My Bondage and My Freedom
benumbed, while I was under the brutalizing dominion of Covey; and it
had been postponed, and rendered inoperative, by my truly pleasant
Sunday school engagements with my friends, during the year 1835, at Mr.
Freeland’s. It had, however, never entirely subsided. I hated slavery,
always, and the desire for freedom only needed a favorable breeze, to
fan it into a blaze, at any moment. The thought of only being a
creature of the _present_ and the _past_, troubled me, and I longed to
have a _future_—a future with hope in it. To be shut up entirely to the
past and present, is abhorrent to the human mind; it is to the
soul—whose life and happiness is unceasing progress—what the prison is
to the body; a blight and mildew, a hell of horrors. The dawning of
this, another year, awakened me from my temporary slumber, and roused
into life my latent, but long cherished aspirations for freedom. I was
now not only ashamed to be contented in slavery, but ashamed to _seem_
to be contented, and in my present favorable condition, under the mild
rule of Mr. F., I am not sure that some kind reader will not condemn me
for being over ambitious, and greatly wanting in proper humility, when
I say the truth, that I now drove from me all thoughts of making the
best of my lot, and welcomed only such thoughts as led me away from the
house of bondage. The intense desires, now felt, _to be free_,
quickened by my present favorable circumstances, brought me to the
determination to act, as well as to think and speak. Accordingly, at
the beginning of this year 1836, I took upon me a solemn vow, that the
year which had now dawned upon me should not close, without witnessing
an earnest attempt, on my part, to gain my liberty. This vow only bound
me to make my escape individually; but the year spent with Mr. Freeland
had attached me, as with “hooks of steel,” to my brother slaves. The
most affectionate and confiding friendship existed between us; and I
felt it my duty to give them an opportunity to share in my virtuous
determination by frankly disclosing to them my plans and purposes.
Toward Henry and John Harris, I felt a friendship as strong as one man
can feel for another; for I could have died with and for them. To them,
therefore, with a suitable degree of caution, I began to disclose my
sentiments and plans; sounding them, the while on the subject of
running away, provided a good chance should offer. I scarcely need tell
the reader, that I did my _very best_ to imbue the minds of my dear
friends with my own views and feelings. Thoroughly awakened, now, and
with a definite vow upon me, all my little reading, which had any
bearing on the subject of human rights, was rendered available in my
communications with my friends. That (to me) gem of a book, the
_Columbian Orator_, with its eloquent orations and spicy dialogues,
denouncing oppression and slavery—telling of what had been dared, done
and suffered by men, to obtain the inestimable boon of liberty—was
still fresh in my memory, and whirled into the ranks of my speech with
the aptitude of well trained soldiers, going through the drill. The
fact is, I here began my public speaking. I canvassed, with Henry and
John, the subject of slavery, and dashed against it the condemning
brand of God’s eternal justice, which it every hour violates. My fellow
servants were neither indifferent, dull, nor inapt. Our feelings were
more alike than our opinions. All, however, were ready to act, when a
feasible plan should be proposed. “Show us _how_ the thing is to be
done,” said they, “and all is clear.”
We were all, except Sandy, quite free from slaveholding priestcraft. It
was in vain that we had been taught from the pulpit at St. Michael’s,
the duty of obedience to our masters; to recognize God as the author of
our enslavement; to regard running away an offense, alike against God
and man; to deem our enslavement a merciful and beneficial arrangement;
to esteem our condition, in this country, a paradise to that from which
we had been snatched in Africa; to consider our hard hands and dark
color as God’s mark of displeasure, and as pointing us out as the
proper subjects of slavery; that the relation of master and slave was
one of reciprocal benefits; that our work was not more serviceable to
our masters, than our master’s thinking was serviceable to us. I say,
it was in vain that the pulpit of St. Michael’s had constantly
inculcated these plausible doctrine. Nature laughed them to scorn. For
my own part, I had now become altogether too big for my chains. Father
Lawson’s solemn words, of what I ought to be, and might be, in the
providence of God, had not fallen dead on my soul. I was fast verging
toward manhood, and the prophecies of my childhood were still
unfulfilled. The thought, that year after year had passed away, and my
resolutions to run away had failed and faded—that I was _still a
slave_, and a slave, too, with chances for gaining my freedom
diminished and still diminishing—was not a matter to be slept over
easily; nor did I easily sleep over it.
But here came a new trouble. Thoughts and purposes so incendiary as
those I now cherished, could not agitate the mind long, without danger
of making themselves manifest to scrutinizing and unfriendly beholders.
I had reason to fear that my sable face might prove altogether too
transparent for the safe concealment of my hazardous enterprise. Plans
of greater moment have leaked through stone walls, and revealed their
projectors. But, here was no stone wall to hide my purpose. I would
have given my poor, tell tale face for the immoveable countenance of an
Indian, for it was far from being proof against the daily, searching
glances of those with whom I met.
It is the interest and business of slaveholders to study human nature,
with a view to practical results, and many of them attain astonishing
proficiency in discerning the thoughts and emotions of slaves. They
have to deal not with earth, wood, or stone, but with _men;_ and, by
every regard they have for their safety and prosperity, they must study
to know the material on which they are at work. So much intellect as
the slaveholder has around him, requires watching. Their safety depends
upon their vigilance. Conscious of the injustice and wrong they are
every hour perpetrating, and knowing what they themselves would do if
made the victims of such wrongs, they are looking out for the first
signs of the dread retribution of justice. They watch, therefore, with
skilled and practiced eyes, and have learned to read, with great
accuracy, the state of mind and heart of the slaves, through his sable
face. These uneasy sinners are quick to inquire into the matter, where
the slave is concerned. Unusual sobriety, apparent abstraction,
sullenness and indifference—indeed, any mood out of the common
way—afford ground for suspicion and inquiry. Often relying on their
superior position and wisdom, they hector and torture the slave into a
confession, by affecting to know the truth of their accusations. “You
have got the devil in you,” say they, “and we will whip him out of
you.” I have often been put thus to the torture, on bare suspicion.
This system has its disadvantages as well as their opposite. The slave
is sometimes whipped into the confession of offenses which he never
committed. The reader will see that the good old rule—“a man is to be
held innocent until proved to be guilty”—does not hold good on the
slave plantation. Suspicion and torture are the approved methods of
getting at the truth, here. It was necessary for me, therefore, to keep
a watch over my deportment, lest the enemy should get the better of me.
But with all our caution and studied reserve, I am not sure that Mr.
Freeland did not suspect that all was not right with us. It _did_ seem
that he watched us more narrowly, after the plan of escape had been
conceived and discussed amongst us. Men seldom see themselves as others
see them; and while, to ourselves, everything connected with our
contemplated escape appeared concealed, Mr. Freeland may have, with the
peculiar prescience of a slaveholder, mastered the huge thought which
was disturbing our peace in slavery.
I am the more inclined to think that he suspected us, because, prudent
as we were, as I now look back, I can see that we did many silly
things, very well calculated to awaken suspicion. We were, at times,
remarkably buoyant, singing hymns and making joyous exclamations,
almost as triumphant in their tone as if we reached a land of freedom
and safety. A keen observer might have detected in our repeated singing
of
_O Canaan, sweet Canaan,
I am bound for the land of Canaan,_
something more than a hope of reaching heaven. We meant to reach the
_north_—and the north was our Canaan.
_I thought I heard them say,
There were lions in the way,
I don’t expect to Star
Much longer here._
_Run to Jesus—shun the danger—
I don’t expect to stay
Much longer here_.
was a favorite air, and had a double meaning. In the lips of some, it
meant the expectation of a speedy summons to a world of spirits; but,
in the lips of _our_ company, it simply meant, a speedy pilgrimage
toward a free state, and deliverance from all the evils and dangers of
slavery.
I had succeeded in winning to my (what slaveholders would call wicked)
scheme, a company of five young men, the very flower of the
neighborhood, each one of whom would have commanded one thousand
dollars in the home market. At New Orleans, they would have brought
fifteen hundred dollars a piece, and, perhaps, more. The names of our
party were as follows: Henry Harris; John Harris, brother to Henry;
Sandy Jenkins, of root memory; Charles Roberts, and Henry Bailey. I was
the youngest, but one, of the party. I had, however, the advantage of
them all, in experience, and in a knowledge of letters. This gave me
great influence over them. Perhaps not one of them, left to himself,
would have dreamed of escape as a possible thing. Not one of them was
self-moved in the matter. They all wanted to be free; but the serious
thought of running away, had not entered into their minds, until I won
them to the undertaking. They all were tolerably well off—for
slaves—and had dim hopes of being set free, some day, by their masters.
If any one is to blame for disturbing the quiet of the slaves and
slave-masters of the neighborhood of St. Michael’s, _I am the man_. I
claim to be the instigator of the high crime (as the slaveholders
regard it) and I kept life in it, until life could be kept in it no
longer.
Pending the time of our contemplated departure out of our Egypt, we met
often by night, and on every Sunday. At these meetings we talked the
matter over; told our hopes and fears, and the difficulties discovered
or imagined; and, like men of sense, we counted the cost of the
enterprise to which we were committing ourselves.
These meetings must have resembled, on a small scale, the meetings of
revolutionary conspirators, in their primary condition. We were
plotting against our (so called) lawful rulers; with this difference
that we sought our own good, and not the harm of our enemies. We did
not seek to overthrow them, but to escape from them. As for Mr.
Freeland, we all liked him, and would have gladly remained with him,
_as freeman_. LIBERTY was our aim; and we had now come to think that we
had a right to liberty, against every obstacle even against the lives
of our enslavers.
We had several words, expressive of things, important to us, which we
understood, but which, even if distinctly heard by an outsider, would
convey no certain meaning. I have reasons for suppressing these
_pass-words_, which the reader will easily divine. I hated the secrecy;
but where slavery is powerful, and liberty is weak, the latter is