Twelve Years a Slave
My impression is there were then three persons with me, but it is
altogether indefinite and vague, and like the memory of a painful
dream. Going towards the light, which I imagined proceeded from a
physician's office, and which seemed to recede as I advanced, is the
last glimmering recollection I can now recall. From that moment I was
insensible. How long I remained in that condition--whether only that
night, or many days and nights--I do not know; but when consciousness
returned, I found myself alone, in utter darkness, and in chains.
The pain in my head had subsided in a measure, but I was very faint
and weak. I was sitting upon a low bench, made of rough boards, and
without coat or hat. I was hand-cuffed. Around my ankles also were
a pair of heavy fetters. One end of a chain was fastened to a large
ring in the floor, the other to the fetters on my ankles. I tried in
vain to stand upon my feet. Waking from such a painful trance, it
was some time before I could collect my thoughts. Where was I? What
was the meaning of these chains? Where were Brown and Hamilton? What
had I done to deserve imprisonment in such a dungeon? I could not
comprehend. There was a blank of some indefinite period, preceding
my awakening in that lonely place, the events of which the utmost
stretch of memory was unable to recall. I listened intently for some
sign or sound of life, but nothing broke the oppressive silence, save
the clinking of my chains, whenever I chanced to move. I spoke aloud,
but the sound of my voice startled me. I felt of my pockets, so far
as the fetters would allow--far enough, indeed, to ascertain that I
had not only been robbed of liberty, but that my money and free papers
were also gone! Then did the idea begin to break upon my mind, at
first dim and confused, that I had been kidnapped. But that I thought
was incredible. There must have been some misapprehension--some
unfortunate mistake. It could not be that a free citizen of New-York,
who had wronged no man, nor violated any law, should be dealt with
thus inhumanly. The more I contemplated my situation, however, the
more I became confirmed in my suspicions. It was a desolate thought,
indeed. I felt there was no trust or mercy in unfeeling man; and
commending myself to the God of the oppressed, bowed my head upon my
fettered hands, and wept most bitterly.
CHAPTER III.
PAINFUL MEDITATIONS--JAMES H. BURCH--WILLIAMS' SLAVE PEN IN
WASHINGTON--THE LACKEY, RADBURN--ASSERT MY FREEDOM--THE ANGER OF
THE TRADER--THE PADDLE AND CAT-O'-NINETAILS--THE WHIPPING--NEW
ACQUAINTANCES--RAY, WILLIAMS, AND RANDALL--ARRIVAL OF LITTLE EMILY
AND HER MOTHER IN THE PEN--MATERNAL SORROWS--THE STORY OF ELIZA.
Some three hours elapsed, during which time I remained seated on the
low bench, absorbed in painful meditations. At length I heard the
crowing of a cock, and soon a distant rumbling sound, as of carriages
hurrying through the streets, came to my ears, and I knew that it
was day. No ray of light, however, penetrated my prison. Finally,
I heard footsteps immediately overhead, as of some one walking to
and fro. It occurred to me then that I must be in an underground
apartment, and the damp, mouldy odors of the place confirmed the
supposition. The noise above continued for at least an hour, when,
at last, I heard footsteps approaching from without. A key rattled
in the lock--a strong door swung back upon its hinges, admitting a
flood of light, and two men entered and stood before me. One of them
was a large, powerful man, forty years of age, perhaps, with dark,
chestnut-colored hair, slightly interspersed with gray. His face was
full, his complexion flush, his features grossly coarse, expressive
of nothing but cruelty and cunning. He was about five feet ten inches
high, of full habit, and, without prejudice, I must be allowed to say,
was a man whose whole appearance was sinister and repugnant. His name
was James H. Burch, as I learned afterwards--a well-known slave-dealer
in Washington; and then, or lately, connected in business, as a
partner, with Theophilus Freeman, of New-Orleans. The person who
accompanied him was a simple lackey, named Ebenezer Radburn, who acted
merely in the capacity of turnkey. Both of these men still live in
Washington, or did, at the time of my return through that city from
slavery in January last.
The light admitted through the open door enabled me to observe the
room in which I was confined. It was about twelve feet square--the
walls of solid masonry. The floor was of heavy plank. There was one
small window, crossed with great iron bars, with an outside shutter,
securely fastened.
An iron-bound door led into an adjoining cell, or vault, wholly
destitute of windows, or any means of admitting light. The furniture
of the room in which I was, consisted of the wooden bench on which
I sat, an old-fashioned, dirty box stove, and besides these, in
either cell, there was neither bed, nor blanket, nor any other thing
whatever. The door, through which Burch and Radburn entered, led
through a small passage, up a flight of steps into a yard, surrounded
by a brick wall ten or twelve feet high, immediately in rear of a
building of the same width as itself. The yard extended rearward from
the house about thirty feet. In one part of the wall there was a
strongly ironed door, opening into a narrow, covered passage, leading
along one side of the house into the street. The doom of the colored
man, upon whom the door leading out of that narrow passage closed,
was sealed. The top of the wall supported one end of a roof, which
ascended inwards, forming a kind of open shed. Underneath the roof
there was a crazy loft all round, where slaves, if so disposed, might
sleep at night, or in inclement weather seek shelter from the storm.
It was like a farmer's barnyard in most respects, save it was so
constructed that the outside world could never see the human cattle
that were herded there.
The building to which the yard was attached, was two stories high,
fronting on one of the public streets of Washington. Its outside
presented only the appearance of a quiet private residence. A stranger
looking at it, would never have dreamed of its execrable uses. Strange
as it may seem, within plain sight of this same house, looking down
from its commanding height upon it, was the Capitol. The voices of
patriotic representatives boasting of freedom and equality, and the
rattling of the poor slave's chains, almost commingled. A slave pen
within the very shadow of the Capitol!
* * * * *
Such is a correct description as it was in 1841, of Williams' slave
pen in Washington, in one of the cellars of which I found myself so
unaccountably confined.
"Well, my boy, how do you feel now?" said Burch, as he entered through
the open door. I replied that I was sick, and inquired the cause of my
imprisonment. He answered that I was his slave--that he had bought me,
and that he was about to send me to New-Orleans. I asserted, aloud and
boldly, that I was a free man--a resident of Saratoga, where I had a
wife and children, who were also free, and that my name was Northup.
I complained bitterly of the strange treatment I had received, and
threatened, upon my liberation, to have satisfaction for the wrong.
He denied that I was free, and with an emphatic oath, declared that I
came from Georgia. Again and again I asserted I was no man's slave,
and insisted upon his taking off my chains at once. He endeavored to
hush me, as if he feared my voice would be overheard. But I would not
be silent, and denounced the authors of my imprisonment, whoever they
might be, as unmitigated villains. Finding he could not quiet me, he
flew into a towering passion. With blasphemous oaths, he called me
a black liar, a runaway from Georgia, and every other profane and
vulgar epithet that the most indecent fancy could conceive.
During this time Radburn was standing silently by. His business was,
to oversee this human, or rather inhuman stable, receiving slaves,
feeding and whipping them, at the rate of two shillings a head per
day. Turning to him, Burch ordered the paddle and cat-o'-ninetails
to be brought in. He disappeared, and in a few moments returned
with these instruments of torture. The paddle, as it is termed in
slave-beating parlance, or at least the one with which I first became
acquainted, and of which I now speak, was a piece of hard-wood
board, eighteen or twenty inches long, moulded to the shape of an
old-fashioned pudding stick, or ordinary oar. The flattened portion,
which was about the size in circumference of two open hands, was bored
with a small auger in numerous places. The cat was a large rope of
many strands--the strands unraveled, and a knot tied at the extremity
of each.
As soon as these formidable whips appeared, I was seized by both
of them, and roughly divested of my clothing. My feet, as has been
stated, were fastened to the floor. Drawing me over the bench, face
downwards, Radburn placed his heavy foot upon the fetters, between my
wrists, holding them painfully to the floor. With the paddle, Burch
commenced beating me. Blow after blow was inflicted upon my naked
body. When his unrelenting arm grew tired, he stopped and asked
if I still insisted I was a free man. I did insist upon it, and then
the blows were renewed, faster and more energetically, if possible,
than before. When again tired, he would repeat the same question, and
receiving the same answer, continue his cruel labor. All this time,
the incarnate devil was uttering most fiendish oaths. At length the
paddle broke, leaving the useless handle in his hand. Still I would
not yield. All his brutal blows could not force from my lips the foul
lie that I was a slave. Casting madly on the floor the handle of the
broken paddle, he seized the rope. This was far more painful than the
other. I struggled with all my power, but it was in vain. I prayed
for mercy, but my prayer was only answered with imprecations and with
stripes. I thought I must die beneath the lashes of the accursed
brute. Even now the flesh crawls upon my bones, as I recall the scene.
I was all on fire. My sufferings I can compare to nothing else than
the burning agonies of hell!
At last I became silent to his repeated questions. I would make no
reply. In fact, I was becoming almost unable to speak. Still he plied
the lash without stint upon my poor body, until it seemed that the
lacerated flesh was stripped from my bones at every stroke. A man with
a particle of mercy in his soul would not have beaten even a dog so
cruelly. At length Radburn said that it was useless to whip me any
more--that I would be sore enough. Thereupon, Burch desisted, saying,
with an admonitory shake of his fist in my face, and hissing the
words through his firm-set teeth, that if ever I dared to utter again
that I was entitled to my freedom, that I had been kidnapped, or any
thing whatever of the kind, the castigation I had just received was
nothing in comparison with what would follow. He swore that he would
either conquer or kill me. With these consolatory words, the fetters
were taken from my wrists, my feet still remaining fastened to the
ring; the shutter of the little barred window, which had been opened,
was again closed, and going out, locking the great door behind them, I
was left in darkness as before.
In an hour, perhaps two, my heart leaped to my throat, as the key
rattled in the door again. I, who had been so lonely, and who had
longed so ardently to see some one, I cared not who, now shuddered
at the thought of man's approach. A human face was fearful to me,
especially a white one. Radburn entered, bringing with him, on a tin