“Mary Brown, another colored girl who was kidnapped in 1830, was the daughter of free parents in Washington city. She lived with her parents until the death of her mother; she was then seized and sold. The following are the facts as she stated them. One day when near the Potomac bridge, Mr. Humphreys, the sheriff, overtook her, and told her that she must go with him.—She inquired of him, what for? He made no reply, but told her to come along. He took her immediately to a slave auction. Mary told Mr. Humphreys that she was free, but he contradicted her, and the sale went on. The auctioneer soon found a purchaser, and struck her off for three hundred and fifty dollars. Her master was a Mississippi trader, and she was immediately taken to the jail. After a few hours, Mary was handcuffed—chained to a man slave, and started in a drove of about forty for New Orleans. Her handcuffs made her wrists swell so that they were obliged to take them off at night, and put fetters on her ankles. In the morning her handcuffs were again put on. Thus they travelled for two weeks, wading rivers, and whipped up all day, and beaten at night, if they did not get their distance. Mary says that she frequently waded rivers in her chains with water up to her waist. It was in October, and the weather cold and frosty. After traveling thus twelve or fifteen days, her arms and ankles became so swollen that she felt that she could go no farther. Blisters would form on her feet as large as dollars, which at night she would have to open, while all day the shackles would cut into her lacerated wrists. They had no beds, and usually slept in barns, or out on the naked ground—was in such misery when she lay down that she could only lie and cry all night. Still they drove them on for another week. Her spirits became so depressed, and she grieved so much about leaving her friends, that she could not eat, and every time the trader caught her crying, he would beat her, accompanying it with dreadful curses. The trader would whip and curse any of them whom he found praying. One evening he caught one of the men at prayer—he took him, lashed him down to a parcel of rails, and beat him dreadfully. He told Mary that if he caught her praying he would give her Hell!! (Mary was a member of the Methodist Church in Washington.) There were a number of pious people in the company, and at night when the driver found them melancholy, and disposed to pray, he would have a fiddle brought, and make them dance in their chains. It mattered not how sad or weary they were, he would whip them until they would do it.
“Mary at length became so weak that she could travel no further. Her feeble frame, was exhausted and sunk beneath her accumulated sufferings. She was seized with a burning fever, and the trader, fearing he should lose her, carried her the remainder of the way in a wagon.
“When they arrived at Natchez, they were all offered for sale, and as Mary was still sick, she begged that she might be sold to a kind master. She would sometimes make this request in presence of purchasers—but was always insulted for it, and after they were gone, the trader would punish her for such presumption. On one occasion he tied her up by her hands, so that she could only touch the end of her toes to the floor. This was soon after breakfast; he kept her thus suspended, whipping her at intervals through the day—at evening he took her down. She was so much bruised, that she could not lie down for more than a week afterwards. He often beat and choked her for another purpose, until she was obliged to yield to his desires.
“She was at length sold to a wealthy man of Vicksburg at four hundred and fifty dollars, for a house servant. But he had another object in view. He compelled her to gratify his licentious passions and had children by her. This was the occasion of so much difficulty between him and his wife, that he has now sent her up to Cincinnati to be free.
“We have no reason to doubt the account of Mary as given above. The person from whom we heard this took it down from her own lips. Her manner of relating it was perfectly simple and artless, and is here written out almost verbatim. We have also the testimony of a number of individuals who knew her in Vicksburg; they have no doubt of her integrity, and say that we may rely implicitly upon the truth of any statement which she may make.”
HELPING TO BUY A FATHER.
[From a Report on the Free Colored Population of Ohio.]
“Calling upon a family not long since, whose children did not come to school very regularly, we found the father and mother were out at work. On saying to the eldest child, aged about ten years, “why dont you come to school, my girl?” she replied, “I’m staying at home to help buy father.”
“As this family attend the sabbath school, we will state some particulars respecting them, to illustrate a general fact. Their history is, by no means, a remarkable one. Conversing with them one day, they remarked: “We have been wonderfully blessed; not one in a hundred is treated so well as we have been.” A few years since, the mother, an amiable woman, intelligent, pious, and beloved by all who knew her, was emancipated. But she lived in continual dread lest her husband, who was still a slave, should be sold and separated from her forever. After much painful solicitation, his master permitted him to come to Cincinnati, to work out his freedom. Although under no obligation, except his verbal promise, he is now, besides supporting a sickly family, saving from his daily wages the means of paying the price of his body. The money is sent to a nephew of his master, who is now studying for the ministry, in Miami University. The following is an extract from the correspondence of this candidate for the ministry. It is addressed to this colored man.