My Bondage and My Freedom
and such an ending—read when the fact of my being a slave was a
constant burden of grief—powerfully affected me; and I could not help
feeling that the day might come, when the well-directed answers made by
the slave to the master, in this instance, would find their counterpart
in myself.
This, however, was not all the fanaticism which I found in this
_Columbian Orator_. I met there one of Sheridan’s mighty speeches, on
the subject of Catholic Emancipation, Lord Chatham’s speech on the
American war, and speeches by the great William Pitt and by Fox. These
were all choice documents to me, and I read them, over and over again,
with an interest that was ever increasing, because it was ever gaining
in intelligence; for the more I read them, the better I understood
them. The reading of these speeches added much to my limited stock of
language, and enabled me to give tongue to many interesting thoughts,
which had frequently flashed through my soul, and died away for want of
utterance. The mighty power and heart-searching directness of truth,
penetrating even the heart of a slaveholder, compelling him to yield up
his earthly interests to the claims of eternal justice, were finely
illustrated in the dialogue, just referred to; and from the speeches of
Sheridan, I got a bold and powerful denunciation of oppression, and a
most brilliant vindication of the rights of man. Here was, indeed, a
noble acquisition. If I ever wavered under the consideration, that the
Almighty, in some way, ordained slavery, and willed my enslavement for
his own glory, I wavered no longer. I had now penetrated the secret of
all slavery and oppression, and had ascertained their true foundation
to be in the pride, the power and the avarice of man. The dialogue and
the speeches were all redolent of the principles of liberty, and poured
floods of light on the nature and character of slavery. With a book of
this kind in my hand, my own human nature, and the facts of my
experience, to help me, I was equal to a contest with the religious
advocates of slavery, whether among the whites or among the colored
people, for blindness, in this matter, is not confined to the former. I
have met many religious colored people, at the south, who are under the
delusion that God requires them to submit to slavery, and to wear their
chains with meekness and humility. I could entertain no such nonsense
as this; and I almost lost my patience when I found any colored man
weak enough to believe such stuff. Nevertheless, the increase of
knowledge was attended with bitter, as well as sweet results. The more
I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest slavery, and my
enslavers. “Slaveholders,” thought I, “are only a band of successful
robbers, who left their homes and went into Africa for the purpose of
stealing and reducing my people to slavery.” I loathed them as the
meanest and the most wicked of men. As I read, behold! the very
discontent so graphically predicted by Master Hugh, had already come
upon me. I was no longer the light-hearted, gleesome boy, full of mirth
and play, as when I landed first at Baltimore. Knowledge had come;
light had penetrated the moral dungeon where I dwelt; and, behold!
there lay the bloody whip, for my back, and here was the iron chain;
and my good, _kind master_, he was the author of my situation. The
revelation haunted me, stung me, and made me gloomy and miserable. As I
writhed under the sting and torment of this knowledge, I almost envied
my fellow slaves their stupid contentment. This knowledge opened my
eyes to the horrible pit, and revealed the teeth of the frightful
dragon that was ready to pounce upon me, but it opened no way for my
escape. I have often wished myself a beast, or a bird—anything, rather
than a slave. I was wretched and gloomy, beyond my ability to describe.
I was too thoughtful to be happy. It was this everlasting thinking
which distressed and tormented me; and yet there was no getting rid of
the subject of my thoughts. All nature was redolent of it. Once
awakened by the silver trump of knowledge, my spirit was roused to
eternal wakefulness. Liberty! the inestimable birthright of every man,
had, for me, converted every object into an asserter of this great
right. It was heard in every sound, and beheld in every object. It was
ever present, to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition. The
more beautiful and charming were the smiles of nature, the more
horrible and desolate was my condition. I saw nothing without seeing
it, and I heard nothing without hearing it. I do not exaggerate, when I
say, that it looked from every star, smiled in every calm, breathed in
every wind, and moved in every storm.
I have no doubt that my state of mind had something to do with the
change in the treatment adopted, by my once kind mistress toward me. I
can easily believe, that my leaden, downcast, and discontented look,
was very offensive to her. Poor lady! She did not know my trouble, and
I dared not tell her. Could I have freely made her acquainted with the
real state of my mind, and given her the reasons therefor, it might
have been well for both of us. Her abuse of me fell upon me like the
blows of the false prophet upon his ass; she did not know that an
_angel_ stood in the way; and—such is the relation of master and slave
I could not tell her. Nature had made us _friends;_ slavery made us
_enemies_. My interests were in a direction opposite to hers, and we
both had our private thoughts and plans. She aimed to keep me ignorant;
and I resolved to know, although knowledge only increased my
discontent. My feelings were not the result of any marked cruelty in
the treatment I received; they sprung from the consideration of my
being a slave at all. It was _slavery_—not its mere _incidents_—that I
hated. I had been cheated. I saw through the attempt to keep me in
ignorance; I saw that slaveholders would have gladly made me believe
that they were merely acting under the authority of God, in making a
slave of me, and in making slaves of others; and I treated them as
robbers and deceivers. The feeding and clothing me well, could not
atone for taking my liberty from me. The smiles of my mistress could
not remove the deep sorrow that dwelt in my young bosom. Indeed, these,
in time, came only to deepen my sorrow. She had changed; and the reader
will see that I had changed, too. We were both victims to the same
overshadowing evil—_she_, as mistress, I, as slave. I will not censure
her harshly; she cannot censure me, for she knows I speak but the
truth, and have acted in my opposition to slavery, just as she herself
would have acted, in a reverse of circumstances.
CHAPTER XII. _Religious Nature Awakened_
ABOLITIONISTS SPOKEN OF—MY EAGERNESS TO KNOW WHAT THIS WORD MEANT—MY
CONSULTATION OF THE DICTIONARY—INCENDIARY INFORMATION—HOW AND WHERE
DERIVED—THE ENIGMA SOLVED—NATHANIEL TURNER’S INSURRECTION—THE
CHOLERA—RELIGION—FIRST AWAKENED BY A METHODIST MINISTER NAMED HANSON—MY
DEAR AND GOOD OLD COLORED FRIEND, LAWSON—HIS CHARACTER AND
OCCUPATION—HIS INFLUENCE OVER ME—OUR MUTUAL ATTACHMENT—THE COMFORT I
DERIVED FROM HIS TEACHING—NEW HOPES AND ASPIRATIONS—HEAVENLY LIGHT
AMIDST EARTHLY DARKNESS—THE TWO IRISHMEN ON THE WHARF—THEIR
CONVERSATION—HOW I LEARNED TO WRITE—WHAT WERE MY AIMS.
Whilst in the painful state of mind described in the foregoing chapter,
almost regretting my very existence, because doomed to a life of
bondage, so goaded and so wretched, at times, that I was even tempted
to destroy my own life, I was keenly sensitive and eager to know any,
and every thing that transpired, having any relation to the subject of
slavery. I was all ears, all eyes, whenever the words _slave, slavery_,
dropped from the lips of any white person, and the occasions were not
unfrequent when these words became leading ones, in high, social
debate, at our house. Every little while, I could hear Master Hugh, or
some of his company, speaking with much warmth and excitement about
_“abolitionists.”_ Of _who_ or _what_ these were, I was totally
ignorant. I found, however, that whatever they might be, they were most
cordially hated and soundly abused by slaveholders, of every grade. I
very soon discovered, too, that slavery was, in some sort, under
consideration, whenever the abolitionists were alluded to. This made
the term a very interesting one to me. If a slave, for instance, had
made good his escape from slavery, it was generally alleged, that he
had been persuaded and assisted by the abolitionists. If, also, a slave
killed his master—as was sometimes the case—or struck down his
overseer, or set fire to his master’s dwelling, or committed any
violence or crime, out of the common way, it was certain to be said,
that such a crime was the legitimate fruits of the abolition movement.
Hearing such charges often repeated, I, naturally enough, received the
impression that abolition—whatever else it might be—could not be
unfriendly to the slave, nor very friendly to the slaveholder. I
therefore set about finding out, if possible, _who_ and _what_ the
abolitionists were, and _why_ they were so obnoxious to the
slaveholders. The dictionary afforded me very little help. It taught me
that abolition was the “act of abolishing;” but it left me in ignorance
at the very point where I most wanted information—and that was, as to
the _thing_ to be abolished. A city newspaper, the _Baltimore
American_, gave me the incendiary information denied me by the
dictionary. In its columns I found, that, on a certain day, a vast
number of petitions and memorials had been presented to congress,
praying for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and
for the abolition of the slave trade between the states of the Union.
This was enough. The vindictive bitterness, the marked caution, the
studied reverse, and the cumbrous ambiguity, practiced by our white
folks, when alluding to this subject, was now fully explained. Ever,
after that, when I heard the words “abolition,” or “abolition
movement,” mentioned, I felt the matter one of a personal concern; and
I drew near to listen, when I could do so, without seeming too
solicitous and prying. There was HOPE in those words. Ever and anon,
too, I could see some terrible denunciation of slavery, in our
papers—copied from abolition papers at the north—and the injustice of
such denunciation commented on. These I read with avidity. I had a deep
satisfaction in the thought, that the rascality of slaveholders was not
concealed from the eyes of the world, and that I was not alone in
abhorring the cruelty and brutality of slavery. A still deeper train of
thought was stirred. I saw that there was _fear_, as well as _rage_, in
the manner of speaking of the abolitionists. The latter, therefore, I
was compelled to regard as having some power in the country; and I felt
that they might, possibly, succeed in their designs. When I met with a
slave to whom I deemed it safe to talk on the subject, I would impart
to him so much of the mystery as I had been able to penetrate. Thus,
the light of this grand movement broke in upon my mind, by degrees; and
I must say, that, ignorant as I then was of the philosophy of that
movement, I believe in it from the first—and I believed in it, partly,
because I saw that it alarmed the consciences of slaveholders. The
insurrection of Nathaniel Turner had been quelled, but the alarm and
terror had not subsided. The cholera was on its way, and the thought
was present, that God was angry with the white people because of their
slaveholding wickedness, and, therefore, his judgments were abroad in
the land. It was impossible for me not to hope much from the abolition
movement, when I saw it supported by the Almighty, and armed with
DEATH!