CHAPTER I.
It is my object to give to the reader a plain, simple narrative of the more interesting portion of my life, while in slavery.
I was born in Annarundel County, State of Maryland, about sixty miles below Baltimore, and lived a slave more than twenty years. My old master was a physician, but I think it prudent to withhold his name. No one, who has always enjoyed the right of liberty, can realize the horrors of slavery. To be at the will of another, to be owned like a cow or horse, and liable at any moment to be sold to the highest bidder, to be transported to a distant part of the country, leaving the dearest relatives behind; to be, in fine, ground down mentally and physically by the untold curses of slavery, may be a very pretty thing to the masters of the “peculiar institution,” but it is death to the slaves.
After more than twenty years of bondage, God delivered me from it, with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, as he did Israel of old.
As near as I can remember, my mother and sister were sold and taken to New Orleans, leaving four brothers and myself behind. We were all placed out. At six years of age I was placed with a Mr. Bradford, separated from my father, mother and family. But the eye of God was upon me, and blessed me. My master was a carpenter, and much from home—Mrs. Bradford beat me so much that her husband sent me to his father’s. Mrs. Bradford ordered me one day to take a bushel of corn up stairs; but I was unable to do it, upon which she knocked me down with the johnny-cake board, cutting my head so badly that it bled more than a quart. It was then that I thought of my mother. My little friends—who have your liberty, and the protecting hand of parents—these are some of the fruits of slavery; let your hearts warm with gratitude to the great Giver of all good, for the blessings you enjoy. Mrs. Bradford had a son about ten years old; she used to make him beat me and spit in my face. Here I was, a poor slave boy, without father or mother to take my part.
At the end of two years, Mrs. Bradford beat me so much, that her husband, fearing she would kill me, placed me at his father’s, where I remained until the death of the old gentleman. But old Mr. Bradford was worse than Mrs. Bradford! He had been a professor of religion, a class leader in the Methodist Church, but at this time he was a backslider; yea, a wanderer from God, and as cold as though he had never been warmed by the vivifying power of the religion of Jesus Christ.
I lived in this family seven and a half years, and when I left I was thirteen years old. During this time I had no hat, no pantaloons, but one pair of shoes, and wore a lindsey slip only. I was not allowed to sit down while I ate my meals. For my breakfast I had a pint of pot liquor, half a herring, and a little piece of bread. Whether this would stay the cravings of a young appetite or not, there was no more to be had. For my dinner I had a pint of pot liquor, and the skin off of the pork. I must say as the colored people say at the south, when singing to cheer their hearts while under the burning sun, and the crack of the whip, remembering what is placed before them every day for food—“My old master is a hard-hearted man; he eats the meat, and gives poor nigger bones.” At night I had a bit of bread for my supper, and a piece of carpet for my bed, spread down on the hearth, winter and summer. In the winter, when the fire got low, I used to burn my feet by getting them into the embers.
My work, in the winter time, was to fetch wood from the swamp up to the house. Being without shoes or hat, and thinly clad, I used to go into the house to warm myself. When in the house for this purpose, at one time, old Mr. Bradford followed me in, and said: “If you want to be warmed, I’ll warm you.” He took the tongs, heated them in the fire, and branded my legs; and the scars are there to this day. I could not sit down in consequence of the wound. He whipped me also, and used to put my head under the fence.
Christians! I beseech you, do not become backsliders; especially slave-holding Christians! for the terrible effects of backsliding, slave-holding Christianity are awfully developed in my history!
Shortly after this, the death of this man delivered me from his hands. I rejoiced. God only knows whether he went to perdition. With all my heart I have forgiven him. I expect to meet him at the bar of God with the scars and the tongs. Farewell, Mr. Bradford! But this is not all. He left all his property to his daughter Elizabeth; and her brother Nathan, a tax-gatherer, was overseer of the farm for her. One year after her father’s death, Elizabeth got married to Wm. Gardener, a gentleman from Baltimore, a member of the Methodist Church. I then thought I should have a good master. But oh, my soul! it was worse and worse! All is not gold that shines, nor silver that glitters. He had not been married a great while before my heart beat and my feet burned. He was a collier, engaged in burning charcoal, and used to draw it to the village landing, and sometimes to Baltimore.
One day he left me twenty-five bushels of coal to draw. By being broken of my rest the night previous, engaged in watching the coal pit, I was tired and sleepy. When I had drawn all the coal out, supposing I had put the fire out, I laid down to rest my weary limbs. The coal burned up. Mr. Gardner came into the woods where I lay asleep, hallooed and scared me up; he struck me with the shovel, and cut my head so that I knew nothing for two days. I was so weak from the loss of blood, that he was compelled to carry me home on his shoulders, covering himself with blood. His wife was very much alarmed. We were about a mile from home, and he told me not to speak of it.
At another time, he cut my head with a hoe handle, so that altogether I was sick for a long time. Mr. Gardner had a very quick temper, and would strike me with anything he happened to have in his hand, reckless of consequences.
One day, Eliza (a slave girl of his,) and myself, went into the water-melon patch, procured a melon and ate it. We were compelled to this by the promptings of hunger, for the living had not altered since the death of Mr. Bradford. Eliza was about eighteen years of age. For that offence, our cruel master stripped us and tied us both up together, and whipped us till the blood ran down on the ground in a puddle.
When I was sick, he used to send me into the place where they smoked meat, for fear I should vomit on the floor. On Wednesdays, there were meetings in the meeting-house, and Mr. Gardner used to make me stay away from the house, for the minister would come home with him, and he was fearful I should tell him of his cruel treatment. He did not say as Hagar of old—“Thou, God, seest me.”
One day he sent me to drive the horse from the peach tree. The horse kicked me in the head, and I was laid up six months. My head was sewed up; and I also received a great many knocks in the side, from the effects of which I have not yet recovered! On one occasion, he struck me in the mouth with an iron-toothed rake, which knocked out one of my front teeth. All this time, my more fortunate reader, I was a poor slave boy, with no one to pity me, with no parents to take my part. I had no father; no mother! But God pitied me. The eye of the all-merciful God, without whose notice not a sparrow falls to the ground, was upon me. He it was that bore my feeble spirit up, when my lacerated and quivering frame was writhing under the God-defying curse of slavery.