My Bondage and My Freedom
the perplexing questions which began now to claim my thoughts, and to
exercise the weak powers of my mind, for I was still but a child, and
knew less than children of the same age in the free states. As my
questions concerning these things were only put to children a little
older, and little better informed than myself, I was not rapid in
reaching a solid footing. By some means I learned from these inquiries
that _“God, up in the sky,”_ made every body; and that he made _white_
people to be masters and mistresses, and _black_ people to be slaves.
This did not satisfy me, nor lessen my interest in the subject. I was
told, too, that God was good, and that He knew what was best for me,
and best for everybody. This was less satisfactory than the first
statement; because it came, point blank, against all my notions of
goodness. It was not good to let old master cut the flesh off Esther,
and make her cry so. Besides, how did people know that God made black
people to be slaves? Did they go up in the sky and learn it? or, did He
come down and tell them so? All was dark here. It was some relief to my
hard notions of the goodness of God, that, although he made white men
to be slaveholders, he did not make them to be _bad_ slaveholders, and
that, in due time, he would punish the bad slaveholders; that he would,
when they died, send them to the bad place, where they would be “burnt
up.” Nevertheless, I could not reconcile the relation of slavery with
my crude notions of goodness.
Then, too, I found that there were puzzling exceptions to this theory
of slavery on both sides, and in the middle. I knew of blacks who were
_not_ slaves; I knew of whites who were _not_ slaveholders; and I knew
of persons who were _nearly_ white, who were slaves. _Color_,
therefore, was a very unsatisfactory basis for slavery.
Once, however, engaged in the inquiry, I was not very long in finding
out the true solution of the matter. It was not _color_, but _crime_,
not _God_, but _man_, that afforded the true explanation of the
existence of slavery; nor was I long in finding out another important
truth, viz: what man can make, man can unmake. The appalling darkness
faded away, and I was master of the subject. There were slaves here,
direct from Guinea; and there were many who could say that their
fathers and mothers were stolen from Africa—forced from their homes,
and compelled to serve as slaves. This, to me, was knowledge; but it
was a kind of knowledge which filled me with a burning hatred of
slavery, increased my suffering, and left me without the means of
breaking away from my bondage. Yet it was knowledge quite worth
possessing. I could not have been more than seven or eight years old,
when I began to make this subject my study. It was with me in the woods
and fields; along the shore of the river, and wherever my boyish
wanderings led me; and though I was, at that time, quite ignorant of
the existence of the free states, I distinctly remember being, _even
then_, most strongly impressed with the idea of being a freeman some
day. This cheering assurance was an inborn dream of my human nature a
constant menace to slavery—and one which all the powers of slavery were
unable to silence or extinguish.
Up to the time of the brutal flogging of my Aunt Esther—for she was my
own aunt—and the horrid plight in which I had seen my cousin from
Tuckahoe, who had been so badly beaten by the cruel Mr. Plummer, my
attention had not been called, especially, to the gross features of
slavery. I had, of course, heard of whippings and of savage
_rencontres_ between overseers and slaves, but I had always been out of
the way at the times and places of their occurrence. My plays and
sports, most of the time, took me from the corn and tobacco fields,
where the great body of the hands were at work, and where scenes of
cruelty were enacted and witnessed. But, after the whipping of Aunt
Esther, I saw many cases of the same shocking nature, not only in my
master’s house, but on Col. Lloyd’s plantation. One of the first which
I saw, and which greatly agitated me, was the whipping of a woman
belonging to Col. Lloyd, named Nelly. The offense alleged against
Nelly, was one of the commonest and most indefinite in the whole
catalogue of offenses usually laid to the charge of slaves, viz:
“impudence.” This may mean almost anything, or nothing at all, just
according to the caprice of the master or overseer, at the moment. But,
whatever it is, or is not, if it gets the name of “impudence,” the
party charged with it is sure of a flogging. This offense may be
committed in various ways; in the tone of an answer; in answering at
all; in not answering; in the expression of countenance; in the motion
of the head; in the gait, manner and bearing of the slave. In the case
under consideration, I can easily believe that, according to all
slaveholding standards, here was a genuine instance of impudence. In
Nelly there were all the necessary conditions for committing the
offense. She was a bright mulatto, the recognized wife of a favorite
“hand” on board Col. Lloyd’s sloop, and the mother of five sprightly
children. She was a vigorous and spirited woman, and one of the most
likely, on the plantation, to be guilty of impudence. My attention was
called to the scene, by the noise, curses and screams that proceeded
from it; and, on going a little in that direction, I came upon the
parties engaged in the skirmish. Mr. Siever, the overseer, had hold of
Nelly, when I caught sight of them; he was endeavoring to drag her
toward a tree, which endeavor Nelly was sternly resisting; but to no
purpose, except to retard the progress of the overseer’s plans.
Nelly—as I have said—was the mother of five children; three of them
were present, and though quite small (from seven to ten years old, I
should think) they gallantly came to their mother’s defense, and gave
the overseer an excellent pelting with stones. One of the little
fellows ran up, seized the overseer by the leg and bit him; but the
monster was too busily engaged with Nelly, to pay any attention to the
assaults of the children. There were numerous bloody marks on Mr.
Sevier’s face, when I first saw him, and they increased as the struggle
went on. The imprints of Nelly’s fingers were visible, and I was glad
to see them. Amidst the wild screams of the children—“_Let my mammy
go”—“let my mammy go_”—there escaped, from between the teeth of the
bullet-headed overseer, a few bitter curses, mingled with threats, that
“he would teach the d—d b—h how to give a white man impudence.” There
is no doubt that Nelly felt herself superior, in some respects, to the
slaves around her. She was a wife and a mother; her husband was a
valued and favorite slave. Besides, he was one of the first hands on
board of the sloop, and the sloop hands—since they had to represent the
plantation abroad—were generally treated tenderly. The overseer never
was allowed to whip Harry; why then should he be allowed to whip
Harry’s wife? Thoughts of this kind, no doubt, influenced her; but, for
whatever reason, she nobly resisted, and, unlike most of the slaves,
seemed determined to make her whipping cost Mr. Sevier as much as
possible. The blood on his (and her) face, attested her skill, as well
as her courage and dexterity in using her nails. Maddened by her
resistance, I expected to see Mr. Sevier level her to the ground by a
stunning blow; but no; like a savage bull-dog—which he resembled both
in temper and appearance—he maintained his grip, and steadily dragged
his victim toward the tree, disregarding alike her blows, and the cries
of the children for their mother’s release. He would, doubtless, have
knocked her down with his hickory stick, but that such act might have
cost him his place. It is often deemed advisable to knock a _man_ slave
down, in order to tie him, but it is considered cowardly and
inexcusable, in an overseer, thus to deal with a _woman_. He is
expected to tie her up, and to give her what is called, in southern
parlance, a “genteel flogging,” without any very great outlay of
strength or skill. I watched, with palpitating interest, the course of
the preliminary struggle, and was saddened by every new advantage
gained over her by the ruffian. There were times when she seemed likely
to get the better of the brute, but he finally overpowered her, and
succeeded in getting his rope around her arms, and in firmly tying her
to the tree, at which he had been aiming. This done, and Nelly was at
the mercy of his merciless lash; and now, what followed, I have no
heart to describe. The cowardly creature made good his every threat;
and wielded the lash with all the hot zest of furious revenge. The
cries of the woman, while undergoing the terrible infliction, were
mingled with those of the children, sounds which I hope the reader may
never be called upon to hear. When Nelly was untied, her back was
covered with blood. The red stripes were all over her shoulders. She
was whipped—severely whipped; but she was not subdued, for she
continued to denounce the overseer, and to call him every vile name. He
had bruised her flesh, but had left her invincible spirit undaunted.
Such floggings are seldom repeated by the same overseer. They prefer to
whip those who are most easily whipped. The old doctrine that
submission is the very best cure for outrage and wrong, does not hold
good on the slave plantation. He is whipped oftenest, who is whipped
easiest; and that slave who has the courage to stand up for himself
against the overseer, although he may have many hard stripes at the
first, becomes, in the end, a freeman, even though he sustain the
formal relation of a slave. “You can shoot me but you can’t whip me,”
said a slave to Rigby Hopkins; and the result was that he was neither
whipped nor shot. If the latter had been his fate, it would have been
less deplorable than the living and lingering death to which cowardly
and slavish souls are subjected. I do not know that Mr. Sevier ever
undertook to whip Nelly again. He probably never did, for it was not
long after his attempt to subdue her, that he was taken sick, and died.
The wretched man died as he had lived, unrepentant; and it was
said—with how much truth I know not—that in the very last hours of his
life, his ruling passion showed itself, and that when wrestling with
death, he was uttering horrid oaths, and flourishing the cowskin, as
though he was tearing the flesh off some helpless slave. One thing is
certain, that when he was in health, it was enough to chill the blood,
and to stiffen the hair of an ordinary man, to hear Mr. Sevier talk.
Nature, or his cruel habits, had given to his face an expression of
unusual savageness, even for a slave-driver. Tobacco and rage had worn
his teeth short, and nearly every sentence that escaped their
compressed grating, was commenced or concluded with some outburst of
profanity. His presence made the field alike the field of blood, and of
blasphemy. Hated for his cruelty, despised for his cowardice, his death
was deplored by no one outside his own house—if indeed it was deplored
there; it was regarded by the slaves as a merciful interposition of
Providence. Never went there a man to the grave loaded with heavier
curses. Mr. Sevier’s place was promptly taken by a Mr. Hopkins, and the
change was quite a relief, he being a very different man. He was, in
all respects, a better man than his predecessor; as good as any man can
be, and yet be an overseer. His course was characterized by no
extraordinary cruelty; and when he whipped a slave, as he sometimes
did, he seemed to take no especial pleasure in it, but, on the
contrary, acted as though he felt it to be a mean business. Mr. Hopkins
stayed but a short time; his place much to the regret of the slaves