54. To return from this lengthy excursion, I must acknowledge, (however ludicrous it may seem to those who are hardened to such things by repetition,) that the tragedy of a company of men, women and children, pinioned and bound together with chains and ropes, without accusation of crime, and driven as beasts of the harness, through the metropolis of that country, of which I had hitherto indulged both pleasure and pride, in the consciousness of being a native citizen, and, of having commenced my life coevally with its constitutional organization; occurring at the precise hour of the convocation of the guardians of its liberties; produced a new era in my sensations. Disinclination, as well as the delay incurred, prevented my visit to the congressional hall on that day.—And I devoted several succeeding days to the purpose of delineating on paper, a faithful copy of the impressions and sentiments which involuntarily pervaded my full heart and agitated mind. Those memoirs have furnished some materials for this essay.
55. One evening while writing notes concerning the occurrence just mentioned, a lad, sitting in the same room with me, was studying his lessons in Goldsmith's Abridgment of Geography; in which I noticed he read these words:—"The United States are celebrated for the excellence of their constitution, which provides for political liberty and individual security. The inhabitants are justly famed for their ardent love of freedom." Immediately after reading those paragraphs, he addressed me, without knowing on what subject I was occupied, thus: "Why, how can it be said that the inhabitants of the United States love liberty, while they hold almost a whole nation of people in a state of bondage and ignorance?" I endeavoured to explain to him this puzzling problem, by replying, that "by the inhabitants was meant the white population of the United States, and the liberty which they ardently love is probably their own liberty, which they appear to care more about than they do about the liberty of black men."
56. I mention this minute circumstance more particularly, because it forms one of the links to a chain of incidents which conducted to the development of some very important facts; such as I then had no conception or suspicion of the existence of, on this side the Atlantic ocean. I then supposed the instances of the streets of the city consecrated to freedom, being paraded with people led in captivity, were rare. But I soon ascertained that they were quite frequent, that several hundred people, including not legal slaves only, but many kidnapped freemen and youth bound to service for a term of years, and unlawfully sold as slaves for life, are annually collected at Washington (as if it were an emporium of slavery,) for transportation to the slave regions. The United States' jail is frequently occupied as a storehouse for the slave merchants, and some of the rooms in a tavern devoted chiefly to that use, are occasionally so crowded that the occupants hardly have sufficient space to extend themselves upon the floor to sleep.[18]
Paragraph 46.
57. A short time after having completed the memorandums above alluded to, the youth just mentioned, having learned the subject on which I had been occupied, and being prompt to communicate whatever he might meet with relative to it, informed me on returning from school, in the evening of the 19th December 1815, that a black woman, destined for transportation to Georgia with a coffle, which was about to start, attempted to escape, by jumping out of the window of the garret of a three story brick tavern in F. street, about day-break in the morning; and that in the fall she had her back and both arms broken! I remarked, that I did not wonder that she did so; and inquired, whether it had not killed her? To which he replied, that he understood that she was dead, and that the Georgia-men had gone off with the others. The relation of this shocking disaster excited considerable agitation in my mind, and fully confirmed the sentiments which I had already adopted and recorded, of the multiplied horrors added to slavery, when its victims are bought and sold, frequently for distant destinations, with as much indifference as fourfooted beasts. Supposing this to have been a recent occurrence, and being desirous of seeing the mangled slave before she should be buried, I proceeded with some haste early on the following morning, in search of the house already mentioned. Calling at a house near the one at which the catastrophe occurred, I was informed, that it had been three weeks since it took place, and that the woman was still living. Having found the house, I desired permission of the landlord to see the wounded woman; to which he assented, and directed a lad to conduct me to her room, which was in the garret over the third story of the house. On entering the room I observed her lying upon a bed on the floor, and covered with a white woollen blanket, on which were several spots of blood (from her wounds,) which I perceived was red, notwithstanding the opacity of her skin. Her countenance, though very pale from the shock she had received, and dejected with grief, appeared complacent and sympathetic. Both her arms were broken between the elbows and wrists, and had undoubtedly been well set and dressed; but from her restlessness she had displaced the bones again, so that they were perceptibly crooked. I have since been informed by the Mayor of the city, who is a physician, and resides not far distant from the place, that he was called to visit her immediately after her fall, and found, besides her arms being broken, that the lower part of the spine was badly shattered, so that it was doubtful whether she would ever be capable of walking again, if she should survive. The lady of the Mayor said she was awakened from sleep by the fall of the woman, and heard her heavy struggling groans.
58. I inquired of her, whether she was asleep when she sprang from the window. She replied, "No, no more than I am now." Asking her what was the cause of her doing such a frantic act as that, she replied, "They brought me away with two of my children, and wouldn't let me see my husband—they didn't sell my husband, and I didn't want to go';—I was so confused and 'istracted, that I didn't know hardly what I was about—but I didn't want to go, and I jumped out of the window;—but I am sorry now that I did it;—they have carried my children off with 'em to Carolina." I was informed that the Slave Trader, who had purchased her near Bladensburgh, (she being a legal slave,) gave her to the landlord, as a compensation for taking care of her. Thus her family was dispersed from north to south, and herself nearly torn in pieces, without the shadow of a hope of ever seeing or hearing from her children again! He that can behold this "poor woman," (as a respectable citizen of Washington afterwards expressed himself, on requesting of her landlord the privilege of seeing her,) and listen to her unvarnished story; and then delineate it with the mental pencil, (quill) and then view the picture from his own hand, without a humid eye, I will confess possesses a stouter heart than I do.
59. The sympathy of the whole American white population, (and it is presumed of the black also, for they know how to estimate such matters by dear experience,) has recently been very justly excited towards young King Prather and his "confus'd and 'istracted" mother roaming in search of him, along half the extent of the coast of the United States. As he was kidnapped by a son of Africa, (though not for the detestable purpose of cupidity or enslavement, but for a ladder to his own liberty,) it is presumed if Africa's Genius were permitted to offer her sentiments on the subject, she would pronounce it a retort courteous apropos, from Africa to her sister Columbia.
60. I have since learned many recent instances of the tragical consequences of the usurped trade in the souls and bodies of men.[19] I have been informed by several different persons in the district of Columbia, that a woman who had been sold in Georgetown, for the southern slave market, cut her own throat, ineffectually, while on the way, in a hack, to the same depository above mentioned; and that on the road to Alexandria she completed her design of destroying her life, by cutting it again mortally. A statement was published in the Baltimore Telegraph, a few months ago, that a female slave, who had been sold in Maryland, with her child, on the way from Bladensburgh to Washington, heroically cut the throats of both her child and herself, with mortal effect. This narrative has been since confirmed by a relative of the person who sold them. An African youth, in the city of Philadelphia, lately cut his throat almost mortally, merely from the apprehension, as he said, of being sold. This information was obtained from several respectable citizens of Philadelphia, who had personal knowledge of the fact.
