Of course I
surrendered
up for the sake of my family.
Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written
He was
represented to be a very pious soul, being a deacon of a Baptist
church. As the regulations, as well as public opinion generally, were
against slaves meeting for religious worship, I thought it would give
me a better opportunity to attend to my religious duties should I fall
into the hands of this deacon.
So I called on him and tried to show to the best advantage, for the
purpose of inducing him to buy me and my family. When I approached
him, I felt much pleased at his external appearance--I addressed him
in the following words as well as I can remember:
"Sir, I understand you are desirous of purchasing slaves? "
With a very pleasant smile, he replied, "Yes, I do want to buy some,
are you for sale? "
"Yes sir, with my wife and one child. "
Garrison had given me a note to show wherever I went, that I was for
sale, speaking of my wife and child, giving us a very good character
of course--and I handed him the note.
After reading it over he remarked, "I have a few questions to ask you,
and if you will tell me the truth like a good boy, perhaps I may buy
you with your family. In the first place, my boy, you are a little too
near white. I want you to tell me now whether you can read or write? "
My reply was in the negative.
"Now I want you to tell me whether you have run away? Don't tell me no
stories now, like a good fellow, and perhaps I may buy you. "
But as I was not under oath to tell him the whole truth, I only gave
him a part of it, by telling him that I had run away once.
He appeared to be pleased at that, but cautioned me to tell him the
truth, and asked me how long I stayed away, when I run off?
I told him that I was gone a month.
He assented to this by a bow of his head, and making a long grunt
saying, "That's right, tell me the truth like a good boy. "
The whole truth was that I had been off in the state of Ohio, and
other free states, and even to Canada; besides this I was notorious
for running away, from my boyhood.
I never told him that I had been a runaway longer than one
month--neither did I tell him that I had not run away more than once
in my life; for these questions he never asked me.
I afterwards found him to be one of the basest hypocrites that I ever
saw. He looked like a saint--talked like the best of slave holding
Christians, and acted at home like the devil.
When he saw my wife and child, he concluded to buy us. He paid for me
twelve hundred dollars, and one thousand for my wife and child. He
also bought several other slaves at the same time, and took home with
him. His residence was in the parish of Claiborn, fifty miles up from
the mouth of Red River.
When we arrived there, we found his slaves poor, ragged, stupid, and
half-starved. The food he allowed them per week, was one peck of corn
for each grown person, one pound of pork, and sometimes a quart of
molasses. This was all that they were allowed, and if they got more
they stole it.
He had one of the most cruel overseers to be found in that section of
country. He weighed and measured out to them, their week's allowance
of food every Sabbath morning. The overseer's horn was sounded two
hours before daylight for them in the morning, in order that they
should be ready for work before daylight. They were worked from
daylight until after dark, without stopping but one half hour to eat
or rest, which was at noon. And at the busy season of the year, they
were compelled to work just as hard on the Sabbath, as on any other
day.
CHAPTER X.
_Cruel treatment on Whitfield's farm--Exposure of the children--Mode
of extorting extra labor--Neglect of the sick--Strange medicine
used--Death of our second child. _
My first impressions when I arrived on the Deacon's farm, were that he
was far more like what the people call the devil, than he was like a
deacon. Not many days after my arrival there, I heard the Deacon tell
one of the slave girls, that he had bought her for a wife for his boy
Stephen, which office he compelled her fully to perform against her
will. This he enforced by a threat. At first the poor girl neglected
to do this, having no sort of affection for the man--but she was
finally forced to it by an application of the driver's lash, as
threatened by the Deacon.
The next thing I observed was that he made the slave driver strip his
own wife, and flog her for not doing just as her master had ordered.
He had a white overseer, and a colored man for a driver, whose
business it was to watch and drive the slaves in the field, and do the
flogging according to the orders of the overseer.
Next a mulatto girl who waited about the house, on her mistress,
displeased her, for which the Deacon stripped and tied her up. He then
handed me the lash and ordered me to put it on--but I told him I never
had done the like, and hoped he would not compel me to do it. He then
informed me that I was to be his overseer, and that he had bought me
for that purpose. He was paying a man eight hundred dollars a year to
oversee, and he believed I was competent to do the same business, and
if I would do it up right he would put nothing harder on me to do; and
if I knew not how to flog a slave, he would set me an example by which
I might be governed. He then commenced on this poor girl, and gave her
two hundred lashes before he had her untied.
After giving her fifty lashes, he stopped and lectured her a while,
asking her if she thought that she could obey her mistress, &c. She
promised to do all in her power to please him and her mistress, if he
would have mercy on her. But this plea was all vain. He commenced on
her again; and this flogging was carried on in the most inhuman manner
until she had received two hundred stripes on her naked quivering
flesh, tied up and exposed to the public gaze of all. And this was the
example that I was to copy after.
He then compelled me to wash her back off with strong salt brine,
before she was untied, which was so revolting to my feelings, that I
could not refrain from shedding tears.
For some cause he never called on me again to flog a slave. I presume
he saw that I was not savage enough. The above were about the first
items of the Deacon's conduct which struck me with peculiar disgust.
After having enjoyed the blessings of civil and religious liberty for
a season, to be dragged into that horrible place with my family, to
linger out my existence without the aid of religious societies, or the
light of revelation, was more than I could endure. I really felt as if
I had got into one of the darkest corners of the earth. I thought I
was almost out of humanity's reach, and should never again have the
pleasure of hearing the gospel sound, as I could see no way by which I
could extricate myself; yet I never omitted to pray for deliverance. I
had faith to believe that the Lord could see our wrongs and hear our
cries.
I was not used quite as bad as the regular field hands, as the greater
part of my time was spent working about the house; and my wife was the
cook.
This country was full of pine timber, and every slave had to prepare a
light wood torch, over night, made of pine knots, to meet the overseer
with, before daylight in the morning. Each person had to have his
torch lit, and come with it in his hand to the gin house, before the
overseer and driver, so as to be ready to go to the cotton field by
the time they could see to pick out cotton. These lights looked
beautiful at a distance.
The object of blowing the horn for them two hours before day, was,
that they should get their bite to eat, before they went to the field,
that they need not stop to eat but once during the day. Another object
was, to do up their flogging which had been omitted over night. I have
often heard the sound of the slave driver's lash on the backs, of the
slaves and their heart-rending shrieks, which were enough to melt the
heart of humanity, even among the most barbarous nations of the
earth.
But the Deacon would keep no overseer on his plantation, who neglected
to perform this every morning. I have heard him say that he was no
better pleased than when he could hear the overseer's loud complaining
voice, long before daylight in the morning, and the sound of the
driver's lash among the toiling slaves.
This was a very warm climate, abounding with musquitoes, galinippers
and other insects which were exceedingly annoying to the poor slaves
by night and day, at their quarters and in the field. But more
especially to their helpless little children, which they had to carry
with them to the cotton fields, where they had to set on the damp
ground alone from morning till night, exposed to the scorching rays of
the sun, liable to be bitten by poisonous rattle snakes which are
plenty in that section of the country, or to be devoured by large
alligators, which are often seen creeping through the cotton fields
going from swamp to swamp seeking their prey.
The cotton planters generally, never allow a slave mother time to go
to the house, or quarter during the day to nurse her child; hence they
have to carry them to the cotton fields and tie them in the shade of a
tree, or in clusters of high weeds about in the fields, where they can
go to them at noon, when they are allowed to stop work for one half
hour. This is the reason why so very few slave children are raised on
these cotton plantations, the mothers have no time to take care of
them--and they are often found dead in the field and in the quarter
for want of the care of their mothers. But I never was eye witness to
a case of this kind but have heard many narrated by my slave brothers
and sisters, some of which occurred on the deacon's plantation.
Their plan of getting large quantities of cotton picked is not only to
extort it from them by the lash, but hold out an inducement and
deceive them by giving small prizes. For example; the overseer will
offer something worth one or two dollars to any slave who will pick
out the most cotton in one day, dividing the hands off in three
classes and offering a prize to the one who will pick out the most
cotton in each of the classes. By this means they are all interested
in trying to get the prize.
After making them try it over several times and weighing what cotton
they pick every night, the overseer can tell just how much every hand
can pick. He then gives the present to those that pick the most
cotton, and then if they do not pick just as much afterward they are
flogged.
I have known the slaves to be so much fatigued from labor that they
could scarcely get to their lodging places from the field at night.
And then they would have to prepare something to eat before they could
lie down to rest. Their corn they had to grind on a hand mill for
bread stuff, or pound it in a mortar; and by the time they would get
their suppers it would be midnight; then they would herd down all
together and take but two or three hours rest, before the overseer's
horn called them up again to prepare for the field.
At the time of sickness among slaves they had but very little
attention. The master was to be the judge of their sickness, but never
had studied the medical profession. He always pronounced a slave who
said he was sick, a liar and a hypocrite; said there was nothing the
matter, and he only wanted to keep from work.
His remedy was most generally strong red pepper tea, boiled till it
was red. He would make them drink a pint cup full of it at one dose.
If he should not get better very soon after it, the dose was repeated.
If that should not accomplish the object for which it was given, or
have the desired effect, a pot or kettle was then put over the fire
with a large quantity of chimney soot, which was boiled down until it
was as strong as the juice of tobacco, and the poor sick slave was
compelled to drink a quart of it.
This would operate on the system like salts, or castor oil. But if the
slave should not be very ill, he would rather work as long as he could
stand up, than to take this dreadful medicine.
If it should be a very valuable slave, sometimes a physician was sent
for and something done to save him. But no special aid is afforded the
suffering slave even in the last trying hour, when he is called to
grapple with the grim monster death. He has no Bible, no family altar,
no minister to address to him the consolations of the gospel, before
he launches into the spirit world. As to the burial of slaves, but
very little more care is taken of their dead bodies than if they were
dumb beasts.
My wife was very sick while we were both living with the Deacon. We
expected every day would be her last. While she was sick, we lost our
second child, and I was compelled to dig my own child's grave and bury
it myself without even a box to put it in.
CHAPTER XI.
_I attend a prayer meeting. --Punishment therefor threatened. --I
attempt to escape alone. --My return to take my family. --Our
sufferings. --Dreadful attack of wolves. --Our recapture. _
Some months after Malinda had recovered from her sickness, I got
permission from the Deacon, on one Sabbath day, to attend a prayer
meeting, on a neighboring plantation, with a few old superannuated
slaves, although this was contrary to the custom of the country--for
slaves were not allowed to assemble for religious worship. Being more
numerous than the whites there was fear of rebellion, and the
overpowering of their oppressors in order to obtain freedom.
But this gentleman on whose plantation I attended the meeting was not
a Deacon nor a professor of religion. He was not afraid of a few old
Christian slaves rising up to kill their master because he allowed
them to worship God on the Sabbath day.
We had a very good meeting, although our exercises were not conducted
in accordance with an enlightened Christianity; for we had no
Bible--no intelligent leader--but a conscience, prompted by our own
reason, constrained us to worship God the Creator of all things.
When I returned home from meeting I told the other slaves what a good
time we had at our meeting, and requested them to go with me to
meeting there on the next Sabbath. As no slave was allowed to go from
the plantation on a visit without a written pass from his master, on
the next Sabbath several of us went to the Deacon, to get permission
to attend that prayer meeting; but he refused to let any go. I thought
I would slip off and attend the meeting and get back before he would
miss me, and would not know that I had been to the meeting.
When I returned home from the meeting as I approached the house I saw
Malinda, standing out at the fence looking in the direction in which I
was expected to return. She hailed my approach, not with joy, but with
grief. She was weeping under great distress of mind, but it was hard
for me to extort from her the reason why she wept. She finally
informed me that her master had found out that I had violated his law,
and I should suffer the penalty, which was five hundred lashes, on my
naked back.
I asked her how he knew that I had gone?
She said I had not long been gone before he called for me and I was
not to be found. He then sent the overseer on horseback to the place
where we were to meet to see if I was there. But when the overseer got
to the place, the meeting was over and I had gone back home, but had
gone a nearer route through the woods and the overseer happened not to
meet me. He heard that I had been there and hurried back home before
me and told the Deacon, who ordered him to take me on the next
morning, strip off my clothes, drive down four stakes in the ground
and fasten my limbs to them; then strike me five hundred lashes for
going to the prayer meeting. This was what distressed my poor
companion. She thought it was more than I could bear, and that it
would be the death of me. I concluded then to run away--but she
thought they would catch me with the blood hounds by their taking my
track. But to avoid them I thought I would ride off on one of the
Deacon's mules. She thought if I did, they would sell me.
"No matter, I will try it," said I, "let the consequences be what they
may. The matter can be no worse than it now is. " So I tackled up the
Deacon's best mule with his saddle, &c. , and started that night and
went off eight or ten miles from home. But I found the mule to be
rather troublesome, and was like to betray me by braying, especially
when he would see cattle, horses, or any thing of the kind in the
woods.
The second night from home I camped in a cane break down in the Red
river swamp not a great way off from the road, perhaps not twenty
rods, exposed to wild ferocious beasts which were numerous in that
section of country. On that night about the middle of the night the
mule heard the sound of horses feet on the road, and he commenced
stamping and trying to break away. As the horses seemed to come
nearer, the mule commenced trying to bray, and it was all that I could
do to prevent him from making a loud bray there in the woods, which
would have betrayed me.
I supposed that it was the overseer out with the dogs looking for me,
and I found afterwards that I was not mistaken. As soon as the people
had passed by, I mounted the mule and took him home to prevent his
betraying me. When I got near by home I stripped off the tackling and
turned the mule loose. I then slipt up to the cabin wherein my wife
laid and found her awake, much distressed about me. She informed me
that they were then out looking for me, and that the Deacon was bent
on flogging me nearly to death, and then selling me off from my
family. This was truly heart-rending to my poor wife; the thought of
our being torn apart in a strange land after having been sold away
from all her friends and relations, was more than she could bear.
The Deacon had declared that I should not only suffer for the crime of
attending a prayer meeting without his permission, and for running
away, but for the awful crime of stealing a jackass, which was death
by the law when committed by a negro.
But I well knew that I was regarded as property, and so was the ass;
and I thought if one piece of property took off another, there could
be no law violated in the act; no more sin committed in this than if
one jackass had rode off another.
But after consultation with my wife I concluded to take her and my
little daughter with me and they would be guilty of the same crime
that I was, so far as running away was concerned; and if the Deacon
sold one he might sell us all, and perhaps to the same person.
So we started off with our child that night, and made our way down to
the Red river swamps among the buzzing insects and wild beasts of the
forest. We wandered about in the wilderness for eight or ten days
before we were apprehended, striving to make our way from slavery; but
it was all in vain. Our food was parched corn, with wild fruit such as
pawpaws, percimmons, grapes, &c. We did at one time chance to find a
sweet potato patch where we got a few potatoes; but most of the time,
while we were out, we were lost. We wanted to cross the Red river but
could find no conveyance to cross in.
I recollect one day of finding a crooked tree which bent over the
river or over one fork of the river, where it was divided by an
island. I should think that the tree was at least twenty feet from
the surface of the water. I picked up my little child, and my wife
followed me, saying, "if we perish let us all perish together in the
stream. " We succeeded in crossing over. I often look back to that
dangerous event even now with astonishment, and wonder how I could
have run such a risk. What would induce me to run the same risk now?
What could induce me now to leave home and friends and go to the wild
forest and lay out on the cold ground night after night without
covering, and live on parched corn?
What would induce me to take my family and go into the Red river
swamps of Louisiana among the snakes and alligators, with all the
liabilities of being destroyed by them, hunted down with blood hounds,
or lay myself liable to be shot down like the wild beasts of the
forest? Nothing I say, nothing but the strongest love of liberty,
humanity, and justice to myself and family, would induce me to run
such a risk again.
When we crossed over on the tree we supposed that we had crossed over
the main body of the river, but we had not proceeded far on our
journey before we found that we were on an Island surrounded by water
on either side. We made our bed that night in a pile of dry leaves
which had fallen from off the trees. We were much rest-broken,
wearied from hunger and travelling through briers, swamps and
cane-brakes--consequently we soon fell asleep after lying down. About
the dead hour of the night I was aroused by the awful howling of a
gang of blood-thirsty wolves, which had found us out and surrounded us
as their prey, there in the dark wilderness many miles from any house
or settlement.
My dear little child was so dreadfully alarmed that she screamed
loudly with fear--my wife trembling like a leaf on a tree, at the
thought of being devoured there in the wilderness by ferocious wolves.
The wolves kept howling, and were near enough for us to see their
glaring eyes, and hear their chattering teeth. I then thought that the
hour of death for us was at hand; that we should not live to see the
light of another day; for there was no way for our escape. My little
family were looking up to me for protection, but I could afford them
none. And while I was offering up my prayers to that God who never
forsakes those in the hour of danger who trust in him, I thought of
Deacon Whitfield; I thought of his profession, and doubted his piety.
I thought of his hand-cuffs, of his whips, of his chains, of his
stocks, of his thumb-screws, of his slave driver and overseer, and of
his religion; I also thought of his opposition to prayer meetings, and
of his five hundred lashes promised me for attending a prayer meeting.
I thought of God, I thought of the devil, I thought of hell; and I
thought of heaven, and wondered whether I should ever see the Deacon
there. And I calculated that if heaven was made up of such Deacons, or
such persons, it could not be filled with love to all mankind, and
with glory and eternal happiness, as we know it is from the truth of
the Bible.
The reader may perhaps think me tedious on this topic, but indeed it
is one of so much interest to me, that I find myself entirely unable
to describe what my own feelings were at that time. I was so much
excited by the fierce howling of the savage wolves, and the frightful
screams of my little family, that I thought of the future; I thought
of the past; I thought the time of my departure had come at last.
My impression is, that all these thoughts and thousands of others,
flashed through my mind, while I was surrounded by those wolves. But
it seemed to be the will of a merciful providence, that our lives
should be spared, and that we should not be destroyed by them.
I had no weapon of defence but a long bowie knife which I had slipped
from the Deacon. It was a very splendid blade, about two feet in
length, and about two inches in width. This used to be a part of his
armor of defence while walking about the plantation among his slaves.
The plan which I took to expel the wolves was a very dangerous one,
but it proved effectual. While they were advancing to me, prancing and
accumulating in number, apparently of all sizes and grades, who had
come to the feast, I thought just at this time, that there was no
alternative left but for me to make a charge with my bowie knife. I
well knew from the action of the wolves, that if I made no farther
resistance, they would soon destroy us, and if I made a break at them,
the matter could be no worse. I thought if I must die, I would die
striving to protect my little family from destruction, die striving
to escape from slavery. My wife took a club in one hand, and her child
in the other, while I rushed forth with my bowie knife in hand, to
fight off the savage wolves. I made one desperate charge at them, and
at the same time making a loud yell at the top of my voice, that
caused them to retreat and scatter, which was equivalent to a victory
on our part. Our prayers were answered, and our lives spared through
the night. We slept no more that night, and the next morning there
were no wolves to be seen or heard, and we resolved not to stay on
that island another night.
We travelled up and down the river side trying to find a place where
we could cross. Finally we found a lot of drift wood clogged together,
extending across the stream at a narrow place in the river, upon which
we crossed over. But we had not yet surmounted our greatest
difficulty. We had to meet one which was far more formidable than the
first. Not many days after I had to face the Deacon.
We had been wandering about through the cane brakes, bushes, and
briers, for several days, when we heard the yelping of blood hounds, a
great way off, but they seemed to come nearer and nearer to us. We
thought after awhile that they must be on our track; we listened
attentively at the approach. We knew it was no use for us to undertake
to escape from them, and as they drew nigh, we heard the voice of a
man hissing on the dogs.
After awhile we saw the hounds coming in full speed on our track, and
the soul drivers close after them on horse back, yelling like tigers,
as they came in sight. The shrill yelling of the savage blood hounds
as they drew nigh made the woods echo.
The first impulse was to run to escape the approaching danger of
ferocious dogs, and blood thirsty slave hunters, who were so rapidly
approaching me with loaded muskets and bowie knives, with a
determination to kill or capture me and my family. I started to run
with my little daughter in my arms, but stumbled and fell down and
scratched the arm of little Frances with a brier, so that it bled very
much; but the dear child never cried, for she seemed to know the
danger to which we were exposed.
But we soon found that it was no use for us to run. The dogs were
soon at our heels, and we were compelled to stop, or be torn to pieces
by them. By this time, the soul drivers came charging up on their
horses, commanding us to stand still or they would shoot us down.
Of course I surrendered up for the sake of my family. The most abusive
terms to be found in the English language were poured forth on us with
bitter oaths. They tied my hands behind me, and drove us home before
them, to suffer the penalty of a slaveholder's broken law.
As we drew nigh the plantation my heart grew faint. I was aware that
we should have to suffer almost death for running off. I was filled
with dreadful apprehensions at the thought of meeting a professed
follower of Christ, whom I knew to be a hypocrite! No tongue, no pen
can ever describe what my feelings were at that time.
CHAPTER XII.
_My sad condition before Whitfield. --My terrible
punishment. --Incidents of a former attempt to escape--Jack at a farm
house. --Six pigs and a turkey. --Our surprise and arrest. _
The reader may perhaps imagine what must have been my feelings when I
found myself surrounded on the island with my little family, at
midnight, by a gang of savage wolves. This was one of those trying
emergencies in my life when there was apparently but one step between
us and the grave. But I had no cords wrapped about my limbs to prevent
my struggling against the impending danger to which I was then
exposed. I was not denied the consolation of resisting in self
defence, as was now the case. There was no Deacon standing before me,
with a loaded rifle, swearing that I should submit to the torturing
lash, or be shot down like a dumb beast.
I felt that my chance was by far better among the howling wolves in
the Red river swamp, than before Deacon Whitfield, on the cotton
plantation. I was brought before him as a criminal before a bar,
without counsel, to be tried and condemned by a tyrant's law. My arms
were bound with a cord, my spirit broken, and my little family
standing by weeping. I was not allowed to plead my own cause, and
there was no one to utter a word in my behalf.
He ordered that the field hands should be called together to witness
my punishment, that it might serve as a caution to them never to
attend a prayer meeting, or runaway as I had, lest they should receive
the same punishment.
At the sound of the overseer's horn, all the slaves came forward and
witnessed my punishment. My clothing was stripped off and I was
compelled to lie down on the ground with my face to the earth. Four
stakes were driven in the ground, to which my hands and feet were
tied. Then the overseer stood over me with the lash and laid it on
according to the Deacon's order. Fifty lashes were laid on before
stopping. I was then lectured with reference to my going to prayer
meeting without his orders, and running away to escape flogging.
While I suffered under this dreadful torture, I prayed, and wept, and
implored mercy at the hand of slavery, but found none. After I was
marked from my neck to my heels, the Deacon took the gory lash, and
said he thought there was a spot on my back yet where he could put in
a few more. He wanted to give me something to remember him by, he
said.
After I was flogged almost to death in this way, a paddle was brought
forward and eight or ten blows given me with it, which was by far
worse than the lash. My wounds were then washed with salt brine, after
which I was let up. A description of such paddles I have already given
in another page. I was so badly punished that I was not able to work
for several days. After being flogged as described, they took me off
several miles to a shop and had a heavy iron collar riveted on my neck
with prongs extending above my head, on the end of which there was a
small bell. I was not able to reach the bell with my hand. This heavy
load of iron I was compelled to wear for six weeks. I never was
allowed to lie in the same house with my family again while I was the
slave of Whitfield. I either had to sleep with my feet in the stocks,
or be chained with a large log chain to a log over night, with no bed
or bedding to rest my wearied limbs on, after toiling all day in the
cotton field. I suffered almost death while kept in this confinement;
and he had ordered the overseer never to let me loose again; saying
that I thought of getting free by running off, but no negro should
ever get away from him alive.
I have omitted to state that this was the second time I had run away
from him; while I was gone the first time, he extorted from my wife
the fact that I had been in the habit of running away, before we left
Kentucky; that I had been to Canada, and that I was trying to learn
the art of reading and writing. All this was against me.
It is true that I was striving to learn myself to write. I was a kind
of a house servant and was frequently sent off on errands, but never
without a written pass; and on Sundays I have sometimes got permission
to visit our neighbor's slaves, and I have often tried to write myself
a pass.
Whenever I got hold of an old letter that had been thrown away, or a
piece of white paper, I would save it to write on. I have often gone
off in the woods and spent the greater part of the day alone, trying
to learn to write myself a pass, by writing on the backs of old
letters; copying after the pass that had been written by Whitfield; by
so doing I got the use of the pen and could form letters as well as I
can now, but knew not what they were.
The Deacon had an old slave by the name of Jack whom he bought about
the time that he bought me. Jack was born in the State of Virginia. He
had some idea of freedom; had often run away, but was very ignorant;
knew not where to go for refuge; but understood all about providing
something to eat when unjustly deprived of it.
So for ill treatment, we concluded to take a tramp together. I was to
be the pilot, while Jack was to carry the baggage and keep us in
provisions. Before we started, I managed to get hold of a suit of
clothes the Deacon possessed, with his gun, ammunition and bowie
knife. We also procured a blanket, a joint of meat, and some bread.
We started in a northern direction, being bound for the city of Little
Rock, State of Arkansas. We travelled by night and laid by in the day,
being guided by the unchangeable North Star; but at length, our
provisions gave out, and it was Jack's place to get more. We came in
sight of a large plantation one morning, where we saw people of color,
and Jack said he could get something there, among the slaves, that
night, for us to eat. So we concealed ourselves, in sight of this
plantation, until about bed time, when we saw the lights extinguished.
During the day we saw a female slave passing from the dwelling house
to the kitchen as if she was the cook; the house being about three
rods from the landlord's dwelling. After we supposed the whites were
all asleep, Jack slipped up softly to the kitchen to try his luck with
the cook, to see if he could get any thing from her to eat.
I would remark that the domestic slaves are often found to be traitors
to their own people, for the purpose of gaining favor with their
masters; and they are encouraged and trained up by them to report
every plot they know of being formed about stealing any thing, or
running away, or any thing of the kind; and for which they are paid.
This is one of the principal causes of the slaves being divided among
themselves, and without which they could not be held in bondage one
year, and perhaps not half that time.
I now proceed to describe the unsuccessful attempt of poor Jack to
obtain something from the female slave to satisfy hunger. The
planter's house was situated on an elevated spot on the side of a
hill. The fencing about the house and garden was very crookedly laid
up with rails. The night was rather dark and rainy, and Jack left me
with the understanding that I was to stay at a certain place until he
returned. I cautioned him before he left me to be very careful--and
after he started, I left the place where he was to find me when he
returned, for fear something might happen which might lead to my
detection, should I remain at that spot. So I left it and went off
where I could see the house, and that place too.
Jack had not long been gone, before I heard a great noise; a man,
crying out with a loud voice, "Catch him! Catch him! " and hissing the
dogs on, and they were close after Jack. The next thing I saw, was
Jack running for life, and an old white man after him, with a gun, and
his dogs. The fence being on sidling ground, and wet with the rain,
when Jack run against it he knocked down several panels of it and
fell, tumbling over and over to the foot of the hill; but soon
recovered and ran to where he had left me; but I was gone. The dogs
were still after him.
There happened to be quite a thicket of small oak shrubs and bushes in
the direction he ran. I think he might have been heard running and
straddling bushes a quarter of a mile! The poor fellow hurt himself
considerably in straddling over bushes in that way, in making his
escape.
Finally the dogs relaxed their chase and poor Jack and myself again
met in the thick forest. He said when he rapped on the cook-house
door, the colored woman came to the door. He asked her if she would
let him have a bite of bread if she had it, that he was a poor hungry
absconding slave. But she made no reply to what he said but
immediately sounded the alarm by calling loudly after her master,
saying, "here is a runaway negro! " Jack said that he was going to
knock her down but her master was out within one moment, and he had to
run for his life.
As soon as we got our eyes fixed on the North Star again, we started
on our way. We travelled on a few miles and came to another large
plantation, where Jack was determined to get something to eat. He
left me at a certain place while he went up to the house to find
something if possible.
He was gone some time before he returned, but when I saw him coming,
he appeared to be very heavy loaded with a bag of something. We walked
off pretty fast until we got some distance in the woods. Jack then
stopped and opened his bag in which he had six small pigs. I asked him
how he got them without making any noise; and he said that he found a
bed of hogs, in which there were the pigs with their mother. While the
pigs were sucking he crawled up to them without being discovered by
the sow, and took them by their necks one after another, and choked
them to death, and slipped them into his bag!
We intended to travel on all that night and lay by the next day in the
forest and cook up our pigs. We fell into a large road leading on the
direction which we were travelling, and had not proceeded over three
miles before I found a white hat lying in the road before me. Jack
being a little behind me I stopped until he camp up, and showed it to
him. He picked it up. We looked a few steps farther and saw a man
lying by the way, either asleep or intoxicated, as we supposed.
I told Jack not to take the hat, but he would not obey me. He had only
a piece of a hat himself, which he left in exchange for the other. We
travelled on about five miles farther, and in passing a house
discovered a large turkey sitting on the fence, which temptation was
greater than Jack could resist. Notwithstanding he had six very nice
fat little pigs on his back, he stepped up and took the turkey off the
fence.
By this time it was getting near day-light and we left the road and
went off a mile or so among the hills of the forest, where we struck
camp for the day. We then picked our turkey, dressed our pigs, and
cooked two of them. We got the hair off by singeing them over the
fire, and after we had eaten all we wanted, one of us slept while the
other watched. We had flint, punk, and powder to strike fire with. A
little after dark the next night, we started on our way.
Buy about ten o'clock that night just as we were passing through a
thick skirt of woods, five men sprang out before us with fire-arms,
swearing if we moved another step, they would shoot us down; and each
man having a gun drawn up for shooting we had no chance to make any
defence, and surrendered sooner than run the risk of being killed.
They had been lying in wait for us there, for several hours. They had
seen a reward out, for notices were put up in the most public places,
that fifty dollars would be paid for me, dead or alive, if I should
not return home within so many days. And the reader will remember that
neither Jack nor myself was able to read the advertisement. It was of
very little consequence with the slave catchers, whether they killed
us or took us alive, for the reward was the same to them.
After we were taken and tied, one of the men declared to me that he
would have shot me dead just as sure as he lived, if I had moved one
step after they commanded us to stop. He had his gun levelled at my
breast, already cocked, and his finger on the trigger. The way they
came to find us out was from the circumstance of Jack's taking the
man's hat in connection with the advertisement. The man whose hat was
taken was drunk; and the next morning when he came to look for his hat
it was gone and Jack's old hat lying in the place of it; and in
looking round he saw the tracks of two persons in the dust, who had
passed during the night, and one of them having but three toes on one
foot. He followed these tracks until they came to a large mud pond in
a lane on one side of which a person might pass dry shod; but the man
with three toes on one foot had plunged through the mud. This led the
man to think there must be runaway slaves, and from out of that
neighborhood; for all persons in that settlement knew which side of
that mud hole to go. He then got others to go with him, and they
followed us until our track left the road. They supposed that we had
gone off in the woods to lay by until night, after which we should
pursue our course.
After we were captured they took us off several miles to where one of
them lived, and kept us over night. One of our pigs was cooked for us
to eat that night; and the turkey the next morning. But we were both
tied that night with our hands behind us, and our feet were also tied.
The doors were locked, and a bedstead was set against the front door,
and two men slept in it to prevent our getting out in the night. They
said that they knew how to catch runaway negroes, and how to keep them
after they were caught.
They remarked that after they found we had stopped to lay by until
night, and they saw from our tracks what direction we were travelling,
they went about ten miles on that direction, and hid by the road side
until we came up that night. That night after all had got fast to
sleep, I thought I would try to get out, and I should have succeeded,
if I could have moved the bed from the door. I managed to untie myself
and crawled under the bed which was placed at the door, and strove to
remove it, but in so doing I awakened the men and they got up and
confined me again, and watched me until day light, each with a gun in
hand.
The next morning they started with us back to Deacon Whitfield's
plantation; but when they got within ten miles of where he lived they
stopped at a public house to stay over night; and who should we meet
there but the Deacon, who was then out looking for me.
The reader may well imagine how I felt to meet him. I had almost as
soon come in contact with Satan himself. He had two long poles or
sticks of wood brought in to confine us to. I was compelled to lie on
my back across one of those sticks with my arms out, and have them
lashed fast to the log with a cord. My feet were also tied to the
other, and there I had to lie all that night with my back across this
stick of wood, and my feet and hands tied. I suffered that night under
the most excruciating pain. From the tight binding of the cord the
circulation of the blood in my arms and feet was almost entirely
stopped. If the night had been much longer I must have died in that
confinement.
The next morning we were taken back to the Deacon's farm, and both
flogged for going off, and set to work. But there was some allowance
made for me on account of my being young. They said that they knew old
Jack had persuaded me off, or I never would have gone. And the
Deacon's wife begged that I might be favored some, for that time, as
Jack had influenced me, so as to bring up my old habits of running
away that I had entirely given up.
CHAPTER XIII.
_I am sold to gamblers. --They try to purchase my family. --Our parting
scene. --My good usage. --I am sold to an Indian. --His confidence in my
integrity manifested. _
The reader will remember that this brings me back to the time the
Deacon had ordered me to be kept in confinement until he got a chance
to sell me, and that no negro should ever get away from him and live.
Some days after this we were all out at the gin house ginning cotton,
which was situated on the road side, and there came along a company of
men, fifteen or twenty in number, who were Southern sportsmen. Their
attention was attracted by the load of iron which was fastened about
my neck with a bell attached. They stopped and asked the Deacon what
that bell was put on my neck for? and he said it was to keep me from
running away, &c.
They remarked that I looked as if I might be a smart negro, and asked
if he wanted to sell me. The reply was, yes. They then got off their
horses and struck a bargain with him for me. They bought me at a
reduced price for speculation.
After they had purchased me, I asked the privilege of going to the
house to take leave of my family before I left, which was granted by
the sportsmen. But the Deacon said I should never again step my foot
inside of his yard; and advised the sportsmen not to take the irons
from my neck until they had sold me; that if they gave me the least
chance I would run away from them, as I did from him. So I was
compelled to mount a horse and go off with them as I supposed, never
again to meet my family in this life.
We had not proceeded far before they informed me that they had bought
me to sell again, and if they kept the irons on me it would be
detrimental to the sale, and that they would therefore take off the
irons and dress me up like a man, and throw away the old rubbish which
I then had on; and they would sell me to some one who would treat me
better than Deacon Whitfield. After they had cut off the irons and
dressed me up, they crossed over Red River into Texas, where they
spent some time horse racing and gambling; and although they were
wicked black legs of the basest character, it is but due to them to
say, that they used me far better than ever the Deacon did. They gave
me plenty to eat and put nothing hard on me to do. They expressed much
sympathy for me in my bereavement; and almost every day they gave me
money more or less, and by my activity in waiting on them, and upright
conduct, I got into the good graces of them all, but they could not
get any person to buy me on account of the amount of intelligence
which they supposed me to have; for many of them thought that I could
read and write. When they left Texas, they intended to go to the
Indian Territory west of the Mississippi, to attend a great horse race
which was to take place. Not being much out of their way to go past
Deacon Whitfield's again, I prevailed on them to call on him for the
purpose of trying to purchase my wife and child; and I promised them
that if they would buy my wife and child, I would get some person to
purchase us from them. So they tried to grant my request by calling on
the Deacon, and trying to make the purchase. As we approached the
Deacon's plantation, my heart was filled with a thousand painful and
fearful apprehensions. I had the fullest confidence in the blacklegs
with whom I travelled, believing that they would do according to
promise, and go to the fullest extent of their ability to restore
peace and consolation to a bereaved family--to re-unite husband and
wife, parent and child, who had long been severed by slavery through
the agency of Deacon Whitfield. But I knew his determination in
relation to myself, and I feared his wicked opposition to a
restoration of myself and little family, which he had divided, and
soon found that my fears were not without foundation.
When we rode up and walked into his yard, the Deacon came out and
spoke to all but myself; and not finding me in tattered rags as a
substitute for clothes, nor having an iron collar or bell about my
neck, as was the case when he sold me, he appeared to be much
displeased.
"What did you bring that negro back here for? " said he.
"We have come to try to buy his wife and child; for we can find no one
who is willing to buy him alone; and we will either buy or sell so
that the family may be together," said they.
While this conversation was going on, my poor bereaved wife, who
never expected to see me again in this life, spied me and came rushing
to me through the crowd, throwing her arms about my neck exclaiming in
the most sympathetic tones, "Oh! my dear husband! I never expected to
see you again! " The poor woman was bathed with tears of sorrow and
grief. But no sooner had she reached me, than the Deacon peremptorily
commanded her to go to her work. This she did not obey, but prayed
that her master would not separate us again, as she was there alone,
far from friends and relations whom she should never meet again. And
now to take away her husband, her last and only true friend, would be
like taking her life!
But such appeals made no impression on the unfeeling Deacon's heart.
While he was storming with abusive language, and even using the gory
lash with hellish vengeance to separate husband and wife, I could see
the sympathetic teardrop, stealing its way down the cheek of the
profligate and black-leg, whose object it now was to bind up the
broken heart of a wife, and restore to the arms of a bereaved husband,
his companion.
They were disgusted at the conduct of Whitfield and cried out shame,
even in his presence. They told him that they would give a thousand
dollars for my wife and child, or any thing in reason. But no! he
would sooner see me to the devil than indulge or gratify me after my
having run away from him; and if they did not remove me from his
presence very soon, he said he should make them suffer for it.
But all this, and even the gory lash had yet failed to break the grasp
of poor Malinda, whose prospect of connubial, social, and future
happiness was all at stake. When the dear woman saw there was no help
for us, and that we should soon be separated forever, in the name of
Deacon Whitfield, and American slavery to meet no more as husband and
wife, parent and child--the last and loudest appeal was made on our
knees. We appealed to the God of justice and to the sacred ties of
humanity; but this was all in vain. The louder we prayed the harder he
whipped, amid the most heart-rending shrieks from the poor slave
mother and child, as little Frances stood by, sobbing at the abuse
inflicted on her mother.
"Oh! how shall I give my husband the parting hand never to meet
again? This will surely break my heart," were her parting words.
I can never describe to the reader the awful reality of that
separation--for it was enough to chill the blood and stir up the
deepest feelings of revenge in the hearts of slaveholding black-legs,
who as they stood by, were threatening, some weeping, some swearing
and others declaring vengeance against such treatment being inflicted
on a human being. As we left the plantation, as far as we could see
and hear, the Deacon was still laying on the gory lash, trying to
prevent poor Malinda from weeping over the loss of her departed
husband, who was then, by the hellish laws of slavery, to her,
theoretically and practically dead. One of the black-legs exclaimed
that hell was full of just such Deacon's as Whitfield. This occurred
in December, 1840. I have never seen Malinda, since that period. I
never expect to see her again.
The sportsmen to whom I was sold, showed their sympathy for me not
only by word but by deeds. They said that they had made the most
liberal offer to Whitfield, to buy or sell for the sole purpose of
reuniting husband and wife. But he stood out against it--they felt
sorry for me.
represented to be a very pious soul, being a deacon of a Baptist
church. As the regulations, as well as public opinion generally, were
against slaves meeting for religious worship, I thought it would give
me a better opportunity to attend to my religious duties should I fall
into the hands of this deacon.
So I called on him and tried to show to the best advantage, for the
purpose of inducing him to buy me and my family. When I approached
him, I felt much pleased at his external appearance--I addressed him
in the following words as well as I can remember:
"Sir, I understand you are desirous of purchasing slaves? "
With a very pleasant smile, he replied, "Yes, I do want to buy some,
are you for sale? "
"Yes sir, with my wife and one child. "
Garrison had given me a note to show wherever I went, that I was for
sale, speaking of my wife and child, giving us a very good character
of course--and I handed him the note.
After reading it over he remarked, "I have a few questions to ask you,
and if you will tell me the truth like a good boy, perhaps I may buy
you with your family. In the first place, my boy, you are a little too
near white. I want you to tell me now whether you can read or write? "
My reply was in the negative.
"Now I want you to tell me whether you have run away? Don't tell me no
stories now, like a good fellow, and perhaps I may buy you. "
But as I was not under oath to tell him the whole truth, I only gave
him a part of it, by telling him that I had run away once.
He appeared to be pleased at that, but cautioned me to tell him the
truth, and asked me how long I stayed away, when I run off?
I told him that I was gone a month.
He assented to this by a bow of his head, and making a long grunt
saying, "That's right, tell me the truth like a good boy. "
The whole truth was that I had been off in the state of Ohio, and
other free states, and even to Canada; besides this I was notorious
for running away, from my boyhood.
I never told him that I had been a runaway longer than one
month--neither did I tell him that I had not run away more than once
in my life; for these questions he never asked me.
I afterwards found him to be one of the basest hypocrites that I ever
saw. He looked like a saint--talked like the best of slave holding
Christians, and acted at home like the devil.
When he saw my wife and child, he concluded to buy us. He paid for me
twelve hundred dollars, and one thousand for my wife and child. He
also bought several other slaves at the same time, and took home with
him. His residence was in the parish of Claiborn, fifty miles up from
the mouth of Red River.
When we arrived there, we found his slaves poor, ragged, stupid, and
half-starved. The food he allowed them per week, was one peck of corn
for each grown person, one pound of pork, and sometimes a quart of
molasses. This was all that they were allowed, and if they got more
they stole it.
He had one of the most cruel overseers to be found in that section of
country. He weighed and measured out to them, their week's allowance
of food every Sabbath morning. The overseer's horn was sounded two
hours before daylight for them in the morning, in order that they
should be ready for work before daylight. They were worked from
daylight until after dark, without stopping but one half hour to eat
or rest, which was at noon. And at the busy season of the year, they
were compelled to work just as hard on the Sabbath, as on any other
day.
CHAPTER X.
_Cruel treatment on Whitfield's farm--Exposure of the children--Mode
of extorting extra labor--Neglect of the sick--Strange medicine
used--Death of our second child. _
My first impressions when I arrived on the Deacon's farm, were that he
was far more like what the people call the devil, than he was like a
deacon. Not many days after my arrival there, I heard the Deacon tell
one of the slave girls, that he had bought her for a wife for his boy
Stephen, which office he compelled her fully to perform against her
will. This he enforced by a threat. At first the poor girl neglected
to do this, having no sort of affection for the man--but she was
finally forced to it by an application of the driver's lash, as
threatened by the Deacon.
The next thing I observed was that he made the slave driver strip his
own wife, and flog her for not doing just as her master had ordered.
He had a white overseer, and a colored man for a driver, whose
business it was to watch and drive the slaves in the field, and do the
flogging according to the orders of the overseer.
Next a mulatto girl who waited about the house, on her mistress,
displeased her, for which the Deacon stripped and tied her up. He then
handed me the lash and ordered me to put it on--but I told him I never
had done the like, and hoped he would not compel me to do it. He then
informed me that I was to be his overseer, and that he had bought me
for that purpose. He was paying a man eight hundred dollars a year to
oversee, and he believed I was competent to do the same business, and
if I would do it up right he would put nothing harder on me to do; and
if I knew not how to flog a slave, he would set me an example by which
I might be governed. He then commenced on this poor girl, and gave her
two hundred lashes before he had her untied.
After giving her fifty lashes, he stopped and lectured her a while,
asking her if she thought that she could obey her mistress, &c. She
promised to do all in her power to please him and her mistress, if he
would have mercy on her. But this plea was all vain. He commenced on
her again; and this flogging was carried on in the most inhuman manner
until she had received two hundred stripes on her naked quivering
flesh, tied up and exposed to the public gaze of all. And this was the
example that I was to copy after.
He then compelled me to wash her back off with strong salt brine,
before she was untied, which was so revolting to my feelings, that I
could not refrain from shedding tears.
For some cause he never called on me again to flog a slave. I presume
he saw that I was not savage enough. The above were about the first
items of the Deacon's conduct which struck me with peculiar disgust.
After having enjoyed the blessings of civil and religious liberty for
a season, to be dragged into that horrible place with my family, to
linger out my existence without the aid of religious societies, or the
light of revelation, was more than I could endure. I really felt as if
I had got into one of the darkest corners of the earth. I thought I
was almost out of humanity's reach, and should never again have the
pleasure of hearing the gospel sound, as I could see no way by which I
could extricate myself; yet I never omitted to pray for deliverance. I
had faith to believe that the Lord could see our wrongs and hear our
cries.
I was not used quite as bad as the regular field hands, as the greater
part of my time was spent working about the house; and my wife was the
cook.
This country was full of pine timber, and every slave had to prepare a
light wood torch, over night, made of pine knots, to meet the overseer
with, before daylight in the morning. Each person had to have his
torch lit, and come with it in his hand to the gin house, before the
overseer and driver, so as to be ready to go to the cotton field by
the time they could see to pick out cotton. These lights looked
beautiful at a distance.
The object of blowing the horn for them two hours before day, was,
that they should get their bite to eat, before they went to the field,
that they need not stop to eat but once during the day. Another object
was, to do up their flogging which had been omitted over night. I have
often heard the sound of the slave driver's lash on the backs, of the
slaves and their heart-rending shrieks, which were enough to melt the
heart of humanity, even among the most barbarous nations of the
earth.
But the Deacon would keep no overseer on his plantation, who neglected
to perform this every morning. I have heard him say that he was no
better pleased than when he could hear the overseer's loud complaining
voice, long before daylight in the morning, and the sound of the
driver's lash among the toiling slaves.
This was a very warm climate, abounding with musquitoes, galinippers
and other insects which were exceedingly annoying to the poor slaves
by night and day, at their quarters and in the field. But more
especially to their helpless little children, which they had to carry
with them to the cotton fields, where they had to set on the damp
ground alone from morning till night, exposed to the scorching rays of
the sun, liable to be bitten by poisonous rattle snakes which are
plenty in that section of the country, or to be devoured by large
alligators, which are often seen creeping through the cotton fields
going from swamp to swamp seeking their prey.
The cotton planters generally, never allow a slave mother time to go
to the house, or quarter during the day to nurse her child; hence they
have to carry them to the cotton fields and tie them in the shade of a
tree, or in clusters of high weeds about in the fields, where they can
go to them at noon, when they are allowed to stop work for one half
hour. This is the reason why so very few slave children are raised on
these cotton plantations, the mothers have no time to take care of
them--and they are often found dead in the field and in the quarter
for want of the care of their mothers. But I never was eye witness to
a case of this kind but have heard many narrated by my slave brothers
and sisters, some of which occurred on the deacon's plantation.
Their plan of getting large quantities of cotton picked is not only to
extort it from them by the lash, but hold out an inducement and
deceive them by giving small prizes. For example; the overseer will
offer something worth one or two dollars to any slave who will pick
out the most cotton in one day, dividing the hands off in three
classes and offering a prize to the one who will pick out the most
cotton in each of the classes. By this means they are all interested
in trying to get the prize.
After making them try it over several times and weighing what cotton
they pick every night, the overseer can tell just how much every hand
can pick. He then gives the present to those that pick the most
cotton, and then if they do not pick just as much afterward they are
flogged.
I have known the slaves to be so much fatigued from labor that they
could scarcely get to their lodging places from the field at night.
And then they would have to prepare something to eat before they could
lie down to rest. Their corn they had to grind on a hand mill for
bread stuff, or pound it in a mortar; and by the time they would get
their suppers it would be midnight; then they would herd down all
together and take but two or three hours rest, before the overseer's
horn called them up again to prepare for the field.
At the time of sickness among slaves they had but very little
attention. The master was to be the judge of their sickness, but never
had studied the medical profession. He always pronounced a slave who
said he was sick, a liar and a hypocrite; said there was nothing the
matter, and he only wanted to keep from work.
His remedy was most generally strong red pepper tea, boiled till it
was red. He would make them drink a pint cup full of it at one dose.
If he should not get better very soon after it, the dose was repeated.
If that should not accomplish the object for which it was given, or
have the desired effect, a pot or kettle was then put over the fire
with a large quantity of chimney soot, which was boiled down until it
was as strong as the juice of tobacco, and the poor sick slave was
compelled to drink a quart of it.
This would operate on the system like salts, or castor oil. But if the
slave should not be very ill, he would rather work as long as he could
stand up, than to take this dreadful medicine.
If it should be a very valuable slave, sometimes a physician was sent
for and something done to save him. But no special aid is afforded the
suffering slave even in the last trying hour, when he is called to
grapple with the grim monster death. He has no Bible, no family altar,
no minister to address to him the consolations of the gospel, before
he launches into the spirit world. As to the burial of slaves, but
very little more care is taken of their dead bodies than if they were
dumb beasts.
My wife was very sick while we were both living with the Deacon. We
expected every day would be her last. While she was sick, we lost our
second child, and I was compelled to dig my own child's grave and bury
it myself without even a box to put it in.
CHAPTER XI.
_I attend a prayer meeting. --Punishment therefor threatened. --I
attempt to escape alone. --My return to take my family. --Our
sufferings. --Dreadful attack of wolves. --Our recapture. _
Some months after Malinda had recovered from her sickness, I got
permission from the Deacon, on one Sabbath day, to attend a prayer
meeting, on a neighboring plantation, with a few old superannuated
slaves, although this was contrary to the custom of the country--for
slaves were not allowed to assemble for religious worship. Being more
numerous than the whites there was fear of rebellion, and the
overpowering of their oppressors in order to obtain freedom.
But this gentleman on whose plantation I attended the meeting was not
a Deacon nor a professor of religion. He was not afraid of a few old
Christian slaves rising up to kill their master because he allowed
them to worship God on the Sabbath day.
We had a very good meeting, although our exercises were not conducted
in accordance with an enlightened Christianity; for we had no
Bible--no intelligent leader--but a conscience, prompted by our own
reason, constrained us to worship God the Creator of all things.
When I returned home from meeting I told the other slaves what a good
time we had at our meeting, and requested them to go with me to
meeting there on the next Sabbath. As no slave was allowed to go from
the plantation on a visit without a written pass from his master, on
the next Sabbath several of us went to the Deacon, to get permission
to attend that prayer meeting; but he refused to let any go. I thought
I would slip off and attend the meeting and get back before he would
miss me, and would not know that I had been to the meeting.
When I returned home from the meeting as I approached the house I saw
Malinda, standing out at the fence looking in the direction in which I
was expected to return. She hailed my approach, not with joy, but with
grief. She was weeping under great distress of mind, but it was hard
for me to extort from her the reason why she wept. She finally
informed me that her master had found out that I had violated his law,
and I should suffer the penalty, which was five hundred lashes, on my
naked back.
I asked her how he knew that I had gone?
She said I had not long been gone before he called for me and I was
not to be found. He then sent the overseer on horseback to the place
where we were to meet to see if I was there. But when the overseer got
to the place, the meeting was over and I had gone back home, but had
gone a nearer route through the woods and the overseer happened not to
meet me. He heard that I had been there and hurried back home before
me and told the Deacon, who ordered him to take me on the next
morning, strip off my clothes, drive down four stakes in the ground
and fasten my limbs to them; then strike me five hundred lashes for
going to the prayer meeting. This was what distressed my poor
companion. She thought it was more than I could bear, and that it
would be the death of me. I concluded then to run away--but she
thought they would catch me with the blood hounds by their taking my
track. But to avoid them I thought I would ride off on one of the
Deacon's mules. She thought if I did, they would sell me.
"No matter, I will try it," said I, "let the consequences be what they
may. The matter can be no worse than it now is. " So I tackled up the
Deacon's best mule with his saddle, &c. , and started that night and
went off eight or ten miles from home. But I found the mule to be
rather troublesome, and was like to betray me by braying, especially
when he would see cattle, horses, or any thing of the kind in the
woods.
The second night from home I camped in a cane break down in the Red
river swamp not a great way off from the road, perhaps not twenty
rods, exposed to wild ferocious beasts which were numerous in that
section of country. On that night about the middle of the night the
mule heard the sound of horses feet on the road, and he commenced
stamping and trying to break away. As the horses seemed to come
nearer, the mule commenced trying to bray, and it was all that I could
do to prevent him from making a loud bray there in the woods, which
would have betrayed me.
I supposed that it was the overseer out with the dogs looking for me,
and I found afterwards that I was not mistaken. As soon as the people
had passed by, I mounted the mule and took him home to prevent his
betraying me. When I got near by home I stripped off the tackling and
turned the mule loose. I then slipt up to the cabin wherein my wife
laid and found her awake, much distressed about me. She informed me
that they were then out looking for me, and that the Deacon was bent
on flogging me nearly to death, and then selling me off from my
family. This was truly heart-rending to my poor wife; the thought of
our being torn apart in a strange land after having been sold away
from all her friends and relations, was more than she could bear.
The Deacon had declared that I should not only suffer for the crime of
attending a prayer meeting without his permission, and for running
away, but for the awful crime of stealing a jackass, which was death
by the law when committed by a negro.
But I well knew that I was regarded as property, and so was the ass;
and I thought if one piece of property took off another, there could
be no law violated in the act; no more sin committed in this than if
one jackass had rode off another.
But after consultation with my wife I concluded to take her and my
little daughter with me and they would be guilty of the same crime
that I was, so far as running away was concerned; and if the Deacon
sold one he might sell us all, and perhaps to the same person.
So we started off with our child that night, and made our way down to
the Red river swamps among the buzzing insects and wild beasts of the
forest. We wandered about in the wilderness for eight or ten days
before we were apprehended, striving to make our way from slavery; but
it was all in vain. Our food was parched corn, with wild fruit such as
pawpaws, percimmons, grapes, &c. We did at one time chance to find a
sweet potato patch where we got a few potatoes; but most of the time,
while we were out, we were lost. We wanted to cross the Red river but
could find no conveyance to cross in.
I recollect one day of finding a crooked tree which bent over the
river or over one fork of the river, where it was divided by an
island. I should think that the tree was at least twenty feet from
the surface of the water. I picked up my little child, and my wife
followed me, saying, "if we perish let us all perish together in the
stream. " We succeeded in crossing over. I often look back to that
dangerous event even now with astonishment, and wonder how I could
have run such a risk. What would induce me to run the same risk now?
What could induce me now to leave home and friends and go to the wild
forest and lay out on the cold ground night after night without
covering, and live on parched corn?
What would induce me to take my family and go into the Red river
swamps of Louisiana among the snakes and alligators, with all the
liabilities of being destroyed by them, hunted down with blood hounds,
or lay myself liable to be shot down like the wild beasts of the
forest? Nothing I say, nothing but the strongest love of liberty,
humanity, and justice to myself and family, would induce me to run
such a risk again.
When we crossed over on the tree we supposed that we had crossed over
the main body of the river, but we had not proceeded far on our
journey before we found that we were on an Island surrounded by water
on either side. We made our bed that night in a pile of dry leaves
which had fallen from off the trees. We were much rest-broken,
wearied from hunger and travelling through briers, swamps and
cane-brakes--consequently we soon fell asleep after lying down. About
the dead hour of the night I was aroused by the awful howling of a
gang of blood-thirsty wolves, which had found us out and surrounded us
as their prey, there in the dark wilderness many miles from any house
or settlement.
My dear little child was so dreadfully alarmed that she screamed
loudly with fear--my wife trembling like a leaf on a tree, at the
thought of being devoured there in the wilderness by ferocious wolves.
The wolves kept howling, and were near enough for us to see their
glaring eyes, and hear their chattering teeth. I then thought that the
hour of death for us was at hand; that we should not live to see the
light of another day; for there was no way for our escape. My little
family were looking up to me for protection, but I could afford them
none. And while I was offering up my prayers to that God who never
forsakes those in the hour of danger who trust in him, I thought of
Deacon Whitfield; I thought of his profession, and doubted his piety.
I thought of his hand-cuffs, of his whips, of his chains, of his
stocks, of his thumb-screws, of his slave driver and overseer, and of
his religion; I also thought of his opposition to prayer meetings, and
of his five hundred lashes promised me for attending a prayer meeting.
I thought of God, I thought of the devil, I thought of hell; and I
thought of heaven, and wondered whether I should ever see the Deacon
there. And I calculated that if heaven was made up of such Deacons, or
such persons, it could not be filled with love to all mankind, and
with glory and eternal happiness, as we know it is from the truth of
the Bible.
The reader may perhaps think me tedious on this topic, but indeed it
is one of so much interest to me, that I find myself entirely unable
to describe what my own feelings were at that time. I was so much
excited by the fierce howling of the savage wolves, and the frightful
screams of my little family, that I thought of the future; I thought
of the past; I thought the time of my departure had come at last.
My impression is, that all these thoughts and thousands of others,
flashed through my mind, while I was surrounded by those wolves. But
it seemed to be the will of a merciful providence, that our lives
should be spared, and that we should not be destroyed by them.
I had no weapon of defence but a long bowie knife which I had slipped
from the Deacon. It was a very splendid blade, about two feet in
length, and about two inches in width. This used to be a part of his
armor of defence while walking about the plantation among his slaves.
The plan which I took to expel the wolves was a very dangerous one,
but it proved effectual. While they were advancing to me, prancing and
accumulating in number, apparently of all sizes and grades, who had
come to the feast, I thought just at this time, that there was no
alternative left but for me to make a charge with my bowie knife. I
well knew from the action of the wolves, that if I made no farther
resistance, they would soon destroy us, and if I made a break at them,
the matter could be no worse. I thought if I must die, I would die
striving to protect my little family from destruction, die striving
to escape from slavery. My wife took a club in one hand, and her child
in the other, while I rushed forth with my bowie knife in hand, to
fight off the savage wolves. I made one desperate charge at them, and
at the same time making a loud yell at the top of my voice, that
caused them to retreat and scatter, which was equivalent to a victory
on our part. Our prayers were answered, and our lives spared through
the night. We slept no more that night, and the next morning there
were no wolves to be seen or heard, and we resolved not to stay on
that island another night.
We travelled up and down the river side trying to find a place where
we could cross. Finally we found a lot of drift wood clogged together,
extending across the stream at a narrow place in the river, upon which
we crossed over. But we had not yet surmounted our greatest
difficulty. We had to meet one which was far more formidable than the
first. Not many days after I had to face the Deacon.
We had been wandering about through the cane brakes, bushes, and
briers, for several days, when we heard the yelping of blood hounds, a
great way off, but they seemed to come nearer and nearer to us. We
thought after awhile that they must be on our track; we listened
attentively at the approach. We knew it was no use for us to undertake
to escape from them, and as they drew nigh, we heard the voice of a
man hissing on the dogs.
After awhile we saw the hounds coming in full speed on our track, and
the soul drivers close after them on horse back, yelling like tigers,
as they came in sight. The shrill yelling of the savage blood hounds
as they drew nigh made the woods echo.
The first impulse was to run to escape the approaching danger of
ferocious dogs, and blood thirsty slave hunters, who were so rapidly
approaching me with loaded muskets and bowie knives, with a
determination to kill or capture me and my family. I started to run
with my little daughter in my arms, but stumbled and fell down and
scratched the arm of little Frances with a brier, so that it bled very
much; but the dear child never cried, for she seemed to know the
danger to which we were exposed.
But we soon found that it was no use for us to run. The dogs were
soon at our heels, and we were compelled to stop, or be torn to pieces
by them. By this time, the soul drivers came charging up on their
horses, commanding us to stand still or they would shoot us down.
Of course I surrendered up for the sake of my family. The most abusive
terms to be found in the English language were poured forth on us with
bitter oaths. They tied my hands behind me, and drove us home before
them, to suffer the penalty of a slaveholder's broken law.
As we drew nigh the plantation my heart grew faint. I was aware that
we should have to suffer almost death for running off. I was filled
with dreadful apprehensions at the thought of meeting a professed
follower of Christ, whom I knew to be a hypocrite! No tongue, no pen
can ever describe what my feelings were at that time.
CHAPTER XII.
_My sad condition before Whitfield. --My terrible
punishment. --Incidents of a former attempt to escape--Jack at a farm
house. --Six pigs and a turkey. --Our surprise and arrest. _
The reader may perhaps imagine what must have been my feelings when I
found myself surrounded on the island with my little family, at
midnight, by a gang of savage wolves. This was one of those trying
emergencies in my life when there was apparently but one step between
us and the grave. But I had no cords wrapped about my limbs to prevent
my struggling against the impending danger to which I was then
exposed. I was not denied the consolation of resisting in self
defence, as was now the case. There was no Deacon standing before me,
with a loaded rifle, swearing that I should submit to the torturing
lash, or be shot down like a dumb beast.
I felt that my chance was by far better among the howling wolves in
the Red river swamp, than before Deacon Whitfield, on the cotton
plantation. I was brought before him as a criminal before a bar,
without counsel, to be tried and condemned by a tyrant's law. My arms
were bound with a cord, my spirit broken, and my little family
standing by weeping. I was not allowed to plead my own cause, and
there was no one to utter a word in my behalf.
He ordered that the field hands should be called together to witness
my punishment, that it might serve as a caution to them never to
attend a prayer meeting, or runaway as I had, lest they should receive
the same punishment.
At the sound of the overseer's horn, all the slaves came forward and
witnessed my punishment. My clothing was stripped off and I was
compelled to lie down on the ground with my face to the earth. Four
stakes were driven in the ground, to which my hands and feet were
tied. Then the overseer stood over me with the lash and laid it on
according to the Deacon's order. Fifty lashes were laid on before
stopping. I was then lectured with reference to my going to prayer
meeting without his orders, and running away to escape flogging.
While I suffered under this dreadful torture, I prayed, and wept, and
implored mercy at the hand of slavery, but found none. After I was
marked from my neck to my heels, the Deacon took the gory lash, and
said he thought there was a spot on my back yet where he could put in
a few more. He wanted to give me something to remember him by, he
said.
After I was flogged almost to death in this way, a paddle was brought
forward and eight or ten blows given me with it, which was by far
worse than the lash. My wounds were then washed with salt brine, after
which I was let up. A description of such paddles I have already given
in another page. I was so badly punished that I was not able to work
for several days. After being flogged as described, they took me off
several miles to a shop and had a heavy iron collar riveted on my neck
with prongs extending above my head, on the end of which there was a
small bell. I was not able to reach the bell with my hand. This heavy
load of iron I was compelled to wear for six weeks. I never was
allowed to lie in the same house with my family again while I was the
slave of Whitfield. I either had to sleep with my feet in the stocks,
or be chained with a large log chain to a log over night, with no bed
or bedding to rest my wearied limbs on, after toiling all day in the
cotton field. I suffered almost death while kept in this confinement;
and he had ordered the overseer never to let me loose again; saying
that I thought of getting free by running off, but no negro should
ever get away from him alive.
I have omitted to state that this was the second time I had run away
from him; while I was gone the first time, he extorted from my wife
the fact that I had been in the habit of running away, before we left
Kentucky; that I had been to Canada, and that I was trying to learn
the art of reading and writing. All this was against me.
It is true that I was striving to learn myself to write. I was a kind
of a house servant and was frequently sent off on errands, but never
without a written pass; and on Sundays I have sometimes got permission
to visit our neighbor's slaves, and I have often tried to write myself
a pass.
Whenever I got hold of an old letter that had been thrown away, or a
piece of white paper, I would save it to write on. I have often gone
off in the woods and spent the greater part of the day alone, trying
to learn to write myself a pass, by writing on the backs of old
letters; copying after the pass that had been written by Whitfield; by
so doing I got the use of the pen and could form letters as well as I
can now, but knew not what they were.
The Deacon had an old slave by the name of Jack whom he bought about
the time that he bought me. Jack was born in the State of Virginia. He
had some idea of freedom; had often run away, but was very ignorant;
knew not where to go for refuge; but understood all about providing
something to eat when unjustly deprived of it.
So for ill treatment, we concluded to take a tramp together. I was to
be the pilot, while Jack was to carry the baggage and keep us in
provisions. Before we started, I managed to get hold of a suit of
clothes the Deacon possessed, with his gun, ammunition and bowie
knife. We also procured a blanket, a joint of meat, and some bread.
We started in a northern direction, being bound for the city of Little
Rock, State of Arkansas. We travelled by night and laid by in the day,
being guided by the unchangeable North Star; but at length, our
provisions gave out, and it was Jack's place to get more. We came in
sight of a large plantation one morning, where we saw people of color,
and Jack said he could get something there, among the slaves, that
night, for us to eat. So we concealed ourselves, in sight of this
plantation, until about bed time, when we saw the lights extinguished.
During the day we saw a female slave passing from the dwelling house
to the kitchen as if she was the cook; the house being about three
rods from the landlord's dwelling. After we supposed the whites were
all asleep, Jack slipped up softly to the kitchen to try his luck with
the cook, to see if he could get any thing from her to eat.
I would remark that the domestic slaves are often found to be traitors
to their own people, for the purpose of gaining favor with their
masters; and they are encouraged and trained up by them to report
every plot they know of being formed about stealing any thing, or
running away, or any thing of the kind; and for which they are paid.
This is one of the principal causes of the slaves being divided among
themselves, and without which they could not be held in bondage one
year, and perhaps not half that time.
I now proceed to describe the unsuccessful attempt of poor Jack to
obtain something from the female slave to satisfy hunger. The
planter's house was situated on an elevated spot on the side of a
hill. The fencing about the house and garden was very crookedly laid
up with rails. The night was rather dark and rainy, and Jack left me
with the understanding that I was to stay at a certain place until he
returned. I cautioned him before he left me to be very careful--and
after he started, I left the place where he was to find me when he
returned, for fear something might happen which might lead to my
detection, should I remain at that spot. So I left it and went off
where I could see the house, and that place too.
Jack had not long been gone, before I heard a great noise; a man,
crying out with a loud voice, "Catch him! Catch him! " and hissing the
dogs on, and they were close after Jack. The next thing I saw, was
Jack running for life, and an old white man after him, with a gun, and
his dogs. The fence being on sidling ground, and wet with the rain,
when Jack run against it he knocked down several panels of it and
fell, tumbling over and over to the foot of the hill; but soon
recovered and ran to where he had left me; but I was gone. The dogs
were still after him.
There happened to be quite a thicket of small oak shrubs and bushes in
the direction he ran. I think he might have been heard running and
straddling bushes a quarter of a mile! The poor fellow hurt himself
considerably in straddling over bushes in that way, in making his
escape.
Finally the dogs relaxed their chase and poor Jack and myself again
met in the thick forest. He said when he rapped on the cook-house
door, the colored woman came to the door. He asked her if she would
let him have a bite of bread if she had it, that he was a poor hungry
absconding slave. But she made no reply to what he said but
immediately sounded the alarm by calling loudly after her master,
saying, "here is a runaway negro! " Jack said that he was going to
knock her down but her master was out within one moment, and he had to
run for his life.
As soon as we got our eyes fixed on the North Star again, we started
on our way. We travelled on a few miles and came to another large
plantation, where Jack was determined to get something to eat. He
left me at a certain place while he went up to the house to find
something if possible.
He was gone some time before he returned, but when I saw him coming,
he appeared to be very heavy loaded with a bag of something. We walked
off pretty fast until we got some distance in the woods. Jack then
stopped and opened his bag in which he had six small pigs. I asked him
how he got them without making any noise; and he said that he found a
bed of hogs, in which there were the pigs with their mother. While the
pigs were sucking he crawled up to them without being discovered by
the sow, and took them by their necks one after another, and choked
them to death, and slipped them into his bag!
We intended to travel on all that night and lay by the next day in the
forest and cook up our pigs. We fell into a large road leading on the
direction which we were travelling, and had not proceeded over three
miles before I found a white hat lying in the road before me. Jack
being a little behind me I stopped until he camp up, and showed it to
him. He picked it up. We looked a few steps farther and saw a man
lying by the way, either asleep or intoxicated, as we supposed.
I told Jack not to take the hat, but he would not obey me. He had only
a piece of a hat himself, which he left in exchange for the other. We
travelled on about five miles farther, and in passing a house
discovered a large turkey sitting on the fence, which temptation was
greater than Jack could resist. Notwithstanding he had six very nice
fat little pigs on his back, he stepped up and took the turkey off the
fence.
By this time it was getting near day-light and we left the road and
went off a mile or so among the hills of the forest, where we struck
camp for the day. We then picked our turkey, dressed our pigs, and
cooked two of them. We got the hair off by singeing them over the
fire, and after we had eaten all we wanted, one of us slept while the
other watched. We had flint, punk, and powder to strike fire with. A
little after dark the next night, we started on our way.
Buy about ten o'clock that night just as we were passing through a
thick skirt of woods, five men sprang out before us with fire-arms,
swearing if we moved another step, they would shoot us down; and each
man having a gun drawn up for shooting we had no chance to make any
defence, and surrendered sooner than run the risk of being killed.
They had been lying in wait for us there, for several hours. They had
seen a reward out, for notices were put up in the most public places,
that fifty dollars would be paid for me, dead or alive, if I should
not return home within so many days. And the reader will remember that
neither Jack nor myself was able to read the advertisement. It was of
very little consequence with the slave catchers, whether they killed
us or took us alive, for the reward was the same to them.
After we were taken and tied, one of the men declared to me that he
would have shot me dead just as sure as he lived, if I had moved one
step after they commanded us to stop. He had his gun levelled at my
breast, already cocked, and his finger on the trigger. The way they
came to find us out was from the circumstance of Jack's taking the
man's hat in connection with the advertisement. The man whose hat was
taken was drunk; and the next morning when he came to look for his hat
it was gone and Jack's old hat lying in the place of it; and in
looking round he saw the tracks of two persons in the dust, who had
passed during the night, and one of them having but three toes on one
foot. He followed these tracks until they came to a large mud pond in
a lane on one side of which a person might pass dry shod; but the man
with three toes on one foot had plunged through the mud. This led the
man to think there must be runaway slaves, and from out of that
neighborhood; for all persons in that settlement knew which side of
that mud hole to go. He then got others to go with him, and they
followed us until our track left the road. They supposed that we had
gone off in the woods to lay by until night, after which we should
pursue our course.
After we were captured they took us off several miles to where one of
them lived, and kept us over night. One of our pigs was cooked for us
to eat that night; and the turkey the next morning. But we were both
tied that night with our hands behind us, and our feet were also tied.
The doors were locked, and a bedstead was set against the front door,
and two men slept in it to prevent our getting out in the night. They
said that they knew how to catch runaway negroes, and how to keep them
after they were caught.
They remarked that after they found we had stopped to lay by until
night, and they saw from our tracks what direction we were travelling,
they went about ten miles on that direction, and hid by the road side
until we came up that night. That night after all had got fast to
sleep, I thought I would try to get out, and I should have succeeded,
if I could have moved the bed from the door. I managed to untie myself
and crawled under the bed which was placed at the door, and strove to
remove it, but in so doing I awakened the men and they got up and
confined me again, and watched me until day light, each with a gun in
hand.
The next morning they started with us back to Deacon Whitfield's
plantation; but when they got within ten miles of where he lived they
stopped at a public house to stay over night; and who should we meet
there but the Deacon, who was then out looking for me.
The reader may well imagine how I felt to meet him. I had almost as
soon come in contact with Satan himself. He had two long poles or
sticks of wood brought in to confine us to. I was compelled to lie on
my back across one of those sticks with my arms out, and have them
lashed fast to the log with a cord. My feet were also tied to the
other, and there I had to lie all that night with my back across this
stick of wood, and my feet and hands tied. I suffered that night under
the most excruciating pain. From the tight binding of the cord the
circulation of the blood in my arms and feet was almost entirely
stopped. If the night had been much longer I must have died in that
confinement.
The next morning we were taken back to the Deacon's farm, and both
flogged for going off, and set to work. But there was some allowance
made for me on account of my being young. They said that they knew old
Jack had persuaded me off, or I never would have gone. And the
Deacon's wife begged that I might be favored some, for that time, as
Jack had influenced me, so as to bring up my old habits of running
away that I had entirely given up.
CHAPTER XIII.
_I am sold to gamblers. --They try to purchase my family. --Our parting
scene. --My good usage. --I am sold to an Indian. --His confidence in my
integrity manifested. _
The reader will remember that this brings me back to the time the
Deacon had ordered me to be kept in confinement until he got a chance
to sell me, and that no negro should ever get away from him and live.
Some days after this we were all out at the gin house ginning cotton,
which was situated on the road side, and there came along a company of
men, fifteen or twenty in number, who were Southern sportsmen. Their
attention was attracted by the load of iron which was fastened about
my neck with a bell attached. They stopped and asked the Deacon what
that bell was put on my neck for? and he said it was to keep me from
running away, &c.
They remarked that I looked as if I might be a smart negro, and asked
if he wanted to sell me. The reply was, yes. They then got off their
horses and struck a bargain with him for me. They bought me at a
reduced price for speculation.
After they had purchased me, I asked the privilege of going to the
house to take leave of my family before I left, which was granted by
the sportsmen. But the Deacon said I should never again step my foot
inside of his yard; and advised the sportsmen not to take the irons
from my neck until they had sold me; that if they gave me the least
chance I would run away from them, as I did from him. So I was
compelled to mount a horse and go off with them as I supposed, never
again to meet my family in this life.
We had not proceeded far before they informed me that they had bought
me to sell again, and if they kept the irons on me it would be
detrimental to the sale, and that they would therefore take off the
irons and dress me up like a man, and throw away the old rubbish which
I then had on; and they would sell me to some one who would treat me
better than Deacon Whitfield. After they had cut off the irons and
dressed me up, they crossed over Red River into Texas, where they
spent some time horse racing and gambling; and although they were
wicked black legs of the basest character, it is but due to them to
say, that they used me far better than ever the Deacon did. They gave
me plenty to eat and put nothing hard on me to do. They expressed much
sympathy for me in my bereavement; and almost every day they gave me
money more or less, and by my activity in waiting on them, and upright
conduct, I got into the good graces of them all, but they could not
get any person to buy me on account of the amount of intelligence
which they supposed me to have; for many of them thought that I could
read and write. When they left Texas, they intended to go to the
Indian Territory west of the Mississippi, to attend a great horse race
which was to take place. Not being much out of their way to go past
Deacon Whitfield's again, I prevailed on them to call on him for the
purpose of trying to purchase my wife and child; and I promised them
that if they would buy my wife and child, I would get some person to
purchase us from them. So they tried to grant my request by calling on
the Deacon, and trying to make the purchase. As we approached the
Deacon's plantation, my heart was filled with a thousand painful and
fearful apprehensions. I had the fullest confidence in the blacklegs
with whom I travelled, believing that they would do according to
promise, and go to the fullest extent of their ability to restore
peace and consolation to a bereaved family--to re-unite husband and
wife, parent and child, who had long been severed by slavery through
the agency of Deacon Whitfield. But I knew his determination in
relation to myself, and I feared his wicked opposition to a
restoration of myself and little family, which he had divided, and
soon found that my fears were not without foundation.
When we rode up and walked into his yard, the Deacon came out and
spoke to all but myself; and not finding me in tattered rags as a
substitute for clothes, nor having an iron collar or bell about my
neck, as was the case when he sold me, he appeared to be much
displeased.
"What did you bring that negro back here for? " said he.
"We have come to try to buy his wife and child; for we can find no one
who is willing to buy him alone; and we will either buy or sell so
that the family may be together," said they.
While this conversation was going on, my poor bereaved wife, who
never expected to see me again in this life, spied me and came rushing
to me through the crowd, throwing her arms about my neck exclaiming in
the most sympathetic tones, "Oh! my dear husband! I never expected to
see you again! " The poor woman was bathed with tears of sorrow and
grief. But no sooner had she reached me, than the Deacon peremptorily
commanded her to go to her work. This she did not obey, but prayed
that her master would not separate us again, as she was there alone,
far from friends and relations whom she should never meet again. And
now to take away her husband, her last and only true friend, would be
like taking her life!
But such appeals made no impression on the unfeeling Deacon's heart.
While he was storming with abusive language, and even using the gory
lash with hellish vengeance to separate husband and wife, I could see
the sympathetic teardrop, stealing its way down the cheek of the
profligate and black-leg, whose object it now was to bind up the
broken heart of a wife, and restore to the arms of a bereaved husband,
his companion.
They were disgusted at the conduct of Whitfield and cried out shame,
even in his presence. They told him that they would give a thousand
dollars for my wife and child, or any thing in reason. But no! he
would sooner see me to the devil than indulge or gratify me after my
having run away from him; and if they did not remove me from his
presence very soon, he said he should make them suffer for it.
But all this, and even the gory lash had yet failed to break the grasp
of poor Malinda, whose prospect of connubial, social, and future
happiness was all at stake. When the dear woman saw there was no help
for us, and that we should soon be separated forever, in the name of
Deacon Whitfield, and American slavery to meet no more as husband and
wife, parent and child--the last and loudest appeal was made on our
knees. We appealed to the God of justice and to the sacred ties of
humanity; but this was all in vain. The louder we prayed the harder he
whipped, amid the most heart-rending shrieks from the poor slave
mother and child, as little Frances stood by, sobbing at the abuse
inflicted on her mother.
"Oh! how shall I give my husband the parting hand never to meet
again? This will surely break my heart," were her parting words.
I can never describe to the reader the awful reality of that
separation--for it was enough to chill the blood and stir up the
deepest feelings of revenge in the hearts of slaveholding black-legs,
who as they stood by, were threatening, some weeping, some swearing
and others declaring vengeance against such treatment being inflicted
on a human being. As we left the plantation, as far as we could see
and hear, the Deacon was still laying on the gory lash, trying to
prevent poor Malinda from weeping over the loss of her departed
husband, who was then, by the hellish laws of slavery, to her,
theoretically and practically dead. One of the black-legs exclaimed
that hell was full of just such Deacon's as Whitfield. This occurred
in December, 1840. I have never seen Malinda, since that period. I
never expect to see her again.
The sportsmen to whom I was sold, showed their sympathy for me not
only by word but by deeds. They said that they had made the most
liberal offer to Whitfield, to buy or sell for the sole purpose of
reuniting husband and wife. But he stood out against it--they felt
sorry for me.
