The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus

by American Anti-Slavery Society

The next morning the overseer came into the field, and demanded of me why I had not whipped Harry for not removing all the cotton seed. He then called aloud to Harry to come forward and be whipped. Harry answered somewhat sternly that he would neither be struck by overseer nor driver; that he had worked nearly all night, and had scarcely fallen asleep when the horn blew to summon him to his toil in the field. The overseer raved and threatened, but Harry paid no farther attention to him. He then turned to me and asked me for my pistols, with a pair of which he had furnished me. I told him they were not with me. He growled an oath, threw himself on his horse and left us. In the evening I found him half drunk and raving like a madman. He said he would no longer bear with that nigger's insolence; but would whip him if it cost him his life. He at length fixed upon a plan for seizing him; and told me that he would go out in the morning, ride along by the side of Harry and talk pleasantly to him, and then, while Harry was attending to him, I was to steal upon him and knock him down, by a blow on the head, from the loaded and heavy handle of my whip. I was compelled to promise to obey his directions.

The next morning when we got to the field I told Harry of the overseer's plan, and advised him by all means to be on his guard and watch my motions. His eye glistened with gratitude. "Thank you James", said he, "I'll take care that you don't touch me."

Huckstep came into the field about 10 o'clock. He rode along by the side of Harry talking and laughing. I was walking on the other side. When I saw that Harry's eye was upon me I aimed a blow at him intending however to miss him. He evaded the blow and turned fiercely round with his hoe uplifted, threatening to cut down any one who again attempted to strike him. Huckstep cursed my awkwardness, and told Harry to put down his hoe and came to him. He refused to do so and swore he would kill the first man who tried to lay hands on him. The cowardly tyrant shrank away from his enraged bondman, and for two weeks Harry was not again molested.

About the first of September, the overseer had one of his drunken fits. He made the house literally an earthly hell. He urged me to drink, quarrelled and swore at me for declining, and chased the old woman round the house, with his bottle of peach brandy. He then told me that Harry had forgotten the attempt to seize him, and that is the morning we must try our old game over again.

On the following morning, as I was handing to each of the hands their hoes from the tool house, I caught Harry's eye. "Look out," said I to him. "Huckstep will be after you again to day." He uttered a deep curse against the overseer and passed on to his work. After breakfast Huckstep came riding out to the cotton field. He tied his horse to a tree, and came towards us. His sallow and haggard countenance was flushed, and his step unsteady. He came up by the side of Harry and began talking about the crops and the weather; I came at the same time on the other side, and in striking at him, beat off his hat. He sprang aside and stepped backwards. Huckstep with a dreadful oath commanded him to stop, saying that he had determined to whip him, and neither earth nor hell should prevent him. Harry defied him: and said he had always done the work allotted to him and that was enough: he would sooner die than have the accursed lash touch him. The overseer staggered to his horse, mounted him and rode furiously to the house, and soon made his appearance, returning, with his gun in his hand.

"Yonder comes the devil!" said one of the women whose row was near Harry's.

"Yes," said another, "He's trying to scare Harry with his gun."

"Let him try as he pleases," said Harry, in his low, deep, determined tones, "He may shoot me, but he can't whip me."

Huckstep came swearing on: when within a few yards of Harry he stopped, looked at him with a stare of mingled rage and drunken imbecility; and bid him throw down his hoe and come forward. The undaunted slave refused to comply, and continuing his work told the drunken demon to shoot if he pleased. Huckstep advanced within a few steps of him when Harry raised his hoe and told him to stand back. He stepped back a few paces, leveled his gun and fired. Harry received the charge in his breast, and fell instantly across a cotton row. He threw up his hands wildly, and groaned, "Oh, Lord!"

The hands instantly dropped their hoes. The women shrieked aloud. For my own part I stood silent with horror. The cries of the women enraged the overseer, he dropped his gun, and snatching the whip from my hand, with horrid oaths, and imprecations fell to whipping them, laying about him like a maniac. Upon Harry's sister he bestowed his blows without mercy, commanding her to quit her screaming and go to work. The poor girl, whose brother had thus been murdered before her eyes, could not wrestle down the awful agony of her feelings, and the brutal tormentor left her without effecting his object. He then, without going to look of his victim, told four of the hands to carry him to the house, and taking up his gun left the field. When we got to the poor fellow, he was alive, and groaning faintly. The hands took him up, but before they reached the house he was dead. Huckstep came out, and looked at him, and finding him dead, ordered the hands to bury him. The burial of a slave in Alabama is that of a brute. No coffin--no decent shroud--no prayer. A hole is dug, and the body (sometimes enclosed in a rude box,) is thrown in without further ceremony.