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

by Henry Clay Bruce

On very large plantations there were many such old women, who spent the remainder of their lives caring for children of younger women. Masters took great pride in their gangs of young slaves, especially when they looked “fat and sassy,” and would often have them come to the great house yard to play, particularly when they had visitors. Freed from books and mental worry of all kinds, and having all the outdoor exercise they wanted, the slave children had nothing to do but eat, play and grow, and physically speaking, attain to good size and height, which was the special wish and aim of their masters, because a tall, well-proportioned slave man or woman, in case of a sale, would always command the highest price paid. So then it is quite plain, that it was not only the master’s pride, but his financial interest as well, to have these children enjoy every comfort possible, which would aid in their physical make up, and to see to it that they were tenderly treated.

But Mr. Perkinson’s wife lived but a short time, dying in 1842. She left one child, William E. Perkinson, known in his later life as Judge W. E. Perkinson, of Brunswick, Missouri. Mr. Perkinson built a new house for himself, “The great house,” and quarters for his slaves on his own land, near what is now known as Green Bay, Prince Edward County, Virginia. But I don’t think that Mrs. Perkinson lived to occupy the new house. My mother was assigned to a cabin at the new place during the spring of 1842. But after the death of his young wife, Mr. Perkinson became greatly dissatisfied with his home and its surroundings, showing that all that was dear to him was gone, and that he longed for a change, and being persuaded by his brother-in-law, W. B. Bruce, who was preparing to go to the western country, as Missouri and Kentucky were then called, he decided to break up his Virginia home, and take his slaves to Missouri, in company with Mr. W. B. Bruce.

The time to start was agreed upon, and those old enough to work were given a long holiday from January to April, 1844, when we left our old Virginia home, bound for Chariton County, Missouri. In this event there were no separations of husbands and wives, because of the fact that my father and Bristo were both dead, and they were the only married men in the Bruce family.

Among the slaves that were given to Mr. Perkinson by his father was only one married man, uncle Watt, as we called him, and he and his wife and children were carried along with the rest of us.

I shall never forget the great preparations made for our start to the West. There were three large wagons in the outfit, one for the whites and two for the slaves. The whites in the party were Messrs. Perkinson, Bruce, Samuel Wooten, and James Dorsell. The line of march was struck early in April, 1844. I remember that I was delighted with the beautiful sceneries, towns, rivers, people in their different styles of costumes, and so many strange things that I saw on that trip from our old home to Louisville. But the most wonderful experience to me was, when we took a steamer at Louisville for St. Louis. The idea of a house floating on the water was a new one to me, at least, and I doubt very much whether any of the white men of the party had ever seen a steamboat before.

I am unable to recall the route, and the many sights, and incidents of that long trip of nearly fifteen hundred miles, and shall not attempt to describe it. But finally we reached our destination, which was the home of Jack Perkinson, brother of Mr. Pettis Perkinson, about June or July, 1844. His place was located about seven or eight miles from Keytesville, Missouri. At that time this country was sparsely settled; a farm house could be only seen in every eight or ten miles. I was greatly pleased with the country; for there was plenty of everything to live on, game, fish, wild fruits, and berries. The only drawback to our pleasure was Jack Perkinson, who was the meanest man I had ever seen. He had about thirty-five slaves on his large farm and could and did raise more noise, do more thrashing of men, women and children, than any other man in that county.

Our folks were soon hired out to work in the tobacco factories at Keytesville, except the old women, and such children as were too small to be put to work. I was left at this place with my mother and her younger children and was happy. I was too young to be put to work, and there being on the farm four or five boys about my age, spent my time with them hunting and fishing. There was a creek near by in which we caught plenty of fish. We made lines of hemp grown on the farm and hooks of bent pins. When we got a bite, up went the pole and quite often the fish, eight or ten feet in the air. We never waited for what is called a good bite, for if we did the fish would get the bait and escape capture, or get off when hooked if not thrown quickly upon the land. But fish then were very plentiful and not as scary as now. The hardest job with us was digging bait. We often brought home as much as five pounds of fish in a day.

There was game in abundance, but our hunting was always for young rabbits and squirrels, and we hunted them with hounds brought with us from Virginia. I had never before seen so many squirrels. The trees there were usually small and too far apart for them to jump from tree to tree, and when we saw one “treed” by the dogs, one of us climbed up and forced it to jump, and when it did, in nine cases out of ten the dogs would catch it. We often got six or eight in a day’s hunting.

Another sport which we enjoyed was gathering the eggs of prairie chickens. On account of the danger of snake bites, we were somewhat restricted in the pursuit of this pleasure, being forbidden to go far away from the cabins. Their eggs were not quite as large as the domestic hen’s, but are of a very fine flavor.

North of Jack Perkinson’s farm was a great expanse of prairie four or five miles wide and probably twenty or thirty long—indeed it might have been fifty miles long. There were a great many snakes of various sizes and kinds, but the most dangerous and the one most dreaded was the rattlesnake, whose bite was almost certain death in those days, but for which now the doctors have found so many cures that we seldom hear of a death from that cause. When allowed to go or when we could steal away, which we very often did, we usually took a good sized basket and found eggs enough to fill it before returning. We saw a great many snakes, killing some and passing others by, especially the large ones. There were thousands of prairie chickens scattered over this plain, and eggs were easily found. One thing was in our favor; these wild chickens never selected very tall grass for nests. But it almost makes me shudder now, when I think of it, and remember that we were barefooted at the time, with reptiles on every side, some of which would crawl away or into their holes while others would show fight. But none of us were bitten by them. On these prairies large herds of deer could be seen in almost any direction. I have seen as many as one hundred together. Jack Perkinson was not a hunter, kept no gun, and of course we had none, so we could not get any deer. There were a great many wolves around that place and I stood in mortal fear of them, but never had any encounter with one. They usually prowled about at night and kept the young slave men from going to balls or parties.