My Bondage and My Freedom
going to camp-meeting without asking his permission—the insolent
answers made to his reproaches—the sulky deportment the week after
being deprived of the privilege of hiring my time—had awakened in him
the suspicion that I might be cherishing disloyal purposes. My object,
therefore, in working steadily, was to remove suspicion, and in this I
succeeded admirably. He probably thought I was never better satisfied
with my condition, than at the very time I was planning my escape. The
second week passed, and again I carried him my full week’s wages—_nine
dollars;_ and so well pleased was he, that he gave me TWENTY-FIVE
CENTS! and “bade me make good use of it!” I told him I would, for one
of the uses to which I meant to put it, was to pay my fare on the
underground railroad.
Things without went on as usual; but I was passing through the same
internal excitement and anxiety which I had experienced two years and a
half before. The failure, in that instance, was not calculated to
increase my confidence in the success of this, my second attempt; and I
knew that a second failure could not leave me where my first did—I must
either get to the _far north_, or be sent to the _far south_. Besides
the exercise of mind from this state of facts, I had the painful
sensation of being about to separate from a circle of honest and warm
hearted friends, in Baltimore. The thought of such a separation, where
the hope of ever meeting again is excluded, and where there can be no
correspondence, is very painful. It is my opinion, that thousands would
escape from slavery who now remain there, but for the strong cords of
affection that bind them to their families, relatives and friends. The
daughter is hindered from escaping, by the love she bears her mother,
and the father, by the love he bears his children; and so, to the end
of the chapter. I had no relations in Baltimore, and I saw no
probability of ever living in the neighborhood of sisters and brothers;
but the thought of leaving my friends, was among the strongest
obstacles to my running away. The last two days of the week—Friday and
Saturday—were spent mostly in collecting my things together, for my
journey. Having worked four days that week, for my master, I handed him
six dollars, on Saturday night. I seldom spent my Sundays at home; and,
for fear that something might be discovered in my conduct, I kept up my
custom, and absented myself all day. On Monday, the third day of
September, 1838, in accordance with my resolution, I bade farewell to
the city of Baltimore, and to that slavery which had been my abhorrence
from childhood.
How I got away—in what direction I traveled—whether by land or by
water; whether with or without assistance—must, for reasons already
mentioned, remain unexplained.
LIFE as a FREEMAN
CHAPTER XXII. _Liberty Attained_
TRANSITION FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM—A WANDERER IN NEW YORK—FEELINGS ON
REACHING THAT CITY—AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE MET—UNFAVORABLE
IMPRESSIONS—LONELINESS AND INSECURITY—APOLOGY FOR SLAVES WHO RETURN TO
THEIR MASTERS—COMPELLED TO TELL MY CONDITION—SUCCORED BY A SAILOR—DAVID
RUGGLES—THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD—MARRIAGE—BAGGAGE TAKEN FROM
ME—KINDNESS OF NATHAN JOHNSON—MY CHANGE OF NAME—DARK NOTIONS OF
NORTHERN CIVILIZATION—THE CONTRAST—COLORED PEOPLE IN NEW BEDFORD—AN
INCIDENT ILLUSTRATING THEIR SPIRIT—A COMMON LABORER—DENIED WORK AT MY
TRADE—THE FIRST WINTER AT THE NORTH—REPULSE AT THE DOORS OF THE
CHURCH—SANCTIFIED HATE—THE _Liberator_ AND ITS EDITOR.
There is no necessity for any extended notice of the incidents of this
part of my life. There is nothing very striking or peculiar about my
career as a freeman, when viewed apart from my life as a slave. The
relation subsisting between my early experience and that which I am now
about to narrate, is, perhaps, my best apology for adding another
chapter to this book.
Disappearing from the kind reader, in a flying cloud or balloon (pardon
the figure), driven by the wind, and knowing not where I should
land—whether in slavery or in freedom—it is proper that I should
remove, at once, all anxiety, by frankly making known where I alighted.
The flight was a bold and perilous one; but here I am, in the great
city of New York, safe and sound, without loss of blood or bone. In
less than a week after leaving Baltimore, I was walking amid the
hurrying throng, and gazing upon the dazzling wonders of Broadway. The
dreams of my childhood and the purposes of my manhood were now
fulfilled. A free state around me, and a free earth under my feet! What
a moment was this to me! A whole year was pressed into a single day. A
new world burst upon my agitated vision. I have often been asked, by
kind friends to whom I have told my story, how I felt when first I
found myself beyond the limits of slavery; and I must say here, as I
have often said to them, there is scarcely anything about which I could
not give a more satisfactory answer. It was a moment of joyous
excitement, which no words can describe. In a letter to a friend,
written soon after reaching New York. I said I felt as one might be
supposed to feel, on escaping from a den of hungry lions. But, in a
moment like that, sensations are too intense and too rapid for words.
Anguish and grief, like darkness and rain, may be described, but joy
and gladness, like the rainbow of promise, defy alike the pen and
pencil.
For ten or fifteen years I had been dragging a heavy chain, with a huge
block attached to it, cumbering my every motion. I had felt myself
doomed to drag this chain and this block through life. All efforts,
before, to separate myself from the hateful encumbrance, had only
seemed to rivet me the more firmly to it. Baffled and discouraged at
times, I had asked myself the question, May not this, after all, be
God’s work? May He not, for wise ends, have doomed me to this lot? A
contest had been going on in my mind for years, between the clear
consciousness of right and the plausible errors of superstition;
between the wisdom of manly courage, and the foolish weakness of
timidity. The contest was now ended; the chain was severed; God and
right stood vindicated. I was A FREEMAN, and the voice of peace and joy
thrilled my heart.
Free and joyous, however, as I was, joy was not the only sensation I
experienced. It was like the quick blaze, beautiful at the first, but
which subsiding, leaves the building charred and desolate. I was soon
taught that I was still in an enemy’s land. A sense of loneliness and
insecurity oppressed me sadly. I had been but a few hours in New York,
before I was met in the streets by a fugitive slave, well known to me,
and the information I got from him respecting New York, did nothing to
lessen my apprehension of danger. The fugitive in question was
“Allender’s Jake,” in Baltimore; but, said he, I am “WILLIAM DIXON,” in
New York! I knew Jake well, and knew when Tolly Allender and Mr. Price
(for the latter employed Master Hugh as his foreman, in his shipyard on
Fell’s Point) made an attempt to recapture Jake, and failed. Jake told
me all about his circumstances, and how narrowly he escaped being taken
back to slavery; that the city was now full of southerners, returning
from the springs; that the black people in New York were not to be
trusted; that there were hired men on the lookout for fugitives from
slavery, and who, for a few dollars, would betray me into the hands of
the slave-catchers; that I must trust no man with my secret; that I
must not think of going either on the wharves to work, or to a
boarding-house to board; and, worse still, this same Jake told me it
was not in his power to help me. He seemed, even while cautioning me,
to be fearing lest, after all, I might be a party to a second attempt
to recapture him. Under the inspiration of this thought, I must suppose
it was, he gave signs of a wish to get rid of me, and soon left me his
whitewash brush in hand—as he said, for his work. He was soon lost to
sight among the throng, and I was alone again, an easy prey to the
kidnappers, if any should happen to be on my track.
New York, seventeen years ago, was less a place of safety for a runaway
slave than now, and all know how unsafe it now is, under the new
fugitive slave bill. I was much troubled. I had very little money
enough to buy me a few loaves of bread, but not enough to pay board,
outside a lumber yard. I saw the wisdom of keeping away from the ship
yards, for if Master Hugh pursued me, he would naturally expect to find
me looking for work among the calkers. For a time, every door seemed
closed against me. A sense of my loneliness and helplessness crept over
me, and covered me with something bordering on despair. In the midst of
thousands of my fellowmen, and yet a perfect stranger! In the midst of
human brothers, and yet more fearful of them than of hungry wolves! I
was without home, without friends, without work, without money, and
without any definite knowledge of which way to go, or where to look for
succor.
Some apology can easily be made for the few slaves who have, after
making good their escape, turned back to slavery, preferring the actual
rule of their masters, to the life of loneliness, apprehension, hunger,
and anxiety, which meets them on their first arrival in a free state.
It is difficult for a freeman to enter into the feelings of such
fugitives. He cannot see things in the same light with the slave,
because he does not, and cannot, look from the same point from which
the slave does. “Why do you tremble,” he says to the slave “you are in
a free state;” but the difficulty is, in realizing that he is in a free
state, the slave might reply. A freeman cannot understand why the
slave-master’s shadow is bigger, to the slave, than the might and
majesty of a free state; but when he reflects that the slave knows more
about the slavery of his master than he does of the might and majesty
of the free state, he has the explanation. The slave has been all his
life learning the power of his master—being trained to dread his
approach—and only a few hours learning the power of the state. The
master is to him a stern and flinty reality, but the state is little
more than a dream. He has been accustomed to regard every white man as
the friend of his master, and every colored man as more or less under
the control of his master’s friends—the white people. It takes stout
nerves to stand up, in such circumstances. A man, homeless,
shelterless, breadless, friendless, and moneyless, is not in a
condition to assume a very proud or joyous tone; and in just this
condition was I, while wandering about the streets of New York city and
lodging, at least one night, among the barrels on one of its wharves. I
was not only free from slavery, but I was free from home, as well. The
reader will easily see that I had something more than the simple fact
of being free to think of, in this extremity.
I kept my secret as long as I could, and at last was forced to go in
search of an honest man—a man sufficiently _human_ not to betray me
into the hands of slave-catchers. I was not a bad reader of the human
face, nor long in selecting the right man, when once compelled to
disclose the facts of my condition to some one.
I found my man in the person of one who said his name was Stewart. He
was a sailor, warm-hearted and generous, and he listened to my story
with a brother’s interest. I told him I was running for my freedom—knew
not where to go—money almost gone—was hungry—thought it unsafe to go
the shipyards for work, and needed a friend. Stewart promptly put me in
the way of getting out of my trouble. He took me to his house, and went
in search of the late David Ruggles, who was then the secretary of the
New York Vigilance Committee, and a very active man in all anti-slavery