“The whites, Mary! Who are whiter than we—than you and I? You the slave of your own father; I sold from my mother’s arms that my features might not bring disgrace upon a man of position. White folks, indeed!”
“True, George, our lot is a wretched one, but then as you love me, and as master and mistress are so kind, would it not be better to remain quiet, lest we, too, are separated, and all our hopes for life blighted?”
“We are taking a great risk, Mary, but Nat says we can not fail. I sometimes fear that we shall and I know the consequences, and will meet them like a man, for I know you will love me still, Mary.”
“Yes, George, but the love of a poor helpless slave girl can not compensate you for what you may have to endure, perhaps for life itself.”
“Mary, dear as you are to me, liberty for us both or death in attempting to secure it, will be a far greater boon, coupled with your love, than to share that love, however fervent, through a life-long servitude.”
“But, George, don’t you remember how often you have heard master and his guests talk about those strange people, Poles and Greeks they call them, and how they have struggled for freedom, only mostly to make their condition worse?”
“Yes, Mary, and I have heard them tell how they would like to go and help them fight for their liberty. Then I have heard master tell how his own father fought in the war he calls the Revolution, and didn’t the Judge say in his speech last Independence that that is the day, above all others, which proclaims that ‘all men are created free and equal?’ Am I not a man, and should I not be equal to any one who calls himself master and me slave? No, Mary, the die is cast and six hundred slaves—no, men—will strike for freedom on these plantations in less than a week. But there is the horn, and I must go.”
The above conversation took place in the home of a Virginia planter more than sixty years ago. The parties were young, less than twenty; both white, both slaves, for the peculiar institution by no means attached itself to the sable African alone. The fettered were of every hue, from that of ebon blackness to the purest Caucassian white. Slavery knew no sacred ties, but only the bonds of lust. Hence this strange gradation of color, for as the master acknowledged nothing more than a conventional marriage, so he held out no encouragement to the slave women to be virtuous and chaste. The girl Mary was, indeed, the daughter of Mr. Green, her master, and George the son of a high government official, his mother being a servant in the Washington hotel where the official boarded. The boy looked so akin to his father that he was early sold to a slave dealer that the scandal might be hushed. From this dealer he was purchased by Mr. Green, who was indeed a kind-hearted man and treated his slaves with great consideration.
Both being house servants, and thrown much together, an earnest attachment sprang up between them. This was by no means discouraged by master or mistress. Though they could neither read nor write, their natural aptness and constant association with family and guests soon imparted to them a good degree of culture and general information.
The cause of the conversation above referred to was the revelation to Mary by her lover of a plot on the part of about six hundred slaves of the county of Southampton to rise in rebellion and obtain their freedom. From any participation in it she would gladly have dissuaded him, though in perfect sympathy with his feelings, but the proud Anglo-Saxon blood and spirit of George were fully enlisted in the undertaking, and when “Nat Turner’s Insurrection” broke upon the astonished planters there was no braver man in its ranks than George. But six hundred slaves, imperfectly armed as they were, could make but little headway. They were soon defeated. Those who were not captured fled to the Dismal Swamp. Here ordered to surrender, they challenged their pursuers. A furious struggle ensued between the owners and their human chattels, men and women. They were hunted with bloodhounds, and many who were caught were tortured even unto death. Not until the United States troops were called in, was their forlorn hope, struggling for freedom, entirely vanquished.