My Bondage and My Freedom
and father to the child. What is still worse, perhaps, such a child is
a constant offense to the wife. She hates its very presence, and when a
slaveholding woman hates, she wants not means to give that hate telling
effect. Women—white women, I mean—are IDOLS at the south, not WIVES,
for the slave women are preferred in many instances; and if these
_idols_ but nod, or lift a finger, woe to the poor victim: kicks, cuffs
and stripes are sure to follow. Masters are frequently compelled to
sell this class of their slaves, out of deference to the feelings of
their white wives; and shocking and scandalous as it may seem for a man
to sell his own blood to the traffickers in human flesh, it is often an
act of humanity toward the slave-child to be thus removed from his
merciless tormentors.
It is not within the scope of the design of my simple story, to comment
upon every phase of slavery not within my experience as a slave.
But, I may remark, that, if the lineal descendants of Ham are only to
be enslaved, according to the scriptures, slavery in this country will
soon become an unscriptural institution; for thousands are ushered into
the world, annually, who—like myself—owe their existence to white
fathers, and, most frequently, to their masters, and master’s sons. The
slave-woman is at the mercy of the fathers, sons or brothers of her
master. The thoughtful know the rest.
After what I have now said of the circumstances of my mother, and my
relations to her, the reader will not be surprised, nor be disposed to
censure me, when I tell but the simple truth, viz: that I received the
tidings of her death with no strong emotions of sorrow for her, and
with very little regret for myself on account of her loss. I had to
learn the value of my mother long after her death, and by witnessing
the devotion of other mothers to their children.
There is not, beneath the sky, an enemy to filial affection so
destructive as slavery. It had made my brothers and sisters strangers
to me; it converted the mother that bore me, into a myth; it shrouded
my father in mystery, and left me without an intelligible beginning in
the world.
My mother died when I could not have been more than eight or nine years
old, on one of old master’s farms in Tuckahoe, in the neighborhood of
Hillsborough. Her grave is, as the grave of the dead at sea, unmarked,
and without stone or stake.
CHAPTER IV. _A General Survey of the Slave Plantation_
ISOLATION OF LLOYD S PLANTATION—PUBLIC OPINION THERE NO PROTECTION TO
THE SLAVE—ABSOLUTE POWER OF THE OVERSEER—NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL CHARMS
OF THE PLACE—ITS BUSINESS-LIKE APPEARANCE—SUPERSTITION ABOUT THE BURIAL
GROUND—GREAT IDEAS OF COL. LLOYD—ETIQUETTE AMONG SLAVES—THE COMIC SLAVE
DOCTOR—PRAYING AND FLOGGING—OLD MASTER LOSING ITS TERRORS—HIS
BUSINESS—CHARACTER OF AUNT KATY—SUFFERINGS FROM HUNGER—OLD MASTER’S
HOME—JARGON OF THE PLANTATION—GUINEA SLAVES—MASTER DANIEL—FAMILY OF
COL. LLOYD—FAMILY OF CAPT. ANTHONY—HIS SOCIAL POSITION—NOTIONS OF RANK
AND STATION.
It is generally supposed that slavery, in the state of Maryland, exists
in its mildest form, and that it is totally divested of those harsh and
terrible peculiarities, which mark and characterize the slave system,
in the southern and south-western states of the American union. The
argument in favor of this opinion, is the contiguity of the free
states, and the exposed condition of slavery in Maryland to the moral,
religious and humane sentiment of the free states.
I am not about to refute this argument, so far as it relates to slavery
in that state, generally; on the contrary, I am willing to admit that,
to this general point, the arguments is well grounded. Public opinion
is, indeed, an unfailing restraint upon the cruelty and barbarity of
masters, overseers, and slave-drivers, whenever and wherever it can
reach them; but there are certain secluded and out-of-the-way places,
even in the state of Maryland, seldom visited by a single ray of
healthy public sentiment—where slavery, wrapt in its own congenial,
midnight darkness, _can_, and _does_, develop all its malign and
shocking characteristics; where it can be indecent without shame, cruel
without shuddering, and murderous without apprehension or fear of
exposure.
Just such a secluded, dark, and out-of-the-way place, is the “home
plantation” of Col. Edward Lloyd, on the Eastern Shore, Maryland. It is
far away from all the great thoroughfares, and is proximate to no town
or village. There is neither school-house, nor town-house in its
neighborhood. The school-house is unnecessary, for there are no
children to go to school. The children and grand-children of Col. Lloyd
were taught in the house, by a private tutor—a Mr. Page a tall, gaunt
sapling of a man, who did not speak a dozen words to a slave in a whole
year. The overseers’ children go off somewhere to school; and they,
therefore, bring no foreign or dangerous influence from abroad, to
embarrass the natural operation of the slave system of the place. Not
even the mechanics—through whom there is an occasional out-burst of
honest and telling indignation, at cruelty and wrong on other
plantations—are white men, on this plantation. Its whole public is made
up of, and divided into, three classes—SLAVEHOLDERS, SLAVES and
OVERSEERS. Its blacksmiths, wheelwrights, shoemakers, weavers, and
coopers, are slaves. Not even commerce, selfish and iron-hearted at it
is, and ready, as it ever is, to side with the strong against the
weak—the rich against the poor—is trusted or permitted within its
secluded precincts. Whether with a view of guarding against the escape
of its secrets, I know not, but it is a fact, the every leaf and grain
of the produce of this plantation, and those of the neighboring farms
belonging to Col. Lloyd, are transported to Baltimore in Col. Lloyd’s
own vessels; every man and boy on board of which—except the captain—are
owned by him. In return, everything brought to the plantation, comes
through the same channel. Thus, even the glimmering and unsteady light
of trade, which sometimes exerts a civilizing influence, is excluded
from this “tabooed” spot.
Nearly all the plantations or farms in the vicinity of the “home
plantation” of Col. Lloyd, belong to him; and those which do not, are
owned by personal friends of his, as deeply interested in maintaining
the slave system, in all its rigor, as Col. Lloyd himself. Some of his
neighbors are said to be even more stringent than he. The Skinners, the
Peakers, the Tilgmans, the Lockermans, and the Gipsons, are in the same
boat; being slaveholding neighbors, they may have strengthened each
other in their iron rule. They are on intimate terms, and their
interests and tastes are identical.
Public opinion in such a quarter, the reader will see, is not likely to
very efficient in protecting the slave from cruelty. On the contrary,
it must increase and intensify his wrongs. Public opinion seldom
differs very widely from public practice. To be a restraint upon
cruelty and vice, public opinion must emanate from a humane and
virtuous community. To no such humane and virtuous community, is Col.
Lloyd’s plantation exposed. That plantation is a little nation of its
own, having its own language, its own rules, regulations and customs.
The laws and institutions of the state, apparently touch it nowhere.
The troubles arising here, are not settled by the civil power of the
state. The overseer is generally accuser, judge, jury, advocate and
executioner. The criminal is always dumb. The overseer attends to all
sides of a case.
There are no conflicting rights of property, for all the people are
owned by one man; and they can themselves own no property. Religion and
politics are alike excluded. One class of the population is too high to
be reached by the preacher; and the other class is too low to be cared
for by the preacher. The poor have the gospel preached to them, in this
neighborhood, only when they are able to pay for it. The slaves, having
no money, get no gospel. The politician keeps away, because the people
have no votes, and the preacher keeps away, because the people have no
money. The rich planter can afford to learn politics in the parlor, and
to dispense with religion altogether.
In its isolation, seclusion, and self-reliant independence, Col.
Lloyd’s plantation resembles what the baronial domains were during the
middle ages in Europe. Grim, cold, and unapproachable by all genial
influences from communities without, _there it stands;_ full three
hundred years behind the age, in all that relates to humanity and
morals.
This, however, is not the only view that the place presents.
Civilization is shut out, but nature cannot be. Though separated from
the rest of the world; though public opinion, as I have said, seldom
gets a chance to penetrate its dark domain; though the whole place is
stamped with its own peculiar, ironlike individuality; and though
crimes, high-handed and atrocious, may there be committed, with almost
as much impunity as upon the deck of a pirate ship—it is, nevertheless,
altogether, to outward seeming, a most strikingly interesting place,
full of life, activity, and spirit; and presents a very favorable
contrast to the indolent monotony and languor of Tuckahoe. Keen as was
my regret and great as was my sorrow at leaving the latter, I was not
long in adapting myself to this, my new home. A man’s troubles are
always half disposed of, when he finds endurance his only remedy. I
found myself here; there was no getting away; and what remained for me,
but to make the best of it? Here were plenty of children to play with,
and plenty of places of pleasant resort for boys of my age, and boys
older. The little tendrils of affection, so rudely and treacherously
broken from around the darling objects of my grandmother’s hut,
gradually began to extend, and to entwine about the new objects by
which I now found myself surrounded.
There was a windmill (always a commanding object to a child’s eye) on
Long Point—a tract of land dividing Miles river from the Wye a mile or
more from my old master’s house. There was a creek to swim in, at the
bottom of an open flat space, of twenty acres or more, called “the Long
Green”—a very beautiful play-ground for the children.
In the river, a short distance from the shore, lying quietly at anchor,
with her small boat dancing at her stern, was a large sloop—the Sally
Lloyd; called by that name in honor of a favorite daughter of the
colonel. The sloop and the mill were wondrous things, full of thoughts
and ideas. A child cannot well look at such objects without _thinking_.
Then here were a great many houses; human habitations, full of the
mysteries of life at every stage of it. There was the little red house,
up the road, occupied by Mr. Sevier, the overseer. A little nearer to
my old master’s, stood a very long, rough, low building, literally
alive with slaves, of all ages, conditions and sizes. This was called
“the Longe Quarter.” Perched upon a hill, across the Long Green, was a
very tall, dilapidated, old brick building—the architectural dimensions
of which proclaimed its erection for a different purpose—now occupied
by slaves, in a similar manner to the Long Quarter. Besides these,
there were numerous other slave houses and huts, scattered around in
the neighborhood, every nook and corner of which was completely
occupied. Old master’s house, a long, brick building, plain, but
substantial, stood in the center of the plantation life, and
constituted one independent establishment on the premises of Col.
Lloyd.
Besides these dwellings, there were barns, stables, store-houses, and
tobacco-houses; blacksmiths’ shops, wheelwrights’ shops, coopers’
shops—all objects of interest; but, above all, there stood the grandest