With Axe and Rifle

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“Though I cannot let you be my slave, I will gladly protect you and allow you to remain here until you have sufficiently recovered to make your way northward into Canada, where alone you can be safe,” said my father.

“Dis niggar wish always to be de cap’n’s slave, no want to go to Canada,” answered Dio.

“But, my poor fellow, if you remain here, you will be recaptured to a certainty, as your former master would find you out before long, and would place men on the watch to seize you out of doors, even though I might protect you in the house.”

Still Dio entreated that even when he had recovered his strength he should not be sent away; but my father was firm in declining to make any promise both on his own account and for the sake of the black himself. It was in fact an illegal act to assist a slave in escaping, and much more to harbour one, and my father knew full well that possibly a party of Kentuckian slaveholders would come across and capture Dio. The black, although much recovered, was still somewhat weak. My father seeing this, and considering that it would be imprudent to allow him to sleep in the huts with the other negroes, ordered a small inner room to be prepared for him where he could remain in tolerable security even should any of those in search of him come our way. Peter was charged to be cautious not to mention that he had brought Dio to the house, while fortunately none of the other farm hands, (as far as we knew), had seen him arrive. Mr Tidey was fully alive to the importance of keeping the matter secret, and was as anxious as any of us to prevent the fugitive being retaken. The negro himself seemed perfectly satisfied that he was safe from capture now that he was with us.

My father’s intention was, as soon as he had recovered, to supply him with a suit of clothes and some money, and to carry him off during the night northward. He was then to make his way through Indiana to Ohio, whence he could cross Lake Erie into Canada. My father was acquainted with a quaker family residing not much more than a hundred miles from us in the former state on the Wabash, and they were sure to be ready to assist him on his journey by forwarding him on to other friends who held their principles. At that time what was called “the underground railway” was not regularly established, but there were a large number of persons in the northern states, including all the members of the Society of Friends, who objected to slavery as much as my father did, and were always ready to assist fugitives running away from their cruel taskmasters. The movement in England in favour of the abolition of the slave-trade had been commenced by Wilberforce in 1787. From that time the British emancipists gained strength, and in 1792 resolutions for the abolition of the slave-trade were carried in the House of Commons. The following year, however, the House did not confirm its former vote, and though Wilberforce annually brought forward a motion, for seven years it was regularly lost until in 1799 a bill was carried limiting the traffic to a certain extent of coast. It was not, however, until 1807 that a bill for the total abolition of the British slave-trade received the royal assent. At first a penalty in money was alone inflicted on British subjects captured on board slave-ships, but in 1811 an act carried by Lord Brougham made slave-dealing felony. This being found an inadequate check, in 1824 the slave-trade was declared to be piracy and the punishment death. This was enforced until 1837, when the punishment for trading in slaves was changed to transportation for life. Other nations imitated England in prohibiting their subjects from trafficking in slaves; the United States of North America and Brazil making the traffic piracy, and punishable with death. All, with one exception, the United States, agreed to permit their ships to be searched at sea by the vessels of other nations. Unhappily, however, the profits on the trade were so enormous, that the traffic in slaves continued to be carried on from the coast of Africa to the Brazils, Cuba, and the more southern of the United States in spite of the activity of the British cruisers. Of course it will be understood that there is a wide distinction between the abolition of the slave-trade, and the abolition of slavery. Great Britain abolished slavery in her colonies in 1833, at the same time slavery existed, with all its abominations, in the more southern of the United States, as well as in the Brazils and Cuba, and on the other side of the continent. At the time of which I am speaking negroes were bought and sold and driven from one state to another. Parents were separated from their children, husbands from their wives, and if any one was daring enough to speak a word in favour of the much-suffering race, he ran the risk of having his house fired, and his plantations devastated, or of being put to death, as John Brown was in subsequent years.

My father was well aware of the danger he ran in harbouring Dio. Under ordinary circumstances he would have hazarded much to save a slave from being recaptured, but he felt himself doubly bound to preserve our negro guest, and thus repay in the most effectual manner, the debt of gratitude he owed to him for saving my mother’s life and mine.

The fact of his being in the house was kept a profound secret from all the outdoor servants, and my father knew that he could trust Peter and Black Rose, who were the only persons in the family, besides ourselves, including Mr Tidey and our Irish servant Biddy O’Toole. The latter was cautioned not to speak about a negro being in the house, should any strangers come to look for him.

“Arrah! thim spalpeens w’d be mighty claver to get onything out of Biddy O’Toole,” she answered, with a curl of her lips and cock of her nose, while her eyes twinkled; “sure if they force themselves into the house while the master is away, I’ll bid them dare to disturb my old mither, whose troubled with a fever. If they come near the room, I’ll give them a taste of the broomstick.”

A couple of days had passed away, and we began to hope that Dio’s pursuers had given up the search, and would not suspect where he was concealed. He was rapidly recovering under the kind treatment he received, for he had never before in his life been so well tended. Either Dan, Kathleen, or I took him in his food, and Peter slept in the same room and looked after him at night, but of course in the day-time had to attend to his usual duties. Kathleen became Dio’s special favourite. I am sure from the way he spoke of her, he would have died to do her a service.

“She one angel, Massa Mike. If such as she lib in heaven, it mus’ be one beautiful place,” he remarked to me one day.