"Among the slaves he owned was a beautiful quadroon, named Maggie, and an attachment sprang up between us. I loved her with all my heart, and she loved me as earnestly. White people, who think that the tender emotions are only for their own race, are much mistaken. I, who had the blood of two savage nations in my veins, loved as wildly, fiercely, and yet as tenderly as any white man that ever lived. Maggie loved me as fervently as I did her. The little education, I had picked up from my master in Missouri, made me the hero in the negro quarters. Oftentimes, in the balmy Southern nights, when the day's work was over, have I taken my banjo and sat by the side of my pretty quadroon, pretty to me, whatever she may have been to others, and played those old, long-forgotten songs.
"Our overseer was hard on us, and the tasks we accomplished were wonderful—they seem impossible now for even negroes to have performed. Yet darkness never found me too tired to take my accustomed place by Maggie's side. When I was twenty-one, I was a strong, athletic man. No one on the plantation could equal me for strength or activity. Two or three times had the overseer tied me to a post and used his whip on me for some very trifling matter. On such occasions I felt the rising in my heart of that wild thirst for blood, which afterward proved my ruin. I was called 'Indian Jeff,' 'Proud Jeff,' and 'Dandy Jeff,' and the overseer, who seemed to have a special grudge against me, used to declare that he would whip the pride out of me.
"I could have borne all their beatings and ill treatment, and have lived peaceably the life of a slave, until death or Abraham Lincoln's proclamation had set me free, had not my master given me a blow, that was worse than death. When I was twenty-one, Maggie and I were married, in sight of heaven, though the law said negroes can not marry, and were as happy as persons in perpetual bondage could be. She sympathized with me and I with her. I can not see now how we could have been so happy then. There was no promise in the future, but slavery, toil, and the lash. Our only hope of release was death, yet we were happy in each other's love.
"We laughed at the threatened lash and sang at our work from morning until night. I toiled in the cotton fields, and Maggie was employed in the planter's mansion. It was cotton-picking time, a few months after our marriage, and, the crop being unusually large, my master sent my wife to work in the field. She came gladly and asked permission to work by my side. I also pleaded for this privilege, promising to do the work of two men, if our prayer was granted.
"Our master ordered us away to the field and said that the overseer would arrange that. Scarcely had the overseer set eyes on my beautiful quadroon wife than I trembled. I saw an evil purpose in his dark eye. He refused our request and placed us on opposite sides of the field. I went to work sullenly and, although I kept busy, I did but little, trampling under foot more cotton than I picked. We had been in the field all day, and the sun was setting, when I heard a shriek from the opposite side of the field. The voice I knew well to be Maggie's, and in an instant all my wild Indian nature was on fire. I flew across the field to find the overseer beating my wife. Some terrified negroes whispered the cause to me, as I paused, horror-stricken. The overseer had offered some indecencies to her, which she had resented, and now he was punishing her.
"They tried to hold me back, but they might as well have tried to stop the fires in a volcano. One spring and one blow from my fist laid the villain senseless on the ground, and snatching up my wife, who had fainted, I hurried away to our lowly cabin.
"I expected punishment, but not such as came. The next morning both Maggie and myself were put in irons, and I was compelled to stand by while a contract of sale was read, conveying her to a Louisiana sugar-planter. Again that wild cry of my heart for vengeance rang through every nerve, and I uttered a fearful oath of vengeance as I saw them bear her away. Her shrieks have rang in my ears ever since.
"For my threat I was tied to a tree, and the lash laid on my bare back by my master, Mr. Henry Tompkins. During the flogging I turned on him, and swore I would have his blood and the blood of his whole family. It only augmented my own suffering, however. When Henry Tompkins was exhausted, he ordered me to be released, and I went sullenly away. No words except threats had escaped my lips, and they could not have wrung a groan from me had they cut me into pieces with the cowhide.
"For a few days I remained about the place, planning revenge. I went about my work until an opportunity offered, and then ran away. I knew how vigorous would be the pursuit, and selected a mountain cave, which I believe to be unknown to any one but myself. Here I lived for about three weeks, frequently hearing the bay of the bloodhound and the shout of the negro-hunter. They evidently gave it up at last, and one night I came from my hiding-place and went to my master's house. I knew the place well. I found an ax, and I went in at the front door.
"I will not describe, for I can not, what I did. With the name of Maggie on my lips, and the Indian devil in my heart, I perpetrated a horrible murder. The baby, a little girl, I spared and picked up with some of its clothing and carried it away with me. The rest were all struck down by my avenging ax. As I was leaving with the baby, my conscience already smiting me for what I had done, a groan came from the eldest child, a boy. Stooping, I found he was not dead, but that my ax had fractured his skull. He was between ten and twelve years of age and slender. I snatched him up, and, having set fire to the house, I put the baby in a large basket and set off with the wounded boy and the baby girl.