Twelve Years a Slave
again--kissing the sleeping children--talking first to one, then to
the other, as they lay in their unconscious slumbers, with their
heads upon her lap. So wore the long night away; and when the morning
dawned, and night had come again, still she kept mourning on, and
would not be consoled.
About midnight following, the cell door opened, and Burch and Radburn
entered, with lanterns in their hands. Burch, with an oath, ordered us
to roll up our blankets without delay, and get ready to go on board
the boat. He swore we would be left unless we hurried fast. He aroused
the children from their slumbers with a rough shake, and said they
were d--d sleepy, it appeared. Going out into the yard, he called Clem
Ray, ordering him to leave the loft and come into the cell, and bring
his blanket with him. When Clem appeared, he placed us side by side,
and fastened us together with hand-cuffs--my left hand to his right.
John Williams had been taken out a day or two before, his master
having redeemed him, greatly to his delight. Clem and I were ordered
to march, Eliza and the children following. We were conducted into
the yard, from thence into the covered passage, and up a flight of
steps through a side door into the upper room, where I had heard the
walking to and fro. Its furniture was a stove, a few old chairs, and a
long table, covered with papers. It was a white-washed room, without
any carpet on the floor, and seemed a sort of office. By one of the
windows, I remember, hung a rusty sword, which attracted my attention.
Burch's trunk was there. In obedience to his orders, I took hold of
one of its handles with my unfettered hand, while he taking hold of
the other, we proceeded out of the front door into the street in the
same order as we had left the cell.
It was a dark night. All was quiet. I could see lights, or the
reflection of them, over towards Pennsylvania Avenue, but there was
no one, not even a straggler, to be seen. I was almost resolved to
attempt to break away. Had I not been hand-cuffed the attempt would
certainly have been made, whatever consequence might have followed.
Radburn was in the rear, carrying a large stick, and hurrying up
the children as fast as the little ones could walk. So we passed,
hand-cuffed and in silence, through the streets of Washington--through
the Capital of a nation, whose theory of government, we are told,
rests on the foundation of man's inalienable right to life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness! Hail! Columbia, happy land, indeed!
Reaching the steamboat, we were quickly hustled into the hold, among
barrels and boxes of freight. A colored servant brought a light, the
bell rung, and soon the vessel started down the Potomac, carrying
us we knew not where. The bell tolled as we passed the tomb of
Washington! Burch, no doubt, with uncovered head, bowed reverently
before the sacred ashes of the man who devoted his illustrious life to
the liberty of his country.
None of us slept that night but Randall and little Emmy. For the first
time Clem Ray was wholly overcome. To him the idea of going south was
terrible in the extreme. He was leaving the friends and associations
of his youth--every thing that was dear and precious to his heart--in
all probability never to return. He and Eliza mingled their tears
together, bemoaning their cruel fate. For my own part, difficult as
it was, I endeavored to keep up my spirits. I resolved in my mind a
hundred plans of escape, and fully determined to make the attempt
the first desperate chance that offered. I had by this time become
satisfied, however, that my true policy was to say nothing further on
the subject of my having been born a freeman. It would but expose me
to mal-treatment, and diminish the chances of liberation.
After sunrise in the morning we were called up on deck to breakfast.
Burch took our hand-cuffs off, and we sat down to table. He asked
Eliza if she would take a dram. She declined, thanking him politely.
During the meal we were all silent--not a word passed between us. A
mulatto woman who served at table seemed to take an interest in our
behalf--told us to cheer up, and not to be so cast down. Breakfast
over, the hand-cuffs were restored, and Burch ordered us out on the
stern deck. We sat down together on some boxes, still saying nothing
in Burch's presence. Occasionally a passenger would walk out to where
we were, look at us for a while, then silently return.
It was a very pleasant morning. The fields along the river were
covered with verdure, far in advance of what I had been accustomed to
see at that season of the year. The sun shone out warmly; the birds
were singing in the trees. The happy birds--I envied them. I wished
for wings like them, that I might cleave the air to where my birdlings
waited vainly for their father's coming, in the cooler region of the
North.
In the forenoon the steamer reached Aquia Creek. There the passengers
took stages--Burch and his five slaves occupying one exclusively. He
laughed with the children, and at one stopping place went so far as to
purchase them a piece of gingerbread. He told me to hold up my head
and look smart. That I might, perhaps, get a good master if I behaved
myself. I made him no reply. His face was hateful to me, and I could
not bear to look upon it. I sat in the corner, cherishing in my heart
the hope, not yet extinct, of some day meeting the tyrant on the soil
of my native State.
At Fredericksburgh we were transferred from the stage coach to a car,
and before dark arrived in Richmond, the chief city of Virginia. At
this city we were taken from the cars, and driven through the street
to a slave pen, between the railroad depot and the river, kept by a
Mr. Goodin. This pen is similar to Williams' in Washington, except it
is somewhat larger; and besides, there were two small houses standing
at opposite corners within the yard. These houses are usually found
within slave yards, being used as rooms for the examination of human
chattels by purchasers before concluding a bargain. Unsoundness in a
slave, as well as in a horse, detracts materially from his value. If
no warranty is given, a close examination is a matter of particular
importance to the negro jockey.
We were met at the door of Goodin's yard by that gentleman himself--a
short, fat man, with a round, plump face, black hair and whiskers,
and a complexion almost as dark as some of his own negroes. He had a
hard, stern look, and was perhaps about fifty years of age. Burch and
he met with great cordiality. They were evidently old friends. Shaking
each other warmly by the hand, Burch remarked he had brought some
company, inquired at what time the brig would leave, and was answered
that it would probably leave the next day at such an hour. Goodin then
turned to me, took hold of my arm, turned me partly round, looked at
me sharply with the air of one who considered himself a good judge of
property, and as if estimating in his own mind about how much I was
worth.
"Well, boy, where did you come from?"
Forgetting myself, for a moment, I answered, "From New-York."
"New-York! H--l! what have you been doing up there?" was his
astonished interrogatory.
Observing Burch at this moment looking at me with an angry expression
that conveyed a meaning it was not difficult to understand, I
immediately said, "O, I have only been up that way a piece," in a
manner intended to imply that although I might have been as far as
New-York, yet I wished it distinctly understood that I did not belong
to that free State, nor to any other.
Goodin then turned to Clem, and then to Eliza and the children,
examining them severally, and asking various questions. He was pleased
with Emily, as was every one who saw the child's sweet countenance.
She was not as tidy as when I first beheld her; her hair was now
somewhat disheveled; but through its unkempt and soft profusion
there still beamed a little face of most surpassing loveliness.
"Altogether we were a fair lot--a devilish good lot," he said,
enforcing that opinion with more than one emphatic adjective not
found in the Christian vocabulary. Thereupon we passed into the yard.
Quite a number of slaves, as many as thirty I should say, were moving
about, or sitting on benches under the shed. They were all cleanly
dressed--the men with hats, the women with handkerchiefs tied about
their heads.
Burch and Goodin, after separating from us, walked up the steps at the
back part of the main building, and sat down upon the door sill. They
entered into conversation, but the subject of it I could not hear.
Presently Burch came down into the yard, unfettered me, and led me
into one of the small houses.
"You told that man you came from New-York," said he.
I replied, "I told him I had been up as far as New-York, to be sure,
but did not tell him I belonged there, nor that I was a freeman. I
meant no harm at all, Master Burch. I would not have said it had I
thought."
He looked at me a moment as if he was ready to devour me, then turning
round went out. In a few minutes he returned. "If ever I hear you say
a word about New-York, or about your freedom, I will be the death of
you--I will kill you; you may rely on that," he ejaculated fiercely.
I doubt not he understood then better than I did, the danger and the
penalty of selling a free man into slavery. He felt the necessity
of closing my mouth against the crime he knew he was committing. Of
course, my life would not have weighed a feather, in any emergency
requiring such a sacrifice. Undoubtedly, he meant precisely what he
said.
Under the shed on one side of the yard, there was constructed a rough
table, while overhead were sleeping lofts--the same as in the pen
at Washington. After partaking at this table of our supper of pork
and bread, I was hand-cuffed to a large yellow man, quite stout and
fleshy, with a countenance expressive of the utmost melancholy. He was
a man of intelligence and information. Chained together, it was not
long before we became acquainted with each other's history. His name
was Robert. Like myself, he had been born free, and had a wife and
two children in Cincinnati. He said he had come south with two men,
who had hired him in the city of his residence. Without free papers,
he had been seized at Fredericksburgh, placed in confinement, and
beaten until he had learned, as I had, the necessity and the policy
of silence. He had been in Goodin's pen about three weeks. To this
man I became much attached. We could sympathize with, and understand
each other. It was with tears and a heavy heart, not many days
subsequently, that I saw him die, and looked for the last time upon
his lifeless form!
Robert and myself, with Clem, Eliza and her children, slept that night
upon our blankets, in one of the small houses in the yard. There were
four others, all from the same plantation, who had been sold, and
were now on their way south, who also occupied it with us. David and
his wife, Caroline, both mulattoes, were exceedingly affected. They
dreaded the thought of being put into the cane and cotton fields;
but their greatest source of anxiety was the apprehension of being
separated. Mary, a tall, lithe girl, of a most jetty black, was
listless and apparently indifferent. Like many of the class, she
scarcely knew there was such a word as freedom. Brought up in the
ignorance of a brute, she possessed but little more than a brute's
intelligence. She was one of those, and there are very many, who fear
nothing but their master's lash, and know no further duty than to
obey his voice. The other was Lethe. She was of an entirely different
character. She had long, straight hair, and bore more the appearance
of an Indian than a negro woman. She had sharp and spiteful eyes, and