts. I could see their legs, eyes, and
ears, or I could see something like eyes, legs, and ears, till I got
close enough to them to see that the eyes were knots, washed white with
rain, and the legs were broken limbs, and the ears, only ears owing to
the point from which they were seen. Thus early I learned that the
point from which a thing is viewed is of some importance.

As the day advanced the heat increased; and it was not until the
afternoon that we reached the much dreaded end of the journey. I found
myself in the midst of a group of children of many colors; black,
brown, copper colored, and nearly white. I had not seen so many
children before. Great houses loomed up in different directions, and a
great many men and women were at work in the fields. All this hurry,
noise, and singing was very different from the stillness of Tuckahoe.
As a new comer, I was an object of special interest; and, after
laughing and yelling around me, and playing all sorts of wild tricks,
they (the children) asked me to go out and play with them. This I
refused to do, preferring to stay with grandmamma. I could not help
feeling that our being there boded no good to me. Grandmamma looked
sad. She was soon to lose another object of affection, as she had lost
many before. I knew she was unhappy, and the shadow fell from her brow
on me, though I knew not the cause.

All suspense, however, must have an end; and the end of mine, in this
instance, was at hand. Affectionately patting me on the head, and
exhorting me to be a good boy, grandmamma told me to go and play with
the little children. “They are kin to you,” said she; “go and play with
them.” Among a number of cousins were Phil, Tom, Steve, and Jerry,
Nance and Betty.

Grandmother pointed out my brother PERRY, my sister SARAH, and my
sister ELIZA, who stood in the group. I had never seen my brother nor
my sisters before; and, though I had sometimes heard of them, and felt
a curious interest in them, I really did not understand what they were
to me, or I to them. We were brothers and sisters, but what of that?
Why should they be attached to me, or I to them? Brothers and sisters
we were by blood; but _slavery_ had made us strangers. I heard the
words brother and sisters, and knew they must mean something; but
slavery had robbed these terms of their true meaning. The experience
through which I was passing, they had passed through before. They had
already been initiated into the mysteries of old master’s domicile, and
they seemed to look upon me with a certain degree of compassion; but my
heart clave to my grandmother. Think it not strange, dear reader, that
so little sympathy of feeling existed between us. The conditions of
brotherly and sisterly feeling were wanting—we had never nestled and
played together. My poor mother, like many other slave-women, had many
_children_, but NO FAMILY! The domestic hearth, with its holy lessons
and precious endearments, is abolished in the case of a slave-mother
and her children. “Little children, love one another,” are words seldom
heard in a slave cabin.

I really wanted to play with my brother and sisters, but they were
strangers to me, and I was full of fear that grandmother might leave
without taking me with her. Entreated to do so, however, and that, too,
by my dear grandmother, I went to the back part of the house, to play
with them and the other children. _Play_, however, I did not, but stood
with my back against the wall, witnessing the playing of the others. At
last, while standing there, one of the children, who had been in the
kitchen, ran up to me, in a sort of roguish glee, exclaiming, “Fed,
Fed! grandmammy gone! grandmammy gone!” I could not believe it; yet,
fearing the worst, I ran into the kitchen, to see for myself, and found
it even so. Grandmammy had indeed gone, and was now far away, “clean”
out of sight. I need not tell all that happened now. Almost
heart-broken at the discovery, I fell upon the ground, and wept a boy’s
bitter tears, refusing to be comforted. My brother and sisters came
around me, and said, “Don’t cry,” and gave me peaches and pears, but I
flung them away, and refused all their kindly advances. I had never
been deceived before; and I felt not only grieved at parting—as I
supposed forever—with my grandmother, but indignant that a trick had
been played upon me in a matter so serious.

It was now late in the afternoon. The day had been an exciting and
wearisome one, and I knew not how or where, but I suppose I sobbed
myself to sleep. There is a healing in the angel wing of sleep, even
for the slave-boy; and its balm was never more welcome to any wounded
soul than it was to mine, the first night I spent at the domicile of
old master. The reader may be surprised that I narrate so minutely an
incident apparently so trivial, and which must have occurred when I was
not more than seven years old; but as I wish to give a faithful history
of my experience in slavery, I cannot withhold a circumstance which, at
the time, affected me so deeply. Besides, this was, in fact, my first
introduction to the realities of slavery.




CHAPTER III. _Parentage_


MY FATHER SHROUDED IN MYSTERY—MY MOTHER—HER PERSONAL
APPEARANCE—INTERFERENCE OF SLAVERY WITH THE NATURAL AFFECTIONS OF
MOTHER AND CHILDREN—SITUATION OF MY MOTHER—HER NIGHTLY VISITS TO HER
BOY—STRIKING INCIDENT—HER DEATH—HER PLACE OF BURIAL.


If the reader will now be kind enough to allow me time to grow bigger,
and afford me an opportunity for my experience to become greater, I
will tell him something, by-and-by, of slave life, as I saw, felt, and
heard it, on Col. Edward Lloyd’s plantation, and at the house of old
master, where I had now, despite of myself, most suddenly, but not
unexpectedly, been dropped. Meanwhile, I will redeem my promise to say
something more of my dear mother.

I say nothing of _father_, for he is shrouded in a mystery I have never
been able to penetrate. Slavery does away with fathers, as it does away
with families. Slavery has no use for either fathers or families, and
its laws do not recognize their existence in the social arrangements of
the plantation. When they _do_ exist, they are not the outgrowths of
slavery, but are antagonistic to that system. The order of civilization
is reversed here. The name of the child is not expected to be that of
its father, and his condition does not necessarily affect that of the
child. He may be the slave of Mr. Tilgman; and his child, when born,
may be the slave of Mr. Gross. He may be a _freeman;_ and yet his child
may be a _chattel_. He may be white, glorying in the purity of his
Anglo-Saxon blood; and his child may be ranked with the blackest
slaves. Indeed, he _may_ be, and often _is_, master and father to the
same child. He can be father without being a husband, and may sell his
child without incurring reproach, if the child be by a woman in whose
veins courses one thirty-second part of African blood. My father was a
white man, or nearly white. It was sometimes whispered that my master
was my father.

But to return, or rather, to begin. My knowledge of my mother is very
scanty, but very distinct. Her personal appearance and bearing are
ineffaceably stamped upon my memory. She was tall, and finely
proportioned; of deep black, glossy complexion; had regular features,
and, among the other slaves, was remarkably sedate in her manners.
There is in _Prichard’s Natural History of Man_, the head of a
figure—on page 157—the features of which so resemble those of my
mother, that I often recur to it with something of the feeling which I
suppose others experience when looking upon the pictures of dear
departed ones.

Yet I cannot say that I was very deeply attached to my mother;
certainly not so deeply as I should have been had our relations in
childhood been different. We were separated, according to the common
custom, when I was but an infant, and, of course, before I knew my
mother from any one else.

The germs of affection with which the Almighty, in his wisdom and
mercy, arms the hopeless infant against the ills and vicissitudes of
his lot, had been directed in their growth toward that loving old
grandmother, whose gentle hand and kind deportment it was in the first
effort of my infantile understanding to comprehend and appreciate.
Accordingly, the tenderest affection which a beneficent Father allows,
as a partial compensation to the mother for the pains and lacerations
of her heart, incident to the maternal relation, was, in my case,
diverted from its true and natural object, by the envious, greedy, and
treacherous hand of slavery. The slave-mother can be spared long enough
from the field to endure all the bitterness of a mother’s anguish, when
it adds another name to a master’s ledger, but _not_ long enough to
receive the joyous reward afforded by the intelligent smiles of her
child. I never think of this terrible interference of slavery with my
infantile affections, and its diverting them from their natural course,
without feelings to which I can give no adequate expression.

I do not remember to have seen my mother at my grandmother’s at any
time. I remember her only in her visits to me at Col. Lloyd’s
plantation, and in the kitchen of my old master. Her visits to me there
were few in number, brief in duration, and mostly made in the night.
The pains she took, and the toil she endured, to see me, tells me that
a true mother’s heart was hers, and that slavery had difficulty in
paralyzing it with unmotherly indifference.

My mother was hired out to a Mr. Stewart, who lived about twelve miles
from old master’s, and, being a field hand, she seldom had leisure, by
day, for the performance of the journey. The nights and the distance
were both obstacles to her visits. She was obliged to walk, unless
chance flung into her way an opportunity to ride; and the latter was
sometimes her good luck. But she always had to walk one way or the
other. It was a greater luxury than slavery could afford, to allow a
black slave-mother a horse or a mule, upon which to travel twenty-four
miles, when she could walk the distance. Besides, it is deemed a
foolish whim for a slave-mother to manifest concern to see her
children, and, in one point of view, the case is made out—she can do
nothing for them. She has no control over them; the master is even more
than the mother, in all matters touching the fate of her child. Why,
then, should she give herself any concern? She has no responsibility.
Such is the reasoning, and such the practice. The iron rule of the
plantation, always passionately and violently enforced in that
neighborhood, makes flogging the penalty of failing to be in the field
before sunrise in the morning, unless special permission be given to
the absenting slave. “I went to see my child,” is no excuse to the ear
or heart of the overseer.

One of the visits of my mother to me, while at Col. Lloyd’s, I remember
very vividly, as affording a bright gleam of a mother’s love, and the
earnestness of a mother’s care.

“I had on that day offended “Aunt Katy,” (called “Aunt” by way of
respect,) the cook of old master’s establishment. I do not now remember
the nature of my offense in this instance, for my offenses were
numerous in that quarter, greatly depending, however, upon the mood of
Aunt Katy, as to their heinousness; but she had adopted, that day, her
favorite mode of punishing me, namely, making me go without food all
day—that is, from after breakfast. The first hour or two after dinner,
I succeeded pretty well in keeping up my spirits; but though I made an
excellent stand against the foe, and fought bravely during the
afternoon, I knew I must be conquered at last, unless I got the
accustomed reenforcement of a slice of corn bread, at sundown. Sundown
came, but _no bread_, and, in its stead, their came the threat, with a
scowl well suited to its terrible import, that she “meant to _starve
the life out of me!”_ Brandishing her knife, she chopped off the heavy
slices for the other children, and put the loaf away, muttering, all
the while, her savage designs upon myself. Against this disappointment,
for I was expecting that her heart would relent at last, I made an
extra effort to maintain my dignity; but when I saw all the other
children around me with merry and satisfied faces, I could stand it no
longer. I went out behind the house, and cried like a fine fellow! When
tired of this, I returned to the kitchen, sat by the fire, and brooded
over my hard lot. I was too hungry to sleep. While I sat in the corner,
I caught sight of an ear of Indian corn on an upper shelf of the
kitchen. I watched my chance, and got it, and, shelling off a few
grains, I put it back again. The grains in my hand, I quickly put in
some ashes, and covered them with embers, to roast them. All this I did
at the risk of getting a brutual thumping, for Aunt Katy could beat, as
well as starve me. My corn was not long in roasting, and, with my keen
appetite, it did not matter even if the grains were not exactly done. I
eagerly pulled them out, and placed them on my stool, in a clever
little pile. Just as I began to help myself to my very dry meal, in
came my dear mother. And now, dear reader, a scene occurred which was
altogether worth beholding, and to me it was instructive as well as
interesting. The friendless and hungry boy, in his extremest need—and
when he did not dare to look for succor—found himself in the strong,
protecting arms of a mother; a mother who was, at the moment (being
endowed with high powers of manner as well as matter) more than a match
for all his enemies. I shall never forget the indescribable expression
of her countenance, when I told her that I had had no food since
morning; and that Aunt Katy said she “meant to starve the life out of
me.” There was pity in her glance at me, and a fiery indignation at
Aunt Katy at the same time; and, while she took the corn from me, and
gave me a large ginger cake, in its stead, she read Aunt Katy a lecture
which she never forgot. My mother threatened her with complaining to
old master in my behalf; for the latter, though harsh and cruel
himself, at times, did not sanction the meanness, injustice, partiality
and oppressions enacted by Aunt Katy in the kitchen. That night I
learned the fact, that I was, not only a child, but _somebody’s_ child.
The “sweet cake” my mother gave me was in the shape of a heart, with a
rich, dark ring glazed upon the edge of it. I was victorious, and well
off for the moment; prouder, on my mother’s knee, than a king upon his
throne. But my triumph was short. I dropped off to sleep, and waked in
the morning only to find my mother gone, and myself left at the mercy
of the sable virago, dominant in my old master’s kitchen, whose fiery
wrath was my constant dread.

I do not remember to have seen my mother after this occurrence. Death
soon ended the little communication that had existed between us; and
with it, I believe, a life judging from her weary, sad, down-cast
countenance and mute demeanor—full of heartfelt sorrow. I was not
allowed to visit her during any part of her long illness; nor did I see
her for a long time before she was taken ill and died. The heartless
and ghastly form of _slavery_ rises between mother and child, even at
the bed of death. The mother, at the verge of the grave, may not gather
her children, to impart to them her holy admonitions, and invoke for
them her dying benediction. The bond-woman lives as a slave, and is
left to die as a beast; often with fewer attentions than are paid to a
favorite horse. Scenes of sacred tenderness, around the death-bed,
never forgotten, and which often arrest the vicious and confirm the
virtuous during life, must be looked for among the free, though they
sometimes occur among the slaves. It has been a life-long, standing
grief to me, that I knew so little of my mother; and that I was so
early separated from her. The counsels of her love must have been
beneficial to me. The side view of her face is imaged on my memory, and
I take few steps in life, without feeling her presence; but the image
is mute, and I have no striking words of her’s treasured up.

I learned, after my mother’s death, that she could read, and that she
was the _only_ one of all the slaves and colored people in Tuckahoe who
enjoyed that advantage. How she acquired this knowledge, I know not,
for Tuckahoe is the last place in the world where she would be apt to
find facilities for learning. I can, therefore, fondly and proudly
ascribe to her an earnest love of knowledge. That a “field hand” should
learn to read, in any slave state, is remarkable; but the achievement
of my mother, considering the place, was very extraordinary; and, in
view of that fact, I am quite willing, and even happy, to attribute any
love of letters I possess, and for which I have got—despite of
prejudices only too much credit, _not_ to my admitted Anglo-Saxon
paternity, but to the native genius of my sable, unprotected, and
uncultivated _mother_—a woman, who belonged to a race whose mental
endowments it is, at present, fashionable to hold in disparagement and
contempt.

Summoned away to her account, with the impassable gulf of slavery
between us during her entire illness, my mother died without leaving me
a single intimation of _who_ my father was. There was a whisper, that
my master was my father; yet it was only a whisper, and I cannot say
that I ever gave it credence. Indeed, I now have reason to think he was
not; nevertheless, the fact remains, in all its glaring odiousness,
that, by the laws of slavery, children, in all cases, are reduced to
the condition of their mothers. This arrangement admits of the greatest
license to brutal slaveholders, and their profligate sons, brothers,
relations and friends, and gives to the pleasure of sin, the additional
attraction of profit. A whole volume might be written on this single
feature of slavery, as I have observed it.

One might imagine, that the children of such connections, would fare
better, in the hands of their masters, than other slaves. The rule is
quite the other way; and a very little reflection will satisfy the
reader that such is the case. A man who will enslave his own blood, may
not be safely relied on for magnanimity. Men do not love those who
remind them of their sins unless they have a mind to repent—and the
mulatto child’s face is a standing accusation against him who is master
and father to the child. What is still worse, perhaps, such a child is
a constant offense to the wife. She hates its very presence, and when a
slaveholding woman hates, she wants not means to give that hate telling
effect. Women—white women, I mean—are IDOLS at the south, not WIVES,
for the slave women are preferred in many instances; and if these
_idols_ but nod, or lift a finger, woe to the poor victim: kicks, cuffs
and stripes are sure to follow. Masters are frequently compelled to
sell this class of their slaves, out of deference to the feelings of
their white wives; and shocking and scandalous as it may seem for a man
to sell his own blood to the traffickers in human flesh, it is often an
act of humanity toward the slave-child to be thus removed from his
merciless tormentors.

It is not within the scope of the design of my simple story, to comment
upon every phase of slavery not within my experience as a slave.

But, I may remark, that, if the lineal descendants of Ham are only to
be enslaved, according to the scriptures, slavery in this country will
soon become an unscriptural institution; for thousands are ushered into
the world, annually, who—like myself—owe their existence to white
fathers, and, most frequently, to their masters, and master’s sons. The
slave-woman is at the mercy of the fathers, sons or brothers of her
master. The thoughtful know the rest.

After what I have now said of the circumstances of my mother, and my
relations to her, the reader will not be surprised, nor be disposed to
censure me, when I tell but the simple truth, viz: that I received the
tidings of her death with no strong emotions of sorrow for her, and
with very little regret for myself on account of her loss. I had to
learn the value of my mother long after her death, and by witnessing
the devotion of other mothers to their children.

There is not, beneath the sky, an enemy to filial affection so
destructive as slavery. It had made my brothers and sisters strangers
to me; it converted the mother that bore me, into a myth; it shrouded
my father in mystery, and left me without an intelligible beginning in
the world.

My mother died when I could not have been more than eight or nine years
old, on one of old master’s farms in Tuckahoe, in the neighborhood of
Hillsborough. Her grave is, as the grave of the dead at sea, unmarked,
and without stone or stake.




CHAPTER IV. _A General Survey of the Slave Plantation_


ISOLATION OF LLOYD S PLANTATION—PUBLIC OPINION THERE NO PROTECTION TO
THE SLAVE—ABSOLUTE POWER OF THE OVERSEER—NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL CHARMS
OF THE PLACE—ITS BUSINESS-LIKE APPEARANCE—SUPERSTITION ABOUT THE BURIAL
GROUND—GREAT IDEAS OF COL. LLOYD—ETIQUETTE AMONG SLAVES—THE COMIC SLAVE
DOCTOR—PRAYING AND FLOGGING—OLD MASTER LOSING ITS TERRORS—HIS
BUSINESS—CHARACTER OF AUNT KATY—SUFFERINGS FROM HUNGER—OLD MASTER’S
HOME—JARGON OF THE PLANTATION—GUINEA SLAVES—MASTER DANIEL—FAMILY OF
COL. LLOYD—FAMILY OF CAPT. ANTHONY—HIS SOCIAL POSITION—NOTIONS OF RANK
AND STATION.


It is generally supposed that slavery, in the state of Maryland, exists
in its mildest form, and that it is totally divested of those harsh and
terrible peculiarities, which mark and characterize the slave system,
in the southern and south-western states of the American union. The
argument in favor of this opinion, is the contiguity of the free
states, and the exposed condition of slavery in Maryland to the moral,
religious and humane sentiment of the free states.

I am not about to refute this argument, so far as it relates to slavery
in that state, generally; on the contrary, I am willing to admit that,
to this general point, the arguments is well grounded. Public opinion
is, indeed, an unfailing restraint upon the cruelty and barbarity of
masters, overseers, and slave-drivers, whenever and wherever it can
reach them; but there are certain secluded and out-of-the-way places,
even in the state of Maryland, seldom visited by a single ray of
healthy public sentiment—where slavery, wrapt in its own congenial,
midnight darkness, _can_, and _does_, develop all its malign and
shocking characteristics; where it can be indecent without shame, cruel
without shuddering, and murderous without apprehension or fear of
exposure.

Just such a secluded, dark, and out-of-the-way place, is the “home
plantation” of Col. Edward Lloyd, on the Eastern Shore, Maryland. It is
far away from all the great thoroughfares, and is proximate to no town
or village. There is neither school-house, nor town-house in its
neighborhood. The school-house is unnecessary, for there are no
children to go to school. The children and grand-children of Col. Lloyd
were taught in the house, by a private tutor—a Mr. Page a tall, gaunt
sapling of a man, who did not speak a dozen words to a slave in a whole
year. The overseers’ children go off somewhere to school; and they,
therefore, bring no foreign or dangerous influence from abroad, to
embarrass the natural operation of the slave system of the place. Not
even the mechanics—through whom there is an occasional out-burst of
honest and telling indignation, at cruelty and wrong on other
plantations—are white men, on this plantation. Its whole public is made
up of, and divided into, three classes—SLAVEHOLDERS, SLAVES and
OVERSEERS. Its blacksmiths, wheelwrights, shoemakers, weavers, and
coopers, are slaves. Not even commerce, selfish and iron-hearted at it
is, and ready, as it ever is, to side with the strong against the
weak—the rich against the poor—is trusted or permitted within its
secluded precincts. Whether with a view of guarding against the escape
of its secrets, I know not, but it is a fact, the every leaf and grain
of the produce of this plantation, and those of the neighboring farms
belonging to Col. Lloyd, are transported to Baltimore in Col. Lloyd’s
own vessels; every man and boy on board of which—except the captain—are
owned by him. In return, everything brought to the plantation, comes
through the same channel. Thus, even the glimmering and unsteady light
of trade, which sometimes exerts a civilizing influence, is excluded
from this “tabooed” spot.

Nearly all the plantations or farms in the vicinity of the “home
plantation” of Col. Lloyd, belong to him; and those which do not, are
owned by personal friends of his, as deeply interested in maintaining
the slave system, in all its rigor, as Col. Lloyd himself. Some of his
neighbors are said to be even more stringent than he. The Skinners, the
Peakers, the Tilgmans, the Lockermans, and the Gipsons, are in the same
boat; being slaveholding neighbors, they may have strengthened each
other in their iron rule. They are on intimate terms, and their
interests and tastes are identical.

Public opinion in such a quarter, the reader will see, is not likely to
very efficient in protecting the slave from cruelty. On the contrary,
it must increase and intensify his wrongs. Public opinion seldom
differs very widely from public practice. To be a restraint upon
cruelty and vice, public opinion must emanate from a humane and
virtuous community. To no such humane and virtuous community, is Col.
Lloyd’s plantation exposed. That plantation is a little nation of its
own, having its own language, its own rules, regulations and customs.
The laws and institutions of the state, apparently touch it nowhere.
The troubles arising here, are not settled by the civil power of the
state. The overseer is generally accuser, judge, jury, advocate and
executioner. The criminal is always dumb. The overseer attends to all
sides of a case.

There are no conflicting rights of property, for all the people are
owned by one man; and they can themselves own no property. Religion and
politics are alike excluded. One class of the population is too high to
be reached by the preacher; and the other class is too low to be cared
for by the preacher. The poor have the gospel preached to them, in this
neighborhood, only when they are able to pay for it. The slaves, having
no money, get no gospel. The politician keeps away, because the people
have no votes, and the preacher keeps away, because the people have no
money. The rich planter can afford to learn politics in the parlor, and
to dispense with religion altogether.

In its isolation, seclusion, and self-reliant independence, Col.
Lloyd’s plantation resembles what the baronial domains were during the
middle ages in Europe. Grim, cold, and unapproachable by all genial
influences from communities without, _there it stands;_ full three
hundred years behind the age, in all that relates to humanity and
morals.

This, however, is not the only view that the place presents.
Civilization is shut out, but nature cannot be. Though separated from
the rest of the world; though public opinion, as I have said, seldom
gets a chance to penetrate its dark domain; though the whole place is
stamped with its own peculiar, ironlike individuality; and though
crimes, high-handed and atrocious, may there be committed, with almost
as much impunity as upon the deck of a pirate ship—it is, nevertheless,
altogether, to outward seeming, a most strikingly interesting place,
full of life, activity, and spirit; and presents a very favorable
contrast to the indolent monotony and languor of Tuckahoe. Keen as was
my regret and great as was my sorrow at leaving the latter, I was not
long in adapting myself to this, my new home. A man’s troubles are
always half disposed of, when he finds endurance his only remedy. I
found myself here; there was no getting away; and what remained for me,
but to make the best of it? Here were plenty of children to play with,
and plenty of places of pleasant resort for boys of my age, and boys
older. The little tendrils of affection, so rudely and treacherously
broken from around the darling objects of my grandmother’s hut,
gradually began to extend, and to entwine about the new objects by
which I now found myself surrounded.

There was a windmill (always a commanding object to a child’s eye) on
Long Point—a tract of land dividing Miles river from the Wye a mile or
more from my old master’s house. There was a creek to swim in, at the
bottom of an open flat space, of twenty acres or more, called “the Long
Green”—a very beautiful play-ground for the children.

In the river, a short distance from the shore, lying quietly at anchor,
with her small boat dancing at her stern, was a large sloop—the Sally
Lloyd; called by that name in honor of a favorite daughter of the
colonel. The sloop and the mill were wondrous things, full of thoughts
and ideas. A child cannot well look at such objects without _thinking_.

Then here were a great many houses; human habitations, full of the
mysteries of life at every stage of it. There was the little red house,
up the road, occupied by Mr. Sevier, the overseer. A little nearer to
my old master’s, stood a very long, rough, low building, literally
alive with slaves, of all ages, conditions and sizes. This was called
“the Longe Quarter.” Perched upon a hill, across the Long Green, was a
very tall, dilapidated, old brick building—the architectural dimensions
of which proclaimed its erection for a different purpose—now occupied
by slaves, in a similar manner to the Long Quarter. Besides these,
there were numerous other slave houses and huts, scattered around in
the neighborhood, every nook and corner of which was completely
occupied. Old master’s house, a long, brick building, plain, but
substantial, stood in the center of the plantation life, and
constituted one independent establishment on the premises of Col.
Lloyd.

Besides these dwellings, there were barns, stables, store-houses, and
tobacco-houses; blacksmiths’ shops, wheelwrights’ shops, coopers’
shops—all objects of interest; but, above all, there stood the grandest
building my eyes had then ever beheld, called, by every one on the
plantation, the “Great House.” This was occupied by Col. Lloyd and his
family. They occupied it; _I_ enjoyed it. The great house was
surrounded by numerous and variously shaped out-buildings. There were
kitchens, wash-houses, dairies, summer-house, green-houses, hen-houses,
turkey-houses, pigeon-houses, and arbors, of many sizes and devices,
all neatly painted, and altogether interspersed with grand old trees,
ornamental and primitive, which afforded delightful shade in summer,
and imparted to the scene a high degree of stately beauty. The great
house itself was a large, white, wooden building, with wings on three
sides of it. In front, a large portico, extending the entire length of
the building, and supported by a long range of columns, gave to the
whole establishment an air of solemn grandeur. It was a treat to my
young and gradually opening mind, to behold this elaborate exhibition
of wealth, power, and vanity. The carriage entrance to the house was a
large gate, more than a quarter of a mile distant from it; the
intermediate space was a beautiful lawn, very neatly trimmed, and
watched with the greatest care. It was dotted thickly over with
delightful trees, shrubbery, and flowers. The road, or lane, from the
gate to the great house, was richly paved with white pebbles from the
beach, and, in its course, formed a complete circle around the
beautiful lawn. Carriages going in and retiring from the great house,
made the circuit of the lawn, and their passengers were permitted to
behold a scene of almost Eden-like beauty. Outside this select
inclosure, were parks, where as about the residences of the English
nobility—rabbits, deer, and other wild game, might be seen, peering and
playing about, with none to molest them or make them afraid. The tops
of the stately poplars were often covered with the red-winged
black-birds, making all nature vocal with the joyous life and beauty of
their wild, warbling notes. These all belonged to me, as well as to
Col. Edward Lloyd, and for a time I greatly enjoyed them.

A short distance from the great house, were the stately mansions of the
dead, a place of somber aspect. Vast tombs, embowered beneath the
weeping willow and the fir tree, told of the antiquities of the Lloyd
family, as well as of their wealth. Superstition was rife among the
slaves about this family burying ground. Strange sights had been seen
there by some of the older slaves. Shrouded ghosts, riding on great
black horses, had been seen to enter; balls of fire had been seen to
fly there at midnight, and horrid sounds had been repeatedly heard.
Slaves know enough of the rudiments of theology to believe that those
go to hell who die slaveholders; and they often fancy such persons
wishing themselves back again, to wield the lash. Tales of sights and
sounds, strange and terrible, connected with the huge black tombs, were
a very great security to the grounds about them, for few of the slaves
felt like approaching them even in the day time. It was a dark, gloomy
and forbidding place, and it was difficult to feel that the spirits of
the sleeping dust there deposited, reigned with the blest in the realms
of eternal peace.

The business of twenty or thirty farms was transacted at this, called,
by way of eminence, “great house farm.” These farms all belonged to
Col. Lloyd, as did, also, the slaves upon them. Each farm was under the
management of an overseer. As I have said of the overseer of the home
plantation, so I may say of the overseers on the smaller ones; they
stand between the slave and all civil constitutions—their word is law,
and is implicitly obeyed.

The colonel, at this time, was reputed to be, and he apparently was,
very rich. His slaves, alone, were an immense fortune. These, small and
great, could not have been fewer than one thousand in number, and
though scarcely a month passed without the sale of one or more lots to
the Georgia traders, there was no apparent diminution in the number of
his human stock: the home plantation merely groaned at a removal of the
young increase, or human crop, then proceeded as lively as ever.
Horse-shoeing, cart-mending, plow-repairing, coopering, grinding, and
weaving, for all the neighboring farms, were performed here, and slaves
were employed in all these branches. “Uncle Tony” was the blacksmith;
“Uncle Harry” was the cartwright; “Uncle Abel” was the shoemaker; and
all these had hands to assist them in their several departments.

These mechanics were called “uncles” by all the younger slaves, not
because they really sustained that relationship to any, but according
to plantation _etiquette_, as a mark of respect, due from the younger
to the older slaves. Strange, and even ridiculous as it may seem, among
a people so uncultivated, and with so many stern trials to look in the
face, there is not to be found, among any people, a more rigid
enforcement of the law of respect to elders, than they maintain. I set
this down as partly constitutional with my race, and partly
conventional. There is no better material in the world for making a
gentleman, than is furnished in the African. He shows to others, and
exacts for himself, all the tokens of respect which he is compelled to
manifest toward his master. A young slave must approach the company of
the older with hat in hand, and woe betide him, if he fails to
acknowledge a favor, of any sort, with the accustomed _“tank’ee,”_ &c.
So uniformly are good manners enforced among slaves, I can easily
detect a “bogus” fugitive by his manners.

Among other slave notabilities of the plantation, was one called by
everybody Uncle Isaac Copper. It is seldom that a slave gets a surname
from anybody in Maryland; and so completely has the south shaped the
manners of the north, in this respect, that even abolitionists make
very little of the surname of a Negro. The only improvement on the
“Bills,” “Jacks,” “Jims,” and “Neds” of the south, observable here is,
that “William,” “John,” “James,” “Edward,” are substituted. It goes
against the grain to treat and address a Negro precisely as they would
treat and address a white man. But, once in a while, in slavery as in
the free states, by some extraordinary circumstance, the Negro has a
surname fastened to him, and holds it against all conventionalities.
This was the case with Uncle Isaac Copper. When the “uncle” was
dropped, he generally had the prefix “doctor,” in its stead. He was our
doctor of medicine, and doctor of divinity as well. Where he took his
degree I am unable to say, for he was not very communicative to
inferiors, and I was emphatically such, being but a boy seven or eight
years old. He was too well established in his profession to permit
questions as to his native skill, or his attainments. One qualification
he undoubtedly had—he was a confirmed _cripple;_ and he could neither
work, nor would he bring anything if offered for sale in the market.
The old man, though lame, was no sluggard. He was a man that made his
crutches do him good service. He was always on the alert, looking up
the sick, and all such as were supposed to need his counsel. His
remedial prescriptions embraced four articles. For diseases of the
body, _Epsom salts and castor oil;_ for those of the soul, _the Lord’s
Prayer_, and _hickory switches_!

I was not long at Col. Lloyd’s before I was placed under the care of
Doctor Issac Copper. I was sent to him with twenty or thirty other
children, to learn the “Lord’s Prayer.” I found the old gentleman
seated on a huge three-legged oaken stool, armed with several large
hickory switches; and, from his position, he could reach—lame as he
was—any boy in the room. After standing awhile to learn what was
expected of us, the old gentleman, in any other than a devotional tone,
commanded us to kneel down. This done, he commenced telling us to say
everything he said. “Our Father”—this was repeated after him with
promptness and uniformity; “Who art in heaven”—was less promptly and
uniformly repeated; and the old gentleman paused in the prayer, to give
us a short lecture upon the consequences of inattention, both immediate
and future, and especially those more immediate. About these he was
absolutely certain, for he held in his right hand the means of bringing
all his predictions and warnings to pass. On he proceeded with the
prayer; and we with our thick tongues and unskilled ears, followed him
to the best of our ability. This, however, was not sufficient to please
the old gentleman. Everybody, in the south, wants the privilege of
whipping somebody else. Uncle Isaac shared the common passion of his
country, and, therefore, seldom found any means of keeping his
disciples in order short of flogging. “Say everything I say;” and bang
would come the switch on some poor boy’s undevotional head. _“What you
looking at there”—“Stop that pushing”_—and down again would come the
lash.

The whip is all in all. It is supposed to secure obedience to the
slaveholder, and is held as a sovereign remedy among the slaves
themselves, for every form of disobedience, temporal or spiritual.
Slaves, as well as slaveholders, use it with an unsparing hand. Our
devotions at Uncle Isaac’s combined too much of the tragic and comic,
to make them very salutary in a spiritual point of view; and it is due
to truth to say, I was often a truant when the time for attending the
praying and flogging of Doctor Isaac Copper came on.

The windmill under the care of Mr. Kinney, a kind hearted old
Englishman, was to me a source of infinite interest and pleasure. The
old man always seemed pleased when he saw a troop of darkey little
urchins, with their tow-linen shirts fluttering in the breeze,
approaching to view and admire the whirling wings of his wondrous
machine. From the mill we could see other objects of deep interest.
These were, the vessels from St. Michael’s, on their way to Baltimore.
It was a source of much amusement to view the flowing sails and
complicated rigging, as the little crafts dashed by, and to speculate
upon Baltimore, as to the kind and quality of the place. With so many
sources of interest around me, the reader may be prepared to learn that
I began to think very highly of Col. L.‘s plantation. It was just a
place to my boyish taste. There were fish to be caught in the creek, if
one only had a hook and line; and crabs, clams and oysters were to be
caught by wading, digging and raking for them. Here was a field for
industry and enterprise, strongly inviting; and the reader may be
assured that I entered upon it with spirit.

Even the much dreaded old master, whose merciless fiat had brought me
from Tuckahoe, gradually, to my mind, parted with his terrors. Strange
enough, his reverence seemed to take no particular notice of me, nor of
my coming. Instead of leaping out and devouring me, he scarcely seemed
conscious of my presence. The fact is, he was occupied with matters
more weighty and important than either looking after or vexing me. He
probably thought as little of my advent, as he would have thought of
the addition of a single pig to his stock!

As the chief butler on Col. Lloyd’s plantation, his duties were
numerous and perplexing. In almost all important matters he answered in
Col. Lloyd’s stead. The overseers of all the farms were in some sort
under him, and received the law from his mouth. The colonel himself
seldom addressed an overseer, or allowed an overseer to address him.
Old master carried the keys of all store houses; measured out the
allowance for each slave at the end of every month; superintended the
storing of all goods brought to the plantation; dealt out the raw
material to all the handicraftsmen; shipped the grain, tobacco, and all
saleable produce of the plantation to market, and had the general
oversight of the coopers’ shop, wheelwrights’ shop, blacksmiths’ shop,
and shoemakers’ shop. Besides the care of these, he often had business
for the plantation which required him to be absent two and three days.

Thus largely employed, he had little time, and perhaps as little
disposition, to interfere with the children individually. What he was
to Col. Lloyd, he made Aunt Katy to him. When he had anything to say or
do about us, it was said or done in a wholesale manner; disposing of us
in classes or sizes, leaving all minor details to Aunt Katy, a person
of whom the reader has already received no very favorable impression.
Aunt Katy was a woman who never allowed herself to act greatly within
the margin of power granted to her, no matter how broad that authority
might be. Ambitious, ill-tempered and cruel, she found in her present
position an ample field for the exercise of her ill-omened qualities.
She had a strong hold on old master she was considered a first rate
cook, and she really was very industrious. She was, therefore, greatly
favored by old master, and as one mark of his favor, she was the only
mother who was permitted to retain her children around her. Even to
these children she was often fiendish in her brutality. She pursued her
son Phil, one day, in my presence, with a huge butcher knife, and dealt
a blow with its edge which left a shocking gash on his arm, near the
wrist. For this, old master did sharply rebuke her, and threatened that
if she ever should do the like again, he would take the skin off her
back. Cruel, however, as Aunt Katy was to her own children, at times
she was not destitute of maternal feeling, as I often had occasion to
know, in the bitter pinches of hunger I had to endure. Differing from
the practice of Col. Lloyd, old master, instead of allowing so much for
each slave, committed the allowance for all to the care of Aunt Katy,
to be divided after cooking it, amongst us. The allowance, consisting
of coarse corn-meal, was not very abundant—indeed, it was very slender;
and in passing through Aunt Katy’s hands, it was made more slender
still, for some of us. William, Phil and Jerry were her children, and
it is not to accuse her too severely, to allege that she was often
guilty of starving myself and the other children, while she was
literally cramming her own. Want of food was my chief trouble the first
summer at my old master’s. Oysters and clams would do very well, with
an occasional supply of bread, but they soon failed in the absence of
bread. I speak but the simple truth, when I say, I have often been so
pinched with hunger, that I have fought with the dog—“Old Nep”—for the
smallest crumbs that fell from the kitchen table, and have been glad
when I won a single crumb in the combat. Many times have I followed,
with eager step, the waiting-girl when she went out to shake the table
cloth, to get the crumbs and small bones flung out for the cats. The
water, in which meat had been boiled, was as eagerly sought for by me.
It was a great thing to get the privilege of dipping a piece of bread
in such water; and the skin taken from rusty bacon, was a positive
luxury. Nevertheless, I sometimes got full meals and kind words from
sympathizing old slaves, who knew my sufferings, and received the
comforting assurance that I should be a man some day. “Never mind,
honey—better day comin’,” was even then a solace, a cheering
consolation to me in my troubles. Nor were all the kind words I
received from slaves. I had a friend in the parlor, as well, and one to
whom I shall be glad to do justice, before I have finished this part of
my story.

I was not long at old master’s, before I learned that his surname was
Anthony, and that he was generally called “Captain Anthony”—a title
which he probably acquired by sailing a craft in the Chesapeake Bay.
Col. Lloyd’s slaves never called Capt. Anthony “old master,” but always
Capt. Anthony; and _me_ they called “Captain Anthony Fred.” There is
not, probably, in the whole south, a plantation where the English
language is more imperfectly spoken than on Col. Lloyd’s. It is a
mixture of Guinea and everything else you please. At the time of which
I am now writing, there were slaves there who had been brought from the
coast of Africa. They never used the “s” in indication of the
possessive case. “Cap’n Ant’ney Tom,” “Lloyd Bill,” “Aunt Rose Harry,”
means “Captain Anthony’s Tom,” “Lloyd’s Bill,” &c. _“Oo you dem long
to?”_ means, “Whom do you belong to?” _“Oo dem got any peachy?”_ means,
“Have you got any peaches?” I could scarcely understand them when I
first went among them, so broken was their speech; and I am persuaded
that I could not have been dropped anywhere on the globe, where I could
reap less, in the way of knowledge, from my immediate associates, than
on this plantation. Even “MAS’ DANIEL,” by his association with his
father’s slaves, had measurably adopted their dialect and their ideas,
so far as they had ideas to be adopted. The equality of nature is
strongly asserted in childhood, and childhood requires children for
associates. _Color_ makes no difference with a child. Are you a child
with wants, tastes and pursuits common to children, not put on, but
natural? then, were you black as ebony you would be welcome to the
child of alabaster whiteness. The law of compensation holds here, as
well as elsewhere. Mas’ Daniel could not associate with ignorance
without sharing its shade; and he could not give his black playmates
his company, without giving them his intelligence, as well. Without
knowing this, or caring about it, at the time, I, for some cause or
other, spent much of my time with Mas’ Daniel, in preference to
spending it with most of the other boys.

Mas’ Daniel was the youngest son of Col. Lloyd; his older brothers were
Edward and Murray—both grown up, and fine looking men. Edward was
especially esteemed by the children, and by me among the rest; not that
he ever said anything to us or for us, which could be called especially
kind; it was enough for us, that he never looked nor acted scornfully
toward us. There were also three sisters, all married; one to Edward
Winder; a second to Edward Nicholson; a third to Mr. Lownes.

The family of old master consisted of two sons, Andrew and Richard; his
daughter, Lucretia, and her newly married husband, Capt. Auld. This was
the house family. The kitchen family consisted of Aunt Katy, Aunt
Esther, and ten or a dozen children, most of them older than myself.
Capt. Anthony was not considered a rich slaveholder, but was pretty
well off in the world. He owned about thirty _“head”_ of slaves, and
three farms in Tuckahoe. The most valuable part of his property was his
slaves, of whom he could afford to sell one every year. This crop,
therefore, brought him seven or eight hundred dollars a year, besides
his yearly salary, and other revenue from his farms.

The idea of rank and station was rigidly maintained on Col. Lloyd’s
plantation. Our family never visited the great house, and the Lloyds
never came to our home. Equal non-intercourse was observed between
Capt. Anthony’s family and that of Mr. Sevier, the overseer.

Such, kind reader, was the community, and such the place, in which my
earliest and most lasting impressions of slavery, and of slave-life,
were received; of which impressions you will learn more in the coming
chapters of this book.




CHAPTER V. _Gradual Initiation to the Mysteries of Slavery_


GROWING ACQUAINTANCE WITH OLD MASTER—HIS CHARACTER—EVILS OF
UNRESTRAINED PASSION—APPARENT TENDERNESS—OLD MASTER A MAN OF
TROUBLE—CUSTOM OF MUTTERING TO HIMSELF—NECESSITY OF BEING AWARE OF HIS
WORDS—THE SUPPOSED OBTUSENESS OF SLAVE-CHILDREN—BRUTAL OUTRAGE—DRUNKEN
OVERSEER—SLAVEHOLDER’S IMPATIENCE—WISDOM OF APPEALING TO SUPERIORS—THE
SLAVEHOLDER S WRATH BAD AS THAT OF THE OVERSEER—A BASE AND SELFISH
ATTEMPT TO BREAK UP A COURTSHIP—A HARROWING SCENE.


Although my old master—Capt. Anthony—gave me at first, (as the reader
will have already seen) very little attention, and although that little
was of a remarkably mild and gentle description, a few months only were
sufficient to convince me that mildness and gentleness were not the
prevailing or governing traits of his character. These excellent
qualities were displayed only occasionally. He could, when it suited
him, appear to be literally insensible to the claims of humanity, when
appealed to by the helpless against an aggressor, and he could himself
commit outrages, deep, dark and nameless. Yet he was not by nature
worse than other men. Had he been brought up in a free state,
surrounded by the just restraints of free society—restraints which are
necessary to the freedom of all its members, alike and equally—Capt.
Anthony might have been as humane a man, and every way as respectable,
as many who now oppose the slave system; certainly as humane and
respectable as are members of society generally. The slaveholder, as
well as the slave, is the victim of the slave system. A man’s character
greatly takes its hue and shape from the form and color of things about
him. Under the whole heavens there is no relation more unfavorable to
the development of honorable character, than that sustained by the
slaveholder to the slave. Reason is imprisoned here, and passions run
wild. Like the fires of the prairie, once lighted, they are at the
mercy of every wind, and must burn, till they have consumed all that is
combustible within their remorseless grasp. Capt. Anthony could be
kind, and, at times, he even showed an affectionate disposition. Could
the reader have seen him gently leading me by the hand—as he sometimes
did—patting me on the head, speaking to me in soft, caressing tones and
calling me his “little Indian boy,” he would have deemed him a kind old
man, and really, almost fatherly. But the pleasant moods of a
slaveholder are remarkably brittle; they are easily snapped; they
neither come often, nor remain long. His temper is subjected to
perpetual trials; but, since these trials are never borne patiently,
they add nothing to his natural stock of patience.

Old master very early impressed me with the idea that he was an unhappy
man. Even to my child’s eye, he wore a troubled, and at times, a
haggard aspect. His strange movements excited my curiosity, and
awakened my compassion. He seldom walked alone without muttering to
himself; and he occasionally stormed about, as if defying an army of
invisible foes. “He would do this, that, and the other; he’d be d—d if
he did not,”—was the usual form of his threats. Most of his leisure was
spent in walking, cursing and gesticulating, like one possessed by a
demon. Most evidently, he was a wretched man, at war with his own soul,
and with all the world around him. To be overheard by the children,
disturbed him very little. He made no more of our presence, than of
that of the ducks and geese which he met on the green. He little
thought that the little black urchins around him, could see, through
those vocal crevices, the very secrets of his heart. Slaveholders ever
underrate the intelligence with which they have to grapple. I really
understood the old man’s mutterings, attitudes and gestures, about as
well as he did himself. But slaveholders never encourage that kind of
communication, with the slaves, by which they might learn to measure
the depths of his knowledge. Ignorance is a high virtue in a human
chattel; and as the master studies to keep the slave ignorant, the
slave is cunning enough to make the master think he succeeds. The slave
fully appreciates the saying, “where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to
be wise.” When old master’s gestures were violent, ending with a
threatening shake of the head, and a sharp snap of his middle finger
and thumb, I deemed it wise to keep at a respectable distance from him;
for, at such times, trifling faults stood, in his eyes, as momentous
offenses; and, having both the power and the disposition, the victim
had only to be near him to catch the punishment, deserved or
undeserved.

One of the first circumstances that opened my eyes to the cruelty and
wickedness of slavery, and the heartlessness of my old master, was the
refusal of the latter to interpose his authority, to protect and shield
a young woman, who had been most cruelly abused and beaten by his
overseer in Tuckahoe. This overseer—a Mr. Plummer—was a man like most
of his class, little better than a human brute; and, in addition to his
general profligacy and repulsive coarseness, the creature was a
miserable drunkard. He was, probably, employed by my old master, less
on account of the excellence of his services, than for the cheap rate
at which they could be obtained. He was not fit to have the management
of a drove of mules. In a fit of drunken madness, he committed the
outrage which brought the young woman in question down to my old
master’s for protection. This young woman was the daughter of Milly, an
own aunt of mine. The poor girl, on arriving at our house, presented a
pitiable appearance. She had left in haste, and without preparation;
and, probably, without the knowledge of Mr. Plummer. She had traveled
twelve miles, bare-footed, bare-necked and bare-headed. Her neck and
shoulders were covered with scars, newly made; and not content with
marring her neck and shoulders, with the cowhide, the cowardly brute
had dealt her a blow on the head with a hickory club, which cut a
horrible gash, and left her face literally covered with blood. In this
condition, the poor young woman came down, to implore protection at the
hands of my old master. I expected to see him boil over with rage at
the revolting deed, and to hear him fill the air with curses upon the
brutual Plummer; but I was disappointed. He sternly told her, in an
angry tone, he “believed she deserved every bit of it,” and, if she did
not go home instantly, he would himself take the remaining skin from
her neck and back. Thus was the poor girl compelled to return, without
redress, and perhaps to receive an additional flogging for daring to
appeal to old master against the overseer.

Old master seemed furious at the thought of being troubled by such
complaints. I did not, at that time, understand the philosophy of his
treatment of my cousin. It was stern, unnatural, violent. Had the man
no bowels of compassion? Was he dead to all sense of humanity? No. I
think I now understand it. This treatment is a part of the system,
rather than a part of the man. Were slaveholders to listen to
complaints of this sort against the overseers, the luxury of owning
large numbers of slaves, would be impossible. It would do away with the
office of overseer, entirely; or, in other words, it would convert the
master himself into an overseer. It would occasion great loss of time
and labor, leaving the overseer in fetters, and without the necessary
power to secure obedience to his orders. A privilege so dangerous as
that of appeal, is, therefore, strictly prohibited; and any one
exercising it, runs a fearful hazard. Nevertheless, when a slave has
nerve enough to exercise it, and boldly approaches his master, with a
well-founded complaint against an overseer, though he may be repulsed,
and may even have that of which he complains repeated at the time, and,
though he may be beaten by his master, as well as by the overseer, for
his temerity, in the end the policy of complaining is, generally,
vindicated by the relaxed rigor of the overseer’s treatment. The latter
becomes more careful, and less disposed to use the lash upon such
slaves thereafter. It is with this final result in view, rather than
with any expectation of immediate good, that the outraged slave is
induced to meet his master with a complaint. The overseer very
naturally dislikes to have the ear of the master disturbed by
complaints; and, either upon this consideration, or upon advice and
warning privately given him by his employers, he generally modifies the
rigor of his rule, after an outbreak of the kind to which I have been
referring.

Howsoever the slaveholder may allow himself to act toward his slave,
and, whatever cruelty he may deem it wise, for example’s sake, or for
the gratification of his humor, to inflict, he cannot, in the absence
of all provocation, look with pleasure upon the bleeding wounds of a
defenseless slave-woman. When he drives her from his presence without
redress, or the hope of redress, he acts, generally, from motives of
policy, rather than from a hardened nature, or from innate brutality.
Yet, let but his own temper be stirred, his own passions get loose, and
the slave-owner will go _far beyond_ the overseer in cruelty. He will
convince the slave that his wrath is far more terrible and boundless,
and vastly more to be dreaded, than that of the underling overseer.
What may have been mechanically and heartlessly done by the overseer,
is now done with a will. The man who now wields the lash is
irresponsible. He may, if he pleases, cripple or kill, without fear of
consequences; except in so far as it may concern profit or loss. To a
man of violent temper—as my old master was—this was but a very slender
and inefficient restraint. I have seen him in a tempest of passion,
such as I have just described—a passion into which entered all the
bitter ingredients of pride, hatred, envy, jealousy, and the
thrist(sic) for revenge.

The circumstances which I am about to narrate, and which gave rise to
this fearful tempest of passion, are not singular nor isolated in slave
life, but are common in every slaveholding community in which I have
lived. They are incidental to the relation of master and slave, and
exist in all sections of slave-holding countries.

The reader will have noticed that, in enumerating the names of the
slaves who lived with my old master, _Esther_ is mentioned. This was a
young woman who possessed that which is ever a curse to the slave-girl;
namely—personal beauty. She was tall, well formed, and made a fine
appearance. The daughters of Col. Lloyd could scarcely surpass her in
personal charms. Esther was courted by Ned Roberts, and he was as fine
looking a young man, as she was a woman. He was the son of a favorite
slave of Col. Lloyd. Some slaveholders would have been glad to promote
the marriage of two such persons; but, for some reason or other, my old
master took it upon him to break up the growing intimacy between Esther
and Edward. He strictly ordered her to quit the company of said
Roberts, telling her that he would punish her severely if he ever found
her again in Edward’s company. This unnatural and heartless order was,
of course, broken. A woman’s love is not to be annihilated by the
peremptory command of any one, whose breath is in his nostrils. It was
impossible to keep Edward and Esther apart. Meet they would, and meet
they did. Had old master been a man of honor and purity, his motives,
in this matter, might have been viewed more favorably. As it was, his
motives were as abhorrent, as his methods were foolish and
contemptible. It was too evident that he was not concerned for the
girl’s welfare. It is one of the damning characteristics of the slave
system, that it robs its victims of every earthly incentive to a holy
life. The fear of God, and the hope of heaven, are found sufficient to
sustain many slave-women, amidst the snares and dangers of their
strange lot; but, this side of God and heaven, a slave-woman is at the
mercy of the power, caprice and passion of her owner. Slavery provides
no means for the honorable continuance of the race. Marriage as
imposing obligations on the parties to it—has no existence here, except
in such hearts as are purer and higher than the standard morality
around them. It is one of the consolations of my life, that I know of
many honorable instances of persons who maintained their honor, where
all around was corrupt.

Esther was evidently much attached to Edward, and abhorred—as she had
reason to do—the tyrannical and base behavior of old master. Edward was
young, and fine looking, and he loved and courted her. He might have
been her husband, in the high sense just alluded to; but WHO and _what_
was this old master? His attentions were plainly brutal and selfish,
and it was as natural that Esther should loathe him, as that she should
love Edward. Abhorred and circumvented as he was, old master, having
the power, very easily took revenge. I happened to see this exhibition
of his rage and cruelty toward Esther. The time selected was singular.
It was early in the morning, when all besides was still, and before any
of the family, in the house or kitchen, had left their beds. I saw but
few of the shocking preliminaries, for the cruel work had begun before
I awoke. I was probably awakened by the shrieks and piteous cries of
poor Esther. My sleeping place was on the floor of a little, rough
closet, which opened into the kitchen; and through the cracks of its
unplaned boards, I could distinctly see and hear what was going on,
without being seen by old master. Esther’s wrists were firmly tied, and
the twisted rope was fastened to a strong staple in a heavy wooden
joist above, near the fireplace. Here she stood, on a bench, her arms
tightly drawn over her breast. Her back and shoulders were bare to the
waist. Behind her stood old master, with cowskin in hand, preparing his
barbarous work with all manner of harsh, coarse, and tantalizing
epithets. The screams of his victim were most piercing. He was cruelly
deliberate, and protracted the torture, as one who was delighted with
the scene. Again and again he drew the hateful whip through his hand,
adjusting it with a view of dealing the most pain-giving blow. Poor
Esther had never yet been severely whipped, and her shoulders were
plump and tender. Each blow, vigorously laid on, brought screams as
well as blood. _“Have mercy; Oh! have mercy”_ she cried; “_I won’t do
so no more;”_ but her piercing cries seemed only to increase his fury.
His answers to them are too coarse and blasphemous to be produced here.
The whole scene, with all its attendants, was revolting and shocking,
to the last degree; and when the motives of this brutal castigation are
considered,—language has no power to convey a just sense of its awful
criminality. After laying on some thirty or forty stripes, old master
untied his suffering victim, and let her get down. She could scarcely
stand, when untied. From my heart I pitied her, and—child though I
was—the outrage kindled in me a feeling far from peaceful; but I was
hushed, terrified, stunned, and could do nothing, and the fate of
Esther might be mine next. The scene here described was often repeated
in the case of poor Esther, and her life, as I knew it, was one of
wretchedness.




CHAPTER VI. _Treatment of Slaves on Lloyd’s Plantation_


EARLY REFLECTIONS ON SLAVERY—PRESENTIMENT OF ONE DAY BEING A
FREEMAN—COMBAT BETWEEN AN OVERSEER AND A SLAVEWOMAN—THE ADVANTAGES OF
RESISTANCE—ALLOWANCE DAY ON THE HOME PLANTATION—THE SINGING OF
SLAVES—AN EXPLANATION—THE SLAVES FOOD AND CLOTHING—NAKED CHILDREN—LIFE
IN THE QUARTER—DEPRIVATION OF SLEEP—NURSING CHILDREN CARRIED TO THE
FIELD—DESCRIPTION OF THE COWSKIN—THE ASH-CAKE—MANNER OF MAKING IT—THE
DINNER HOUR—THE CONTRAST.


The heart-rending incidents, related in the foregoing chapter, led me,
thus early, to inquire into the nature and history of slavery. _Why am
I a slave? Why are some people slaves, and others masters? Was there
ever a time this was not so? How did the relation commence?_ These were
the perplexing questions which began now to claim my thoughts, and to
exercise the weak powers of my mind, for I was still but a child, and
knew less than children of the same age in the free states. As my
questions concerning these things were only put to children a little
older, and little better informed than myself, I was not rapid in
reaching a solid footing. By some means I learned from these inquiries
that _“God, up in the sky,”_ made every body; and that he made _white_
people to be masters and mistresses, and _black_ people to be slaves.
This did not satisfy me, nor lessen my interest in the subject. I was
told, too, that God was good, and that He knew what was best for me,
and best for everybody. This was less satisfactory than the first
statement; because it came, point blank, against all my notions of
goodness. It was not good to let old master cut the flesh off Esther,
and make her cry so. Besides, how did people know that God made black
people to be slaves? Did they go up in the sky and learn it? or, did He
come down and tell them so? All was dark here. It was some relief to my
hard notions of the goodness of God, that, although he made white men
to be slaveholders, he did not make them to be _bad_ slaveholders, and
that, in due time, he would punish the bad slaveholders; that he would,
when they died, send them to the bad place, where they would be “burnt
up.” Nevertheless, I could not reconcile the relation of slavery with
my crude notions of goodness.

Then, too, I found that there were puzzling exceptions to this theory
of slavery on both sides, and in the middle. I knew of blacks who were
_not_ slaves; I knew of whites who were _not_ slaveholders; and I knew
of persons who were _nearly_ white, who were slaves. _Color_,
therefore, was a very unsatisfactory basis for slavery.

Once, however, engaged in the inquiry, I was not very long in finding
out the true solution of the matter. It was not _color_, but _crime_,
not _God_, but _man_, that afforded the true explanation of the
existence of slavery; nor was I long in finding out another important
truth, viz: what man can make, man can unmake. The appalling darkness
faded away, and I was master of the subject. There were slaves here,
direct from Guinea; and there were many who could say that their
fathers and mothers were stolen from Africa—forced from their homes,
and compelled to serve as slaves. This, to me, was knowledge; but it
was a kind of knowledge which filled me with a burning hatred of
slavery, increased my suffering, and left me without the means of
breaking away from my bondage. Yet it was knowledge quite worth
possessing. I could not have been more than seven or eight years old,
when I began to make this subject my study. It was with me in the woods
and fields; along the shore of the river, and wherever my boyish
wanderings led me; and though I was, at that time, quite ignorant of
the existence of the free states, I distinctly remember being, _even
then_, most strongly impressed with the idea of being a freeman some
day. This cheering assurance was an inborn dream of my human nature a
constant menace to slavery—and one which all the powers of slavery were
unable to silence or extinguish.

Up to the time of the brutal flogging of my Aunt Esther—for she was my
own aunt—and the horrid plight in which I had seen my cousin from
Tuckahoe, who had been so badly beaten by the cruel Mr. Plummer, my
attention had not been called, especially, to the gross features of
slavery. I had, of course, heard of whippings and of savage
_rencontres_ between overseers and slaves, but I had always been out of
the way at the times and places of their occurrence. My plays and
sports, most of the time, took me from the corn and tobacco fields,
where the great body of the hands were at work, and where scenes of
cruelty were enacted and witnessed. But, after the whipping of Aunt
Esther, I saw many cases of the same shocking nature, not only in my
master’s house, but on Col. Lloyd’s plantation. One of the first which
I saw, and which greatly agitated me, was the whipping of a woman
belonging to Col. Lloyd, named Nelly. The offense alleged against
Nelly, was one of the commonest and most indefinite in the whole
catalogue of offenses usually laid to the charge of slaves, viz:
“impudence.” This may mean almost anything, or nothing at all, just
according to the caprice of the master or overseer, at the moment. But,
whatever it is, or is not, if it gets the name of “impudence,” the
party charged with it is sure of a flogging. This offense may be
committed in various ways; in the tone of an answer; in answering at
all; in not answering; in the expression of countenance; in the motion
of the head; in the gait, manner and bearing of the slave. In the case
under consideration, I can easily believe that, according to all
slaveholding standards, here was a genuine instance of impudence. In
Nelly there were all the necessary conditions for committing the
offense. She was a bright mulatto, the recognized wife of a favorite
“hand” on board Col. Lloyd’s sloop, and the mother of five sprightly
children. She was a vigorous and spirited woman, and one of the most
likely, on the plantation, to be guilty of impudence. My attention was
called to the scene, by the noise, curses and screams that proceeded
from it; and, on going a little in that direction, I came upon the
parties engaged in the skirmish. Mr. Siever, the overseer, had hold of
Nelly, when I caught sight of them; he was endeavoring to drag her
toward a tree, which endeavor Nelly was sternly resisting; but to no
purpose, except to retard the progress of the overseer’s plans.
Nelly—as I have said—was the mother of five children; three of them
were present, and though quite small (from seven to ten years old, I
should think) they gallantly came to their mother’s defense, and gave
the overseer an excellent pelting with stones. One of the little
fellows ran up, seized the overseer by the leg and bit him; but the
monster was too busily engaged with Nelly, to pay any attention to the
assaults of the children. There were numerous bloody marks on Mr.
Sevier’s face, when I first saw him, and they increased as the struggle
went on. The imprints of Nelly’s fingers were visible, and I was glad
to see them. Amidst the wild screams of the children—“_Let my mammy
go”—“let my mammy go_”—there escaped, from between the teeth of the
bullet-headed overseer, a few bitter curses, mingled with threats, that
“he would teach the d—d b—h how to give a white man impudence.” There
is no doubt that Nelly felt herself superior, in some respects, to the
slaves around her. She was a wife and a mother; her husband was a
valued and favorite slave. Besides, he was one of the first hands on
board of the sloop, and the sloop hands—since they had to represent the
plantation abroad—were generally treated tenderly. The overseer never
was allowed to whip Harry; why then should he be allowed to whip
Harry’s wife? Thoughts of this kind, no doubt, influenced her; but, for
whatever reason, she nobly resisted, and, unlike most of the slaves,
seemed determined to make her whipping cost Mr. Sevier as much as
possible. The blood on his (and her) face, attested her skill, as well
as her courage and dexterity in using her nails. Maddened by her
resistance, I expected to see Mr. Sevier level her to the ground by a
stunning blow; but no; like a savage bull-dog—which he resembled both
in temper and appearance—he maintained his grip, and steadily dragged
his victim toward the tree, disregarding alike her blows, and the cries
of the children for their mother’s release. He would, doubtless, have
knocked her down with his hickory stick, but that such act might have
cost him his place. It is often deemed advisable to knock a _man_ slave
down, in order to tie him, but it is considered cowardly and
inexcusable, in an overseer, thus to deal with a _woman_. He is
expected to tie her up, and to give her what is called, in southern
parlance, a “genteel flogging,” without any very great outlay of
strength or skill. I watched, with palpitating interest, the course of
the preliminary struggle, and was saddened by every new advantage
gained over her by the ruffian. There were times when she seemed likely
to get the better of the brute, but he finally overpowered her, and
succeeded in getting his rope around her arms, and in firmly tying her
to the tree, at which he had been aiming. This done, and Nelly was at
the mercy of his merciless lash; and now, what followed, I have no
heart to describe. The cowardly creature made good his every threat;
and wielded the lash with all the hot zest of furious revenge. The
cries of the woman, while undergoing the terrible infliction, were
mingled with those of the children, sounds which I hope the reader may
never be called upon to hear. When Nelly was untied, her back was
covered with blood. The red stripes were all over her shoulders. She
was whipped—severely whipped; but she was not subdued, for she
continued to denounce the overseer, and to call him every vile name. He
had bruised her flesh, but had left her invincible spirit undaunted.
Such floggings are seldom repeated by the same overseer. They prefer to
whip those who are most easily whipped. The old doctrine that
submission is the very best cure for outrage and wrong, does not hold
good on the slave plantation. He is whipped oftenest, who is whipped
easiest; and that slave who has the courage to stand up for himself
against the overseer, although he may have many hard stripes at the
first, becomes, in the end, a freeman, even though he sustain the
formal relation of a slave. “You can shoot me but you can’t whip me,”
said a slave to Rigby Hopkins; and the result was that he was neither
whipped nor shot. If the latter had been his fate, it would have been
less deplorable than the living and lingering death to which cowardly
and slavish souls are subjected. I do not know that Mr. Sevier ever
undertook to whip Nelly again. He probably never did, for it was not
long after his attempt to subdue her, that he was taken sick, and died.
The wretched man died as he had lived, unrepentant; and it was
said—with how much truth I know not—that in the very last hours of his
life, his ruling passion showed itself, and that when wrestling with
death, he was uttering horrid oaths, and flourishing the cowskin, as
though he was tearing the flesh off some helpless slave. One thing is
certain, that when he was in health, it was enough to chill the blood,
and to stiffen the hair of an ordinary man, to hear Mr. Sevier talk.
Nature, or his cruel habits, had given to his face an expression of
unusual savageness, even for a slave-driver. Tobacco and rage had worn
his teeth short, and nearly every sentence that escaped their
compressed grating, was commenced or concluded with some outburst of
profanity. His presence made the field alike the field of blood, and of
blasphemy. Hated for his cruelty, despised for his cowardice, his death
was deplored by no one outside his own house—if indeed it was deplored
there; it was regarded by the slaves as a merciful interposition of
Providence. Never went there a man to the grave loaded with heavier
curses. Mr. Sevier’s place was promptly taken by a Mr. Hopkins, and the
change was quite a relief, he being a very different man. He was, in
all respects, a better man than his predecessor; as good as any man can
be, and yet be an overseer. His course was characterized by no
extraordinary cruelty; and when he whipped a slave, as he sometimes
did, he seemed to take no especial pleasure in it, but, on the
contrary, acted as though he felt it to be a mean business. Mr. Hopkins
stayed but a short time; his place much to the regret of the slaves
generally—was taken by a Mr. Gore, of whom more will be said hereafter.
It is enough, for the present, to say, that he was no improvement on
Mr. Sevier, except that he was less noisy and less profane.

I have already referred to the business-like aspect of Col. Lloyd’s
plantation. This business-like appearance was much increased on the two
days at the end of each month, when the slaves from the different farms
came to get their monthly allowance of meal and meat. These were gala
days for the slaves, and there was much rivalry among them as to _who_
should be elected to go up to the great house farm for the allowance,
and, indeed, to attend to any business at this (for them) the capital.
The beauty and grandeur of the place, its numerous slave population,
and the fact that Harry, Peter and Jake the sailors of the sloop—almost
always kept, privately, little trinkets which they bought at Baltimore,
to sell, made it a privilege to come to the great house farm. Being
selected, too, for this office, was deemed a high honor. It was taken
as a proof of confidence and favor; but, probably, the chief motive of
the competitors for the place, was, a desire to break the dull monotony
of the field, and to get beyond the overseer’s eye and lash. Once on
the road with an ox team, and seated on the tongue of his cart, with no
overseer to look after him, the slave was comparatively free; and, if
thoughtful, he had time to think. Slaves are generally expected to sing
as well as to work. A silent slave is not liked by masters or
overseers. _“Make a noise,” “make a noise,”_ and _“bear a hand,”_ are
the words usually addressed to the slaves when there is silence amongst
them. This may account for the almost constant singing heard in the
southern states. There was, generally, more or less singing among the
teamsters, as it was one means of letting the overseer know where they
were, and that they were moving on with the work. But, on allowance
day, those who visited the great house farm were peculiarly excited and
noisy. While on their way, they would make the dense old woods, for
miles around, reverberate with their wild notes. These were not always
merry because they were wild. On the contrary, they were mostly of a
plaintive cast, and told a tale of grief and sorrow. In the most
boisterous outbursts of rapturous sentiment, there was ever a tinge of
deep melancholy. I have never heard any songs like those anywhere since
I left slavery, except when in Ireland. There I heard the same _wailing
notes_, and was much affected by them. It was during the famine of
1845-6. In all the songs of the slaves, there was ever some expression
in praise of the great house farm; something which would flatter the
pride of the owner, and, possibly, draw a favorable glance from him.

I am going away to the great house farm,
O yea!  O yea!  O yea!
My old master is a good old master,
O yea!  O yea!  O yea!


This they would sing, with other words of their own improvising—jargon
to others, but full of meaning to themselves. I have sometimes thought,
that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress truly
spiritual-minded men and women with the soul-crushing and death-dealing
character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of its mere
physical cruelties. They speak to the heart and to the soul of the
thoughtful. I cannot better express my sense of them now, than ten
years ago, when, in sketching my life, I thus spoke of this feature of
my plantation experience:

I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meanings of those rude,
and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle, so
that I neither saw or heard as those without might see and hear. They
told a tale which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension;
they were tones, loud, long and deep, breathing the prayer and
complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone
was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance
from chains. The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my
spirits, and filled my heart with ineffable sadness. The mere
recurrence, even now, afflicts my spirit, and while I am writing these
lines, my tears are falling. To those songs I trace my first glimmering
conceptions of the dehumanizing character of slavery. I can never get
rid of that conception. Those songs still follow me, to deepen my
hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds.
If any one wishes to be impressed with a sense of the soul-killing
power of slavery, let him go to Col. Lloyd’s plantation, and, on
allowance day, place himself in the deep, pine woods, and there let
him, in silence, thoughtfully analyze the sounds that shall pass
through the chambers of his soul, and if he is not thus impressed, it
will only be because “there is no flesh in his obdurate heart.”

The remark is not unfrequently made, that slaves are the most contended
and happy laborers in the world. They dance and sing, and make all
manner of joyful noises—so they do; but it is a great mistake to
suppose them happy because they sing. The songs of the slave represent
the sorrows, rather than the joys, of his heart; and he is relieved by
them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. Such is the
constitution of the human mind, that, when pressed to extremes, it
often avails itself of the most opposite methods. Extremes meet in mind
as in matter. When the slaves on board of the “Pearl” were overtaken,
arrested, and carried to prison—their hopes for freedom blasted—as they
marched in chains they sang, and found (as Emily Edmunson tells us) a
melancholy relief in singing. The singing of a man cast away on a
desolate island, might be as appropriately considered an evidence of
his contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave. Sorrow and
desolation have their songs, as well as joy and peace. Slaves sing more
to _make_ themselves happy, than to express their happiness.

It is the boast of slaveholders, that their slaves enjoy more of the
physical comforts of life than the peasantry of any country in the
world. My experience contradicts this. The men and the women slaves on
Col. Lloyd’s farm, received, as their monthly allowance of food, eight
pounds of pickled pork, or their equivalent in fish. The pork was often
tainted, and the fish was of the poorest quality—herrings, which would
bring very little if offered for sale in any northern market. With
their pork or fish, they had one bushel of Indian meal—unbolted—of
which quite fifteen per cent was fit only to feed pigs. With this, one
pint of salt was given; and this was the entire monthly allowance of a
full grown slave, working constantly in the open field, from morning
until night, every day in the month except Sunday, and living on a
fraction more than a quarter of a pound of meat per day, and less than
a peck of corn-meal per week. There is no kind of work that a man can
do which requires a better supply of food to prevent physical
exhaustion, than the field-work of a slave. So much for the slave’s
allowance of food; now for his raiment. The yearly allowance of
clothing for the slaves on this plantation, consisted of two tow-linen
shirts—such linen as the coarsest crash towels are made of; one pair of
trowsers of the same material, for summer, and a pair of trowsers and a
jacket of woolen, most slazily put together, for winter; one pair of
yarn stockings, and one pair of shoes of the coarsest description. The
slave’s entire apparel could not have cost more than eight dollars per
year. The allowance of food and clothing for the little children, was
committed to their mothers, or to the older slavewomen having the care
of them. Children who were unable to work in the field, had neither
shoes, stockings, jackets nor trowsers given them. Their clothing
consisted of two coarse tow-linen shirts—already described—per year;
and when these failed them, as they often did, they went naked until
the next allowance day. Flocks of little children from five to ten
years old, might be seen on Col. Lloyd’s plantation, as destitute of
clothing as any little heathen on the west coast of Africa; and this,
not merely during the summer months, but during the frosty weather of
March. The little girls were no better off than the boys; all were
nearly in a state of nudity.

As to beds to sleep on, they were known to none of the field hands;
nothing but a coarse blanket—not so good as those used in the north to
cover horses—was given them, and this only to the men and women. The
children stuck themselves in holes and corners, about the quarters;
often in the corner of the huge chimneys, with their feet in the ashes
to keep them warm. The want of beds, however, was not considered a very
great privation. Time to sleep was of far greater importance, for, when
the day’s work is done, most of the slaves have their washing, mending
and cooking to do; and, having few or none of the ordinary facilities
for doing such things, very many of their sleeping hours are consumed
in necessary preparations for the duties of the coming day.

The sleeping apartments—if they may be called such—have little regard
to comfort or decency. Old and young, male and female, married and
single, drop down upon the common clay floor, each covering up with his
or her blanket,—the only protection they have from cold or exposure.
The night, however, is shortened at both ends. The slaves work often as
long as they can see, and are late in cooking and mending for the
coming day; and, at the first gray streak of morning, they are summoned
to the field by the driver’s horn.

More slaves are whipped for oversleeping than for any other fault.
Neither age nor sex finds any favor. The overseer stands at the quarter
door, armed with stick and cowskin, ready to whip any who may be a few
minutes behind time. When the horn is blown, there is a rush for the
door, and the hindermost one is sure to get a blow from the overseer.
Young mothers who worked in the field, were allowed an hour, about ten
o’clock in the morning, to go home to nurse their children. Sometimes
they were compelled to take their children with them, and to leave them
in the corner of the fences, to prevent loss of time in nursing them.
The overseer generally rides about the field on horseback. A cowskin
and a hickory stick are his constant companions. The cowskin is a kind
of whip seldom seen in the northern states. It is made entirely of
untanned, but dried, ox hide, and is about as hard as a piece of
well-seasoned live oak. It is made of various sizes, but the usual
length is about three feet. The part held in the hand is nearly an inch
in thickness; and, from the extreme end of the butt or handle, the
cowskin tapers its whole length to a point. This makes it quite elastic
and springy. A blow with it, on the hardest back, will gash the flesh,
and make the blood start. Cowskins are painted red, blue and green, and
are the favorite slave whip. I think this whip worse than the
“cat-o’nine-tails.” It condenses the whole strength of the arm to a
single point, and comes with a spring that makes the air whistle. It is
a terrible instrument, and is so handy, that the overseer can always
have it on his person, and ready for use. The temptation to use it is
ever strong; and an overseer can, if disposed, always have cause for
using it. With him, it is literally a word and a blow, and, in most
cases, the blow comes first.

As a general rule, slaves do not come to the quarters for either
breakfast or dinner, but take their “ash cake” with them, and eat it in
the field. This was so on the home plantation; probably, because the
distance from the quarter to the field, was sometimes two, and even
three miles.

The dinner of the slaves consisted of a huge piece of ash cake, and a
small piece of pork, or two salt herrings. Not having ovens, nor any
suitable cooking utensils, the slaves mixed their meal with a little
water, to such thickness that a spoon would stand erect in it; and,
after the wood had burned away to coals and ashes, they would place the
dough between oak leaves and lay it carefully in the ashes, completely
covering it; hence, the bread is called ash cake. The surface of this
peculiar bread is covered with ashes, to the depth of a sixteenth part
of an inch, and the ashes, certainly, do not make it very grateful to
the teeth, nor render it very palatable. The bran, or coarse part of
the meal, is baked with the fine, and bright scales run through the
bread. This bread, with its ashes and bran, would disgust and choke a
northern man, but it is quite liked by the slaves. They eat it with
avidity, and are more concerned about the quantity than about the
quality. They are far too scantily provided for, and are worked too
steadily, to be much concerned for the quality of their food. The few
minutes allowed them at dinner time, after partaking of their coarse
repast, are variously spent. Some lie down on the “turning row,” and go
to sleep; others draw together, and talk; and others are at work with
needle and thread, mending their tattered garments. Sometimes you may
hear a wild, hoarse laugh arise from a circle, and often a song. Soon,
however, the overseer comes dashing through the field. _“Tumble up!
Tumble up_, and to _work, work,”_ is the cry; and, now, from twelve
o’clock (mid-day) till dark, the human cattle are in motion, wielding
their clumsy hoes; hurried on by no hope of reward, no sense of
gratitude, no love of children, no prospect of bettering their
condition; nothing, save the dread and terror of the slave-driver’s
lash. So goes one day, and so comes and goes another.

But, let us now leave the rough usage of the field, where vulgar
coarseness and brutal cruelty spread themselves and flourish, rank as
weeds in the tropics; where a vile wretch, in the shape of a man,
rides, walks, or struts about, dealing blows, and leaving gashes on
broken-spirited men and helpless women, for thirty dollars per month—a
business so horrible, hardening and disgraceful, that, rather, than
engage in it, a decent man would blow his own brains out—and let the
reader view with me the equally wicked, but less repulsive aspects of
slave life; where pride and pomp roll luxuriously at ease; where the
toil of a thousand men supports a single family in easy idleness and
sin. This is the great house; it is the home of the LLOYDS! Some idea
of its splendor has already been given—and, it is here that we shall
find that height of luxury which is the opposite of that depth of
poverty and physical wretchedness that we have just now been
contemplating. But, there is this difference in the two extremes; viz:
that in the case of the slave, the miseries and hardships of his lot
are imposed by others, and, in the master’s case, they are imposed by
himself. The slave is a subject, subjected by others; the slaveholder
is a subject, but he is the author of his own subjection. There is more
truth in the saying, that slavery is a greater evil to the master than
to the slave, than many, who utter it, suppose. The self-executing laws
of eternal justice follow close on the heels of the evil-doer here, as
well as elsewhere; making escape from all its penalties impossible.
But, let others philosophize; it is my province here to relate and
describe; only allowing myself a word or two, occasionally, to assist
the reader in the proper understanding of the facts narrated.




CHAPTER VII. _Life in the Great House_


COMFORTS AND LUXURIES—ELABORATE EXPENDITURE—HOUSE SERVANTS—MEN SERVANTS
AND MAID SERVANTS—APPEARANCES—SLAVE ARISTOCRACY—STABLE AND CARRIAGE
HOUSE—BOUNDLESS HOSPITALITY—FRAGRANCE OF RICH DISHES—THE DECEPTIVE
CHARACTER OF SLAVERY—SLAVES SEEM HAPPY—SLAVES AND SLAVEHOLDERS ALIKE
WRETCHED—FRETFUL DISCONTENT OF SLAVEHOLDERS—FAULT-FINDING—OLD
BARNEY—HIS PROFESSION—WHIPPING—HUMILIATING SPECTACLE—CASE
EXCEPTIONAL—WILLIAM WILKS—SUPPOSED SON OF COL. LLOYD—CURIOUS
INCIDENT—SLAVES PREFER RICH MASTERS TO POOR ONES.


The close-fisted stinginess that fed the poor slave on coarse corn-meal
and tainted meat; that clothed him in crashy tow-linen, and hurried him
to toil through the field, in all weathers, with wind and rain beating
through his tattered garments; that scarcely gave even the young
slave-mother time to nurse her hungry infant in the fence corner;
wholly vanishes on approaching the sacred precincts of the great house,
the home of the Lloyds. There the scriptural phrase finds an exact
illustration; the highly favored inmates of this mansion are literally
arrayed “in purple and fine linen,” and fare sumptuously every day! The
table groans under the heavy and blood-bought luxuries gathered with
painstaking care, at home and abroad. Fields, forests, rivers and seas,
are made tributary here. Immense wealth, and its lavish expenditure,
fill the great house with all that can please the eye, or tempt the
taste. Here, appetite, not food, is the great _desideratum_. Fish,
flesh and fowl, are here in profusion. Chickens, of all breeds; ducks,
of all kinds, wild and tame, the common, and the huge Muscovite; Guinea
fowls, turkeys, geese, and pea fowls, are in their several pens, fat
and fatting for the destined vortex. The graceful swan, the mongrels,
the black-necked wild goose; partridges, quails, pheasants and pigeons;
choice water fowl, with all their strange varieties, are caught in this
huge family net. Beef, veal, mutton and venison, of the most select
kinds and quality, roll bounteously to this grand consumer. The teeming
riches of the Chesapeake bay, its rock, perch, drums, crocus, trout,
oysters, crabs, and terrapin, are drawn hither to adorn the glittering
table of the great house. The dairy, too, probably the finest on the
Eastern Shore of Maryland—supplied by cattle of the best English stock,
imported for the purpose, pours its rich donations of fragant cheese,
golden butter, and delicious cream, to heighten the attraction of the
gorgeous, unending round of feasting. Nor are the fruits of the earth
forgotten or neglected. The fertile garden, many acres in size,
constituting a separate establishment, distinct from the common
farm—with its scientific gardener, imported from Scotland (a Mr.
McDermott) with four men under his direction, was not behind, either in
the abundance or in the delicacy of its contributions to the same full
board. The tender asparagus, the succulent celery, and the delicate
cauliflower; egg plants, beets, lettuce, parsnips, peas, and French
beans, early and late; radishes, cantelopes, melons of all kinds; the
fruits and flowers of all climes and of all descriptions, from the
hardy apple of the north, to the lemon and orange of the south,
culminated at this point. Baltimore gathered figs, raisins, almonds and
juicy grapes from Spain. Wines and brandies from France; teas of
various flavor, from China; and rich, aromatic coffee from Java, all
conspired to swell the tide of high life, where pride and indolence
rolled and lounged in magnificence and satiety.

Behind the tall-backed and elaborately wrought chairs, stand the
servants, men and maidens—fifteen in number—discriminately selected,
not only with a view to their industry and faithfulness, but with
special regard to their personal appearance, their graceful agility and
captivating address. Some of these are armed with fans, and are fanning
reviving breezes toward the over-heated brows of the alabaster ladies;
others watch with eager eye, and with fawn-like step anticipate and
supply wants before they are sufficiently formed to be announced by
word or sign.

These servants constituted a sort of black aristocracy on Col. Lloyd’s
plantation. They resembled the field hands in nothing, except in color,
and in this they held the advantage of a velvet-like glossiness, rich
and beautiful. The hair, too, showed the same advantage. The delicate
colored maid rustled in the scarcely worn silk of her young mistress,
while the servant men were equally well attired from the over-flowing
wardrobe of their young masters; so that, in dress, as well as in form
and feature, in manner and speech, in tastes and habits, the distance
between these favored few, and the sorrow and hunger-smitten multitudes
of the quarter and the field, was immense; and this is seldom passed
over.

Let us now glance at the stables and the carriage house, and we shall
find the same evidences of pride and luxurious extravagance. Here are
three splendid coaches, soft within and lustrous without. Here, too,
are gigs, phaetons, barouches, sulkeys and sleighs. Here are saddles
and harnesses—beautifully wrought and silver mounted—kept with every
care. In the stable you will find, kept only for pleasure, full
thirty-five horses, of the most approved blood for speed and beauty.
There are two men here constantly employed in taking care of these
horses. One of these men must be always in the stable, to answer every
call from the great house. Over the way from the stable, is a house
built expressly for the hounds—a pack of twenty-five or thirty—whose
fare would have made glad the heart of a dozen slaves. Horses and
hounds are not the only consumers of the slave’s toil. There was
practiced, at the Lloyd’s, a hospitality which would have astonished
and charmed any health-seeking northern divine or merchant, who might
have chanced to share it. Viewed from his own table, and _not_ from the
field, the colonel was a model of generous hospitality. His house was,
literally, a hotel, for weeks during the summer months. At these times,
especially, the air was freighted with the rich fumes of baking,
boiling, roasting and broiling. The odors I shared with the winds; but
the meats were under a more stringent monopoly except that,
occasionally, I got a cake from Mas’ Daniel. In Mas’ Daniel I had a
friend at court, from whom I learned many things which my eager
curiosity was excited to know. I always knew when company was expected,
and who they were, although I was an outsider, being the property, not
of Col. Lloyd, but of a servant of the wealthy colonel. On these
occasions, all that pride, taste and money could do, to dazzle and
charm, was done.

Who could say that the servants of Col. Lloyd were not well clad and
cared for, after witnessing one of his magnificent entertainments? Who
could say that they did not seem to glory in being the slaves of such a
master? Who, but a fanatic, could get up any sympathy for persons whose
every movement was agile, easy and graceful, and who evinced a
consciousness of high superiority? And who would ever venture to
suspect that Col. Lloyd was subject to the troubles of ordinary
mortals? Master and slave seem alike in their glory here? Can it all be
seeming? Alas! it may only be a sham at last! This immense wealth; this
gilded splendor; this profusion of luxury; this exemption from toil;
this life of ease; this sea of plenty; aye, what of it all? Are the
pearly gates of happiness and sweet content flung open to such suitors?
_far from it!_ The poor slave, on his hard, pine plank, but scantily
covered with his thin blanket, sleeps more soundly than the feverish
voluptuary who reclines upon his feather bed and downy pillow. Food, to
the indolent lounger, is poison, not sustenance. Lurking beneath all
their dishes, are invisible spirits of evil, ready to feed the
self-deluded gormandizers which aches, pains, fierce temper,
uncontrolled passions, dyspepsia, rheumatism, lumbago and gout; and of
these the Lloyds got their full share. To the pampered love of ease,
there is no resting place. What is pleasant today, is repulsive
tomorrow; what is soft now, is hard at another time; what is sweet in
the morning, is bitter in the evening. Neither to the wicked, nor to
the idler, is there any solid peace: _“Troubled, like the restless
sea.”_

I had excellent opportunities of witnessing the restless discontent and
the capricious irritation of the Lloyds. My fondness for horses—not
peculiar to me more than to other boys attracted me, much of the time,
to the stables. This establishment was especially under the care of
“old” and “young” Barney—father and son. Old Barney was a fine looking
old man, of a brownish complexion, who was quite portly, and wore a
dignified aspect for a slave. He was, evidently, much devoted to his
profession, and held his office an honorable one. He was a farrier as
well as an ostler; he could bleed, remove lampers from the mouths of
the horses, and was well instructed in horse medicines. No one on the
farm knew, so well as Old Barney, what to do with a sick horse. But his
gifts and acquirements were of little advantage to him. His office was
by no means an enviable one. He often got presents, but he got stripes
as well; for in nothing was Col. Lloyd more unreasonable and exacting,
than in respect to the management of his pleasure horses. Any supposed
inattention to these animals were sure to be visited with degrading
punishment. His horses and dogs fared better than his men. Their beds
must be softer and cleaner than those of his human cattle. No excuse
could shield Old Barney, if the colonel only suspected something wrong
about his horses; and, consequently, he was often punished when
faultless. It was absolutely painful to listen to the many unreasonable
and fretful scoldings, poured out at the stable, by Col. Lloyd, his
sons and sons-in-law. Of the latter, he had three—Messrs. Nicholson,
Winder and Lownes. These all lived at the great house a portion of the
year, and enjoyed the luxury of whipping the servants when they
pleased, which was by no means unfrequently. A horse was seldom brought
out of the stable to which no objection could be raised. “There was
dust in his hair;” “there was a twist in his reins;” “his mane did not
lie straight;” “he had not been properly grained;” “his head did not
look well;” “his fore-top was not combed out;” “his fetlocks had not
been properly trimmed;” something was always wrong. Listening to
complaints, however groundless, Barney must stand, hat in hand, lips
sealed, never answering a word. He must make no reply, no explanation;
the judgment of the master must be deemed infallible, for his power is
absolute and irresponsible. In a free state, a master, thus complaining
without cause, of his ostler, might be told—“Sir, I am sorry I cannot
please you, but, since I have done the best I can, your remedy is to
dismiss me.” Here, however, the ostler must stand, listen and tremble.
One of the most heart-saddening and humiliating scenes I ever
witnessed, was the whipping of Old Barney, by Col. Lloyd himself. Here
were two men, both advanced in years; there were the silvery locks of
Col. L., and there was the bald and toil-worn brow of Old Barney;
master and slave; superior and inferior here, but _equals_ at the bar
of God; and, in the common course of events, they must both soon meet
in another world, in a world where all distinctions, except those based
on obedience and disobedience, are blotted out forever. “Uncover your
head!” said the imperious master; he was obeyed. “Take off your jacket,
you old rascal!” and off came Barney’s jacket. “Down on your knees!”
down knelt the old man, his shoulders bare, his bald head glistening in
the sun, and his aged knees on the cold, damp ground. In his humble and
debasing attitude, the master—that master to whom he had given the best
years and the best strength of his life—came forward, and laid on
thirty lashes, with his horse whip. The old man bore it patiently, to
the last, answering each blow with a slight shrug of the shoulders, and
a groan. I cannot think that Col. Lloyd succeeded in marring the flesh
of Old Barney very seriously, for the whip was a light, riding whip;
but the spectacle of an aged man—a husband and a father—humbly kneeling
before a worm of the dust, surprised and shocked me at the time; and
since I have grown old enough to think on the wickedness of slavery,
few facts have been of more value to me than this, to which I was a
witness. It reveals slavery in its true color, and in its maturity of
repulsive hatefulness. I owe it to truth, however, to say, that this
was the first and the last time I ever saw Old Barney, or any other
slave, compelled to kneel to receive a whipping.

I saw, at the stable, another incident, which I will relate, as it is
illustrative of a phase of slavery to which I have already referred in
another connection. Besides two other coachmen, Col. Lloyd owned one
named William, who, strangely enough, was often called by his surname,
Wilks, by white and colored people on the home plantation. Wilks was a
very fine looking man. He was about as white as anybody on the
plantation; and in manliness of form, and comeliness of features, he
bore a very striking resemblance to Mr. Murray Lloyd. It was whispered,
and pretty generally admitted as a fact, that William Wilks was a son
of Col. Lloyd, by a highly favored slave-woman, who was still on the
plantation. There were many reasons for believing this whisper, not
only in William’s appearance, but in the undeniable freedom which he
enjoyed over all others, and his apparent consciousness of being
something more than a slave to his master. It was notorious, too, that
William had a deadly enemy in Murray Lloyd, whom he so much resembled,
and that the latter greatly worried his father with importunities to
sell William. Indeed, he gave his father no rest until he did sell him,
to Austin Woldfolk, the great slave-trader at that time. Before selling
him, however, Mr. L. tried what giving William a whipping would do,
toward making things smooth; but this was a failure. It was a
compromise, and defeated itself; for, immediately after the infliction,
the heart-sickened colonel atoned to William for the abuse, by giving
him a gold watch and chain. Another fact, somewhat curious, is, that
though sold to the remorseless _Woldfolk_, taken in irons to Baltimore
and cast into prison, with a view to being driven to the south,
William, by _some_ means—always a mystery to me—outbid all his
purchasers, paid for himself, _and now resides in Baltimore, a_
FREEMAN. Is there not room to suspect, that, as the gold watch was
presented to atone for the whipping, a purse of gold was given him by
the same hand, with which to effect his purchase, as an atonement for
the indignity involved in selling his own flesh and blood. All the
circumstances of William, on the great house farm, show him to have
occupied a different position from the other slaves, and, certainly,
there is nothing in the supposed hostility of slaveholders to
amalgamation, to forbid the supposition that William Wilks was the son
of Edward Lloyd. _Practical_ amalgamation is common in every
neighborhood where I have been in slavery.

Col. Lloyd was not in the way of knowing much of the real opinions and
feelings of his slaves respecting him. The distance between him and
them was far too great to admit of such knowledge. His slaves were so
numerous, that he did not know them when he saw them. Nor, indeed, did
all his slaves know him. In this respect, he was inconveniently rich.
It is reported of him, that, while riding along the road one day, he
met a colored man, and addressed him in the usual way of speaking to
colored people on the public highways of the south: “Well, boy, who do
you belong to?” “To Col. Lloyd,” replied the slave. “Well, does the
colonel treat you well?” “No, sir,” was the ready reply. “What? does he
work you too hard?” “Yes, sir.” “Well, don’t he give enough to eat?”
“Yes, sir, he gives me enough, such as it is.” The colonel, after
ascertaining where the slave belonged, rode on; the slave also went on
about his business, not dreaming that he had been conversing with his
master. He thought, said and heard nothing more of the matter, until
two or three weeks afterwards. The poor man was then informed by his
overseer, that, for having found fault with his master, he was now to
be sold to a Georgia trader. He was immediately chained and handcuffed;
and thus, without a moment’s warning he was snatched away, and forever
sundered from his family and friends, by a hand more unrelenting than
that of death. _This_ is the penalty of telling the simple truth, in
answer to a series of plain questions. It is partly in consequence of
such facts, that slaves, when inquired of as to their condition and the
character of their masters, almost invariably say they are contented,
and that their masters are kind. Slaveholders have been known to send
spies among their slaves, to ascertain, if possible, their views and
feelings in regard to their condition. The frequency of this had the
effect to establish among the slaves the maxim, that a still tongue
makes a wise head. They suppress the truth rather than take the
consequence of telling it, and, in so doing, they prove themselves a
part of the human family. If they have anything to say of their master,
it is, generally, something in his favor, especially when speaking to
strangers. I was frequently asked, while a slave, if I had a kind
master, and I do not remember ever to have given a negative reply. Nor
did I, when pursuing this course, consider myself as uttering what was
utterly false; for I always measured the kindness of my master by the
standard of kindness set up by slaveholders around us. However, slaves
are like other people, and imbibe similar prejudices. They are apt to
think _their condition_ better than that of others. Many, under the
influence of this prejudice, think their own masters are better than
the masters of other slaves; and this, too, in some cases, when the
very reverse is true. Indeed, it is not uncommon for slaves even to
fall out and quarrel among themselves about the relative kindness of
their masters, contending for the superior goodness of his own over
that of others. At the very same time, they mutually execrate their
masters, when viewed separately. It was so on our plantation. When Col.
Lloyd’s slaves met those of Jacob Jepson, they seldom parted without a
quarrel about their masters; Col. Lloyd’s slaves contending that he was
the richest, and Mr. Jepson’s slaves that he was the smartest, man of
the two. Col. Lloyd’s slaves would boost his ability to buy and sell
Jacob Jepson; Mr. Jepson’s slaves would boast his ability to whip Col.
Lloyd. These quarrels would almost always end in a fight between the
parties; those that beat were supposed to have gained the point at
issue. They seemed to think that the greatness of their masters was
transferable to themselves. To be a SLAVE, was thought to be bad
enough; but to be a _poor man’s_ slave, was deemed a disgrace, indeed.




CHAPTER VIII. _A Chapter of Horrors_


AUSTIN GORE—A SKETCH OF HIS CHARACTER—OVERSEERS AS A CLASS—THEIR
PECULIAR CHARACTERISTICS—THE MARKED INDIVIDUALITY OF AUSTIN GORE—HIS
SENSE OF DUTY—HOW HE WHIPPED—MURDER OF POOR DENBY—HOW IT
OCCURRED—SENSATION—HOW GORE MADE PEACE WITH COL. LLOYD—THE MURDER
UNPUNISHED—ANOTHER DREADFUL MURDER NARRATED—NO LAWS FOR THE PROTECTION
OF SLAVES CAN BE ENFORCED IN THE SOUTHERN STATES.


As I have already intimated elsewhere, the slaves on Col. Lloyd’s
plantation, whose hard lot, under Mr. Sevier, the reader has already
noticed and deplored, were not permitted to enjoy the comparatively
moderate rule of Mr. Hopkins. The latter was succeeded by a very
different man. The name of the new overseer was Austin Gore. Upon this
individual I would fix particular attention; for under his rule there
was more suffering from violence and bloodshed than had—according to
the older slaves ever been experienced before on this plantation. I
confess, I hardly know how to bring this man fitly before the reader.
He was, it is true, an overseer, and possessed, to a large extent, the
peculiar characteristics of his class; yet, to call him merely an
overseer, would not give the reader a fair notion of the man. I speak
of overseers as a class. They are such. They are as distinct from the
slaveholding gentry of the south, as are the fishwomen of Paris, and
the coal-heavers of London, distinct from other members of society.
They constitute a separate fraternity at the south, not less marked
than is the fraternity of Park Lane bullies in New York. They have been
arranged and classified by that great law of attraction, which
determines the spheres and affinities of men; which ordains, that men,
whose malign and brutal propensities predominate over their moral and
intellectual endowments, shall, naturally, fall into those employments
which promise the largest gratification to those predominating
instincts or propensities. The office of overseer takes this raw
material of vulgarity and brutality, and stamps it as a distinct class
of southern society. But, in this class, as in all other classes, there
are characters of marked individuality, even while they bear a general
resemblance to the mass. Mr. Gore was one of those, to whom a general
characterization would do no manner of justice. He was an overseer; but
he was something more. With the malign and tyrannical qualities of an
overseer, he combined something of the lawful master. He had the
artfulness and the mean ambition of his class; but he was wholly free
from the disgusting swagger and noisy bravado of his fraternity. There
was an easy air of independence about him; a calm self-possession, and
a sternness of glance, which might well daunt hearts less timid than
those of poor slaves, accustomed from childhood and through life to
cower before a driver’s lash. The home plantation of Col. Lloyd
afforded an ample field for the exercise of the qualifications for
overseership, which he possessed in such an eminent degree.

Mr. Gore was one of those overseers, who could torture the slightest
word or look into impudence; he had the nerve, not only to resent, but
to punish, promptly and severely. He never allowed himself to be
answered back, by a slave. In this, he was as lordly and as imperious
as Col. Edward Lloyd, himself; acting always up to the maxim,
practically maintained by slaveholders, that it is better that a dozen
slaves suffer under the lash, without fault, than that the master or
the overseer should _seem_ to have been wrong in the presence of the
slave. _Everything must be absolute here_. Guilty or not guilty, it is
enough to be accused, to be sure of a flogging. The very presence of
this man Gore was painful, and I shunned him as I would have shunned a
rattlesnake. His piercing, black eyes, and sharp, shrill voice, ever
awakened sensations of terror among the slaves. For so young a man (I
describe him as he was, twenty-five or thirty years ago) Mr. Gore was
singularly reserved and grave in the presence of slaves. He indulged in
no jokes, said no funny things, and kept his own counsels. Other
overseers, how brutal soever they might be, were, at times, inclined to
gain favor with the slaves, by indulging a little pleasantry; but Gore
was never known to be guilty of any such weakness. He was always the
cold, distant, unapproachable _overseer_ of Col. Edward Lloyd’s
plantation, and needed no higher pleasure than was involved in a
faithful discharge of the duties of his office. When he whipped, he
seemed to do so from a sense of duty, and feared no consequences. What
Hopkins did reluctantly, Gore did with alacrity. There was a stern
will, an iron-like reality, about this Gore, which would have easily
made him the chief of a band of pirates, had his environments been
favorable to such a course of life. All the coolness, savage barbarity
and freedom from moral restraint, which are necessary in the character
of a pirate-chief, centered, I think, in this man Gore. Among many
other deeds of shocking cruelty which he perpetrated, while I was at
Mr. Lloyd’s, was the murder of a young colored man, named Denby. He was
sometimes called Bill Denby, or Demby; (I write from sound, and the
sounds on Lloyd’s plantation are not very certain.) I knew him well. He
was a powerful young man, full of animal spirits, and, so far as I
know, he was among the most valuable of Col. Lloyd’s slaves. In
something—I know not what—he offended this Mr. Austin Gore, and, in
accordance with the custom of the latter, he under took to flog him. He
gave Denby but few stripes; the latter broke away from him and plunged
into the creek, and, standing there to the depth of his neck in water,
he refused to come out at the order of the overseer; whereupon, for
this refusal, _Gore shot him dead!_ It is said that Gore gave Denby
three calls, telling him that if he did not obey the last call, he
would shoot him. When the third call was given, Denby stood his ground
firmly; and this raised the question, in the minds of the by-standing
slaves—“Will he dare to shoot?” Mr. Gore, without further parley, and
without making any further effort to induce Denby to come out of the
water, raised his gun deliberately to his face, took deadly aim at his
standing victim, and, in an instant, poor Denby was numbered with the
dead. His mangled body sank out of sight, and only his warm, red blood
marked the place where he had stood.

This devilish outrage, this fiendish murder, produced, as it was well
calculated to do, a tremendous sensation. A thrill of horror flashed
through every soul on the plantation, if I may except the guilty wretch
who had committed the hell-black deed. While the slaves generally were
panic-struck, and howling with alarm, the murderer himself was calm and
collected, and appeared as though nothing unusual had happened. The
atrocity roused my old master, and he spoke out, in reprobation of it;
but the whole thing proved to be less than a nine days’ wonder. Both
Col. Lloyd and my old master arraigned Gore for his cruelty in the
matter, but this amounted to nothing. His reply, or explanation—as I
remember to have heard it at the time was, that the extraordinary
expedient was demanded by necessity; that Denby had become
unmanageable; that he had set a dangerous example to the other slaves;
and that, without some such prompt measure as that to which he had
resorted, were adopted, there would be an end to all rule and order on
the plantation. That very convenient covert for all manner of cruelty
and outrage that cowardly alarm-cry, that the slaves would _“take the
place,”_ was pleaded, in extenuation of this revolting crime, just as
it had been cited in defense of a thousand similar ones. He argued,
that if one slave refused to be corrected, and was allowed to escape
with his life, when he had been told that he should lose it if he
persisted in his course, the other slaves would soon copy his example;
the result of which would be, the freedom of the slaves, and the
enslavement of the whites. I have every reason to believe that Mr.
Gore’s defense, or explanation, was deemed satisfactory—at least to
Col. Lloyd. He was continued in his office on the plantation. His fame
as an overseer went abroad, and his horrid crime was not even submitted
to judicial investigation. The murder was committed in the presence of
slaves, and they, of course, could neither institute a suit, nor
testify against the murderer. His bare word would go further in a court
of law, than the united testimony of ten thousand black witnesses.

All that Mr. Gore had to do, was to make his peace with Col. Lloyd.
This done, and the guilty perpetrator of one of the most foul murders
goes unwhipped of justice, and uncensured by the community in which he
lives. Mr. Gore lived in St. Michael’s, Talbot county, when I left
Maryland; if he is still alive he probably yet resides there; and I
have no reason to doubt that he is now as highly esteemed, and as
greatly respected, as though his guilty soul had never been stained
with innocent blood. I am well aware that what I have now written will
by some be branded as false and malicious. It will be denied, not only
that such a thing ever did transpire, as I have now narrated, but that
such a thing could happen in _Maryland_. I can only say—believe it or
not—that I have said nothing but the literal truth, gainsay it who may.

I speak advisedly when I say this,—that killing a slave, or any colored
person, in Talbot county, Maryland, is not treated as a crime, either
by the courts or the community. Mr. Thomas Lanman, ship carpenter, of
St. Michael’s, killed two slaves, one of whom he butchered with a
hatchet, by knocking his brains out. He used to boast of the commission
of the awful and bloody deed. I have heard him do so, laughingly,
saying, among other things, that he was the only benefactor of his
country in the company, and that when “others would do as much as he
had done, we should be relieved of the d—d niggers.”

As an evidence of the reckless disregard of human life where the life
is that of a slave I may state the notorious fact, that the wife of Mr.
Giles Hicks, who lived but a short distance from Col. Lloyd’s, with her
own hands murdered my wife’s cousin, a young girl between fifteen and
sixteen years of age—mutilating her person in a most shocking manner.
The atrocious woman, in the paroxysm of her wrath, not content with
murdering her victim, literally mangled her face, and broke her breast
bone. Wild, however, and infuriated as she was, she took the precaution
to cause the slave-girl to be buried; but the facts of the case coming
abroad, very speedily led to the disinterment of the remains of the
murdered slave-girl. A coroner’s jury was assembled, who decided that
the girl had come to her death by severe beating. It was ascertained
that the offense for which this girl was thus hurried out of the world,
was this: she had been set that night, and several preceding nights, to
mind Mrs. Hicks’s baby, and having fallen into a sound sleep, the baby
cried, waking Mrs. Hicks, but not the slave-girl. Mrs. Hicks, becoming
infuriated at the girl’s tardiness, after calling several times, jumped
from her bed and seized a piece of fire-wood from the fireplace; and
then, as she lay fast asleep, she deliberately pounded in her skull and
breast-bone, and thus ended her life. I will not say that this most
horrid murder produced no sensation in the community. It _did_ produce
a sensation; but, incredible to tell, the moral sense of the community
was blunted too entirely by the ordinary nature of slavery horrors, to
bring the murderess to punishment. A warrant was issued for her arrest,
but, for some reason or other, that warrant was never served. Thus did
Mrs. Hicks not only escape condign punishment, but even the pain and
mortification of being arraigned before a court of justice.

Whilst I am detailing the bloody deeds that took place during my stay
on Col. Lloyd’s plantation, I will briefly narrate another dark
transaction, which occurred about the same time as the murder of Denby
by Mr. Gore.

On the side of the river Wye, opposite from Col. Lloyd’s, there lived a
Mr. Beal Bondley, a wealthy slaveholder. In the direction of his land,
and near the shore, there was an excellent oyster fishing ground, and
to this, some of the slaves of Col. Lloyd occasionally resorted in
their little canoes, at night, with a view to make up the deficiency of
their scanty allowance of food, by the oysters that they could easily
get there. This, Mr. Bondley took it into his head to regard as a
trespass, and while an old man belonging to Col. Lloyd was engaged in
catching a few of the many millions of oysters that lined the bottom of
that creek, to satisfy his hunger, the villainous Mr. Bondley, lying in
ambush, without the slightest ceremony, discharged the contents of his
musket into the back and shoulders of the poor old man. As good fortune
would have it, the shot did not prove mortal, and Mr. Bondley came
over, the next day, to see Col. Lloyd—whether to pay him for his
property, or to justify himself for what he had done, I know not; but
this I _can_ say, the cruel and dastardly transaction was speedily
hushed up; there was very little said about it at all, and nothing was
publicly done which looked like the application of the principle of
justice to the man whom _chance_, only, saved from being an actual
murderer. One of the commonest sayings to which my ears early became
accustomed, on Col. Lloyd’s plantation and elsewhere in Maryland, was,
that it was _“worth but half a cent to kill a nigger, and a half a cent
to bury him;”_ and the facts of my experience go far to justify the
practical truth of this strange proverb. Laws for the protection of the
lives of the slaves, are, as they must needs be, utterly incapable of
being enforced, where the very parties who are nominally protected, are
not permitted to give evidence, in courts of law, against the only
class of persons from whom abuse, outrage and murder might be
reasonably apprehended. While I heard of numerous murders committed by
slaveholders on the Eastern Shores of Maryland, I never knew a solitary
instance in which a slaveholder was either hung or imprisoned for
having murdered a slave. The usual pretext for killing a slave is, that
the slave has offered resistance. Should a slave, when assaulted, but
raise his hand in self defense, the white assaulting party is fully
justified by southern, or Maryland, public opinion, in shooting the
slave down. Sometimes this is done, simply because it is alleged that
the slave has been saucy. But here I leave this phase of the society of
my early childhood, and will relieve the kind reader of these
heart-sickening details.




CHAPTER IX. _Personal Treatment_


MISS LUCRETIA—HER KINDNESS—HOW IT WAS MANIFESTED—“IKE”—A BATTLE WITH
HIM—THE CONSEQUENCES THEREOF—MISS LUCRETIA’S BALSAM—BREAD—HOW I
OBTAINED IT—BEAMS OF SUNLIGHT AMIDST THE GENERAL DARKNESS—SUFFERING
FROM COLD—HOW WE TOOK OUR MEALS—ORDERS TO PREPARE FOR
BALTIMORE—OVERJOYED AT THE THOUGHT OF QUITTING THE
PLANTATION—EXTRAORDINARY CLEANSING—COUSIN TOM’S VERSION OF
BALTIMORE—ARRIVAL THERE—KIND RECEPTION GIVEN ME BY MRS. SOPHIA
AULD—LITTLE TOMMY—MY NEW POSITION—MY NEW DUTIES—A TURNING POINT IN MY
HISTORY.


I have nothing cruel or shocking to relate of my own personal
experience, while I remained on Col. Lloyd’s plantation, at the home of
my old master. An occasional cuff from Aunt Katy, and a regular
whipping from old master, such as any heedless and mischievous boy
might get from his father, is all that I can mention of this sort. I
was not old enough to work in the field, and, there being little else
than field work to perform, I had much leisure. The most I had to do,
was, to drive up the cows in the evening, to keep the front yard clean,
and to perform small errands for my young mistress, Lucretia Auld. I
have reasons for thinking this lady was very kindly disposed toward me,
and, although I was not often the object of her attention, I constantly
regarded her as my friend, and was always glad when it was my privilege
to do her a service. In a family where there was so much that was
harsh, cold and indifferent, the slightest word or look of kindness
passed, with me, for its full value. Miss Lucretia—as we all continued
to call her long after her marriage—had bestowed upon me such words and
looks as taught me that she pitied me, if she did not love me. In
addition to words and looks, she sometimes gave me a piece of bread and
butter; a thing not set down in the bill of fare, and which must have
been an extra ration, planned aside from either Aunt Katy or old
master, solely out of the tender regard and friendship she had for me.
Then, too, I one day got into the wars with Uncle Able’s son, “Ike,”
and had got sadly worsted; in fact, the little rascal had struck me
directly in the forehead with a sharp piece of cinder, fused with iron,
from the old blacksmith’s forge, which made a cross in my forehead very
plainly to be seen now. The gash bled very freely, and I roared very
loudly and betook myself home. The coldhearted Aunt Katy paid no
attention either to my wound or my roaring, except to tell me it served
me right; I had no business with Ike; it was good for me; I would now
keep away _“from dem Lloyd niggers.”_ Miss Lucretia, in this state of
the case, came forward; and, in quite a different spirit from that
manifested by Aunt Katy, she called me into the parlor (an extra
privilege of itself) and, without using toward me any of the
hard-hearted and reproachful epithets of my kitchen tormentor, she
quietly acted the good Samaritan. With her own soft hand she washed the
blood from my head and face, fetched her own balsam bottle, and with
the balsam wetted a nice piece of white linen, and bound up my head.
The balsam was not more healing to the wound in my head, than her
kindness was healing to the wounds in my spirit, made by the unfeeling
words of Aunt Katy. After this, Miss Lucretia was my friend. I felt her
to be such; and I have no doubt that the simple act of binding up my
head, did much to awaken in her mind an interest in my welfare. It is
quite true, that this interest was never very marked, and it seldom
showed itself in anything more than in giving me a piece of bread when
I was hungry; but this was a great favor on a slave plantation, and I
was the only one of the children to whom such attention was paid. When
very hungry, I would go into the back yard and play under Miss
Lucretia’s window. When pretty severely pinched by hunger, I had a
habit of singing, which the good lady very soon came to understand as a
petition for a piece of bread. When I sung under Miss Lucretia’s
window, I was very apt to get well paid for my music. The reader will
see that I now had two friends, both at important points—Mas’ Daniel at
the great house, and Miss Lucretia at home. From Mas’ Daniel I got
protection from the bigger boys; and from Miss Lucretia I got bread, by
singing when I was hungry, and sympathy when I was abused by that
termagant, who had the reins of government in the kitchen. For such
friendship I felt deeply grateful, and bitter as are my recollections
of slavery, I love to recall any instances of kindness, any sunbeams of
humane treatment, which found way to my soul through the iron grating
of my house of bondage. Such beams seem all the brighter from the
general darkness into which they penetrate, and the impression they
make is vividly distinct and beautiful.

As I have before intimated, I was seldom whipped—and never severely—by
my old master. I suffered little from the treatment I received, except
from hunger and cold. These were my two great physical troubles. I
could neither get a sufficiency of food nor of clothing; but I suffered
less from hunger than from cold. In hottest summer and coldest winter,
I was kept almost in a state of nudity; no shoes, no stockings, no
jacket, no trowsers; nothing but coarse sackcloth or tow-linen, made
into a sort of shirt, reaching down to my knees. This I wore night and
day, changing it once a week. In the day time I could protect myself
pretty well, by keeping on the sunny side of the house; and in bad
weather, in the corner of the kitchen chimney. The great difficulty
was, to keep warm during the night. I had no bed. The pigs in the pen
had leaves, and the horses in the stable had straw, but the children
had no beds. They lodged anywhere in the ample kitchen. I slept,
generally, in a little closet, without even a blanket to cover me. In
very cold weather. I sometimes got down the bag in which corn-meal was
usually carried to the mill, and crawled into that. Sleeping there,
with my head in and feet out, I was partly protected, though not
comfortable. My feet have been so cracked with the frost, that the pen
with which I am writing might be laid in the gashes. The manner of
taking our meals at old master’s, indicated but little refinement. Our
corn-meal mush, when sufficiently cooled, was placed in a large wooden
tray, or trough, like those used in making maple sugar here in the
north. This tray was set down, either on the floor of the kitchen, or
out of doors on the ground; and the children were called, like so many
pigs; and like so many pigs they would come, and literally devour the
mush—some with oyster shells, some with pieces of shingles, and none
with spoons. He that eat fastest got most, and he that was strongest
got the best place; and few left the trough really satisfied. I was the
most unlucky of any, for Aunt Katy had no good feeling for me; and if I
pushed any of the other children, or if they told her anything
unfavorable of me, she always believed the worst, and was sure to whip
me.

As I grew older and more thoughtful, I was more and more filled with a
sense of my wretchedness. The cruelty of Aunt Katy, the hunger and cold
I suffered, and the terrible reports of wrong and outrage which came to
my ear, together with what I almost daily witnessed, led me, when yet
but eight or nine years old, to wish I had never been born. I used to
contrast my condition with the black-birds, in whose wild and sweet
songs I fancied them so happy! Their apparent joy only deepened the
shades of my sorrow. There are thoughtful days in the lives of
children—at least there were in mine when they grapple with all the
great, primary subjects of knowledge, and reach, in a moment,
conclusions which no subsequent experience can shake. I was just as
well aware of the unjust, unnatural and murderous character of slavery,
when nine years old, as I am now. Without any appeal to books, to laws,
or to authorities of any kind, it was enough to accept God as a father,
to regard slavery as a crime.

I was not ten years old when I left Col. Lloyd’s plantation for
Balitmore(sic). I left that plantation with inexpressible joy. I never
shall forget the ecstacy with which I received the intelligence from my
friend, Miss Lucretia, that my old master had determined to let me go
to Baltimore to live with Mr. Hugh Auld, a brother to Mr. Thomas Auld,
my old master’s son-in-law. I received this information about three
days before my departure. They were three of the happiest days of my
childhood. I spent the largest part of these three days in the creek,
washing off the plantation scurf, and

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