The New Man: Twenty-nine years a slave, twenty-nine years a free man

by Henry Clay Bruce

The next two years she was hired to J. B. Barrett, who allowed his wife to manage the household affairs to suit herself, and as she was a very good woman and mother a good cook they got along splendidly, and Mrs. Barrett was well pleased with mother’s style of cooking.

J. B. Barrett hired six of us for three years, and although he was a noisy kind of man, cursed a good deal and threatened to whip or have it done by his overseer, one Jesse Hare, he seldom punished anyone, especially those who were grown. I worked for him from June 1850, to January 1, 1854, and was whipped only once and that for fighting another fellow who had struck my younger brother, B. K. Bruce. This man, Charles Sanders, was a grown man at that time and I was an eighteen year old boy, yet I beat him so badly that he was disabled for work, at least two months thereafter. Knowing so well what would follow after this fight, I ran to the woods and made my way to my owner, about four miles distant. But that did not save me for the overseer came after me, and after I had made my statement my owner’s answer was, “You knew better than to fight and you will be whipped, and I will do nothing to prevent it.” I wanted him to pay my fine and save me. He came to town with me, and in the presence of J. B. Barrett and himself I was whipped by old Jesse Hare, who did not like me and took this opportunity to lay the lash on very hard, but was promptly stopped by J. B Barrett and severely reprimanded for his brutality.

This man Hare disliked me any way, because of an old score, for previous to that he had attempted to flog me and I resisted, and threatened to go to my master. But I doubt very much, even now, whether he would have protected me in such a case, for he was so bitterly opposed to a slave’s resisting or being saucy to a white man.

After the factory closed in the fall of 1853, I was hired out by J. B Barrett to a poor white man, named David Hampton, and had not been with him more than a month when one of his boys sauced me and I slapped him. He ran to his father who called me to him, ordered me to take off my shirt, a thing neither my master nor any other man had ordered me to do. Of course I refused to obey and told him so in language which he understood. He then threw a stick of cordwood at me which missed its mark, and I picked it up and was about to throw it back, when he ran into the house. This ended our fight. I would be ashamed of myself, even now, had I allowed that poor white man to whip me. But the fun came later. When supper was called, the old man and his wife had eaten and left the table, and the children, two girls and three small boys and I ate together. Just as I finished and was about to leave the table, the old lady came in behind me with a hickory switch in hand. I could not afford to resist her, neither could I get out until she had given me several severe blows. She left her marks on me, which I carried for several days, and I suppose she was satisfied; I know I was.

But after all, the Hamptons were very reasonable people and I was well pleased with them, and often visited them afterward. While they were poor people they were not the typical poor whites. Many of the parties mentioned are living and can take me to task if I misrepresent facts; but I have stated the truth in every particular, as I saw and experienced it.

There was a trait of character running through my mother’s family, a desire to learn, and every member could read very well when the war broke out, and some could write. The older ones would teach the younger, and while mother had no education at all, she used to make the younger study the lessons given by the older sister or brother, and in that way they all learned to read. Another advantage we enjoyed was this: we were all hired to the same man and we worked and slept together in the same factory where, by hard work, we usually made some little money every week, which we could spend for whatever suited our fancy.

The men who hired slaves, and owners as well, had to feed and clothe them, and the slaves had no care as to those necessaries. Slavery in some portions of Missouri was not what it was in Virginia, or in the extreme South, because we could buy any book wanted if we had the money to pay for it, and masters seemed not to care about it, especially ours, but of course there were exceptions to the rule.

But, returning to my life in the tobacco factory, I must state that when we were hired out our owner notified the hirer that he did not whip any of his grown slaves, and would not allow it to be done by anyone else, and when the man who hired them found that he could not get along without punishing he should return them to him. That was the saving clause for us, but we did not take advantage of this to shirk or play; as proof of this I will state that there are men now living in Brunswick, who will bear testimony to the fact that the “Bruce hands,” as we were called, brought the highest prices. Our master received from two hundred and fifty to three hundred dollars a year for each man or boy over seventeen years old, the hirer to feed and clothe us, etc.

When the factory closed in September, 1854, I was hired to Charles Cabel, a farmer, recently from Louisiana, living about four miles from town and who owned twenty-five or thirty slaves, and was reported to be a very hard master. I had been used to good fare, and that prepared and served clean and nice, but here the meals were served in such unclean vessels, while they may have been wholesome, I could not and would not eat them. W. B. Bruce lived only a mile away, and I went there to supper, stayed all night, took my breakfast and dinner with me to work.

In a few days Mrs. Susan Cabel found this out and sent for me; I explained and she said that her Negroes were so very dirty that she did not blame me, and from that date she sent my meals from her table, which came in nice clean dishes and in abundance. She was a good mistress as far as I knew.