SOME UNDISTINGUISHED NEGROES
Patrick Snead.—Among the most interesting of all fugitive slaves who escaped into Canada was Patrick Snead of Savannah, Georgia. He was as white as his master, but was born a slave. Upon the death of his first master he fell into the hands of one of the sons who died when Snead was about fifteen. His next master was a rather reckless man. Snead's master always promised the slave's mother to give him his freedom as soon as the boy could take care of himself, but this was never done. Snead was sent to school a little by his mother so that he could spell quite well. He had no religious training but was allowed to attend a Sunday school for colored children. Upon approaching manhood Snead was put to the cooper's trade, which he learned in five years.
Up to this time Snead had fared well, but at length his master fell sick and died without freeing the slave according to his promise. Snead was then sold to pay the fees of his master's physician, who later sold him to a wholesale merchant for $500. In the service of this merchant Snead proved to be a much smarter man than many of those who worked with him. In later years, however, he had to work so hard as to injure his health to the extent that he suffered considerably. Moreover, Snead was never allowed any money and was restricted in his social contact with the people of his group in other parts of the community.
He was later sold to another master, being given in exchange for a woman, two children and $100. He was still employed in the cooper's trade. Required to make only 18 barrels a week and capable of making more than twice as many, he began to receive an income of his own under the good treatment of his last master. During this period, however, his desire for liberty grew stronger and stronger because of the hardships of his people and then he heard of their opportunities in the free States and in Liberia. He, therefore, made his escape in July, 1851, and reached Canada in safety. After remaining two years in Canada he decided to enter the employ of the proprietor of the Cataract House on the American side of Niagara Falls. What happened then is best told in his own language. He says:
"Then a constable of Buffalo came in, on Sunday after dinner, and sent the barkeeper into the dining-room for me. I went into the hall, and met the constable,—I had my jacket in my hand, and was going to put it up. He stepped up to me. 'Here, Watson,' (this was the name I assumed on escaping,) 'you waited on me, and I'll give you some change.' His fingers were then in his pocket, and he dropped a quarter dollar on the floor. I told him, 'I have not waited on you—you must be mistaken in the man, and I don't want another waiter's money.' He approached,—I suspected, and stepped back toward the dining-room door. By that time he made a grab at me, caught me by the collar of my shirt and vest,—then four more constables, he had brought with him, sprung on me,—they dragged me to the street door—there was a jamb—I hung on by the doorway. The head constable shackled my left hand. I had on a new silk cravat twice around my neck; he hung on to this, twisting it till my toungue lolled out of my mouth, but he could not start me through the door. By this time the waiters pushed through the crowd,—there were three hundred visitors there at the time,—and Smith and Graves, colored waiters, caught me by the hands,—then the others came on, and dragged me from the officers by main force. They dragged me over chairs and everything, down to the ferry way. I got into the cars, and the waiters were lowering me down, when the constables came and stopped them, saying, 'Stop that murderer!'—they called me a murderer! Then I was dragged down the steps by the waiters, and flung into the ferry boat. The boatmen rowed me to within fifty feet of the Canada shore—into Canada water—when the head boatman in the other boat gave the word to row back. They did accordingly,—but they could not land me at the usual place on account of the waiters. So they had to go down to Suspension Bridge; they landed me, opened a way through the crowd—shackled me, pushed me into a carriage, and away we went. The head constable then asked me 'if I knew any person in Lockport.' I told him 'no,' Then, 'In Buffalo?' 'No.' 'Well then,' said he, 'let's go to Buffalo—Lockport is too far.' We reached Buffalo at ten o'clock at night, when I was put in jail. I told the jailer I wished he would be so good as to tell a lawyer—to come round to the jail. Mr.—— came, and I engaged him for my lawyer. When the constables saw that pretending to know no one in Buffalo, I had engaged one of the best lawyers in the place, they were astonished. I told them that 'as scared as they thought I was, I wanted them to know that I had my senses about me.' The court was not opened until nine days; the tenth day my trial commenced. The object was, to show some evidence as if of murder, so that they could take me to Baltimore. On the eleventh day the claimant was defeated, and I was cleared at 10 A.M. After I was cleared, and while I was yet in the court room, a telegraphic despatch came from a Judge in Savannah, saying that I was no murderer, but a fugitive slave. However, before a new warrant could be got out, I was in a carriage and on my way. I crossed over into Canada, and walked thirty miles to the Clifton House."—Benjamin Drew, A North-Side View of Slavery, pp. 102-104.
White Women Enslaved.—"A New Hampshire gentleman went down into Louisiana, many years ago, to take a plantation. He pursued the usual method; borrowing money largely to begin with, paying high interest, and clearing off his debt, year by year, as his crops were sold. He followed another custom there; taking a Quadroon wife: a mistress, in the eye of the law, since there can be no legal marriage between the whites and persons of any degree of color: but, in nature and in reason, the woman he took home was his wife. She was a well-principled, amiable, well-educated woman; and they lived happily together for twenty years. She had only the slightest possible tinge of color. Knowing the law, that the children of slaves are to follow the fortunes of the mother, she warned her husband that she was not free, an ancestress having been a slave, and the legal act of manumission having never been performed. The husband promised to look to it: but neglected it. At the end of twenty years, one died, and the other shortly followed, leaving daughters; whether two or three, I have not been able to ascertain with positive certainty; but I have reason to believe three, of the ages of fifteen, seventeen, and eighteen; beautiful girls, with no perceptible mulatto tinge. The brother of their father came down from New Hampshire to settle the affairs; and he supposed, as every one else did, that the deceased had been wealthy. He was pleased with his nieces, and promised to carry them back with him into New Hampshire, and (as they were to all appearance perfectly white) to introduce them into the society which by education they were fitted for. It appeared, however, that their father had died insolvent. The deficiency was very small: but it was necessary to make an inventory of the effects, to deliver to the creditors. This was done by the brother,—the executor. Some of the creditors called on him, and complained that he had not delivered in a faithful inventory. He declared he had. No: the number of slaves was not accurately set down: he had omitted the daughters. The executor was overwhelmed with horror, and asked time for thought. He went round among the creditors, appealing to their mercy: but they answered that these young ladies were 'a first-rate article,' too valuable to be relinquished. He next offered, (though he had himself six children, and very little money,) all he had for the redemption of his nieces; alleging that it was more than they would bring in the market for house or field labor. This was refused with scorn. It was said that there were other purposes for which the girls would bring more than for field or house labor. The uncle was in despair, and felt strongly tempted to wish their death, rather than their surrender to such a fate as was before them. He told them, abruptly, what was their prospect. He declares that he never before beheld human grief; never before heard the voice of anguish. They never ate, nor slept, nor separated from each other, till the day when they were taken into the New Orleans slave market. There they were sold, separately, at high prices, for the vilest of purposes: and where each is gone, no one knows. They are for the present, lost. But they will arise to the light in the day of retribution."—Harriet Martineau, Views on Slavery and Emancipation, pp. 8-9.
The White Slave.—"A slaveholder, living in Virginia, owned a beautiful slave woman, who was almost white. She became the mother of a child, a little boy, in whose veins ran the blood of her master, and the closest observer could not detect in its appearance any trace of African descent. He grew to be two or three years of age, a most beautiful child and the idol of his mother's heart, when the master concluded, for family reasons, to send him away. He placed him in the care of a friend living in Guilford County, North Carolina, and made an agreement that he should receive a common-school education, and at a suitable age be taught some useful trade. Years passed; the child grew to manhood, and having received a good common-school education, and learned the shoemaker's trade, he married an estimable young white woman, and had a family of five or six children. He had not the slightest knowledge of the taint of African blood in his veins, and no one in the neighborhood knew that he was the son of an octoroon slave woman. He made a comfortable living for his family, was a good citizen, a member of the Methodist Church, and was much respected by all who knew him. In course of time his father, the Virginian slaveholder, died, and when the executors came to settle up the estate, they remembered the little white boy, the son of the slave woman, and knowing that by law—such law!—he belonged to the estate, and must be by this time a valuable piece of property, they resolved to gain possession of him. After much inquiry and search they learned of his whereabouts, and the heir of the estate, accompanied by an administrator, went to Guilford County, North Carolina, to claim his half-brother as a slave. Without making themselves known to him, they sold him to a negro trader, and gave a bill of sale, preferring to have a sum in ready money instead of a servant who might prove very valuable, but who would, without doubt, give them a great deal of trouble. He had been free all his life, and they knew he would not readily yield to the yoke of bondage. All this time the victim was entirely unconscious of the cruel fate in store for him.
"His wife had been prostrated by a fever then prevalent in the neighborhood, and he had waited upon her and watched by her bedside, until he was worn out with exhaustion and loss of sleep. Several neighbor women coming in one evening to watch with the invalid, he surrendered her to their care, and retired to seek the rest he so much needed. That night the slave-dealer came with a gang of ruffians, burst into the house and seized their victim as he lay asleep, bound him, after heroic struggles on his part, and dragged him away. When he demanded the cause of his seizure, they showed him the bill of sale they had received, and informed him that he was a slave. In this rude, heartless manner the intelligence that he belonged to the African race was first imparted to him, and the crushing weight of his cruel destiny came upon him when totally unprepared. His captors hurried him out of the neighborhood, and took him toward the Southern slave markets. To get him black enough to sell without question, they washed his face in tan ooze, and kept him tied in the sun, and to complete his resemblance to a mulatto, they cut his heir short and seared it with a hot iron to make it curly. He was sold in Georgia or Alabama, to a hard master, by whom he was cruelly treated.