The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus · Chapter 55Part 55
This chapter is not translated yet. You are reading the original.
But in this narrative the scenes of the plantation rise before us, with a distinctness which approaches reality. We hear the sound of the horn at daybreak, calling the sick and the weary to toil unrequited. Woman, in her appealing delicacy and suffering, about to become a mother, is fainting under the lash, or sinking exhausted beside her cotton row. We hear the prayer for mercy answered with sneers and curses. We look on the instruments of torture, and the corpses of murdered men. We see the dogs, reeking hot from the chase, with their jaws foul with human blood. We see the meek and aged Christian scarred with the lash, and bowed down with toil, offering the supplication of a broken heart to his Father in Heaven, for the forgiveness of his brutal enemy. We hear, and from our inmost hearts repeat the affecting interrogatory of the aged slave, "How long, Oh Lord! how long!"
The editor has written out the details of this painful narrative with feelings of sorrow. If there be any who feel a morbid satisfaction in dwelling upon the history of outrage and cruelty, he at least is not one of them. His taste and habits incline him rather to look to the pure and beautiful in our nature--the sunniest side of humanity--its kindly sympathies--its holy affections--its charities and its love. But, it is because he has seen that all which is thus beautiful and excellent in mind and heart, perishes in the atmosphere of slavery: it is because humanity in the slave sinks down to a level with the brute and in the master gives place to the attributes of a fiend--that he has not felt at liberty to decline the task. He cannot sympathize with that abstract and delicate philanthropy, which hesitates to bring itself in contact with the sufferer, and which shrinks from the effort of searching out the extent of his afflictions. The emblem of Practical Philanthropy is the Samaritan stooping over the wounded Jew. It must be no fastidious hand which administers the oil and the wine, and binds up the unsightly gashes.
Believing, as he does, that this narrative is one of truth; that it presents an unexaggerated picture of Slavery as it exists on the cotton plantations of the South and West, he would particularly invite to its perusal, those individuals, and especially those professing Christians at the North, who have ventured to claim for such a system, the sanction and approval of the Religion of Jesus Christ. In view of the facts here presented, let these men seriously inquire of themselves, whether in advancing such a claim, they are not uttering a higher and more audacious blasphemy than any which ever fell from the pens of Voltaire and Paine. As if to cover them with confusion, and leave them utterly without excuse for thus libelling the character of a just God, these developments are making, and the veil rising, which for long years of sinful apathy has rested upon the abominations of American Slavery. Light is breaking into it's dungeons, disclosing the wreck of buried intellect--of hearts broken--of human affections outraged--of souls ruined. The world will see it as God has always seen it; and when He shall at length make inquisition for blood, and His vengeance kindle over the habitations of cruelty, with a destruction more terrible than that of Sodom and Gomorrah, His righteous dealing will be justified of man, and His name glorified among the nations, and there will be a voice of rejoicing in Earth and in Heaven. ALLELUIA!--THE PROMISE IS FULFILLED!--FOR THE SIGHING OF THE POOR AND THE OPPRESSION OF THE NEEDY, GOD HATH RISEN!
It is the earnest desire of the Editor, that this narrative may be the means, under God, of awakening in the hearts of all who read it, a sympathy for the oppressed which shall manifest itself in immediate, active, self-sacrificing exertion for their deliverance; and, while it excites abhorrence of his crimes, call forth pity for the oppressor. May it have the effect to prevent the avowed and associated friends of the slave, from giving such an undue importance to their own trials and grievances, as to forget in a great measure the sorrows of the slave. Let its cry of wo, coming up from the plantations of the South, suppress every feeling of selfishness in our hearts. Let our regret and indignation at the denial of the right of petition, be felt only because we are thereby prevented from pleading in the Halls of Congress for the "suffering and the dumb." And let the fact, that we are shut out from half the territory of our country, be lamented only because it prevents us from bearing personally to the land of Slavery, the messages of hope for the slave, and of rebuke and warning for the oppressor.
New-York, 24th 1st mo., 1838.
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I was born in Powhatan County, Virginia, on the plantation of George Larrimore. Sen., at a place called Mount Pleasant, on the 16th of May 1805. May father was the slave of an orphan family whose name I have forgotten, and was under the care of a Mr. Brooks, guardian of the family. He was a native of Africa, and was brought over when a mere child, with his mother. My mother was the slave of George Larrimore, Sen. She was nearly white, and is well known to have been the daughter of Mr. Larrimore himself. She died when myself and my twin brother Meshech were five years of age--I can scarcely remember her. She had in all eight children, of whom only five are now living. One, a brother, belongs to the heirs of the late Mr. Brockenbrough of Charlottesville; of whom he hires his time, and pays annually $120 for it. He is a member of the Baptist church, and used to preach occasionally. His wife is a free woman from Philadelphia, and being able to read and write, taught her husband. The whites do not know that he can write, and have often wondered that he could preach so well without learning. It is the practice when a church is crowded, to turn the blacks out of their seats. My brother did not like this, and on one occasion preached a sermon from a text, showing that all are of one blood. Some of the whites who heard it, said that such preaching would raise an insurrection among the negroes. Two of them told him that if he would prove his doctrine by Scripture, they would let him go, but if he did not, he should have nine and thirty lashes. He accordingly preached another sermon and spoke with a great deal of boldness. The two men who were in favor of having him whipped, left before the sermon was over; those who remained, acknowledged that he had proved his doctrine, and preached a good sermon, and many of them came up and shook hands with him. The two opposers, Scott and Brockley, forbid my brother, after this, to come upon their estates. They were both Baptists, and my brother had before preached to their people. During the cholera at Richmond, my brother preached a sermon, in which he compared the pestilence to the plagues, which afflicted the Egyptian slaveholders, because they would not let the people go. After the sermon some of the whites threatened to whip him. Mr. Valentine, a merchant on Shocko Hill prevented them; and a young lawyer named Brooks said it was wrong to threaten a man for preaching the truth. Since the insurrection of Nat. Turner he has not been allowed to preach much.
My twin brother was for some time the property of Mr. John Griggs, of Richmond, who sold him about three years since, to an Alabama Cotton Planter, with whom he staid one year, and then ran away and in all probability escaped into the free states or Canada, as he was seen near the Maryland line. My other brother lives in Fredericksburg, and belongs to a Mr. Scott, a merchant formerly of Richmond. He was sold from Mr. Larrimore's plantation because his wife was a slave of Mr. Scott. My only sister is the slave of John Smith, of King William. Her husband was the slave of Mr. Smith, when the latter lived in Powhatan county, and when he removed to King William, she was taken with her husband.
My old master, George Larrimore, married Jane Roane, the sister of a gentleman named John Roane, one of the most distinguished men in Virginia, who in turn married a sister of my master. One of his sisters married a Judge Scott, and another married Mr. Brockenbrough of Charlottesville. Mr. Larrimore had three children; George, Jane, and Elizabeth. The former was just ten days older than myself; and I was his playmate and constant associate in childhood. I used to go with him to his school, and carry his books for him as far as the door, and meet him there when the school was dismissed. We were very fond of each other, and frequently slept together. He taught me the letters of the alphabet, and I should soon have acquired a knowledge of reading, had not George's mother discovered her son in the act of teaching me. She took him aside and severely reprimanded him. When I asked him, not long after, to tell me more of what he had learned at school, he said that his mother had forbidden him to do so any more, as her father had a slave, who was instructed in reading and writing, and on that account proved very troublesome. He could, they said, imitate the hand-writing of the neighboring planters, and used to write passes and certificates of freedom for the slaves, and finally wrote one for himself, and went off to Philadelphia, from whence her father received from him a saucy letter, thanking him for his education.
The early years of my life went by pleasantly. The bitterness of my lot I had not yet realized. Comfortably clothed and fed, kindly treated by my old master and mistress and the young ladies, and the playmate and confidant of my young master, I did not dream of the dark reality of evil before me.
When he was fourteen years of age, master George went to his uncle Brockenbrough's at Charlottesville, as a student of the University. After his return from College, he went to Paris and other parts of Europe, and spent three or four years in study and travelling. In the mean time I was a waiter in the house, dining-room servant, &c. My old master visited and received visits from a great number of the principal families in Virginia. Each summer, with his family, he visited the Sulphur Springs and the mountains. While George was absent, I went with him to New-Orleans, in the winter season, on account of his failing health. We spent three days in Charleston, at Mr. McDuffie's, with whom my master was on intimate terms. Mr. McDuffie spent several days on one occasion at Mt. Pleasant. He took a fancy to me, and offered my master the servant whom he brought with him and $500 beside, for me. My master considered it almost an insult, and said after he was gone, that Mr. McDuffie needed money to say the least, as much as he did.
He had a fine house in Richmond, and used to spend his winters there with his family, taking me with him. He was not there much at other times, except when the Convention of 1829 for amending the State Constitution, was held in that city. He had a quarrel with Mr. Neal of Richmond Co., in consequence of some remarks upon the subject of Slavery. It came near terminating in a duel. I recollect that during the sitting of the Convention, my master asked me before several other gentlemen, if I wished to be free and go back to my own country. I looked at him with surprise, and inquired what country?
"Africa, to be sure," said he, laughing.
I told him that was not my country--that I was born in Virginia.
"Oh yes," said he, "but your father was born in Africa." He then said that there was a place on the African coast called Liberia where a great many free blacks were going; and asked me to tell him honestly, whether I would prefer to be set free on condition of going to Africa, or live with him and remain a slave. I replied that I had rather be as I was.
I have frequently heard him speak against slavery to his visitors. I heard him say on one occasion, when some gentlemen were arguing in favor of sending the free colored people to Africa, that this was as really the black man's country as the white's, and that it would be as humane to knock the free negroes, at once, on the head, as to send them to Liberia. He was a kind man to his slaves. He was proud of them, and of the reputation he enjoyed of feeding and clothing them well. They were as near as I can judge about 300 in number. He never to my knowledge sold a slave, unless to go with a wife or husband, and at the slave's own request. But all except the very wealthiest planters in his neighborhood sold them frequently. John Smoot of Powhatan Co. has sold a great number. Bacon Tait[A] used to be one of the principal purchasers. He had a jail at Richmond where he kept them. There were many others who made a business of buying and selling slaves. I saw on one occasion while travelling with my master, a gang of nearly two hundred men fastened with chains. The women followed unchained and the children in wagons. It was a sorrowful sight. Some were praying, some crying, and they all had a look of extreme wretchedness. It is an awful thing to a Virginia slave to be sold for the Alabama and Mississippi country. I have known some of them to die of grief, and others to commit suicide, on account of it.
[Footnote A: Bacon Tait's advertisement of "new and commodious buildings" for the keeping of negroes, situated at the corner of 15th and Carey streets, appears in the Richmond Whig of Sept. 1896.--EDITOR.]
In my seventeenth year, I was married to a girl named Harriet, belonging to John Gatewood, a planter living about four miles from Mr. Pleasant. She was about a year younger than myself--was a tailoress, and used to cut out clothes for the hands.
We were married by a white clergyman named Jones; and were allowed to or three weeks to ourselves, which we spent in visiting and other amusements.
The field hands are seldom married by a clergyman. They simply invite their friends together, and have a wedding party.
Our two eldest children died in their infancy: two are now living. The youngest was only two months old when I saw him for the last time. I used to visit my wife on Saturday and Sunday evenings.
My young master came back from Europe in delicate health. He was advised by his physicians to spend the winter in New-Orleans, whither he accordingly went, taking me with him. Here he became acquainted with a French lady of one of the first families in the city. The next winter he also spent in New-Orleans, and on his third visit, three years after his return from Europe, he was married to the lady above mentioned. In May he returned to Mt. Pleasant, and found the elder Larrimore on his sick bed, from which he never rose again. He died on the 14th of July. There was a great and splendid funeral, as his relatives and friends were numerous.
His large property was left principally in the hands of his widow until her decease, after which it was to be divided among the three children. In February Mrs. Larrimore also died. The administrators upon the estate were John Green, Esq., and Benjamin Temple. My young master came back from Europe in delicate health. He way advised by his physicians to spend the winter in New-Orleans, whither he accordingly went, taking me with him. Here he became acquainted with a French lady of one of the first families in the city. The next winter he also spent in New-Orleans, and on his third visit, three years after his return from Europe, he was married to the lady above mentioned. In May he returned to Mt. Pleasant, and found the elder Larrimore on his sick bed, from which he never rose again. He died on the 14th of July. There was a great and splendid funeral, as his relatives and friends were numerous.
His large property was left principally in the hands of his widow until her decease, after which it was to be divided among the three children. In February Mrs. Larrimore also died. The administrators upon the estate were John Green, Esq., and Benjamin Temple.
My young mistresses, Jane and Elizabeth, were very kind to the servants. They seemed to feel under obligations to afford them every comfort and gratification, consistent with the dreadful relation of ownership which they sustained towards them. Whipping was scarcely known on the estate; and, whenever it did take place, it was invariably against the wishes of the young ladies.
But the wife of master George was of a disposition entirely the reverse. Feeble, languid, and inert, sitting motionless for hours at her window, or moving her small fingers over the strings of her guitar, to some soft and languishing air, she would have seemed to a stranger incapable of rousing herself from that indolent repose, in which mind as well as body participated. But, the slightest disregard of her commands--and sometimes even the neglect to anticipate her wishes, on the part of the servants; was sufficient to awake her. The inanimate and delicate beauty then changed into a stormy virago. Her black eyes flawed and sparkled with a snaky fierceness, her full lips compressed, and her brows bent and darkened. Her very voice, soft and sweet when speaking to her husband, and exquisitely fine and melodious, when accompanying her guitar, was at such times, shrill, keen, and loud. She would order the servants of my young mistresses upon her errands, and if they pleaded their prior duty to obey the calls of another, would demand that they should be forthwith whipped for their insolence. If the young ladies remonstrated with her, she met them with a perfect torrent of invective and abuse. In these paroxysms of fury she always spoke in French, with a vehemence and volubility, which strongly contrasted with the calmness and firmness of the young ladies. She would boast of what she had done in New-Orleans, and of the excellent discipline of her father's slaves. She said she had gone down in the night to the cell under her father's house, and whipped the slaves confined there with her own hands. I had heard the same thing from her father's servants at New-Orleans, when I was there with my master. She brought with her from New-Orleans a girl named Frances. I have seen her take her by the ear, lead her up to the side of the room, and beat her head against it. At other times she would snatch off her slipper and strike the girl on her face and head with it.
She seldom manifested her evil temper before master George. When she did, he was greatly troubled, and he used to speak to his sisters about it. Her manner towards him was almost invariably that of extreme fondness. She was dark complexioned, but very beautiful; and the smile of welcome with which she used to meet him was peculiarly fascinating. I did not marvel that he loved her; while at the same time, in common with all the house servants, I regarded her as a being possessed with an evil spirit,--half woman, and half fiend.
Soon after the settlement of the estate, I heard my master speak of going out to Alabama. His wife had 1500 acres of wild land in Greene County in that State: and he had been negociating for 500 more. Early in the summer of 1833, he commenced making preparations for removing to that place a sufficient number of hands to cultivate it. He took great pains to buy up the wives and husbands of those of his own slaves who had married out of the estate, in order, as he said, that his hands might be contented in Alabama, and not need chaining together while on their journey. It is always found necessary by the regular slave-traders, in travelling with their slaves to the far South, to handcuff and chain their wretched victims, who have been bought up as the interest of the trader, and the luxury or necessities of the planter may chance to require, without regard to the ties sundered or the affections made desolate, by these infernal bargains. About the 1st of September, after the slaves destined for Alabama had taken a final farewell of their old home, and of the friends they were leaving behind, our party started on their long journey. There were in all 214 slaves, men, women and children. The men and women travelled on foot--the small children in the wagons, containing the baggage, &c. Previous to my departure, I visited my wife and children at Mr. Gatewood's. I took leave of them with the belief that I should return with my master, as soon as he had seen his hands established on his new plantation. I took my children in my arms and embraced them; my wife, who was a member of the Methodist church, implored the blessing of God upon me, during my absence, and I turned away to follow my master.
Our journey was a long and tedious one, especially to those who were compelled to walk the whole distance. My master rode in a sulky, and I, as his body servant, on horseback: When we crossed over the Roanoke, and were entering upon North Carolina, I remember with what sorrowful countenances and language the poor slaves looked back for the last time upon the land of their nativity. It was their last farewell to Old Virginia. We passed through Georgia, and crossing the Chattahoochee, entered Alabama. Our way for many days was through a sandy tract of country, covered with pine woods, with here and there the plantation of an Indian or a half-breed. After crossing what is called Line Creek, we found large plantations along the road, at intervals of four or five miles. The aspect of the whole country was wild and forbidding, save to the eye of a cotton-planter. The clearings were all new, and the houses rudely constructed of logs. The cotton fields, were skirted with an enormous growth of oak, pine, and other wood. Charred stumps stood thickly in the clearings, with here and there a large tree girdled by the axe and left to decay. We reached at last the place of our destination. It was a fine tract of land with a deep rich soil. We halted on a small knoll, where the tents were pitched, and the wagons unladen. I spent the night with my master at a neighboring plantation, which was under the care of an overseer named Flincher.
The next morning my master received a visit from a man named Huckstep, who had undertaken the management of his plantation as an overseer. He had been an overseer on cotton plantations many years in Georgia and North Carolina. He was apparently about forty years of age, with a sunburnt and sallow countenance. His thick shock of black hair was marked in several places with streaks of white, occasioned as he afterwards told me by blows received from slaves whom he was chastising.
After remaining in the vicinity for about a week, my master took me aside one morning--told me he was going to Selma in Dallas County, and wished me to be in readiness on his return the next day, to start for Virginia. This was to me cheering news. I spent that day and the next among my old fellow servants who had lived with me in Virginia. Some of them had messages to send by me to their friends and acquaintances. In the afternoon of the second day after my master's departure, I distributed, among them all the money which I had about me, viz., fifteen dollars. I noticed that the overseer Huckstep laughed at this and called me a fool: and that whenever I spoke of going home with my master, his countenance indicated something between a smile and a sneer.
Night came; but contrary to his promise, my master did not come. I still however expected him the next day. But another night came, and he had not returned. I grew uneasy, and inquired of Huckstep where be thought my master was.
"On his way to Old Virginia," said he, with a malicious laugh.
"But," said I. "Master George told me that he should come back and take me with him to Virginia."
"Well, boy," said the overseer, "I'll now tell ye what master George, as you call him, told me. You are to stay here and act as driver of the field hands. That was the order. So you may as well submit to it at once."
I stood silent and horror-struck. Could it be that the man whom I had served faithfully from our mutual boyhood, whose slightest wish had been my law, to serve whom I would have laid down my life, while I had confidence in his integrity--could it be that he had so cruelly and wickedly deceived me? I looked at the overseer. He stood laughing at me in my agony.
"Master George gave you no such orders," I exclaimed, maddened by the overseer's look and manner.
The overseer looked at me with a fiendish grin. "None of your insolence," said he, with a dreadful oath. "I never saw a Virginia nigger that I couldn't manage, proud as they are. Your master has left you in my hands, and you must obey my orders. If you don't, why I shall have to make you 'hug the widow there,'" pointing to a tree, to which I afterwards found the slaves were tied when they were whipped.
That night was one of sleepless agony. Virginia--the hills and the streams of my birth-place; the kind and hospitable home; the gentle-hearted sisters, sweetening with their sympathy the sorrows of the slave--my wife--my children--all that had thus far made up my happiness, rose in contrast with my present condition. Deeply as he has wronged me, may my master himself never endure such a night of misery!
At daybreak, Huckstep told me to dress myself, and attend to his directions. I rose, subdued and wretched, and at his orders handed the horn to the headmen of the gang, who summoned the hands to the field. They were employed in clearing land for cultivation, cutting trees and burning. I was with them through the day, and at night returned once more to my lodgings to be laughed at by the overseer. He told me that I should do well, he did not doubt, by and by, but that a Virginia driver generally had to be whipped a few times himself before he could be taught to do justice to the slaves under his charge. They were not equal to those raised in North Carolina, for keeping the lazy hell-hounds, as he called the slaves, at work.
And this was my condition!--a driver set over more than one hundred and sixty of my kindred and friends, wish orders to apply the whip unsparingly to every one, whether man or woman, who faltered in the task, or was careless in the execution of it, myself subject at any moment to feel the accursed lash upon my own back, if feelings of humanity should perchance overcome the selfishness of misery, and induce me to spare and pity.
I lived in the same house with Huckstep,--a large log house, roughly finished; where we were waited upon by an old woman, whom we used to call aunt Polly. Huckstep was, I soon found, inordinately fond of peach brandy; and once or twice in the course of a month he had a drunken debauch, which usually lasted from two to four days. He was then full of talk, laughed immoderately at his own nonsense and would keep me up until late at night listening to him. He was at these periods terribly severe to his hands, and would order me to use up the cracker of my whip every day upon the poor creatures, who were toiling in the field, and in order to satisfy him, I used to tear it off when returning home at night. He would then praise me for a good fellow, and invite me to drink with him.
He used to tell me at such times, that if I would only drink as he did, I should be worth a thousand dollars more for it. He would sit hours with his peach brandy, cursing and swearing, laughing and telling stories full of obscenity and blasphemy. He would sometimes start up, take my whip, and rush out to the slave quarters, flourish it about and frighten the inmates and often cruelly beat them. He would order the women to pull up their clothes, in Alabama style, as he called it, and then whip them for not complying. He would then come back roaring and shouting to the house, and tell me what he had done; if I did not laugh with him, he would get angry and demand what the matter was. Oh! how often I have laughed, at such times, when my heart ached within me; and how often, when permitted to retire to my bed, have I found relief in tears!