Fifty Years in Chains; or, the Life of an American Slave

by Charles Ball

As we returned home, Lydia told me she was rejoiced that her child was dead, and out of a world in which slavery and wretchedness must have been its only portion. I am now, said she, ready to follow my child, and the sooner I go the better for me. She went with us to the field until the month of January, when, as we were returning from our work, one stormy and wet evening, she told me she should never pick any more cotton—that her strength was gone, and she could work no more. When we assembled, at the blowing of the horn, on the following morning, Lydia did not appear. The overseer, who had always appeared to dislike this woman, when he missed her, swore very angrily, and said he supposed she was pretending to be sick, but if she was he would soon cure her. He then stepped into his house and took some copperas from a little bag, and mixed it with water. I followed him to Lydia's cabin, where he compelled her to drink this solution of copperas. It caused her to vomit violently, and made her exceedingly sick. I think to this day, that this act of the overseer was the most inhuman of all those that I have seen perpetrated upon defenceless slaves.

Lydia was removed that same day to the sick room, in a state of extreme debility and exhaustion. When she left this room again she was a corpse. Her disease was a consumption of the lungs, which terminated her life early in March. I assisted in carrying her to the grave, which I closed upon her, and covered with green turf. She sleeps by the side of her infant, in a corner of the negro grave-yard of this plantation. Death was to her a welcome messenger, who came to remove her from toil that she could not support, and from misery that she could not sustain.

Christmas approached, and we all expected two or three holidays—but we were disappointed, as only one was all that was allotted to us.

I went to the field and picked cotton all day, for which I was paid by the overseer, and at night I had a good dinner of stewed pork and sweet potatoes. Such were the beginning and end of my first Christmas on a cotton plantation. We went to work as usual the next morning, and continued our labor through the week, as if Christmas had been stricken from the calendar. I had already saved and laid by a little more than ten dollars in money, but part of it had been given to me at the funeral. I was now much in want of clothes, none having been given me since I came here. I had, at the commencement of the cold weather, cut up my old blanket, and, with the aid of Lydia, who was a very good seamstress, converted it into a pair of trowsers, and a long roundabout jacket; but this deprived me of my bed, which was imperfectly supplied by mats, which I made of rushes. The mats were very comfortable things to lie upon, but they were by no means equal to blankets for covering.

A report had been current among us for some time, that there would be a distribution of clothes to the people at New-Year's day; but how much, or what kind of clothes we were to get no one pretended to know except that we were to get shoes, in conformity to a long-established rule of this plantation. From Christmas to New-Year appeared a long week to me, and I have no doubt that it appeared yet longer to some of my fellow slaves, most of whom were entirely barefoot. I had made moccasins for myself, of the skins of squirrels that I had caught in my traps, and by this means protected my feet from the frost, which was sometimes very heavy and sharp in the morning.

On the first day of January, when we met at the blowing of the morning horn, the overseer told us we must all proceed to the great house, where we were to receive our winter clothes; and surely, no order was ever more willingly obeyed. When we arrived at the house our master was up, and we were all called into the great court yard in front of the dwelling. The overseer now told us that shoes would be given to all those who were able to go to the field to pick cotton. This deprived of shoes the children, and several old persons, whose eye-sight was not sufficiently clear to enable them to pick cotton. A new blanket was then given to every one above seven years of age—children under seven received no blanket, being left to be provided for by their parents. Children of this age and under, go entirely naked, in the day-time, and sleep with their mothers at night, or are wrapped up together in such bedding as the mother may possess.

It may well be supposed, that in our society, although we were all slaves, and all nominally in a condition of the most perfect equality, yet there was in fact a very great difference in the manner of living, in the several families. Indeed, I doubt if there is as great a diversity in the modes of life, in the several families of any white village in New York or Pennsylvania, containing a population of three hundred persons, as there was in the several households of our quarter. This may be illustrated by the following circumstance: Before I came to reside in the family with whom I lived at this time, they seldom tasted animal food, or even fish, except on meat-days, as they were called; that is, when meat was given to the people by the overseer, under the orders of our master. The head of the family was a very quiet, worthy man; but slothful and inactive in his habits. When he had come from the field at night, he seldom thought of leaving the cabin again before morning. He would, and did, make baskets and mats, and earned some money by these means; he also did his regular day's work on Sunday; but all his acquirements were not sufficient to enable him to provide any kind of meat for his family. All that his wife and children could do, was to provide him with work at his baskets and mats; and they lived even then better than some of their neighbors. After I came among them and had acquired some knowledge of the surrounding country, I made as many baskets and mats as he did, and took time to go twice a week to look at all my traps.

As the winter passed away and spring approached, the proceeds of my hunting began to diminish. The game became scarce, and both rackoons and opossums grew poor and worthless. It was necessary for me to discover some new mode of improving the allowance allotted to me by the overseer. I had all my life been accustomed to fishing in Maryland, and I now resolved to resort to the water for a living; the land having failed to furnish me a comfortable subsistence. With these views, I set out one Sunday morning, early in February, and went to the river at a distance of three miles from home. From the appearance of the stream I felt confident that it must contain many fish; and I went immediately to work to make a weir. With the help of an axe that I had with me, I had finished before night the frame-work of a weir of pine sticks, lashed together with white oak splits. I had no canoe, but made a raft of dry logs, upon which I went to a suitable place in the river and set my weir. I afterwards made a small net of twine that I bought at the store; and on next Thursday night I took as many fish from my weir as filled a half bushel measure. This was a real treasure—it was the most fortunate circumstance that had happened with me since I came to the country.

I was enabled to show my generosity, but, like all mankind, even in my liberality, I kept myself in mind. I gave a large fish to the overseer, and took three more to the great house. These were the first fresh fish that had been in the family this season; and I was much praised by my master and young mistresses, for my skill and success in fishing; but this was all the advantage I received from this effort to court the favor of the great:—I did not even get a dram. The part I had performed in the detection of the murderers of the young lady was forgotten, or at least not mentioned now. I went away from the house not only disappointed but chagrined, and thought with myself that if my master and young mistresses had nothing but words to give me for my fish, we should not carry on a very large traffic.