Slave Girl (15 page)

After the war, Mr Harms arranged for Clotee to travel up North, where she received a hero’s welcome. After several business failures, Mr Harms moved to Scotland where he dropped out of
sight. Although Clotee never met Sojourner Truth, she did meet Frederick Douglass, with whom she corresponded until his death in 1895.

In 1875, Clotee returned to Virginia, where she attended Virginia Colored Women’s Institute, then dedicated her life to the education of former slaves, women’s suffrage, equal rights
and justice for all people regardless of race, creed or nationality.

Inside her diaries, Miss Avery found two other interesting items that help conclude Clotee’s story. One was a photo and packet of letters from Dr William Monroe Henley, who had become a
professor of philosophy at Oberlin College in Ohio. He had been disinherited by his father for taking a stand against prejudice. “Through education Mr Harms did more to destroy slavery than
all the laws on the books could legislate,” he wrote to Clotee in 1891.

There was another photo of a handsome elderly couple, surrounded by a large family. On the back was written: To our beloved sister-friend, Clotee from Hince and Rose Henley and family. 50th
Wedding Anniversary. Louisville, Kentucky, 1910.

Spicy is holding a Bible in her hand, and Hince has a quilt folded over one knee. There is an old article from a Kentucky newspaper attached to the photo, praising Hince for being one of the
finest horse trainers in the racing business.

Clotee never married or had children of her own, but when she died on May 6, 1941, hundreds of her former students attended the funeral. As a teacher she had challenged them. As an activist, she
had inspired them. As a friend, she had encouraged them. Clotee Henley’s legacy lives on in the epitaph engraved on her gravestone:

FREEDOM IS MORE THAN A WORD

The first Africans were brought to the Virginia colony as indentured servants in 1619. Slavery was a well-established institution in the United States by the 1850s. But the
resistance against it was equally old and persistent.

Virginia legislators, who were often wealthy planters, took the lead in passing laws that safeguarded their rights as slaveholders, discouraged runaways and protected themselves against
insurrections. These laws were known as “Slave Codes” or “Black Codes”. As a matter of record Virginia and other Southern states had hundreds of Slave Codes on their books.
For example one stated that “…the status of the mother determined whether the child was born free or slave.” Others forbade interracial marriages and outlawed the education of
slaves. Blacks could not hold public meetings, or testify against a white man in court. Any slave suspected of running away was dealt with severely.

Resistance against slavery took many forms, beginning first with the captives themselves. They used work slow downs, arson, murder, suicide and armed rebellion to gain their freedom. When they
could run, most did. In fact, the runaway problem was always a pressing one for most slaveholders. As early as 1642, Virginia introduced a fugitive slave order that penalized all those who helped
runaway slaves.

Even the United States Constitution contained a fugitive slave clause. Most slaves who managed to reach a free state could live as a free person. But with the passage of the revised Fugitive
Slave Law of 1850, the government allowed slaveholders to go into free states and recapture their “property”.

In 1854, Anthony Burns, a fugitive slave, was arrested and jailed in Boston, Massachusetts, but Bostonians attacked the federal courthouse and attempted to rescue him. Burns was returned to his
master, but he was later freed. Burns’ case, and others like his, brought the issue of slavery to the forefront.

As early as 1688, a group of Pennsylvania Quakers signed the “Germantown Mennonite Resolution Against Slavery”. It was the first written document that protested slavery in the North
American colonies and marked the beginning of a formalized abolitionist movement. Since that time, blacks and whites, men and women, southerners and northerners organized with the purpose of
abolishing slavery. One of the largest and most effective of these organizations was the American Anti-Slavery Society, founded in Philadelphia in 1833. New York, Philadelphia and Boston were the
centres of the movement, but anti-slavery groups flourished all over the country.

William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass spoke out strongly against slavery. Women such as Harriet Beecher Stowe and Sojourner Truth also made an impact through their lectures and writing.
Truth had been enslaved in New York, one of the last Northern states to abolish slavery. Stowe’s book
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
sold out its first printing in less than a week because
people were fascinated by her depiction of slave life. Southerners tried to argue that the book was fiction, but people read it as fact.

To help runaways make the long and dangerous trip to freedom, often to Canada, abolitionists formed a network of people who served as “conductors” on an “underground
railroad”. It was not underground and it wasn’t a railroad, but a route by which slaves were taken to freedom. Good and decent people – farmers, teachers, housewives, labourers,
college presidents and even children – risked heavy fines and imprisonment to take part in this dangerous venture. Some conductors were caught and served time in prison but nothing could stop
people from running away from tyranny or assisting those who would try.

One of the best-known conductors on the Underground Railroad was Harriet Tubman, a fugitive slave. Although there was a price on her head, she continued to serve as a conductor, leading hundreds
of runaways to freedom in Canada.

Slaveholders had their sights on the fertile lands out West. They wanted to expand slavery west of the Mississippi River. Abolitionists were determined to stop them. Dred Scott, a Missouri
slave, sued his master for freedom because he had been taken to live for a while in free territory. The United States Supreme Court ruled in 1857 that a slave could not sue for his freedom because
he was “property”. The court added that “no black man had rights that a white man [had] to respect.” The decision was a bitter defeat for anti-slavery forces, because it
disenfranchised all blacks – whether free or slave. Now, neither could vote, hold public office, patent an invention, serve on a jury or testify against a white person in any court of law.
African Americans were not considered citizens.

While most abolitionists chose to end slavery through peaceful means, some were beginning to think that slavery could not end without an armed struggle. Henry Highland Garnet was an outspoken
black leader who called for violent resistance to slavery long before anyone else agreed with him. Another man who believed that freedom would have to be won by the sword was John Brown.

In October 1859, John Brown, along with five blacks and thirteen whites, led a raid on the federal armoury at Harpers Ferry in Virginia (now located in West Virginia). Brown planned to organize
a slave army made up of fugitives who would fight for their own freedom. Their success would inspire others to take up arms. Colonel Robert E Lee led the federal counterattack. Most of
Brown’s men were killed in the fight. One man escaped. John Brown and several others were captured and hanged. Before he died, Brown warned the South to end slavery or risk God’s
wrath.

To anti-slavery sympathizers Brown had become a hero, a martyr. Songs were written about him and schoolchildren honoured him. In the South, Brown was dismissed as a madman, symbolic of all
abolitionists.

The South was confident in 1859 that their way of life would go on indefinitely. But change was inevitable. The Republicans were a new political party, organized in 1854. In less than five years
they had won numerous seats in Congress. Abraham Lincoln from Illinois was nominated to run for the presidency on the Republican ticket. He stood a fair chance of winning the 1860 election. His
position seemed moderate, nothing radical. He supported Congressional prohibition of slavery in Western territories and the gradual abolition of slavery in the United States. Some abolitionist
groups felt Lincoln’s position was not strong enough. Some leaders, especially in Virginia, realized that slavery could not last much longer and the gradual approach seemed plausible. Sadly,
these people were in the minority. South Carolina declared that if Lincoln won the election, the state would secede from the Union.

Meanwhile political posturing had done very little to ease the lives of the 4,000,000 slaves who lived on the plantations throughout the South. Most of them lived in miserable conditions, yet
they never lost hope. It is reflected in the songs they sang:

The words were coded. “Home” was freedom. The “sweet chariot” was a wagon or some vehicle that they hoped would take them to freedom. The “band of
angels” were the abolitionists. Slaves sang songs for many reasons. Often, their singing was misunderstood as a display of happiness and contentment.

The conditions under which a slave lived depended largely upon the personality of his master. Planters were the masters of their estates who conducted their affairs autonomously. Their wives,
children and slaves were under their authority and could be treated any way the planters chose within the limits of the law (and the laws were always in the slaveholders’ favour).

The mistress of the plantation was generally younger than her husband, sometimes by as much as twenty years. Girls often married at fourteen and were expected to have children as soon as
possible. But the rearing of the children was usually left to slave women who nursed and cared for them through infancy.

The master’s children grew up on the plantation and sometimes played with slave children because there were no other children around. Sometimes slave children were half brothers and
sisters, sharing the same father. Loneliness caused some mistresses to select a slave woman to be her confidante and companion. The relationship was rarely allowed to develop into real friendship.
Each situation was as unique as the people who were involved.

In 1859 most slaveholders owned no more than 25 to 30 field hands and four to five household servants who took care of the family’s personal needs. Field slaves’ lives were filled
with endless misery and suffering. Death was welcomed. They worked from sunup until sundown, driven by fear and brutality. Their diets were poor, and so was their health care. People aged early and
died too young. Children died needless deaths and the elderly were turned out to fend for themselves when they were no longer useful. The huts the slaves lived in were small, crowded and filthy,
and up to as many as ten people would sleep in one 6 metre by 6 metre cabin.

Those servants who worked in the “Big House” had a few advantages, but there were even more disadvantages. As grand as the old mansions were, they didn’t have any of the modern
conveniences we take for granted today. Work in the Big House never ceased. Servants were expected to do all the washing, ironing, cooking, serving of food, cleaning, caring for children and even
fanning. House slaves were on call 24 hours a day.

Even though every effort was made to keep slaves ignorant, many of them learned to read and write, using any opportunity available to them. Then they, in turn, taught others. Secret teachers
– who were sometimes disguised abolitionists, free blacks or fellow slaves – formed “pit schools”. They dug a hole large enough for two to four people. They pulled a lid
made of brush over the top. Down in the pit they practised their lessons with less chance of being caught.

Being discovered was an ever-present danger. Literate slaves were usually sold to the Deep South where escape was nearly impossible. Gabriel Prosser and Nat Turner were literate men who had led
rebellions in Richmond and Southampton, Virginia. Slaveowners knew they were outnumbered on some rural plantations, so masters stayed on the lookout for budding insurrections. They used bribery,
threats and fear to coerce slaves into betraying anyone who might appear suspicious. It was not uncommon for the informer to end up being sold himself.

Frederick Douglass, publisher of
The North Star
, wrote in his autobiography that “No man who can read will stay a slave very long.”

Sojourner Truth, who had been a slave in New York, said, “Slavery must be destroyed. God will not stand with wrong, never mind how right you think you be.”

And Harriet Tubman said, “I mean to live free or die.”

Emboldened by the spirit of these and other freedom fighters, the stage was set for slaves who dared to defy their masters.

People didn’t know in 1859 that the nation was on the threshold of a terrible war that would kill thousands. But the unfolding political drama would climax when Edmund Ruffin, Sr, a
Virginian, fired the first shot at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, a few months after Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States. The war ended five years later in 1865. The cost had
been high on both sides. The lives of the 4,000,000 slaves living in the United States and the 250,000 fugitive slaves that had escaped to Canada would be changed forever.

They were free at last.

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