Twelve Years a Slave
I was frightened on coming out of the cabin to find the slaves were
already in the field. They had preceded me some fifteen minutes.
Leaving my dinner and water-gourd, I hurried after them as fast as I
could move. It was not yet sunrise, but Epps was on the piazza as I
left the hut, and cried out to me that it was a pretty time of day
to be getting up. By extra exertion my row was up when he came out
after breakfast. This, however, was no excuse for the offence of
oversleeping. Bidding me strip and lie down, he gave me ten or fifteen
lashes, at the conclusion of which he inquired if I thought, after
that, I could get up sometime in the _morning_. I expressed myself
quite positively that I _could_, and, with back stinging with pain,
went about my work.
The following day, Sunday, my thoughts were upon Bass, and the
probabilities and hopes which hung upon his action and determination.
I considered the uncertainty of life; that if it should be the will
of God that he should die, my prospect of deliverance, and all
expectation of happiness in this world, would be wholly ended and
destroyed. My sore back, perhaps, did not have a tendency to render me
unusually cheerful. I felt down-hearted and unhappy all day long, and
when I laid down upon the hard board at night, my heart was oppressed
with such a load of grief, it seemed that it must break.
Monday morning, the third of January, 1853, we were in the field
betimes. It was a raw, cold morning, such as is unusual in that
region. I was in advance, Uncle Abram next to me, behind him Bob,
Patsey and Wiley, with our cotton-bags about our necks. Epps happened
(a rare thing, indeed,) to come out that morning without his whip.
He swore, in a manner that would shame a pirate, that we were doing
nothing. Bob ventured to say that his fingers were so numb with cold
he couldn't pick fast. Epps cursed himself for not having brought his
rawhide, and declared that when he came out again he would warm us
well; yes, he would make us all hotter than that fiery realm in which
I am sometimes compelled to believe he will himself eventually reside.
With these fervent expressions, he left us. When out of hearing,
we commenced talking to each other, saying how hard it was to be
compelled to keep up our tasks with numb fingers; how unreasonable
master was, and speaking of him generally in no flattering terms. Our
conversation was interrupted by a carriage passing rapidly towards
the house. Looking up, we saw two men approaching us through the
cotton-field.
* * * * *
Having now brought down this narrative to the last hour I was to spend
on Bayou Boeuf--having gotten through my last cotton picking, and
about to bid Master Epps farewell--I must beg the reader to go back
with me to the month of August; to follow Bass' letter on its long
journey to Saratoga; to learn the effect it produced--and that, while
I was repining and despairing in the slave hut of Edwin Epps, through
the friendship of Bass and the goodness of Providence, all things were
working together for my deliverance.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE LETTER REACHES SARATOGA--IS FORWARDED TO ANNE--IS LAID
BEFORE HENRY B. NORTHUP--THE STATUTE OF MAY 14, 1840--ITS
PROVISIONS--ANNE'S MEMORIAL TO THE GOVERNOR--THE AFFIDAVITS
ACCOMPANYING IT--SENATOR SOULE'S LETTER--DEPARTURE OF THE AGENT
APPOINTED BY THE GOVERNOR--ARRIVAL AT MARKSVILLE--THE HON. JOHN
P. WADDILL--THE CONVERSATION ON NEW-YORK POLITICS--IT SUGGESTS
A FORTUNATE IDEA--THE MEETING WITH BASS--THE SECRET OUT--LEGAL
PROCEEDINGS INSTITUTED--DEPARTURE OF NORTHUP AND THE SHERIFF FROM
MARKSVILLE FOR BAYOU BOEUF--ARRANGEMENTS ON THE WAY--REACH EPPS'
PLANTATION--DISCOVER HIS SLAVES IN THE COTTON FIELD--THE MEETING--THE
FAREWELL.
I am indebted to Mr. Henry B. Northup and others for many of the
particulars contained in this chapter.
The letter written by Bass, directed to Parker and Perry, and which
was deposited in the post-office in Marksville on the 15th day of
August, 1852, arrived at Saratoga in the early part of September.
Some time previous to this, Anne had removed to Glens Falls, Warren
county, where she had charge of the kitchen in Carpenter's Hotel. She
kept house, however, lodging with our children, and was only absent
from them during such time as the discharge of her duties in the hotel
required.
Messrs. Parker and Perry, on receipt of the letter, forwarded it
immediately to Anne. On reading it the children were all excitement,
and without delay hastened to the neighboring village of Sandy Hill,
to consult Henry B. Northup, and obtain his advice and assistance in
the matter.
Upon examination, that gentleman found among the statutes of the State
an act providing for the recovery of free citizens from slavery. It
was passed May 14, 1840, and is entitled "An act more effectually
to protect the free citizens of this State from being kidnapped or
reduced to slavery." It provides that it shall be the duty of the
Governor, upon the receipt of satisfactory information that any free
citizen or inhabitant of this State, is wrongfully held in another
State or Territory of the United States, upon the allegation or
pretence that such person is a slave, or by color of any usage or
rule of law is deemed or taken to be a slave, to take such measures
to procure the restoration of such person to liberty, as he shall
deem necessary. And to that end, he is authorized to appoint and
employ an agent, and directed to furnish him with such credentials
and instructions as will be likely to accomplish the object of his
appointment. It requires the agent so appointed to proceed to collect
the proper proof to establish the right of such person to his freedom;
to perform such journeys, take such measures, institute such legal
proceedings, &c., as may be necessary to return such person to this
State, and charges all expenses incurred in carrying the act into
effect, upon moneys not otherwise appropriated in the treasury.[1]
It was necessary to establish two facts to the satisfaction of the
Governor: First, that I was a free citizen of New-York; and secondly,
that I was wrongfully held in bondage. As to the first point, there
was no difficulty, all the older inhabitants in the vicinity being
ready to testify to it. The second point rested entirely upon the
letter to Parker and Perry, written in an unknown hand, and upon the
letter penned on board the brig Orleans, which, unfortunately, had
been mislaid or lost.
A memorial was prepared, directed to his excellency, Governor Hunt,
setting forth her marriage, my departure to Washington city; the
receipt of the letters; that I was a free citizen, and such other
facts as were deemed important, and was signed and verified by Anne.
Accompanying this memorial were several affidavits of prominent
citizens of Sandy Hill and Fort Edward, corroborating fully the
statements it contained, and also a request of several well known
gentlemen to the Governor, that Henry B. Northup be appointed agent
under the legislative act.
On reading the memorial and affidavits, his excellency took a lively
interest in the matter, and on the 23d day of November, 1852, under
the seal of the State, "constituted, appointed and employed Henry B.
Northup, Esq., an agent, with full power to effect" my restoration,
and to take such measures as would be most likely to accomplish
it, and instructing him to proceed to Louisiana with all convenient
dispatch.[2]
The pressing nature of Mr. Northup's professional and political
engagements delayed his departure until December. On the fourteenth
day of that month he left Sandy Hill, and proceeded to Washington.
The Hon. Pierre Soule, Senator in Congress from Louisiana, Hon. Mr.
Conrad, Secretary of War, and Judge Nelson, of the Supreme Court
of the United States, upon hearing a statement of the facts, and
examining his commission, and certified copies of the memorial and
affidavits, furnished him with open letters to gentlemen in Louisiana,
strongly urging their assistance in accomplishing the object of his
appointment.
Senator Soule especially interested himself in the matter, insisting,
in forcible language, that it was the duty and interest of every
planter in his State to aid in restoring me to freedom, and trusted
the sentiments of honor and justice in the bosom of every citizen
of the commonwealth would enlist him at once in my behalf. Having
obtained these valuable letters, Mr. Northup returned to Baltimore,
and proceeded from thence to Pittsburgh. It was his original
intention, under advice of friends at Washington, to go directly to
New Orleans, and consult the authorities of that city. Providentially,
however, on arriving at the mouth of Red River, he changed his mind.
Had he continued on, he would not have met with Bass, in which case
the search for me would probably have been fruitless.
Taking passage on the first steamer that arrived, he pursued his
journey up Red River, a sluggish, winding stream, flowing through
a vast region of primitive forests and impenetrable swamps, almost
wholly destitute of inhabitants. About nine o'clock in the forenoon,
January 1st, 1853, he left the steamboat at Marksville, and proceeded
directly to Marksville Court House, a small village four miles in the
interior.
From the fact that the letter to Messrs. Parker and Perry was
post-marked at Marksville, it was supposed by him that I was in
that place or its immediate vicinity. On reaching this town, he at
once laid his business before the Hon. John P. Waddill, a legal
gentleman of distinction, and a man of fine genius and most noble
impulses. After reading the letters and documents presented him, and
listening to a representation of the circumstances under which I had
been carried away into captivity, Mr. Waddill at once proffered his
services, and entered into the affair with great zeal and earnestness.
He, in common with others of like elevated character, looked upon the
kidnapper with abhorrence. The title of his fellow parishioners and
clients to the property which constituted the larger proportion of
their wealth, not only depended upon the good faith in which slave
sales were transacted, but he was a man in whose honorable heart
emotions of indignation were aroused by such an instance of injustice.
Marksville, although occupying a prominent position, and standing out
in impressive italics on the map of Louisiana, is, in fact, but a
small and insignificant hamlet. Aside from the tavern, kept by a jolly
and generous boniface, the court house, inhabited by lawless cows
and swine in the seasons of vacation, and a high gallows, with its
dissevered rope dangling in the air, there is little to attract the
attention of the stranger.
Solomon Northup was a name Mr. Waddill had never heard, but he was
confident that if there was a slave bearing that appellation in
Marksville or vicinity, his black boy Tom would know him. Tom was
accordingly called, but in all his extensive circle of acquaintances
there was no such personage.
The letter to Parker and Perry was dated at Bayou Boeuf. At this
place, therefore, the conclusion was, I must be sought. But here a
difficulty suggested itself, of a very grave character indeed. Bayou
Boeuf, at its nearest point, was twenty-three miles distant, and was
the name applied to the section of country extending between fifty
and a hundred miles, on both sides of that stream. Thousands and
thousands of slaves resided upon its shores, the remarkable richness
and fertility of the soil having attracted thither a great number of
planters. The information in the letter was so vague and indefinite
as to render it difficult to conclude upon any specific course of
proceeding. It was finally determined, however, as the only plan that