Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (37 page)

To make my story short, and go back to the doctor—Mr. J——had a very fine daughter, and we were very fond of each other. Mr. L———had been a visitor of Mr. J———’s for many years. Now that he had me under lock and key, and knowing that it was not for any crime that I was there, he could not be otherwise than kind. He allowed me every indulgence. My friends, such as could come, could call and see me whenever they pleased, and stop as long as they liked; he would never turn the key on them. Sometimes he would give me the key on the inside. While the doctor had me here for safe keeping, I could have made my escape every day or night; but in the first place, if I had wanted to go, I would not have taken the advantage of Mr. L
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’s kindness; in the second place, I saw no chance of bettering myself. I knew he would not get my sister, because she had not left town. My uncle-in-law, who was a sea-faring man, had intended to take her to New York, but the doctor’s threats frightened him so much, that he did not dare make the attempt.

While the old man was gone, I had a negro trader call with others to see me. His name was G
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; he said he would buy me if the old doctor would sell me; I told him I thought he would—that he told me he intended to do so when he put me in gaol.

After some two weeks the doctor returned home without my sister. The woman that had been taken up and put in gaol was a free woman; but what could she do with the wretch who put her there? America is a free country, and a white man can do what he pleases with a coloured man or woman in most of the States. They may have a few friends now, who would not allow this if they knew it; but they are hated by the nation at large.

My aunt was taken out of gaol and sent home to the doctor’s house; the children and myself were left in. The old man came to have a little talk with me about my sister.

“Well, John, I have not got Harriet, but I will have her yet. Don’t you know where she is?”

“How can I know, sir? I have been in gaol ever since my sister left you. Mr. G——was here while you were away, sir, and said that he wanted to buy me.”

“Buy you! I don’t want to sell you.”

“You told me when you put me here that you did.”

“Yes, but not if you will go back to the shop and behave yourself. Mr. G——has not got money enough to buy you.”

“I do not know how to behave differently from what I have done.”

“Your behaviour will do; but I am afraid you are going to run away from me.”

“I have not said anything about running away from you, sir.”

“I know that; but your sister is gone, and you will be going next.”

Up to this time I had heard nothing of my sister; but I felt sure that she was with her friends in Edenton.

CHAPTER III

My Uncle’s Troubles—My Further Experience of the Doctor, and Our Parting

W
HILE THE EVENTS DESCRIBED in the foregoing chapter were transpiring, my uncle-in-law Stephen returned from sea. His master, Mr. B——, was owner of the vessel in which he sailed; and, although he had had several chances to make his escape from slavery, yet he had returned on every voyage. The doctor, who owned my aunt, forbad his going to see her, although they had lived together for twenty years, and had never been known to quarrel. It was most cruel that they should be separated, not for their own, but for another’s acts. The doctor was inexorable; they were strictly interdicted from seeing each other. The only tie that bound my uncle to slavery was his wife, to whom he was truly attached. When their sacred union—a union holy in the sight of God, however desecrated by wicked men—was broken, he would not longer submit to the yoke. He took advantage of his next voyage to release himself from it, and he returned no more. His wife was dead to him—ay, worse than dead. “That which God hath joined together, let no man put asunder,” saith those Scriptures which the slaveholder professes to believe, but which he blasphemes day by day and hour by hour.

At the doctor’s last visit to the jail, he described to me the wretchedness of the free people of colour in New York, and stated that they had not the comforts of his slaves, and how much better off we were than they. To this I said nothing. My mind was fully made up, that I must, in order to effect my escape, hide as much as possible my hatred to slavery, and affect a respect to my master, whoever he might be. The doctor and myself knew each other too well for me to hope to get away from him. I must change owners in order to do that. Secondly, I had made up my mind that, let the condition of the coloured people of New York be what it might, I would rather die a free man than live a slave. The doctor evidently did not want to sell me, neither did he want to run the risk of losing me. Not that he had any particular regard for me, but he could not replace me for the same money that a slave-trader would give for me.

Before he left the jail, he told me that he did not want to keep me in jail any longer, and would let me out at any time when I would get my uncle Mark to be security that I would not run away from him. When leaving, he told me to send for my uncle, and see if he would not do it for me. To all this I was dumb. I was in no particular hurry to get out of jail. I wanted a little time for serious reflection, and this was the only place where I could get an opportunity for it.

A few days passed, and he heard nothing from me. He saw my uncle, and told him that I wanted to see him at the jail. He accordingly came, and asked me if I wished him to become my security. I promptly told him no; that I wanted my liberty; that I would make good the first opportunity to secure it; that he might do as he pleased; but, God being my helper, I would die a free man. This satisfied my uncle at once, that he might as well take the money out of his pocket and pay for me as to become my security; and he thought, if I could get a chance to make my escape without bringing any expense on him, so much the better. Here we parted. The old doctor waited for an answer, but got none, which satisfied him that I no longer had a desire to make his shop my home.

There were two or three slaveholders in the town, that would give him more for me than he could get from a trader, but he would not sell me to any one in the town. Mr. S——, who afterwards bought me, came to the jail, and asked me if I would live with him if he bought me. I told him that I would; but the question was not asked how long.

I had been here just two months when Mr. S——
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got a negro trader to buy the two children for my grandmother and me for himself. The doctor at first tried to bind the trader not to sell me to any one in the State; but this he would not agree to, saying that he sold his slaves wherever he could get the most for them; he finally agreed to take me out of town in irons, but to sell me the first chance he could get. The old man did not think that he had bargained for me before I was sold. This important part of the business being settled, we were sold, the two children for 500 dollars, I believe, and I for 900 dollars. The blacksmith’s tools, handcuffs, and chain were all in readiness at the jail. The chain was thirty or forty feet long, with handcuffs every two or three feet. The slaves were handcuffed right and left on each side of the chain. In the gang there was one who was free by birth. He was born not more than fifty miles from Edenton. He had been put in jail here for some trifling offence; not being able to pay the fine, he was sold for six months or a year to William R——, a planter, who was so cruel to him that he ran away from him. He was caught, and, after being flogged, was put in irons and set to work. He attempted to cut the irons off, and being caught in the act, was sent to jail, and finally sold to a trader. I saw the irons that he had been made to work in; they were fetters for the ankles, weighing from fifteen to twenty pounds in weight.

Now we were all snugly chained up, the children in the cart, and the women walking behind; friends weeping, and taking a farewell shake of the hand—wives of their husbands, and parents of their children. I went with the gang as far as Mr. J. B. S—’s, the man that had my uncle taken in New York. Here the cart was stopped and the blacksmith’s tools taken out, and Mr. L——began to hammer away at my irons. When they were off, he told me to take the children and go home to Mr. S——; the children went to my grandmother, and I to Mr. S——, who had purchased me for a body servant; but, knowing the temper of the doctor, who would be angry at being outwitted, he sent me to his plantation, where I stopped for three months. During that time I was often in town of an evening to see my grandmother; and on two occasions he tried to trap me. What he would have done to me I know not; but up to the day that I left North Carolina, I never dared to trust myself in his power. Again and again he searched my grandmother’s house for my sister, and at length he put my uncle Mark in jail. After a few days he was taken before the magistrate. The doctor could prove nothing against him, and yet the magistrate made my uncle pay the jail fees. Had my grandmother been destitute of friends, as many of the coloured people in the Slave States are, doubtless the doctor would have tried to extort from my uncle my sister’s hiding-place. It was for this purpose he wanted to get hold of me, for, with oaths of the most dreadful kind, he told me he would butcher me. I had seen too much of his cruelty to doubt his purpose.

CHAPTER IV

My New Master’s Plantation—My Medical Practice Among the Slaves
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My Sister’s Hiding-Place

D
URING THE THREE MONTHS that I was on the plantation, my master changed overseers. The last one was a member of a Christian church. He was particularly fond of two things, namely, singing hymns and flogging slaves; but he had been told to spare me from the lash. I could see that it went very much against his wishes to do so. Soon after this overseer came on the plantation, my master took me into town to live with him. He had one brother and a sister, who were both subject to fits, returning about every four weeks. When his brother Dr. M. E. S——
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was sick with them, I stopped by him for a few days, until the illness was over. His sister died soon after I went to live with him. My work had never been very hard, neither had I known, as many do, the want of food; and as for the lash, from a boy I had declared that I would never carry its stripes upon my back. It is true my condition was much bettered with my new master; but I was happier only as I could see my chance for escape clearer. At length I grew sick of myself in acting the deceitful part of a slave, and pretending love and friendship where I had none. Unpleasant as it was thus to act, yet, under the circumstances in which I was placed, I feel that I have done no wrong in so doing; I did everything that I could to please my master, who treated me with as much kindness as I could expect from any one to whom I was a slave.

Having been so long with Dr. N——, my master thought me quite capable of visiting the sick slaves on the plantation. This part of my work caused the overseer much unpleasantness; he would sometimes want to give them oil, or something of the kind, saying they were not sick; at other times he would say they were well enough to go to work, and if they were too sick to work, they were too sick to eat. Knowing that he would not strike me for having my own way in what I was sent there for—to see if they were sick and give them what they needed—I took great pleasure in differing with him on all occasions when I thought my patient dangerously ill. My judgment in regard to such diseases as are most common on a plantation was considered very good for one of my age; so much so, that a young planter who was studying medicine at the time, offered my master one thousand five hundred dollars for me. The way I came to know this was thus: he asked me one day if I wanted to be sold. This woke up a little of the old feeling, and I had almost forgotten myself for a minute. “No, sir,” I said, “I am not anxious to be sold, but I know I have got to serve some one.” Here he made me a promise which I shall never forget, though it was not consoling to me. He said, “You shall not serve any one after me: I have been offered a very handsome price for you; but I don’t want to sell you.” True, I was glad to hear him say that I should serve no one after him; this required a little consideration; he was but a few years older than me, and to wait for him to die looked to me too much like giving a man who was in want of his daily bread a cheque on the bank to be paid when he is dead. To have prayed for his death would have been wrong; to have killed him would have been worse; so, finally, I concluded to let him live as long as the Lord was willing he should, and I would get off as soon as possible. My pride would not allow me to let a man feed and clothe me for nothing; I would work the ends of my fingers off first.

I have said nothing about Mr. S——’s plantation slaves; I have only spoken of his treatment to me. I am willing to acknowledge kindness, even in a slaveholder, wherever I have seen it; but had he treated all of his slaves as he treated me, the probability is that they would have been of as little value to him as I was. Some may try to make out of this a case of ingratitude; but I do not feel myself under the slightest obligation to any one who holds me against my will, though he starved himself to feast me. Doubtless he meant to do me a good turn; but he put it off too far. I appreciated his kindness, and endeavoured to be as useful as I could.

At this time my condition was so much better than my sister’s, that I had almost ceased to speak of leaving in the presence of my grandmother; for there is an inexpressible feeling in the breast of a woman who has lost child after child, whether it has been taken by force or by the hand of death, that makes her cling with tighter grasp to the last one. No doubt many of my readers can picture to themselves the force of the prayers and tears of a pious mother under such trials. My uncle Joseph was gone, she knew not where, and my sister was so closely pursued that they were obliged to hide her in the house between the roof and the ceiling. They are now beyond the reach of the slave power, or I would not dare to tell how this was done.