My Bondage and My Freedom
To the rice swamp dank and lone,
Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings,
Where the noisome insect stings,
Where the fever-demon strews
Poison with the falling dews,
Where the sickly sunbeams glare
Through the hot and misty air:—
Gone, gone, sold and gone
To the rice swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia hills and waters—
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!
The hearth is desolate. The children, the unconscious children, who
once sang and danced in her presence, are gone. She gropes her way, in
the darkness of age, for a drink of water. Instead of the voices of her
children, she hears by day the moans of the dove, and by night the
screams of the hideous owl. All is gloom. The grave is at the door. And
now, when weighed down by the pains and aches of old age, when the head
inclines to the feet, when the beginning and ending of human existence
meet, and helpless infancy and painful old age combine together—at this
time, this most needful time, the time for the exercise of that
tenderness and affection which children only can exercise toward a
declining parent—my poor old grandmother, the devoted mother of twelve
children, is left all alone, in yonder little hut, before a few dim
embers.
Two years after the death of Mrs. Lucretia, Master Thomas married his
second wife. Her name was Rowena Hamilton, the eldest daughter of Mr.
William Hamilton, a rich slaveholder on the Eastern Shore of Maryland,
who lived about five miles from St. Michael’s, the then place of my
master’s residence.
Not long after his marriage, Master Thomas had a misunderstanding with
Master Hugh, and, as a means of punishing his brother, he ordered him
to send me home.
As the ground of misunderstanding will serve to illustrate the
character of southern chivalry, and humanity, I will relate it.
Among the children of my Aunt Milly, was a daughter, named Henny. When
quite a child, Henny had fallen into the fire, and burnt her hands so
bad that they were of very little use to her. Her fingers were drawn
almost into the palms of her hands. She could make out to do something,
but she was considered hardly worth the having—of little more value
than a horse with a broken leg. This unprofitable piece of human
property, ill shapen, and disfigured, Capt. Auld sent off to Baltimore,
making his brother Hugh welcome to her services.
After giving poor Henny a fair trial, Master Hugh and his wife came to
the conclusion, that they had no use for the crippled servant, and they
sent her back to Master Thomas. Thus, the latter took as an act of
ingratitude, on the part of his brother; and, as a mark of his
displeasure, he required him to send me immediately to St. Michael’s,
saying, if he cannot keep _“Hen,”_ he shall not have _“Fred.”_
Here was another shock to my nerves, another breaking up of my plans,
and another severance of my religious and social alliances. I was now a
big boy. I had become quite useful to several young colored men, who
had made me their teacher. I had taught some of them to read, and was
accustomed to spend many of my leisure hours with them. Our attachment
was strong, and I greatly dreaded the separation. But regrets,
especially in a slave, are unavailing. I was only a slave; my wishes
were nothing, and my happiness was the sport of my masters.
My regrets at now leaving Baltimore, were not for the same reasons as
when I before left that city, to be valued and handed over to my proper
owner. My home was not now the pleasant place it had formerly been. A
change had taken place, both in Master Hugh, and in his once pious and
affectionate wife. The influence of brandy and bad company on him, and
the influence of slavery and social isolation upon her, had wrought
disastrously upon the characters of both. Thomas was no longer “little
Tommy,” but was a big boy, and had learned to assume the airs of his
class toward me. My condition, therefore, in the house of Master Hugh,
was not, by any means, so comfortable as in former years. My
attachments were now outside of our family. They were felt to those to
whom I _imparted_ instruction, and to those little white boys from whom
I _received_ instruction. There, too, was my dear old father, the pious
Lawson, who was, in christian graces, the very counterpart of “Uncle”
Tom. The resemblance is so perfect, that he might have been the
original of Mrs. Stowe’s christian hero. The thought of leaving these
dear friends, greatly troubled me, for I was going without the hope of
ever returning to Baltimore again; the feud between Master Hugh and his
brother being bitter and irreconcilable, or, at least, supposed to be
so.
In addition to thoughts of friends from whom I was parting, as I
supposed, _forever_, I had the grief of neglected chances of escape to
brood over. I had put off running away, until now I was to be placed
where the opportunities for escaping were much fewer than in a large
city like Baltimore.
On my way from Baltimore to St. Michael’s, down the Chesapeake bay, our
sloop—the “Amanda”—was passed by the steamers plying between that city
and Philadelphia, and I watched the course of those steamers, and,
while going to St. Michael’s, I formed a plan to escape from slavery;
of which plan, and matters connected therewith the kind reader shall
learn more hereafter.
CHAPTER XIV. _Experience in St. Michael’s_
THE VILLAGE—ITS INHABITANTS—THEIR OCCUPATION AND LOW PROPENSITIES
CAPTAN(sic) THOMAS AULD—HIS CHARACTER—HIS SECOND WIFE, ROWENA—WELL
MATCHED—SUFFERINGS FROM HUNGER—OBLIGED TO TAKE FOOD—MODE OF ARGUMENT IN
VINDICATION THEREOF—NO MORAL CODE OF FREE SOCIETY CAN APPLY TO SLAVE
SOCIETY—SOUTHERN CAMP MEETING—WHAT MASTER THOMAS DID
THERE—HOPES—SUSPICIONS ABOUT HIS CONVERSION—THE RESULT—FAITH AND WORKS
ENTIRELY AT VARIANCE—HIS RISE AND PROGRESS IN THE CHURCH—POOR COUSIN
“HENNY”—HIS TREATMENT OF HER—THE METHODIST PREACHERS—THEIR UTTER
DISREGARD OF US—ONE EXCELLENT EXCEPTION—REV. GEORGE COOKMAN—SABBATH
SCHOOL—HOW BROKEN UP AND BY WHOM—A FUNERAL PALL CAST OVER ALL MY
PROSPECTS—COVEY THE NEGRO-BREAKER.
St. Michael’s, the village in which was now my new home, compared
favorably with villages in slave states, generally. There were a few
comfortable dwellings in it, but the place, as a whole, wore a dull,
slovenly, enterprise-forsaken aspect. The mass of the buildings were
wood; they had never enjoyed the artificial adornment of paint, and
time and storms had worn off the bright color of the wood, leaving them
almost as black as buildings charred by a conflagration.
St. Michael’s had, in former years, (previous to 1833, for that was the
year I went to reside there,) enjoyed some reputation as a ship
building community, but that business had almost entirely given place
to oyster fishing, for the Baltimore and Philadelphia markets—a course
of life highly unfavorable to morals, industry, and manners. Miles
river was broad, and its oyster fishing grounds were extensive; and the
fishermen were out, often, all day, and a part of the night, during
autumn, winter and spring. This exposure was an excuse for carrying
with them, in considerable quanties(sic), spirituous liquors, the then
supposed best antidote for cold. Each canoe was supplied with its jug
of rum; and tippling, among this class of the citizens of St.
Michael’s, became general. This drinking habit, in an ignorant
population, fostered coarseness, vulgarity and an indolent disregard
for the social improvement of the place, so that it was admitted, by
the few sober, thinking people who remained there, that St. Michael’s
had become a very _unsaintly_, as well as unsightly place, before I
went there to reside.
I left Baltimore for St. Michael’s in the month of March, 1833. I know
the year, because it was the one succeeding the first cholera in
Baltimore, and was the year, also, of that strange phenomenon, when the
heavens seemed about to part with its starry train. I witnessed this
gorgeous spectacle, and was awe-struck. The air seemed filled with
bright, descending messengers from the sky. It was about daybreak when
I saw this sublime scene. I was not without the suggestion, at the
moment, that it might be the harbinger of the coming of the Son of Man;
and, in my then state of mind, I was prepared to hail Him as my friend
and deliverer. I had read, that the “stars shall fall from heaven”; and
they were now falling. I was suffering much in my mind. It did seem
that every time the young tendrils of my affection became attached,
they were rudely broken by some unnatural outside power; and I was
beginning to look away to heaven for the rest denied me on earth.
But, to my story. It was now more than seven years since I had lived
with Master Thomas Auld, in the family of my old master, on Col.
Lloyd’s plantation. We were almost entire strangers to each other; for,
when I knew him at the house of my old master, it was not as a
_master_, but simply as “Captain Auld,” who had married old master’s
daughter. All my lessons concerning his temper and disposition, and the
best methods of pleasing him, were yet to be learnt. Slaveholders,
however, are not very ceremonious in approaching a slave; and my
ignorance of the new material in shape of a master was but transient.
Nor was my mistress long in making known her animus. She was not a
“Miss Lucretia,” traces of whom I yet remembered, and the more
especially, as I saw them shining in the face of little Amanda, her
daughter, now living under a step-mother’s government. I had not
forgotten the soft hand, guided by a tender heart, that bound up with
healing balsam the gash made in my head by Ike, the son of Abel. Thomas
and Rowena, I found to be a well-matched pair. _He_ was stingy, and
_she_ was cruel; and—what was quite natural in such cases—she possessed
the ability to make him as cruel as herself, while she could easily
descend to the level of his meanness. In the house of Master Thomas, I
was made—for the first time in seven years to feel the pinchings of
hunger, and this was not very easy to bear.
For, in all the changes of Master Hugh’s family, there was no change in
the bountifulness with which they supplied me with food. Not to give a
slave enough to eat, is meanness intensified, and it is so recognized
among slaveholders generally, in Maryland. The rule is, no matter how
coarse the food, only let there be enough of it. This is the theory,
and—in the part of Maryland I came from—the general practice accords
with this theory. Lloyd’s plantation was an exception, as was, also,
the house of Master Thomas Auld.
All know the lightness of Indian corn-meal, as an article of food, and
can easily judge from the following facts whether the statements I have
made of the stinginess of Master Thomas, are borne out. There were four
slaves of us in the kitchen, and four whites in the great house Thomas
Auld, Mrs. Auld, Hadaway Auld (brother of Thomas Auld) and little
Amanda. The names of the slaves in the kitchen, were Eliza, my sister;
Priscilla, my aunt; Henny, my cousin; and myself. There were eight
persons in the family. There was, each week, one half bushel of
corn-meal brought from the mill; and in the kitchen, corn-meal was
almost our exclusive food, for very little else was allowed us. Out of
this bushel of corn-meal, the family in the great house had a small
loaf every morning; thus leaving us, in the kitchen, with not quite a
half a peck per week, apiece. This allowance was less than half the
allowance of food on Lloyd’s plantation. It was not enough to subsist
upon; and we were, therefore, reduced to the wretched necessity of
living at the expense of our neighbors. We were compelled either to
beg, or to steal, and we did both. I frankly confess, that while I
hated everything like stealing, _as such_, I nevertheless did not