How did mr covey treat douglass and his peers

NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE

OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS AN

AMERICAN SLAVE. WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.

Table of Contents NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS AN AMERICAN SLAVE. WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. Table of Contents

PREFACE LETTER FROM WENDELL PHILLIPS, ESQ.

BOSTON, APRIL 22, 1845.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI APPENDIX

PREFACE

In the month of August, 1841, I attended an anti-slavery convention in Nantucket, at which it becomes my happiness to turn out to be acquainted with Frederick Douglass, the author of the subsequent Narrative. He become a stranger to nearly each member of that frame; but, having lately made his escape from the southern prison-residence of bondage, and feeling his curiosity excited to check the concepts and measures of the abolitionists,—of whom he had heard a truly vague description while he turned into a slave,—he turned into prompted to give his attendance, on the occasion alluded to, although at that point a resident in New Bedford.

Fortunate, most lucky prevalence!—fortunate for the hundreds of thousands of his manacled brethren, yet panting for deliverance from their awful thralldom!—lucky for the purpose of negro emancipation, and of time- honored liberty!—fortunate for the land of his birth, which he has already carried out a lot to shop and bless!— fortunate for a massive circle of pals and pals, whose sympathy and affection he has strongly secured by using the various sufferings he has continued, with the aid of his virtuous tendencies of individual, by way of his ever- abiding remembrance of individuals who are in bonds, as being bound with them!—fortunate for the multitudes, in various elements of our republic, whose minds he has enlightened close to slavery, and who have been melted to tears with the aid of his pathos, or roused to virtuous indignation via his stirring eloquence towards the enslavers of fellows!—lucky for himself, because it at once introduced him into the sector of public usefulness, "gave the world guarantee of a MAN," quickened the sound asleep energies of his soul, and consecrated him to the terrific paintings of breaking the rod of the oppressor, and letting the oppressed cross free!

I shall in no way neglect his first speech at the conference—the extremely good emotion it excited in my very own mind—the effective impact it created upon a crowded auditory, absolutely taken by means of wonder—the applause which observed from the beginning to the stop of his felicitous feedback. I think I in no way hated slavery so intensely as at that moment; simply, my belief of the giant outrage that is inflicted with the aid of it, at the godlike nature of its victims, changed into rendered far greater clear than ever. There stood one, in physical percentage and stature commanding and precise—in mind richly endowed—in herbal eloquence a prodigy—in soul obviously "created but a little decrease than the angels"—but a slave, ay, a fugitive slave,—trembling for his protection, hardly ever daring to trust that at the American soil, a single white individual could be discovered who could befriend him at all hazards, for the affection of God and humanity! Capable of high attainments as an highbrow and ethical being—wanting not anything but a relatively small quantity of cultivation to make him an ornament to society and a blessing to his race—via the law of the land, by means of the voice of the humans, by using the phrases of the slave code, he became handiest a bit of belongings, a beast of burden, a chattel personal, although!

A beloved pal from New Bedford prevailed on Mr. Douglass to address the conference: He came ahead to the platform with a hesitancy and embarrassment, necessarily the attendants of sensitive thoughts in such a singular role. After apologizing for his lack of knowledge, and reminding the target audience that slavery became a poor school for the human intellect and heart, he proceeded to narrate some of the information in his personal records as a slave, and within the course of his speech gave utterance to many noble thoughts and interesting reflections. As quickly as he had taken his seat, filled with desire and admiration, I rose, and declared that Patrick Henry, of innovative reputation, by no means made a speech more eloquent inside the motive of liberty, than the only we had simply listened to from the lips of that hunted fugitive. So I believed at that time—such is my perception now. I reminded the target audience of the peril which surrounded this self-emancipated young man at the North, —even in Massachusetts, at the soil of the Pilgrim Fathers, a few of the descendants of progressive sires; and I appealed to them, whether they would ever allow him to be carried lower back into slavery,—law or no law,

constitution or no charter. The reaction became unanimous and in thunder-tones—"NO!" "Will you succor and shield him as a brother-guy—a resident of the old Bay State?" "YES!" shouted the entire mass, with an energy so startling, that the ruthless tyrants south of Mason and Dixon's line may almost have heard the strong burst of feeling, and identified it because the pledge of an invincible dedication, at the part of people who gave it, in no way to betray him that wanders, however to cover the outcast, and firmly to abide the effects.

It changed into straight away deeply inspired upon my mind, that, if Mr. Douglass may be persuaded to consecrate his time and talents to the promoting of the anti-slavery organisation, a effective impetus could accept to it, and a beautiful blow on the identical time inflicted on northern prejudice towards a coloured complexion. I therefore endeavored to instil hope and braveness into his mind, just so he may dare to interact in a vocation so anomalous and liable for a person in his situation; and I turned into seconded on this effort with the aid of warmhearted buddies, specially via the past due General Agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Mr. John A. Collins, whose judgment in this example totally coincided with my own. At first, he may want to give no encouragement; with unfeigned diffidence, he expressed his conviction that he become now not adequate to the overall performance of so first rate a assignment; the course marked out become wholly an untrodden one; he changed into really nervous that he need to do more damage than precise. After a good deal deliberation, but, he consented to make a tribulation; and ever due to the fact that duration, he has acted as a lecturing agent, below the auspices both of the American or the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. In labors he has been maximum abundant; and his success in preventing prejudice, in gaining proselytes, in agitating the general public thoughts, has a long way handed the most sanguine expectations that have been raised on the commencement of his superb career. He has borne himself with gentleness and meekness, but with true manliness of character. As a public speaker, he excels in pathos, wit, comparison, imitation, power of reasoning, and fluency of language. There is in him that union of head and heart, that is necessary to an enlightenment of the heads and a triumphing of the hearts of others. May his strength stay equal to his day! May he preserve to "develop in grace, and inside the know-how of God," that he may be an increasing number of serviceable within the purpose of bleeding humanity, whether at domestic or abroad!

It is truely a completely first-rate fact, that one of the most efficient advocates of the slave population, now earlier than the general public, is a fugitive slave, in the man or woman of Frederick Douglass; and that the free coloured populace of the United States are as ably represented by one among their personal number, in the individual of Charles Lenox Remond, whose eloquent appeals have extorted the best applause of multitudes on both aspects of the Atlantic. Let the calumniators of the coloured race despise themselves for their baseness and illiberality of spirit, and henceforth end to talk of the natural inferiority of folks who require nothing but time and possibility to achieve to the best factor of human excellence.

It may also, perhaps, be pretty wondered, whether another portion of the population of the earth should have persisted the privations, sufferings and horrors of slavery, without having end up greater degraded inside the scale of humanity than the slaves of African descent. Nothing has been left undone to cripple their intellects, darken their minds, debase their moral nature, obliterate all lines of their dating to mankind; and yet how splendidly they have got sustained the strong load of a maximum frightful bondage, underneath which they have been groaning for hundreds of years! To illustrate the effect of slavery at the white guy,—to reveal that he has no powers of staying power, in this kind of condition, superior to the ones of his black brother,—Daniel O'connell, the prominent recommend of typical emancipation, and the mightiest champion of prostrate but now not conquered Ireland, relates the following anecdote in a speech brought by using him in the Conciliation Hall, Dublin, before the Loyal National Repeal Association, March 31, 1845. "No count," said Mr. O'connell, "below what specious term it can conceal itself, slavery is still hideous. It has a natural, an inevitable tendency to brutalize each noble college of guy. An American sailor, who changed into cast away at the shore of Africa, where he changed into saved in slavery for 3 years, turned into, on the expiration of that period, discovered to be imbruted and stultified—he had misplaced all reasoning strength; and having forgotten his native language, may want to simplest utter some savage gibberish between Arabic and English, which no person should

apprehend, and which even he himself found problem in announcing. So plenty for the humanizing influence of The Domestic Institution!" Admitting this to were an exquisite case of intellectual deterioration, it proves as a minimum that the white slave can sink as low inside the scale of humanity because the black one.

Mr. Douglass has very well selected to jot down his own Narrative, in his own fashion, and according to the pleasant of his ability, as opposed to to hire some one else. It is, therefore, completely his very own production; and, thinking about how lengthy and dark become the profession he had to run as a slave,—how few had been his possibilities to enhance his thoughts given that he broke his iron fetters,—it's miles, in my judgment, pretty creditable to his head and coronary heart. He who can peruse it without a tearful eye, a heaving breast, an troubled spirit,—without being full of an unutterable abhorrence of slavery and all its abettors, and animated with a determination to seek the immediately overthrow of that execrable machine,—without trembling for the fate of this usa in the arms of a righteous God, who is ever on the side of the oppressed, and whose arm isn't always shortened that it can not save,—should have a flinty heart, and be certified to behave the part of a trafficker "in slaves and the souls of fellows." I am confident that it is essentially genuine in all its statements; that nothing has been set down in malice, not anything exaggerated, nothing drawn from the imagination; that it comes brief of the fact, in preference to overstates a single truth in regard to slavery as it's miles. The enjoy of Frederick Douglass, as a slave, changed into now not a peculiar one; his lot turned into no longer especially a hard one; his case can be seemed as a totally truthful specimen of the remedy of slaves in Maryland, wherein State it's far conceded that they may be higher fed and less cruelly treated than in Georgia, Alabama, or Louisiana. Many have suffered incomparably more, even as only a few at the plantations have suffered less, than himself. Yet how deplorable become his scenario! What horrible chastisements have been inflicted upon his man or woman! What nonetheless more surprising outrages had been perpetrated upon his mind! With all his noble powers and elegant aspirations, how like a brute changed into he treated, even by using the ones professing to have the equal mind in them that become in Christ Jesus! To what dreadful liabilities became he always subjected! How destitute of friendly recommend and useful resource, even in his greatest extremities! How heavy become the nighttime of woe which shrouded in blackness the final ray of wish, and crammed the destiny with terror and gloom! What longings after freedom took possession of his breast, and how his misery augmented, in percentage as he grew reflective and clever,—for this reason demonstrating that a satisfied slave is an extinct guy! How he notion, reasoned, felt, below the lash of the driving force, with the chains upon his limbs! What perils he encountered in his endeavors to get away from his horrible doom! And the way signal had been his deliverance and renovation in the midst of a state of pitiless enemies!

This Narrative contains many affecting incidents, many passages of fantastic eloquence and electricity; however I think the most thrilling one in all all of them is the outline Douglass gives of his feelings, as he stood soliloquizing respecting his fate, and the probabilities of his someday being a freeman, at the banks of the Chesapeake Bay—viewing the receding vessels as they flew with their white wings earlier than the breeze, and apostrophizing them as lively by the residing spirit of freedom. Who can examine that passage, and be insensible to its pathos and sublimity? Compressed into it is a whole Alexandrian library of concept, feeling, and sentiment —all which could, all that need be entreated, within the shape of expostulation, entreaty, rebuke, towards that crime of crimes,—making guy the assets of his fellow-man! O, how accursed is that machine, which entombs the godlike thoughts of man, defaces the divine photograph, reduces individuals who by introduction were crowned with glory and honor to a level with 4-footed beasts, and exalts the provider in human flesh notably that is referred to as God! Why have to its life be extended one hour? Is it not evil, most effective evil, and that continually? What does its presence mean however the absence of all worry of God, all regard for guy, at the a part of the human beings of the United States? Heaven velocity its everlasting overthrow!

So profoundly ignorant of the nature of slavery are many individuals, that they are stubbornly incredulous every time they study or listen to any recital of the cruelties which can be each day inflicted on its victims. They do now not deny that the slaves are held as property; but that terrible truth seems to deliver to their minds no idea of injustice, exposure to outrage, or savage barbarity. Tell them of merciless scourgings, of mutilations and

brandings, of scenes of pollution and blood, of the banishment of all light and know-how, and that they have an effect on to be greatly angry at such good sized exaggerations, such wholesale misstatements, such abominable libels at the man or woman of the southern planters! As if some of these direful outrages were now not the natural outcomes of slavery! As if it had been much less merciless to reduce a human being to the circumstance of a factor, than to provide him a extreme flagellation, or to deprive him of important food and clothing! As if whips, chains, thumb-screws, paddles, bloodhounds, overseers, drivers, patrols, had been now not all integral to hold the slaves down, and to present safety to their ruthless oppressors! As if, while the marriage institution is abolished, concubinage, adultery, and incest, have to now not always abound; while all of the rights of humanity are annihilated, any barrier stays to guard the sufferer from the fury of the spoiler; whilst absolute strength is assumed over lifestyles and liberty, it's going to now not be wielded with detrimental sway! Skeptics of this person abound in society. In a few few times, their incredulity arises from a need of reflection; but, commonly, it shows a hatred of the light, a choice to protect slavery from the attacks of its foes, a contempt of the coloured race, whether bond or loose. Such will attempt to discredit the surprising tales of slaveholding cruelty which can be recorded in this straightforward Narrative; but they'll exertions in vain. Mr. Douglass has frankly disclosed the area of his birth, the names of people who claimed possession in his frame and soul, and the names also of folks that committed the crimes which he has alleged towards them. His statements, consequently, may without difficulty be disproved, if they may be unfaithful.

In the course of his Narrative, he relates instances of murderous cruelty,—in one in all which a planter intentionally shot a slave belonging to a neighboring plantation, who had accidentally gotten within his lordly area looking for fish; and within the different, an overseer blew out the brains of a slave who had fled to a stream of water to escape a bloody scourging. Mr. Douglass states that during neither of these instances changed into any aspect carried out through way of legal arrest or judicial research. The Baltimore American, of March 17, 1845, relates a comparable case of atrocity, perpetrated with comparable impunity—as follows:—"Shooting a slave.—We learn, upon the authority of a letter from Charles county, Maryland, acquired by using a gentleman of this town, that a young man, named Matthews, a nephew of General Matthews, and whose father, it's far believed, holds an workplace at Washington, killed one of the slaves upon his father's farm by way of shooting him. The letter states that young Matthews have been left in rate of the farm; that he gave an order to the servant, which became disobeyed, when he proceeded to the house, obtained a gun, and, returning, shot the servant. He right away, the letter continues, fled to his father's residence, where he nonetheless stays unmolested."—Let it in no way be forgotten, that no slaveholder or overseer may be convicted of any outrage perpetrated on the individual of a slave, however diabolical it can be, at the testimony of coloured witnesses, whether or not bond or unfastened. By the slave code, they are adjudged to be as incompetent to testify towards a white man, as though they had been certainly a part of the brute introduction. Hence, there may be no legal safety in fact, whatever there may be in shape, for the slave population; and any amount of cruelty can be inflicted on them with impunity. Is it feasible for the human thoughts to conceive of a greater horrible country of society?

The impact of a non secular profession on the behavior of southern masters is vividly described inside the following Narrative, and proven to be any issue but salutary. In the character of the case, it must be inside the maximum diploma pernicious. The testimony of Mr. Douglass, on this point, is continued by means of a cloud of witnesses, whose veracity is unimpeachable. "A slaveholder's career of Christianity is a palpable imposture. He is a felon of the best grade. He is a person-stealer. It is of no importance what you placed inside the other scale."

Reader! Are you with the man-stealers in sympathy and motive, or at the side of their down-trodden sufferers? If with the previous, then are you the foe of God and man. If with the latter, what are you prepared to do and dare of their behalf? Be trustworthy, be vigilant, be untiring to your efforts to break each yoke, and allow the oppressed pass loose. Come what may also—cost what it is able to—inscribe on the banner that you unfurl to the breeze, as your religious and political motto—"NO COMPROMISE WITH SLAVERY! NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS!"

WM. LLOYD GARRISON BOSTON, May 1, 1845.

LETTER FROM WENDELL PHILLIPS, ESQ.

BOSTON, APRIL 22, 1845.

My Dear Friend: You recall the antique fantasy of "The Man and the Lion," where the lion complained that he have to no longer

be so misrepresented "whilst the lions wrote history." I am happy the time has come while the "lions write records." We have been left lengthy sufficient to collect

the character of slavery from the involuntary evidence of the masters. One may, indeed, rest sufficiently glad with what, it's miles evident, must be, in popular, the effects of one of these relation, with out searching for farther to discover whether or not they have accompanied in each example. Indeed, folks that stare on the half of-% of corn every week, and like to count the lashes at the slave's again, are seldom the "stuff" out of which reformers and abolitionists are to be made. I remember the fact that, in 1838, many were awaiting the results of the West India test, earlier than they may come into our ranks. Those "effects" have come lengthy ago; but, unluckily! Few of that wide variety have include them, as converts. A guy must be disposed to decide of emancipation by way of other checks than whether or not it has extended the produce of sugar,—and to hate slavery for other motives than as it starves men and whips girls,—earlier than he is ready to lay the first stone of his anti-slavery lifestyles.

I was happy to examine, to your story, how early the most unnoticed of God's youngsters waken to a sense of their rights, and of the injustice carried out them. Experience is a eager instructor; and lengthy before you had mastered your A B C, or knew wherein the "white sails" of the Chesapeake had been bound, you began, I see, to gauge the wretchedness of the slave, not by his starvation and want, no longer with the aid of his lashes and toil, but by the cruel and blighting demise which gathers over his soul.

In reference to this, there is one circumstance which makes your recollections above all treasured, and renders your early perception the more outstanding. You come from that part of the u . S . A . Where we're told slavery appears with its fairest features. Let us listen, then, what it is at its excellent estate—gaze on its bright facet, if it has one; and then creativeness may assignment her powers to add darkish lines to the image, as she travels southward to that (for the coloured guy) Valley of the Shadow of Death, where the Mississippi sweeps alongside.

Again, we've got recognized you lengthy, and may positioned the most entire self belief in your reality, candor, and sincerity. Every one that has heard you communicate has felt, and, I am confident, every one who reads your e book will feel, persuaded which you deliver them a fair specimen of the complete truth. No one- sided portrait,—no wholesale complaints,—however strict justice carried out, on every occasion individual kindliness has neutralized, for a moment, the deadly device with which it turned into unusually allied. You have been with us, too, some years, and might pretty examine the twilight of rights, which your race experience at the North, with that "noon of night time" underneath which they hard work south of Mason and Dixon's line. Tell us whether, after all, the half of-free coloured man of Massachusetts is worse off than the pampered slave of the rice swamps!

In analyzing your life, nobody can say that we've unfairly picked out a few uncommon specimens of cruelty. We recognise that the sour drops, which even you have drained from the cup, are no incidental aggravations, no person ills, however which includes must mingle usually and always within the lot of every slave. They are the vital elements, now not the occasional effects, of the system.

After all, I shall read your book with trembling for you. Some years in the past, while you have been beginning to inform me your real call and birthplace, you can remember I stopped you, and favored to stay blind to all. With the exception of a vague description, so I persevered, until the alternative day, while you read me your memoirs. I hardly ever knew, on the time, whether or not to thank you or now not for the sight of them, after

I reflected that it changed into nonetheless dangerous, in Massachusetts, for sincere guys to tell their names! They say the fathers, in 1776, signed the Declaration of Independence with the halter about their necks. You, too, put up your announcement of freedom with hazard compassing you round. In all the extensive lands which the Constitution of america overshadows, there's no unmarried spot,—but narrow or desolate,—wherein a fugitive slave can plant himself and say, "I am safe." The complete armory of Northern Law has no protect for you. I am free to say that, for your place, I must throw the MS. Into the fireplace.

You, possibly, can also tell your story in safety, endeared as you are to such a lot of heat hearts via rare items, and a still rarer devotion of them to the carrier of others. But it will likely be owing handiest on your labors, and the fearless efforts of folks that, trampling the laws and Constitution of the u . S . Underneath their feet, are determined that they'll "cover the outcast," and that their hearths shall be, spite of the regulation, an asylum for the oppressed, if, some time or different, the humblest can also stand in our streets, and undergo witness in protection against the cruelties of which he has been the sufferer.

Yet it is sad to assume, that those very throbbing hearts which welcome your tale, and shape your first-class protect in telling it, are all beating opposite to the "statute in such case made and supplied." Go on, my pricey friend, until you, and people who, such as you, were stored, so as via fireplace, from the dark prison-residence, shall stereotype these unfastened, illegal pulses into statutes; and New England, cutting free from a blood- stained Union, shall glory in being the residence of safe haven for the oppressed,—until we now not merely "conceal the outcast," or make a benefit of status idly via while he is hunted in our midst; but, consecrating anew the soil of the Pilgrims as an asylum for the oppressed, proclaim our welcome to the slave so loudly, that the tones shall reach every hut within the Carolinas, and make the damaged-hearted bondman leap up on the thought of old Massachusetts.

God speed the day! Till then, and ever, Yours without a doubt, WENDELL PHILLIPS

FREDERICK DOUGLASS. Frederick Douglass was born in slavery as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey close to Easton in Talbot

County, Maryland. He turned into not certain of the precise 12 months of his birth, but he knew that it was 1817 or 1818. As a younger boy he become despatched to Baltimore, to be a residence servant, in which he discovered to study and write, with the assistance of his grasp's wife. In 1838 he escaped from slavery and went to New York City, where he married Anna Murray, a unfastened coloured lady whom he had met in Baltimore. Soon thereafter he changed his name to Frederick Douglass. In 1841 he addressed a convention of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in Nantucket and so substantially inspired the organization that they at once employed him as an agent. He changed into such an impressive orator that numerous men and women doubted if he had ever been a slave, so he wrote Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass. During the Civil War he assisted in the recruiting of coloured men for the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Regiments and always argued for the emancipation of slaves. After the conflict he changed into lively in securing and defensive the rights of the freemen. In his later years, at one of a kind instances, he turned into secretary of the Santo Domingo Commission, marshall and recorder of deeds of the District of Columbia, and United States Minister to Haiti. His other autobiographical works are My Bondage And My Freedom and Life And Times Of Frederick Douglass, published in 1855 and 1881 respectively. He died in 1895.

CHAPTER I

I become born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and approximately twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot county, Maryland. I haven't any correct information of my age, by no means having seen any true report containing it. By a ways the bigger part of the slaves understand as little of their a while as horses know of theirs, and it's miles the wish of most masters inside my knowledge to maintain their slaves as a result ignorant. I do no longer recall to have ever met a slave who may want to inform of his birthday. They seldom come closer to it than planting-time, harvest-time, cherry-time, spring-time, or fall-time. A want of statistics regarding my own changed into a supply of unhappiness to me even during youth. The white youngsters may want to inform their a while. I could not tell why I must be disadvantaged of the identical privilege. I was now not allowed to make any inquiries of my master concerning it. He deemed all such inquiries on the a part of a slave fallacious and impertinent, and evidence of a restless spirit. The nearest estimate I can deliver makes me now among twenty-seven and twenty-eight years of age. I come to this, from hearing my grasp say, some time at some stage in 1835, I become about seventeen years vintage.

My mother changed into named Harriet Bailey. She become the daughter of Isaac and Betsey Bailey, each colored, and pretty darkish. My mom turned into of a darker complexion than both my grandmother or grandfather.

My father turned into a white man. He turned into admitted to be such by way of all I ever heard talk of my parentage. The opinion became also whispered that my master changed into my father; but of the correctness of this opinion, I realize not anything; the method of knowing became withheld from me. My mom and I had been separated when I become however an infant—before I knew her as my mom. It is a commonplace custom, inside the a part of Maryland from which I ran away, to component youngsters from their moms at a completely early age. Frequently, before the kid has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it, and employed out on some farm a giant distance off, and the child is placed underneath the care of an antique lady, too old for area labor. For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to hinder the improvement of the kid's affection towards its mother, and to blunt and break the herbal affection of the mom for the kid. This is the inevitable end result.

I by no means noticed my mom, to know her as such, greater than 4 or 5 instances in my lifestyles; and every of these times was very short in period, and at night. She turned into employed via a Mr. Stewart, who lived approximately twelve miles from my domestic. She made her journeys to peer me inside the night time, travelling the whole distance strolling, after the performance of her day's paintings. She changed into a area hand, and a whipping is the penalty of no longer being within the area at sunrise, except a slave has unique permission from his or her master to the contrary—a permission which they seldom get, and one which offers to him that gives it the proud name of being a kind grasp. I do not recollect of ever seeing my mom by the light of day. She was with me within the night. She could lie down with me, and get me to sleep, but long before I waked she was long gone. Very little communication ever occurred among us. Death soon ended what little we may want to have whilst she lived, and with it her hardships and struggling. She died after I was approximately seven years old, on one of my grasp's farms, close to Lee's Mill. I turned into no longer allowed to be present throughout her contamination, at her death, or burial. She turned into long gone lengthy before I knew any element approximately it. Never having loved, to any considerable volume, her soothing presence, her soft and watchful care, I received the tidings of her loss of life with much the same feelings I ought to have probable felt at the demise of a stranger.

Called therefore suddenly away, she left me without the slightest intimation of who my father turned into. The whisper that my master changed into my father, may also or might not be genuine; and, genuine or false, it is of but little outcome to my reason while the truth remains, in all its obvious odiousness, that slaveholders have ordained, and through regulation established, that the kids of slave women shall in all cases comply with the

situation of their mothers; and that is performed too obviously to administer to their very own lusts, and make a gratification in their wicked desires profitable in addition to enjoyable; for by means of this cunning arrangement, the slaveholder, in instances not some, sustains to his slaves the double relation of grasp and father.

I know of such instances; and it's far worth of observation that such slaves forever suffer extra hardships, and have greater to contend with, than others. They are, within the first place, a steady offence to their mistress. She is ever disposed to discover fault with them; they could seldom do any aspect to delight her; she is in no way higher pleased than when she sees them below the lash, especially while she suspects her husband of displaying to his mulatto youngsters favors which he withholds from his black slaves. The master is frequently forced to promote this elegance of his slaves, out of deference to the emotions of his white wife; and, cruel because the deed might also strike any person to be, for a man to promote his own youngsters to human flesh-mongers, it's far regularly the dictate of humanity for him to do so; for, until he does this, he ought to not only whip them himself, but have to stand by and spot one white son tie up his brother, of however few shades darker complexion than himself, and ply the gory lash to his bare returned; and if he lisp one word of disapproval, it's far set all the way down to his parental partiality, and handiest makes a bad count number worse, both for himself and the slave whom he might defend and protect.

Every year brings with it multitudes of this magnificence of slaves. It become possible in effect of a knowledge of this reality, that one terrific statesman of the south expected the downfall of slavery via the inevitable legal guidelines of populace. Whether this prophecy is ever fulfilled or no longer, it's miles despite the fact that plain that a very exceptional-looking class of humans are bobbing up at the south, and are actually held in slavery, from the ones initially added to this country from Africa; and if their growth do no different excellent, it's going to do away the pressure of the argument, that God cursed Ham, and therefore American slavery is right. If the lineal descendants of Ham are alone to be scripturally enslaved, it's far certain that slavery on the south ought to soon grow to be unscriptural; for hundreds are ushered into the sector, annually, who, like myself, owe their existence to white fathers, and people fathers maximum often their very own masters.

I actually have had two masters. My first grasp's name was Anthony. I do no longer remember his first name. He became generally referred to as Captain Anthony—a title which, I presume, he received by way of crusing a craft at the Chesapeake Bay. He become now not taken into consideration a wealthy slaveholder. He owned two or 3 farms, and about thirty slaves. His farms and slaves had been under the care of an overseer. The overseer's call become Plummer. Mr. Plummer become a depressing drunkard, a profane swearer, and a savage monster. He always went armed with a cowskin and a heavy cudgel. I actually have recognized him to reduce and lower the girls's heads so horribly, that even master might be enraged at his cruelty, and might threaten to whip him if he did now not mind himself. Master, however, become now not a humane slaveholder. It required notable barbarity on the part of an overseer to have an effect on him. He become a cruel man, hardened via a protracted lifestyles of slaveholding. He might at instances seem to take extremely good satisfaction in whipping a slave. I have regularly been awakened on the dawn of day via the maximum heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her bare again till she turned into literally protected with blood. No phrases, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, appeared to move his iron coronary heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and wherein the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest. He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush; and now not till triumph over with the aid of fatigue, might he stop to swing the blood-clotted cowskin. I take into account the primary time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition. I become pretty a child, however I well recollect it. I in no way shall neglect it whilst I consider any component. It turned into the first of an extended series of such outrages, of which I turned into doomed to be a witness and a player. It struck me with awful pressure. It was the blood-stained gate, the doorway to the hell of slavery, through which I become about to skip. It was a most terrible spectacle. I desire I could commit to paper the emotions with which I beheld it.

This prevalence passed off very quickly once I went to stay with my antique grasp, and under the subsequent

circumstances. Aunt Hester went out one night,—wherein or for what I do now not know,—and took place to be absent whilst my master favored her presence. He had ordered her now not to exit evenings, and warned her that she have to by no means let him catch her in company with a younger man, who turned into paying attention to her belonging to Colonel Lloyd. The younger guy's call become Ned Roberts, commonly known as Lloyd's Ned. Why master turned into so cautious of her, can be thoroughly left to conjecture. She was a lady of noble form, and of swish proportions, having only a few equals, and less superiors, in private look, the various coloured or white ladies of our neighborhood.

Aunt Hester had now not only disobeyed his orders in going out, but were discovered in organization with Lloyd's Ned; which condition, I discovered, from what he said whilst whipping her, changed into the chief offence. Had he been a man of pure morals himself, he could have been concept interested by protecting the innocence of my aunt; but those who knew him will not suspect him of this kind of distinctive feature. Before he began whipping Aunt Hester, he took her into the kitchen, and stripped her from neck to waist, leaving her neck, shoulders, and again, totally bare. He then told her to cross her palms, calling her on the equal time a d——d b —-h. After crossing her fingers, he tied them with a robust rope, and led her to a stool below a big hook within the joist, installed for the purpose. He made her get upon the stool, and tied her arms to the hook. She now stood truthful for his infernal cause. Her palms had been stretched up at their complete period, so that she stood upon the ends of her feet. He then said to her, "Now, you d——d b—-h, I'll examine you the way to disobey my orders!" and after rolling up his sleeves, he commenced to lay at the heavy cowskin, and soon the nice and cozy, crimson blood (amid heart-rending shrieks from her, and horrid oaths from him) came dripping to the floor. I become so terrified and horror-bothered at the sight, that I hid myself in a closet, and dared now not project out till lengthy after the bloody transaction became over. I expected it'd be my flip subsequent. It became all new to me. I had in no way visible any thing adore it before. I had continually lived with my grandmother on the outskirts of the plantation, in which she become placed to raise the children of the younger ladies. I had therefore been, till now, out of the manner of the bloody scenes that regularly befell at the plantation.

CHAPTER II

My master's family consisted of sons, Andrew and Richard; one daughter, Lucretia, and her husband, Captain Thomas Auld. They lived in a single residence, upon the house plantation of Colonel Edward Lloyd. My master turned into Colonel Lloyd's clerk and superintendent. He turned into what might be known as the overseer of the overseers. I spent years of childhood on this plantation in my antique master's circle of relatives. It turned into right here that I witnessed the bloody transaction recorded in the first bankruptcy; and as I received my first impressions of slavery in this plantation, I will give some description of it, and of slavery because it there existed. The plantation is ready twelve miles north of Easton, in Talbot county, and is situated at the border of Miles River. The major products raised upon it were tobacco, corn, and wheat. These were raised in awesome abundance; in order that, with the products of this and the opposite farms belonging to him, he changed into able to keep in nearly regular employment a huge sloop, in carrying them to market at Baltimore. This sloop became named Sally Lloyd, in honor of one of the colonel's daughters. My master's son-in-law, Captain Auld, was master of the vessel; she was in any other case manned via the colonel's very own slaves. Their names had been Peter, Isaac, Rich, and Jake. These had been esteemed very rather by the alternative slaves, and seemed upon because the privileged ones of the plantation; for it changed into no small affair, within the eyes of the slaves, to be allowed to look Baltimore.

Colonel Lloyd stored from 3 to four hundred slaves on his home plantation, and owned a large range extra on the neighboring farms belonging to him. The names of the farms nearest to the house plantation had been Wye Town and New Design. "Wye Town" become beneath the overseership of a man named Noah Willis. New Design changed into below the overseership of a Mr. Townsend. The overseers of those, and all the rest of the farms, numbering over twenty, acquired advice and direction from the managers of the home plantation. This turned into the fantastic commercial enterprise area. It was the seat of presidency for the entire twenty farms. All disputes most of the overseers had been settled here. If a slave changed into convicted of any excessive misdemeanor, became unmanageable, or evinced a dedication to run away, he become brought without delay here, severely whipped, put on board the sloop, carried to Baltimore, and offered to Austin Woolfolk, or a few other slave-trader, as a warning to the slaves ultimate.

Here, too, the slaves of all of the other farms obtained their month-to-month allowance of meals, and their yearly apparel. The men and women slaves received, as their month-to-month allowance of meals, 8 kilos of beef, or its equal in fish, and one bushel of corn meal. Their every year apparel consisted of coarse linen shirts, one pair of linen trousers, like the shirts, one jacket, one pair of trousers for iciness, product of coarse negro cloth, one pair of stockings, and one pair of shoes; the complete of which couldn't have fee greater than seven bucks. The allowance of the slave youngsters was given to their moms, or the antique ladies having the care of them. The children not able to paintings inside the area had neither shoes, stockings, jackets, nor trousers, given to them; their garb consisted of two coarse linen shirts in line with year. When those failed them, they went bare till the following allowance-day. Children from seven to ten years antique, of both sexes, almost naked, is probably seen in any respect seasons of the 12 months.

There have been no beds given the slaves, unless one coarse blanket be taken into consideration such, and none however the women and men had these. This, but, isn't considered a totally super privation. They discover much less problem from the need of beds, than from the want of time to sleep; for when their day's work in the discipline is completed, the most of them having their washing, mending, and cooking to do, and having few or none of the normal centers for doing either of those, very lots of their drowsing hours are fed on in making ready for the sector the coming day; and whilst this is carried out, old and young, male and girl, married and single, drop down side by using side, on one not unusual mattress,—the cold, damp floor,—each masking himself or herself with their depressing blankets; and here they sleep until they may be summoned to the field by means of the driving force's horn. At the sound of this, all need to upward thrust, and be off to the sphere. There must be

no halting; every one have to be at his or her put up; and woe betides them who pay attention not this morning summons to the sector; for if they may be no longer awoke by way of the sense of hearing, they're via the sense of feeling: no age nor intercourse unearths any prefer. Mr. Severe, the overseer, used to stand by the door of the zone, armed with a huge hickory stick and heavy cowskin, ready to whip anyone who was so unfortunate as not to hear, or, from some other cause, was prevented from being prepared to begin for the sphere on the sound of the horn.

Mr. Severe become rightly named: he become a cruel guy. I actually have seen him whip a female, causing the blood to run 1/2 an hour on the time; and this, too, in the midst of her crying kids, pleading for their mother's launch. He appeared to take delight in manifesting his fiendish barbarity. Added to his cruelty, he turned into a profane swearer. It was enough to chill the blood and stiffen the hair of an ordinary guy to listen him speak. Scarce a sentence escaped him however that changed into started out or concluded with the aid of some horrid oath. The area became the region to witness his cruelty and profanity. His presence made it each the sector of blood and of blasphemy. From the growing till the going down of the solar, he turned into cursing, raving, reducing, and slashing most of the slaves of the sector, inside the maximum frightful manner. His career changed into brief. He died very soon when I went to Colonel Lloyd's; and he died as he lived, uttering, with his death groans, sour curses and horrid oaths. His demise was regarded by way of the slaves as the result of a merciful providence.

Mr. Severe's location changed into crammed by a Mr. Hopkins. He became a very one of a kind guy. He was much less cruel, less profane, and made less noise, than Mr. Severe. His direction become characterised by no extremely good demonstrations of cruelty. He whipped, but regarded to take no delight in it. He became known as by using the slaves an amazing overseer.

The home plantation of Colonel Lloyd wore the arrival of a country village. All the mechanical operations for all the farms were carried out right here. The shoemaking and mending, the blacksmithing, cartwrighting, coopering, weaving, and grain-grinding, had been all executed by means of the slaves on the home plantation. The complete area wore a enterprise-like issue very not like the neighboring farms. The wide variety of houses, too, conspired to present it gain over the neighboring farms. It changed into referred to as by the slaves the Great House Farm. Few privileges have been esteemed higher, by way of the slaves of the out-farms, than that of being decided on to do errands on the Great House Farm. It turned into associated of their minds with greatness. A representative could not be prouder of his election to a seat inside the American Congress, than a slave on one of the out-farms would be of his election to do errands on the Great House Farm. They regarded it as proof of tremendous confidence reposed in them via their overseers; and it changed into on this account, in addition to a constant desire to be out of the field from beneath the driver's lash, that they esteemed it a excessive privilege, one worth careful dwelling for. He changed into referred to as the best and maximum trusty fellow, who had this honor conferred upon him the most regularly. The competition for this workplace sought as diligently to please their overseers, because the workplace-seekers in the political events are searching for to delight and mislead the human beings. The identical developments of character might be seen in Colonel Lloyd's slaves, as are visible within the slaves of the political events.