The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African
any farther mischief. On the 13th of February 1763, from the
mast-head, we descried our destined island Montserrat; and soon after
I beheld those
"Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can rarely dwell. Hope never comes
That comes to all, but torture without end
Still urges."
At the sight of this land of bondage, a fresh horror ran through all
my frame, and chilled me to the heart. My former slavery now rose in
dreadful review to my mind, and displayed nothing but misery, stripes,
and chains; and, in the first paroxysm of my grief, I called upon
God's thunder, and his avenging power, to direct the stroke of death
to me, rather than permit me to become a slave, and be sold from lord
to lord.
In this state of my mind our ship came to an anchor, and soon after
discharged her cargo. I now knew what it was to work hard; I was made
to help to unload and load the ship. And, to comfort me in my distress
in that time, two of the sailors robbed me of all my money, and ran
away from the ship. I had been so long used to an European climate
that at first I felt the scorching West India sun very painful, while
the dashing surf would toss the boat and the people in it frequently
above high water mark. Sometimes our limbs were broken with this, or
even attended with instant death, and I was day by day mangled and
torn.
About the middle of May, when the ship was got ready to sail for
England, I all the time believing that Fate's blackest clouds were
gathering over my head, and expecting their bursting would mix me with
the dead, Captain Doran sent for me ashore one morning, and I was told
by the messenger that my fate was then determined. With fluttering
steps and trembling heart I came to the captain, and found with him
one Mr. Robert King, a quaker, and the first merchant in the place.
The captain then told me my former master had sent me there to be
sold; but that he had desired him to get me the best master he could,
as he told him I was a very deserving boy, which Captain Doran said he
found to be true; and if he were to stay in the West Indies he would
be glad to keep me himself; but he could not venture to take me to
London, for he was very sure that when I came there I would leave him.
I at that instant burst out a crying, and begged much of him to take
me to England with him, but all to no purpose. He told me he had got
me the very best master in the whole island, with whom I should be as
happy as if I were in England, and for that reason he chose to let him
have me, though he could sell me to his own brother-in-law for a great
deal more money than what he got from this gentleman. Mr. King, my new
master, then made a reply, and said the reason he had bought me was on
account of my good character; and, as he had not the least doubt of my
good behaviour, I should be very well off with him. He also told me he
did not live in the West Indies, but at Philadelphia, where he was
going soon; and, as I understood something of the rules of
arithmetic, when we got there he would put me to school, and fit me
for a clerk. This conversation relieved my mind a little, and I left
those gentlemen considerably more at ease in myself than when I came
to them; and I was very grateful to Captain Doran, and even to my old
master, for the character they had given me; a character which I
afterwards found of infinite service to me. I went on board again, and
took leave of all my shipmates; and the next day the ship sailed. When
she weighed anchor I went to the waterside and looked at her with a
very wishful and aching heart, and followed her with my eyes and tears
until she was totally out of sight. I was so bowed down with grief
that I could not hold up my head for many months; and if my new master
had not been kind to me I believe I should have died under it at last.
And indeed I soon found that he fully deserved the good character
which Captain Doran had given me of him; for he possessed a most
amiable disposition and temper, and was very charitable and humane. If
any of his slaves behaved amiss he did not beat or use them ill, but
parted with them. This made them afraid of disobliging him; and as he
treated his slaves better than any other man on the island, so he was
better and more faithfully served by them in return. By his kind
treatment I did at last endeavour to compose myself; and with
fortitude, though moneyless, determined to face whatever fate had
decreed for me. Mr. King soon asked me what I could do; and at the
same time said he did not mean to treat me as a common slave. I told
him I knew something of seamanship, and could shave and dress hair
pretty well; and I could refine wines, which I had learned on
shipboard, where I had often done it; and that I could write, and
understood arithmetic tolerably well as far as the Rule of Three. He
then asked me if I knew any thing of gauging; and, on my answering
that I did not, he said one of his clerks should teach me to gauge.
Mr. King dealt in all manner of merchandize, and kept from one to six
clerks. He loaded many vessels in a year; particularly to
Philadelphia, where he was born, and was connected with a great
mercantile house in that city. He had besides many vessels and
droggers, of different sizes, which used to go about the island; and
others to collect rum, sugar, and other goods. I understood pulling
and managing those boats very well; and this hard work, which was the
first that he set me to, in the sugar seasons used to be my constant
employment. I have rowed the boat, and slaved at the oars, from one
hour to sixteen in the twenty-four; during which I had fifteen pence
sterling per day to live on, though sometimes only ten pence. However
this was considerably more than was allowed to other slaves that used
to work with me, and belonged to other gentlemen on the island: those
poor souls had never more than nine pence per day, and seldom more
than six pence, from their masters or owners, though they earned them
three or four pisterines[Q]: for it is a common practice in the West
Indies for men to purchase slaves though they have not plantations
themselves, in order to let them out to planters and merchants at so
much a piece by the day, and they give what allowance they chuse out
of this produce of their daily work to their slaves for subsistence;
this allowance is often very scanty. My master often gave the owners
of these slaves two and a half of these pieces per day, and found the
poor fellows in victuals himself, because he thought their owners did
not feed them well enough according to the work they did. The slaves
used to like this very well; and, as they knew my master to be a man
of feeling, they were always glad to work for him in preference to any
other gentleman; some of whom, after they had been paid for these poor
people's labours, would not give them their allowance out of it. Many
times have I even seen these unfortunate wretches beaten for asking
for their pay; and often severely flogged by their owners if they did
not bring them their daily or weekly money exactly to the time; though
the poor creatures were obliged to wait on the gentlemen they had
worked for sometimes for more than half the day before they could get
their pay; and this generally on Sundays, when they wanted the time
for themselves. In particular, I knew a countryman of mine who once
did not bring the weekly money directly that it was earned; and though
he brought it the same day to his master, yet he was staked to the
ground for this pretended negligence, and was just going to receive a
hundred lashes, but for a gentleman who begged him off fifty. This
poor man was very industrious; and, by his frugality, had saved so
much money by working on shipboard, that he had got a white man to buy
him a boat, unknown to his master. Some time after he had this little
estate the governor wanted a boat to bring his sugar from different
parts of the island; and, knowing this to be a negro-man's boat, he
seized upon it for himself, and would not pay the owner a farthing.
The man on this went to his master, and complained to him of this act
of the governor; but the only satisfaction he received was to be
damned very heartily by his master, who asked him how dared any of his
negroes to have a boat. If the justly-merited ruin of the governor's
fortune could be any gratification to the poor man he had thus robbed,
he was not without consolation. Extortion and rapine are poor
providers; and some time after this the governor died in the King's
Bench in England, as I was told, in great poverty. The last war
favoured this poor negro-man, and he found some means to escape from
his Christian master: he came to England; where I saw him afterwards
several times. Such treatment as this often drives these miserable
wretches to despair, and they run away from their masters at the
hazard of their lives. Many of them, in this place, unable to get
their pay when they have earned it, and fearing to be flogged, as
usual, if they return home without it, run away where they can for
shelter, and a reward is often offered to bring them in dead or alive.
My master used sometimes, in these cases, to agree with their owners,
and to settle with them himself; and thereby he saved many of them a
flogging.
Once, for a few days, I was let out to fit a vessel, and I had no
victuals allowed me by either party; at last I told my master of this
treatment, and he took me away from it. In many of the estates, on the
different islands where I used to be sent for rum or sugar, they would
not deliver it to me, or any other negro; he was therefore obliged to
send a white man along with me to those places; and then he used to
pay him from six to ten pisterines a day. From being thus employed,
during the time I served Mr. King, in going about the different
estates on the island, I had all the opportunity I could wish for to
see the dreadful usage of the poor men; usage that reconciled me to my
situation, and made me bless God for the hands into which I had
fallen.
I had the good fortune to please my master in every department in
which he employed me; and there was scarcely any part of his business,
or household affairs, in which I was not occasionally engaged. I often
supplied the place of a clerk, in receiving and delivering cargoes to
the ships, in tending stores, and delivering goods: and, besides this,
I used to shave and dress my master when convenient, and take care of
his horse; and when it was necessary, which was very often, I worked
likewise on board of different vessels of his. By these means I became
very useful to my master; and saved him, as he used to acknowledge,
above a hundred pounds a year. Nor did he scruple to say I was of more
advantage to him than any of his clerks; though their usual wages in
the West Indies are from sixty to a hundred pounds current a year.
I have sometimes heard it asserted that a negro cannot earn his master
the first cost; but nothing can be further from the truth. I suppose
nine tenths of the mechanics throughout the West Indies are negro
slaves; and I well know the coopers among them earn two dollars a day;
the carpenters the same, and oftentimes more; as also the masons,
smiths, and fishermen, &c. and I have known many slaves whose masters
would not take a thousand pounds current for them. But surely this
assertion refutes itself; for, if it be true, why do the planters and
merchants pay such a price for slaves? And, above all, why do those
who make this assertion exclaim the most loudly against the abolition
of the slave trade? So much are men blinded, and to such inconsistent
arguments are they driven by mistaken interest! I grant, indeed, that
slaves are some times, by half-feeding, half-clothing, over-working