Twelve Years a Slave
remained about the field an hour or more, during which time I stood
by the mistress, having related the particulars of what had taken
place. Now, _she_ was aroused again, denouncing her husband and Patsey
about equally. Finally, Epps came towards the house, by this time
nearly sober, walking demurely, with his hands behind his back, and
attempting to look as innocent as a child.
As he approached, nevertheless, Mistress Epps began to berate him
roundly, heaping upon him many rather disrespectful epithets, and
demanding for what reason he had attempted to cut my throat. Epps
made wondrous strange of it all, and to my surprise, swore by all the
saints in the calendar he had not spoken to me that day.
"Platt, you lying nigger, _have_ I?" was his brazen appeal to me.
It is not safe to contradict a master, even by the assertion of a
truth. So I was silent, and when he entered the house I returned to
the field, and the affair was never after alluded to.
Shortly after this time a circumstance occurred that came nigh
divulging the secret of my real name and history, which I had so long
and carefully concealed, and upon which I was convinced depended my
final escape. Soon after he purchased me, Epps asked me if I could
write and read, and on being informed that I had received some
instruction in those branches of education, he assured me, with
emphasis, if he ever caught me with a book, or with pen and ink, he
would give me a hundred lashes. He said he wanted me to understand
that he bought "niggers" to work and not to educate. He never inquired
a word of my past life, or from whence I came. The mistress, however,
cross-examined me frequently about Washington, which she supposed was
my native city, and more than once remarked that I did not talk nor
act like the other "niggers," and she was sure I had seen more of the
world than I admitted.
My great object always was to invent means of getting a letter
secretly into the post-office, directed to some of my friends or
family at the North. The difficulty of such an achievement cannot be
comprehended by one unacquainted with the severe restrictions imposed
upon me. In the first place, I was deprived of pen, ink, and paper.
In the second place, a slave cannot leave his plantation without a
pass, nor will a post-master mail a letter for one without written
instructions from his owner. I was in slavery nine years, and always
watchful and on the alert, before I met with the good fortune of
obtaining a sheet of paper. While Epps was in New-Orleans, one winter,
disposing of his cotton, the mistress sent me to Holmesville, with an
order for several articles, and among the rest a quantity of foolscap.
I appropriated a sheet, concealing it in the cabin, under the board on
which I slept.
After various experiments I succeeded in making ink, by boiling white
maple bark, and with a feather plucked from the wing of a duck,
manufactured a pen. When all were asleep in the cabin, by the light
of the coals, lying upon my plank couch, I managed to complete a
somewhat lengthy epistle. It was directed to an old acquaintance at
Sandy Hill, stating my condition, and urging him to take measures to
restore me to liberty. This letter I kept a long time, contriving
measures by which it could be safely deposited in the post-office. At
length, a low fellow, by the name of Armsby, hitherto a stranger, came
into the neighborhood, seeking a situation as overseer. He applied
to Epps, and was about the plantation for several days. He next went
over to Shaw's, near by, and remained with him several weeks. Shaw
was generally surrounded by such worthless characters, being himself
noted as a gambler and unprincipled man. He had made a wife of his
slave Charlotte, and a brood of young mulattoes were growing up in his
house. Armsby became so much reduced at last, that he was compelled
to labor with the slaves. A white man working in the field is a rare
and unusual spectacle on Bayou Boeuf. I improved every opportunity
of cultivating his acquaintance privately, desiring to obtain his
confidence so far as to be willing to intrust the letter to his
keeping. He visited Marksville repeatedly, he informed me, a town some
twenty miles distant, and there, I proposed to myself, the letter
should be mailed.
Carefully deliberating on the most proper manner of approaching him
on the subject, I concluded finally to ask him simply if he would
deposit a letter for me in the Marksville post-office the next time
he visited that place, without disclosing to him that the letter was
written, or any of the particulars it contained; for I had fears that
he might betray me, and knew that some inducement must be held out to
him of a pecuniary nature, before it would be safe to confide in him.
As late as one o'clock one night I stole noiselessly from my cabin,
and, crossing the field to Shaw's, found him sleeping on the piazza.
I had but a few picayunes--the proceeds of my fiddling performances,
but all I had in the world I promised him if he would do me the
favor required. I begged him not to expose me if he could not grant
the request. He assured me, upon his honor, he would deposit it in
the Marksville post-office, and that he would keep it an inviolable
secret forever. Though the letter was in my pocket at the time, I
dared not then deliver it to him, but stating I would have it written
in a day or two, bade him good night, and returned to my cabin. It
was impossible for me to expel the suspicions I entertained, and all
night I lay awake, revolving in my mind the safest course to pursue. I
was willing to risk a great deal to accomplish my purpose, but should
the letter by any means fall into the hands of Epps, it would be a
death-blow to my aspirations. I was "perplexed in the extreme."
My suspicions were well-founded, as the sequel demonstrated. The next
day but one, while scraping cotton in the field, Epps seated himself
on the line fence between Shaw's plantation and his own, in such a
position as to overlook the scene of our labors. Presently Armsby made
his appearance, and, mounting the fence, took a seat beside him. They
remained two or three hours, all of which time I was in an agony of
apprehension.
That night, while broiling my bacon, Epps entered the cabin with his
rawhide in his hand.
"Well, boy," said he, "I understand I've got a larned nigger, that
writes letters, and tries to get white fellows to mail 'em. Wonder if
you know who he is?"
My worst fears were realized, and although it may not be considered
entirely creditable, even under the circumstances, yet a resort to
duplicity and downright falsehood was the only refuge that presented
itself.
"Don't know nothing about it, Master Epps," I answered him, assuming
an air of ignorance and surprise; "Don't know nothing at all about it,
sir."
"Wan't you over to Shaw's night before last?" he inquired.
"No, master," was the reply.
"Hav'nt you asked that fellow, Armsby, to mail a letter for you at
Marksville?"
"Why, Lord, master, I never spoke three words to him in all my life. I
don't know what you mean."
"Well," he continued, "Armsby told me to-day the devil was among my
niggers; that I had one that needed close watching or he would run
away; and when I axed him why, he said you come over to Shaw's,
and waked him up in the night, and wanted him to carry a letter to
Marksville. What have you got to say to that, ha?"
"All I've got to say, master," I replied, "is, there is no truth in
it. How could I write a letter without any ink or paper? There is
nobody I want to write to, 'cause I haint got no friends living as I
know of. That Armsby is a lying, drunken fellow, they say, and nobody
believes him anyway. You know I always tell the truth, and that I
never go off the plantation without a pass. Now, master, I can see
what that Armsby is after, plain enough. Did'nt he want you to hire
him for an overseer?"
"Yes, he wanted me to hire him," answered Epps.
"That's it," said I, "he wants to make you believe we're all going
to run away, and then he thinks you'll hire an overseer to watch us.
He just made that story out of whole cloth, 'cause he wants to get a
situation. It's all a lie, master, you may depend on't."
Epps mused awhile, evidently impressed with the plausibility of my
theory, and exclaimed,
"I'm d--d, Platt, if I don't believe you tell the truth. He must
take me for a soft, to think he can come it over me with them kind
of yarns, musn't he? Maybe he thinks he can fool me; maybe he thinks
I don't know nothing--can't take care of my own niggers, eh! Soft
soap old Epps, eh! Ha, ha, ha! D--n Armsby! Set the dogs on him,
Platt," and with many other comments descriptive of Armsby's general
character, and his capability of taking care of his own business, and
attending to his own "niggers," Master Epps left the cabin. As soon as
he was gone I threw the letter in the fire, and, with a desponding and
despairing heart, beheld the epistle which had cost me so much anxiety
and thought, and which I fondly hoped would have been my forerunner
to the land of freedom, writhe and shrivel on its bed of coals, and
dissolve into smoke and ashes. Armsby, the treacherous wretch, was
driven from Shaw's plantation not long subsequently, much to my
relief, for I feared he might renew his conversation, and perhaps
induce Epps to credit him.
I knew not now whither to look for deliverance. Hopes sprang up in
my heart only to be crushed and blighted. The summer of my life was
passing away; I felt I was growing prematurely old; that a few years
more, and toil, and grief, and the poisonous miasmas of the swamps
would accomplish their work upon me--would consign me to the grave's
embrace, to moulder and be forgotten. Repelled, betrayed, cut off from
the hope of succor, I could only prostrate myself upon the earth and
groan in unutterable anguish. The hope of rescue was the only light
that cast a ray of comfort on my heart. That was now flickering,
faint and low; another breath of disappointment would extinguish it
altogether, leaving me to grope in midnight darkness to the end of
life.
CHAPTER XVII.
WILEY DISREGARDS THE COUNSELS OF AUNT PHEBE AND UNCLE ABRAM,
AND IS CAUGHT BY THE PATROLLERS--THE ORGANIZATION AND DUTIES OF
THE LATTER--WILEY RUNS AWAY--SPECULATIONS IN REGARD TO HIM--HIS
UNEXPECTED RETURN--HIS CAPTURE ON RED RIVER, AND CONFINEMENT
IN ALEXANDRIA JAIL--DISCOVERED BY JOSEPH B. ROBERTS--SUBDUING
DOGS IN ANTICIPATION OF ESCAPE--THE FUGITIVES IN THE GREAT PINE
WOODS--CAPTURED BY ADAM TAYDEM AND THE INDIANS--AUGUSTUS KILLED
BY DOGS--NELLY, ELDRET'S SLAVE WOMAN--THE STORY OF CELESTE--THE
CONCERTED MOVEMENT--LEW CHENEY, THE TRAITOR--THE IDEA OF INSURRECTION.
The year 1850, down to which time I have now arrived, omitting many
occurrences uninteresting to the reader, was an unlucky year for my
companion Wiley, the husband of Phebe, whose taciturn and retiring
nature has thus far kept him in the background. Notwithstanding Wiley
seldom opened his mouth, and revolved in his obscure and unpretending
orbit without a grumble, nevertheless the warm elements of sociality
were strong in the bosom of that silent "nigger." In the exuberance
of his self-reliance, disregarding the philosophy of Uncle Abram,
and setting the counsels of Aunt Phebe utterly at naught, he had the
fool-hardiness to essay a nocturnal visit to a neighboring cabin
without a pass.
So attractive was the society in which he found himself, that Wiley
took little note of the passing hours, and the light began to break in
the east before he was aware. Speeding homeward as fast as he could
run, he hoped to reach the quarters before the horn would sound; but,
unhappily, he was spied on the way by a company of patrollers.