My Bondage and My Freedom
“_Answer_. We declare that we are much as ever convinced of the great
evil of slavery; therefore, no slaveholder shall be eligible to any
official station in our church.”
These words sounded in my ears for a long time, and encouraged me to
hope. But, as I have before said, I was doomed to disappointment.
Master Thomas seemed to be aware of my hopes and expectations
concerning him. I have thought, before now, that he looked at me in
answer to my glances, as much as to say, “I will teach you, young man,
that, though I have parted with my sins, I have not parted with my
sense. I shall hold my slaves, and go to heaven too.”
Possibly, to convince us that we must not presume _too much_ upon his
recent conversion, he became rather more rigid and stringent in his
exactions. There always was a scarcity of good nature about the man;
but now his whole countenance was _soured_ over with the seemings of
piety. His religion, therefore, neither made him emancipate his slaves,
nor caused him to treat them with greater humanity. If religion had any
effect on his character at all, it made him more cruel and hateful in
all his ways. The natural wickedness of his heart had not been removed,
but only reinforced, by the profession of religion. Do I judge him
harshly? God forbid. Facts _are_ facts. Capt. Auld made the greatest
profession of piety. His house was, literally, a house of prayer. In
the morning, and in the evening, loud prayers and hymns were heard
there, in which both himself and his wife joined; yet, _no more meal_
was brought from the mill, _no more attention_ was paid to the moral
welfare of the kitchen; and nothing was done to make us feel that the
heart of Master Thomas was one whit better than it was before he went
into the little pen, opposite to the preachers’ stand, on the camp
ground.
Our hopes (founded on the discipline) soon vanished; for the
authorities let him into the church _at once_, and before he was out of
his term of _probation_, I heard of his leading class! He distinguished
himself greatly among the brethren, and was soon an exhorter. His
progress was almost as rapid as the growth of the fabled vine of Jack’s
bean. No man was more active than he, in revivals. He would go many
miles to assist in carrying them on, and in getting outsiders
interested in religion. His house being one of the holiest, if not the
happiest in St. Michael’s, became the “preachers’ home.” These
preachers evidently liked to share Master Thomas’s hospitality; for
while he _starved us_, he _stuffed_ them. Three or four of these
ambassadors of the gospel—according to slavery—have been there at a
time; all living on the fat of the land, while we, in the kitchen, were
nearly starving. Not often did we get a smile of recognition from these
holy men. They seemed almost as unconcerned about our getting to
heaven, as they were about our getting out of slavery. To this general
charge there was one exception—the Rev. GEORGE COOKMAN. Unlike Rev.
Messrs. Storks, Ewry, Hickey, Humphrey and Cooper (all whom were on the
St. Michael’s circuit) he kindly took an interest in our temporal and
spiritual welfare. Our souls and our bodies were all alike sacred in
his sight; and he really had a good deal of genuine anti-slavery
feeling mingled with his colonization ideas. There was not a slave in
our neighborhood that did not love, and almost venerate, Mr. Cookman.
It was pretty generally believed that he had been chiefly instrumental
in bringing one of the largest slaveholders—Mr. Samuel Harrison—in that
neighborhood, to emancipate all his slaves, and, indeed, the general
impression was, that Mr. Cookman had labored faithfully with
slaveholders, whenever he met them, to induce them to emancipate their
bondmen, and that he did this as a religious duty. When this good man
was at our house, we were all sure to be called in to prayers in the
morning; and he was not slow in making inquiries as to the state of our
minds, nor in giving us a word of exhortation and of encouragement.
Great was the sorrow of all the slaves, when this faithful preacher of
the gospel was removed from the Talbot county circuit. He was an
eloquent preacher, and possessed what few ministers, south of Mason
Dixon’s line, possess, or _dare_ to show, viz: a warm and philanthropic
heart. The Mr. Cookman, of whom I speak, was an Englishman by birth,
and perished while on his way to England, on board the ill-fated
“President”. Could the thousands of slaves in Maryland know the fate of
the good man, to whose words of comfort they were so largely indebted,
they would thank me for dropping a tear on this page, in memory of
their favorite preacher, friend and benefactor.
But, let me return to Master Thomas, and to my experience, after his
conversion. In Baltimore, I could, occasionally, get into a Sabbath
school, among the free children, and receive lessons, with the rest;
but, having already learned both to read and to write, I was more of a
teacher than a pupil, even there. When, however, I went back to the
Eastern Shore, and was at the house of Master Thomas, I was neither
allowed to teach, nor to be taught. The whole community—with but a
single exception, among the whites—frowned upon everything like
imparting instruction either to slaves or to free colored persons. That
single exception, a pious young man, named Wilson, asked me, one day,
if I would like to assist him in teaching a little Sabbath school, at
the house of a free colored man in St. Michael’s, named James Mitchell.
The idea was to me a delightful one, and I told him I would gladly
devote as much of my Sabbath as I could command, to that most laudable
work. Mr. Wilson soon mustered up a dozen old spelling books, and a few
testaments; and we commenced operations, with some twenty scholars, in
our Sunday school. Here, thought I, is something worth living for; here
is an excellent chance for usefulness; and I shall soon have a company
of young friends, lovers of knowledge, like some of my Baltimore
friends, from whom I now felt parted forever.
Our first Sabbath passed delightfully, and I spent the week after very
joyously. I could not go to Baltimore, but I could make a little
Baltimore here. At our second meeting, I learned that there was some
objection to the existence of the Sabbath school; and, sure enough, we
had scarcely got at work—_good work_, simply teaching a few colored
children how to read the gospel of the Son of God—when in rushed a mob,
headed by Mr. Wright Fairbanks and Mr. Garrison West—two
class-leaders—and Master Thomas; who, armed with sticks and other
missiles, drove us off, and commanded us never to meet for such a
purpose again. One of this pious crew told me, that as for my part, I
wanted to be another Nat Turner; and if I did not look out, I should
get as many balls into me, as Nat did into him. Thus ended the infant
Sabbath school, in the town of St. Michael’s. The reader will not be
surprised when I say, that the breaking up of my Sabbath school, by
these class-leaders, and professedly holy men, did not serve to
strengthen my religious convictions. The cloud over my St. Michael’s
home grew heavier and blacker than ever.
It was not merely the agency of Master Thomas, in breaking up and
destroying my Sabbath school, that shook my confidence in the power of
southern religion to make men wiser or better; but I saw in him all the
cruelty and meanness, _after_ his conversion, which he had exhibited
before he made a profession of religion. His cruelty and meanness were
especially displayed in his treatment of my unfortunate cousin, Henny,
whose lameness made her a burden to him. I have no extraordinary
personal hard usage toward myself to complain of, against him, but I
have seen him tie up the lame and maimed woman, and whip her in a
manner most brutal, and shocking; and then, with blood-chilling
blasphemy, he would quote the passage of scripture, “That servant which
knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according
to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes.” Master would keep this
lacerated woman tied up by her wrists, to a bolt in the joist, three,
four and five hours at a time. He would tie her up early in the
morning, whip her with a cowskin before breakfast; leave her tied up;
go to his store, and, returning to his dinner, repeat the castigation;
laying on the rugged lash, on flesh already made raw by repeated blows.
He seemed desirous to get the poor girl out of existence, or, at any
rate, off his hands. In proof of this, he afterwards gave her away to
his sister Sarah (Mrs. Cline) but, as in the case of Master Hugh, Henny
was soon returned on his hands. Finally, upon a pretense that he could
do nothing with her (I use his own words) he “set her adrift, to take
care of herself.” Here was a recently converted man, holding, with
tight grasp, the well-framed, and able bodied slaves left him by old
master—the persons, who, in freedom, could have taken care of
themselves; yet, turning loose the only cripple among them, virtually
to starve and die.
No doubt, had Master Thomas been asked, by some pious northern brother,
_why_ he continued to sustain the relation of a slaveholder, to those
whom he retained, his answer would have been precisely the same as many
other religious slaveholders have returned to that inquiry, viz: “I
hold my slaves for their own good.”
Bad as my condition was when I lived with Master Thomas, I was soon to
experience a life far more goading and bitter. The many differences
springing up between myself and Master Thomas, owing to the clear
perception I had of his character, and the boldness with which I
defended myself against his capricious complaints, led him to declare
that I was unsuited to his wants; that my city life had affected me
perniciously; that, in fact, it had almost ruined me for every good
purpose, and had fitted me for everything that was bad. One of my
greatest faults, or offenses, was that of letting his horse get away,
and go down to the farm belonging to his father-in-law. The animal had
a liking for that farm, with which I fully sympathized. Whenever I let
it out, it would go dashing down the road to Mr. Hamilton’s, as if
going on a grand frolic. My horse gone, of course I must go after it.
The explanation of our mutual attachment to the place is the same; the
horse found there good pasturage, and I found there plenty of bread.
Mr. Hamilton had his faults, but starving his slaves was not among
them. He gave food, in abundance, and that, too, of an excellent
quality. In Mr. Hamilton’s cook—Aunt Mary—I found a most generous and
considerate friend. She never allowed me to go there without giving me
bread enough to make good the deficiencies of a day or two. Master
Thomas at last resolved to endure my behavior no longer; he could
neither keep me, nor his horse, we liked so well to be at his
father-in-law’s farm. I had now lived with him nearly nine months, and
he had given me a number of severe whippings, without any visible
improvement in my character, or my conduct; and now he was resolved to
put me out—as he said—“_to be broken._”
There was, in the Bay Side, very near the camp ground, where my master
got his religious impressions, a man named Edward Covey, who enjoyed
the execrated reputation, of being a first rate hand at breaking young
Negroes. This Covey was a poor man, a farm renter; and this reputation
(hateful as it was to the slaves and to all good men) was, at the same
time, of immense advantage to him. It enabled him to get his farm
tilled with very little expense, compared with what it would have cost
him without this most extraordinary reputation. Some slaveholders
thought it an advantage to let Mr. Covey have the government of their
slaves a year or two, almost free of charge, for the sake of the