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Title: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself

Author: Harriet A. Jacobs

Editor: Lydia Maria Child

Release date: February 1, 2004 [eBook #11030]
Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

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Proofreaders. Revised by Richard Tonsing.

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INCIDENTS IN
THE LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRL, WRITTEN BY HERSELF ***

[Transcriber’s note: The spelling irregularities of the original have been
retained in this etext.]

INCIDENTS
IN THE

LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRL.
WRITTEN BY HERSELF.

“Northerners know nothing at all about Slavery. They think it is perpetual
bondage only. They have no conception of the depth of degradation
involved in that word, Slavery; if they had, they would never cease their
efforts until so horrible a system was overthrown.”
A Woman of North Carolina.

“Rise up, ye women that are at ease! Hear my voice, ye careless
daughters! Give ear unto my speech.”
Isaiah xxxii. 9.

EDITED BY L. MARIA CHILD

BOSTON:
PUBLISHED FOR THE AUTHOR
1861.

Contents.
PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR
INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR
INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRL
I. Childhood
II. The New Master And Mistress.
III. The Slaves’ New Year’s Day.
IV. The Slave Who Dared To Feel Like A Man.
V. The Trials Of Girlhood.
VI. The Jealous Mistress.
VII. The Lover.
VIII. What Slaves Are Taught To Think Of The North.
IX. Sketches Of Neighboring Slaveholders.
X. A Perilous Passage In The Slave Girl’s Life.
XI. The New Tie To Life.
XII. Fear Of Insurrection.
XIII. The Church And Slavery.
XIV. Another Link To Life.
XV. Continued Persecutions.
XVI. Scenes At The Plantation.
XVII. The Flight.

XVIII. Months Of Peril.
XIX. The Children Sold.
XX. New Perils.
XXI. The Loophole Of Retreat.
XXII. Christmas Festivities.
XXIII. Still In Prison.
XXIV. The Candidate For Congress.
XXV. Competition In Cunning.
XXVI. Important Era In My Brother’s Life.
XXVII. New Destination For The Children.
XXVIII. Aunt Nancy.
XXIX. Preparations For Escape.
XXX. Northward Bound.
XXXI. Incidents In Philadelphia.
XXXII. The Meeting Of Mother And Daughter.
XXXIII. A Home Found.
XXXIV. The Old Enemy Again.
XXXV. Prejudice Against Color.
XXXVI. The Hairbreadth Escape.
XXXVII. A Visit To England
XXXVIII. Renewed Invitations To Go South.
XXXIX. The Confession.
XL. The Fugitive Slave Law.

XLI. Free At Last.
APPENDIX.

Preface by the Author
Reader, be assured this narrative is no fiction. I am aware that some of
my adventures may seem incredible; but they are, nevertheless, strictly true.
I have not exaggerated the wrongs inflicted by Slavery; on the contrary, my
descriptions fall far short of the facts. I have concealed the names of places,
and given persons fictitious names. I had no motive for secrecy on my own
account, but I deemed it kind and considerate towards others to pursue this
course.
I wish I were more competent to the task I have undertaken. But I trust
my readers will excuse deficiencies in consideration of circumstances. I was
born and reared in Slavery; and I remained in a Slave State twenty-seven
years. Since I have been at the North, it has been necessary for me to work
diligently for my own support, and the education of my children. This has
not left me much leisure to make up for the loss of early opportunities to
improve myself; and it has compelled me to write these pages at irregular
intervals, whenever I could snatch an hour from household duties.
When I first arrived in Philadelphia, Bishop Paine advised me to publish
a sketch of my life, but I told him I was altogether incompetent to such an
undertaking. Though I have improved my mind somewhat since that time, I
still remain of the same opinion; but I trust my motives will excuse what
might otherwise seem presumptuous. I have not written my experiences in
order to attract attention to myself; on the contrary, it would have been
more pleasant to me to have been silent about my own history. Neither do I
care to excite sympathy for my own sufferings. But I do earnestly desire to
arouse the women of the North to a realizing sense of the condition of two
millions of women at the South, still in bondage, suffering what I suffered,
and most of them far worse. I want to add my testimony to that of abler
pens to convince the people of the Free States what Slavery really is. Only
by experience can any one realize how deep, and dark, and foul is that pit of
abominations. May the blessing of God rest on this imperfect effort in
behalf of my persecuted people!
Linda Brent.

Introduction by the Editor
The author of the following autobiography is personally known to me,
and her conversation and manners inspire me with confidence. During the
last seventeen years, she has lived the greater part of the time with a
distinguished family in New York, and has so deported herself as to be
highly esteemed by them. This fact is sufficient, without further credentials
of her character. I believe those who know her will not be disposed to doubt
her veracity, though some incidents in her story are more romantic than
fiction.
At her request, I have revised her manuscript; but such changes as I have
made have been mainly for purposes of condensation and orderly
arrangement. I have not added any thing to the incidents, or changed the
import of her very pertinent remarks. With trifling exceptions, both the
ideas and the language are her own. I pruned excrescences a little, but
otherwise I had no reason for changing her lively and dramatic way of
telling her own story. The names of both persons and places are known to
me; but for good reasons I suppress them.
It will naturally excite surprise that a woman reared in Slavery should be
able to write so well. But circumstances will explain this. In the first place,
nature endowed her with quick perceptions. Secondly, the mistress, with
whom she lived till she was twelve years old, was a kind, considerate
friend, who taught her to read and spell. Thirdly, she was placed in
favorable circumstances after she came to the North; having frequent
intercourse with intelligent persons, who felt a friendly interest in her
welfare, and were disposed to give her opportunities for self-improvement.
I am well aware that many will accuse me of indecorum for presenting
these pages to the public; for the experiences of this intelligent and much-
injured woman belong to a class which some call delicate subjects, and
others indelicate. This peculiar phase of Slavery has generally been kept
veiled; but the public ought to be made acquainted with its monstrous
features, and I willingly take the responsibility of presenting them with the

veil withdrawn. I do this for the sake of my sisters in bondage, who are
suffering wrongs so foul, that our ears are too delicate to listen to them. I do
it with the hope of arousing conscientious and reflecting women at the
North to a sense of their duty in the exertion of moral influence on the
question of Slavery, on all possible occasions. I do it with the hope that
every man who reads this narrative will swear solemnly before God that, so
far as he has power to prevent it, no fugitive from Slavery shall ever be sent
back to suffer in that loathsome den of corruption and cruelty.
L. Maria Child.

INCIDENTS
IN THE
LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRL,
SEVEN YEARS CONCEALED.

I. Childhood
I was born a slave; but I never knew it till six years of happy childhood
had passed away. My father was a carpenter, and considered so intelligent
and skilful in his trade, that, when buildings out of the common line were to
be erected, he was sent for from long distances, to be head workman. On
condition of paying his mistress two hundred dollars a year, and supporting
himself, he was allowed to work at his trade, and manage his own affairs.
His strongest wish was to purchase his children; but, though he several
times offered his hard earnings for that purpose, he never succeeded. In
complexion my parents were a light shade of brownish yellow, and were
termed mulattoes. They lived together in a comfortable home; and, though
we were all slaves, I was so fondly shielded that I never dreamed I was a
piece of merchandise, trusted to them for safe keeping, and liable to be
demanded of them at any moment. I had one brother, William, who was two
years younger than myself—a bright, affectionate child. I had also a great
treasure in my maternal grandmother, who was a remarkable woman in
many respects. She was the daughter of a planter in South Carolina, who, at
his death, left her mother and his three children free, with money to go to
St. Augustine, where they had relatives. It was during the Revolutionary
War; and they were captured on their passage, carried back, and sold to
different purchasers. Such was the story my grandmother used to tell me;
but I do not remember all the particulars. She was a little girl when she was
captured and sold to the keeper of a large hotel. I have often heard her tell
how hard she fared during childhood. But as she grew older she evinced so
much intelligence, and was so faithful, that her master and mistress could
not help seeing it was for their interest to take care of such a valuable piece
of property. She became an indispensable personage in the household,
officiating in all capacities, from cook and wet nurse to seamstress. She was
much praised for her cooking; and her nice crackers became so famous in
the neighborhood that many people were desirous of obtaining them. In
consequence of numerous requests of this kind, she asked permission of her
mistress to bake crackers at night, after all the household work was done;
and she obtained leave to do it, provided she would clothe herself and her

children from the profits. Upon these terms, after working hard all day for
her mistress, she began her midnight bakings, assisted by her two oldest
children. The business proved profitable; and each year she laid by a little,
which was saved for a fund to purchase her children. Her master died, and
the property was divided among his heirs. The widow had her dower in the
hotel, which she continued to keep open. My grandmother remained in her
service as a slave; but her children were divided among her master’s
children. As she had five, Benjamin, the youngest one, was sold, in order
that each heir might have an equal portion of dollars and cents. There was
so little difference in our ages that he seemed more like my brother than my
uncle. He was a bright, handsome lad, nearly white; for he inherited the
complexion my grandmother had derived from Anglo-Saxon ancestors.
Though only ten years old, seven hundred and twenty dollars were paid for
him. His sale was a terrible blow to my grandmother; but she was naturally
hopeful, and she went to work with renewed energy, trusting in time to be
able to purchase some of her children. She had laid up three hundred
dollars, which her mistress one day begged as a loan, promising to pay her
soon. The reader probably knows that no promise or writing given to a slave
is legally binding; for, according to Southern laws, a slave, being property,
can hold no property. When my grandmother lent her hard earnings to her
mistress, she trusted solely to her honor. The honor of a slaveholder to a
slave!
To this good grandmother I was indebted for many comforts. My brother
Willie and I often received portions of the crackers, cakes, and preserves,
she made to sell; and after we ceased to be children we were indebted to her
for many more important services.
Such were the unusually fortunate circumstances of my early childhood.
When I was six years old, my mother died; and then, for the first time, I
learned, by the talk around me, that I was a slave. My mother’s mistress
was the daughter of my grandmother’s mistress. She was the foster sister of
my mother; they were both nourished at my grandmother’s breast. In fact,
my mother had been weaned at three months old, that the babe of the
mistress might obtain sufficient food. They played together as children; and,
when they became women, my mother was a most faithful servant to her
whiter foster sister. On her death-bed her mistress promised that her
children should never suffer for any thing; and during her lifetime she kept

her word. They all spoke kindly of my dead mother, who had been a slave
merely in name, but in nature was noble and womanly. I grieved for her,
and my young mind was troubled with the thought who would now take
care of me and my little brother. I was told that my home was now to be
with her mistress; and I found it a happy one. No toilsome or disagreeable
duties were imposed upon me. My mistress was so kind to me that I was
always glad to do her bidding, and proud to labor for her as much as my
young years would permit. I would sit by her side for hours, sewing
diligently, with a heart as free from care as that of any free-born white child.
When she thought I was tired, she would send me out to run and jump; and
away I bounded, to gather berries or flowers to decorate her room. Those
were happy days—too happy to last. The slave child had no thought for the
morrow; but there came that blight, which too surely waits on every human
being born to be a chattel.
When I was nearly twelve years old, my kind mistress sickened and died.
As I saw the cheek grow paler, and the eye more glassy, how earnestly I
prayed in my heart that she might live! I loved her; for she had been almost
like a mother to me. My prayers were not answered. She died, and they
buried her in the little churchyard, where, day after day, my tears fell upon
her grave.
I was sent to spend a week with my grandmother. I was now old enough
to begin to think of the future; and again and again I asked myself what they
would do with me. I felt sure I should never find another mistress so kind as
the one who was gone. She had promised my dying mother that her children
should never suffer for any thing; and when I remembered that, and recalled
her many proofs of attachment to me, I could not help having some hopes
that she had left me free. My friends were almost certain it would be so.
They thought she would be sure to do it, on account of my mother’s love
and faithful service. But, alas! we all know that the memory of a faithful
slave does not avail much to save her children from the auction block.
After a brief period of suspense, the will of my mistress was read, and we
learned that she had bequeathed me to her sister’s daughter, a child of five
years old. So vanished our hopes. My mistress had taught me the precepts
of God’s Word: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” “Whatsoever ye
would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.” But I was

her slave, and I suppose she did not recognize me as her neighbor. I would
give much to blot out from my memory that one great wrong. As a child, I
loved my mistress; and, looking back on the happy days I spent with her, I
try to think with less bitterness of this act of injustice. While I was with her,
she taught me to read and spell; and for this privilege, which so rarely falls
to the lot of a slave, I bless her memory.
She possessed but few slaves; and at her death those were all distributed
among her relatives. Five of them were my grandmother’s children, and had
shared the same milk that nourished her mother’s children. Notwithstanding
my grandmother’s long and faithful service to her owners, not one of her
children escaped the auction block. These God-breathing machines are no
more, in the sight of their masters, than the cotton they plant, or the horses
they tend.

II. The New Master And Mistress.
Dr. Flint, a physician in the neighborhood, had married the sister of my
mistress, and I was now the property of their little daughter. It was not
without murmuring that I prepared for my new home; and what added to
my unhappiness, was the fact that my brother William was purchased by the
same family. My father, by his nature, as well as by the habit of transacting
business as a skilful mechanic, had more of the feelings of a freeman than is
common among slaves. My brother was a spirited boy; and being brought
up under such influences, he early detested the name of master and
mistress. One day, when his father and his mistress both happened to call
him at the same time, he hesitated between the two; being perplexed to
know which had the strongest claim upon his obedience. He finally
concluded to go to his mistress. When my father reproved him for it, he
said, “You both called me, and I didn’t know which I ought to go to first.”
“You are my child,” replied our father, “and when I call you, you should
come immediately, if you have to pass through fire and water.”
Poor Willie! He was now to learn his first lesson of obedience to a
master. Grandmother tried to cheer us with hopeful words, and they found
an echo in the credulous hearts of youth.
When we entered our new home we encountered cold looks, cold words,
and cold treatment. We were glad when the night came. On my narrow bed
I moaned and wept, I felt so desolate and alone.
I had been there nearly a year, when a dear little friend of mine was
buried. I heard her mother sob, as the clods fell on the coffin of her only
child, and I turned away from the grave, feeling thankful that I still had
something left to love. I met my grandmother, who said, “Come with me,
Linda;” and from her tone I knew that something sad had happened. She led
me apart from the people, and then said, “My child, your father is dead.”
Dead! How could I believe it? He had died so suddenly I had not even
heard that he was sick. I went home with my grandmother. My heart
rebelled against God, who had taken from me mother, father, mistress, and

friend. The good grandmother tried to comfort me. “Who knows the ways
of God?” said she. “Perhaps they have been kindly taken from the evil days
to come.” Years afterwards I often thought of this. She promised to be a
mother to her grandchildren, so far as she might be permitted to do so; and
strengthened by her love, I returned to my master’s. I thought I should be
allowed to go to my father’s house the next morning; but I was ordered to
go for flowers, that my mistress’s house might be decorated for an evening
party. I spent the day gathering flowers and weaving them into festoons,
while the dead body of my father was lying within a mile of me. What cared
my owners for that? he was merely a piece of property. Moreover, they
thought he had spoiled his children, by teaching them to feel that they were
human beings. This was blasphemous doctrine for a slave to teach;
presumptuous in him, and dangerous to the masters.
The next day I followed his remains to a humble grave beside that of my
dear mother. There were those who knew my father’s worth, and respected
his memory.
My home now seemed more dreary than ever. The laugh of the little
slave-children sounded harsh and cruel. It was selfish to feel so about the
joy of others. My brother moved about with a very grave face. I tried to
comfort him, by saying, “Take courage, Willie; brighter days will come by
and by.”
“You don’t know any thing about it, Linda,” he replied. “We shall have to
stay here all our days; we shall never be free.”
I argued that we were growing older and stronger, and that perhaps we
might, before long, be allowed to hire our own time, and then we could earn
money to buy our freedom. William declared this was much easier to say
than to do; moreover, he did not intend to buy his freedom. We held daily
controversies upon this subject.
Little attention was paid to the slaves’ meals in Dr. Flint’s house. If they
could catch a bit of food while it was going, well and good. I gave myself
no trouble on that score, for on my various errands I passed my
grandmother’s house, where there was always something to spare for me. I
was frequently threatened with punishment if I stopped there; and my
grandmother, to avoid detaining me, often stood at the gate with something

for my breakfast or dinner. I was indebted to her for all my comforts,
spiritual or temporal. It was her labor that supplied my scanty wardrobe. I
have a vivid recollection of the linsey-woolsey dress given me every winter
by Mrs. Flint. How I hated it! It was one of the badges of slavery.
While my grandmother was thus helping to support me from her hard
earnings, the three hundred dollars she had lent her mistress were never
repaid. When her mistress died, her son-in-law, Dr. Flint, was appointed
executor. When grandmother applied to him for payment, he said the estate
was insolvent, and the law prohibited payment. It did not, however, prohibit
him from retaining the silver candelabra, which had been purchased with
that money. I presume they will be handed down in the family, from
generation to generation.
My grandmother’s mistress had always promised her that, at her death,
she should be free; and it was said that in her will she made good the
promise. But when the estate was settled, Dr. Flint told the faithful old
servant that, under existing circumstances, it was necessary she should be
sold.
On the appointed day, the customary advertisement was posted up,
proclaiming that there would be a “public sale of negroes, horses, &c.” Dr.
Flint called to tell my grandmother that he was unwilling to wound her
feelings by putting her up at auction, and that he would prefer to dispose of
her at private sale. My grandmother saw through his hypocrisy; she
understood very well that he was ashamed of the job. She was a very
spirited woman, and if he was base enough to sell her, when her mistress
intended she should be free, she was determined the public should know it.
She had for a long time supplied many families with crackers and
preserves; consequently, “Aunt Marthy,” as she was called, was generally
known, and every body who knew her respected her intelligence and good
character. Her long and faithful service in the family was also well known,
and the intention of her mistress to leave her free. When the day of sale
came, she took her place among the chattels, and at the first call she sprang
upon the auction-block. Many voices called out, “Shame! Shame! Who is
going to sell you, aunt Marthy? Don’t stand there! That is no place for you.”
Without saying a word, she quietly awaited her fate. No one bid for her. At
last, a feeble voice said, “Fifty dollars.” It came from a maiden lady,

seventy years old, the sister of my grandmother’s deceased mistress. She
had lived forty years under the same roof with my grandmother; she knew
how faithfully she had served her owners, and how cruelly she had been
defrauded of her rights; and she resolved to protect her. The auctioneer
waited for a higher bid; but her wishes were respected; no one bid above
her. She could neither read nor write; and when the bill of sale was made
out, she signed it with a cross. But what consequence was that, when she
had a big heart overflowing with human kindness? She gave the old servant
her freedom.
At that time, my grandmother was just fifty years old. Laborious years
had passed since then; and now my brother and I were slaves to the man
who had defrauded her of her money, and tried to defraud her of her
freedom. One of my mother’s sisters, called Aunt Nancy, was also a slave in
his family. She was a kind, good aunt to me; and supplied the place of both
housekeeper and waiting maid to her mistress. She was, in fact, at the
beginning and end of every thing.
Mrs. Flint, like many southern women, was totally deficient in energy.
She had not strength to superintend her household affairs; but her nerves
were so strong, that she could sit in her easy chair and see a woman
whipped, till the blood trickled from every stroke of the lash. She was a
member of the church; but partaking of the Lord’s supper did not seem to
put her in a Christian frame of mind. If dinner was not served at the exact
time on that particular Sunday, she would station herself in the kitchen, and
wait till it was dished, and then spit in all the kettles and pans that had been
used for cooking. She did this to prevent the cook and her children from
eking out their meagre fare with the remains of the gravy and other
scrapings. The slaves could get nothing to eat except what she chose to give
them. Provisions were weighed out by the pound and ounce, three times a
day. I can assure you she gave them no chance to eat wheat bread from her
flour barrel. She knew how many biscuits a quart of flour would make, and
exactly what size they ought to be.
Dr. Flint was an epicure. The cook never sent a dinner to his table
without fear and trembling; for if there happened to be a dish not to his
liking, he would either order her to be whipped, or compel her to eat every
mouthful of it in his presence. The poor, hungry creature might not have

objected to eating it; but she did object to having her master cram it down
her throat till she choked.
They had a pet dog, that was a nuisance in the house. The cook was
ordered to make some Indian mush for him. He refused to eat, and when his
head was held over it, the froth flowed from his mouth into the basin. He
died a few minutes after. When Dr. Flint came in, he said the mush had not
been well cooked, and that was the reason the animal would not eat it. He
sent for the cook, and compelled her to eat it. He thought that the woman’s
stomach was stronger than the dog’s; but her sufferings afterwards proved
that he was mistaken. This poor woman endured many cruelties from her
master and mistress; sometimes she was locked up, away from her nursing
baby, for a whole day and night.
When I had been in the family a few weeks, one of the plantation slaves
was brought to town, by order of his master. It was near night when he
arrived, and Dr. Flint ordered him to be taken to the work house, and tied up
to the joist, so that his feet would just escape the ground. In that situation he
was to wait till the doctor had taken his tea. I shall never forget that night.
Never before, in my life, had I heard hundreds of blows fall, in succession,
on a human being. His piteous groans, and his “O, pray don’t, massa,” rang
in my ear for months afterwards. There were many conjectures as to the
cause of this terrible punishment. Some said master accused him of stealing
corn; others said the slave had quarrelled with his wife, in presence of the
overseer, and had accused his master of being the father of her child. They
were both black, and the child was very fair.
I went into the work house next morning, and saw the cowhide still wet
with blood, and the boards all covered with gore. The poor man lived, and
continued to quarrel with his wife. A few months afterwards Dr. Flint
handed them both over to a slave-trader. The guilty man put their value into
his pocket, and had the satisfaction of knowing that they were out of sight
and hearing. When the mother was delivered into the trader’s hands, she
said, “You promised to treat me well.” To which he replied, “You have let
your tongue run too far; damn you!” She had forgotten that it was a crime
for a slave to tell who was the father of her child.

From others than the master persecution also comes in such cases. I once
saw a young slave girl dying soon after the birth of a child nearly white. In
her agony she cried out, “O Lord, come and take me!” Her mistress stood
by, and mocked at her like an incarnate fiend. “You suffer, do you?” she
exclaimed. “I am glad of it. You deserve it all, and more too.”
The girl’s mother said, “The baby is dead, thank God; and I hope my
poor child will soon be in heaven, too.”
“Heaven!” retorted the mistress. “There is no such place for the like of
her and her bastard.”
The poor mother turned away, sobbing. Her dying daughter called her,
feebly, and as she bent over her, I heard her say, “Don’t grieve so, mother;
God knows all about it; and HE will have mercy upon me.”
Her sufferings, afterwards, became so intense, that her mistress felt
unable to stay; but when she left the room, the scornful smile was still on
her lips. Seven children called her mother. The poor black woman had but
the one child, whose eyes she saw closing in death, while she thanked God
for taking her away from the greater bitterness of life.

III. The Slaves’ New Year’s Day.
Dr. Flint owned a fine residence in town, several farms, and about fifty
slaves, besides hiring a number by the year.
Hiring-day at the south takes place on the 1st of January. On the 2d, the
slaves are expected to go to their new masters. On a farm, they work until
the corn and cotton are laid. They then have two holidays. Some masters
give them a good dinner under the trees. This over, they work until
Christmas eve. If no heavy charges are meantime brought against them,
they are given four or five holidays, whichever the master or overseer may
think proper. Then comes New Year’s eve; and they gather together their
little alls, or more properly speaking, their little nothings, and wait
anxiously for the dawning of day. At the appointed hour the grounds are
thronged with men, women, and children, waiting, like criminals, to hear
their doom pronounced. The slave is sure to know who is the most humane,
or cruel master, within forty miles of him.
It is easy to find out, on that day, who clothes and feeds his slaves well;
for he is surrounded by a crowd, begging, “Please, massa, hire me this year.
I will work very hard, massa.”
If a slave is unwilling to go with his new master, he is whipped, or locked
up in jail, until he consents to go, and promises not to run away during the
year. Should he chance to change his mind, thinking it justifiable to violate
an extorted promise, woe unto him if he is caught! The whip is used till the
blood flows at his feet; and his stiffened limbs are put in chains, to be
dragged in the field for days and days!
If he lives until the next year, perhaps the same man will hire him again,
without even giving him an opportunity of going to the hiring-ground. After
those for hire are disposed of, those for sale are called up.
O, you happy free women, contrast your New Year’s day with that of the
poor bond-woman! With you it is a pleasant season, and the light of the day
is blessed. Friendly wishes meet you every where, and gifts are showered

upon you. Even hearts that have been estranged from you soften at this
season, and lips that have been silent echo back, “I wish you a happy New
Year.” Children bring their little offerings, and raise their rosy lips for a
caress. They are your own, and no hand but that of death can take them
from you.
But to the slave mother New Year’s day comes laden with peculiar
sorrows. She sits on her cold cabin floor, watching the children who may all
be torn from her the next morning; and often does she wish that she and
they might die before the day dawns. She may be an ignorant creature,
degraded by the system that has brutalized her from childhood; but she has
a mother’s instincts, and is capable of feeling a mother’s agonies.
On one of these sale days, I saw a mother lead seven children to the
auction-block. She knew that some of them would be taken from her; but
they took all. The children were sold to a slave-trader, and their mother was
bought by a man in her own town. Before night her children were all far
away. She begged the trader to tell her where he intended to take them; this
he refused to do. How could he, when he knew he would sell them, one by
one, wherever he could command the highest price? I met that mother in the
street, and her wild, haggard face lives to-day in my mind. She wrung her
hands in anguish, and exclaimed, “Gone! All gone! Why don’t God kill
me?” I had no words wherewith to comfort her. Instances of this kind are of
daily, yea, of hourly occurrence.
Slaveholders have a method, peculiar to their institution, of getting rid of
old slaves, whose lives have been worn out in their service. I knew an old
woman, who for seventy years faithfully served her master. She had become
almost helpless, from hard labor and disease. Her owners moved to
Alabama, and the old black woman was left to be sold to any body who
would give twenty dollars for her.

IV. The Slave Who Dared To Feel Like A Man.
Two years had passed since I entered Dr. Flint’s family, and those years
had brought much of the knowledge that comes from experience, though
they had afforded little opportunity for any other kinds of knowledge.
My grandmother had, as much as possible, been a mother to her orphan
grandchildren. By perseverance and unwearied industry, she was now
mistress of a snug little home, surrounded with the necessaries of life. She
would have been happy could her children have shared them with her.
There remained but three children and two grandchildren, all slaves. Most
earnestly did she strive to make us feel that it was the will of God: that He
had seen fit to place us under such circumstances; and though it seemed
hard, we ought to pray for contentment.
It was a beautiful faith, coming from a mother who could not call her
children her own. But I, and Benjamin, her youngest boy, condemned it. We
reasoned that it was much more the will of God that we should be situated
as she was. We longed for a home like hers. There we always found sweet
balsam for our troubles. She was so loving, so sympathizing! She always
met us with a smile, and listened with patience to all our sorrows. She
spoke so hopefully, that unconsciously the clouds gave place to sunshine.
There was a grand big oven there, too, that baked bread and nice things for
the town, and we knew there was always a choice bit in store for us.
But, alas! Even the charms of the old oven failed to reconcile us to our
hard lot. Benjamin was now a tall, handsome lad, strongly and gracefully
made, and with a spirit too bold and daring for a slave. My brother William,
now twelve years old, had the same aversion to the word master that he had
when he was an urchin of seven years. I was his confidant. He came to me
with all his troubles. I remember one instance in particular. It was on a
lovely spring morning, and when I marked the sunlight dancing here and
there, its beauty seemed to mock my sadness. For my master, whose
restless, craving, vicious nature roved about day and night, seeking whom
to devour, had just left me, with stinging, scorching words; words that

scathed ear and brain like fire. O, how I despised him! I thought how glad I
should be, if some day when he walked the earth, it would open and
swallow him up, and disencumber the world of a plague.
When he told me that I was made for his use, made to obey his command
in every thing; that I was nothing but a slave, whose will must and should
surrender to his, never before had my puny arm felt half so strong.
So deeply was I absorbed in painful reflections afterwards, that I neither
saw nor heard the entrance of any one, till the voice of William sounded
close beside me. “Linda,” said he, “what makes you look so sad? I love
you. O, Linda, isn’t this a bad world? Every body seems so cross and
unhappy. I wish I had died when poor father did.”
I told him that every body was not cross, or unhappy; that those who had
pleasant homes, and kind friends, and who were not afraid to love them,
were happy. But we, who were slave-children, without father or mother,
could not expect to be happy. We must be good; perhaps that would bring us
contentment.
“Yes,” he said, “I try to be good; but what’s the use? They are all the time
troubling me.” Then he proceeded to relate his afternoon’s difficulty with
young master Nicholas. It seemed that the brother of master Nicholas had
pleased himself with making up stories about William. Master Nicholas said
he should be flogged, and he would do it. Whereupon he went to work; but
William fought bravely, and the young master, finding he was getting the
better of him, undertook to tie his hands behind him. He failed in that
likewise. By dint of kicking and fisting, William came out of the skirmish
none the worse for a few scratches.
He continued to discourse, on his young master’s meanness; how he
whipped the little boys, but was a perfect coward when a tussle ensued
between him and white boys of his own size. On such occasions he always
took to his legs. William had other charges to make against him. One was
his rubbing up pennies with quicksilver, and passing them off for quarters
of a dollar on an old man who kept a fruit stall. William was often sent to
buy fruit, and he earnestly inquired of me what he ought to do under such
circumstances. I told him it was certainly wrong to deceive the old man, and
that it was his duty to tell him of the impositions practised by his young

master. I assured him the old man would not be slow to comprehend the
whole, and there the matter would end. William thought it might with the
old man, but not with him. He said he did not mind the smart of the whip,
but he did not like the idea of being whipped.
While I advised him to be good and forgiving I was not unconscious of
the beam in my own eye. It was the very knowledge of my own
shortcomings that urged me to retain, if possible, some sparks of my
brother’s God-given nature. I had not lived fourteen years in slavery for
nothing. I had felt, seen, and heard enough, to read the characters, and
question the motives, of those around me. The war of my life had begun;
and though one of God’s most powerless creatures, I resolved never to be
conquered. Alas, for me!
If there was one pure, sunny spot for me, I believed it to be in Benjamin’s
heart, and in another’s, whom I loved with all the ardor of a girl’s first love.
My owner knew of it, and sought in every way to render me miserable. He
did not resort to corporal punishment, but to all the petty, tyrannical ways
that human ingenuity could devise.
I remember the first time I was punished. It was in the month of
February. My grandmother had taken my old shoes, and replaced them with
a new pair. I needed them; for several inches of snow had fallen, and it still
continued to fall. When I walked through Mrs. Flint’s room, their creaking
grated harshly on her refined nerves. She called me to her, and asked what I
had about me that made such a horrid noise. I told her it was my new shoes.
“Take them off,” said she; “and if you put them on again, I’ll throw them
into the fire.”
I took them off, and my stockings also. She then sent me a long distance,
on an errand. As I went through the snow, my bare feet tingled. That night I
was very hoarse; and I went to bed thinking the next day would find me
sick, perhaps dead. What was my grief on waking to find myself quite well!
I had imagined if I died, or was laid up for some time, that my mistress
would feel a twinge of remorse that she had so hated “the little imp,” as she
styled me. It was my ignorance of that mistress that gave rise to such
extravagant imaginings.

Dr. Flint occasionally had high prices offered for me; but he always said,
“She don’t belong to me. She is my daughter’s property, and I have no right
to sell her.” Good, honest man! My young mistress was still a child, and I
could look for no protection from her. I loved her, and she returned my
affection. I once heard her father allude to her attachment to me; and his
wife promptly replied that it proceeded from fear. This put unpleasant
doubts into my mind. Did the child feign what she did not feel? or was her
mother jealous of the mite of love she bestowed on me? I concluded it must
be the latter. I said to myself, “Surely, little children are true.”
One afternoon I sat at my sewing, feeling unusual depression of spirits.
My mistress had been accusing me of an offence, of which I assured her I
was perfectly innocent; but I saw, by the contemptuous curl of her lip, that
she believed I was telling a lie.
I wondered for what wise purpose God was leading me through such
thorny paths, and whether still darker days were in store for me. As I sat
musing thus, the door opened softly, and William came in. “Well, brother,”
said I, “what is the matter this time?”
“O Linda, Ben and his master have had a dreadful time!” said he.
My first thought was that Benjamin was killed. “Don’t be frightened,
Linda,” said William; “I will tell you all about it.”
It appeared that Benjamin’s master had sent for him, and he did not
immediately obey the summons. When he did, his master was angry, and
began to whip him. He resisted. Master and slave fought, and finally the
master was thrown. Benjamin had cause to tremble; for he had thrown to
the ground his master—one of the richest men in town. I anxiously awaited
the result.
That night I stole to my grandmother’s house, and Benjamin also stole
thither from his master’s. My grandmother had gone to spend a day or two
with an old friend living in the country.
“I have come,” said Benjamin, “to tell you good by. I am going away.”
I inquired where.

“To the north,” he replied.
I looked at him to see whether he was in earnest. I saw it all in his firm,
set mouth. I implored him not to go, but he paid no heed to my words. He
said he was no longer a boy, and every day made his yoke more galling. He
had raised his hand against his master, and was to be publicly whipped for
the offence. I reminded him of the poverty and hardships he must encounter
among strangers. I told him he might be caught and brought back; and that
was terrible to think of.
He grew vexed, and asked if poverty and hardships with freedom, were
not preferable to our treatment in slavery. “Linda,” he continued, “we are
dogs here; foot-balls, cattle, every thing that’s mean. No, I will not stay. Let
them bring me back. We don’t die but once.”
He was right; but it was hard to give him up. “Go,” said I, “and break
your mother’s heart.”
I repented of my words ere they were out.
“Linda,” said he, speaking as I had not heard him speak that evening,
“how could you say that? Poor mother! be kind to her, Linda; and you, too,
cousin Fanny.”
Cousin Fanny was a friend who had lived some years with us.
Farewells were exchanged, and the bright, kind boy, endeared to us by so
many acts of love, vanished from our sight.
It is not necessary to state how he made his escape. Suffice it to say, he
was on his way to New York when a violent storm overtook the vessel. The
captain said he must put into the nearest port. This alarmed Benjamin, who
was aware that he would be advertised in every port near his own town. His
embarrassment was noticed by the captain. To port they went. There the
advertisement met the captain’s eye. Benjamin so exactly answered its
description, that the captain laid hold on him, and bound him in chains. The
storm passed, and they proceeded to New York. Before reaching that port
Benjamin managed to get off his chains and throw them overboard. He
escaped from the vessel, but was pursued, captured, and carried back to his
master.

When my grandmother returned home and found her youngest child had
fled, great was her sorrow; but, with characteristic piety, she said, “God’s
will be done.” Each morning, she inquired if any news had been heard from
her boy. Yes, news was heard. The master was rejoicing over a letter,
announcing the capture of his human chattel.
That day seems but as yesterday, so well do I remember it. I saw him led
through the streets in chains, to jail. His face was ghastly pale, yet full of
determination. He had begged one of the sailors to go to his mother’s house
and ask her not to meet him. He said the sight of her distress would take
from him all self-control. She yearned to see him, and she went; but she
screened herself in the crowd, that it might be as her child had said.
We were not allowed to visit him; but we had known the jailer for years,
and he was a kind-hearted man. At midnight he opened the jail door for my
grandmother and myself to enter, in disguise. When we entered the cell not
a sound broke the stillness. “Benjamin, Benjamin!” whispered my
grandmother. No answer. “Benjamin!” she again faltered. There was a
jingle of chains. The moon had just risen, and cast an uncertain light
through the bars of the window. We knelt down and took Benjamin’s cold
hands in ours. We did not speak. Sobs were heard, and Benjamin’s lips were
unsealed; for his mother was weeping on his neck. How vividly does
memory bring back that sad night! Mother and son talked together. He
asked her pardon for the suffering he had caused her. She said she had
nothing to forgive; she could not blame his desire for freedom. He told her
that when he was captured, he broke away, and was about casting himself
into the river, when thoughts of her came over him, and he desisted. She
asked if he did not also think of God. I fancied I saw his face grow fierce in
the moonlight. He answered, “No, I did not think of him. When a man is
hunted like a wild beast he forgets there is a God, a heaven. He forgets
every thing in his struggle to get beyond the reach of the bloodhounds.”
“Don’t talk so, Benjamin,” said she. “Put your trust in God. Be humble,
my child, and your master will forgive you.”
“Forgive me for what, mother? For not letting him treat me like a dog?
No! I will never humble myself to him. I have worked for him for nothing

all my life, and I am repaid with stripes and imprisonment. Here I will stay
till I die, or till he sells me.”
The poor mother shuddered at his words. I think he felt it; for when he
next spoke, his voice was calmer. “Don’t fret about me, mother. I ain’t
worth it,” said he. “I wish I had some of your goodness. You bear every
thing patiently, just as though you thought it was all right. I wish I could.”
She told him she had not always been so; once, she was like him; but
when sore troubles came upon her, and she had no arm to lean upon, she
learned to call on God, and he lightened her burdens. She besought him to
do likewise.
We overstaid our time, and were obliged to hurry from the jail.
Benjamin had been imprisoned three weeks, when my grandmother went
to intercede for him with his master. He was immovable. He said Benjamin
should serve as an example to the rest of his slaves; he should be kept in jail
till he was subdued, or be sold if he got but one dollar for him. However, he
afterwards relented in some degree. The chains were taken off, and we were
allowed to visit him.
As his food was of the coarsest kind, we carried him as often as possible
a warm supper, accompanied with some little luxury for the jailer.
Three months elapsed, and there was no prospect of release or of a
purchaser. One day he was heard to sing and laugh. This piece of indecorum
was told to his master, and the overseer was ordered to re-chain him. He
was now confined in an apartment with other prisoners, who were covered
with filthy rags. Benjamin was chained near them, and was soon covered
with vermin. He worked at his chains till he succeeded in getting out of
them. He passed them through the bars of the window, with a request that
they should be taken to his master, and he should be informed that he was
covered with vermin.
This audacity was punished with heavier chains, and prohibition of our
visits.
My grandmother continued to send him fresh changes of clothes. The old
ones were burned up. The last night we saw him in jail his mother still

begged him to send for his master, and beg his pardon. Neither persuasion
nor argument could turn him from his purpose. He calmly answered, “I am
waiting his time.”
Those chains were mournful to hear.
Another three months passed, and Benjamin left his prison walls. We that
loved him waited to bid him a long and last farewell. A slave trader had
bought him. You remember, I told you what price he brought when ten
years of age. Now he was more than twenty years old, and sold for three
hundred dollars. The master had been blind to his own interest. Long
confinement had made his face too pale, his form too thin; moreover, the
trader had heard something of his character, and it did not strike him as
suitable for a slave. He said he would give any price if the handsome lad
was a girl. We thanked God that he was not.
Could you have seen that mother clinging to her child, when they
fastened the irons upon his wrists; could you have heard her heart-rending
groans, and seen her bloodshot eyes wander wildly from face to face, vainly
pleading for mercy; could you have witnessed that scene as I saw it, you
would exclaim, Slavery is damnable!
Benjamin, her youngest, her pet, was forever gone! She could not realize
it. She had had an interview with the trader for the purpose of ascertaining
if Benjamin could be purchased. She was told it was impossible, as he had
given bonds not to sell him till he was out of the state. He promised that he
would not sell him till he reached New Orleans.
With a strong arm and unvaried trust, my grandmother began her work of
love. Benjamin must be free. If she succeeded, she knew they would still be
separated; but the sacrifice was not too great. Day and night she labored.
The trader’s price would treble that he gave; but she was not discouraged.
She employed a lawyer to write to a gentleman, whom she knew, in New
Orleans. She begged him to interest himself for Benjamin, and he willingly
favored her request. When he saw Benjamin, and stated his business, he
thanked him; but said he preferred to wait a while before making the trader
an offer. He knew he had tried to obtain a high price for him, and had
invariably failed. This encouraged him to make another effort for freedom.

So one morning, long before day, Benjamin was missing. He was riding
over the blue billows, bound for Baltimore.
For once his white face did him a kindly service. They had no suspicion
that it belonged to a slave; otherwise, the law would have been followed out
to the letter, and the thing rendered back to slavery. The brightest skies are
often overshadowed by the darkest clouds. Benjamin was taken sick, and
compelled to remain in Baltimore three weeks. His strength was slow in
returning; and his desire to continue his journey seemed to retard his
recovery. How could he get strength without air and exercise? He resolved
to venture on a short walk. A by-street was selected, where he thought
himself secure of not being met by any one that knew him; but a voice
called out, “Halloo, Ben, my boy! what are you doing here?”
His first impulse was to run; but his legs trembled so that he could not
stir. He turned to confront his antagonist, and behold, there stood his old
master’s next door neighbor! He thought it was all over with him now; but
it proved otherwise. That man was a miracle. He possessed a goodly
number of slaves, and yet was not quite deaf to that mystic clock, whose
ticking is rarely heard in the slaveholder’s breast.
“Ben, you are sick,” said he. “Why, you look like a ghost. I guess I gave
you something of a start. Never mind, Ben, I am not going to touch you.
You had a pretty tough time of it, and you may go on your way rejoicing for
all me. But I would advise you to get out of this place plaguy quick, for
there are several gentlemen here from our town.” He described the nearest
and safest route to New York, and added, “I shall be glad to tell your mother
I have seen you. Good by, Ben.”
Benjamin turned away, filled with gratitude, and surprised that the town
he hated contained such a gem—a gem worthy of a purer setting.
This gentleman was a Northerner by birth, and had married a southern
lady. On his return, he told my grandmother that he had seen her son, and of
the service he had rendered him.
Benjamin reached New York safely, and concluded to stop there until he
had gained strength enough to proceed further. It happened that my
grandmother’s only remaining son had sailed for the same city on business

for his mistress. Through God’s providence, the brothers met. You may be
sure it was a happy meeting. “O Phil,” exclaimed Benjamin, “I am here at
last.” Then he told him how near he came to dying, almost in sight of free
land, and how he prayed that he might live to get one breath of free air. He
said life was worth something now, and it would be hard to die. In the old
jail he had not valued it; once, he was tempted to destroy it; but something,
he did not know what, had prevented him; perhaps it was fear. He had heard
those who profess to be religious declare there was no heaven for self-
murderers; and as his life had been pretty hot here, he did not desire a
continuation of the same in another world. “If I die now,” he exclaimed,
“thank God, I shall die a freeman!”
He begged my uncle Phillip not to return south; but stay and work with
him, till they earned enough to buy those at home. His brother told him it
would kill their mother if he deserted her in her trouble. She had pledged
her house, and with difficulty had raised money to buy him. Would he be
bought?
“No, never!” he replied. “Do you suppose, Phil, when I have got so far
out of their clutches, I will give them one red cent? No! And do you
suppose I would turn mother out of her home in her old age? That I would
let her pay all those hard-earned dollars for me, and never to see me? For
you know she will stay south as long as her other children are slaves. What
a good mother! Tell her to buy you, Phil. You have been a comfort to her,
and I have been a trouble. And Linda, poor Linda; what’ll become of her?
Phil, you don’t know what a life they lead her. She has told me something
about it, and I wish old Flint was dead, or a better man. When I was in jail,
he asked her if she didn’t want him to ask my master to forgive me, and
take me home again. She told him, No; that I didn’t want to go back. He got
mad, and said we were all alike. I never despised my own master half as
much as I do that man. There is many a worse slaveholder than my master;
but for all that I would not be his slave.”
While Benjamin was sick, he had parted with nearly all his clothes to pay
necessary expenses. But he did not part with a little pin I fastened in his
bosom when we parted. It was the most valuable thing I owned, and I
thought none more worthy to wear it. He had it still.

His brother furnished him with clothes, and gave him what money he
had.
They parted with moistened eyes; and as Benjamin turned away, he said,
“Phil, I part with all my kindred.” And so it proved. We never heard from
him again.
Uncle Phillip came home; and the first words he uttered when he entered
the house were, “Mother, Ben is free! I have seen him in New York.” She
stood looking at him with a bewildered air. “Mother, don’t you believe it?”
he said, laying his hand softly upon her shoulder. She raised her hands, and
exclaimed, “God be praised! Let us thank him.” She dropped on her knees,
and poured forth her heart in prayer. Then Phillip must sit down and repeat
to her every word Benjamin had said. He told her all; only he forbore to
mention how sick and pale her darling looked. Why should he distress her
when she could do him no good?
The brave old woman still toiled on, hoping to rescue some of her other
children. After a while she succeeded in buying Phillip. She paid eight
hundred dollars, and came home with the precious document that secured
his freedom. The happy mother and son sat together by the old hearthstone
that night, telling how proud they were of each other, and how they would
prove to the world that they could take care of themselves, as they had long
taken care of others. We all concluded by saying, “He that is willing to be a
slave, let him be a slave.”

V. The Trials Of Girlhood.
During the first years of my service in Dr. Flint’s family, I was
accustomed to share some indulgences with the children of my mistress.
Though this seemed to me no more than right, I was grateful for it, and tried
to merit the kindness by the faithful discharge of my duties. But I now
entered on my fifteenth year—a sad epoch in the life of a slave girl. My
master began to whisper foul words in my ear. Young as I was, I could not
remain ignorant of their import. I tried to treat them with indifference or
contempt. The master’s age, my extreme youth, and the fear that his
conduct would be reported to my grandmother, made him bear this
treatment for many months. He was a crafty man, and resorted to many
means to accomplish his purposes. Sometimes he had stormy, terrific ways,
that made his victims tremble; sometimes he assumed a gentleness that he
thought must surely subdue. Of the two, I preferred his stormy moods,
although they left me trembling. He tried his utmost to corrupt the pure
principles my grandmother had instilled. He peopled my young mind with
unclean images, such as only a vile monster could think of. I turned from
him with disgust and hatred. But he was my master. I was compelled to live
under the same roof with him—where I saw a man forty years my senior
daily violating the most sacred commandments of nature. He told me I was
his property; that I must be subject to his will in all things. My soul revolted
against the mean tyranny. But where could I turn for protection? No matter
whether the slave girl be as black as ebony or as fair as her mistress. In
either case, there is no shadow of law to protect her from insult, from
violence, or even from death; all these are inflicted by fiends who bear the
shape of men. The mistress, who ought to protect the helpless victim, has no
other feelings towards her but those of jealousy and rage. The degradation,
the wrongs, the vices, that grow out of slavery, are more than I can describe.
They are greater than you would willingly believe. Surely, if you credited
one half the truths that are told you concerning the helpless millions
suffering in this cruel bondage, you at the north would not help to tighten
the yoke. You surely would refuse to do for the master, on your own soil,

the mean and cruel work which trained bloodhounds and the lowest class of
whites do for him at the south.
Every where the years bring to all enough of sin and sorrow; but in
slavery the very dawn of life is darkened by these shadows. Even the little
child, who is accustomed to wait on her mistress and her children, will
learn, before she is twelve years old, why it is that her mistress hates such
and such a one among the slaves. Perhaps the child’s own mother is among
those hated ones. She listens to violent outbreaks of jealous passion, and
cannot help understanding what is the cause. She will become prematurely
knowing in evil things. Soon she will learn to tremble when she hears her
master’s footfall. She will be compelled to realize that she is no longer a
child. If God has bestowed beauty upon her, it will prove her greatest curse.
That which commands admiration in the white woman only hastens the
degradation of the female slave. I know that some are too much brutalized
by slavery to feel the humiliation of their position; but many slaves feel it
most acutely, and shrink from the memory of it. I cannot tell how much I
suffered in the presence of these wrongs, nor how I am still pained by the
retrospect. My master met me at every turn, reminding me that I belonged
to him, and swearing by heaven and earth that he would compel me to
submit to him. If I went out for a breath of fresh air, after a day of
unwearied toil, his footsteps dogged me. If I knelt by my mother’s grave,
his dark shadow fell on me even there. The light heart which nature had
given me became heavy with sad forebodings. The other slaves in my
master’s house noticed the change. Many of them pitied me; but none dared
to ask the cause. They had no need to inquire. They knew too well the
guilty practices under that roof; and they were aware that to speak of them
was an offence that never went unpunished.
I longed for some one to confide in. I would have given the world to have
laid my head on my grandmother’s faithful bosom, and told her all my
troubles. But Dr. Flint swore he would kill me, if I was not as silent as the
grave. Then, although my grandmother was all in all to me, I feared her as
well as loved her. I had been accustomed to look up to her with a respect
bordering upon awe. I was very young, and felt shamefaced about telling
her such impure things, especially as I knew her to be very strict on such
subjects. Moreover, she was a woman of a high spirit. She was usually very
quiet in her demeanor; but if her indignation was once roused, it was not

very easily quelled. I had been told that she once chased a white gentleman
with a loaded pistol, because he insulted one of her daughters. I dreaded the
consequences of a violent outbreak; and both pride and fear kept me silent.
But though I did not confide in my grandmother, and even evaded her
vigilant watchfulness and inquiry, her presence in the neighborhood was
some protection to me. Though she had been a slave, Dr. Flint was afraid of
her. He dreaded her scorching rebukes. Moreover, she was known and
patronized by many people; and he did not wish to have his villany made
public. It was lucky for me that I did not live on a distant plantation, but in a
town not so large that the inhabitants were ignorant of each other’s affairs.
Bad as are the laws and customs in a slaveholding community, the doctor,
as a professional man, deemed it prudent to keep up some outward show of
decency.
O, what days and nights of fear and sorrow that man caused me! Reader,
it is not to awaken sympathy for myself that I am telling you truthfully what
I suffered in slavery. I do it to kindle a flame of compassion in your hearts
for my sisters who are still in bondage, suffering as I once suffered.
I once saw two beautiful children playing together. One was a fair white
child; the other was her slave, and also her sister. When I saw them
embracing each other, and heard their joyous laughter, I turned sadly away
from the lovely sight. I foresaw the inevitable blight that would fall on the
little slave’s heart. I knew how soon her laughter would be changed to
sighs. The fair child grew up to be a still fairer woman. From childhood to
womanhood her pathway was blooming with flowers, and overarched by a
sunny sky. Scarcely one day of her life had been clouded when the sun rose
on her happy bridal morning.
How had those years dealt with her slave sister, the little playmate of her
childhood? She, also, was very beautiful; but the flowers and sunshine of
love were not for her. She drank the cup of sin, and shame, and misery,
whereof her persecuted race are compelled to drink.
In view of these things, why are ye silent, ye free men and women of the
north? Why do your tongues falter in maintenance of the right? Would that I
had more ability! But my heart is so full, and my pen is so weak! There are
noble men and women who plead for us, striving to help those who cannot

help themselves. God bless them! God give them strength and courage to go
on! God bless those, every where, who are laboring to advance the cause of
humanity!

VI. The Jealous Mistress.
I would ten thousand times rather that my children should be the half-
starved paupers of Ireland than to be the most pampered among the slaves
of America. I would rather drudge out my life on a cotton plantation, till the
grave opened to give me rest, than to live with an unprincipled master and a
jealous mistress. The felon’s home in a penitentiary is preferable. He may
repent, and turn from the error of his ways, and so find peace; but it is not
so with a favorite slave. She is not allowed to have any pride of character. It
is deemed a crime in her to wish to be virtuous.
Mrs. Flint possessed the key to her husband’s character before I was
born. She might have used this knowledge to counsel and to screen the
young and the innocent among her slaves; but for them she had no
sympathy. They were the objects of her constant suspicion and
malevolence. She watched her husband with unceasing vigilance; but he
was well practised in means to evade it. What he could not find opportunity
to say in words he manifested in signs. He invented more than were ever
thought of in a deaf and dumb asylum. I let them pass, as if I did not
understand what he meant; and many were the curses and threats bestowed
on me for my stupidity. One day he caught me teaching myself to write. He
frowned, as if he was not well pleased; but I suppose he came to the
conclusion that such an accomplishment might help to advance his favorite
scheme. Before long, notes were often slipped into my hand. I would return
them, saying, “I can’t read them, sir.” “Can’t you?” he replied; “then I must
read them to you.” He always finished the reading by asking, “Do you
understand?” Sometimes he would complain of the heat of the tea room,
and order his supper to be placed on a small table in the piazza. He would
seat himself there with a well-satisfied smile, and tell me to stand by and
brush away the flies. He would eat very slowly, pausing between the
mouthfuls. These intervals were employed in describing the happiness I was
so foolishly throwing away, and in threatening me with the penalty that
finally awaited my stubborn disobedience. He boasted much of the
forbearance he had exercised towards me, and reminded me that there was a
limit to his patience. When I succeeded in avoiding opportunities for him to

talk to me at home, I was ordered to come to his office, to do some errand.
When there, I was obliged to stand and listen to such language as he saw fit
to address to me. Sometimes I so openly expressed my contempt for him
that he would become violently enraged, and I wondered why he did not
strike me. Circumstanced as he was, he probably thought it was better
policy to be forbearing. But the state of things grew worse and worse daily.
In desperation I told him that I must and would apply to my grandmother
for protection. He threatened me with death, and worse than death, if I
made any complaint to her. Strange to say, I did not despair. I was naturally
of a buoyant disposition, and always I had a hope of somehow getting out
of his clutches. Like many a poor, simple slave before me, I trusted that
some threads of joy would yet be woven into my dark destiny.
I had entered my sixteenth year, and every day it became more apparent
that my presence was intolerable to Mrs. Flint. Angry words frequently
passed between her and her husband. He had never punished me himself,
and he would not allow any body else to punish me. In that respect, she was
never satisfied; but, in her angry moods, no terms were too vile for her to
bestow upon me. Yet I, whom she detested so bitterly, had far more pity for
her than he had, whose duty it was to make her life happy. I never wronged
her, or wished to wrong her; and one word of kindness from her would have
brought me to her feet.
After repeated quarrels between the doctor and his wife, he announced
his intention to take his youngest daughter, then four years old, to sleep in
his apartment. It was necessary that a servant should sleep in the same
room, to be on hand if the child stirred. I was selected for that office, and
informed for what purpose that arrangement had been made. By managing
to keep within sight of people, as much as possible, during the day time, I
had hitherto succeeded in eluding my master, though a razor was often held
to my throat to force me to change this line of policy. At night I slept by the
side of my great aunt, where I felt safe. He was too prudent to come into her
room. She was an old woman, and had been in the family many years.
Moreover, as a married man, and a professional man, he deemed it
necessary to save appearances in some degree. But he resolved to remove
the obstacle in the way of his scheme; and he thought he had planned it so
that he should evade suspicion. He was well aware how much I prized my
refuge by the side of my old aunt, and he determined to dispossess me of it.

The first night the doctor had the little child in his room alone. The next
morning, I was ordered to take my station as nurse the following night. A
kind Providence interposed in my favor. During the day Mrs. Flint heard of
this new arrangement, and a storm followed. I rejoiced to hear it rage.
After a while my mistress sent for me to come to her room. Her first
question was, “Did you know you were to sleep in the doctor’s room?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Who told you?”
“My master.”
“Will you answer truly all the questions I ask?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Tell me, then, as you hope to be forgiven, are you innocent of what I
have accused you?”
“I am.”
She handed me a Bible, and said, “Lay your hand on your heart, kiss this
holy book, and swear before God that you tell me the truth.”
I took the oath she required, and I did it with a clear conscience.
“You have taken God’s holy word to testify your innocence,” said she. “If
you have deceived me, beware! Now take this stool, sit down, look me
directly in the face, and tell me all that has passed between your master and
you.”
I did as she ordered. As I went on with my account her color changed
frequently, she wept, and sometimes groaned. She spoke in tones so sad,
that I was touched by her grief. The tears came to my eyes; but I was soon
convinced that her emotions arose from anger and wounded pride. She felt
that her marriage vows were desecrated, her dignity insulted; but she had no
compassion for the poor victim of her husband’s perfidy. She pitied herself
as a martyr; but she was incapable of feeling for the condition of shame and
misery in which her unfortunate, helpless slave was placed.

Yet perhaps she had some touch of feeling for me; for when the
conference was ended, she spoke kindly, and promised to protect me. I
should have been much comforted by this assurance if I could have had
confidence in it; but my experiences in slavery had filled me with distrust.
She was not a very refined woman, and had not much control over her
passions. I was an object of her jealousy, and, consequently, of her hatred;
and I knew I could not expect kindness or confidence from her under the
circumstances in which I was placed. I could not blame her. Slaveholders’
wives feel as other women would under similar circumstances. The fire of
her temper kindled from small sparks, and now the flame became so intense
that the doctor was obliged to give up his intended arrangement.
I knew I had ignited the torch, and I expected to suffer for it afterwards;
but I felt too thankful to my mistress for the timely aid she rendered me to
care much about that. She now took me to sleep in a room adjoining her
own. There I was an object of her especial care, though not of her especial
comfort, for she spent many a sleepless night to watch over me. Sometimes
I woke up, and found her bending over me. At other times she whispered in
my ear, as though it was her husband who was speaking to me, and listened
to hear what I would answer. If she startled me, on such occasions, she
would glide stealthily away; and the next morning she would tell me I had
been talking in my sleep, and ask who I was talking to. At last, I began to be
fearful for my life. It had been often threatened; and you can imagine, better
than I can describe, what an unpleasant sensation it must produce to wake
up in the dead of night and find a jealous woman bending over you. Terrible
as this experience was, I had fears that it would give place to one more
terrible.
My mistress grew weary of her vigils; they did not prove satisfactory.
She changed her tactics. She now tried the trick of accusing my master of
crime, in my presence, and gave my name as the author of the accusation.
To my utter astonishment, he replied, “I don’t believe it; but if she did
acknowledge it, you tortured her into exposing me.” Tortured into exposing
him! Truly, Satan had no difficulty in distinguishing the color of his soul! I
understood his object in making this false representation. It was to show me
that I gained nothing by seeking the protection of my mistress; that the
power was still all in his own hands. I pitied Mrs. Flint. She was a second
wife, many years the junior of her husband; and the hoary-headed miscreant

was enough to try the patience of a wiser and better woman. She was
completely foiled, and knew not how to proceed. She would gladly have
had me flogged for my supposed false oath; but, as I have already stated,
the doctor never allowed any one to whip me. The old sinner was politic.
The application of the lash might have led to remarks that would have
exposed him in the eyes of his children and grandchildren. How often did I
rejoice that I lived in a town where all the inhabitants knew each other! If I
had been on a remote plantation, or lost among the multitude of a crowded
city, I should not be a living woman at this day.
The secrets of slavery are concealed like those of the Inquisition. My
master was, to my knowledge, the father of eleven slaves. But did the
mothers dare to tell who was the father of their children? Did the other
slaves dare to allude to it, except in whispers among themselves? No,
indeed! They knew too well the terrible consequences.
My grandmother could not avoid seeing things which excited her
suspicions. She was uneasy about me, and tried various ways to buy me; but
the never-changing answer was always repeated: “Linda does not belong to
me. She is my daughter’s property, and I have no legal right to sell her.” The
conscientious man! He was too scrupulous to sell me; but he had no
scruples whatever about committing a much greater wrong against the
helpless young girl placed under his guardianship, as his daughter’s
property. Sometimes my persecutor would ask me whether I would like to
be sold. I told him I would rather be sold to any body than to lead such a
life as I did. On such occasions he would assume the air of a very injured
individual, and reproach me for my ingratitude. “Did I not take you into the
house, and make you the companion of my own children?” he would say.
“Have I ever treated you like a negro? I have never allowed you to be
punished, not even to please your mistress. And this is the recompense I get,
you ungrateful girl!” I answered that he had reasons of his own for
screening me from punishment, and that the course he pursued made my
mistress hate me and persecute me. If I wept, he would say, “Poor child!
Don’t cry! don’t cry! I will make peace for you with your mistress. Only let
me arrange matters in my own way. Poor, foolish girl! you don’t know what
is for your own good. I would cherish you. I would make a lady of you.
Now go, and think of all I have promised you.”

I did think of it.
Reader, I draw no imaginary pictures of southern homes. I am telling you
the plain truth. Yet when victims make their escape from this wild beast of
Slavery, northerners consent to act the part of bloodhounds, and hunt the
poor fugitive back into his den, “full of dead men’s bones, and all
uncleanness.” Nay, more, they are not only willing, but proud, to give their
daughters in marriage to slaveholders. The poor girls have romantic notions
of a sunny clime, and of the flowering vines that all the year round shade a
happy home. To what disappointments are they destined! The young wife
soon learns that the husband in whose hands she has placed her happiness
pays no regard to his marriage vows. Children of every shade of
complexion play with her own fair babies, and too well she knows that they
are born unto him of his own household. Jealousy and hatred enter the
flowery home, and it is ravaged of its loveliness.
Southern women often marry a man knowing that he is the father of
many little slaves. They do not trouble themselves about it. They regard
such children as property, as marketable as the pigs on the plantation; and it
is seldom that they do not make them aware of this by passing them into the
slave-trader’s hands as soon as possible, and thus getting them out of their
sight. I am glad to say there are some honorable exceptions.
I have myself known two southern wives who exhorted their husbands to
free those slaves towards whom they stood in a “parental relation;” and
their request was granted. These husbands blushed before the superior
nobleness of their wives’ natures. Though they had only counselled them to
do that which it was their duty to do, it commanded their respect, and
rendered their conduct more exemplary. Concealment was at an end, and
confidence took the place of distrust.
Though this bad institution deadens the moral sense, even in white
women, to a fearful extent, it is not altogether extinct. I have heard southern
ladies say of Mr. Such a one, “He not only thinks it no disgrace to be the
father of those little niggers, but he is not ashamed to call himself their
master. I declare, such things ought not to be tolerated in any decent
society!”

VII. The Lover.
Why does the slave ever love? Why allow the tendrils of the heart to
twine around objects which may at any moment be wrenched away by the
hand of violence? When separations come by the hand of death, the pious
soul can bow in resignation, and say, “Not my will, but thine be done, O
Lord!” But when the ruthless hand of man strikes the blow, regardless of
the misery he causes, it is hard to be submissive. I did not reason thus when
I was a young girl. Youth will be youth. I loved, and I indulged the hope
that the dark clouds around me would turn out a bright lining. I forgot that
in the land of my birth the shadows are too dense for light to penetrate. A
land

“Where laughter is not mirth; nor thought the mind;
Nor words a language; nor e’en men mankind.
Where cries reply to curses, shrieks to blows,
And each is tortured in his separate hell.”

There was in the neighborhood a young colored carpenter; a free-born
man. We had been well acquainted in childhood, and frequently met
together afterwards. We became mutually attached, and he proposed to
marry me. I loved him with all the ardor of a young girl’s first love. But
when I reflected that I was a slave, and that the laws gave no sanction to the
marriage of such, my heart sank within me. My lover wanted to buy me; but
I knew that Dr. Flint was too wilful and arbitrary a man to consent to that
arrangement. From him, I was sure of experiencing all sorts of opposition,
and I had nothing to hope from my mistress. She would have been delighted
to have got rid of me, but not in that way. It would have relieved her mind
of a burden if she could have seen me sold to some distant state, but if I was
married near home I should be just as much in her husband’s power as I had
previously been,—for the husband of a slave has no power to protect her.
Moreover, my mistress, like many others, seemed to think that slaves had
no right to any family ties of their own; that they were created merely to
wait upon the family of the mistress. I once heard her abuse a young slave

girl, who told her that a colored man wanted to make her his wife. “I will
have you peeled and pickled, my lady,” said she, “if I ever hear you
mention that subject again. Do you suppose that I will have you tending my
children with the children of that nigger?” The girl to whom she said this
had a mulatto child, of course not acknowledged by its father. The poor
black man who loved her would have been proud to acknowledge his
helpless offspring.
Many and anxious were the thoughts I revolved in my mind. I was at a
loss what to do. Above all things, I was desirous to spare my lover the
insults that had cut so deeply into my own soul. I talked with my
grandmother about it, and partly told her my fears. I did not dare to tell her
the worst. She had long suspected all was not right, and if I confirmed her
suspicions I knew a storm would rise that would prove the overthrow of all
my hopes.
This love-dream had been my support through many trials; and I could
not bear to run the risk of having it suddenly dissipated. There was a lady in
the neighborhood, a particular friend of Dr. Flint’s, who often visited the
house. I had a great respect for her, and she had always manifested a
friendly interest in me. Grandmother thought she would have great
influence with the doctor. I went to this lady, and told her my story. I told
her I was aware that my lover’s being a free-born man would prove a great
objection; but he wanted to buy me; and if Dr. Flint would consent to that
arrangement, I felt sure he would be willing to pay any reasonable price.
She knew that Mrs. Flint disliked me; therefore, I ventured to suggest that
perhaps my mistress would approve of my being sold, as that would rid her
of me. The lady listened with kindly sympathy, and promised to do her
utmost to promote my wishes. She had an interview with the doctor, and I
believe she pleaded my cause earnestly; but it was all to no purpose.
How I dreaded my master now! Every minute I expected to be
summoned to his presence; but the day passed, and I heard nothing from
him. The next morning, a message was brought to me: “Master wants you
in his study.” I found the door ajar, and I stood a moment gazing at the
hateful man who claimed a right to rule me, body and soul. I entered, and
tried to appear calm. I did not want him to know how my heart was
bleeding. He looked fixedly at me, with an expression which seemed to say,

“I have half a mind to kill you on the spot.” At last he broke the silence, and
that was a relief to both of us.
“So you want to be married, do you?” said he, “and to a free nigger.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, I’ll soon convince you whether I am your master, or the nigger
fellow you honor so highly. If you must have a husband, you may take up
with one of my slaves.”
What a situation I should be in, as the wife of one of his slaves, even if
my heart had been interested!
I replied, “Don’t you suppose, sir, that a slave can have some preference
about marrying? Do you suppose that all men are alike to her?”
“Do you love this nigger?” said he, abruptly.
“Yes, sir.”
“How dare you tell me so!” he exclaimed, in great wrath. After a slight
pause, he added, “I supposed you thought more of yourself; that you felt
above the insults of such puppies.”
I replied, “If he is a puppy I am a puppy, for we are both of the negro
race. It is right and honorable for us to love each other. The man you call a
puppy never insulted me, sir; and he would not love me if he did not believe
me to be a virtuous woman.”
He sprang upon me like a tiger, and gave me a stunning blow. It was the
first time he had ever struck me; and fear did not enable me to control my
anger. When I had recovered a little from the effects, I exclaimed, “You
have struck me for answering you honestly. How I despise you!”
There was silence for some minutes. Perhaps he was deciding what
should be my punishment; or, perhaps, he wanted to give me time to reflect
on what I had said, and to whom I had said it. Finally, he asked, “Do you
know what you have said?”
“Yes, sir; but your treatment drove me to it.”

“Do you know that I have a right to do as I like with you,—that I can kill
you, if I please?”
“You have tried to kill me, and I wish you had; but you have no right to
do as you like with me.”
“Silence!” he exclaimed, in a thundering voice. “By heavens, girl, you
forget yourself too far! Are you mad? If you are, I will soon bring you to
your senses. Do you think any other master would bear what I have borne
from you this morning? Many masters would have killed you on the spot.
How would you like to be sent to jail for your insolence?”
“I know I have been disrespectful, sir,” I replied; “but you drove me to it;
I couldn’t help it. As for the jail, there would be more peace for me there
than there is here.”
“You deserve to go there,” said he, “and to be under such treatment, that
you would forget the meaning of the word peace. It would do you good. It
would take some of your high notions out of you. But I am not ready to
send you there yet, notwithstanding your ingratitude for all my kindness
and forbearance. You have been the plague of my life. I have wanted to
make you happy, and I have been repaid with the basest ingratitude; but
though you have proved yourself incapable of appreciating my kindness, I
will be lenient towards you, Linda. I will give you one more chance to
redeem your character. If you behave yourself and do as I require, I will
forgive you and treat you as I always have done; but if you disobey me, I
will punish you as I would the meanest slave on my plantation. Never let
me hear that fellow’s name mentioned again. If I ever know of your
speaking to him, I will cowhide you both; and if I catch him lurking about
my premises, I will shoot him as soon as I would a dog. Do you hear what I
say? I’ll teach you a lesson about marriage and free niggers! Now go, and
let this be the last time I have occasion to speak to you on this subject.”
Reader, did you ever hate? I hope not. I never did but once; and I trust I
never shall again. Somebody has called it “the atmosphere of hell;” and I
believe it is so.
For a fortnight the doctor did not speak to me. He thought to mortify me;
to make me feel that I had disgraced myself by receiving the honorable

addresses of a respectable colored man, in preference to the base proposals
of a white man. But though his lips disdained to address me, his eyes were
very loquacious. No animal ever watched its prey more narrowly than he
watched me. He knew that I could write, though he had failed to make me
read his letters; and he was now troubled lest I should exchange letters with
another man. After a while he became weary of silence; and I was sorry for
it. One morning, as he passed through the hall, to leave the house, he
contrived to thrust a note into my hand. I thought I had better read it, and
spare myself the vexation of having him read it to me. It expressed regret
for the blow he had given me, and reminded me that I myself was wholly to
blame for it. He hoped I had become convinced of the injury I was doing
myself by incurring his displeasure. He wrote that he had made up his mind
to go to Louisiana; that he should take several slaves with him, and
intended I should be one of the number. My mistress would remain where
she was; therefore I should have nothing to fear from that quarter. If I
merited kindness from him, he assured me that it would be lavishly
bestowed. He begged me to think over the matter, and answer the following
day.
The next morning I was called to carry a pair of scissors to his room. I
laid them on the table, with the letter beside them. He thought it was my
answer, and did not call me back. I went as usual to attend my young
mistress to and from school. He met me in the street, and ordered me to stop
at his office on my way back. When I entered, he showed me his letter, and
asked me why I had not answered it. I replied, “I am your daughter’s
property, and it is in your power to send me, or take me, wherever you
please.” He said he was very glad to find me so willing to go, and that we
should start early in the autumn. He had a large practice in the town, and I
rather thought he had made up the story merely to frighten me. However
that might be, I was determined that I would never go to Louisiana with
him.
Summer passed away, and early in the autumn Dr. Flint’s eldest son was
sent to Louisiana to examine the country, with a view to emigrating. That
news did not disturb me. I knew very well that I should not be sent with
him. That I had not been taken to the plantation before this time, was owing
to the fact that his son was there. He was jealous of his son; and jealousy of
the overseer had kept him from punishing me by sending me into the fields

to work. Is it strange that I was not proud of these protectors? As for the
overseer, he was a man for whom I had less respect than I had for a
bloodhound.
Young Mr. Flint did not bring back a favorable report of Louisiana, and I
heard no more of that scheme. Soon after this, my lover met me at the
corner of the street, and I stopped to speak to him. Looking up, I saw my
master watching us from his window. I hurried home, trembling with fear. I
was sent for, immediately, to go to his room. He met me with a blow.
“When is mistress to be married?” said he, in a sneering tone. A shower of
oaths and imprecations followed. How thankful I was that my lover was a
free man! that my tyrant had no power to flog him for speaking to me in the
street!
Again and again I revolved in my mind how all this would end. There
was no hope that the doctor would consent to sell me on any terms. He had
an iron will, and was determined to keep me, and to conquer me. My lover
was an intelligent and religious man. Even if he could have obtained
permission to marry me while I was a slave, the marriage would give him
no power to protect me from my master. It would have made him miserable
to witness the insults I should have been subjected to. And then, if we had
children, I knew they must “follow the condition of the mother.” What a
terrible blight that would be on the heart of a free, intelligent father! For his
sake, I felt that I ought not to link his fate with my own unhappy destiny.
He was going to Savannah to see about a little property left him by an
uncle; and hard as it was to bring my feelings to it, I earnestly entreated him
not to come back. I advised him to go to the Free States, where his tongue
would not be tied, and where his intelligence would be of more avail to
him. He left me, still hoping the day would come when I could be bought.
With me the lamp of hope had gone out. The dream of my girlhood was
over. I felt lonely and desolate.
Still I was not stripped of all. I still had my good grandmother, and my
affectionate brother. When he put his arms round my neck, and looked into
my eyes, as if to read there the troubles I dared not tell, I felt that I still had
something to love. But even that pleasant emotion was chilled by the
reflection that he might be torn from me at any moment, by some sudden
freak of my master. If he had known how we loved each other, I think he

would have exulted in separating us. We often planned together how we
could get to the north. But, as William remarked, such things are easier said
than done. My movements were very closely watched, and we had no
means of getting any money to defray our expenses. As for grandmother,
she was strongly opposed to her children’s undertaking any such project.
She had not forgotten poor Benjamin’s sufferings, and she was afraid that if
another child tried to escape, he would have a similar or a worse fate. To
me, nothing seemed more dreadful than my present life. I said to myself,
“William must be free. He shall go to the north, and I will follow him.”
Many a slave sister has formed the same plans.

VIII. What Slaves Are Taught To Think Of The
North.
Slaveholders pride themselves upon being honorable men; but if you
were to hear the enormous lies they tell their slaves, you would have small
respect for their veracity. I have spoken plain English. Pardon me. I cannot
use a milder term. When they visit the north, and return home, they tell their
slaves of the runaways they have seen, and describe them to be in the most
deplorable condition. A slaveholder once told me that he had seen a
runaway friend of mine in New York, and that she besought him to take her
back to her master, for she was literally dying of starvation; that many days
she had only one cold potato to eat, and at other times could get nothing at
all. He said he refused to take her, because he knew her master would not
thank him for bringing such a miserable wretch to his house. He ended by
saying to me, “This is the punishment she brought on herself for running
away from a kind master.”
This whole story was false. I afterwards staid with that friend in New
York, and found her in comfortable circumstances. She had never thought
of such a thing as wishing to go back to slavery. Many of the slaves believe
such stories, and think it is not worth while to exchange slavery for such a
hard kind of freedom. It is difficult to persuade such that freedom could
make them useful men, and enable them to protect their wives and children.
If those heathen in our Christian land had as much teaching as some
Hindoos, they would think otherwise. They would know that liberty is more
valuable than life. They would begin to understand their own capabilities,
and exert themselves to become men and women.
But while the Free States sustain a law which hurls fugitives back into
slavery, how can the slaves resolve to become men? There are some who
strive to protect wives and daughters from the insults of their masters; but
those who have such sentiments have had advantages above the general
mass of slaves. They have been partially civilized and Christianized by
favorable circumstances. Some are bold enough to utter such sentiments to
their masters. O, that there were more of them!

Some poor creatures have been so brutalized by the lash that they will
sneak out of the way to give their masters free access to their wives and
daughters. Do you think this proves the black man to belong to an inferior
order of beings? What would you be, if you had been born and brought up a
slave, with generations of slaves for ancestors? I admit that the black man is
inferior. But what is it that makes him so? It is the ignorance in which white
men compel him to live; it is the torturing whip that lashes manhood out of
him; it is the fierce bloodhounds of the South, and the scarcely less cruel
human bloodhounds of the north, who enforce the Fugitive Slave Law. They
do the work.
Southern gentlemen indulge in the most contemptuous expressions about
the Yankees, while they, on their part, consent to do the vilest work for
them, such as the ferocious bloodhounds and the despised negro-hunters are
employed to do at home. When southerners go to the north, they are proud
to do them honor; but the northern man is not welcome south of Mason and
Dixon’s line, unless he suppresses every thought and feeling at variance
with their “peculiar institution.” Nor is it enough to be silent. The masters
are not pleased, unless they obtain a greater degree of subservience than
that; and they are generally accommodated. Do they respect the northerner
for this? I trow not. Even the slaves despise “a northern man with southern
principles;” and that is the class they generally see. When northerners go to
the south to reside, they prove very apt scholars. They soon imbibe the
sentiments and disposition of their neighbors, and generally go beyond their
teachers. Of the two, they are proverbially the hardest masters.
They seem to satisfy their consciences with the doctrine that God created
the Africans to be slaves. What a libel upon the heavenly Father, who
“made of one blood all nations of men!” And then who are Africans? Who
can measure the amount of Anglo-Saxon blood coursing in the veins of
American slaves?
I have spoken of the pains slaveholders take to give their slaves a bad
opinion of the north; but, notwithstanding this, intelligent slaves are aware
that they have many friends in the Free States. Even the most ignorant have
some confused notions about it. They knew that I could read; and I was
often asked if I had seen any thing in the newspapers about white folks over
in the big north, who were trying to get their freedom for them. Some

believe that the abolitionists have already made them free, and that it is
established by law, but that their masters prevent the law from going into
effect. One woman begged me to get a newspaper and read it over. She said
her husband told her that the black people had sent word to the queen of
’Merica that they were all slaves; that she didn’t believe it, and went to
Washington city to see the president about it. They quarrelled; she drew her
sword upon him, and swore that he should help her to make them all free.
That poor, ignorant woman thought that America was governed by a
Queen, to whom the President was subordinate. I wish the President was
subordinate to Queen Justice.

IX. Sketches Of Neighboring Slaveholders.
There was a planter in the country, not far from us, whom I will call Mr.
Litch. He was an ill-bred, uneducated man, but very wealthy. He had six
hundred slaves, many of whom he did not know by sight. His extensive
plantation was managed by well-paid overseers. There was a jail and a
whipping post on his grounds; and whatever cruelties were perpetrated
there, they passed without comment. He was so effectually screened by his
great wealth that he was called to no account for his crimes, not even for
murder.
Various were the punishments resorted to. A favorite one was to tie a rope
round a man’s body, and suspend him from the ground. A fire was kindled
over him, from which was suspended a piece of fat pork. As this cooked,
the scalding drops of fat continually fell on the bare flesh. On his own
plantation, he required very strict obedience to the eighth commandment.
But depredations on the neighbors were allowable, provided the culprit
managed to evade detection or suspicion. If a neighbor brought a charge of
theft against any of his slaves, he was browbeaten by the master, who
assured him that his slaves had enough of every thing at home, and had no
inducement to steal. No sooner was the neighbor’s back turned, than the
accused was sought out, and whipped for his lack of discretion. If a slave
stole from him even a pound of meat or a peck of corn, if detection
followed, he was put in chains and imprisoned, and so kept till his form was
attenuated by hunger and suffering.
A freshet once bore his wine cellar and meat house miles away from the
plantation. Some slaves followed, and secured bits of meat and bottles of
wine. Two were detected; a ham and some liquor being found in their huts.
They were summoned by their master. No words were used, but a club
felled them to the ground. A rough box was their coffin, and their interment
was a dog’s burial. Nothing was said.
Murder was so common on his plantation that he feared to be alone after
nightfall. He might have believed in ghosts.

His brother, if not equal in wealth, was at least equal in cruelty. His
bloodhounds were well trained. Their pen was spacious, and a terror to the
slaves. They were let loose on a runaway, and, if they tracked him, they
literally tore the flesh from his bones. When this slaveholder died, his
shrieks and groans were so frightful that they appalled his own friends. His
last words were, “I am going to hell; bury my money with me.”
After death his eyes remained open. To press the lids down, silver dollars
were laid on them. These were buried with him. From this circumstance, a
rumor went abroad that his coffin was filled with money. Three times his
grave was opened, and his coffin taken out. The last time, his body was
found on the ground, and a flock of buzzards were pecking at it. He was
again interred, and a sentinel set over his grave. The perpetrators were never
discovered.
Cruelty is contagious in uncivilized communities. Mr. Conant, a neighbor
of Mr. Litch, returned from town one evening in a partial state of
intoxication. His body servant gave him some offence. He was divested of
his clothes, except his shirt, whipped, and tied to a large tree in front of the
house. It was a stormy night in winter. The wind blew bitterly cold, and the
boughs of the old tree crackled under falling sleet. A member of the family,
fearing he would freeze to death, begged that he might be taken down; but
the master would not relent. He remained there three hours; and, when he
was cut down, he was more dead than alive. Another slave, who stole a pig
from this master, to appease his hunger, was terribly flogged. In
desperation, he tried to run away. But at the end of two miles, he was so
faint with loss of blood, he thought he was dying. He had a wife, and he
longed to see her once more. Too sick to walk, he crept back that long
distance on his hands and knees. When he reached his master’s, it was
night. He had not strength to rise and open the gate. He moaned, and tried
to call for help. I had a friend living in the same family. At last his cry
reached her. She went out and found the prostrate man at the gate. She ran
back to the house for assistance, and two men returned with her. They
carried him in, and laid him on the floor. The back of his shirt was one clot
of blood. By means of lard, my friend loosened it from the raw flesh. She
bandaged him, gave him cool drink, and left him to rest. The master said he
deserved a hundred more lashes. When his own labor was stolen from him,
he had stolen food to appease his hunger. This was his crime.

Another neighbor was a Mrs. Wade. At no hour of the day was there
cessation of the lash on her premises. Her labors began with the dawn, and
did not cease till long after nightfall. The barn was her particular place of
torture. There she lashed the slaves with the might of a man. An old slave of
hers once said to me, “It is hell in missis’s house. ’Pears I can never get out.
Day and night I prays to die.”
The mistress died before the old woman, and, when dying, entreated her
husband not to permit any one of her slaves to look on her after death. A
slave who had nursed her children, and had still a child in her care, watched
her chance, and stole with it in her arms to the room where lay her dead
mistress. She gazed a while on her, then raised her hand and dealt two
blows on her face, saying, as she did so, “The devil is got you now!” She
forgot that the child was looking on. She had just begun to talk; and she said
to her father, “I did see ma, and mammy did strike ma, so,” striking her own
face with her little hand. The master was startled. He could not imagine
how the nurse could obtain access to the room where the corpse lay; for he
kept the door locked. He questioned her. She confessed that what the child
had said was true, and told how she had procured the key. She was sold to
Georgia.
In my childhood I knew a valuable slave, named Charity, and loved her,
as all children did. Her young mistress married, and took her to Louisiana.
Her little boy, James, was sold to a good sort of master. He became
involved in debt, and James was sold again to a wealthy slaveholder, noted
for his cruelty. With this man he grew up to manhood, receiving the
treatment of a dog. After a severe whipping, to save himself from further
infliction of the lash, with which he was threatened, he took to the woods.
He was in a most miserable condition—cut by the cowskin, half naked, half
starved, and without the means of procuring a crust of bread.
Some weeks after his escape, he was captured, tied, and carried back to
his master’s plantation. This man considered punishment in his jail, on
bread and water, after receiving hundreds of lashes, too mild for the poor
slave’s offence. Therefore he decided, after the overseer should have
whipped him to his satisfaction, to have him placed between the screws of
the cotton gin, to stay as long as he had been in the woods. This wretched
creature was cut with the whip from his head to his feet, then washed with

strong brine, to prevent the flesh from mortifying, and make it heal sooner
than it otherwise would. He was then put into the cotton gin, which was
screwed down, only allowing him room to turn on his side when he could
not lie on his back. Every morning a slave was sent with a piece of bread
and bowl of water, which were placed within reach of the poor fellow. The
slave was charged, under penalty of severe punishment, not to speak to him.
Four days passed, and the slave continued to carry the bread and water.
On the second morning, he found the bread gone, but the water untouched.
When he had been in the press four days and five nights, the slave informed
his master that the water had not been used for four mornings, and that a
horrible stench came from the gin house. The overseer was sent to examine
into it. When the press was unscrewed, the dead body was found partly
eaten by rats and vermin. Perhaps the rats that devoured his bread had
gnawed him before life was extinct. Poor Charity! Grandmother and I often
asked each other how her affectionate heart would bear the news, if she
should ever hear of the murder of her son. We had known her husband, and
knew that James was like him in manliness and intelligence. These were the
qualities that made it so hard for him to be a plantation slave. They put him
into a rough box, and buried him with less feeling than would have been
manifested for an old house dog. Nobody asked any questions. He was a
slave; and the feeling was that the master had a right to do what he pleased
with his own property. And what did he care for the value of a slave? He
had hundreds of them. When they had finished their daily toil, they must
hurry to eat their little morsels, and be ready to extinguish their pine knots
before nine o’clock, when the overseer went his patrol rounds. He entered
every cabin, to see that men and their wives had gone to bed together, lest
the men, from over-fatigue, should fall asleep in the chimney corner, and
remain there till the morning horn called them to their daily task. Women
are considered of no value, unless they continually increase their owner’s
stock. They are put on a par with animals. This same master shot a woman
through the head, who had run away and been brought back to him. No one
called him to account for it. If a slave resisted being whipped, the
bloodhounds were unpacked, and set upon him, to tear his flesh from his
bones. The master who did these things was highly educated, and styled a
perfect gentleman. He also boasted the name and standing of a Christian,
though Satan never had a truer follower.

I could tell of more slaveholders as cruel as those I have described. They
are not exceptions to the general rule. I do not say there are no humane
slaveholders. Such characters do exist, notwithstanding the hardening
influences around them. But they are “like angels’ visits—few and far
between.”
I knew a young lady who was one of these rare specimens. She was an
orphan, and inherited as slaves a woman and her six children. Their father
was a free man. They had a comfortable home of their own, parents and
children living together. The mother and eldest daughter served their
mistress during the day, and at night returned to their dwelling, which was
on the premises. The young lady was very pious, and there was some reality
in her religion. She taught her slaves to lead pure lives, and wished them to
enjoy the fruit of their own industry. Her religion was not a garb put on for
Sunday, and laid aside till Sunday returned again. The eldest daughter of the
slave mother was promised in marriage to a free man; and the day before
the wedding this good mistress emancipated her, in order that her marriage
might have the sanction of law.
Report said that this young lady cherished an unrequited affection for a
man who had resolved to marry for wealth. In the course of time a rich
uncle of hers died. He left six thousand dollars to his two sons by a colored
woman, and the remainder of his property to this orphan niece. The metal
soon attracted the magnet. The lady and her weighty purse became his. She
offered to manumit her slaves—telling them that her marriage might make
unexpected changes in their destiny, and she wished to insure their
happiness. They refused to take their freedom, saying that she had always
been their best friend, and they could not be so happy any where as with
her. I was not surprised. I had often seen them in their comfortable home,
and thought that the whole town did not contain a happier family. They had
never felt slavery; and, when it was too late, they were convinced of its
reality.
When the new master claimed this family as his property, the father
became furious, and went to his mistress for protection. “I can do nothing
for you now, Harry,” said she. “I no longer have the power I had a week
ago. I have succeeded in obtaining the freedom of your wife; but I cannot
obtain it for your children.” The unhappy father swore that nobody should

take his children from him. He concealed them in the woods for some days;
but they were discovered and taken. The father was put in jail, and the two
oldest boys sold to Georgia. One little girl, too young to be of service to her
master, was left with the wretched mother. The other three were carried to
their master’s plantation. The eldest soon became a mother, and, when the
slaveholder’s wife looked at the babe, she wept bitterly. She knew that her
own husband had violated the purity she had so carefully inculcated. She
had a second child by her master, and then he sold her and his offspring to
his brother. She bore two children to the brother, and was sold again. The
next sister went crazy. The life she was compelled to lead drove her mad.
The third one became the mother of five daughters. Before the birth of the
fourth the pious mistress died. To the last, she rendered every kindness to
the slaves that her unfortunate circumstances permitted. She passed away
peacefully, glad to close her eyes on a life which had been made so
wretched by the man she loved.
This man squandered the fortune he had received, and sought to retrieve
his affairs by a second marriage; but, having retired after a night of drunken
debauch, he was found dead in the morning. He was called a good master;
for he fed and clothed his slaves better than most masters, and the lash was
not heard on his plantation so frequently as on many others. Had it not been
for slavery, he would have been a better man, and his wife a happier
woman.
No pen can give an adequate description of the all-pervading corruption
produced by slavery. The slave girl is reared in an atmosphere of
licentiousness and fear. The lash and the foul talk of her master and his sons
are her teachers. When she is fourteen or fifteen, her owner, or his sons, or
the overseer, or perhaps all of them, begin to bribe her with presents. If
these fail to accomplish their purpose, she is whipped or starved into
submission to their will. She may have had religious principles inculcated
by some pious mother or grandmother, or some good mistress; she may
have a lover, whose good opinion and peace of mind are dear to her heart;
or the profligate men who have power over her may be exceedingly odious
to her. But resistance is hopeless.

“The poor worm

Shall prove her contest vain. Life’s little day
Shall pass, and she is gone!”

The slaveholder’s sons are, of course, vitiated, even while boys, by the
unclean influences every where around them. Nor do the master’s daughters
always escape. Severe retributions sometimes come upon him for the
wrongs he does to the daughters of the slaves. The white daughters early
hear their parents quarrelling about some female slave. Their curiosity is
excited, and they soon learn the cause. They are attended by the young
slave girls whom their father has corrupted; and they hear such talk as
should never meet youthful ears, or any other ears. They know that the
women slaves are subject to their father’s authority in all things; and in
some cases they exercise the same authority over the men slaves. I have
myself seen the master of such a household whose head was bowed down in
shame; for it was known in the neighborhood that his daughter had selected
one of the meanest slaves on his plantation to be the father of his first
grandchild. She did not make her advances to her equals, nor even to her
father’s more intelligent servants. She selected the most brutalized, over
whom her authority could be exercised with less fear of exposure. Her
father, half frantic with rage, sought to revenge himself on the offending
black man; but his daughter, foreseeing the storm that would arise, had
given him free papers, and sent him out of the state.
In such cases the infant is smothered, or sent where it is never seen by
any who know its history. But if the white parent is the father, instead of the
mother, the offspring are unblushingly reared for the market. If they are
girls, I have indicated plainly enough what will be their inevitable destiny.
You may believe what I say; for I write only that whereof I know. I was
twenty-one years in that cage of obscene birds. I can testify, from my own
experience and observation, that slavery is a curse to the whites as well as
to the blacks. It makes the white fathers cruel and sensual; the sons violent
and licentious; it contaminates the daughters, and makes the wives
wretched. And as for the colored race, it needs an abler pen than mine to
describe the extremity of their sufferings, the depth of their degradation.
Yet few slaveholders seem to be aware of the widespread moral ruin
occasioned by this wicked system. Their talk is of blighted cotton crops—

not of the blight on their children’s souls.
If you want to be fully convinced of the abominations of slavery, go on a
southern plantation, and call yourself a negro trader. Then there will be no
concealment; and you will see and hear things that will seem to you
impossible among human beings with immortal souls.

X. A Perilous Passage In The Slave Girl’s Life.
After my lover went away, Dr. Flint contrived a new plan. He seemed to
have an idea that my fear of my mistress was his greatest obstacle. In the
blandest tones, he told me that he was going to build a small house for me,
in a secluded place, four miles away from the town. I shuddered; but I was
constrained to listen, while he talked of his intention to give me a home of
my own, and to make a lady of me. Hitherto, I had escaped my dreaded
fate, by being in the midst of people. My grandmother had already had high
words with my master about me. She had told him pretty plainly what she
thought of his character, and there was considerable gossip in the
neighborhood about our affairs, to which the open-mouthed jealousy of
Mrs. Flint contributed not a little. When my master said he was going to
build a house for me, and that he could do it with little trouble and expense,
I was in hopes something would happen to frustrate his scheme; but I soon
heard that the house was actually begun. I vowed before my Maker that I
would never enter it. I had rather toil on the plantation from dawn till dark;
I had rather live and die in jail, than drag on, from day to day, through such
a living death. I was determined that the master, whom I so hated and
loathed, who had blighted the prospects of my youth, and made my life a
desert, should not, after my long struggle with him, succeed at last in
trampling his victim under his feet. I would do any thing, every thing, for
the sake of defeating him. What could I do? I thought and thought, till I
became desperate, and made a plunge into the abyss.
And now, reader, I come to a period in my unhappy life, which I would
gladly forget if I could. The remembrance fills me with sorrow and shame.
It pains me to tell you of it; but I have promised to tell you the truth, and I
will do it honestly, let it cost me what it may. I will not try to screen myself
behind the plea of compulsion from a master; for it was not so. Neither can
I plead ignorance or thoughtlessness. For years, my master had done his
utmost to pollute my mind with foul images, and to destroy the pure
principles inculcated by my grandmother, and the good mistress of my
childhood. The influences of slavery had had the same effect on me that
they had on other young girls; they had made me prematurely knowing,

concerning the evil ways of the world. I knew what I did, and I did it with
deliberate calculation.
But, O, ye happy women, whose purity has been sheltered from
childhood, who have been free to choose the objects of your affection,
whose homes are protected by law, do not judge the poor desolate slave girl
too severely! If slavery had been abolished, I, also, could have married the
man of my choice; I could have had a home shielded by the laws; and I
should have been spared the painful task of confessing what I am now about
to relate; but all my prospects had been blighted by slavery. I wanted to
keep myself pure; and, under the most adverse circumstances, I tried hard to
preserve my self-respect; but I was struggling alone in the powerful grasp
of the demon Slavery; and the monster proved too strong for me. I felt as if
I was forsaken by God and man; as if all my efforts must be frustrated; and
I became reckless in my despair.
I have told you that Dr. Flint’s persecutions and his wife’s jealousy had
given rise to some gossip in the neighborhood. Among others, it chanced
that a white unmarried gentleman had obtained some knowledge of the
circumstances in which I was placed. He knew my grandmother, and often
spoke to me in the street. He became interested for me, and asked questions
about my master, which I answered in part. He expressed a great deal of
sympathy, and a wish to aid me. He constantly sought opportunities to see
me, and wrote to me frequently. I was a poor slave girl, only fifteen years
old.
So much attention from a superior person was, of course, flattering; for
human nature is the same in all. I also felt grateful for his sympathy, and
encouraged by his kind words. It seemed to me a great thing to have such a
friend. By degrees, a more tender feeling crept into my heart. He was an
educated and eloquent gentleman; too eloquent, alas, for the poor slave girl
who trusted in him. Of course I saw whither all this was tending. I knew the
impassable gulf between us; but to be an object of interest to a man who is
not married, and who is not her master, is agreeable to the pride and
feelings of a slave, if her miserable situation has left her any pride or
sentiment. It seems less degrading to give one’s self, than to submit to
compulsion. There is something akin to freedom in having a lover who has
no control over you, except that which he gains by kindness and

attachment. A master may treat you as rudely as he pleases, and you dare
not speak; moreover, the wrong does not seem so great with an unmarried
man, as with one who has a wife to be made unhappy. There may be
sophistry in all this; but the condition of a slave confuses all principles of
morality, and, in fact, renders the practice of them impossible.
When I found that my master had actually begun to build the lonely
cottage, other feelings mixed with those I have described. Revenge, and
calculations of interest, were added to flattered vanity and sincere gratitude
for kindness. I knew nothing would enrage Dr. Flint so much as to know
that I favored another; and it was something to triumph over my tyrant even
in that small way. I thought he would revenge himself by selling me, and I
was sure my friend, Mr. Sands, would buy me. He was a man of more
generosity and feeling than my master, and I thought my freedom could be
easily obtained from him. The crisis of my fate now came so near that I was
desperate. I shuddered to think of being the mother of children that should
be owned by my old tyrant. I knew that as soon as a new fancy took him,
his victims were sold far off to get rid of them; especially if they had
children. I had seen several women sold, with his babies at the breast. He
never allowed his offspring by slaves to remain long in sight of himself and
his wife. Of a man who was not my master I could ask to have my children
well supported; and in this case, I felt confident I should obtain the boon. I
also felt quite sure that they would be made free. With all these thoughts
revolving in my mind, and seeing no other way of escaping the doom I so
much dreaded, I made a headlong plunge. Pity me, and pardon me, O
virtuous reader! You never knew what it is to be a slave; to be entirely
unprotected by law or custom; to have the laws reduce you to the condition
of a chattel, entirely subject to the will of another. You never exhausted
your ingenuity in avoiding the snares, and eluding the power of a hated
tyrant; you never shuddered at the sound of his footsteps, and trembled
within hearing of his voice. I know I did wrong. No one can feel it more
sensibly than I do. The painful and humiliating memory will haunt me to
my dying day. Still, in looking back, calmly, on the events of my life, I feel
that the slave woman ought not to be judged by the same standard as others.
The months passed on. I had many unhappy hours. I secretly mourned
over the sorrow I was bringing on my grandmother, who had so tried to
shield me from harm. I knew that I was the greatest comfort of her old age,

and that it was a source of pride to her that I had not degraded myself, like
most of the slaves. I wanted to confess to her that I was no longer worthy of
her love; but I could not utter the dreaded words.
As for Dr. Flint, I had a feeling of satisfaction and triumph in the thought
of telling him. From time to time he told me of his intended arrangements,
and I was silent. At last, he came and told me the cottage was completed,
and ordered me to go to it. I told him I would never enter it. He said, “I
have heard enough of such talk as that. You shall go, if you are carried by
force; and you shall remain there.”
I replied, “I will never go there. In a few months I shall be a mother.”
He stood and looked at me in dumb amazement, and left the house
without a word. I thought I should be happy in my triumph over him. But
now that the truth was out, and my relatives would hear of it, I felt
wretched. Humble as were their circumstances, they had pride in my good
character. Now, how could I look them in the face? My self-respect was
gone! I had resolved that I would be virtuous, though I was a slave. I had
said, “Let the storm beat! I will brave it till I die.” And now, how humiliated
I felt!
I went to my grandmother. My lips moved to make confession, but the
words stuck in my throat. I sat down in the shade of a tree at her door and
began to sew. I think she saw something unusual was the matter with me.
The mother of slaves is very watchful. She knows there is no security for
her children. After they have entered their teens she lives in daily
expectation of trouble. This leads to many questions. If the girl is of a
sensitive nature, timidity keeps her from answering truthfully, and this well-
meant course has a tendency to drive her from maternal counsels. Presently,
in came my mistress, like a mad woman, and accused me concerning her
husband. My grandmother, whose suspicions had been previously
awakened, believed what she said. She exclaimed, “O Linda! has it come to
this? I had rather see you dead than to see you as you now are. You are a
disgrace to your dead mother.” She tore from my fingers my mother’s
wedding ring and her silver thimble. “Go away!” she exclaimed, “and never
come to my house, again.” Her reproaches fell so hot and heavy, that they
left me no chance to answer. Bitter tears, such as the eyes never shed but

once, were my only answer. I rose from my seat, but fell back again,
sobbing. She did not speak to me; but the tears were running down her
furrowed cheeks, and they scorched me like fire. She had always been so
kind to me! So kind! How I longed to throw myself at her feet, and tell her
all the truth! But she had ordered me to go, and never to come there again.
After a few minutes, I mustered strength, and started to obey her. With what
feelings did I now close that little gate, which I used to open with such an
eager hand in my childhood! It closed upon me with a sound I never heard
before.
Where could I go? I was afraid to return to my master’s. I walked on
recklessly, not caring where I went, or what would become of me. When I
had gone four or five miles, fatigue compelled me to stop. I sat down on the
stump of an old tree. The stars were shining through the boughs above me.
How they mocked me, with their bright, calm light! The hours passed by,
and as I sat there alone a chilliness and deadly sickness came over me. I
sank on the ground. My mind was full of horrid thoughts. I prayed to die;
but the prayer was not answered. At last, with great effort I roused myself,
and walked some distance further, to the house of a woman who had been a
friend of my mother. When I told her why I was there, she spoke soothingly
to me; but I could not be comforted. I thought I could bear my shame if I
could only be reconciled to my grandmother. I longed to open my heart to
her. I thought if she could know the real state of the case, and all I had been
bearing for years, she would perhaps judge me less harshly. My friend
advised me to send for her. I did so; but days of agonizing suspense passed
before she came. Had she utterly forsaken me? No. She came at last. I knelt
before her, and told her the things that had poisoned my life; how long I had
been persecuted; that I saw no way of escape; and in an hour of extremity I
had become desperate. She listened in silence. I told her I would bear any
thing and do any thing, if in time I had hopes of obtaining her forgiveness. I
begged of her to pity me, for my dead mother’s sake. And she did pity me.
She did not say, “I forgive you;” but she looked at me lovingly, with her
eyes full of tears. She laid her old hand gently on my head, and murmured,
“Poor child! Poor child!”

XI. The New Tie To Life.
I returned to my good grandmother’s house. She had an interview with
Mr. Sands. When she asked him why he could not have left her one ewe
lamb,—whether there were not plenty of slaves who did not care about
character,—he made no answer; but he spoke kind and encouraging words.
He promised to care for my child, and to buy me, be the conditions what
they might.
I had not seen Dr. Flint for five days. I had never seen him since I made
the avowal to him. He talked of the disgrace I had brought on myself; how I
had sinned against my master, and mortified my old grandmother. He
intimated that if I had accepted his proposals, he, as a physician, could have
saved me from exposure. He even condescended to pity me. Could he have
offered wormwood more bitter? He, whose persecutions had been the cause
of my sin!
“Linda,” said he, “though you have been criminal towards me, I feel for
you, and I can pardon you if you obey my wishes. Tell me whether the
fellow you wanted to marry is the father of your child. If you deceive me,
you shall feel the fires of hell.”
I did not feel as proud as I had done. My strongest weapon with him was
gone. I was lowered in my own estimation, and had resolved to bear his
abuse in silence. But when he spoke contemptuously of the lover who had
always treated me honorably; when I remembered that but for him I might
have been a virtuous, free, and happy wife, I lost my patience. “I have
sinned against God and myself,” I replied; “but not against you.”
He clinched his teeth, and muttered, “Curse you!” He came towards me,
with ill-suppressed rage, and exclaimed, “You obstinate girl! I could grind
your bones to powder! You have thrown yourself away on some worthless
rascal. You are weak-minded, and have been easily persuaded by those who
don’t care a straw for you. The future will settle accounts between us. You
are blinded now; but hereafter you will be convinced that your master was
your best friend. My lenity towards you is a proof of it. I might have

punished you in many ways. I might have had you whipped till you fell
dead under the lash. But I wanted you to live; I would have bettered your
condition. Others cannot do it. You are my slave. Your mistress, disgusted
by your conduct, forbids you to return to the house; therefore I leave you
here for the present; but I shall see you often. I will call to-morrow.”
He came with frowning brows, that showed a dissatisfied state of mind.
After asking about my health, he inquired whether my board was paid, and
who visited me. He then went on to say that he had neglected his duty; that
as a physician there were certain things that he ought to have explained to
me. Then followed talk such as would have made the most shameless blush.
He ordered me to stand up before him. I obeyed. “I command you,” said he,
“to tell me whether the father of your child is white or black.” I hesitated.
“Answer me this instant!” he exclaimed. I did answer. He sprang upon me
like a wolf, and grabbed my arm as if he would have broken it. “Do you
love him?” said he, in a hissing tone.
“I am thankful that I do not despise him,” I replied.
He raised his hand to strike me; but it fell again. I don’t know what
arrested the blow. He sat down, with lips tightly compressed. At last he
spoke. “I came here,” said he, “to make you a friendly proposition; but your
ingratitude chafes me beyond endurance. You turn aside all my good
intentions towards you. I don’t know what it is that keeps me from killing
you.” Again he rose, as if he had a mind to strike me.
But he resumed. “On one condition I will forgive your insolence and
crime. You must henceforth have no communication of any kind with the
father of your child. You must not ask any thing from him, or receive any
thing from him. I will take care of you and your child. You had better
promise this at once, and not wait till you are deserted by him. This is the
last act of mercy I shall show towards you.”
I said something about being unwilling to have my child supported by a
man who had cursed it and me also. He rejoined, that a woman who had
sunk to my level had no right to expect any thing else. He asked, for the last
time, would I accept his kindness? I answered that I would not.

“Very well,” said he; “then take the consequences of your wayward
course. Never look to me for help. You are my slave, and shall always be
my slave. I will never sell you, that you may depend upon.”
Hope died away in my heart as he closed the door after him. I had
calculated that in his rage he would sell me to a slave-trader; and I knew the
father of my child was on the watch to buy me.
About this time my uncle Phillip was expected to return from a voyage.
The day before his departure I had officiated as bridesmaid to a young
friend. My heart was then ill at ease, but my smiling countenance did not
betray it. Only a year had passed; but what fearful changes it had wrought!
My heart had grown gray in misery. Lives that flash in sunshine, and lives
that are born in tears, receive their hue from circumstances. None of us
know what a year may bring forth.
I felt no joy when they told me my uncle had come. He wanted to see me,
though he knew what had happened. I shrank from him at first; but at last
consented that he should come to my room. He received me as he always
had done. O, how my heart smote me when I felt his tears on my burning
cheeks! The words of my grandmother came to my mind,—“Perhaps your
mother and father are taken from the evil days to come.” My disappointed
heart could now praise God that it was so. But why, thought I, did my
relatives ever cherish hopes for me? What was there to save me from the
usual fate of slave girls? Many more beautiful and more intelligent than I
had experienced a similar fate, or a far worse one. How could they hope
that I should escape?
My uncle’s stay was short, and I was not sorry for it. I was too ill in mind
and body to enjoy my friends as I had done. For some weeks I was unable
to leave my bed. I could not have any doctor but my master, and I would
not have him sent for. At last, alarmed by my increasing illness, they sent
for him. I was very weak and nervous; and as soon as he entered the room, I
began to scream. They told him my state was very critical. He had no wish
to hasten me out of the world, and he withdrew.
When my babe was born, they said it was premature. It weighed only
four pounds; but God let it live. I heard the doctor say I could not survive
till morning. I had often prayed for death; but now I did not want to die,

unless my child could die too. Many weeks passed before I was able to
leave my bed. I was a mere wreck of my former self. For a year there was
scarcely a day when I was free from chills and fever. My babe also was
sickly. His little limbs were often racked with pain. Dr. Flint continued his
visits, to look after my health; and he did not fail to remind me that my
child was an addition to his stock of slaves.
I felt too feeble to dispute with him, and listened to his remarks in
silence. His visits were less frequent; but his busy spirit could not remain
quiet. He employed my brother in his office, and he was made the medium
of frequent notes and messages to me. William was a bright lad, and of
much use to the doctor. He had learned to put up medicines, to leech, cup,
and bleed. He had taught himself to read and spell. I was proud of my
brother; and the old doctor suspected as much. One day, when I had not
seen him for several weeks, I heard his steps approaching the door. I
dreaded the encounter, and hid myself. He inquired for me, of course; but I
was nowhere to be found. He went to his office, and despatched William
with a note. The color mounted to my brother’s face when he gave it to me;
and he said, “Don’t you hate me, Linda, for bringing you these things?” I
told him I could not blame him; he was a slave, and obliged to obey his
master’s will. The note ordered me to come to his office. I went. He
demanded to know where I was when he called. I told him I was at home.
He flew into a passion, and said he knew better. Then he launched out upon
his usual themes,—my crimes against him, and my ingratitude for his
forbearance. The laws were laid down to me anew, and I was dismissed. I
felt humiliated that my brother should stand by, and listen to such language
as would be addressed only to a slave. Poor boy! He was powerless to
defend me; but I saw the tears, which he vainly strove to keep back. This
manifestation of feeling irritated the doctor. William could do nothing to
please him. One morning he did not arrive at the office so early as usual;
and that circumstance afforded his master an opportunity to vent his spleen.
He was put in jail. The next day my brother sent a trader to the doctor, with
a request to be sold. His master was greatly incensed at what he called his
insolence. He said he had put him there to reflect upon his bad conduct, and
he certainly was not giving any evidence of repentance. For two days he
harassed himself to find somebody to do his office work; but every thing

went wrong without William. He was released, and ordered to take his old
stand, with many threats, if he was not careful about his future behavior.
As the months passed on, my boy improved in health. When he was a
year old, they called him beautiful. The little vine was taking deep root in
my existence, though its clinging fondness excited a mixture of love and
pain. When I was most sorely oppressed I found a solace in his smiles. I
loved to watch his infant slumbers; but always there was a dark cloud over
my enjoyment. I could never forget that he was a slave. Sometimes I wished
that he might die in infancy. God tried me. My darling became very ill. The
bright eyes grew dull, and the little feet and hands were so icy cold that I
thought death had already touched them. I had prayed for his death, but
never so earnestly as I now prayed for his life; and my prayer was heard.
Alas, what mockery it is for a slave mother to try to pray back her dying
child to life! Death is better than slavery. It was a sad thought that I had no
name to give my child. His father caressed him and treated him kindly,
whenever he had a chance to see him. He was not unwilling that he should
bear his name; but he had no legal claim to it; and if I had bestowed it upon
him, my master would have regarded it as a new crime, a new piece of
insolence, and would, perhaps, revenge it on the boy. O, the serpent of
Slavery has many and poisonous fangs!

XII. Fear Of Insurrection.
Not far from this time Nat Turner’s insurrection broke out; and the news
threw our town into great commotion. Strange that they should be alarmed,
when their slaves were so “contented and happy”! But so it was.
It was always the custom to have a muster every year. On that occasion
every white man shouldered his musket. The citizens and the so-called
country gentlemen wore military uniforms. The poor whites took their
places in the ranks in every-day dress, some without shoes, some without
hats. This grand occasion had already passed; and when the slaves were told
there was to be another muster, they were surprised and rejoiced. Poor
creatures! They thought it was going to be a holiday. I was informed of the
true state of affairs, and imparted it to the few I could trust. Most gladly
would I have proclaimed it to every slave; but I dared not. All could not be
relied on. Mighty is the power of the torturing lash.
By sunrise, people were pouring in from every quarter within twenty
miles of the town. I knew the houses were to be searched; and I expected it
would be done by country bullies and the poor whites. I knew nothing
annoyed them so much as to see colored people living in comfort and
respectability; so I made arrangements for them with especial care. I
arranged every thing in my grandmother’s house as neatly as possible. I put
white quilts on the beds, and decorated some of the rooms with flowers.
When all was arranged, I sat down at the window to watch. Far as my eye
could reach, it rested on a motley crowd of soldiers. Drums and fifes were
discoursing martial music. The men were divided into companies of sixteen,
each headed by a captain. Orders were given, and the wild scouts rushed in
every direction, wherever a colored face was to be found.
It was a grand opportunity for the low whites, who had no negroes of
their own to scourge. They exulted in such a chance to exercise a little brief
authority, and show their subserviency to the slaveholders; not reflecting
that the power which trampled on the colored people also kept themselves
in poverty, ignorance, and moral degradation. Those who never witnessed

such scenes can hardly believe what I know was inflicted at this time on
innocent men, women, and children, against whom there was not the
slightest ground for suspicion. Colored people and slaves who lived in
remote parts of the town suffered in an especial manner. In some cases the
searchers scattered powder and shot among their clothes, and then sent
other parties to find them, and bring them forward as proof that they were
plotting insurrection. Every where men, women, and children were whipped
till the blood stood in puddles at their feet. Some received five hundred
lashes; others were tied hands and feet, and tortured with a bucking paddle,
which blisters the skin terribly. The dwellings of the colored people, unless
they happened to be protected by some influential white person, who was
nigh at hand, were robbed of clothing and every thing else the marauders
thought worth carrying away. All day long these unfeeling wretches went
round, like a troop of demons, terrifying and tormenting the helpless. At
night, they formed themselves into patrol bands, and went wherever they
chose among the colored people, acting out their brutal will. Many women
hid themselves in woods and swamps, to keep out of their way. If any of the
husbands or fathers told of these outrages, they were tied up to the public
whipping post, and cruelly scourged for telling lies about white men. The
consternation was universal. No two people that had the slightest tinge of
color in their faces dared to be seen talking together.
I entertained no positive fears about our household, because we were in
the midst of white families who would protect us. We were ready to receive
the soldiers whenever they came. It was not long before we heard the tramp
of feet and the sound of voices. The door was rudely pushed open; and in
they tumbled, like a pack of hungry wolves. They snatched at every thing
within their reach. Every box, trunk, closet, and corner underwent a
thorough examination. A box in one of the drawers containing some silver
change was eagerly pounced upon. When I stepped forward to take it from
them, one of the soldiers turned and said angrily, “What d’ye foller us fur?
D’ye s’pose white folks is come to steal?”
I replied, “You have come to search; but you have searched that box, and
I will take it, if you please.”
At that moment I saw a white gentleman who was friendly to us; and I
called to him, and asked him to have the goodness to come in and stay till

the search was over. He readily complied. His entrance into the house
brought in the captain of the company, whose business it was to guard the
outside of the house, and see that none of the inmates left it. This officer
was Mr. Litch, the wealthy slaveholder whom I mentioned, in the account
of neighboring planters, as being notorious for his cruelty. He felt above
soiling his hands with the search. He merely gave orders; and, if a bit of
writing was discovered, it was carried to him by his ignorant followers, who
were unable to read.
My grandmother had a large trunk of bedding and table cloths. When that
was opened, there was a great shout of surprise; and one exclaimed,
“Where’d the damned niggers git all dis sheet an’ table clarf?”
My grandmother, emboldened by the presence of our white protector,
said, “You may be sure we didn’t pilfer ’em from your houses.”
“Look here, mammy,” said a grim-looking fellow without any coat, “you
seem to feel mighty gran’ ’cause you got all them ’ere fixens. White folks
oughter have ’em all.”
His remarks were interrupted by a chorus of voices shouting, “We’s got
’em! We’s got ’em! Dis ’ere yaller gal’s got letters!”
There was a general rush for the supposed letter, which, upon
examination, proved to be some verses written to me by a friend. In packing
away my things, I had overlooked them. When their captain informed them
of their contents, they seemed much disappointed. He inquired of me who
wrote them. I told him it was one of my friends. “Can you read them?” he
asked. When I told him I could, he swore, and raved, and tore the paper into
bits. “Bring me all your letters!” said he, in a commanding tone. I told him I
had none. “Don’t be afraid,” he continued, in an insinuating way. “Bring
them all to me. Nobody shall do you any harm.” Seeing I did not move to
obey him, his pleasant tone changed to oaths and threats. “Who writes to
you? half free niggers?” inquired he. I replied, “O, no; most of my letters
are from white people. Some request me to burn them after they are read,
and some I destroy without reading.”
An exclamation of surprise from some of the company put a stop to our
conversation. Some silver spoons which ornamented an old-fashioned

buffet had just been discovered. My grandmother was in the habit of
preserving fruit for many ladies in the town, and of preparing suppers for
parties; consequently she had many jars of preserves. The closet that
contained these was next invaded, and the contents tasted. One of them,
who was helping himself freely, tapped his neighbor on the shoulder, and
said, “Wal done! Don’t wonder de niggers want to kill all de white folks,
when dey live on ’sarves” [meaning preserves]. I stretched out my hand to
take the jar, saying, “You were not sent here to search for sweetmeats.”
“And what were we sent for?” said the captain, bristling up to me. I
evaded the question.
The search of the house was completed, and nothing found to condemn
us. They next proceeded to the garden, and knocked about every bush and
vine, with no better success. The captain called his men together, and, after
a short consultation, the order to march was given. As they passed out of the
gate, the captain turned back, and pronounced a malediction on the house.
He said it ought to be burned to the ground, and each of its inmates receive
thirty-nine lashes. We came out of this affair very fortunately; not losing
any thing except some wearing apparel.
Towards evening the turbulence increased. The soldiers, stimulated by
drink, committed still greater cruelties. Shrieks and shouts continually rent
the air. Not daring to go to the door, I peeped under the window curtain. I
saw a mob dragging along a number of colored people, each white man,
with his musket upraised, threatening instant death if they did not stop their
shrieks. Among the prisoners was a respectable old colored minister. They
had found a few parcels of shot in his house, which his wife had for years
used to balance her scales. For this they were going to shoot him on Court
House Green. What a spectacle was that for a civilized country! A rabble,
staggering under intoxication, assuming to be the administrators of justice!
The better class of the community exerted their influence to save the
innocent, persecuted people; and in several instances they succeeded, by
keeping them shut up in jail till the excitement abated. At last the white
citizens found that their own property was not safe from the lawless rabble
they had summoned to protect them. They rallied the drunken swarm, drove
them back into the country, and set a guard over the town.

The next day, the town patrols were commissioned to search colored
people that lived out of the city; and the most shocking outrages were
committed with perfect impunity. Every day for a fortnight, if I looked out,
I saw horsemen with some poor panting negro tied to their saddles, and
compelled by the lash to keep up with their speed, till they arrived at the jail
yard. Those who had been whipped too unmercifully to walk were washed
with brine, tossed into a cart, and carried to jail. One black man, who had
not fortitude to endure scourging, promised to give information about the
conspiracy. But it turned out that he knew nothing at all. He had not even
heard the name of Nat Turner. The poor fellow had, however, made up a
story, which augmented his own sufferings and those of the colored people.
The day patrol continued for some weeks, and at sundown a night guard
was substituted. Nothing at all was proved against the colored people, bond
or free. The wrath of the slaveholders was somewhat appeased by the
capture of Nat Turner. The imprisoned were released. The slaves were sent
to their masters, and the free were permitted to return to their ravaged
homes. Visiting was strictly forbidden on the plantations. The slaves begged
the privilege of again meeting at their little church in the woods, with their
burying ground around it. It was built by the colored people, and they had
no higher happiness than to meet there and sing hymns together, and pour
out their hearts in spontaneous prayer. Their request was denied, and the
church was demolished. They were permitted to attend the white churches,
a certain portion of the galleries being appropriated to their use. There,
when every body else had partaken of the communion, and the benediction
had been pronounced, the minister said, “Come down, now, my colored
friends.” They obeyed the summons, and partook of the bread and wine, in
commemoration of the meek and lowly Jesus, who said, “God is your
Father, and all ye are brethren.”

XIII. The Church And Slavery.
After the alarm caused by Nat Turner’s insurrection had subsided, the
slaveholders came to the conclusion that it would be well to give the slaves
enough of religious instruction to keep them from murdering their masters.
The Episcopal clergyman offered to hold a separate service on Sundays for
their benefit. His colored members were very few, and also very respectable
—a fact which I presume had some weight with him. The difficulty was to
decide on a suitable place for them to worship. The Methodist and Baptist
churches admitted them in the afternoon; but their carpets and cushions
were not so costly as those at the Episcopal church. It was at last decided
that they should meet at the house of a free colored man, who was a
member.
I was invited to attend, because I could read. Sunday evening came, and,
trusting to the cover of night, I ventured out. I rarely ventured out by
daylight, for I always went with fear, expecting at every turn to encounter
Dr. Flint, who was sure to turn me back, or order me to his office to inquire
where I got my bonnet, or some other article of dress. When the Rev. Mr.
Pike came, there were some twenty persons present. The reverend
gentleman knelt in prayer, then seated himself, and requested all present,
who could read, to open their books, while he gave out the portions he
wished them to repeat or respond to.
His text was, “Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters
according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart,
as unto Christ.”
Pious Mr. Pike brushed up his hair till it stood upright, and, in deep,
solemn tones, began: “Hearken, ye servants! Give strict heed unto my
words. You are rebellious sinners. Your hearts are filled with all manner of
evil. ’Tis the devil who tempts you. God is angry with you, and will surely
punish you, if you don’t forsake your wicked ways. You that live in town
are eye-servants behind your master’s back. Instead of serving your masters
faithfully, which is pleasing in the sight of your heavenly Master, you are

idle, and shirk your work. God sees you. You tell lies. God hears you.
Instead of being engaged in worshipping him, you are hidden away
somewhere, feasting on your master’s substance; tossing coffee-grounds
with some wicked fortuneteller, or cutting cards with another old hag. Your
masters may not find you out, but God sees you, and will punish you. O, the
depravity of your hearts! When your master’s work is done, are you quietly
together, thinking of the goodness of God to such sinful creatures? No; you
are quarrelling, and tying up little bags of roots to bury under the door-steps
to poison each other with. God sees you. You men steal away to every grog
shop to sell your master’s corn, that you may buy rum to drink. God sees
you. You sneak into the back streets, or among the bushes, to pitch coppers.
Although your masters may not find you out, God sees you; and he will
punish you. You must forsake your sinful ways, and be faithful servants.
Obey your old master and your young master—your old mistress and your
young mistress. If you disobey your earthly master, you offend your
heavenly Master. You must obey God’s commandments. When you go from
here, don’t stop at the corners of the streets to talk, but go directly home,
and let your master and mistress see that you have come.”
The benediction was pronounced. We went home, highly amused at
brother Pike’s gospel teaching, and we determined to hear him again. I went
the next Sabbath evening, and heard pretty much a repetition of the last
discourse. At the close of the meeting, Mr. Pike informed us that he found it
very inconvenient to meet at the friend’s house, and he should be glad to see
us, every Sunday evening, at his own kitchen.
I went home with the feeling that I had heard the Reverend Mr. Pike for
the last time. Some of his members repaired to his house, and found that the
kitchen sported two tallow candles; the first time, I am sure, since its
present occupant owned it, for the servants never had any thing but pine
knots. It was so long before the reverend gentleman descended from his
comfortable parlor that the slaves left, and went to enjoy a Methodist shout.
They never seem so happy as when shouting and singing at religious
meetings. Many of them are sincere, and nearer to the gate of heaven than
sanctimonious Mr. Pike, and other long-faced Christians, who see wounded
Samaritans, and pass by on the other side.

The slaves generally compose their own songs and hymns; and they do
not trouble their heads much about the measure. They often sing the
following verses:

“Old Satan is one busy ole man;
He rolls dem blocks all in my way;
But Jesus is my bosom friend;
He rolls dem blocks away.
“If I had died when I was young,
Den how my stam’ring tongue would have sung;
But I am ole, and now I stand
A narrow chance for to tread dat heavenly land.”

I well remember one occasion when I attended a Methodist class
meeting. I went with a burdened spirit, and happened to sit next a poor,
bereaved mother, whose heart was still heavier than mine. The class leader
was the town constable—a man who bought and sold slaves, who whipped
his brethren and sisters of the church at the public whipping post, in jail or
out of jail. He was ready to perform that Christian office any where for fifty
cents. This white-faced, black-hearted brother came near us, and said to the
stricken woman, “Sister, can’t you tell us how the Lord deals with your
soul? Do you love him as you did formerly?”
She rose to her feet, and said, in piteous tones, “My Lord and Master,
help me! My load is more than I can bear. God has hid himself from me,
and I am left in darkness and misery.” Then, striking her breast, she
continued, “I can’t tell you what is in here! They’ve got all my children.
Last week they took the last one. God only knows where they’ve sold her.
They let me have her sixteen years, and then— O! O! Pray for her brothers
and sisters! I’ve got nothing to live for now. God make my time short!”
She sat down, quivering in every limb. I saw that constable class leader
become crimson in the face with suppressed laughter, while he held up his
handkerchief, that those who were weeping for the poor woman’s calamity
might not see his merriment. Then, with assumed gravity, he said to the
bereaved mother, “Sister, pray to the Lord that every dispensation of his
divine will may be sanctified to the good of your poor needy soul!”

The congregation struck up a hymn, and sung as though they were as free
as the birds that warbled round us,—

“Ole Satan thought he had a mighty aim;
He missed my soul, and caught my sins.
Cry Amen, cry Amen, cry Amen to God!
“He took my sins upon his back;
Went muttering and grumbling down to hell.
Cry Amen, cry Amen, cry Amen to God!
“Ole Satan’s church is here below.
Up to God’s free church I hope to go.
Cry Amen, cry Amen, cry Amen to God!”

Precious are such moments to the poor slaves. If you were to hear them at
such times, you might think they were happy. But can that hour of singing
and shouting sustain them through the dreary week, toiling without wages,
under constant dread of the lash?
The Episcopal clergyman, who, ever since my earliest recollection, had
been a sort of god among the slaveholders, concluded, as his family was
large, that he must go where money was more abundant. A very different
clergyman took his place. The change was very agreeable to the colored
people, who said, “God has sent us a good man this time.” They loved him,
and their children followed him for a smile or a kind word. Even the
slaveholders felt his influence. He brought to the rectory five slaves. His
wife taught them to read and write, and to be useful to her and themselves.
As soon as he was settled, he turned his attention to the needy slaves around
him. He urged upon his parishioners the duty of having a meeting expressly
for them every Sunday, with a sermon adapted to their comprehension.
After much argument and importunity, it was finally agreed that they might
occupy the gallery of the church on Sunday evenings. Many colored people,
hitherto unaccustomed to attend church, now gladly went to hear the gospel
preached. The sermons were simple, and they understood them. Moreover,
it was the first time they had ever been addressed as human beings. It was
not long before his white parishioners began to be dissatisfied. He was
accused of preaching better sermons to the negroes than he did to them. He

honestly confessed that he bestowed more pains upon those sermons than
upon any others; for the slaves were reared in such ignorance that it was a
difficult task to adapt himself to their comprehension. Dissensions arose in
the parish. Some wanted he should preach to them in the evening, and to the
slaves in the afternoon. In the midst of these disputings his wife died, after a
very short illness. Her slaves gathered round her dying bed in great sorrow.
She said, “I have tried to do you good and promote your happiness; and if I
have failed, it has not been for want of interest in your welfare. Do not
weep for me; but prepare for the new duties that lie before you. I leave you
all free. May we meet in a better world.” Her liberated slaves were sent
away, with funds to establish them comfortably. The colored people will
long bless the memory of that truly Christian woman. Soon after her death
her husband preached his farewell sermon, and many tears were shed at his
departure.
Several years after, he passed through our town and preached to his
former congregation. In his afternoon sermon he addressed the colored
people. “My friends,” said he, “it affords me great happiness to have an
opportunity of speaking to you again. For two years I have been striving to
do something for the colored people of my own parish; but nothing is yet
accomplished. I have not even preached a sermon to them. Try to live
according to the word of God, my friends. Your skin is darker than mine;
but God judges men by their hearts, not by the color of their skins.” This
was strange doctrine from a southern pulpit. It was very offensive to
slaveholders. They said he and his wife had made fools of their slaves, and
that he preached like a fool to the negroes.
I knew an old black man, whose piety and childlike trust in God were
beautiful to witness. At fifty-three years old he joined the Baptist church.
He had a most earnest desire to learn to read. He thought he should know
how to serve God better if he could only read the Bible. He came to me, and
begged me to teach him. He said he could not pay me, for he had no money;
but he would bring me nice fruit when the season for it came. I asked him if
he didn’t know it was contrary to law; and that slaves were whipped and
imprisoned for teaching each other to read. This brought the tears into his
eyes. “Don’t be troubled, uncle Fred,” said I. “I have no thoughts of
refusing to teach you. I only told you of the law, that you might know the
danger, and be on your guard.” He thought he could plan to come three

times a week without its being suspected. I selected a quiet nook, where no
intruder was likely to penetrate, and there I taught him his A, B, C.
Considering his age, his progress was astonishing. As soon as he could spell
in two syllables he wanted to spell out words in the Bible. The happy smile
that illuminated his face put joy into my heart. After spelling out a few
words, he paused, and said, “Honey, it ’pears when I can read dis good
book I shall be nearer to God. White man is got all de sense. He can larn
easy. It ain’t easy for ole black man like me. I only wants to read dis book,
dat I may know how to live; den I hab no fear ’bout dying.”
I tried to encourage him by speaking of the rapid progress he had made.
“Hab patience, child,” he replied. “I larns slow.”
I had no need of patience. His gratitude, and the happiness I imparted,
were more than a recompense for all my trouble.
At the end of six months he had read through the New Testament, and
could find any text in it. One day, when he had recited unusually well, I
said, “Uncle Fred, how do you manage to get your lessons so well?”
“Lord bress you, chile,” he replied. “You nebber gibs me a lesson dat I
don’t pray to God to help me to understan’ what I spells and what I reads.
And he does help me, chile. Bress his holy name!”
There are thousands, who, like good uncle Fred, are thirsting for the
water of life; but the law forbids it, and the churches withhold it. They send
the Bible to heathen abroad, and neglect the heathen at home. I am glad that
missionaries go out to the dark corners of the earth; but I ask them not to
overlook the dark corners at home. Talk to American slaveholders as you
talk to savages in Africa. Tell them it is wrong to traffic in men. Tell them it
is sinful to sell their own children, and atrocious to violate their own
daughters. Tell them that all men are brethren, and that man has no right to
shut out the light of knowledge from his brother. Tell them they are
answerable to God for sealing up the Fountain of Life from souls that are
thirsting for it.
There are men who would gladly undertake such missionary work as this;
but, alas! their number is small. They are hated by the south, and would be
driven from its soil, or dragged to prison to die, as others have been before

them. The field is ripe for the harvest, and awaits the reapers. Perhaps the
great grandchildren of uncle Fred may have freely imparted to them the
divine treasures, which he sought by stealth, at the risk of the prison and the
scourge.
Are doctors of divinity blind, or are they hypocrites? I suppose some are
the one, and some the other; but I think if they felt the interest in the poor
and the lowly, that they ought to feel, they would not be so easily blinded. A
clergyman who goes to the south, for the first time, has usually some
feeling, however vague, that slavery is wrong. The slaveholder suspects
this, and plays his game accordingly. He makes himself as agreeable as
possible; talks on theology, and other kindred topics. The reverend
gentleman is asked to invoke a blessing on a table loaded with luxuries.
After dinner he walks round the premises, and sees the beautiful groves and
flowering vines, and the comfortable huts of favored household slaves. The
southerner invites him to talk with these slaves. He asks them if they want
to be free, and they say, “O, no, massa.” This is sufficient to satisfy him. He
comes home to publish a “South-Side View of Slavery,” and to complain of
the exaggerations of abolitionists. He assures people that he has been to the
south, and seen slavery for himself; that it is a beautiful “patriarchal
institution;” that the slaves don’t want their freedom; that they have
hallelujah meetings, and other religious privileges.
What does he know of the half-starved wretches toiling from dawn till
dark on the plantations? of mothers shrieking for their children, torn from
their arms by slave traders? of young girls dragged down into moral filth?
of pools of blood around the whipping post? of hounds trained to tear
human flesh? of men screwed into cotton gins to die? The slaveholder
showed him none of these things, and the slaves dared not tell of them if he
had asked them.
There is a great difference between Christianity and religion at the south.
If a man goes to the communion table, and pays money into the treasury of
the church, no matter if it be the price of blood, he is called religious. If a
pastor has offspring by a woman not his wife, the church dismiss him, if she
is a white woman; but if she is colored, it does not hinder his continuing to
be their good shepherd.

When I was told that Dr. Flint had joined the Episcopal church, I was
much surprised. I supposed that religion had a purifying effect on the
character of men; but the worst persecutions I endured from him were after
he was a communicant. The conversation of the doctor, the day after he had
been confirmed, certainly gave me no indication that he had “renounced the
devil and all his works.” In answer to some of his usual talk, I reminded
him that he had just joined the church. “Yes, Linda,” said he. “It was proper
for me to do so. I am getting in years, and my position in society requires it,
and it puts an end to all the damned slang. You would do well to join the
church, too, Linda.”
“There are sinners enough in it already,” rejoined I. “If I could be
allowed to live like a Christian, I should be glad.”
“You can do what I require; and if you are faithful to me, you will be as
virtuous as my wife,” he replied.
I answered that the Bible didn’t say so.
His voice became hoarse with rage. “How dare you preach to me about
your infernal Bible!” he exclaimed. “What right have you, who are my
negro, to talk to me about what you would like, and what you wouldn’t
like? I am your master, and you shall obey me.”
No wonder the slaves sing,—

“Ole Satan’s church is here below;
Up to God’s free church I hope to go.”

XIV. Another Link To Life.
I had not returned to my master’s house since the birth of my child. The
old man raved to have me thus removed from his immediate power; but his
wife vowed, by all that was good and great, she would kill me if I came
back; and he did not doubt her word. Sometimes he would stay away for a
season. Then he would come and renew the old threadbare discourse about
his forbearance and my ingratitude. He labored, most unnecessarily, to
convince me that I had lowered myself. The venomous old reprobate had no
need of descanting on that theme. I felt humiliated enough. My unconscious
babe was the ever-present witness of my shame. I listened with silent
contempt when he talked about my having forfeited his good opinion; but I
shed bitter tears that I was no longer worthy of being respected by the good
and pure. Alas! slavery still held me in its poisonous grasp. There was no
chance for me to be respectable. There was no prospect of being able to
lead a better life.
Sometimes, when my master found that I still refused to accept what he
called his kind offers, he would threaten to sell my child. “Perhaps that will
humble you,” said he.
Humble me! Was I not already in the dust? But his threat lacerated my
heart. I knew the law gave him power to fulfil it; for slaveholders have been
cunning enough to enact that “the child shall follow the condition of the
mother,” not of the father; thus taking care that licentiousness shall not
interfere with avarice. This reflection made me clasp my innocent babe all
the more firmly to my heart. Horrid visions passed through my mind when I
thought of his liability to fall into the slave trader’s hands. I wept over him,
and said, “O my child! perhaps they will leave you in some cold cabin to
die, and then throw you into a hole, as if you were a dog.”
When Dr. Flint learned that I was again to be a mother, he was
exasperated beyond measure. He rushed from the house, and returned with
a pair of shears. I had a fine head of hair; and he often railed about my pride
of arranging it nicely. He cut every hair close to my head, storming and

swearing all the time. I replied to some of his abuse, and he struck me.
Some months before, he had pitched me down stairs in a fit of passion; and
the injury I received was so serious that I was unable to turn myself in bed
for many days. He then said, “Linda, I swear by God I will never raise my
hand against you again;” but I knew that he would forget his promise.
After he discovered my situation, he was like a restless spirit from the pit.
He came every day; and I was subjected to such insults as no pen can
describe. I would not describe them if I could; they were too low, too
revolting. I tried to keep them from my grandmother’s knowledge as much
as I could. I knew she had enough to sadden her life, without having my
troubles to bear. When she saw the doctor treat me with violence, and heard
him utter oaths terrible enough to palsy a man’s tongue, she could not
always hold her peace. It was natural and motherlike that she should try to
defend me; but it only made matters worse.
When they told me my new-born babe was a girl, my heart was heavier
than it had ever been before. Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more
terrible for women. Superadded to the burden common to all, they have
wrongs, and sufferings, and mortifications peculiarly their own.
Dr. Flint had sworn that he would make me suffer, to my last day, for this
new crime against him, as he called it; and as long as he had me in his
power he kept his word. On the fourth day after the birth of my babe, he
entered my room suddenly, and commanded me to rise and bring my baby
to him. The nurse who took care of me had gone out of the room to prepare
some nourishment, and I was alone. There was no alternative. I rose, took
up my babe, and crossed the room to where he sat. “Now stand there,” said
he, “till I tell you to go back!” My child bore a strong resemblance to her
father, and to the deceased Mrs. Sands, her grandmother. He noticed this;
and while I stood before him, trembling with weakness, he heaped upon me
and my little one every vile epithet he could think of. Even the grandmother
in her grave did not escape his curses. In the midst of his vituperations I
fainted at his feet. This recalled him to his senses. He took the baby from
my arms, laid it on the bed, dashed cold water in my face, took me up, and
shook me violently, to restore my consciousness before any one entered the
room. Just then my grandmother came in, and he hurried out of the house. I
suffered in consequence of this treatment; but I begged my friends to let me

die, rather than send for the doctor. There was nothing I dreaded so much as
his presence. My life was spared; and I was glad for the sake of my little
ones. Had it not been for these ties to life, I should have been glad to be
released by death, though I had lived only nineteen years.
Always it gave me a pang that my children had no lawful claim to a
name. Their father offered his; but, if I had wished to accept the offer, I
dared not while my master lived. Moreover, I knew it would not be
accepted at their baptism. A Christian name they were at least entitled to;
and we resolved to call my boy for our dear good Benjamin, who had gone
far away from us.
My grandmother belonged to the church; and she was very desirous of
having the children christened. I knew Dr. Flint would forbid it, and I did
not venture to attempt it. But chance favored me. He was called to visit a
patient out of town, and was obliged to be absent during Sunday. “Now is
the time,” said my grandmother; “we will take the children to church, and
have them christened.”
When I entered the church, recollections of my mother came over me,
and I felt subdued in spirit. There she had presented me for baptism,
without any reason to feel ashamed. She had been married, and had such
legal rights as slavery allows to a slave. The vows had at least been sacred
to her, and she had never violated them. I was glad she was not alive, to
know under what different circumstances her grandchildren were presented
for baptism. Why had my lot been so different from my mother’s? Her
master had died when she was a child; and she remained with her mistress
till she married. She was never in the power of any master; and thus she
escaped one class of the evils that generally fall upon slaves.
When my baby was about to be christened, the former mistress of my
father stepped up to me, and proposed to give it her Christian name. To this
I added the surname of my father, who had himself no legal right to it; for
my grandfather on the paternal side was a white gentleman. What tangled
skeins are the genealogies of slavery! I loved my father; but it mortified me
to be obliged to bestow his name on my children.
When we left the church, my father’s old mistress invited me to go home
with her. She clasped a gold chain round my baby’s neck. I thanked her for

this kindness; but I did not like the emblem. I wanted no chain to be
fastened on my daughter, not even if its links were of gold. How earnestly I
prayed that she might never feel the weight of slavery’s chain, whose iron
entereth into the soul!

XV. Continued Persecutions.
My children grew finely; and Dr. Flint would often say to me, with an
exulting smile. “These brats will bring me a handsome sum of money one
of these days.”
I thought to myself that, God being my helper, they should never pass
into his hands. It seemed to me I would rather see them killed than have
them given up to his power. The money for the freedom of myself and my
children could be obtained; but I derived no advantage from that
circumstance. Dr. Flint loved money, but he loved power more. After much
discussion, my friends resolved on making another trial. There was a
slaveholder about to leave for Texas, and he was commissioned to buy me.
He was to begin with nine hundred dollars, and go up to twelve. My master
refused his offers. “Sir,” said he, “she don’t belong to me. She is my
daughter’s property, and I have no right to sell her. I mistrust that you come
from her paramour. If so, you may tell him that he cannot buy her for any
money; neither can he buy her children.”
The doctor came to see me the next day, and my heart beat quicker as he
entered. I never had seen the old man tread with so majestic a step. He
seated himself and looked at me with withering scorn. My children had
learned to be afraid of him. The little one would shut her eyes and hide her
face on my shoulder whenever she saw him; and Benny, who was now
nearly five years old, often inquired, “What makes that bad man come here
so many times? Does he want to hurt us?” I would clasp the dear boy in my
arms, trusting that he would be free before he was old enough to solve the
problem. And now, as the doctor sat there so grim and silent, the child left
his play and came and nestled up by me. At last my tormentor spoke. “So
you are left in disgust, are you?” said he. “It is no more than I expected.
You remember I told you years ago that you would be treated so. So he is
tired of you? Ha! ha! ha! The virtuous madam don’t like to hear about it,
does she? Ha! ha! ha!” There was a sting in his calling me virtuous madam.
I no longer had the power of answering him as I had formerly done. He
continued: “So it seems you are trying to get up another intrigue. Your new

paramour came to me, and offered to buy you; but you may be assured you
will not succeed. You are mine; and you shall be mine for life. There lives
no human being that can take you out of slavery. I would have done it; but
you rejected my kind offer.”
I told him I did not wish to get up any intrigue; that I had never seen the
man who offered to buy me.
“Do you tell me I lie?” exclaimed he, dragging me from my chair. “Will
you say again that you never saw that man?”
I answered, “I do say so.”
He clinched my arm with a volley of oaths. Ben began to scream, and I
told him to go to his grandmother.
“Don’t you stir a step, you little wretch!” said he. The child drew nearer
to me, and put his arms round me, as if he wanted to protect me. This was
too much for my enraged master. He caught him up and hurled him across
the room. I thought he was dead, and rushed towards him to take him up.
“Not yet!” exclaimed the doctor. “Let him lie there till he comes to.”
“Let me go! Let me go!” I screamed, “or I will raise the whole house.” I
struggled and got away; but he clinched me again. Somebody opened the
door, and he released me. I picked up my insensible child, and when I
turned my tormentor was gone. Anxiously, I bent over the little form, so
pale and still; and when the brown eyes at last opened, I don’t know
whether I was very happy.
All the doctor’s former persecutions were renewed. He came morning,
noon, and night. No jealous lover ever watched a rival more closely than he
watched me and the unknown slaveholder, with whom he accused me of
wishing to get up an intrigue. When my grandmother was out of the way he
searched every room to find him.
In one of his visits, he happened to find a young girl, whom he had sold
to a trader a few days previous. His statement was, that he sold her because
she had been too familiar with the overseer. She had had a bitter life with
him, and was glad to be sold. She had no mother, and no near ties. She had

been torn from all her family years before. A few friends had entered into
bonds for her safety, if the trader would allow her to spend with them the
time that intervened between her sale and the gathering up of his human
stock. Such a favor was rarely granted. It saved the trader the expense of
board and jail fees, and though the amount was small, it was a weighty
consideration in a slave-trader’s mind.
Dr. Flint always had an aversion to meeting slaves after he had sold them.
He ordered Rose out of the house; but he was no longer her master, and she
took no notice of him. For once the crushed Rose was the conqueror. His
gray eyes flashed angrily upon her; but that was the extent of his power.
“How came this girl here?” he exclaimed. “What right had you to allow it,
when you knew I had sold her?”
I answered, “This is my grandmother’s house, and Rose came to see her.
I have no right to turn any body out of doors, that comes here for honest
purposes.”
He gave me the blow that would have fallen upon Rose if she had still
been his slave. My grandmother’s attention had been attracted by loud
voices, and she entered in time to see a second blow dealt. She was not a
woman to let such an outrage, in her own house, go unrebuked. The doctor
undertook to explain that I had been insolent. Her indignant feelings rose
higher and higher, and finally boiled over in words. “Get out of my house!”
she exclaimed. “Go home, and take care of your wife and children, and you
will have enough to do, without watching my family.”
He threw the birth of my children in her face, and accused her of
sanctioning the life I was leading. She told him I was living with her by
compulsion of his wife; that he needn’t accuse her, for he was the one to
blame; he was the one who had caused all the trouble. She grew more and
more excited as she went on. “I tell you what, Dr. Flint,” said she, “you
ain’t got many more years to live, and you’d better be saying your prayers.
It will take ’em all, and more too, to wash the dirt off your soul.”
“Do you know whom you are talking to?” he exclaimed.
She replied, “Yes, I know very well who I am talking to.”

He left the house in a great rage. I looked at my grandmother. Our eyes
met. Their angry expression had passed away, but she looked sorrowful and
weary—weary of incessant strife. I wondered that it did not lessen her love
for me; but if it did she never showed it. She was always kind, always ready
to sympathize with my troubles. There might have been peace and
contentment in that humble home if it had not been for the demon Slavery.
The winter passed undisturbed by the doctor. The beautiful spring came;
and when Nature resumes her loveliness, the human soul is apt to revive
also. My drooping hopes came to life again with the flowers. I was
dreaming of freedom again; more for my children’s sake than my own. I
planned and I planned. Obstacles hit against plans. There seemed no way of
overcoming them; and yet I hoped.
Back came the wily doctor. I was not at home when he called. A friend
had invited me to a small party, and to gratify her I went. To my great
consternation, a messenger came in haste to say that Dr. Flint was at my
grandmother’s, and insisted on seeing me. They did not tell him where I
was, or he would have come and raised a disturbance in my friend’s house.
They sent me a dark wrapper; I threw it on and hurried home. My speed did
not save me; the doctor had gone away in anger. I dreaded the morning, but
I could not delay it; it came, warm and bright. At an early hour the doctor
came and asked me where I had been last night. I told him. He did not
believe me, and sent to my friend’s house to ascertain the facts. He came in
the afternoon to assure me he was satisfied that I had spoken the truth. He
seemed to be in a facetious mood, and I expected some jeers were coming.
“I suppose you need some recreation,” said he, “but I am surprised at your
being there, among those negroes. It was not the place for you. Are you
allowed to visit such people?”
I understood this covert fling at the white gentleman who was my friend;
but I merely replied, “I went to visit my friends, and any company they
keep is good enough for me.”
He went on to say, “I have seen very little of you of late, but my interest
in you is unchanged. When I said I would have no more mercy on you I was
rash. I recall my words. Linda, you desire freedom for yourself and your
children, and you can obtain it only through me. If you agree to what I am

about to propose, you and they shall be free. There must be no
communication of any kind between you and their father. I will procure a
cottage, where you and the children can live together. Your labor shall be
light, such as sewing for my family. Think what is offered you, Linda—a
home and freedom! Let the past be forgotten. If I have been harsh with you
at times, your wilfulness drove me to it. You know I exact obedience from
my own children, and I consider you as yet a child.”
He paused for an answer, but I remained silent.
“Why don’t you speak?” said he. “What more do you wait for?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Then you accept my offer?”
“No, sir.”
His anger was ready to break loose; but he succeeded in curbing it, and
replied, “You have answered without thought. But I must let you know
there are two sides to my proposition; if you reject the bright side, you will
be obliged to take the dark one. You must either accept my offer, or you and
your children shall be sent to your young master’s plantation, there to
remain till your young mistress is married; and your children shall fare like
the rest of the negro children. I give you a week to consider of it.”
He was shrewd; but I knew he was not to be trusted. I told him I was
ready to give my answer now.
“I will not receive it now,” he replied. “You act too much from impulse.
Remember that you and your children can be free a week from to-day if you
choose.”
On what a monstrous chance hung the destiny of my children! I knew
that my master’s offer was a snare, and that if I entered it escape would be
impossible. As for his promise, I knew him so well that I was sure if he
gave me free papers, they would be so managed as to have no legal value.
The alternative was inevitable. I resolved to go to the plantation. But then I
thought how completely I should be in his power, and the prospect was
appalling. Even if I should kneel before him, and implore him to spare me,

for the sake of my children, I knew he would spurn me with his foot, and
my weakness would be his triumph.
Before the week expired, I heard that young Mr. Flint was about to be
married to a lady of his own stamp. I foresaw the position I should occupy
in his establishment. I had once been sent to the plantation for punishment,
and fear of the son had induced the father to recall me very soon. My mind
was made up; I was resolved that I would foil my master and save my
children, or I would perish in the attempt. I kept my plans to myself; I knew
that friends would try to dissuade me from them, and I would not wound
their feelings by rejecting their advice.
On the decisive day the doctor came, and said he hoped I had made a
wise choice.
“I am ready to go to the plantation, sir,” I replied.
“Have you thought how important your decision is to your children?”
said he.
I told him I had.
“Very well. Go to the plantation, and my curse go with you,” he replied.
“Your boy shall be put to work, and he shall soon be sold; and your girl
shall be raised for the purpose of selling well. Go your own ways!” He left
the room with curses, not to be repeated.
As I stood rooted to the spot, my grandmother came and said, “Linda,
child, what did you tell him?”
I answered that I was going to the plantation.
“Must you go?” said she. “Can’t something be done to stop it?”
I told her it was useless to try; but she begged me not to give up. She said
she would go to the doctor, and remind him how long and how faithfully
she had served in the family, and how she had taken her own baby from her
breast to nourish his wife. She would tell him I had been out of the family
so long they would not miss me; that she would pay them for my time, and
the money would procure a woman who had more strength for the situation
than I had. I begged her not to go; but she persisted in saying, “He will

listen to me, Linda.” She went, and was treated as I expected. He coolly
listened to what she said, but denied her request. He told her that what he
did was for my good, that my feelings were entirely above my situation, and
that on the plantation I would receive treatment that was suitable to my
behavior.
My grandmother was much cast down. I had my secret hopes; but I must
fight my battle alone. I had a woman’s pride, and a mother’s love for my
children; and I resolved that out of the darkness of this hour a brighter dawn
should rise for them. My master had power and law on his side; I had a
determined will. There is might in each.

XVI. Scenes At The Plantation.
Early the next morning I left my grandmother’s with my youngest child.
My boy was ill, and I left him behind. I had many sad thoughts as the old
wagon jolted on. Hitherto, I had suffered alone; now, my little one was to be
treated as a slave. As we drew near the great house, I thought of the time
when I was formerly sent there out of revenge. I wondered for what purpose
I was now sent. I could not tell. I resolved to obey orders so far as duty
required; but within myself, I determined to make my stay as short as
possible. Mr. Flint was waiting to receive us, and told me to follow him up
stairs to receive orders for the day. My little Ellen was left below in the
kitchen. It was a change for her, who had always been so carefully tended.
My young master said she might amuse herself in the yard. This was kind
of him, since the child was hateful to his sight. My task was to fit up the
house for the reception of the bride. In the midst of sheets, tablecloths,
towels, drapery, and carpeting, my head was as busy planning, as were my
fingers with the needle. At noon I was allowed to go to Ellen. She had
sobbed herself to sleep. I heard Mr. Flint say to a neighbor, “I’ve got her
down here, and I’ll soon take the town notions out of her head. My father is
partly to blame for her nonsense. He ought to have broke her in long ago.”
The remark was made within my hearing, and it would have been quite as
manly to have made it to my face. He had said things to my face which
might, or might not, have surprised his neighbor if he had known of them.
He was “a chip of the old block.”
I resolved to give him no cause to accuse me of being too much of a lady,
so far as work was concerned. I worked day and night, with wretchedness
before me. When I lay down beside my child, I felt how much easier it
would be to see her die than to see her master beat her about, as I daily saw
him beat other little ones. The spirit of the mothers was so crushed by the
lash, that they stood by, without courage to remonstrate. How much more
must I suffer, before I should be “broke in” to that degree?
I wished to appear as contented as possible. Sometimes I had an
opportunity to send a few lines home; and this brought up recollections that

made it difficult, for a time, to seem calm and indifferent to my lot.
Notwithstanding my efforts, I saw that Mr. Flint regarded me with a
suspicious eye. Ellen broke down under the trials of her new life. Separated
from me, with no one to look after her, she wandered about, and in a few
days cried herself sick. One day, she sat under the window where I was at
work, crying that weary cry which makes a mother’s heart bleed. I was
obliged to steel myself to bear it. After a while it ceased. I looked out, and
she was gone. As it was near noon, I ventured to go down in search of her.
The great house was raised two feet above the ground. I looked under it,
and saw her about midway, fast asleep. I crept under and drew her out. As I
held her in my arms, I thought how well it would be for her if she never
waked up; and I uttered my thought aloud. I was startled to hear some one
say, “Did you speak to me?” I looked up, and saw Mr. Flint standing beside
me. He said nothing further, but turned, frowning, away. That night he sent
Ellen a biscuit and a cup of sweetened milk. This generosity surprised me. I
learned afterwards, that in the afternoon he had killed a large snake, which
crept from under the house; and I supposed that incident had prompted his
unusual kindness.
The next morning the old cart was loaded with shingles for town. I put
Ellen into it, and sent her to her grandmother. Mr. Flint said I ought to have
asked his permission. I told him the child was sick, and required attention
which I had no time to give. He let it pass; for he was aware that I had
accomplished much work in a little time.
I had been three weeks on the plantation, when I planned a visit home. It
must be at night, after every body was in bed. I was six miles from town,
and the road was very dreary. I was to go with a young man, who, I knew,
often stole to town to see his mother. One night, when all was quiet, we
started. Fear gave speed to our steps, and we were not long in performing
the journey. I arrived at my grandmother’s. Her bed room was on the first
floor, and the window was open, the weather being warm. I spoke to her
and she awoke. She let me in and closed the window, lest some late passer-
by should see me. A light was brought, and the whole household gathered
round me, some smiling and some crying. I went to look at my children,
and thanked God for their happy sleep. The tears fell as I leaned over them.
As I moved to leave, Benny stirred. I turned back, and whispered, “Mother
is here.” After digging at his eyes with his little fist, they opened, and he sat

up in bed, looking at me curiously. Having satisfied himself that it was I, he
exclaimed, “O mother! you ain’t dead, are you? They didn’t cut off your
head at the plantation, did they?”
My time was up too soon, and my guide was waiting for me. I laid Benny
back in his bed, and dried his tears by a promise to come again soon.
Rapidly we retraced our steps back to the plantation. About half way we
were met by a company of four patrols. Luckily we heard their horse’s
hoofs before they came in sight, and we had time to hide behind a large
tree. They passed, hallooing and shouting in a manner that indicated a
recent carousal. How thankful we were that they had not their dogs with
them! We hastened our footsteps, and when we arrived on the plantation we
heard the sound of the hand-mill. The slaves were grinding their corn. We
were safely in the house before the horn summoned them to their labor. I
divided my little parcel of food with my guide, knowing that he had lost the
chance of grinding his corn, and must toil all day in the field.
Mr. Flint often took an inspection of the house, to see that no one was
idle. The entire management of the work was trusted to me, because he
knew nothing about it; and rather than hire a superintendent he contented
himself with my arrangements. He had often urged upon his father the
necessity of having me at the plantation to take charge of his affairs, and
make clothes for the slaves; but the old man knew him too well to consent
to that arrangement.
When I had been working a month at the plantation, the great aunt of Mr.
Flint came to make him a visit. This was the good old lady who paid fifty
dollars for my grandmother, for the purpose of making her free, when she
stood on the auction block. My grandmother loved this old lady, whom we
all called Miss Fanny. She often came to take tea with us. On such
occasions the table was spread with a snow-white cloth, and the china cups
and silver spoons were taken from the old-fashioned buffet. There were hot
muffins, tea rusks, and delicious sweetmeats. My grandmother kept two
cows, and the fresh cream was Miss Fanny’s delight. She invariably
declared that it was the best in town. The old ladies had cosey times
together. They would work and chat, and sometimes, while talking over old
times, their spectacles would get dim with tears, and would have to be taken

off and wiped. When Miss Fanny bade us good by, her bag was filled with
grandmother’s best cakes, and she was urged to come again soon.
There had been a time when Dr. Flint’s wife came to take tea with us, and
when her children were also sent to have a feast of “Aunt Marthy’s” nice
cooking. But after I became an object of her jealousy and spite, she was
angry with grandmother for giving a shelter to me and my children. She
would not even speak to her in the street. This wounded my grandmother’s
feelings, for she could not retain ill will against the woman whom she had
nourished with her milk when a babe. The doctor’s wife would gladly have
prevented our intercourse with Miss Fanny if she could have done it, but
fortunately she was not dependent on the bounty of the Flints. She had
enough to be independent; and that is more than can ever be gained from
charity, however lavish it may be.
Miss Fanny was endeared to me by many recollections, and I was
rejoiced to see her at the plantation. The warmth of her large, loyal heart
made the house seem pleasanter while she was in it. She staid a week, and I
had many talks with her. She said her principal object in coming was to see
how I was treated, and whether any thing could be done for me. She
inquired whether she could help me in any way. I told her I believed not.
She condoled with me in her own peculiar way; saying she wished that I
and all my grandmother’s family were at rest in our graves, for not until
then should she feel any peace about us. The good old soul did not dream
that I was planning to bestow peace upon her, with regard to myself and my
children; not by death, but by securing our freedom.
Again and again I had traversed those dreary twelve miles, to and from
the town; and all the way, I was meditating upon some means of escape for
myself and my children. My friends had made every effort that ingenuity
could devise to effect our purchase, but all their plans had proved abortive.
Dr. Flint was suspicious, and determined not to loosen his grasp upon us. I
could have made my escape alone; but it was more for my helpless children
than for myself that I longed for freedom. Though the boon would have
been precious to me, above all price, I would not have taken it at the
expense of leaving them in slavery. Every trial I endured, every sacrifice I
made for their sakes, drew them closer to my heart, and gave me fresh

courage to beat back the dark waves that rolled and rolled over me in a
seemingly endless night of storms.
The six weeks were nearly completed, when Mr. Flint’s bride was
expected to take possession of her new home. The arrangements were all
completed, and Mr. Flint said I had done well. He expected to leave home
on Saturday, and return with his bride the following Wednesday. After
receiving various orders from him, I ventured to ask permission to spend
Sunday in town. It was granted; for which favor I was thankful. It was the
first I had ever asked of him, and I intended it should be the last. It needed
more than one night to accomplish the project I had in view; but the whole
of Sunday would give me an opportunity. I spent the Sabbath with my
grandmother. A calmer, more beautiful day never came down out of heaven.
To me it was a day of conflicting emotions. Perhaps it was the last day I
should ever spend under that dear, old sheltering roof! Perhaps these were
the last talks I should ever have with the faithful old friend of my whole
life! Perhaps it was the last time I and my children should be together! Well,
better so, I thought, than that they should be slaves. I knew the doom that
awaited my fair baby in slavery, and I determined to save her from it, or
perish in the attempt. I went to make this vow at the graves of my poor
parents, in the burying-ground of the slaves. “There the wicked cease from
troubling, and there the weary be at rest. There the prisoners rest together;
they hear not the voice of the oppressor; the servant is free from his
master.” I knelt by the graves of my parents, and thanked God, as I had
often done before, that they had not lived to witness my trials, or to mourn
over my sins. I had received my mother’s blessing when she died; and in
many an hour of tribulation I had seemed to hear her voice, sometimes
chiding me, sometimes whispering loving words into my wounded heart. I
have shed many and bitter tears, to think that when I am gone from my
children they cannot remember me with such entire satisfaction as I
remembered my mother.
The graveyard was in the woods, and twilight was coming on. Nothing
broke the death-like stillness except the occasional twitter of a bird. My
spirit was overawed by the solemnity of the scene. For more than ten years I
had frequented this spot, but never had it seemed to me so sacred as now. A
black stump, at the head of my mother’s grave, was all that remained of a
tree my father had planted. His grave was marked by a small wooden board,

bearing his name, the letters of which were nearly obliterated. I knelt down
and kissed them, and poured forth a prayer to God for guidance and support
in the perilous step I was about to take. As I passed the wreck of the old
meeting house, where, before Nat Turner’s time, the slaves had been
allowed to meet for worship, I seemed to hear my father’s voice come from
it, bidding me not to tarry till I reached freedom or the grave. I rushed on
with renovated hopes. My trust in God had been strengthened by that prayer
among the graves.
My plan was to conceal myself at the house of a friend, and remain there
a few weeks till the search was over. My hope was that the doctor would get
discouraged, and, for fear of losing my value, and also of subsequently
finding my children among the missing, he would consent to sell us; and I
knew somebody would buy us. I had done all in my power to make my
children comfortable during the time I expected to be separated from them.
I was packing my things, when grandmother came into the room, and asked
what I was doing. “I am putting my things in order,” I replied. I tried to
look and speak cheerfully; but her watchful eye detected something beneath
the surface. She drew me towards her, and asked me to sit down. She
looked earnestly at me, and said, “Linda, do you want to kill your old
grandmother? Do you mean to leave your little, helpless children? I am old
now, and cannot do for your babies as I once did for you.”
I replied, that if I went away, perhaps their father would be able to secure
their freedom.
“Ah, my child,” said she, “don’t trust too much to him. Stand by your
own children, and suffer with them till death. Nobody respects a mother
who forsakes her children; and if you leave them, you will never have a
happy moment. If you go, you will make me miserable the short time I have
to live. You would be taken and brought back, and your sufferings would be
dreadful. Remember poor Benjamin. Do give it up, Linda. Try to bear a
little longer. Things may turn out better than we expect.”
My courage failed me, in view of the sorrow I should bring on that
faithful, loving old heart. I promised that I would try longer, and that I
would take nothing out of her house without her knowledge.

Whenever the children climbed on my knee, or laid their heads on my
lap, she would say, “Poor little souls! what would you do without a mother?
She don’t love you as I do.” And she would hug them to her own bosom, as
if to reproach me for my want of affection; but she knew all the while that I
loved them better than my life. I slept with her that night, and it was the last
time. The memory of it haunted me for many a year.
On Monday I returned to the plantation, and busied myself with
preparations for the important day. Wednesday came. It was a beautiful day,
and the faces of the slaves were as bright as the sunshine. The poor
creatures were merry. They were expecting little presents from the bride,
and hoping for better times under her administration. I had no such hopes
for them. I knew that the young wives of slaveholders often thought their
authority and importance would be best established and maintained by
cruelty; and what I had heard of young Mrs. Flint gave me no reason to
expect that her rule over them would be less severe than that of the master
and overseer. Truly, the colored race are the most cheerful and forgiving
people on the face of the earth. That their masters sleep in safety is owing to
their superabundance of heart; and yet they look upon their sufferings with
less pity than they would bestow on those of a horse or a dog.
I stood at the door with others to receive the bridegroom and bride. She
was a handsome, delicate-looking girl, and her face flushed with emotion at
sight of her new home. I thought it likely that visions of a happy future
were rising before her. It made me sad; for I knew how soon clouds would
come over her sunshine. She examined every part of the house, and told me
she was delighted with the arrangements I had made. I was afraid old Mrs.
Flint had tried to prejudice her against me, and I did my best to please her.
All passed off smoothly for me until dinner time arrived. I did not mind
the embarrassment of waiting on a dinner party, for the first time in my life,
half so much as I did the meeting with Dr. Flint and his wife, who would be
among the guests. It was a mystery to me why Mrs. Flint had not made her
appearance at the plantation during all the time I was putting the house in
order. I had not met her, face to face, for five years, and I had no wish to see
her now. She was a praying woman, and, doubtless, considered my present
position a special answer to her prayers. Nothing could please her better
than to see me humbled and trampled upon. I was just where she would

have me—in the power of a hard, unprincipled master. She did not speak to
me when she took her seat at table; but her satisfied, triumphant smile,
when I handed her plate, was more eloquent than words. The old doctor was
not so quiet in his demonstrations. He ordered me here and there, and spoke
with peculiar emphasis when he said “your mistress.” I was drilled like a
disgraced soldier. When all was over, and the last key turned, I sought my
pillow, thankful that God had appointed a season of rest for the weary.
The next day my new mistress began her housekeeping. I was not exactly
appointed maid of all work; but I was to do whatever I was told. Monday
evening came. It was always a busy time. On that night the slaves received
their weekly allowance of food. Three pounds of meat, a peck of corn, and
perhaps a dozen herring were allowed to each man. Women received a
pound and a half of meat, a peck of corn, and the same number of herring.
Children over twelve years old had half the allowance of the women. The
meat was cut and weighed by the foreman of the field hands, and piled on
planks before the meat house. Then the second foreman went behind the
building, and when the first foreman called out, “Who takes this piece of
meat?” he answered by calling somebody’s name. This method was resorted
to as a means of preventing partiality in distributing the meat. The young
mistress came out to see how things were done on her plantation, and she
soon gave a specimen of her character. Among those in waiting for their
allowance was a very old slave, who had faithfully served the Flint family
through three generations. When he hobbled up to get his bit of meat, the
mistress said he was too old to have any allowance; that when niggers were
too old to work, they ought to be fed on grass. Poor old man! He suffered
much before he found rest in the grave.
My mistress and I got along very well together. At the end of a week, old
Mrs. Flint made us another visit, and was closeted a long time with her
daughter-in-law. I had my suspicions what was the subject of the
conference. The old doctor’s wife had been informed that I could leave the
plantation on one condition, and she was very desirous to keep me there. If
she had trusted me, as I deserved to be trusted by her, she would have had
no fears of my accepting that condition. When she entered her carriage to
return home, she said to young Mrs. Flint, “Don’t neglect to send for them
as quick as possible.” My heart was on the watch all the time, and I at once
concluded that she spoke of my children. The doctor came the next day, and

as I entered the room to spread the tea table, I heard him say, “Don’t wait
any longer. Send for them to-morrow.” I saw through the plan. They
thought my children’s being there would fetter me to the spot, and that it
was a good place to break us all in to abject submission to our lot as slaves.
After the doctor left, a gentleman called, who had always manifested
friendly feelings towards my grandmother and her family. Mr. Flint carried
him over the plantation to show him the results of labor performed by men
and women who were unpaid, miserably clothed, and half famished. The
cotton crop was all they thought of. It was duly admired, and the gentleman
returned with specimens to show his friends. I was ordered to carry water to
wash his hands. As I did so, he said, “Linda, how do you like your new
home?” I told him I liked it as well as I expected. He replied, “They don’t
think you are contented, and to-morrow they are going to bring your
children to be with you. I am sorry for you, Linda. I hope they will treat you
kindly.” I hurried from the room, unable to thank him. My suspicions were
correct. My children were to be brought to the plantation to be “broke in.”
To this day I feel grateful to the gentleman who gave me this timely
information. It nerved me to immediate action.

XVII. The Flight.
Mr. Flint was hard pushed for house servants, and rather than lose me he
had restrained his malice. I did my work faithfully, though not, of course,
with a willing mind. They were evidently afraid I should leave them. Mr.
Flint wished that I should sleep in the great house instead of the servants’
quarters. His wife agreed to the proposition, but said I mustn’t bring my bed
into the house, because it would scatter feathers on her carpet. I knew when
I went there that they would never think of such a thing as furnishing a bed
of any kind for me and my little one. I therefore carried my own bed, and
now I was forbidden to use it. I did as I was ordered. But now that I was
certain my children were to be put in their power, in order to give them a
stronger hold on me, I resolved to leave them that night. I remembered the
grief this step would bring upon my dear old grandmother; and nothing less
than the freedom of my children would have induced me to disregard her
advice. I went about my evening work with trembling steps. Mr. Flint twice
called from his chamber door to inquire why the house was not locked up. I
replied that I had not done my work. “You have had time enough to do it,”
said he. “Take care how you answer me!”
I shut all the windows, locked all the doors, and went up to the third
story, to wait till midnight. How long those hours seemed, and how
fervently I prayed that God would not forsake me in this hour of utmost
need! I was about to risk every thing on the throw of a die; and if I failed, O
what would become of me and my poor children? They would be made to
suffer for my fault.
At half past twelve I stole softly down stairs. I stopped on the second
floor, thinking I heard a noise. I felt my way down into the parlor, and
looked out of the window. The night was so intensely dark that I could see
nothing. I raised the window very softly and jumped out. Large drops of
rain were falling, and the darkness bewildered me. I dropped on my knees,
and breathed a short prayer to God for guidance and protection. I groped
my way to the road, and rushed towards the town with almost lightning
speed. I arrived at my grandmother’s house, but dared not see her. She

would say, “Linda, you are killing me;” and I knew that would unnerve me.
I tapped softly at the window of a room, occupied by a woman, who had
lived in the house several years. I knew she was a faithful friend, and could
be trusted with my secret. I tapped several times before she heard me. At
last she raised the window, and I whispered, “Sally, I have run away. Let me
in, quick.” She opened the door softly, and said in low tones, “For God’s
sake, don’t. Your grandmother is trying to buy you and de chillern. Mr.
Sands was here last week. He tole her he was going away on business, but
he wanted her to go ahead about buying you and de chillern, and he would
help her all he could. Don’t run away, Linda. Your grandmother is all
bowed down wid trouble now.”
I replied, “Sally, they are going to carry my children to the plantation to-
morrow; and they will never sell them to any body so long as they have me
in their power. Now, would you advise me to go back?”
“No, chile, no,” answered she. “When dey finds you is gone, dey won’t
want de plague ob de chillern; but where is you going to hide? Dey knows
ebery inch ob dis house.”
I told her I had a hiding-place, and that was all it was best for her to
know. I asked her to go into my room as soon as it was light, and take all
my clothes out of my trunk, and pack them in hers; for I knew Mr. Flint and
the constable would be there early to search my room. I feared the sight of
my children would be too much for my full heart; but I could not go out
into the uncertain future without one last look. I bent over the bed where lay
my little Benny and baby Ellen. Poor little ones! fatherless and motherless!
Memories of their father came over me. He wanted to be kind to them; but
they were not all to him, as they were to my womanly heart. I knelt and
prayed for the innocent little sleepers. I kissed them lightly, and turned
away.
As I was about to open the street door, Sally laid her hand on my
shoulder, and said, “Linda, is you gwine all alone? Let me call your uncle.”
“No, Sally,” I replied, “I want no one to be brought into trouble on my
account.”

I went forth into the darkness and rain. I ran on till I came to the house of
the friend who was to conceal me.
Early the next morning Mr. Flint was at my grandmother’s inquiring for
me. She told him she had not seen me, and supposed I was at the plantation.
He watched her face narrowly, and said, “Don’t you know any thing about
her running off?” She assured him that she did not. He went on to say, “Last
night she ran off without the least provocation. We had treated her very
kindly. My wife liked her. She will soon be found and brought back. Are her
children with you?” When told that they were, he said, “I am very glad to
hear that. If they are here, she cannot be far off. If I find out that any of my
niggers have had any thing to do with this damned business, I’ll give ’em
five hundred lashes.” As he started to go to his father’s, he turned round and
added, persuasively, “Let her be brought back, and she shall have her
children to live with her.”
The tidings made the old doctor rave and storm at a furious rate. It was a
busy day for them. My grandmother’s house was searched from top to
bottom. As my trunk was empty, they concluded I had taken my clothes
with me. Before ten o’clock every vessel northward bound was thoroughly
examined, and the law against harboring fugitives was read to all on board.
At night a watch was set over the town. Knowing how distressed my
grandmother would be, I wanted to send her a message; but it could not be
done. Every one who went in or out of her house was closely watched. The
doctor said he would take my children, unless she became responsible for
them; which of course she willingly did. The next day was spent in
searching. Before night, the following advertisement was posted at every
corner, and in every public place for miles round:—
“$300 Reward! Ran away from the subscriber, an intelligent, bright, mulatto girl, named
Linda, 21 years of age. Five feet four inches high. Dark eyes, and black hair inclined to
curl; but it can be made straight. Has a decayed spot on a front tooth. She can read and
write, and in all probability will try to get to the Free States. All persons are forbidden,
under penalty of the law, to harbor or employ said slave. $150 will be given to whoever
takes her in the state, and $300 if taken out of the state and delivered to me, or lodged in
jail.
Dr. Flint.”

XVIII. Months Of Peril.
The search for me was kept up with more perseverance than I had
anticipated. I began to think that escape was impossible. I was in great
anxiety lest I should implicate the friend who harbored me. I knew the
consequences would be frightful; and much as I dreaded being caught, even
that seemed better than causing an innocent person to suffer for kindness to
me. A week had passed in terrible suspense, when my pursuers came into
such close vicinity that I concluded they had tracked me to my hiding-place.
I flew out of the house, and concealed myself in a thicket of bushes. There I
remained in an agony of fear for two hours. Suddenly, a reptile of some
kind seized my leg. In my fright, I struck a blow which loosened its hold,
but I could not tell whether I had killed it; it was so dark, I could not see
what it was; I only knew it was something cold and slimy. The pain I felt
soon indicated that the bite was poisonous. I was compelled to leave my
place of concealment, and I groped my way back into the house. The pain
had become intense, and my friend was startled by my look of anguish. I
asked her to prepare a poultice of warm ashes and vinegar, and I applied it
to my leg, which was already much swollen. The application gave me some
relief, but the swelling did not abate. The dread of being disabled was
greater than the physical pain I endured. My friend asked an old woman,
who doctored among the slaves, what was good for the bite of a snake or a
lizard. She told her to steep a dozen coppers in vinegar, over night, and
apply the cankered vinegar to the inflamed part.1

1 The poison of a snake is a powerful acid, and is counteracted by powerful alkalies, such
as potash, ammonia, &c. The Indians are accustomed to apply wet ashes, or plunge the
limb into strong lie. White men, employed to lay out railroads in snaky places, often carry
ammonia with them as an antidote.—Editor.

I had succeeded in cautiously conveying some messages to my relatives.
They were harshly threatened, and despairing of my having a chance to
escape, they advised me to return to my master, ask his forgiveness, and let
him make an example of me. But such counsel had no influence with me.
When I started upon this hazardous undertaking, I had resolved that, come

what would, there should be no turning back. “Give me liberty, or give me
death,” was my motto. When my friend contrived to make known to my
relatives the painful situation I had been in for twenty-four hours, they said
no more about my going back to my master. Something must be done, and
that speedily; but where to turn for help, they knew not. God in his mercy
raised up “a friend in need.”
Among the ladies who were acquainted with my grandmother, was one
who had known her from childhood, and always been very friendly to her.
She had also known my mother and her children, and felt interested for
them. At this crisis of affairs she called to see my grandmother, as she not
unfrequently did. She observed the sad and troubled expression of her face,
and asked if she knew where Linda was, and whether she was safe. My
grandmother shook her head, without answering. “Come, Aunt Martha,”
said the kind lady, “tell me all about it. Perhaps I can do something to help
you.” The husband of this lady held many slaves, and bought and sold
slaves. She also held a number in her own name; but she treated them
kindly, and would never allow any of them to be sold. She was unlike the
majority of slaveholders’ wives. My grandmother looked earnestly at her.
Something in the expression of her face said “Trust me!” and she did trust
her. She listened attentively to the details of my story, and sat thinking for a
while. At last she said, “Aunt Martha, I pity you both. If you think there is
any chance of Linda’s getting to the Free States, I will conceal her for a
time. But first you must solemnly promise that my name shall never be
mentioned. If such a thing should become known, it would ruin me and my
family. No one in my house must know of it, except the cook. She is so
faithful that I would trust my own life with her; and I know she likes Linda.
It is a great risk; but I trust no harm will come of it. Get word to Linda to be
ready as soon as it is dark, before the patrols are out. I will send the
housemaids on errands, and Betty shall go to meet Linda.” The place where
we were to meet was designated and agreed upon. My grandmother was
unable to thank the lady for this noble deed; overcome by her emotions, she
sank on her knees and sobbed like a child.
I received a message to leave my friend’s house at such an hour, and go
to a certain place where a friend would be waiting for me. As a matter of
prudence no names were mentioned. I had no means of conjecturing who I
was to meet, or where I was going. I did not like to move thus blindfolded,

but I had no choice. It would not do for me to remain where I was. I
disguised myself, summoned up courage to meet the worst, and went to the
appointed place. My friend Betty was there; she was the last person I
expected to see. We hurried along in silence. The pain in my leg was so
intense that it seemed as if I should drop; but fear gave me strength. We
reached the house and entered unobserved. Her first words were: “Honey,
now you is safe. Dem devils ain’t coming to search dis house. When I get
you into missis’ safe place, I will bring some nice hot supper. I specs you
need it after all dis skeering.” Betty’s vocation led her to think eating the
most important thing in life. She did not realize that my heart was too full
for me to care much about supper.
The mistress came to meet us, and led me up stairs to a small room over
her own sleeping apartment. “You will be safe here, Linda,” said she; “I
keep this room to store away things that are out of use. The girls are not
accustomed to be sent to it, and they will not suspect any thing unless they
hear some noise. I always keep it locked, and Betty shall take care of the
key. But you must be very careful, for my sake as well as your own; and
you must never tell my secret; for it would ruin me and my family. I will
keep the girls busy in the morning, that Betty may have a chance to bring
your breakfast; but it will not do for her to come to you again till night. I
will come to see you sometimes. Keep up your courage. I hope this state of
things will not last long.” Betty came with the “nice hot supper,” and the
mistress hastened down stairs to keep things straight till she returned. How
my heart overflowed with gratitude! Words choked in my throat; but I could
have kissed the feet of my benefactress. For that deed of Christian
womanhood, may God forever bless her!
I went to sleep that night with the feeling that I was for the present the
most fortunate slave in town. Morning came and filled my little cell with
light. I thanked the heavenly Father for this safe retreat. Opposite my
window was a pile of feather beds. On the top of these I could lie perfectly
concealed, and command a view of the street through which Dr. Flint
passed to his office. Anxious as I was, I felt a gleam of satisfaction when I
saw him. Thus far I had outwitted him, and I triumphed over it. Who can
blame slaves for being cunning? They are constantly compelled to resort to
it. It is the only weapon of the weak and oppressed against the strength of
their tyrants.

I was daily hoping to hear that my master had sold my children; for I
knew who was on the watch to buy them. But Dr. Flint cared even more for
revenge than he did for money. My brother William, and the good aunt who
had served in his family twenty years, and my little Benny, and Ellen, who
was a little over two years old, were thrust into jail, as a means of
compelling my relatives to give some information about me. He swore my
grandmother should never see one of them again till I was brought back.
They kept these facts from me for several days. When I heard that my little
ones were in a loathsome jail, my first impulse was to go to them. I was
encountering dangers for the sake of freeing them, and must I be the cause
of their death? The thought was agonizing. My benefactress tried to soothe
me by telling me that my aunt would take good care of the children while
they remained in jail. But it added to my pain to think that the good old
aunt, who had always been so kind to her sister’s orphan children, should be
shut up in prison for no other crime than loving them. I suppose my friends
feared a reckless movement on my part, knowing, as they did, that my life
was bound up in my children. I received a note from my brother William. It
was scarcely legible, and ran thus: “Wherever you are, dear sister, I beg of
you not to come here. We are all much better off than you are. If you come,
you will ruin us all. They would force you to tell where you had been, or
they would kill you. Take the advice of your friends; if not for the sake of
me and your children, at least for the sake of those you would ruin.”
Poor William! He also must suffer for being my brother. I took his advice
and kept quiet. My aunt was taken out of jail at the end of a month, because
Mrs. Flint could not spare her any longer. She was tired of being her own
housekeeper. It was quite too fatiguing to order her dinner and eat it too.
My children remained in jail, where brother William did all he could for
their comfort. Betty went to see them sometimes, and brought me tidings.
She was not permitted to enter the jail; but William would hold them up to
the grated window while she chatted with them. When she repeated their
prattle, and told me how they wanted to see their ma, my tears would flow.
Old Betty would exclaim, “Lors, chile! what’s you crying ’bout? Dem
young uns vil kill you dead. Don’t be so chick’n hearted! If you does, you
vil nebber git thro’ dis world.”
Good old soul! She had gone through the world childless. She had never
had little ones to clasp their arms round her neck; she had never seen their

soft eyes looking into hers; no sweet little voices had called her mother; she
had never pressed her own infants to her heart, with the feeling that even in
fetters there was something to live for. How could she realize my feelings?
Betty’s husband loved children dearly, and wondered why God had denied
them to him. He expressed great sorrow when he came to Betty with the
tidings that Ellen had been taken out of jail and carried to Dr. Flint’s. She
had the measles a short time before they carried her to jail, and the disease
had left her eyes affected. The doctor had taken her home to attend to them.
My children had always been afraid of the doctor and his wife. They had
never been inside of their house. Poor little Ellen cried all day to be carried
back to prison. The instincts of childhood are true. She knew she was loved
in the jail. Her screams and sobs annoyed Mrs. Flint. Before night she
called one of the slaves, and said, “Here, Bill, carry this brat back to the jail.
I can’t stand her noise. If she would be quiet I should like to keep the little
minx. She would make a handy waiting-maid for my daughter by and by.
But if she staid here, with her white face, I suppose I should either kill her
or spoil her. I hope the doctor will sell them as far as wind and water can
carry them. As for their mother, her ladyship will find out yet what she gets
by running away. She hasn’t so much feeling for her children as a cow has
for its calf. If she had, she would have come back long ago, to get them out
of jail, and save all this expense and trouble. The good-for-nothing hussy!
When she is caught, she shall stay in jail, in irons, for one six months, and
then be sold to a sugar plantation. I shall see her broke in yet. What do you
stand there for, Bill? Why don’t you go off with the brat? Mind, now, that
you don’t let any of the niggers speak to her in the street!”
When these remarks were reported to me, I smiled at Mrs. Flint’s saying
that she should either kill my child or spoil her. I thought to myself there
was very little danger of the latter. I have always considered it as one of
God’s special providences that Ellen screamed till she was carried back to
jail.
That same night Dr. Flint was called to a patient, and did not return till
near morning. Passing my grandmother’s, he saw a light in the house, and
thought to himself, “Perhaps this has something to do with Linda.” He
knocked, and the door was opened. “What calls you up so early?” said he.
“I saw your light, and I thought I would just stop and tell you that I have
found out where Linda is. I know where to put my hands on her, and I shall

have her before twelve o’clock.” When he had turned away, my
grandmother and my uncle looked anxiously at each other. They did not
know whether or not it was merely one of the doctor’s tricks to frighten
them. In their uncertainty, they thought it was best to have a message
conveyed to my friend Betty. Unwilling to alarm her mistress, Betty
resolved to dispose of me herself. She came to me, and told me to rise and
dress quickly. We hurried down stairs, and across the yard, into the kitchen.
She locked the door, and lifted up a plank in the floor. A buffalo skin and a
bit of carpet were spread for me to lie on, and a quilt thrown over me. “Stay
dar,” said she, “till I sees if dey know ’bout you. Dey say dey vil put thar
hans on you afore twelve o’clock. If dey did know whar you are, dey won’t
know now. Dey’ll be disapinted dis time. Dat’s all I got to say. If dey comes
rummagin ’mong my tings, dey’ll get one bressed sarssin from dis ’ere
nigger.” In my shallow bed I had but just room enough to bring my hands to
my face to keep the dust out of my eyes; for Betty walked over me twenty
times in an hour, passing from the dresser to the fireplace. When she was
alone, I could hear her pronouncing anathemas over Dr. Flint and all his
tribe, every now and then saying, with a chuckling laugh, “Dis nigger’s too
cute for ’em dis time.” When the housemaids were about, she had sly ways
of drawing them out, that I might hear what they would say. She would
repeat stories she had heard about my being in this, or that, or the other
place. To which they would answer, that I was not fool enough to be staying
round there; that I was in Philadelphia or New York before this time. When
all were abed and asleep, Betty raised the plank, and said, “Come out, chile;
come out. Dey don’t know nottin ’bout you. ’Twas only white folks’ lies, to
skeer de niggers.”
Some days after this adventure I had a much worse fright. As I sat very
still in my retreat above stairs, cheerful visions floated through my mind. I
thought Dr. Flint would soon get discouraged, and would be willing to sell
my children, when he lost all hopes of making them the means of my
discovery. I knew who was ready to buy them. Suddenly I heard a voice
that chilled my blood. The sound was too familiar to me, it had been too
dreadful, for me not to recognize at once my old master. He was in the
house, and I at once concluded he had come to seize me. I looked round in
terror. There was no way of escape. The voice receded. I supposed the
constable was with him, and they were searching the house. In my alarm I

did not forget the trouble I was bringing on my generous benefactress. It
seemed as if I were born to bring sorrow on all who befriended me, and that
was the bitterest drop in the bitter cup of my life. After a while I heard
approaching footsteps; the key was turned in my door. I braced myself
against the wall to keep from falling. I ventured to look up, and there stood
my kind benefactress alone. I was too much overcome to speak, and sunk
down upon the floor.
“I thought you would hear your master’s voice,” she said; “and knowing
you would be terrified, I came to tell you there is nothing to fear. You may
even indulge in a laugh at the old gentleman’s expense. He is so sure you
are in New York, that he came to borrow five hundred dollars to go in
pursuit of you. My sister had some money to loan on interest. He has
obtained it, and proposes to start for New York to-night. So, for the present,
you see you are safe. The doctor will merely lighten his pocket hunting after
the bird he has left behind.”

XIX. The Children Sold.
The Doctor came back from New York, of course without accomplishing
his purpose. He had expended considerable money, and was rather
disheartened. My brother and the children had now been in jail two months,
and that also was some expense. My friends thought it was a favorable time
to work on his discouraged feelings. Mr. Sands sent a speculator to offer
him nine hundred dollars for my brother William, and eight hundred for the
two children. These were high prices, as slaves were then selling; but the
offer was rejected. If it had been merely a question of money, the doctor
would have sold any boy of Benny’s age for two hundred dollars; but he
could not bear to give up the power of revenge. But he was hard pressed for
money, and he revolved the matter in his mind. He knew that if he could
keep Ellen till she was fifteen, he could sell her for a high price; but I
presume he reflected that she might die, or might be stolen away. At all
events, he came to the conclusion that he had better accept the slave-
trader’s offer. Meeting him in the street, he inquired when he would leave
town. “To-day, at ten o’clock,” he replied. “Ah, do you go so soon?” said
the doctor; “I have been reflecting upon your proposition, and I have
concluded to let you have the three negroes if you will say nineteen hundred
dollars.” After some parley, the trader agreed to his terms. He wanted the
bill of sale drawn up and signed immediately, as he had a great deal to
attend to during the short time he remained in town. The doctor went to the
jail and told William he would take him back into his service if he would
promise to behave himself; but he replied that he would rather be sold.
“And you shall be sold, you ungrateful rascal!” exclaimed the doctor. In
less than an hour the money was paid, the papers were signed, sealed, and
delivered, and my brother and children were in the hands of the trader.
It was a hurried transaction; and after it was over, the doctor’s
characteristic caution returned. He went back to the speculator, and said,
“Sir, I have come to lay you under obligations of a thousand dollars not to
sell any of those negroes in this state.” “You come too late,” replied the
trader; “our bargain is closed.” He had, in fact, already sold them to Mr.
Sands, but he did not mention it. The doctor required him to put irons on

“that rascal, Bill,” and to pass through the back streets when he took his
gang out of town. The trader was privately instructed to concede to his
wishes. My good old aunt went to the jail to bid the children good by,
supposing them to be the speculator’s property, and that she should never
see them again. As she held Benny in her lap, he said, “Aunt Nancy, I want
to show you something.” He led her to the door and showed her a long row
of marks, saying, “Uncle Will taught me to count. I have made a mark for
every day I have been here, and it is sixty days. It is a long time; and the
speculator is going to take me and Ellen away. He’s a bad man. It’s wrong
for him to take grandmother’s children. I want to go to my mother.”
My grandmother was told that the children would be restored to her, but
she was requested to act as if they were really to be sent away. Accordingly,
she made up a bundle of clothes and went to the jail. When she arrived, she
found William handcuffed among the gang, and the children in the trader’s
cart. The scene seemed too much like reality. She was afraid there might
have been some deception or mistake. She fainted, and was carried home.
When the wagon stopped at the hotel, several gentlemen came out and
proposed to purchase William, but the trader refused their offers, without
stating that he was already sold. And now came the trying hour for that
drove of human beings, driven away like cattle, to be sold they knew not
where. Husbands were torn from wives, parents from children, never to
look upon each other again this side the grave. There was wringing of hands
and cries of despair.
Dr. Flint had the supreme satisfaction of seeing the wagon leave town,
and Mrs. Flint had the gratification of supposing that my children were
going “as far as wind and water would carry them.” According to
agreement, my uncle followed the wagon some miles, until they came to an
old farm house. There the trader took the irons from William, and as he did
so, he said, “You are a damned clever fellow. I should like to own you
myself. Them gentlemen that wanted to buy you said you was a bright,
honest chap, and I must git you a good home. I guess your old master will
swear to-morrow, and call himself an old fool for selling the children. I
reckon he’ll never git their mammy back agin. I expect she’s made tracks
for the north. Good by, old boy. Remember, I have done you a good turn.
You must thank me by coaxing all the pretty gals to go with me next fall.

That’s going to be my last trip. This trading in niggers is a bad business for
a fellow that’s got any heart. Move on, you fellows!” And the gang went on,
God alone knows where.
Much as I despise and detest the class of slave-traders, whom I regard as
the vilest wretches on earth, I must do this man the justice to say that he
seemed to have some feeling. He took a fancy to William in the jail, and
wanted to buy him. When he heard the story of my children, he was willing
to aid them in getting out of Dr. Flint’s power, even without charging the
customary fee.
My uncle procured a wagon and carried William and the children back to
town. Great was the joy in my grandmother’s house! The curtains were
closed, and the candles lighted. The happy grandmother cuddled the little
ones to her bosom. They hugged her, and kissed her, and clapped their
hands, and shouted. She knelt down and poured forth one of her heartfelt
prayers of thanksgiving to God. The father was present for a while; and
though such a “parental relation” as existed between him and my children
takes slight hold of the hearts or consciences of slaveholders, it must be that
he experienced some moments of pure joy in witnessing the happiness he
had imparted.
I had no share in the rejoicings of that evening. The events of the day had
not come to my knowledge. And now I will tell you something that
happened to me; though you will, perhaps, think it illustrates the
superstition of slaves. I sat in my usual place on the floor near the window,
where I could hear much that was said in the street without being seen. The
family had retired for the night, and all was still. I sat there thinking of my
children, when I heard a low strain of music. A band of serenaders were
under the window, playing “Home, sweet home.” I listened till the sounds
did not seem like music, but like the moaning of children. It seemed as if
my heart would burst. I rose from my sitting posture, and knelt. A streak of
moonlight was on the floor before me, and in the midst of it appeared the
forms of my two children. They vanished; but I had seen them distinctly.
Some will call it a dream, others a vision. I know not how to account for it,
but it made a strong impression on my mind, and I felt certain something
had happened to my little ones.

I had not seen Betty since morning. Now I heard her softly turning the
key. As soon as she entered, I clung to her, and begged her to let me know
whether my children were dead, or whether they were sold; for I had seen
their spirits in my room, and I was sure something had happened to them.
“Lor, chile,” said she, putting her arms round me, “you’s got de high-
sterics. I’ll sleep wid you to-night, ’cause you’ll make a noise, and ruin
missis. Something has stirred you up mightily. When you is done cryin, I’ll
talk wid you. De chillern is well, and mighty happy. I seed ’em myself.
Does dat satisfy you? Dar, chile, be still! Somebody vill hear you.” I tried to
obey her. She lay down, and was soon sound asleep; but no sleep would
come to my eyelids.
At dawn, Betty was up and off to the kitchen. The hours passed on, and
the vision of the night kept constantly recurring to my thoughts. After a
while I heard the voices of two women in the entry. In one of them I
recognized the housemaid. The other said to her, “Did you know Linda
Brent’s children was sold to the speculator yesterday. They say ole massa
Flint was mighty glad to see ’em drove out of town; but they say they’ve
come back agin. I ’spect it’s all their daddy’s doings. They say he’s bought
William too. Lor! how it will take hold of ole massa Flint! I’m going roun’
to aunt Marthy’s to see ’bout it.”
I bit my lips till the blood came to keep from crying out. Were my
children with their grandmother, or had the speculator carried them off? The
suspense was dreadful. Would Betty never come, and tell me the truth about
it? At last she came, and I eagerly repeated what I had overheard. Her face
was one broad, bright smile. “Lor, you foolish ting!” said she. “I’se gwine
to tell you all ’bout it. De gals is eating thar breakfast, and missus tole me to
let her tell you; but, poor creeter! t’aint right to keep you waitin’, and I’se
gwine to tell you. Brudder, chillern, all is bought by de daddy! I’se laugh
more dan nuff, tinking ’bout ole massa Flint. Lor, how he vill swar! He’s
got ketched dis time, any how; but I must be getting out o’ dis, or dem gals
vill come and ketch me.”
Betty went off laughing; and I said to myself, “Can it be true that my
children are free? I have not suffered for them in vain. Thank God!”

Great surprise was expressed when it was known that my children had
returned to their grandmother’s. The news spread through the town, and
many a kind word was bestowed on the little ones.
Dr. Flint went to my grandmother’s to ascertain who was the owner of
my children, and she informed him. “I expected as much,” said he. “I am
glad to hear it. I have had news from Linda lately, and I shall soon have her.
You need never expect to see her free. She shall be my slave as long as I
live, and when I am dead she shall be the slave of my children. If I ever find
out that you or Phillip had anything to do with her running off I’ll kill him.
And if I meet William in the street, and he presumes to look at me, I’ll flog
him within an inch of his life. Keep those brats out of my sight!”
As he turned to leave, my grandmother said something to remind him of
his own doings. He looked back upon her, as if he would have been glad to
strike her to the ground.
I had my season of joy and thanksgiving. It was the first time since my
childhood that I had experienced any real happiness. I heard of the old
doctor’s threats, but they no longer had the same power to trouble me. The
darkest cloud that hung over my life had rolled away. Whatever slavery
might do to me, it could not shackle my children. If I fell a sacrifice, my
little ones were saved. It was well for me that my simple heart believed all
that had been promised for their welfare. It is always better to trust than to
doubt.

XX. New Perils.
The doctor, more exasperated than ever, again tried to revenge himself on
my relatives. He arrested uncle Phillip on the charge of having aided my
flight. He was carried before a court, and swore truly that he knew nothing
of my intention to escape, and that he had not seen me since I left my
master’s plantation. The doctor then demanded that he should give bail for
five hundred dollars that he would have nothing to do with me. Several
gentlemen offered to be security for him; but Mr. Sands told him he had
better go back to jail, and he would see that he came out without giving
bail.
The news of his arrest was carried to my grandmother, who conveyed it
to Betty. In the kindness of her heart, she again stowed me away under the
floor; and as she walked back and forth, in the performance of her culinary
duties, she talked apparently to herself, but with the intention that I should
hear what was going on. I hoped that my uncle’s imprisonment would last
but few days; still I was anxious. I thought it likely Dr. Flint would do his
utmost to taunt and insult him, and I was afraid my uncle might lose control
of himself, and retort in some way that would be construed into a
punishable offence; and I was well aware that in court his word would not
be taken against any white man’s. The search for me was renewed.
Something had excited suspicions that I was in the vicinity. They searched
the house I was in. I heard their steps and their voices. At night, when all
were asleep, Betty came to release me from my place of confinement. The
fright I had undergone, the constrained posture, and the dampness of the
ground, made me ill for several days. My uncle was soon after taken out of
prison; but the movements of all my relatives, and of all our friends, were
very closely watched.
We all saw that I could not remain where I was much longer. I had
already staid longer than was intended, and I knew my presence must be a
source of perpetual anxiety to my kind benefactress. During this time, my
friends had laid many plans for my escape, but the extreme vigilance of my
persecutors made it impossible to carry them into effect.

One morning I was much startled by hearing somebody trying to get into
my room. Several keys were tried, but none fitted. I instantly conjectured it
was one of the housemaids; and I concluded she must either have heard
some noise in the room, or have noticed the entrance of Betty. When my
friend came, at her usual time, I told her what had happened. “I knows who
it was,” said she. “’Pend upon it, ’twas dat Jenny. Dat nigger allers got de
debble in her.” I suggested that she might have seen or heard something that
excited her curiosity.
“Tut! tut! chile!” exclaimed Betty, “she ain’t seen notin’, nor hearn
notin’. She only ’spects someting. Dat’s all. She wants to fine out who hab
cut and make my gownd. But she won’t nebber know. Dat’s sartin. I’ll git
missis to fix her.”
I reflected a moment, and said, “Betty, I must leave here to-night.”
“Do as you tink best, poor chile,” she replied. “I’se mighty ’fraid dat ’ere
nigger vill pop on you some time.”
She reported the incident to her mistress, and received orders to keep
Jenny busy in the kitchen till she could see my uncle Phillip. He told her he
would send a friend for me that very evening. She told him she hoped I was
going to the north, for it was very dangerous for me to remain any where in
the vicinity. Alas, it was not an easy thing, for one in my situation, to go to
the north. In order to leave the coast quite clear for me, she went into the
country to spend the day with her brother, and took Jenny with her. She was
afraid to come and bid me good by, but she left a kind message with Betty. I
heard her carriage roll from the door, and I never again saw her who had so
generously befriended the poor, trembling fugitive! Though she was a
slaveholder, to this day my heart blesses her!
I had not the slightest idea where I was going. Betty brought me a suit of
sailor’s clothes,—jacket, trowsers, and tarpaulin hat. She gave me a small
bundle, saying I might need it where I was going. In cheery tones, she
exclaimed, “I’se so glad you is gwine to free parts! Don’t forget ole Betty.
P’raps I’ll come ’long by and by.”
I tried to tell her how grateful I felt for all her kindness, but she
interrupted me. “I don’t want no tanks, honey. I’se glad I could help you,

and I hope de good Lord vill open de path for you. I’se gwine wid you to de
lower gate. Put your hands in your pockets, and walk ricketty, like de
sailors.”
I performed to her satisfaction. At the gate I found Peter, a young colored
man, waiting for me. I had known him for years. He had been an apprentice
to my father, and had always borne a good character. I was not afraid to
trust to him. Betty bade me a hurried good by, and we walked off. “Take
courage, Linda,” said my friend Peter. “I’ve got a dagger, and no man shall
take you from me, unless he passes over my dead body.”
It was a long time since I had taken a walk out of doors, and the fresh air
revived me. It was also pleasant to hear a human voice speaking to me
above a whisper. I passed several people whom I knew, but they did not
recognize me in my disguise. I prayed internally that, for Peter’s sake, as
well as my own, nothing might occur to bring out his dagger. We walked on
till we came to the wharf. My aunt Nancy’s husband was a seafaring man,
and it had been deemed necessary to let him into our secret. He took me
into his boat, rowed out to a vessel not far distant, and hoisted me on board.
We three were the only occupants of the vessel. I now ventured to ask what
they proposed to do with me. They said I was to remain on board till near
dawn, and then they would hide me in Snaky Swamp, till my uncle Phillip
had prepared a place of concealment for me. If the vessel had been bound
north, it would have been of no avail to me, for it would certainly have been
searched. About four o’clock, we were again seated in the boat, and rowed
three miles to the swamp. My fear of snakes had been increased by the
venomous bite I had received, and I dreaded to enter this hiding-place. But I
was in no situation to choose, and I gratefully accepted the best that my
poor, persecuted friends could do for me.
Peter landed first, and with a large knife cut a path through bamboos and
briers of all descriptions. He came back, took me in his arms, and carried
me to a seat made among the bamboos. Before we reached it, we were
covered with hundreds of mosquitos. In an hour’s time they had so
poisoned my flesh that I was a pitiful sight to behold. As the light increased,
I saw snake after snake crawling round us. I had been accustomed to the
sight of snakes all my life, but these were larger than any I had ever seen.
To this day I shudder when I remember that morning. As evening

approached, the number of snakes increased so much that we were
continually obliged to thrash them with sticks to keep them from crawling
over us. The bamboos were so high and so thick that it was impossible to
see beyond a very short distance. Just before it became dark we procured a
seat nearer to the entrance of the swamp, being fearful of losing our way
back to the boat. It was not long before we heard the paddle of oars, and the
low whistle, which had been agreed upon as a signal. We made haste to
enter the boat, and were rowed back to the vessel. I passed a wretched
night; for the heat of the swamp, the mosquitos, and the constant terror of
snakes, had brought on a burning fever. I had just dropped asleep, when
they came and told me it was time to go back to that horrid swamp. I could
scarcely summon courage to rise. But even those large, venomous snakes
were less dreadful to my imagination than the white men in that community
called civilized. This time Peter took a quantity of tobacco to burn, to keep
off the mosquitos. It produced the desired effect on them, but gave me
nausea and severe headache. At dark we returned to the vessel. I had been
so sick during the day, that Peter declared I should go home that night, if the
devil himself was on patrol. They told me a place of concealment had been
provided for me at my grandmother’s. I could not imagine how it was
possible to hide me in her house, every nook and corner of which was
known to the Flint family. They told me to wait and see. We were rowed
ashore, and went boldly through the streets, to my grandmother’s. I wore
my sailor’s clothes, and had blackened my face with charcoal. I passed
several people whom I knew. The father of my children came so near that I
brushed against his arm; but he had no idea who it was.
“You must make the most of this walk,” said my friend Peter, “for you
may not have another very soon.”
I thought his voice sounded sad. It was kind of him to conceal from me
what a dismal hole was to be my home for a long, long time.

XXI. The Loophole Of Retreat.
A small shed had been added to my grandmother’s house years ago.
Some boards were laid across the joists at the top, and between these boards
and the roof was a very small garret, never occupied by any thing but rats
and mice. It was a pent roof, covered with nothing but shingles, according
to the southern custom for such buildings. The garret was only nine feet
long and seven wide. The highest part was three feet high, and sloped down
abruptly to the loose board floor. There was no admission for either light or
air. My uncle Phillip, who was a carpenter, had very skilfully made a
concealed trap-door, which communicated with the storeroom. He had been
doing this while I was waiting in the swamp. The storeroom opened upon a
piazza. To this hole I was conveyed as soon as I entered the house. The air
was stifling; the darkness total. A bed had been spread on the floor. I could
sleep quite comfortably on one side; but the slope was so sudden that I
could not turn on the other without hitting the roof. The rats and mice ran
over my bed; but I was weary, and I slept such sleep as the wretched may,
when a tempest has passed over them. Morning came. I knew it only by the
noises I heard; for in my small den day and night were all the same. I
suffered for air even more than for light. But I was not comfortless. I heard
the voices of my children. There was joy and there was sadness in the
sound. It made my tears flow. How I longed to speak to them! I was eager
to look on their faces; but there was no hole, no crack, through which I
could peep. This continued darkness was oppressive. It seemed horrible to
sit or lie in a cramped position day after day, without one gleam of light. Yet
I would have chosen this, rather than my lot as a slave, though white people
considered it an easy one; and it was so compared with the fate of others. I
was never cruelly over-worked; I was never lacerated with the whip from
head to foot; I was never so beaten and bruised that I could not turn from
one side to the other; I never had my heel-strings cut to prevent my running
away; I was never chained to a log and forced to drag it about, while I toiled
in the fields from morning till night; I was never branded with hot iron, or
torn by bloodhounds. On the contrary, I had always been kindly treated, and
tenderly cared for, until I came into the hands of Dr. Flint. I had never

wished for freedom till then. But though my life in slavery was
comparatively devoid of hardships, God pity the woman who is compelled
to lead such a life!
My food was passed up to me through the trap-door my uncle had
contrived; and my grandmother, my uncle Phillip, and aunt Nancy would
seize such opportunities as they could, to mount up there and chat with me
at the opening. But of course this was not safe in the daytime. It must all be
done in darkness. It was impossible for me to move in an erect position, but
I crawled about my den for exercise. One day I hit my head against
something, and found it was a gimlet. My uncle had left it sticking there
when he made the trap-door. I was as rejoiced as Robinson Crusoe could
have been at finding such a treasure. It put a lucky thought into my head. I
said to myself, “Now I will have some light. Now I will see my children.” I
did not dare to begin my work during the daytime, for fear of attracting
attention. But I groped round; and having found the side next the street,
where I could frequently see my children, I stuck the gimlet in and waited
for evening. I bored three rows of holes, one above another; then I bored
out the interstices between. I thus succeeded in making one hole about an
inch long and an inch broad. I sat by it till late into the night, to enjoy the
little whiff of air that floated in. In the morning I watched for my children.
The first person I saw in the street was Dr. Flint. I had a shuddering,
superstitious feeling that it was a bad omen. Several familiar faces passed
by. At last I heard the merry laugh of children, and presently two sweet little
faces were looking up at me, as though they knew I was there, and were
conscious of the joy they imparted. How I longed to tell them I was there!
My condition was now a little improved. But for weeks I was tormented
by hundreds of little red insects, fine as a needle’s point, that pierced
through my skin, and produced an intolerable burning. The good
grandmother gave me herb teas and cooling medicines, and finally I got rid
of them. The heat of my den was intense, for nothing but thin shingles
protected me from the scorching summer’s sun. But I had my consolations.
Through my peeping-hole I could watch the children, and when they were
near enough, I could hear their talk. Aunt Nancy brought me all the news
she could hear at Dr. Flint’s. From her I learned that the doctor had written
to New York to a colored woman, who had been born and raised in our
neighborhood, and had breathed his contaminating atmosphere. He offered

her a reward if she could find out any thing about me. I know not what was
the nature of her reply; but he soon after started for New York in haste,
saying to his family that he had business of importance to transact. I peeped
at him as he passed on his way to the steamboat. It was a satisfaction to
have miles of land and water between us, even for a little while; and it was
a still greater satisfaction to know that he believed me to be in the Free
States. My little den seemed less dreary than it had done. He returned, as he
did from his former journey to New York, without obtaining any
satisfactory information. When he passed our house next morning, Benny
was standing at the gate. He had heard them say that he had gone to find
me, and he called out, “Dr. Flint, did you bring my mother home? I want to
see her.” The doctor stamped his foot at him in a rage, and exclaimed, “Get
out of the way, you little damned rascal! If you don’t, I’ll cut off your
head.”
Benny ran terrified into the house, saying, “You can’t put me in jail
again. I don’t belong to you now.” It was well that the wind carried the
words away from the doctor’s ear. I told my grandmother of it, when we
had our next conference at the trap-door; and begged of her not to allow the
children to be impertinent to the irascible old man.
Autumn came, with a pleasant abatement of heat. My eyes had become
accustomed to the dim light, and by holding my book or work in a certain
position near the aperture I contrived to read and sew. That was a great
relief to the tedious monotony of my life. But when winter came, the cold
penetrated through the thin shingle roof, and I was dreadfully chilled. The
winters there are not so long, or so severe, as in northern latitudes; but the
houses are not built to shelter from cold, and my little den was peculiarly
comfortless. The kind grandmother brought me bed-clothes and warm
drinks. Often I was obliged to lie in bed all day to keep comfortable; but
with all my precautions, my shoulders and feet were frostbitten. O, those
long, gloomy days, with no object for my eye to rest upon, and no thoughts
to occupy my mind, except the dreary past and the uncertain future! I was
thankful when there came a day sufficiently mild for me to wrap myself up
and sit at the loophole to watch the passers by. Southerners have the habit of
stopping and talking in the streets, and I heard many conversations not
intended to meet my ears. I heard slave-hunters planning how to catch some
poor fugitive. Several times I heard allusions to Dr. Flint, myself, and the

history of my children, who, perhaps, were playing near the gate. One
would say, “I wouldn’t move my little finger to catch her, as old Flint’s
property.” Another would say, “I’ll catch any nigger for the reward. A man
ought to have what belongs to him, if he is a damned brute.” The opinion
was often expressed that I was in the Free States. Very rarely did any one
suggest that I might be in the vicinity. Had the least suspicion rested on my
grandmother’s house, it would have been burned to the ground. But it was
the last place they thought of. Yet there was no place, where slavery existed,
that could have afforded me so good a place of concealment.
Dr. Flint and his family repeatedly tried to coax and bribe my children to
tell something they had heard said about me. One day the doctor took them
into a shop, and offered them some bright little silver pieces and gay
handkerchiefs if they would tell where their mother was. Ellen shrank away
from him, and would not speak; but Benny spoke up, and said, “Dr. Flint, I
don’t know where my mother is. I guess she’s in New York; and when you
go there again, I wish you’d ask her to come home, for I want to see her;
but if you put her in jail, or tell her you’ll cut her head off, I’ll tell her to go
right back.”

XXII. Christmas Festivities.
Christmas was approaching. Grandmother brought me materials, and I
busied myself making some new garments and little playthings for my
children. Were it not that hiring day is near at hand, and many families are
fearfully looking forward to the probability of separation in a few days,
Christmas might be a happy season for the poor slaves. Even slave mothers
try to gladden the hearts of their little ones on that occasion. Benny and
Ellen had their Christmas stockings filled. Their imprisoned mother could
not have the privilege of witnessing their surprise and joy. But I had the
pleasure of peeping at them as they went into the street with their new suits
on. I heard Benny ask a little playmate whether Santa Claus brought him
any thing. “Yes,” replied the boy; “but Santa Claus ain’t a real man. It’s the
children’s mothers that put things into the stockings.” “No, that can’t be,”
replied Benny, “for Santa Claus brought Ellen and me these new clothes,
and my mother has been gone this long time.”
How I longed to tell him that his mother made those garments, and that
many a tear fell on them while she worked!
Every child rises early on Christmas morning to see the Johnkannaus.
Without them, Christmas would be shorn of its greatest attraction. They
consist of companies of slaves from the plantations, generally of the lower
class. Two athletic men, in calico wrappers, have a net thrown over them,
covered with all manner of bright-colored stripes. Cows’ tails are fastened
to their backs, and their heads are decorated with horns. A box, covered
with sheepskin, is called the gumbo box. A dozen beat on this, while others
strike triangles and jawbones, to which bands of dancers keep time. For a
month previous they are composing songs, which are sung on this occasion.
These companies, of a hundred each, turn out early in the morning, and are
allowed to go round till twelve o’clock, begging for contributions. Not a
door is left unvisited where there is the least chance of obtaining a penny or
a glass of rum. They do not drink while they are out, but carry the rum
home in jugs, to have a carousal. These Christmas donations frequently
amount to twenty or thirty dollars. It is seldom that any white man or child

refuses to give them a trifle. If he does, they regale his ears with the
following song:—

“Poor massa, so dey say;
Down in de heel, so dey say;
Got no money, so dey say;
Not one shillin, so dey say;
God A’mighty bress you, so dey say.”

Christmas is a day of feasting, both with white and colored people.
Slaves, who are lucky enough to have a few shillings, are sure to spend
them for good eating; and many a turkey and pig is captured, without
saying, “By your leave, sir.” Those who cannot obtain these, cook a
’possum, or a raccoon, from which savory dishes can be made. My
grandmother raised poultry and pigs for sale; and it was her established
custom to have both a turkey and a pig roasted for Christmas dinner.
On this occasion, I was warned to keep extremely quiet, because two
guests had been invited. One was the town constable, and the other was a
free colored man, who tried to pass himself off for white, and who was
always ready to do any mean work for the sake of currying favor with white
people. My grandmother had a motive for inviting them. She managed to
take them all over the house. All the rooms on the lower floor were thrown
open for them to pass in and out; and after dinner, they were invited up
stairs to look at a fine mocking bird my uncle had just brought home. There,
too, the rooms were all thrown open, that they might look in. When I heard
them talking on the piazza, my heart almost stood still. I knew this colored
man had spent many nights hunting for me. Every body knew he had the
blood of a slave father in his veins; but for the sake of passing himself off
for white, he was ready to kiss the slaveholders’ feet. How I despised him!
As for the constable, he wore no false colors. The duties of his office were
despicable, but he was superior to his companion, inasmuch as he did not
pretend to be what he was not. Any white man, who could raise money
enough to buy a slave, would have considered himself degraded by being a
constable; but the office enabled its possessor to exercise authority. If he
found any slave out after nine o’clock, he could whip him as much as he
liked; and that was a privilege to be coveted. When the guests were ready to

depart, my grandmother gave each of them some of her nice pudding, as a
present for their wives. Through my peep-hole I saw them go out of the
gate, and I was glad when it closed after them. So passed the first Christmas
in my den.

XXIII. Still In Prison.
When spring returned, and I took in the little patch of green the aperture
commanded, I asked myself how many more summers and winters I must
be condemned to spend thus. I longed to draw in a plentiful draught of fresh
air, to stretch my cramped limbs, to have room to stand erect, to feel the
earth under my feet again. My relatives were constantly on the lookout for a
chance of escape; but none offered that seemed practicable, and even
tolerably safe. The hot summer came again, and made the turpentine drop
from the thin roof over my head.
During the long nights I was restless for want of air, and I had no room to
toss and turn. There was but one compensation; the atmosphere was so
stifled that even mosquitos would not condescend to buzz in it. With all my
detestation of Dr. Flint, I could hardly wish him a worse punishment, either
in this world or that which is to come, than to suffer what I suffered in one
single summer. Yet the laws allowed him to be out in the free air, while I,
guiltless of crime, was pent up here, as the only means of avoiding the
cruelties the laws allowed him to inflict upon me! I don’t know what kept
life within me. Again and again, I thought I should die before long; but I
saw the leaves of another autumn whirl through the air, and felt the touch of
another winter. In summer the most terrible thunder storms were acceptable,
for the rain came through the roof, and I rolled up my bed that it might cool
the hot boards under it. Later in the season, storms sometimes wet my
clothes through and through, and that was not comfortable when the air
grew chilly. Moderate storms I could keep out by filling the chinks with
oakum.
But uncomfortable as my situation was, I had glimpses of things out of
doors, which made me thankful for my wretched hiding-place. One day I
saw a slave pass our gate, muttering, “It’s his own, and he can kill it if he
will.” My grandmother told me that woman’s history. Her mistress had that
day seen her baby for the first time, and in the lineaments of its fair face she
saw a likeness to her husband. She turned the bondwoman and her child out
of doors, and forbade her ever to return. The slave went to her master, and

told him what had happened. He promised to talk with her mistress, and
make it all right. The next day she and her baby were sold to a Georgia
trader.
Another time I saw a woman rush wildly by, pursued by two men. She
was a slave, the wet nurse of her mistress’s children. For some trifling
offence her mistress ordered her to be stripped and whipped. To escape the
degradation and the torture, she rushed to the river, jumped in, and ended
her wrongs in death.
Senator Brown, of Mississippi, could not be ignorant of many such facts
as these, for they are of frequent occurrence in every Southern State. Yet he
stood up in the Congress of the United States, and declared that slavery was
“a great moral, social, and political blessing; a blessing to the master, and a
blessing to the slave!”
I suffered much more during the second winter than I did during the first.
My limbs were benumbed by inaction, and the cold filled them with cramp.
I had a very painful sensation of coldness in my head; even my face and
tongue stiffened, and I lost the power of speech. Of course it was
impossible, under the circumstances, to summon any physician. My brother
William came and did all he could for me. Uncle Phillip also watched
tenderly over me; and poor grandmother crept up and down to inquire
whether there were any signs of returning life. I was restored to
consciousness by the dashing of cold water in my face, and found myself
leaning against my brother’s arm, while he bent over me with streaming
eyes. He afterwards told me he thought I was dying, for I had been in an
unconscious state sixteen hours. I next became delirious, and was in great
danger of betraying myself and my friends. To prevent this, they stupefied
me with drugs. I remained in bed six weeks, weary in body and sick at
heart. How to get medical advice was the question. William finally went to
a Thompsonian doctor, and described himself as having all my pains and
aches. He returned with herbs, roots, and ointment. He was especially
charged to rub on the ointment by a fire; but how could a fire be made in
my little den? Charcoal in a furnace was tried, but there was no outlet for
the gas, and it nearly cost me my life. Afterwards coals, already kindled,
were brought up in an iron pan, and placed on bricks. I was so weak, and it
was so long since I had enjoyed the warmth of a fire, that those few coals

actually made me weep. I think the medicines did me some good; but my
recovery was very slow. Dark thoughts passed through my mind as I lay
there day after day. I tried to be thankful for my little cell, dismal as it was,
and even to love it, as part of the price I had paid for the redemption of my
children. Sometimes I thought God was a compassionate Father, who would
forgive my sins for the sake of my sufferings. At other times, it seemed to
me there was no justice or mercy in the divine government. I asked why the
curse of slavery was permitted to exist, and why I had been so persecuted
and wronged from youth upward. These things took the shape of mystery,
which is to this day not so clear to my soul as I trust it will be hereafter.
In the midst of my illness, grandmother broke down under the weight of
anxiety and toil. The idea of losing her, who had always been my best
friend and a mother to my children, was the sorest trial I had yet had. O,
how earnestly I prayed that she might recover! How hard it seemed, that I
could not tend upon her, who had so long and so tenderly watched over me!
One day the screams of a child nerved me with strength to crawl to my
peeping-hole, and I saw my son covered with blood. A fierce dog, usually
kept chained, had seized and bitten him. A doctor was sent for, and I heard
the groans and screams of my child while the wounds were being sewed up.
O, what torture to a mother’s heart, to listen to this and be unable to go to
him!
But childhood is like a day in spring, alternately shower and sunshine.
Before night Benny was bright and lively, threatening the destruction of the
dog; and great was his delight when the doctor told him the next day that
the dog had bitten another boy and been shot. Benny recovered from his
wounds; but it was long before he could walk.
When my grandmother’s illness became known, many ladies, who were
her customers, called to bring her some little comforts, and to inquire
whether she had every thing she wanted. Aunt Nancy one night asked
permission to watch with her sick mother, and Mrs. Flint replied, “I don’t
see any need of your going. I can’t spare you.” But when she found other
ladies in the neighborhood were so attentive, not wishing to be outdone in
Christian charity, she also sallied forth, in magnificent condescension, and
stood by the bedside of her who had loved her in her infancy, and who had

been repaid by such grievous wrongs. She seemed surprised to find her so
ill, and scolded uncle Phillip for not sending for Dr. Flint. She herself sent
for him immediately, and he came. Secure as I was in my retreat, I should
have been terrified if I had known he was so near me. He pronounced my
grandmother in a very critical situation, and said if her attending physician
wished it, he would visit her. Nobody wished to have him coming to the
house at all hours, and we were not disposed to give him a chance to make
out a long bill.
As Mrs. Flint went out, Sally told her the reason Benny was lame was,
that a dog had bitten him. “I’m glad of it,” replied she. “I wish he had killed
him. It would be good news to send to his mother. Her day will come. The
dogs will grab her yet.” With these Christian words she and her husband
departed, and, to my great satisfaction, returned no more.
I heard from uncle Phillip, with feelings of unspeakable joy and
gratitude, that the crisis was passed and grandmother would live. I could
now say from my heart, “God is merciful. He has spared me the anguish of
feeling that I caused her death.”

XXIV. The Candidate For Congress.
The summer had nearly ended, when Dr. Flint made a third visit to New
York, in search of me. Two candidates were running for Congress, and he
returned in season to vote. The father of my children was the Whig
candidate. The doctor had hitherto been a stanch Whig; but now he exerted
all his energies for the defeat of Mr. Sands. He invited large parties of men
to dine in the shade of his trees, and supplied them with plenty of rum and
brandy. If any poor fellow drowned his wits in the bowl, and, in the
openness of his convivial heart, proclaimed that he did not mean to vote the
Democratic ticket, he was shoved into the street without ceremony.
The doctor expended his liquor in vain. Mr. Sands was elected; an event
which occasioned me some anxious thoughts. He had not emancipated my
children, and if he should die they would be at the mercy of his heirs. Two
little voices, that frequently met my ear, seemed to plead with me not to let
their father depart without striving to make their freedom secure. Years had
passed since I had spoken to him. I had not even seen him since the night I
passed him, unrecognized, in my disguise of a sailor. I supposed he would
call before he left, to say something to my grandmother concerning the
children, and I resolved what course to take.
The day before his departure for Washington I made arrangements,
towards evening, to get from my hiding-place into the storeroom below. I
found myself so stiff and clumsy that it was with great difficulty I could
hitch from one resting place to another. When I reached the storeroom my
ankles gave way under me, and I sank exhausted on the floor. It seemed as
if I could never use my limbs again. But the purpose I had in view roused
all the strength I had. I crawled on my hands and knees to the window, and,
screened behind a barrel, I waited for his coming. The clock struck nine,
and I knew the steamboat would leave between ten and eleven. My hopes
were failing. But presently I heard his voice, saying to some one, “Wait for
me a moment. I wish to see aunt Martha.” When he came out, as he passed
the window, I said, “Stop one moment, and let me speak for my children.”
He started, hesitated, and then passed on, and went out of the gate. I closed

the shutter I had partially opened, and sank down behind the barrel. I had
suffered much; but seldom had I experienced a keener pang than I then felt.
Had my children, then, become of so little consequence to him? And had he
so little feeling for their wretched mother that he would not listen a moment
while she pleaded for them? Painful memories were so busy within me, that
I forgot I had not hooked the shutter, till I heard some one opening it. I
looked up. He had come back. “Who called me?” said he, in a low tone. “I
did,” I replied. “Oh, Linda,” said he, “I knew your voice; but I was afraid to
answer, lest my friend should hear me. Why do you come here? Is it
possible you risk yourself in this house? They are mad to allow it. I shall
expect to hear that you are all ruined.” I did not wish to implicate him, by
letting him know my place of concealment; so I merely said, “I thought you
would come to bid grandmother good by, and so I came here to speak a few
words to you about emancipating my children. Many changes may take
place during the six months you are gone to Washington, and it does not
seem right for you to expose them to the risk of such changes. I want
nothing for myself; all I ask is, that you will free my children, or authorize
some friend to do it, before you go.”
He promised he would do it, and also expressed a readiness to make any
arrangements whereby I could be purchased.
I heard footsteps approaching, and closed the shutter hastily. I wanted to
crawl back to my den, without letting the family know what I had done; for
I knew they would deem it very imprudent. But he stepped back into the
house, to tell my grandmother that he had spoken with me at the storeroom
window, and to beg of her not to allow me to remain in the house over
night. He said it was the height of madness for me to be there; that we
should certainly all be ruined. Luckily, he was in too much of a hurry to
wait for a reply, or the dear old woman would surely have told him all.
I tried to go back to my den, but found it more difficult to go up than I
had to come down. Now that my mission was fulfilled, the little strength
that had supported me through it was gone, and I sank helpless on the floor.
My grandmother, alarmed at the risk I had run, came into the storeroom in
the dark, and locked the door behind her. “Linda,” she whispered, “where
are you?”

“I am here by the window,” I replied. “I couldn’t have him go away
without emancipating the children. Who knows what may happen?”
“Come, come, child,” said she, “it won’t do for you to stay here another
minute. You’ve done wrong; but I can’t blame you, poor thing!”
I told her I could not return without assistance, and she must call my
uncle. Uncle Phillip came, and pity prevented him from scolding me. He
carried me back to my dungeon, laid me tenderly on the bed, gave me some
medicine, and asked me if there was any thing more he could do. Then he
went away, and I was left with my own thoughts—starless as the midnight
darkness around me.
My friends feared I should become a cripple for life; and I was so weary
of my long imprisonment that, had it not been for the hope of serving my
children, I should have been thankful to die; but, for their sakes, I was
willing to bear on.

XXV. Competition In Cunning.
Dr. Flint had not given me up. Every now and then he would say to my
grandmother that I would yet come back, and voluntarily surrender myself;
and that when I did, I could be purchased by my relatives, or any one who
wished to buy me. I knew his cunning nature too well not to perceive that
this was a trap laid for me; and so all my friends understood it. I resolved to
match my cunning against his cunning. In order to make him believe that I
was in New York, I resolved to write him a letter dated from that place. I
sent for my friend Peter, and asked him if he knew any trustworthy
seafaring person, who would carry such a letter to New York, and put it in
the post office there. He said he knew one that he would trust with his own
life to the ends of the world. I reminded him that it was a hazardous thing
for him to undertake. He said he knew it, but he was willing to do any thing
to help me. I expressed a wish for a New York paper, to ascertain the names
of some of the streets. He run his hand into his pocket, and said, “Here is
half a one, that was round a cap I bought of a pedler yesterday.” I told him
the letter would be ready the next evening. He bade me good by, adding,
“Keep up your spirits, Linda; brighter days will come by and by.”
My uncle Phillip kept watch over the gate until our brief interview was
over. Early the next morning, I seated myself near the little aperture to
examine the newspaper. It was a piece of the New York Herald; and, for
once, the paper that systematically abuses the colored people, was made to
render them a service. Having obtained what information I wanted
concerning streets and numbers, I wrote two letters, one to my grandmother,
the other to Dr. Flint. I reminded him how he, a gray-headed man, had
treated a helpless child, who had been placed in his power, and what years
of misery he had brought upon her. To my grandmother, I expressed a wish
to have my children sent to me at the north, where I could teach them to
respect themselves, and set them a virtuous example; which a slave mother
was not allowed to do at the south. I asked her to direct her answer to a
certain street in Boston, as I did not live in New York, though I went there
sometimes. I dated these letters ahead, to allow for the time it would take to
carry them, and sent a memorandum of the date to the messenger. When my

friend came for the letters, I said, “God bless and reward you, Peter, for this
disinterested kindness. Pray be careful. If you are detected, both you and I
will have to suffer dreadfully. I have not a relative who would dare to do it
for me.” He replied, “You may trust to me, Linda. I don’t forget that your
father was my best friend, and I will be a friend to his children so long as
God lets me live.”
It was necessary to tell my grandmother what I had done, in order that
she might be ready for the letter, and prepared to hear what Dr. Flint might
say about my being at the north. She was sadly troubled. She felt sure
mischief would come of it. I also told my plan to aunt Nancy, in order that
she might report to us what was said at Dr. Flint’s house. I whispered it to
her through a crack, and she whispered back, “I hope it will succeed. I
shan’t mind being a slave all my life, if I can only see you and the children
free.”
I had directed that my letters should be put into the New York post office
on the 20th of the month. On the evening of the 24th my aunt came to say
that Dr. Flint and his wife had been talking in a low voice about a letter he
had received, and that when he went to his office he promised to bring it
when he came to tea. So I concluded I should hear my letter read the next
morning. I told my grandmother Dr. Flint would be sure to come, and asked
her to have him sit near a certain door, and leave it open, that I might hear
what he said. The next morning I took my station within sound of that door,
and remained motionless as a statue. It was not long before I heard the gate
slam, and the well-known footsteps enter the house. He seated himself in
the chair that was placed for him, and said, “Well, Martha, I’ve brought you
a letter from Linda. She has sent me a letter, also. I know exactly where to
find her; but I don’t choose to go to Boston for her. I had rather she would
come back of her own accord, in a respectable manner. Her uncle Phillip is
the best person to go for her. With him, she would feel perfectly free to act.
I am willing to pay his expenses going and returning. She shall be sold to
her friends. Her children are free; at least I suppose they are; and when you
obtain her freedom, you’ll make a happy family. I suppose, Martha, you
have no objection to my reading to you the letter Linda has written to you.”
He broke the seal, and I heard him read it. The old villain! He had
suppressed the letter I wrote to grandmother, and prepared a substitute of

his own, the purport of which was as follows:—
“Dear Grandmother: I have long wanted to write to you; but the disgraceful manner in
which I left you and my children made me ashamed to do it. If you knew how much I have
suffered since I ran away, you would pity and forgive me. I have purchased freedom at a
dear rate. If any arrangement could be made for me to return to the south without being a
slave, I would gladly come. If not, I beg of you to send my children to the north. I cannot
live any longer without them. Let me know in time, and I will meet them in New York or
Philadelphia, whichever place best suits my uncle’s convenience. Write as soon as possible
to your unhappy daughter, Linda.”

“It is very much as I expected it would be,” said the old hypocrite, rising
to go. “You see the foolish girl has repented of her rashness, and wants to
return. We must help her to do it, Martha. Talk with Phillip about it. If he
will go for her, she will trust to him, and come back. I should like an answer
to-morrow. Good morning, Martha.”
As he stepped out on the piazza, he stumbled over my little girl. “Ah,
Ellen, is that you?” he said, in his most gracious manner. “I didn’t see you.
How do you do?”
“Pretty well, sir,” she replied. “I heard you tell grandmother that my
mother is coming home. I want to see her.”
“Yes, Ellen, I am going to bring her home very soon,” rejoined he; “and
you shall see her as much as you like, you little curly-headed nigger.”
This was as good as a comedy to me, who had heard it all; but
grandmother was frightened and distressed, because the doctor wanted my
uncle to go for me.
The next evening Dr. Flint called to talk the matter over. My uncle told
him that from what he had heard of Massachusetts, he judged he should be
mobbed if he went there after a runaway slave. “All stuff and nonsense,
Phillip!” replied the doctor. “Do you suppose I want you to kick up a row in
Boston? The business can all be done quietly. Linda writes that she wants to
come back. You are her relative, and she would trust you. The case would
be different if I went. She might object to coming with me; and the damned
abolitionists, if they knew I was her master, would not believe me, if I told
them she had begged to go back. They would get up a row; and I should not
like to see Linda dragged through the streets like a common negro. She has
been very ungrateful to me for all my kindness; but I forgive her, and want

to act the part of a friend towards her. I have no wish to hold her as my
slave. Her friends can buy her as soon as she arrives here.”
Finding that his arguments failed to convince my uncle, the doctor “let
the cat out of the bag,” by saying that he had written to the mayor of
Boston, to ascertain whether there was a person of my description at the
street and number from which my letter was dated. He had omitted this date
in the letter he had made up to read to my grandmother. If I had dated from
New York, the old man would probably have made another journey to that
city. But even in that dark region, where knowledge is so carefully excluded
from the slave, I had heard enough about Massachusetts to come to the
conclusion that slaveholders did not consider it a comfortable place to go to
in search of a runaway. That was before the Fugitive Slave Law was passed;
before Massachusetts had consented to become a “nigger hunter” for the
south.
My grandmother, who had become skittish by seeing her family always
in danger, came to me with a very distressed countenance, and said, “What
will you do if the mayor of Boston sends him word that you haven’t been
there? Then he will suspect the letter was a trick; and maybe he’ll find out
something about it, and we shall all get into trouble. O Linda, I wish you
had never sent the letters.”
“Don’t worry yourself, Grandmother,” said I. “The mayor of Boston
won’t trouble himself to hunt niggers for Dr. Flint. The letters will do good
in the end. I shall get out of this dark hole some time or other.”
“I hope you will, child,” replied the good, patient old friend. “You have
been here a long time; almost five years; but whenever you do go, it will
break your old grandmother’s heart. I should be expecting every day to hear
that you were brought back in irons and put in jail. God help you, poor
child! Let us be thankful that some time or other we shall go ‘where the
wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.’” My heart
responded, Amen.
The fact that Dr. Flint had written to the mayor of Boston convinced me
that he believed my letter to be genuine, and of course that he had no
suspicion of my being any where in the vicinity. It was a great object to
keep up this delusion, for it made me and my friends feel less anxious, and

it would be very convenient whenever there was a chance to escape. I
resolved, therefore, to continue to write letters from the north from time to
time.
Two or three weeks passed, and as no news came from the mayor of
Boston, grandmother began to listen to my entreaty to be allowed to leave
my cell, sometimes, and exercise my limbs to prevent my becoming a
cripple. I was allowed to slip down into the small storeroom, early in the
morning, and remain there a little while. The room was all filled up with
barrels, except a small open space under my trap-door. This faced the door,
the upper part of which was of glass, and purposely left uncurtained, that
the curious might look in. The air of this place was close; but it was so
much better than the atmosphere of my cell, that I dreaded to return. I came
down as soon as it was light, and remained till eight o’clock, when people
began to be about, and there was danger that some one might come on the
piazza. I had tried various applications to bring warmth and feeling into my
limbs, but without avail. They were so numb and stiff that it was a painful
effort to move; and had my enemies come upon me during the first
mornings I tried to exercise them a little in the small unoccupied space of
the storeroom, it would have been impossible for me to have escaped.

XXVI. Important Era In My Brother’s Life.
I missed the company and kind attentions of my brother William, who
had gone to Washington with his master, Mr. Sands. We received several
letters from him, written without any allusion to me, but expressed in such a
manner that I knew he did not forget me. I disguised my hand, and wrote to
him in the same manner. It was a long session; and when it closed, William
wrote to inform us that Mr. Sands was going to the north, to be gone some
time, and that he was to accompany him. I knew that his master had
promised to give him his freedom, but no time had been specified. Would
William trust to a slave’s chances? I remembered how we used to talk
together, in our young days, about obtaining our freedom, and I thought it
very doubtful whether he would come back to us.
Grandmother received a letter from Mr. Sands, saying that William had
proved a most faithful servant, and he would also say a valued friend; that
no mother had ever trained a better boy. He said he had travelled through
the Northern States and Canada; and though the abolitionists had tried to
decoy him away, they had never succeeded. He ended by saying they
should be at home shortly.
We expected letters from William, describing the novelties of his journey,
but none came. In time, it was reported that Mr. Sands would return late in
the autumn, accompanied by a bride. Still no letters from William. I felt
almost sure I should never see him again on southern soil; but had he no
word of comfort to send to his friends at home? to the poor captive in her
dungeon? My thoughts wandered through the dark past, and over the
uncertain future. Alone in my cell, where no eye but God’s could see me, I
wept bitter tears. How earnestly I prayed to him to restore me to my
children, and enable me to be a useful woman and a good mother!
At last the day arrived for the return of the travellers. Grandmother had
made loving preparations to welcome her absent boy back to the old
hearthstone. When the dinner table was laid, William’s plate occupied its
old place. The stage coach went by empty. My grandmother waited dinner.

She thought perhaps he was necessarily detained by his master. In my
prison I listened anxiously, expecting every moment to hear my dear
brother’s voice and step. In the course of the afternoon a lad was sent by
Mr. Sands to tell grandmother that William did not return with him; that the
abolitionists had decoyed him away. But he begged her not to feel troubled
about it, for he felt confident she would see William in a few days. As soon
as he had time to reflect he would come back, for he could never expect to
be so well off at the north as he had been with him.
If you had seen the tears, and heard the sobs, you would have thought the
messenger had brought tidings of death instead of freedom. Poor old
grandmother felt that she should never see her darling boy again. And I was
selfish. I thought more of what I had lost, than of what my brother had
gained. A new anxiety began to trouble me. Mr. Sands had expended a good
deal of money, and would naturally feel irritated by the loss he had
incurred. I greatly feared this might injure the prospects of my children,
who were now becoming valuable property. I longed to have their
emancipation made certain. The more so, because their master and father
was now married. I was too familiar with slavery not to know that promises
made to slaves, though with kind intentions, and sincere at the time, depend
upon many contingencies for their fulfilment.
Much as I wished William to be free, the step he had taken made me sad
and anxious. The following Sabbath was calm and clear; so beautiful that it
seemed like a Sabbath in the eternal world. My grandmother brought the
children out on the piazza, that I might hear their voices. She thought it
would comfort me in my despondency; and it did. They chatted merrily, as
only children can. Benny said, “Grandmother, do you think uncle Will has
gone for good? Won’t he ever come back again? May be he’ll find mother.
If he does, won’t she be glad to see him! Why don’t you and uncle Phillip,
and all of us, go and live where mother is? I should like it; wouldn’t you,
Ellen?”
“Yes, I should like it,” replied Ellen; “but how could we find her? Do you
know the place, grandmother? I don’t remember how mother looked—do
you, Benny?”

Benny was just beginning to describe me when they were interrupted by
an old slave woman, a near neighbor, named Aggie. This poor creature had
witnessed the sale of her children, and seen them carried off to parts
unknown, without any hopes of ever hearing from them again. She saw that
my grandmother had been weeping, and she said, in a sympathizing tone,
“What’s the matter, aunt Marthy?”
“O Aggie,” she replied, “it seems as if I shouldn’t have any of my
children or grandchildren left to hand me a drink when I’m dying, and lay
my old body in the ground. My boy didn’t come back with Mr. Sands. He
staid at the north.”
Poor old Aggie clapped her hands for joy. “Is dat what you’s crying fur?”
she exclaimed. “Git down on your knees and bress de Lord! I don’t know
whar my poor chillern is, and I nebber ’spect to know. You don’t know whar
poor Linda’s gone to; but you do know whar her brudder is. He’s in free
parts; and dat’s de right place. Don’t murmur at de Lord’s doings, but git
down on your knees and tank him for his goodness.”
My selfishness was rebuked by what poor Aggie said. She rejoiced over
the escape of one who was merely her fellow-bondman, while his own
sister was only thinking what his good fortune might cost her children. I
knelt and prayed God to forgive me; and I thanked him from my heart, that
one of my family was saved from the grasp of slavery.
It was not long before we received a letter from William. He wrote that
Mr. Sands had always treated him kindly, and that he had tried to do his
duty to him faithfully. But ever since he was a boy, he had longed to be free;
and he had already gone through enough to convince him he had better not
lose the chance that offered. He concluded by saying, “Don’t worry about
me, dear grandmother. I shall think of you always; and it will spur me on to
work hard and try to do right. When I have earned money enough to give
you a home, perhaps you will come to the north, and we can all live happy
together.”
Mr. Sands told my uncle Phillip the particulars about William’s leaving
him. He said, “I trusted him as if he were my own brother, and treated him
as kindly. The abolitionists talked to him in several places; but I had no idea
they could tempt him. However, I don’t blame William. He’s young and

inconsiderate, and those Northern rascals decoyed him. I must confess the
scamp was very bold about it. I met him coming down the steps of the Astor
House with his trunk on his shoulder, and I asked him where he was going.
He said he was going to change his old trunk. I told him it was rather
shabby, and asked if he didn’t need some money. He said, No, thanked me,
and went off. He did not return so soon as I expected; but I waited patiently.
At last I went to see if our trunks were packed, ready for our journey. I
found them locked, and a sealed note on the table informed me where I
could find the keys. The fellow even tried to be religious. He wrote that he
hoped God would always bless me, and reward me for my kindness; that he
was not unwilling to serve me; but he wanted to be a free man; and that if I
thought he did wrong, he hoped I would forgive him. I intended to give him
his freedom in five years. He might have trusted me. He has shown himself
ungrateful; but I shall not go for him, or send for him. I feel confident that
he will soon return to me.”
I afterwards heard an account of the affair from William himself. He had
not been urged away by abolitionists. He needed no information they could
give him about slavery to stimulate his desire for freedom. He looked at his
hands, and remembered that they were once in irons. What security had he
that they would not be so again? Mr. Sands was kind to him; but he might
indefinitely postpone the promise he had made to give him his freedom. He
might come under pecuniary embarrassments, and his property be seized by
creditors; or he might die, without making any arrangements in his favor.
He had too often known such accidents to happen to slaves who had kind
masters, and he wisely resolved to make sure of the present opportunity to
own himself. He was scrupulous about taking any money from his master
on false pretences; so he sold his best clothes to pay for his passage to
Boston. The slaveholders pronounced him a base, ungrateful wretch, for
thus requiting his master’s indulgence. What would they have done under
similar circumstances?
When Dr. Flint’s family heard that William had deserted Mr. Sands, they
chuckled greatly over the news. Mrs. Flint made her usual manifestations of
Christian feeling, by saying, “I’m glad of it. I hope he’ll never get him
again. I like to see people paid back in their own coin. I reckon Linda’s
children will have to pay for it. I should be glad to see them in the

speculator’s hands again, for I’m tired of seeing those little niggers march
about the streets.”

XXVII. New Destination For The Children.
Mrs. Flint proclaimed her intention of informing Mrs. Sands who was the
father of my children. She likewise proposed to tell her what an artful devil
I was; that I had made a great deal of trouble in her family; that when Mr.
Sands was at the north, she didn’t doubt I had followed him in disguise, and
persuaded William to run away. She had some reason to entertain such an
idea; for I had written from the north, from time to time, and I dated my
letters from various places. Many of them fell into Dr. Flint’s hands, as I
expected they would; and he must have come to the conclusion that I
travelled about a good deal. He kept a close watch over my children,
thinking they would eventually lead to my detection.
A new and unexpected trial was in store for me. One day, when Mr.
Sands and his wife were walking in the street, they met Benny. The lady
took a fancy to him, and exclaimed, “What a pretty little negro! Whom does
he belong to?”
Benny did not hear the answer; but he came home very indignant with
the stranger lady, because she had called him a negro. A few days
afterwards, Mr. Sands called on my grandmother, and told her he wanted
her to take the children to his house. He said he had informed his wife of his
relation to them, and told her they were motherless; and she wanted to see
them.
When he had gone, my grandmother came and asked what I would do.
The question seemed a mockery. What could I do? They were Mr. Sands’s
slaves, and their mother was a slave, whom he had represented to be dead.
Perhaps he thought I was. I was too much pained and puzzled to come to
any decision; and the children were carried without my knowledge.
Mrs. Sands had a sister from Illinois staying with her. This lady, who had
no children of her own, was so much pleased with Ellen, that she offered to
adopt her, and bring her up as she would a daughter. Mrs. Sands wanted to
take Benjamin. When grandmother reported this to me, I was tried almost
beyond endurance. Was this all I was to gain by what I had suffered for the

sake of having my children free? True, the prospect seemed fair; but I knew
too well how lightly slaveholders held such “parental relations.” If
pecuniary troubles should come, or if the new wife required more money
than could conveniently be spared, my children might be thought of as a
convenient means of raising funds. I had no trust in thee, O Slavery! Never
should I know peace till my children were emancipated with all due
formalities of law.
I was too proud to ask Mr. Sands to do any thing for my own benefit; but
I could bring myself to become a supplicant for my children. I resolved to
remind him of the promise he had made me, and to throw myself upon his
honor for the performance of it. I persuaded my grandmother to go to him,
and tell him I was not dead, and that I earnestly entreated him to keep the
promise he had made me; that I had heard of the recent proposals
concerning my children, and did not feel easy to accept them; that he had
promised to emancipate them, and it was time for him to redeem his pledge.
I knew there was some risk in thus betraying that I was in the vicinity; but
what will not a mother do for her children? He received the message with
surprise, and said, “The children are free. I have never intended to claim
them as slaves. Linda may decide their fate. In my opinion, they had better
be sent to the north. I don’t think they are quite safe here. Dr. Flint boasts
that they are still in his power. He says they were his daughter’s property,
and as she was not of age when they were sold, the contract is not legally
binding.”
So, then, after all I had endured for their sakes, my poor children were
between two fires; between my old master and their new master! And I was
powerless. There was no protecting arm of the law for me to invoke. Mr.
Sands proposed that Ellen should go, for the present, to some of his
relatives, who had removed to Brooklyn, Long Island. It was promised that
she should be well taken care of, and sent to school. I consented to it, as the
best arrangement I could make for her. My grandmother, of course,
negotiated it all; and Mrs. Sands knew of no other person in the transaction.
She proposed that they should take Ellen with them to Washington, and
keep her till they had a good chance of sending her, with friends, to
Brooklyn. She had an infant daughter. I had had a glimpse of it, as the nurse
passed with it in her arms. It was not a pleasant thought to me, that the
bondwoman’s child should tend her free-born sister; but there was no

alternative. Ellen was made ready for the journey. O, how it tried my heart
to send her away, so young, alone, among strangers! Without a mother’s
love to shelter her from the storms of life; almost without memory of a
mother! I doubted whether she and Benny would have for me the natural
affection that children feel for a parent. I thought to myself that I might
perhaps never see my daughter again, and I had a great desire that she
should look upon me, before she went, that she might take my image with
her in her memory. It seemed to me cruel to have her brought to my
dungeon. It was sorrow enough for her young heart to know that her mother
was a victim of slavery, without seeing the wretched hiding-place to which
it had driven her. I begged permission to pass the last night in one of the
open chambers, with my little girl. They thought I was crazy to think of
trusting such a young child with my perilous secret. I told them I had
watched her character, and I felt sure she would not betray me; that I was
determined to have an interview, and if they would not facilitate it, I would
take my own way to obtain it. They remonstrated against the rashness of
such a proceeding; but finding they could not change my purpose, they
yielded. I slipped through the trap-door into the storeroom, and my uncle
kept watch at the gate, while I passed into the piazza and went up stairs, to
the room I used to occupy. It was more than five years since I had seen it;
and how the memories crowded on me! There I had taken shelter when my
mistress drove me from her house; there came my old tyrant, to mock,
insult, and curse me; there my children were first laid in my arms; there I
had watched over them, each day with a deeper and sadder love; there I had
knelt to God, in anguish of heart, to forgive the wrong I had done. How
vividly it all came back! And after this long, gloomy interval, I stood there
such a wreck!
In the midst of these meditations, I heard footsteps on the stairs. The door
opened, and my uncle Phillip came in, leading Ellen by the hand. I put my
arms round her, and said, “Ellen, my dear child, I am your mother.” She
drew back a little, and looked at me; then, with sweet confidence, she laid
her cheek against mine, and I folded her to the heart that had been so long
desolated. She was the first to speak. Raising her head, she said, inquiringly,
“You really are my mother?” I told her I really was; that during all the long
time she had not seen me, I had loved her most tenderly; and that now she
was going away, I wanted to see her and talk with her, that she might

remember me. With a sob in her voice, she said, “I’m glad you’ve come to
see me; but why didn’t you ever come before? Benny and I have wanted so
much to see you! He remembers you, and sometimes he tells me about you.
Why didn’t you come home when Dr. Flint went to bring you?”
I answered, “I couldn’t come before, dear. But now that I am with you,
tell me whether you like to go away.” “I don’t know,” said she, crying.
“Grandmother says I ought not to cry; that I am going to a good place,
where I can learn to read and write, and that by and by I can write her a
letter. But I shan’t have Benny, or grandmother, or uncle Phillip, or any
body to love me. Can’t you go with me? O, do go, dear mother!”
I told her I couldn’t go now; but sometime I would come to her, and then
she and Benny and I would live together, and have happy times. She wanted
to run and bring Benny to see me now. I told her he was going to the north,
before long, with uncle Phillip, and then I would come to see him before he
went away. I asked if she would like to have me stay all night and sleep
with her. “O, yes,” she replied. Then, turning to her uncle, she said,
pleadingly, “May I stay? Please, uncle! She is my own mother.” He laid his
hand on her head, and said, solemnly, “Ellen, this is the secret you have
promised grandmother never to tell. If you ever speak of it to any body,
they will never let you see your grandmother again, and your mother can
never come to Brooklyn.” “Uncle,” she replied, “I will never tell.” He told
her she might stay with me; and when he had gone, I took her in my arms
and told her I was a slave, and that was the reason she must never say she
had seen me. I exhorted her to be a good child, to try to please the people
where she was going, and that God would raise her up friends. I told her to
say her prayers, and remember always to pray for her poor mother, and that
God would permit us to meet again. She wept, and I did not check her tears.
Perhaps she would never again have a chance to pour her tears into a
mother’s bosom. All night she nestled in my arms, and I had no inclination
to slumber. The moments were too precious to lose any of them. Once,
when I thought she was asleep, I kissed her forehead softly, and she said, “I
am not asleep, dear mother.”
Before dawn they came to take me back to my den. I drew aside the
window curtain, to take a last look of my child. The moonlight shone on her
face, and I bent over her, as I had done years before, that wretched night

when I ran away. I hugged her close to my throbbing heart; and tears, too
sad for such young eyes to shed, flowed down her cheeks, as she gave her
last kiss, and whispered in my ear, “Mother, I will never tell.” And she
never did.
When I got back to my den, I threw myself on the bed and wept there
alone in the darkness. It seemed as if my heart would burst. When the time
for Ellen’s departure drew nigh, I could hear neighbors and friends saying
to her, “Good by, Ellen. I hope your poor mother will find you out. Won’t
you be glad to see her!” She replied, “Yes, ma’am;” and they little dreamed
of the weighty secret that weighed down her young heart. She was an
affectionate child, but naturally very reserved, except with those she loved,
and I felt secure that my secret would be safe with her. I heard the gate
close after her, with such feelings as only a slave mother can experience.
During the day my meditations were very sad. Sometimes I feared I had
been very selfish not to give up all claim to her, and let her go to Illinois, to
be adopted by Mrs. Sands’s sister. It was my experience of slavery that
decided me against it. I feared that circumstances might arise that would
cause her to be sent back. I felt confident that I should go to New York
myself; and then I should be able to watch over her, and in some degree
protect her.
Dr. Flint’s family knew nothing of the proposed arrangement till after
Ellen was gone, and the news displeased them greatly. Mrs. Flint called on
Mrs. Sands’s sister to inquire into the matter. She expressed her opinion
very freely as to the respect Mr. Sands showed for his wife, and for his own
character, in acknowledging those “young niggers.” And as for sending
Ellen away, she pronounced it to be just as much stealing as it would be for
him to come and take a piece of furniture out of her parlor. She said her
daughter was not of age to sign the bill of sale, and the children were her
property; and when she became of age, or was married, she could take
them, wherever she could lay hands on them.
Miss Emily Flint, the little girl to whom I had been bequeathed, was now
in her sixteenth year. Her mother considered it all right and honorable for
her, or her future husband, to steal my children; but she did not understand
how any body could hold up their heads in respectable society, after they
had purchased their own children, as Mr. Sands had done. Dr. Flint said

very little. Perhaps he thought that Benny would be less likely to be sent
away if he kept quiet. One of my letters, that fell into his hands, was dated
from Canada; and he seldom spoke of me now. This state of things enabled
me to slip down into the storeroom more frequently, where I could stand
upright, and move my limbs more freely.
Days, weeks, and months passed, and there came no news of Ellen. I sent
a letter to Brooklyn, written in my grandmother’s name, to inquire whether
she had arrived there. Answer was returned that she had not. I wrote to her
in Washington; but no notice was taken of it. There was one person there,
who ought to have had some sympathy with the anxiety of the child’s
friends at home; but the links of such relations as he had formed with me,
are easily broken and cast away as rubbish. Yet how protectingly and
persuasively he once talked to the poor, helpless slave girl! And how
entirely I trusted him! But now suspicions darkened my mind. Was my
child dead, or had they deceived me, and sold her?
If the secret memoirs of many members of Congress should be published,
curious details would be unfolded. I once saw a letter from a member of
Congress to a slave, who was the mother of six of his children. He wrote to
request that she would send her children away from the great house before
his return, as he expected to be accompanied by friends. The woman could
not read, and was obliged to employ another to read the letter. The existence
of the colored children did not trouble this gentleman, it was only the fear
that friends might recognize in their features a resemblance to him.
At the end of six months, a letter came to my grandmother, from
Brooklyn. It was written by a young lady in the family, and announced that
Ellen had just arrived. It contained the following message from her: “I do
try to do just as you told me to, and I pray for you every night and
morning.” I understood that these words were meant for me; and they were
a balsam to my heart. The writer closed her letter by saying, “Ellen is a nice
little girl, and we shall like to have her with us. My cousin, Mr. Sands, has
given her to me, to be my little waiting maid. I shall send her to school, and
I hope some day she will write to you herself.” This letter perplexed and
troubled me. Had my child’s father merely placed her there till she was old
enough to support herself? Or had he given her to his cousin, as a piece of
property? If the last idea was correct, his cousin might return to the south at

any time, and hold Ellen as a slave. I tried to put away from me the painful
thought that such a foul wrong could have been done to us. I said to myself,
“Surely there must be some justice in man;” then I remembered, with a sigh,
how slavery perverted all the natural feelings of the human heart. It gave
me a pang to look on my light-hearted boy. He believed himself free; and to
have him brought under the yoke of slavery, would be more than I could
bear. How I longed to have him safely out of the reach of its power!

XXVIII. Aunt Nancy.
I have mentioned my great-aunt, who was a slave in Dr. Flint’s family,
and who had been my refuge during the shameful persecutions I suffered
from him. This aunt had been married at twenty years of age; that is, as far
as slaves can marry. She had the consent of her master and mistress, and a
clergyman performed the ceremony. But it was a mere form, without any
legal value. Her master or mistress could annul it any day they pleased. She
had always slept on the floor in the entry, near Mrs. Flint’s chamber door,
that she might be within call. When she was married, she was told she
might have the use of a small room in an out-house. Her mother and her
husband furnished it. He was a seafaring man, and was allowed to sleep
there when he was at home. But on the wedding evening, the bride was
ordered to her old post on the entry floor.
Mrs. Flint, at that time, had no children; but she was expecting to be a
mother, and if she should want a drink of water in the night, what could she
do without her slave to bring it? So my aunt was compelled to lie at her
door, until one midnight she was forced to leave, to give premature birth to
a child. In a fortnight she was required to resume her place on the entry
floor, because Mrs. Flint’s babe needed her attentions. She kept her station
there through summer and winter, until she had given premature birth to six
children; and all the while she was employed as night-nurse to Mrs. Flint’s
children. Finally, toiling all day, and being deprived of rest at night,
completely broke down her constitution, and Dr. Flint declared it was
impossible she could ever become the mother of a living child. The fear of
losing so valuable a servant by death, now induced them to allow her to
sleep in her little room in the out-house, except when there was sickness in
the family. She afterwards had two feeble babes, one of whom died in a few
days, and the other in four weeks. I well remember her patient sorrow as
she held the last dead baby in her arms. “I wish it could have lived,” she
said; “it is not the will of God that any of my children should live. But I will
try to be fit to meet their little spirits in heaven.”

Aunt Nancy was housekeeper and waiting-maid in Dr. Flint’s family.
Indeed, she was the factotum of the household. Nothing went on well
without her. She was my mother’s twin sister, and, as far as was in her
power, she supplied a mother’s place to us orphans. I slept with her all the
time I lived in my old master’s house, and the bond between us was very
strong. When my friends tried to discourage me from running away, she
always encouraged me. When they thought I had better return and ask my
master’s pardon, because there was no possibility of escape, she sent me
word never to yield. She said if I persevered I might, perhaps, gain the
freedom of my children; and even if I perished in doing it, that was better
than to leave them to groan under the same persecutions that had blighted
my own life. After I was shut up in my dark cell, she stole away, whenever
she could, to bring me the news and say something cheering. How often did
I kneel down to listen to her words of consolation, whispered through a
crack! “I am old, and have not long to live,” she used to say; “and I could
die happy if I could only see you and the children free. You must pray to
God, Linda, as I do for you, that he will lead you out of this darkness.” I
would beg her not to worry herself on my account; that there was an end of
all suffering sooner or later, and that whether I lived in chains or in
freedom, I should always remember her as the good friend who had been
the comfort of my life. A word from her always strengthened me; and not
me only. The whole family relied upon her judgment, and were guided by
her advice.
I had been in my cell six years when my grandmother was summoned to
the bedside of this, her last remaining daughter. She was very ill, and they
said she would die. Grandmother had not entered Dr. Flint’s house for
several years. They had treated her cruelly, but she thought nothing of that
now. She was grateful for permission to watch by the death-bed of her
child. They had always been devoted to each other; and now they sat
looking into each other’s eyes, longing to speak of the secret that had
weighed so much on the hearts of both. My aunt had been stricken with
paralysis. She lived but two days, and the last day she was speechless.
Before she lost the power of utterance, she told her mother not to grieve if
she could not speak to her; that she would try to hold up her hand, to let her
know that all was well with her. Even the hard-hearted doctor was a little
softened when he saw the dying woman try to smile on the aged mother,

who was kneeling by her side. His eyes moistened for a moment, as he said
she had always been a faithful servant, and they should never be able to
supply her place. Mrs. Flint took to her bed, quite overcome by the shock.
While my grandmother sat alone with the dead, the doctor came in, leading
his youngest son, who had always been a great pet with aunt Nancy, and
was much attached to her. “Martha,” said he, “aunt Nancy loved this child,
and when he comes where you are, I hope you will be kind to him, for her
sake.” She replied, “Your wife was my foster-child, Dr. Flint, the foster-
sister of my poor Nancy, and you little know me if you think I can feel any
thing but good will for her children.”
“I wish the past could be forgotten, and that we might never think of it,”
said he; “and that Linda would come to supply her aunt’s place. She would
be worth more to us than all the money that could be paid for her. I wish it
for your sake also, Martha. Now that Nancy is taken away from you, she
would be a great comfort to your old age.”
He knew he was touching a tender chord. Almost choking with grief, my
grandmother replied, “It was not I that drove Linda away. My grandchildren
are gone; and of my nine children only one is left. God help me!”
To me, the death of this kind relative was an inexpressible sorrow. I knew
that she had been slowly murdered; and I felt that my troubles had helped to
finish the work. After I heard of her illness, I listened constantly to hear
what news was brought from the great house; and the thought that I could
not go to her made me utterly miserable. At last, as uncle Phillip came into
the house, I heard some one inquire, “How is she?” and he answered, “She
is dead.” My little cell seemed whirling round, and I knew nothing more till
I opened my eyes and found uncle Phillip bending over me. I had no need
to ask any questions. He whispered, “Linda, she died happy.” I could not
weep. My fixed gaze troubled him. “Don’t look so,” he said. “Don’t add to
my poor mother’s trouble. Remember how much she has to bear, and that
we ought to do all we can to comfort her.” Ah, yes, that blessed old
grandmother, who for seventy-three years had borne the pelting storms of a
slave-mother’s life. She did indeed need consolation!
Mrs. Flint had rendered her poor foster-sister childless, apparently
without any compunction; and with cruel selfishness had ruined her health

by years of incessant, unrequited toil, and broken rest. But now she became
very sentimental. I suppose she thought it would be a beautiful illustration
of the attachment existing between slaveholder and slave, if the body of her
old worn-out servant was buried at her feet. She sent for the clergyman and
asked if he had any objection to burying aunt Nancy in the doctor’s family
burial-place. No colored person had ever been allowed interment in the
white people’s burying-ground, and the minister knew that all the deceased
of our family reposed together in the old graveyard of the slaves. He
therefore replied, “I have no objection to complying with your wish; but
perhaps aunt Nancy’s mother may have some choice as to where her
remains shall be deposited.”
It had never occurred to Mrs. Flint that slaves could have any feelings.
When my grandmother was consulted, she at once said she wanted Nancy
to lie with all the rest of her family, and where her own old body would be
buried. Mrs. Flint graciously complied with her wish, though she said it was
painful to her to have Nancy buried away from her. She might have added
with touching pathos, “I was so long used to sleep with her lying near me,
on the entry floor.”
My uncle Phillip asked permission to bury his sister at his own expense;
and slaveholders are always ready to grant such favors to slaves and their
relatives. The arrangements were very plain, but perfectly respectable. She
was buried on the Sabbath, and Mrs. Flint’s minister read the funeral
service. There was a large concourse of colored people, bond and free, and
a few white persons who had always been friendly to our family. Dr. Flint’s
carriage was in the procession; and when the body was deposited in its
humble resting place, the mistress dropped a tear, and returned to her
carriage, probably thinking she had performed her duty nobly.
It was talked of by the slaves as a mighty grand funeral. Northern
travellers, passing through the place, might have described this tribute of
respect to the humble dead as a beautiful feature in the “patriarchal
institution;” a touching proof of the attachment between slaveholders and
their servants; and tender-hearted Mrs. Flint would have confirmed this
impression, with handkerchief at her eyes. We could have told them a
different story. We could have given them a chapter of wrongs and
sufferings, that would have touched their hearts, if they had any hearts to

feel for the colored people. We could have told them how the poor old
slave-mother had toiled, year after year, to earn eight hundred dollars to buy
her son Phillip’s right to his own earnings; and how that same Phillip paid
the expenses of the funeral, which they regarded as doing so much credit to
the master. We could also have told them of a poor, blighted young creature,
shut up in a living grave for years, to avoid the tortures that would be
inflicted on her, if she ventured to come out and look on the face of her
departed friend.
All this, and much more, I thought of, as I sat at my loophole, waiting for
the family to return from the grave; sometimes weeping, sometimes falling
asleep, dreaming strange dreams of the dead and the living.
It was sad to witness the grief of my bereaved grandmother. She had
always been strong to bear, and now, as ever, religious faith supported her.
But her dark life had become still darker, and age and trouble were leaving
deep traces on her withered face. She had four places to knock for me to
come to the trap-door, and each place had a different meaning. She now
came oftener than she had done, and talked to me of her dead daughter,
while tears trickled slowly down her furrowed cheeks. I said all I could to
comfort her; but it was a sad reflection, that instead of being able to help
her, I was a constant source of anxiety and trouble. The poor old back was
fitted to its burden. It bent under it, but did not break.

XXIX. Preparations For Escape.
I hardly expect that the reader will credit me, when I affirm that I lived in
that little dismal hole, almost deprived of light and air, and with no space to
move my limbs, for nearly seven years. But it is a fact; and to me a sad one,
even now; for my body still suffers from the effects of that long
imprisonment, to say nothing of my soul. Members of my family, now
living in New York and Boston, can testify to the truth of what I say.
Countless were the nights that I sat late at the little loophole scarcely
large enough to give me a glimpse of one twinkling star. There, I heard the
patrols and slave-hunters conferring together about the capture of runaways,
well knowing how rejoiced they would be to catch me.
Season after season, year after year, I peeped at my children’s faces, and
heard their sweet voices, with a heart yearning all the while to say, “Your
mother is here.” Sometimes it appeared to me as if ages had rolled away
since I entered upon that gloomy, monotonous existence. At times, I was
stupefied and listless; at other times I became very impatient to know when
these dark years would end, and I should again be allowed to feel the
sunshine, and breathe the pure air.
After Ellen left us, this feeling increased. Mr. Sands had agreed that
Benny might go to the north whenever his uncle Phillip could go with him;
and I was anxious to be there also, to watch over my children, and protect
them so far as I was able. Moreover, I was likely to be drowned out of my
den, if I remained much longer; for the slight roof was getting badly out of
repair, and uncle Phillip was afraid to remove the shingles, lest some one
should get a glimpse of me. When storms occurred in the night, they spread
mats and bits of carpet, which in the morning appeared to have been laid
out to dry; but to cover the roof in the daytime might have attracted
attention. Consequently, my clothes and bedding were often drenched; a
process by which the pains and aches in my cramped and stiffened limbs
were greatly increased. I revolved various plans of escape in my mind,
which I sometimes imparted to my grandmother, when she came to whisper

with me at the trap-door. The kind-hearted old woman had an intense
sympathy for runaways. She had known too much of the cruelties inflicted
on those who were captured. Her memory always flew back at once to the
sufferings of her bright and handsome son, Benjamin, the youngest and
dearest of her flock. So, whenever I alluded to the subject, she would groan
out, “O, don’t think of it, child. You’ll break my heart.” I had no good old
aunt Nancy now to encourage me; but my brother William and my children
were continually beckoning me to the north.
And now I must go back a few months in my story. I have stated that the
first of January was the time for selling slaves, or leasing them out to new
masters. If time were counted by heart-throbs, the poor slaves might reckon
years of suffering during that festival so joyous to the free. On the New
Year’s day preceding my aunt’s death, one of my friends, named Fanny, was
to be sold at auction, to pay her master’s debts. My thoughts were with her
during all the day, and at night I anxiously inquired what had been her fate.
I was told that she had been sold to one master, and her four little girls to
another master, far distant; that she had escaped from her purchaser, and
was not to be found. Her mother was the old Aggie I have spoken of. She
lived in a small tenement belonging to my grandmother, and built on the
same lot with her own house. Her dwelling was searched and watched, and
that brought the patrols so near me that I was obliged to keep very close in
my den. The hunters were somehow eluded; and not long afterwards Benny
accidentally caught sight of Fanny in her mother’s hut. He told his
grandmother, who charged him never to speak of it, explaining to him the
frightful consequences; and he never betrayed the trust. Aggie little
dreamed that my grandmother knew where her daughter was concealed, and
that the stooping form of her old neighbor was bending under a similar
burden of anxiety and fear; but these dangerous secrets deepened the
sympathy between the two old persecuted mothers.
My friend Fanny and I remained many weeks hidden within call of each
other; but she was unconscious of the fact. I longed to have her share my
den, which seemed a more secure retreat than her own; but I had brought so
much trouble on my grandmother, that it seemed wrong to ask her to incur
greater risks. My restlessness increased. I had lived too long in bodily pain
and anguish of spirit. Always I was in dread that by some accident, or some
contrivance, slavery would succeed in snatching my children from me. This

thought drove me nearly frantic, and I determined to steer for the North Star
at all hazards. At this crisis, Providence opened an unexpected way for me
to escape. My friend Peter came one evening, and asked to speak with me.
“Your day has come, Linda,” said he. “I have found a chance for you to go
to the Free States. You have a fortnight to decide.” The news seemed too
good to be true; but Peter explained his arrangements, and told me all that
was necessary was for me to say I would go. I was going to answer him
with a joyful yes, when the thought of Benny came to my mind. I told him
the temptation was exceedingly strong, but I was terribly afraid of Dr.
Flint’s alleged power over my child, and that I could not go and leave him
behind. Peter remonstrated earnestly. He said such a good chance might
never occur again; that Benny was free, and could be sent to me; and that
for the sake of my children’s welfare I ought not to hesitate a moment. I
told him I would consult with uncle Phillip. My uncle rejoiced in the plan,
and bade me go by all means. He promised, if his life was spared, that he
would either bring or send my son to me as soon as I reached a place of
safety. I resolved to go, but thought nothing had better be said to my
grandmother till very near the time of departure. But my uncle thought she
would feel it more keenly if I left her so suddenly. “I will reason with her,”
said he, “and convince her how necessary it is, not only for your sake, but
for hers also. You cannot be blind to the fact that she is sinking under her
burdens.” I was not blind to it. I knew that my concealment was an ever-
present source of anxiety, and that the older she grew the more nervously
fearful she was of discovery. My uncle talked with her, and finally
succeeded in persuading her that it was absolutely necessary for me to seize
the chance so unexpectedly offered.
The anticipation of being a free woman proved almost too much for my
weak frame. The excitement stimulated me, and at the same time
bewildered me. I made busy preparations for my journey, and for my son to
follow me. I resolved to have an interview with him before I went, that I
might give him cautions and advice, and tell him how anxiously I should be
waiting for him at the north. Grandmother stole up to me as often as
possible to whisper words of counsel. She insisted upon my writing to Dr.
Flint, as soon as I arrived in the Free States, and asking him to sell me to
her. She said she would sacrifice her house, and all she had in the world, for
the sake of having me safe with my children in any part of the world. If she

could only live to know that she could die in peace. I promised the dear old
faithful friend that I would write to her as soon as I arrived, and put the
letter in a safe way to reach her; but in my own mind I resolved that not
another cent of her hard earnings should be spent to pay rapacious
slaveholders for what they called their property. And even if I had not been
unwilling to buy what I had already a right to possess, common humanity
would have prevented me from accepting the generous offer, at the expense
of turning my aged relative out of house and home, when she was trembling
on the brink of the grave.
I was to escape in a vessel; but I forbear to mention any further
particulars. I was in readiness, but the vessel was unexpectedly detained
several days. Meantime, news came to town of a most horrible murder
committed on a fugitive slave, named James. Charity, the mother of this
unfortunate young man, had been an old acquaintance of ours. I have told
the shocking particulars of his death, in my description of some of the
neighboring slaveholders. My grandmother, always nervously sensitive
about runaways, was terribly frightened. She felt sure that a similar fate
awaited me, if I did not desist from my enterprise. She sobbed, and groaned,
and entreated me not to go. Her excessive fear was somewhat contagious,
and my heart was not proof against her extreme agony. I was grievously
disappointed, but I promised to relinquish my project.
When my friend Peter was apprised of this, he was both disappointed and
vexed. He said, that judging from our past experience, it would be a long
time before I had such another chance to throw away. I told him it need not
be thrown away; that I had a friend concealed near by, who would be glad
enough to take the place that had been provided for me. I told him about
poor Fanny, and the kind-hearted, noble fellow, who never turned his back
upon any body in distress, white or black, expressed his readiness to help
her. Aggie was much surprised when she found that we knew her secret.
She was rejoiced to hear of such a chance for Fanny, and arrangements were
made for her to go on board the vessel the next night. They both supposed
that I had long been at the north, therefore my name was not mentioned in
the transaction. Fanny was carried on board at the appointed time, and
stowed away in a very small cabin. This accommodation had been
purchased at a price that would pay for a voyage to England. But when one
proposes to go to fine old England, they stop to calculate whether they can

afford the cost of the pleasure; while in making a bargain to escape from
slavery, the trembling victim is ready to say, “take all I have, only don’t
betray me!”
The next morning I peeped through my loophole, and saw that it was
dark and cloudy. At night I received news that the wind was ahead, and the
vessel had not sailed. I was exceedingly anxious about Fanny, and Peter too,
who was running a tremendous risk at my instigation. Next day the wind
and weather remained the same. Poor Fanny had been half dead with fright
when they carried her on board, and I could readily imagine how she must
be suffering now. Grandmother came often to my den, to say how thankful
she was I did not go. On the third morning she rapped for me to come down
to the storeroom. The poor old sufferer was breaking down under her
weight of trouble. She was easily flurried now. I found her in a nervous,
excited state, but I was not aware that she had forgotten to lock the door
behind her, as usual. She was exceedingly worried about the detention of
the vessel. She was afraid all would be discovered, and then Fanny, and
Peter, and I, would all be tortured to death, and Phillip would be utterly
ruined, and her house would be torn down. Poor Peter! If he should die such
a horrible death as the poor slave James had lately done, and all for his
kindness in trying to help me, how dreadful it would be for us all! Alas, the
thought was familiar to me, and had sent many a sharp pang through my
heart. I tried to suppress my own anxiety, and speak soothingly to her. She
brought in some allusion to aunt Nancy, the dear daughter she had recently
buried, and then she lost all control of herself. As she stood there, trembling
and sobbing, a voice from the piazza called out, “Whar is you, aunt
Marthy?” Grandmother was startled, and in her agitation opened the door,
without thinking of me. In stepped Jenny, the mischievous housemaid, who
had tried to enter my room, when I was concealed in the house of my white
benefactress. “I’s bin huntin ebery whar for you, aunt Marthy,” said she.
“My missis wants you to send her some crackers.” I had slunk down behind
a barrel, which entirely screened me, but I imagined that Jenny was looking
directly at the spot, and my heart beat violently. My grandmother
immediately thought what she had done, and went out quickly with Jenny to
count the crackers, locking the door after her. She returned to me, in a few
minutes, the perfect picture of despair. “Poor child!” she exclaimed, “my
carelessness has ruined you. The boat ain’t gone yet. Get ready

immediately, and go with Fanny. I ain’t got another word to say against it
now; for there’s no telling what may happen this day.”
Uncle Phillip was sent for, and he agreed with his mother in thinking that
Jenny would inform Dr. Flint in less than twenty-four hours. He advised
getting me on board the boat, if possible; if not, I had better keep very still
in my den, where they could not find me without tearing the house down.
He said it would not do for him to move in the matter, because suspicion
would be immediately excited; but he promised to communicate with Peter.
I felt reluctant to apply to him again, having implicated him too much
already; but there seemed to be no alternative. Vexed as Peter had been by
my indecision, he was true to his generous nature, and said at once that he
would do his best to help me, trusting I should show myself a stronger
woman this time.
He immediately proceeded to the wharf, and found that the wind had
shifted, and the vessel was slowly beating down stream. On some pretext of
urgent necessity, he offered two boatmen a dollar apiece to catch up with
her. He was of lighter complexion than the boatmen he hired, and when the
captain saw them coming so rapidly, he thought officers were pursuing his
vessel in search of the runaway slave he had on board. They hoisted sails,
but the boat gained upon them, and the indefatigable Peter sprang on board.
The captain at once recognized him. Peter asked him to go below, to
speak about a bad bill he had given him. When he told his errand, the
captain replied, “Why, the woman’s here already; and I’ve put her where
you or the devil would have a tough job to find her.”
“But it is another woman I want to bring,” said Peter. “She is in great
distress, too, and you shall be paid any thing within reason, if you’ll stop
and take her.”
“What’s her name?” inquired the captain.
“Linda,” he replied.
“That’s the name of the woman already here,” rejoined the captain. “By
George! I believe you mean to betray me.”

“O!” exclaimed Peter, “God knows I wouldn’t harm a hair of your head. I
am too grateful to you. But there really is another woman in great danger.
Do have the humanity to stop and take her!”
After a while they came to an understanding. Fanny, not dreaming I was
any where about in that region, had assumed my name, though she called
herself Johnson. “Linda is a common name,” said Peter, “and the woman I
want to bring is Linda Brent.”
The captain agreed to wait at a certain place till evening, being
handsomely paid for his detention.
Of course, the day was an anxious one for us all. But we concluded that if
Jenny had seen me, she would be too wise to let her mistress know of it;
and that she probably would not get a chance to see Dr. Flint’s family till
evening, for I knew very well what were the rules in that household. I
afterwards believed that she did not see me; for nothing ever came of it, and
she was one of those base characters that would have jumped to betray a
suffering fellow being for the sake of thirty pieces of silver.
I made all my arrangements to go on board as soon as it was dusk. The
intervening time I resolved to spend with my son. I had not spoken to him
for seven years, though I had been under the same roof, and seen him every
day, when I was well enough to sit at the loophole. I did not dare to venture
beyond the storeroom; so they brought him there, and locked us up together,
in a place concealed from the piazza door. It was an agitating interview for
both of us. After we had talked and wept together for a little while, he said,
“Mother, I’m glad you’re going away. I wish I could go with you. I knew
you was here; and I have been so afraid they would come and catch you!”
I was greatly surprised, and asked him how he had found it out.
He replied, “I was standing under the eaves, one day, before Ellen went
away, and I heard somebody cough up over the wood shed. I don’t know
what made me think it was you, but I did think so. I missed Ellen, the night
before she went away; and grandmother brought her back into the room in
the night; and I thought maybe she’d been to see you, before she went, for I
heard grandmother whisper to her, ‘Now go to sleep; and remember never
to tell.’”

I asked him if he ever mentioned his suspicions to his sister. He said he
never did; but after he heard the cough, if he saw her playing with other
children on that side of the house, he always tried to coax her round to the
other side, for fear they would hear me cough, too. He said he had kept a
close lookout for Dr. Flint, and if he saw him speak to a constable, or a
patrol, he always told grandmother. I now recollected that I had seen him
manifest uneasiness, when people were on that side of the house, and I had
at the time been puzzled to conjecture a motive for his actions. Such
prudence may seem extraordinary in a boy of twelve years, but slaves,
being surrounded by mysteries, deceptions, and dangers, early learn to be
suspicious and watchful, and prematurely cautious and cunning. He had
never asked a question of grandmother, or uncle Phillip, and I had often
heard him chime in with other children, when they spoke of my being at the
north.
I told him I was now really going to the Free States, and if he was a good,
honest boy, and a loving child to his dear old grandmother, the Lord would
bless him, and bring him to me, and we and Ellen would live together. He
began to tell me that grandmother had not eaten any thing all day. While he
was speaking, the door was unlocked, and she came in with a small bag of
money, which she wanted me to take. I begged her to keep a part of it, at
least, to pay for Benny’s being sent to the north; but she insisted, while her
tears were falling fast, that I should take the whole. “You may be sick
among strangers,” she said, “and they would send you to the poorhouse to
die.” Ah, that good grandmother!
For the last time I went up to my nook. Its desolate appearance no longer
chilled me, for the light of hope had risen in my soul. Yet, even with the
blessed prospect of freedom before me, I felt very sad at leaving forever
that old homestead, where I had been sheltered so long by the dear old
grandmother; where I had dreamed my first young dream of love; and
where, after that had faded away, my children came to twine themselves so
closely round my desolate heart. As the hour approached for me to leave, I
again descended to the storeroom. My grandmother and Benny were there.
She took me by the hand, and said, “Linda, let us pray.” We knelt down
together, with my child pressed to my heart, and my other arm round the
faithful, loving old friend I was about to leave forever. On no other occasion

has it ever been my lot to listen to so fervent a supplication for mercy and
protection. It thrilled through my heart, and inspired me with trust in God.
Peter was waiting for me in the street. I was soon by his side, faint in
body, but strong of purpose. I did not look back upon the old place, though I
felt that I should never see it again.

XXX. Northward Bound.
I never could tell how we reached the wharf. My brain was all of a whirl,
and my limbs tottered under me. At an appointed place we met my uncle
Phillip, who had started before us on a different route, that he might reach
the wharf first, and give us timely warning if there was any danger. A row-
boat was in readiness. As I was about to step in, I felt something pull me
gently, and turning round I saw Benny, looking pale and anxious. He
whispered in my ear, “I’ve been peeping into the doctor’s window, and he’s
at home. Good by, mother. Don’t cry; I’ll come.” He hastened away. I
clasped the hand of my good uncle, to whom I owed so much, and of Peter,
the brave, generous friend who had volunteered to run such terrible risks to
secure my safety. To this day I remember how his bright face beamed with
joy, when he told me he had discovered a safe method for me to escape. Yet
that intelligent, enterprising, noble-hearted man was a chattel! Liable, by
the laws of a country that calls itself civilized, to be sold with horses and
pigs! We parted in silence. Our hearts were all too full for words!
Swiftly the boat glided over the water. After a while, one of the sailors
said, “Don’t be down-hearted, madam. We will take you safely to your
husband, in ——.” At first I could not imagine what he meant; but I had
presence of mind to think that it probably referred to something the captain
had told him; so I thanked him, and said I hoped we should have pleasant
weather.
When I entered the vessel the captain came forward to meet me. He was
an elderly man, with a pleasant countenance. He showed me to a little box
of a cabin, where sat my friend Fanny. She started as if she had seen a
spectre. She gazed on me in utter astonishment, and exclaimed, “Linda, can
this be you? or is it your ghost?” When we were locked in each other’s
arms, my overwrought feelings could no longer be restrained. My sobs
reached the ears of the captain, who came and very kindly reminded us, that
for his safety, as well as our own, it would be prudent for us not to attract
any attention. He said that when there was a sail in sight he wished us to
keep below; but at other times, he had no objection to our being on deck.

He assured us that he would keep a good lookout, and if we acted prudently,
he thought we should be in no danger. He had represented us as women
going to meet our husbands in ——. We thanked him, and promised to
observe carefully all the directions he gave us.
Fanny and I now talked by ourselves, low and quietly, in our little cabin.
She told me of the sufferings she had gone through in making her escape,
and of her terrors while she was concealed in her mother’s house. Above
all, she dwelt on the agony of separation from all her children on that
dreadful auction day. She could scarcely credit me, when I told her of the
place where I had passed nearly seven years. “We have the same sorrows,”
said I. “No,” replied she, “you are going to see your children soon, and
there is no hope that I shall ever even hear from mine.”
The vessel was soon under way, but we made slow progress. The wind
was against us. I should not have cared for this, if we had been out of sight
of the town; but until there were miles of water between us and our
enemies, we were filled with constant apprehensions that the constables
would come on board. Neither could I feel quite at ease with the captain and
his men. I was an entire stranger to that class of people, and I had heard that
sailors were rough, and sometimes cruel. We were so completely in their
power, that if they were bad men, our situation would be dreadful. Now that
the captain was paid for our passage, might he not be tempted to make more
money by giving us up to those who claimed us as property? I was naturally
of a confiding disposition, but slavery had made me suspicious of every
body. Fanny did not share my distrust of the captain or his men. She said
she was afraid at first, but she had been on board three days while the vessel
lay in the dock, and nobody had betrayed her, or treated her otherwise than
kindly.
The captain soon came to advise us to go on deck for fresh air. His
friendly and respectful manner, combined with Fanny’s testimony,
reassured me, and we went with him. He placed us in a comfortable seat,
and occasionally entered into conversation. He told us he was a Southerner
by birth, and had spent the greater part of his life in the Slave States, and
that he had recently lost a brother who traded in slaves. “But,” said he, “it is
a pitiable and degrading business, and I always felt ashamed to
acknowledge my brother in connection with it.” As we passed Snaky

Swamp, he pointed to it, and said, “There is a slave territory that defies all
the laws.” I thought of the terrible days I had spent there, and though it was
not called Dismal Swamp, it made me feel very dismal as I looked at it.
I shall never forget that night. The balmy air of spring was so refreshing!
And how shall I describe my sensations when we were fairly sailing on
Chesapeake Bay? O, the beautiful sunshine! the exhilarating breeze! And I
could enjoy them without fear or restraint. I had never realized what grand
things air and sunlight are till I had been deprived of them.
Ten days after we left land we were approaching Philadelphia. The
captain said we should arrive there in the night, but he thought we had
better wait till morning, and go on shore in broad daylight, as the best way
to avoid suspicion.
I replied, “You know best. But will you stay on board and protect us?”
He saw that I was suspicious, and he said he was sorry, now that he had
brought us to the end of our voyage, to find I had so little confidence in
him. Ah, if he had ever been a slave he would have known how difficult it
was to trust a white man. He assured us that we might sleep through the
night without fear; that he would take care we were not left unprotected. Be
it said to the honor of this captain, Southerner as he was, that if Fanny and I
had been white ladies, and our passage lawfully engaged, he could not have
treated us more respectfully. My intelligent friend, Peter, had rightly
estimated the character of the man to whose honor he had intrusted us.
The next morning I was on deck as soon as the day dawned. I called
Fanny to see the sun rise, for the first time in our lives, on free soil; for such
I then believed it to be. We watched the reddening sky, and saw the great
orb come up slowly out of the water, as it seemed. Soon the waves began to
sparkle, and every thing caught the beautiful glow. Before us lay the city of
strangers. We looked at each other, and the eyes of both were moistened
with tears. We had escaped from slavery, and we supposed ourselves to be
safe from the hunters. But we were alone in the world, and we had left dear
ties behind us; ties cruelly sundered by the demon Slavery.

XXXI. Incidents In Philadelphia.
I had heard that the poor slave had many friends at the north. I trusted we
should find some of them. Meantime, we would take it for granted that all
were friends, till they proved to the contrary. I sought out the kind captain,
thanked him for his attentions, and told him I should never cease to be
grateful for the service he had rendered us. I gave him a message to the
friends I had left at home, and he promised to deliver it. We were placed in
a row-boat, and in about fifteen minutes were landed on a wood wharf in
Philadelphia. As I stood looking round, the friendly captain touched me on
the shoulder, and said, “There is a respectable-looking colored man behind
you. I will speak to him about the New York trains, and tell him you wish to
go directly on.” I thanked him, and asked him to direct me to some shops
where I could buy gloves and veils. He did so, and said he would talk with
the colored man till I returned. I made what haste I could. Constant exercise
on board the vessel, and frequent rubbing with salt water, had nearly
restored the use of my limbs. The noise of the great city confused me, but I
found the shops, and bought some double veils and gloves for Fanny and
myself. The shopman told me they were so many levies. I had never heard
the word before, but I did not tell him so. I thought if he knew I was a
stranger he might ask me where I came from. I gave him a gold piece, and
when he returned the change, I counted it, and found out how much a levy
was. I made my way back to the wharf, where the captain introduced me to
the colored man, as the Rev. Jeremiah Durham, minister of Bethel church.
He took me by the hand, as if I had been an old friend. He told us we were
too late for the morning cars to New York, and must wait until the evening,
or the next morning. He invited me to go home with him, assuring me that
his wife would give me a cordial welcome; and for my friend he would
provide a home with one of his neighbors. I thanked him for so much
kindness to strangers, and told him if I must be detained, I should like to
hunt up some people who formerly went from our part of the country. Mr.
Durham insisted that I should dine with him, and then he would assist me in
finding my friends. The sailors came to bid us good by. I shook their hardy

hands, with tears in my eyes. They had all been kind to us, and they had
rendered us a greater service than they could possibly conceive of.
I had never seen so large a city, or been in contact with so many people in
the streets. It seemed as if those who passed looked at us with an expression
of curiosity. My face was so blistered and peeled, by sitting on deck, in
wind and sunshine, that I thought they could not easily decide to what
nation I belonged.
Mrs. Durham met me with a kindly welcome, without asking any
questions. I was tired, and her friendly manner was a sweet refreshment.
God bless her! I was sure that she had comforted other weary hearts, before
I received her sympathy. She was surrounded by her husband and children,
in a home made sacred by protecting laws. I thought of my own children,
and sighed.
After dinner Mr. Durham went with me in quest of the friends I had
spoken of. They went from my native town, and I anticipated much pleasure
in looking on familiar faces. They were not at home, and we retraced our
steps through streets delightfully clean. On the way, Mr. Durham observed
that I had spoken to him of a daughter I expected to meet; that he was
surprised, for I looked so young he had taken me for a single woman. He
was approaching a subject on which I was extremely sensitive. He would
ask about my husband next, I thought, and if I answered him truly, what
would he think of me? I told him I had two children, one in New York the
other at the south. He asked some further questions, and I frankly told him
some of the most important events of my life. It was painful for me to do it;
but I would not deceive him. If he was desirous of being my friend, I
thought he ought to know how far I was worthy of it. “Excuse me, if I have
tried your feelings,” said he. “I did not question you from idle curiosity. I
wanted to understand your situation, in order to know whether I could be of
any service to you, or your little girl. Your straight-forward answers do you
credit; but don’t answer every body so openly. It might give some heartless
people a pretext for treating you with contempt.”
That word contempt burned me like coals of fire. I replied, “God alone
knows how I have suffered; and He, I trust, will forgive me. If I am

permitted to have my children, I intend to be a good mother, and to live in
such a manner that people cannot treat me with contempt.”
“I respect your sentiments,” said he. “Place your trust in God, and be
governed by good principles, and you will not fail to find friends.”
When we reached home, I went to my room, glad to shut out the world
for a while. The words he had spoken made an indelible impression upon
me. They brought up great shadows from the mournful past. In the midst of
my meditations I was startled by a knock at the door. Mrs. Durham entered,
her face all beaming with kindness, to say that there was an anti-slavery
friend down stairs, who would like to see me. I overcame my dread of
encountering strangers, and went with her. Many questions were asked
concerning my experiences, and my escape from slavery; but I observed
how careful they all were not to say any thing that might wound my
feelings. How gratifying this was, can be fully understood only by those
who have been accustomed to be treated as if they were not included within
the pale of human beings. The anti-slavery friend had come to inquire into
my plans, and to offer assistance, if needed. Fanny was comfortably
established, for the present, with a friend of Mr. Durham. The Anti-Slavery
Society agreed to pay her expenses to New York. The same was offered to
me, but I declined to accept it; telling them that my grandmother had given
me sufficient to pay my expenses to the end of my journey. We were urged
to remain in Philadelphia a few days, until some suitable escort could be
found for us. I gladly accepted the proposition, for I had a dread of meeting
slaveholders, and some dread also of railroads. I had never entered a
railroad car in my life, and it seemed to me quite an important event.
That night I sought my pillow with feelings I had never carried to it
before. I verily believed myself to be a free woman. I was wakeful for a
long time, and I had no sooner fallen asleep, than I was roused by fire-bells.
I jumped up, and hurried on my clothes. Where I came from, every body
hastened to dress themselves on such occasions. The white people thought a
great fire might be used as a good opportunity for insurrection, and that it
was best to be in readiness; and the colored people were ordered out to
labor in extinguishing the flames. There was but one engine in our town,
and colored women and children were often required to drag it to the river’s
edge and fill it. Mrs. Durham’s daughter slept in the same room with me,

and seeing that she slept through all the din, I thought it was my duty to
wake her. “What’s the matter?” said she, rubbing her eyes.
“They’re screaming fire in the streets, and the bells are ringing,” I
replied.
“What of that?” said she, drowsily. “We are used to it. We never get up,
without the fire is very near. What good would it do?”
I was quite surprised that it was not necessary for us to go and help fill
the engine. I was an ignorant child, just beginning to learn how things went
on in great cities.
At daylight, I heard women crying fresh fish, berries, radishes, and
various other things. All this was new to me. I dressed myself at an early
hour, and sat at the window to watch that unknown tide of life. Philadelphia
seemed to me a wonderfully great place. At the breakfast table, my idea of
going out to drag the engine was laughed over, and I joined in the mirth.
I went to see Fanny, and found her so well contented among her new
friends that she was in no haste to leave. I was also very happy with my
kind hostess. She had had advantages for education, and was vastly my
superior. Every day, almost every hour, I was adding to my little stock of
knowledge. She took me out to see the city as much as she deemed prudent.
One day she took me to an artist’s room, and showed me the portraits of
some of her children. I had never seen any paintings of colored people
before, and they seemed to me beautiful.
At the end of five days, one of Mrs. Durham’s friends offered to
accompany us to New York the following morning. As I held the hand of
my good hostess in a parting clasp, I longed to know whether her husband
had repeated to her what I had told him. I supposed he had, but she never
made any allusion to it. I presume it was the delicate silence of womanly
sympathy.
When Mr. Durham handed us our tickets, he said, “I am afraid you will
have a disagreeable ride; but I could not procure tickets for the first class
cars.”

Supposing I had not given him money enough, I offered more. “O, no,”
said he, “they could not be had for any money. They don’t allow colored
people to go in the first-class cars.”
This was the first chill to my enthusiasm about the Free States. Colored
people were allowed to ride in a filthy box, behind white people, at the
south, but there they were not required to pay for the privilege. It made me
sad to find how the north aped the customs of slavery.
We were stowed away in a large, rough car, with windows on each side,
too high for us to look out without standing up. It was crowded with people,
apparently of all nations. There were plenty of beds and cradles, containing
screaming and kicking babies. Every other man had a cigar or pipe in his
mouth, and jugs of whiskey were handed round freely. The fumes of the
whiskey and the dense tobacco smoke were sickening to my senses, and my
mind was equally nauseated by the coarse jokes and ribald songs around
me. It was a very disagreeable ride. Since that time there has been some
improvement in these matters.

XXXII. The Meeting Of Mother And Daughter.
When we arrived in New York, I was half crazed by the crowd of
coachmen calling out, “Carriage, ma’am?” We bargained with one to take
us to Sullivan Street for twelve shillings. A burly Irishman stepped up and
said, “I’ll tak’ ye for sax shillings.” The reduction of half the price was an
object to us, and we asked if he could take us right away. “Troth an I will,
ladies,” he replied. I noticed that the hackmen smiled at each other, and I
inquired whether his conveyance was decent. “Yes, it’s dacent it is, marm.
Devil a bit would I be after takin’ ladies in a cab that was not dacent.” We
gave him our checks. He went for the baggage, and soon reappeared,
saying, “This way, if you plase, ladies.” We followed, and found our trunks
on a truck, and we were invited to take our seats on them. We told him that
was not what we bargained for, and he must take the trunks off. He swore
they should not be touched till we had paid him six shillings. In our
situation it was not prudent to attract attention, and I was about to pay him
what he required, when a man near by shook his head for me not to do it.
After a great ado we got rid of the Irishman, and had our trunks fastened on
a hack. We had been recommended to a boarding-house in Sullivan Street,
and thither we drove. There Fanny and I separated. The Anti-Slavery
Society provided a home for her, and I afterwards heard of her in
prosperous circumstances. I sent for an old friend from my part of the
country, who had for some time been doing business in New York. He came
immediately. I told him I wanted to go to my daughter, and asked him to aid
me in procuring an interview.
I cautioned him not to let it be known to the family that I had just arrived
from the south, because they supposed I had been at the north seven years.
He told me there was a colored woman in Brooklyn who came from the
same town I did, and I had better go to her house, and have my daughter
meet me there. I accepted the proposition thankfully, and he agreed to escort
me to Brooklyn. We crossed Fulton ferry, went up Myrtle Avenue, and
stopped at the house he designated. I was just about to enter, when two girls
passed. My friend called my attention to them. I turned, and recognized in
the eldest, Sarah, the daughter of a woman who used to live with my

grandmother, but who had left the south years ago. Surprised and rejoiced at
this unexpected meeting, I threw my arms round her, and inquired
concerning her mother.
“You take no notice of the other girl,” said my friend. I turned, and there
stood my Ellen! I pressed her to my heart, then held her away from me to
take a look at her. She had changed a good deal in the two years since I
parted from her. Signs of neglect could be discerned by eyes less observing
than a mother’s. My friend invited us all to go into the house; but Ellen said
she had been sent of an errand, which she would do as quickly as possible,
and go home and ask Mrs. Hobbs to let her come and see me. It was agreed
that I should send for her the next day. Her companion, Sarah, hastened to
tell her mother of my arrival. When I entered the house, I found the mistress
of it absent, and I waited for her return. Before I saw her, I heard her saying,
“Where is Linda Brent? I used to know her father and mother.” Soon Sarah
came with her mother. So there was quite a company of us, all from my
grandmother’s neighborhood. These friends gathered round me and
questioned me eagerly. They laughed, they cried, and they shouted. They
thanked God that I had got away from my persecutors and was safe on
Long Island. It was a day of great excitement. How different from the silent
days I had passed in my dreary den!
The next morning was Sunday. My first waking thoughts were occupied
with the note I was to send to Mrs. Hobbs, the lady with whom Ellen lived.
That I had recently come into that vicinity was evident; otherwise I should
have sooner inquired for my daughter. It would not do to let them know I
had just arrived from the south, for that would involve the suspicion of my
having been harbored there, and might bring trouble, if not ruin, on several
people.
I like a straightforward course, and am always reluctant to resort to
subterfuges. So far as my ways have been crooked, I charge them all upon
slavery. It was that system of violence and wrong which now left me no
alternative but to enact a falsehood. I began my note by stating that I had
recently arrived from Canada, and was very desirous to have my daughter
come to see me. She came and brought a message from Mrs. Hobbs,
inviting me to her house, and assuring me that I need not have any fears.
The conversation I had with my child did not leave my mind at ease. When

I asked if she was well treated, she answered yes; but there was no
heartiness in the tone, and it seemed to me that she said it from an
unwillingness to have me troubled on her account. Before she left me, she
asked very earnestly, “Mother, when will you take me to live with you?” It
made me sad to think that I could not give her a home till I went to work
and earned the means; and that might take me a long time. When she was
placed with Mrs. Hobbs, the agreement was that she should be sent to
school. She had been there two years, and was now nine years old, and she
scarcely knew her letters. There was no excuse for this, for there were good
public schools in Brooklyn, to which she could have been sent without
expense.
She staid with me till dark, and I went home with her. I was received in a
friendly manner by the family, and all agreed in saying that Ellen was a
useful, good girl. Mrs. Hobbs looked me coolly in the face, and said, “I
suppose you know that my cousin, Mr. Sands, has given her to my eldest
daughter. She will make a nice waiting-maid for her when she grows up.” I
did not answer a word. How could she, who knew by experience the
strength of a mother’s love, and who was perfectly aware of the relation Mr.
Sands bore to my children,—how could she look me in the face, while she
thrust such a dagger into my heart?
I was no longer surprised that they had kept her in such a state of
ignorance. Mr. Hobbs had formerly been wealthy, but he had failed, and
afterwards obtained a subordinate situation in the Custom House. Perhaps
they expected to return to the south some day; and Ellen’s knowledge was
quite sufficient for a slave’s condition. I was impatient to go to work and
earn money, that I might change the uncertain position of my children. Mr.
Sands had not kept his promise to emancipate them. I had also been
deceived about Ellen. What security had I with regard to Benjamin? I felt
that I had none.
I returned to my friend’s house in an uneasy state of mind. In order to
protect my children, it was necessary that I should own myself. I called
myself free, and sometimes felt so; but I knew I was insecure. I sat down
that night and wrote a civil letter to Dr. Flint, asking him to state the lowest
terms on which he would sell me; and as I belonged by law to his daughter,
I wrote to her also, making a similar request.

Since my arrival at the north I had not been unmindful of my dear brother
William. I had made diligent inquiries for him, and having heard of him in
Boston, I went thither. When I arrived there, I found he had gone to New
Bedford. I wrote to that place, and was informed he had gone on a whaling
voyage, and would not return for some months. I went back to New York to
get employment near Ellen. I received an answer from Dr. Flint, which gave
me no encouragement. He advised me to return and submit myself to my
rightful owners, and then any request I might make would be granted. I lent
this letter to a friend, who lost it; otherwise I would present a copy to my
readers.

XXXIII. A Home Found.
My greatest anxiety now was to obtain employment. My health was
greatly improved, though my limbs continued to trouble me with swelling
whenever I walked much. The greatest difficulty in my way was, that those
who employed strangers required a recommendation; and in my peculiar
position, I could, of course, obtain no certificates from the families I had so
faithfully served.
One day an acquaintance told me of a lady who wanted a nurse for her
babe, and I immediately applied for the situation. The lady told me she
preferred to have one who had been a mother, and accustomed to the care of
infants. I told her I had nursed two babes of my own. She asked me many
questions, but, to my great relief, did not require a recommendation from
my former employers. She told me she was an English woman, and that was
a pleasant circumstance to me, because I had heard they had less prejudice
against color than Americans entertained. It was agreed that we should try
each other for a week. The trial proved satisfactory to both parties, and I
was engaged for a month.
The heavenly Father had been most merciful to me in leading me to this
place. Mrs. Bruce was a kind and gentle lady, and proved a true and
sympathizing friend. Before the stipulated month expired, the necessity of
passing up and down stairs frequently, caused my limbs to swell so
painfully, that I became unable to perform my duties. Many ladies would
have thoughtlessly discharged me; but Mrs. Bruce made arrangements to
save me steps, and employed a physician to attend upon me. I had not yet
told her that I was a fugitive slave. She noticed that I was often sad, and
kindly inquired the cause. I spoke of being separated from my children, and
from relatives who were dear to me; but I did not mention the constant
feeling of insecurity which oppressed my spirits. I longed for some one to
confide in; but I had been so deceived by white people, that I had lost all
confidence in them. If they spoke kind words to me, I thought it was for
some selfish purpose. I had entered this family with the distrustful feelings I
had brought with me out of slavery; but ere six months had passed, I found

that the gentle deportment of Mrs. Bruce and the smiles of her lovely babe
were thawing my chilled heart. My narrow mind also began to expand
under the influences of her intelligent conversation, and the opportunities
for reading, which were gladly allowed me whenever I had leisure from my
duties. I gradually became more energetic and more cheerful.
The old feeling of insecurity, especially with regard to my children, often
threw its dark shadow across my sunshine. Mrs. Bruce offered me a home
for Ellen; but pleasant as it would have been, I did not dare to accept it, for
fear of offending the Hobbs family. Their knowledge of my precarious
situation placed me in their power; and I felt that it was important for me to
keep on the right side of them, till, by dint of labor and economy, I could
make a home for my children. I was far from feeling satisfied with Ellen’s
situation. She was not well cared for. She sometimes came to New York to
visit me; but she generally brought a request from Mrs. Hobbs that I would
buy her a pair of shoes, or some article of clothing. This was accompanied
by a promise of payment when Mr. Hobbs’s salary at the Custom House
became due; but some how or other the pay-day never came. Thus many
dollars of my earnings were expended to keep my child comfortably
clothed. That, however, was a slight trouble, compared with the fear that
their pecuniary embarrassments might induce them to sell my precious
young daughter. I knew they were in constant communication with
Southerners, and had frequent opportunities to do it. I have stated that when
Dr. Flint put Ellen in jail, at two years old, she had an inflammation of the
eyes, occasioned by measles. This disease still troubled her; and kind Mrs.
Bruce proposed that she should come to New York for a while, to be under
the care of Dr. Elliott, a well known oculist. It did not occur to me that there
was any thing improper in a mother’s making such a request; but Mrs.
Hobbs was very angry, and refused to let her go. Situated as I was, it was
not politic to insist upon it. I made no complaint, but I longed to be entirely
free to act a mother’s part towards my children. The next time I went over
to Brooklyn, Mrs. Hobbs, as if to apologize for her anger, told me she had
employed her own physician to attend to Ellen’s eyes, and that she had
refused my request because she did not consider it safe to trust her in New
York. I accepted the explanation in silence; but she had told me that my
child belonged to her daughter, and I suspected that her real motive was a
fear of my conveying her property away from her. Perhaps I did her

injustice; but my knowledge of Southerners made it difficult for me to feel
otherwise.
Sweet and bitter were mixed in the cup of my life, and I was thankful that
it had ceased to be entirely bitter. I loved Mrs. Bruce’s babe. When it
laughed and crowed in my face, and twined its little tender arms confidingly
about my neck, it made me think of the time when Benny and Ellen were
babies, and my wounded heart was soothed. One bright morning, as I stood
at the window, tossing baby in my arms, my attention was attracted by a
young man in sailor’s dress, who was closely observing every house as he
passed. I looked at him earnestly. Could it be my brother William? It must
be he—and yet, how changed! I placed the baby safely, flew down stairs,
opened the front door, beckoned to the sailor, and in less than a minute I
was clasped in my brother’s arms. How much we had to tell each other!
How we laughed, and how we cried, over each other’s adventures! I took
him to Brooklyn, and again saw him with Ellen, the dear child whom he
had loved and tended so carefully, while I was shut up in my miserable den.
He staid in New York a week. His old feelings of affection for me and Ellen
were as lively as ever. There are no bonds so strong as those which are
formed by suffering together.

XXXIV. The Old Enemy Again.
My young mistress, Miss Emily Flint, did not return any answer to my
letter requesting her to consent to my being sold. But after a while, I
received a reply, which purported to be written by her younger brother. In
order rightly to enjoy the contents of this letter, the reader must bear in
mind that the Flint family supposed I had been at the north many years.
They had no idea that I knew of the doctor’s three excursions to New York
in search of me; that I had heard his voice, when he came to borrow five
hundred dollars for that purpose; and that I had seen him pass on his way to
the steamboat. Neither were they aware that all the particulars of aunt
Nancy’s death and burial were conveyed to me at the time they occurred. I
have kept the letter, of which I herewith subjoin a copy:—
“Your letter to sister was received a few days ago. I gather from it that
you are desirous of returning to your native place, among your friends and
relatives. We were all gratified with the contents of your letter; and let me
assure you that if any members of the family have had any feeling of
resentment towards you, they feel it no longer. We all sympathize with you
in your unfortunate condition, and are ready to do all in our power to make
you contented and happy. It is difficult for you to return home as a free
person. If you were purchased by your grandmother, it is doubtful whether
you would be permitted to remain, although it would be lawful for you to
do so. If a servant should be allowed to purchase herself, after absenting
herself so long from her owners, and return free, it would have an injurious
effect. From your letter, I think your situation must be hard and
uncomfortable. Come home. You have it in your power to be reinstated in
our affections. We would receive you with open arms and tears of joy. You
need not apprehend any unkind treatment, as we have not put ourselves to
any trouble or expense to get you. Had we done so, perhaps we should feel
otherwise. You know my sister was always attached to you, and that you
were never treated as a slave. You were never put to hard work, nor exposed
to field labor. On the contrary, you were taken into the house, and treated as
one of us, and almost as free; and we, at least, felt that you were above
disgracing yourself by running away. Believing you may be induced to

come home voluntarily has induced me to write for my sister. The family
will be rejoiced to see you; and your poor old grandmother expressed a
great desire to have you come, when she heard your letter read. In her old
age she needs the consolation of having her children round her. Doubtless
you have heard of the death of your aunt. She was a faithful servant, and a
faithful member of the Episcopal church. In her Christian life she taught us
how to live—and, O, too high the price of knowledge, she taught us how to
die! Could you have seen us round her death bed, with her mother, all
mingling our tears in one common stream, you would have thought the
same heartfelt tie existed between a master and his servant, as between a
mother and her child. But this subject is too painful to dwell upon. I must
bring my letter to a close. If you are contented to stay away from your old
grandmother, your child, and the friends who love you, stay where you are.
We shall never trouble ourselves to apprehend you. But should you prefer to
come home, we will do all that we can to make you happy. If you do not
wish to remain in the family, I know that father, by our persuasion, will be
induced to let you be purchased by any person you may choose in our
community. You will please answer this as soon as possible, and let us
know your decision. Sister sends much love to you. In the mean time
believe me your sincere friend and well wisher.”
This letter was signed by Emily’s brother, who was as yet a mere lad. I
knew, by the style, that it was not written by a person of his age, and though
the writing was disguised, I had been made too unhappy by it, in former
years, not to recognize at once the hand of Dr. Flint. O, the hypocrisy of
slaveholders! Did the old fox suppose I was goose enough to go into such a
trap? Verily, he relied too much on “the stupidity of the African race.” I did
not return the family of Flints any thanks for their cordial invitation—a
remissness for which I was, no doubt, charged with base ingratitude.
Not long afterwards I received a letter from one of my friends at the
south, informing me that Dr. Flint was about to visit the north. The letter
had been delayed, and I supposed he might be already on the way. Mrs.
Bruce did not know I was a fugitive. I told her that important business
called me to Boston, where my brother then was, and asked permission to
bring a friend to supply my place as nurse, for a fortnight. I started on my
journey immediately; and as soon as I arrived, I wrote to my grandmother
that if Benny came, he must be sent to Boston. I knew she was only waiting

for a good chance to send him north, and, fortunately, she had the legal
power to do so, without asking leave of any body. She was a free woman;
and when my children were purchased, Mr. Sands preferred to have the bill
of sale drawn up in her name. It was conjectured that he advanced the
money, but it was not known. At the south, a gentleman may have a shoal of
colored children without any disgrace; but if he is known to purchase them,
with the view of setting them free, the example is thought to be dangerous
to their “peculiar institution,” and he becomes unpopular.
There was a good opportunity to send Benny in a vessel coming directly
to New York. He was put on board with a letter to a friend, who was
requested to see him off to Boston. Early one morning, there was a loud rap
at my door, and in rushed Benjamin, all out of breath. “O mother!” he
exclaimed, “here I am! I run all the way; and I come all alone. How d’you
do?”
O reader, can you imagine my joy? No, you cannot, unless you have been
a slave mother. Benjamin rattled away as fast as his tongue could go.
“Mother, why don’t you bring Ellen here? I went over to Brooklyn to see
her, and she felt very bad when I bid her good by. She said, ‘O Ben, I wish I
was going too.’ I thought she’d know ever so much; but she don’t know so
much as I do; for I can read, and she can’t. And, mother, I lost all my
clothes coming. What can I do to get some more? I ’spose free boys can get
along here at the north as well as white boys.”
I did not like to tell the sanguine, happy little fellow how much he was
mistaken. I took him to a tailor, and procured a change of clothes. The rest
of the day was spent in mutual asking and answering of questions, with the
wish constantly repeated that the good old grandmother was with us, and
frequent injunctions from Benny to write to her immediately, and be sure to
tell her every thing about his voyage, and his journey to Boston.
Dr. Flint made his visit to New York, and made every exertion to call
upon me, and invite me to return with him; but not being able to ascertain
where I was, his hospitable intentions were frustrated, and the affectionate
family, who were waiting for me with “open arms,” were doomed to
disappointment.

As soon as I knew he was safely at home, I placed Benjamin in the care
of my brother William, and returned to Mrs. Bruce. There I remained
through the winter and spring, endeavoring to perform my duties faithfully,
and finding a good degree of happiness in the attractions of baby Mary, the
considerate kindness of her excellent mother, and occasional interviews
with my darling daughter.
But when summer came, the old feeling of insecurity haunted me. It was
necessary for me to take little Mary out daily, for exercise and fresh air, and
the city was swarming with Southerners, some of whom might recognize
me. Hot weather brings out snakes and slaveholders, and I like one class of
the venomous creatures as little as I do the other. What a comfort it is, to be
free to say so!

XXXV. Prejudice Against Color.
It was a relief to my mind to see preparations for leaving the city. We
went to Albany in the steamboat Knickerbocker. When the gong sounded
for tea, Mrs. Bruce said, “Linda, it is late, and you and baby had better
come to the table with me.” I replied, “I know it is time baby had her
supper, but I had rather not go with you, if you please. I am afraid of being
insulted.” “O no, not if you are with me,” she said. I saw several white
nurses go with their ladies, and I ventured to do the same. We were at the
extreme end of the table. I was no sooner seated, than a gruff voice said,
“Get up! You know you are not allowed to sit here.” I looked up, and, to my
astonishment and indignation, saw that the speaker was a colored man. If
his office required him to enforce the by-laws of the boat, he might, at least,
have done it politely. I replied, “I shall not get up, unless the captain comes
and takes me up.” No cup of tea was offered me, but Mrs. Bruce handed me
hers and called for another. I looked to see whether the other nurses were
treated in a similar manner. They were all properly waited on.
Next morning, when we stopped at Troy for breakfast, every body was
making a rush for the table. Mrs. Bruce said, “Take my arm, Linda, and
we’ll go in together.” The landlord heard her, and said, “Madam, will you
allow your nurse and baby to take breakfast with my family?” I knew this
was to be attributed to my complexion; but he spoke courteously, and
therefore I did not mind it.
At Saratoga we found the United States Hotel crowded, and Mr. Bruce
took one of the cottages belonging to the hotel. I had thought, with
gladness, of going to the quiet of the country, where I should meet few
people, but here I found myself in the midst of a swarm of Southerners. I
looked round me with fear and trembling, dreading to see some one who
would recognize me. I was rejoiced to find that we were to stay but a short
time.
We soon returned to New York, to make arrangements for spending the
remainder of the summer at Rockaway. While the laundress was putting the

clothes in order, I took an opportunity to go over to Brooklyn to see Ellen. I
met her going to a grocery store, and the first words she said, were, “O,
mother, don’t go to Mrs. Hobbs’s. Her brother, Mr. Thorne, has come from
the south, and may be he’ll tell where you are.” I accepted the warning. I
told her I was going away with Mrs. Bruce the next day, and would try to
see her when I came back.
Being in servitude to the Anglo-Saxon race, I was not put into a “Jim
Crow car,” on our way to Rockaway, neither was I invited to ride through
the streets on the top of trunks in a truck; but every where I found the same
manifestations of that cruel prejudice, which so discourages the feelings,
and represses the energies of the colored people. We reached Rockaway
before dark, and put up at the Pavilion—a large hotel, beautifully situated
by the sea-side—a great resort of the fashionable world. Thirty or forty
nurses were there, of a great variety of nations. Some of the ladies had
colored waiting-maids and coachmen, but I was the only nurse tinged with
the blood of Africa. When the tea bell rang, I took little Mary and followed
the other nurses. Supper was served in a long hall. A young man, who had
the ordering of things, took the circuit of the table two or three times, and
finally pointed me to a seat at the lower end of it. As there was but one
chair, I sat down and took the child in my lap. Whereupon the young man
came to me and said, in the blandest manner possible, “Will you please to
seat the little girl in the chair, and stand behind it and feed her? After they
have done, you will be shown to the kitchen, where you will have a good
supper.”
This was the climax! I found it hard to preserve my self-control, when I
looked round, and saw women who were nurses, as I was, and only one
shade lighter in complexion, eyeing me with a defiant look, as if my
presence were a contamination. However, I said nothing. I quietly took the
child in my arms, went to our room, and refused to go to the table again.
Mr. Bruce ordered meals to be sent to the room for little Mary and I. This
answered for a few days; but the waiters of the establishment were white,
and they soon began to complain, saying they were not hired to wait on
negroes. The landlord requested Mr. Bruce to send me down to my meals,
because his servants rebelled against bringing them up, and the colored
servants of other boarders were dissatisfied because all were not treated
alike.

My answer was that the colored servants ought to be dissatisfied with
themselves, for not having too much self-respect to submit to such
treatment; that there was no difference in the price of board for colored and
white servants, and there was no justification for difference of treatment. I
staid a month after this, and finding I was resolved to stand up for my
rights, they concluded to treat me well. Let every colored man and woman
do this, and eventually we shall cease to be trampled under foot by our
oppressors.

XXXVI. The Hairbreadth Escape.
After we returned to New York, I took the earliest opportunity to go and
see Ellen. I asked to have her called down stairs; for I supposed Mrs.
Hobbs’s southern brother might still be there, and I was desirous to avoid
seeing him, if possible. But Mrs. Hobbs came to the kitchen, and insisted on
my going up stairs. “My brother wants to see you,” said she, “and he is
sorry you seem to shun him. He knows you are living in New York. He told
me to say to you that he owes thanks to good old aunt Martha for too many
little acts of kindness for him to be base enough to betray her grandchild.”
This Mr. Thorne had become poor and reckless long before he left the
south, and such persons had much rather go to one of the faithful old slaves
to borrow a dollar, or get a good dinner, than to go to one whom they
consider an equal. It was such acts of kindness as these for which he
professed to feel grateful to my grandmother. I wished he had kept at a
distance, but as he was here, and knew where I was, I concluded there was
nothing to be gained by trying to avoid him; on the contrary, it might be the
means of exciting his ill will. I followed his sister up stairs. He met me in a
very friendly manner, congratulated me on my escape from slavery, and
hoped I had a good place, where I felt happy.
I continued to visit Ellen as often as I could. She, good thoughtful child,
never forgot my hazardous situation, but always kept a vigilant lookout for
my safety. She never made any complaint about her own inconveniences
and troubles; but a mother’s observing eye easily perceived that she was not
happy. On the occasion of one of my visits I found her unusually serious.
When I asked her what was the matter, she said nothing was the matter. But
I insisted upon knowing what made her look so very grave. Finally, I
ascertained that she felt troubled about the dissipation that was continually
going on in the house. She was sent to the store very often for rum and
brandy, and she felt ashamed to ask for it so often; and Mr. Hobbs and Mr.
Thorne drank a great deal, and their hands trembled so that they had to call
her to pour out the liquor for them. “But for all that,” said she, “Mr. Hobbs
is good to me, and I can’t help liking him. I feel sorry for him.” I tried to

comfort her, by telling her that I had laid up a hundred dollars, and that
before long I hoped to be able to give her and Benjamin a home, and send
them to school. She was always desirous not to add to my troubles more
than she could help, and I did not discover till years afterwards that Mr.
Thorne’s intemperance was not the only annoyance she suffered from him.
Though he professed too much gratitude to my grandmother to injure any of
her descendants, he had poured vile language into the ears of her innocent
great-grandchild.
I usually went to Brooklyn to spend Sunday afternoon. One Sunday, I
found Ellen anxiously waiting for me near the house. “O, mother,” said she,
“I’ve been waiting for you this long time. I’m afraid Mr. Thorne has written
to tell Dr. Flint where you are. Make haste and come in. Mrs. Hobbs will
tell you all about it!”
The story was soon told. While the children were playing in the grape-
vine arbor, the day before, Mr. Thorne came out with a letter in his hand,
which he tore up and scattered about. Ellen was sweeping the yard at the
time, and having her mind full of suspicions of him, she picked up the
pieces and carried them to the children, saying, “I wonder who Mr. Thorne
has been writing to.”
“I’m sure I don’t know, and don’t care,” replied the oldest of the children;
“and I don’t see how it concerns you.”
“But it does concern me,” replied Ellen; “for I’m afraid he’s been writing
to the south about my mother.”
They laughed at her, and called her a silly thing, but good-naturedly put
the fragments of writing together, in order to read them to her. They were
no sooner arranged, than the little girl exclaimed, “I declare, Ellen, I believe
you are right.”
The contents of Mr. Thorne’s letter, as nearly as I can remember, were as
follows: “I have seen your slave, Linda, and conversed with her. She can be
taken very easily, if you manage prudently. There are enough of us here to
swear to her identity as your property. I am a patriot, a lover of my country,
and I do this as an act of justice to the laws.” He concluded by informing
the doctor of the street and number where I lived. The children carried the

pieces to Mrs. Hobbs, who immediately went to her brother’s room for an
explanation. He was not to be found. The servants said they saw him go out
with a letter in his hand, and they supposed he had gone to the post office.
The natural inference was, that he had sent to Dr. Flint a copy of those
fragments. When he returned, his sister accused him of it, and he did not
deny the charge. He went immediately to his room, and the next morning he
was missing. He had gone over to New York, before any of the family were
astir.
It was evident that I had no time to lose; and I hastened back to the city
with a heavy heart. Again I was to be torn from a comfortable home, and all
my plans for the welfare of my children were to be frustrated by that demon
Slavery! I now regretted that I never told Mrs. Bruce my story. I had not
concealed it merely on account of being a fugitive; that would have made
her anxious, but it would have excited sympathy in her kind heart. I valued
her good opinion, and I was afraid of losing it, if I told her all the
particulars of my sad story. But now I felt that it was necessary for her to
know how I was situated. I had once left her abruptly, without explaining
the reason, and it would not be proper to do it again. I went home resolved
to tell her in the morning. But the sadness of my face attracted her attention,
and, in answer to her kind inquiries, I poured out my full heart to her, before
bed time. She listened with true womanly sympathy, and told me she would
do all she could to protect me. How my heart blessed her!
Early the next morning, Judge Vanderpool and Lawyer Hopper were
consulted. They said I had better leave the city at once, as the risk would be
great if the case came to trial. Mrs. Bruce took me in a carriage to the house
of one of her friends, where she assured me I should be safe until my
brother could arrive, which would be in a few days. In the interval my
thoughts were much occupied with Ellen. She was mine by birth, and she
was also mine by Southern law, since my grandmother held the bill of sale
that made her so. I did not feel that she was safe unless I had her with me.
Mrs. Hobbs, who felt badly about her brother’s treachery, yielded to my
entreaties, on condition that she should return in ten days. I avoided making
any promise. She came to me clad in very thin garments, all outgrown, and
with a school satchel on her arm, containing a few articles. It was late in
October, and I knew the child must suffer; and not daring to go out in the
streets to purchase any thing, I took off my own flannel skirt and converted

it into one for her. Kind Mrs. Bruce came to bid me good by, and when she
saw that I had taken off my clothing for my child, the tears came to her
eyes. She said, “Wait for me, Linda,” and went out. She soon returned with
a nice warm shawl and hood for Ellen. Truly, of such souls as hers are the
kingdom of heaven.
My brother reached New York on Wednesday. Lawyer Hopper advised us
to go to Boston by the Stonington route, as there was less Southern travel in
that direction. Mrs. Bruce directed her servants to tell all inquirers that I
formerly lived there, but had gone from the city.
We reached the steamboat Rhode Island in safety. That boat employed
colored hands, but I knew that colored passengers were not admitted to the
cabin. I was very desirous for the seclusion of the cabin, not only on
account of exposure to the night air, but also to avoid observation. Lawyer
Hopper was waiting on board for us. He spoke to the stewardess, and asked,
as a particular favor, that she would treat us well. He said to me, “Go and
speak to the captain yourself by and by. Take your little girl with you, and I
am sure that he will not let her sleep on deck.” With these kind words and a
shake of the hand he departed.
The boat was soon on her way, bearing me rapidly from the friendly
home where I had hoped to find security and rest. My brother had left me to
purchase the tickets, thinking that I might have better success than he
would. When the stewardess came to me, I paid what she asked, and she
gave me three tickets with clipped corners. In the most unsophisticated
manner I said, “You have made a mistake; I asked you for cabin tickets. I
cannot possibly consent to sleep on deck with my little daughter.” She
assured me there was no mistake. She said on some of the routes colored
people were allowed to sleep in the cabin, but not on this route, which was
much travelled by the wealthy. I asked her to show me to the captain’s
office, and she said she would after tea. When the time came, I took Ellen
by the hand and went to the captain, politely requesting him to change our
tickets, as we should be very uncomfortable on deck. He said it was
contrary to their custom, but he would see that we had berths below; he
would also try to obtain comfortable seats for us in the cars; of that he was
not certain, but he would speak to the conductor about it, when the boat
arrived. I thanked him, and returned to the ladies’ cabin. He came

afterwards and told me that the conductor of the cars was on board, that he
had spoken to him, and he had promised to take care of us. I was very much
surprised at receiving so much kindness. I don’t know whether the pleasing
face of my little girl had won his heart, or whether the stewardess inferred
from Lawyer Hopper’s manner that I was a fugitive, and had pleaded with
him in my behalf.
When the boat arrived at Stonington, the conductor kept his promise, and
showed us to seats in the first car, nearest the engine. He asked us to take
seats next the door, but as he passed through, we ventured to move on
toward the other end of the car. No incivility was offered us, and we
reached Boston in safety.
The day after my arrival was one of the happiest of my life. I felt as if I
was beyond the reach of the bloodhounds; and, for the first time during
many years, I had both my children together with me. They greatly enjoyed
their reunion, and laughed and chatted merrily. I watched them with a
swelling heart. Their every motion delighted me.
I could not feel safe in New York, and I accepted the offer of a friend,
that we should share expenses and keep house together. I represented to
Mrs. Hobbs that Ellen must have some schooling, and must remain with me
for that purpose. She felt ashamed of being unable to read or spell at her
age, so instead of sending her to school with Benny, I instructed her myself
till she was fitted to enter an intermediate school. The winter passed
pleasantly, while I was busy with my needle, and my children with their
books.

XXXVII. A Visit To England
In the spring, sad news came to me. Mrs. Bruce was dead. Never again,
in this world, should I see her gentle face, or hear her sympathizing voice. I
had lost an excellent friend, and little Mary had lost a tender mother. Mr.
Bruce wished the child to visit some of her mother’s relatives in England,
and he was desirous that I should take charge of her. The little motherless
one was accustomed to me, and attached to me, and I thought she would be
happier in my care than in that of a stranger. I could also earn more in this
way than I could by my needle. So I put Benny to a trade, and left Ellen to
remain in the house with my friend and go to school.
We sailed from New York, and arrived in Liverpool after a pleasant
voyage of twelve days. We proceeded directly to London, and took lodgings
at the Adelaide Hotel. The supper seemed to me less luxurious than those I
had seen in American hotels; but my situation was indescribably more
pleasant. For the first time in my life I was in a place where I was treated
according to my deportment, without reference to my complexion. I felt as
if a great millstone had been lifted from my breast. Ensconced in a pleasant
room, with my dear little charge, I laid my head on my pillow, for the first
time, with the delightful consciousness of pure, unadulterated freedom.
As I had constant care of the child, I had little opportunity to see the
wonders of that great city; but I watched the tide of life that flowed through
the streets, and found it a strange contrast to the stagnation in our Southern
towns. Mr. Bruce took his little daughter to spend some days with friends in
Oxford Crescent, and of course it was necessary for me to accompany her. I
had heard much of the systematic method of English education, and I was
very desirous that my dear Mary should steer straight in the midst of so
much propriety. I closely observed her little playmates and their nurses,
being ready to take any lessons in the science of good management. The
children were more rosy than American children, but I did not see that they
differed materially in other respects. They were like all children—
sometimes docile and sometimes wayward.

We next went to Steventon, in Berkshire. It was a small town, said to be
the poorest in the county. I saw men working in the fields for six shillings,
and seven shillings, a week, and women for sixpence, and sevenpence, a
day, out of which they boarded themselves. Of course they lived in the most
primitive manner; it could not be otherwise, where a woman’s wages for an
entire day were not sufficient to buy a pound of meat. They paid very low
rents, and their clothes were made of the cheapest fabrics, though much
better than could have been procured in the United States for the same
money. I had heard much about the oppression of the poor in Europe. The
people I saw around me were, many of them, among the poorest poor. But
when I visited them in their little thatched cottages, I felt that the condition
of even the meanest and most ignorant among them was vastly superior to
the condition of the most favored slaves in America. They labored hard; but
they were not ordered out to toil while the stars were in the sky, and driven
and slashed by an overseer, through heat and cold, till the stars shone out
again. Their homes were very humble; but they were protected by law. No
insolent patrols could come, in the dead of night, and flog them at their
pleasure. The father, when he closed his cottage door, felt safe with his
family around him. No master or overseer could come and take from him
his wife, or his daughter. They must separate to earn their living; but the
parents knew where their children were going, and could communicate with
them by letters. The relations of husband and wife, parent and child, were
too sacred for the richest noble in the land to violate with impunity. Much
was being done to enlighten these poor people. Schools were established
among them, and benevolent societies were active in efforts to ameliorate
their condition. There was no law forbidding them to learn to read and
write; and if they helped each other in spelling out the Bible, they were in
no danger of thirty-nine lashes, as was the case with myself and poor, pious,
old uncle Fred. I repeat that the most ignorant and the most destitute of
these peasants was a thousand fold better off than the most pampered
American slave.
I do not deny that the poor are oppressed in Europe. I am not disposed to
paint their condition so rose-colored as the Hon. Miss Murray paints the
condition of the slaves in the United States. A small portion of my
experience would enable her to read her own pages with anointed eyes. If
she were to lay aside her title, and, instead of visiting among the

fashionable, become domesticated, as a poor governess, on some plantation
in Louisiana or Alabama, she would see and hear things that would make
her tell quite a different story.
My visit to England is a memorable event in my life, from the fact of my
having there received strong religious impressions. The contemptuous
manner in which the communion had been administered to colored people,
in my native place; the church membership of Dr. Flint, and others like him;
and the buying and selling of slaves, by professed ministers of the gospel,
had given me a prejudice against the Episcopal church. The whole service
seemed to me a mockery and a sham. But my home in Steventon was in the
family of a clergyman, who was a true disciple of Jesus. The beauty of his
daily life inspired me with faith in the genuineness of Christian professions.
Grace entered my heart, and I knelt at the communion table, I trust, in true
humility of soul.
I remained abroad ten months, which was much longer than I had
anticipated. During all that time, I never saw the slightest symptom of
prejudice against color. Indeed, I entirely forgot it, till the time came for us
to return to America.

XXXVIII. Renewed Invitations To Go South.
We had a tedious winter passage, and from the distance spectres seemed
to rise up on the shores of the United States. It is a sad feeling to be afraid
of one’s native country. We arrived in New York safely, and I hastened to
Boston to look after my children. I found Ellen well, and improving at her
school; but Benny was not there to welcome me. He had been left at a good
place to learn a trade, and for several months every thing worked well. He
was liked by the master, and was a favorite with his fellow-apprentices; but
one day they accidentally discovered a fact they had never before suspected
—that he was colored! This at once transformed him into a different being.
Some of the apprentices were Americans, others American-born Irish; and it
was offensive to their dignity to have a “nigger” among them, after they had
been told that he was a “nigger.” They began by treating him with silent
scorn, and finding that he returned the same, they resorted to insults and
abuse. He was too spirited a boy to stand that, and he went off. Being
desirous to do something to support himself, and having no one to advise
him, he shipped for a whaling voyage. When I received these tidings I shed
many tears, and bitterly reproached myself for having left him so long. But
I had done it for the best, and now all I could do was to pray to the heavenly
Father to guide and protect him.
Not long after my return, I received the following letter from Miss Emily
Flint, now Mrs. Dodge:—
“In this you will recognize the hand of your friend and mistress. Having heard that you
had gone with a family to Europe, I have waited to hear of your return to write to you. I
should have answered the letter you wrote to me long since, but as I could not then act
independently of my father, I knew there could be nothing done satisfactory to you. There
were persons here who were willing to buy you and run the risk of getting you. To this I
would not consent. I have always been attached to you, and would not like to see you the
slave of another, or have unkind treatment. I am married now, and can protect you. My
husband expects to move to Virginia this spring, where we think of settling. I am very
anxious that you should come and live with me. If you are not willing to come, you may
purchase yourself; but I should prefer having you live with me. If you come, you may, if
you like, spend a month with your grandmother and friends, then come to me in Norfolk,
Virginia. Think this over, and write as soon as possible, and let me know the conclusion.
Hoping that your children are well, I remain your friend and mistress.”

Of course I did not write to return thanks for this cordial invitation. I felt
insulted to be thought stupid enough to be caught by such professions.

“‘Come up into my parlor,’ said the spider to the fly;
‘’Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy.’”

It was plain that Dr. Flint’s family were apprised of my movements, since
they knew of my voyage to Europe. I expected to have further trouble from
them; but having eluded them thus far, I hoped to be as successful in future.
The money I had earned, I was desirous to devote to the education of my
children, and to secure a home for them. It seemed not only hard, but
unjust, to pay for myself. I could not possibly regard myself as a piece of
property. Moreover, I had worked many years without wages, and during
that time had been obliged to depend on my grandmother for many
comforts in food and clothing. My children certainly belonged to me; but
though Dr. Flint had incurred no expense for their support, he had received
a large sum of money for them. I knew the law would decide that I was his
property, and would probably still give his daughter a claim to my children;
but I regarded such laws as the regulations of robbers, who had no rights
that I was bound to respect.
The Fugitive Slave Law had not then passed. The judges of
Massachusetts had not then stooped under chains to enter her courts of
justice, so called. I knew my old master was rather skittish of
Massachusetts. I relied on her love of freedom, and felt safe on her soil. I
am now aware that I honored the old Commonwealth beyond her deserts.

XXXIX. The Confession.
For two years my daughter and I supported ourselves comfortably in
Boston. At the end of that time, my brother William offered to send Ellen to
a boarding school. It required a great effort for me to consent to part with
her, for I had few near ties, and it was her presence that made my two little
rooms seem home-like. But my judgment prevailed over my selfish
feelings. I made preparations for her departure. During the two years we
had lived together I had often resolved to tell her something about her
father; but I had never been able to muster sufficient courage. I had a
shrinking dread of diminishing my child’s love. I knew she must have
curiosity on the subject, but she had never asked a question. She was always
very careful not to say any thing to remind me of my troubles. Now that she
was going from me, I thought if I should die before she returned, she might
hear my story from some one who did not understand the palliating
circumstances; and that if she were entirely ignorant on the subject, her
sensitive nature might receive a rude shock.
When we retired for the night, she said, “Mother, it is very hard to leave
you alone. I am almost sorry I am going, though I do want to improve
myself. But you will write to me often; won’t you, mother?”
I did not throw my arms round her. I did not answer her. But in a calm,
solemn way, for it cost me great effort, I said, “Listen to me, Ellen; I have
something to tell you!” I recounted my early sufferings in slavery, and told
her how nearly they had crushed me. I began to tell her how they had driven
me into a great sin, when she clasped me in her arms, and exclaimed, “O,
don’t, mother! Please don’t tell me any more.”
I said, “But, my child, I want you to know about your father.”
“I know all about it, mother,” she replied; “I am nothing to my father, and
he is nothing to me. All my love is for you. I was with him five months in
Washington, and he never cared for me. He never spoke to me as he did to
his little Fanny. I knew all the time he was my father, for Fanny’s nurse told
me so; but she said I must never tell any body, and I never did. I used to

wish he would take me in his arms and kiss me, as he did Fanny; or that he
would sometimes smile at me, as he did at her. I thought if he was my own
father, he ought to love me. I was a little girl then, and didn’t know any
better. But now I never think any thing about my father. All my love is for
you.” She hugged me closer as she spoke, and I thanked God that the
knowledge I had so much dreaded to impart had not diminished the
affection of my child. I had not the slightest idea she knew that portion of
my history. If I had, I should have spoken to her long before; for my pent-
up feelings had often longed to pour themselves out to some one I could
trust. But I loved the dear girl better for the delicacy she had manifested
towards her unfortunate mother.
The next morning, she and her uncle started on their journey to the
village in New York, where she was to be placed at school. It seemed as if
all the sunshine had gone away. My little room was dreadfully lonely. I was
thankful when a message came from a lady, accustomed to employ me,
requesting me to come and sew in her family for several weeks. On my
return, I found a letter from brother William. He thought of opening an anti-
slavery reading room in Rochester, and combining with it the sale of some
books and stationery; and he wanted me to unite with him. We tried it, but it
was not successful. We found warm anti-slavery friends there, but the
feeling was not general enough to support such an establishment. I passed
nearly a year in the family of Isaac and Amy Post, practical believers in the
Christian doctrine of human brotherhood. They measure a man’s worth by
his character, not by his complexion. The memory of those beloved and
honored friends will remain with me to my latest hour.

XL. The Fugitive Slave Law.
My brother, being disappointed in his project, concluded to go to
California; and it was agreed that Benjamin should go with him. Ellen liked
her school, and was a great favorite there. They did not know her history,
and she did not tell it, because she had no desire to make capital out of their
sympathy. But when it was accidentally discovered that her mother was a
fugitive slave, every method was used to increase her advantages and
diminish her expenses.
I was alone again. It was necessary for me to be earning money, and I
preferred that it should be among those who knew me. On my return from
Rochester, I called at the house of Mr. Bruce, to see Mary, the darling little
babe that had thawed my heart, when it was freezing into a cheerless
distrust of all my fellow-beings. She was growing a tall girl now, but I
loved her always. Mr. Bruce had married again, and it was proposed that I
should become nurse to a new infant. I had but one hesitation, and that was
my feeling of insecurity in New York, now greatly increased by the passage
of the Fugitive Slave Law. However, I resolved to try the experiment. I was
again fortunate in my employer. The new Mrs. Bruce was an American,
brought up under aristocratic influences, and still living in the midst of
them; but if she had any prejudice against color, I was never made aware of
it; and as for the system of slavery, she had a most hearty dislike of it. No
sophistry of Southerners could blind her to its enormity. She was a person
of excellent principles and a noble heart. To me, from that hour to the
present, she has been a true and sympathizing friend. Blessings be with her
and hers!
About the time that I reëntered the Bruce family, an event occurred of
disastrous import to the colored people. The slave Hamlin, the first fugitive
that came under the new law, was given up by the bloodhounds of the north
to the bloodhounds of the south. It was the beginning of a reign of terror to
the colored population. The great city rushed on in its whirl of excitement,
taking no note of the “short and simple annals of the poor.” But while
fashionables were listening to the thrilling voice of Jenny Lind in

Metropolitan Hall, the thrilling voices of poor hunted colored people went
up, in an agony of supplication, to the Lord, from Zion’s church. Many
families, who had lived in the city for twenty years, fled from it now. Many
a poor washerwoman, who, by hard labor, had made herself a comfortable
home, was obliged to sacrifice her furniture, bid a hurried farewell to
friends, and seek her fortune among strangers in Canada. Many a wife
discovered a secret she had never known before—that her husband was a
fugitive, and must leave her to insure his own safety. Worse still, many a
husband discovered that his wife had fled from slavery years ago, and as
“the child follows the condition of its mother,” the children of his love were
liable to be seized and carried into slavery. Every where, in those humble
homes, there was consternation and anguish. But what cared the legislators
of the “dominant race” for the blood they were crushing out of trampled
hearts?
When my brother William spent his last evening with me, before he went
to California, we talked nearly all the time of the distress brought on our
oppressed people by the passage of this iniquitous law; and never had I seen
him manifest such bitterness of spirit, such stern hostility to our oppressors.
He was himself free from the operation of the law; for he did not run from
any Slaveholding State, being brought into the Free States by his master.
But I was subject to it; and so were hundreds of intelligent and industrious
people all around us. I seldom ventured into the streets; and when it was
necessary to do an errand for Mrs. Bruce, or any of the family, I went as
much as possible through back streets and by-ways. What a disgrace to a
city calling itself free, that inhabitants, guiltless of offence, and seeking to
perform their duties conscientiously, should be condemned to live in such
incessant fear, and have nowhere to turn for protection! This state of things,
of course, gave rise to many impromptu vigilance committees. Every
colored person, and every friend of their persecuted race, kept their eyes
wide open. Every evening I examined the newspapers carefully, to see what
Southerners had put up at the hotels. I did this for my own sake, thinking
my young mistress and her husband might be among the list; I wished also
to give information to others, if necessary; for if many were “running to and
fro,” I resolved that “knowledge should be increased.”
This brings up one of my Southern reminiscences, which I will here
briefly relate. I was somewhat acquainted with a slave named Luke, who

belonged to a wealthy man in our vicinity. His master died, leaving a son
and daughter heirs to his large fortune. In the division of the slaves, Luke
was included in the son’s portion. This young man became a prey to the
vices growing out of the “patriarchal institution,” and when he went to the
north, to complete his education, he carried his vices with him. He was
brought home, deprived of the use of his limbs, by excessive dissipation.
Luke was appointed to wait upon his bed-ridden master, whose despotic
habits were greatly increased by exasperation at his own helplessness. He
kept a cowhide beside him, and, for the most trivial occurrence, he would
order his attendant to bare his back, and kneel beside the couch, while he
whipped him till his strength was exhausted. Some days he was not allowed
to wear any thing but his shirt, in order to be in readiness to be flogged. A
day seldom passed without his receiving more or less blows. If the slightest
resistance was offered, the town constable was sent for to execute the
punishment, and Luke learned from experience how much more the
constable’s strong arm was to be dreaded than the comparatively feeble one
of his master. The arm of his tyrant grew weaker, and was finally palsied;
and then the constable’s services were in constant requisition. The fact that
he was entirely dependent on Luke’s care, and was obliged to be tended like
an infant, instead of inspiring any gratitude or compassion towards his poor
slave, seemed only to increase his irritability and cruelty. As he lay there on
his bed, a mere degraded wreck of manhood, he took into his head the
strangest freaks of despotism; and if Luke hesitated to submit to his orders,
the constable was immediately sent for. Some of these freaks were of a
nature too filthy to be repeated. When I fled from the house of bondage, I
left poor Luke still chained to the bedside of this cruel and disgusting
wretch.
One day, when I had been requested to do an errand for Mrs. Bruce, I
was hurrying through back streets, as usual, when I saw a young man
approaching, whose face was familiar to me. As he came nearer, I
recognized Luke. I always rejoiced to see or hear of any one who had
escaped from the black pit; but, remembering this poor fellow’s extreme
hardships, I was peculiarly glad to see him on Northern soil, though I no
longer called it free soil. I well remembered what a desolate feeling it was
to be alone among strangers, and I went up to him and greeted him
cordially. At first, he did not know me; but when I mentioned my name, he

remembered all about me. I told him of the Fugitive Slave Law, and asked
him if he did not know that New York was a city of kidnappers.
He replied, “De risk ain’t so bad for me, as ’tis fur you. ’Cause I runned
away from de speculator, and you runned away from de massa. Dem
speculators vont spen dar money to come here fur a runaway, if dey ain’t
sartin sure to put dar hans right on him. An I tell you I’s tuk good car ’bout
dat. I had too hard times down dar, to let ’em ketch dis nigger.”
He then told me of the advice he had received, and the plans he had laid.
I asked if he had money enough to take him to Canada. “’Pend upon it, I
hab,” he replied. “I tuk car fur dat. I’d bin workin all my days fur dem
cussed whites, an got no pay but kicks and cuffs. So I tought dis nigger had
a right to money nuff to bring him to de Free States. Massa Henry he lib till
ebery body vish him dead; an ven he did die, I knowed de debbil would hab
him, an vouldn’t vant him to bring his money ’long too. So I tuk some of
his bills, and put ’em in de pocket of his ole trousers. An ven he was buried,
dis nigger ask fur dem ole trousers, an dey gub ’em to me.” With a low,
chuckling laugh, he added, “You see I didn’t steal it; dey gub it to me. I tell
you, I had mighty hard time to keep de speculator from findin it; but he
didn’t git it.”
This is a fair specimen of how the moral sense is educated by slavery.
When a man has his wages stolen from him, year after year, and the laws
sanction and enforce the theft, how can he be expected to have more regard
to honesty than has the man who robs him? I have become somewhat
enlightened, but I confess that I agree with poor, ignorant, much-abused
Luke, in thinking he had a right to that money, as a portion of his unpaid
wages. He went to Canada forthwith, and I have not since heard from him.
All that winter I lived in a state of anxiety. When I took the children out
to breathe the air, I closely observed the countenances of all I met. I dreaded
the approach of summer, when snakes and slaveholders make their
appearance. I was, in fact, a slave in New York, as subject to slave laws as I
had been in a Slave State. Strange incongruity in a State called free!
Spring returned, and I received warning from the south that Dr. Flint
knew of my return to my old place, and was making preparations to have
me caught. I learned afterwards that my dress, and that of Mrs. Bruce’s

children, had been described to him by some of the Northern tools, which
slaveholders employ for their base purposes, and then indulge in sneers at
their cupidity and mean servility.
I immediately informed Mrs. Bruce of my danger, and she took prompt
measures for my safety. My place as nurse could not be supplied
immediately, and this generous, sympathizing lady proposed that I should
carry her baby away. It was a comfort to me to have the child with me; for
the heart is reluctant to be torn away from every object it loves. But how
few mothers would have consented to have one of their own babes become
a fugitive, for the sake of a poor, hunted nurse, on whom the legislators of
the country had let loose the bloodhounds! When I spoke of the sacrifice
she was making, in depriving herself of her dear baby, she replied, “It is
better for you to have baby with you, Linda; for if they get on your track,
they will be obliged to bring the child to me; and then, if there is a
possibility of saving you, you shall be saved.”
This lady had a very wealthy relative, a benevolent gentleman in many
respects, but aristocratic and pro-slavery. He remonstrated with her for
harboring a fugitive slave; told her she was violating the laws of her
country; and asked her if she was aware of the penalty. She replied, “I am
very well aware of it. It is imprisonment and one thousand dollars fine.
Shame on my country that it is so! I am ready to incur the penalty. I will go
to the state’s prison, rather than have any poor victim torn from my house,
to be carried back to slavery.”
The noble heart! The brave heart! The tears are in my eyes while I write
of her. May the God of the helpless reward her for her sympathy with my
persecuted people!
I was sent into New England, where I was sheltered by the wife of a
senator, whom I shall always hold in grateful remembrance. This honorable
gentleman would not have voted for the Fugitive Slave Law, as did the
senator in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin;” on the contrary, he was strongly opposed
to it; but he was enough under its influence to be afraid of having me
remain in his house many hours. So I was sent into the country, where I
remained a month with the baby. When it was supposed that Dr. Flint’s

emissaries had lost track of me, and given up the pursuit for the present, I
returned to New York.

XLI. Free At Last.
Mrs. Bruce, and every member of her family, were exceedingly kind to
me. I was thankful for the blessings of my lot, yet I could not always wear a
cheerful countenance. I was doing harm to no one; on the contrary, I was
doing all the good I could in my small way; yet I could never go out to
breathe God’s free air without trepidation at my heart. This seemed hard;
and I could not think it was a right state of things in any civilized country.
From time to time I received news from my good old grandmother. She
could not write; but she employed others to write for her. The following is
an extract from one of her last letters:—
“Dear Daughter: I cannot hope to see you again on earth; but I pray to God to unite us
above, where pain will no more rack this feeble body of mine; where sorrow and parting
from my children will be no more. God has promised these things if we are faithful unto
the end. My age and feeble health deprive me of going to church now; but God is with me
here at home. Thank your brother for his kindness. Give much love to him, and tell him to
remember the Creator in the days of his youth, and strive to meet me in the Father’s
kingdom. Love to Ellen and Benjamin. Don’t neglect him. Tell him for me, to be a good
boy. Strive, my child, to train them for God’s children. May he protect and provide for you,
is the prayer of your loving old mother.”

These letters both cheered and saddened me. I was always glad to have
tidings from the kind, faithful old friend of my unhappy youth; but her
messages of love made my heart yearn to see her before she died, and I
mourned over the fact that it was impossible. Some months after I returned
from my flight to New England, I received a letter from her, in which she
wrote, “Dr. Flint is dead. He has left a distressed family. Poor old man! I
hope he made his peace with God.”
I remembered how he had defrauded my grandmother of the hard
earnings she had loaned; how he had tried to cheat her out of the freedom
her mistress had promised her, and how he had persecuted her children; and
I thought to myself that she was a better Christian than I was, if she could
entirely forgive him. I cannot say, with truth, that the news of my old
master’s death softened my feelings towards him. There are wrongs which

even the grave does not bury. The man was odious to me while he lived,
and his memory is odious now.
His departure from this world did not diminish my danger. He had
threatened my grandmother that his heirs should hold me in slavery after he
was gone; that I never should be free so long as a child of his survived. As
for Mrs. Flint, I had seen her in deeper afflictions than I supposed the loss
of her husband would be, for she had buried several children; yet I never
saw any signs of softening in her heart. The doctor had died in embarrassed
circumstances, and had little to will to his heirs, except such property as he
was unable to grasp. I was well aware what I had to expect from the family
of Flints; and my fears were confirmed by a letter from the south, warning
me to be on my guard, because Mrs. Flint openly declared that her daughter
could not afford to lose so valuable a slave as I was.
I kept close watch of the newspapers for arrivals; but one Saturday night,
being much occupied, I forgot to examine the Evening Express as usual. I
went down into the parlor for it, early in the morning, and found the boy
about to kindle a fire with it. I took it from him and examined the list of
arrivals. Reader, if you have never been a slave, you cannot imagine the
acute sensation of suffering at my heart, when I read the names of Mr. and
Mrs. Dodge, at a hotel in Courtland Street. It was a third-rate hotel, and that
circumstance convinced me of the truth of what I had heard, that they were
short of funds and had need of my value, as they valued me; and that was by
dollars and cents. I hastened with the paper to Mrs. Bruce. Her heart and
hand were always open to every one in distress, and she always warmly
sympathized with mine. It was impossible to tell how near the enemy was.
He might have passed and repassed the house while we were sleeping. He
might at that moment be waiting to pounce upon me if I ventured out of
doors. I had never seen the husband of my young mistress, and therefore I
could not distinguish him from any other stranger. A carriage was hastily
ordered; and, closely veiled, I followed Mrs. Bruce, taking the baby again
with me into exile. After various turnings and crossings, and returnings, the
carriage stopped at the house of one of Mrs. Bruce’s friends, where I was
kindly received. Mrs. Bruce returned immediately, to instruct the domestics
what to say if any one came to inquire for me.

It was lucky for me that the evening paper was not burned up before I
had a chance to examine the list of arrivals. It was not long after Mrs.
Bruce’s return to her house, before several people came to inquire for me.
One inquired for me, another asked for my daughter Ellen, and another said
he had a letter from my grandmother, which he was requested to deliver in
person.
They were told, “She has lived here, but she has left.”
“How long ago?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Do you know where she went?”
“I do not, sir.” And the door was closed.
This Mr. Dodge, who claimed me as his property, was originally a
Yankee pedler in the south; then he became a merchant, and finally a
slaveholder. He managed to get introduced into what was called the first
society, and married Miss Emily Flint. A quarrel arose between him and her
brother, and the brother cowhided him. This led to a family feud, and he
proposed to remove to Virginia. Dr. Flint left him no property, and his own
means had become circumscribed, while a wife and children depended upon
him for support. Under these circumstances, it was very natural that he
should make an effort to put me into his pocket.
I had a colored friend, a man from my native place, in whom I had the
most implicit confidence. I sent for him, and told him that Mr. and Mrs.
Dodge had arrived in New York. I proposed that he should call upon them
to make inquiries about his friends at the south, with whom Dr. Flint’s
family were well acquainted. He thought there was no impropriety in his
doing so, and he consented. He went to the hotel, and knocked at the door
of Mr. Dodge’s room, which was opened by the gentleman himself, who
gruffly inquired, “What brought you here? How came you to know I was in
the city?”
“Your arrival was published in the evening papers, sir; and I called to ask
Mrs. Dodge about my friends at home. I didn’t suppose it would give any
offence.”

“Where’s that negro girl, that belongs to my wife?”
“What girl, sir?”
“You know well enough. I mean Linda, that ran away from Dr. Flint’s
plantation, some years ago. I dare say you’ve seen her, and know where she
is.”
“Yes, sir, I’ve seen her, and know where she is. She is out of your reach,
sir.”
“Tell me where she is, or bring her to me, and I will give her a chance to
buy her freedom.”
“I don’t think it would be of any use, sir. I have heard her say she would
go to the ends of the earth, rather than pay any man or woman for her
freedom, because she thinks she has a right to it. Besides, she couldn’t do it,
if she would, for she has spent her earnings to educate her children.”
This made Mr. Dodge very angry, and some high words passed between
them. My friend was afraid to come where I was; but in the course of the
day I received a note from him. I supposed they had not come from the
south, in the winter, for a pleasure excursion; and now the nature of their
business was very plain.
Mrs. Bruce came to me and entreated me to leave the city the next
morning. She said her house was watched, and it was possible that some
clew to me might be obtained. I refused to take her advice. She pleaded
with an earnest tenderness, that ought to have moved me; but I was in a
bitter, disheartened mood. I was weary of flying from pillar to post. I had
been chased during half my life, and it seemed as if the chase was never to
end. There I sat, in that great city, guiltless of crime, yet not daring to
worship God in any of the churches. I heard the bells ringing for afternoon
service, and, with contemptuous sarcasm, I said, “Will the preachers take
for their text, ‘Proclaim liberty to the captive, and the opening of prison
doors to them that are bound’? or will they preach from the text, ‘Do unto
others as ye would they should do unto you’?” Oppressed Poles and
Hungarians could find a safe refuge in that city; John Mitchell was free to
proclaim in the City Hall his desire for “a plantation well stocked with
slaves;” but there I sat, an oppressed American, not daring to show my face.

God forgive the black and bitter thoughts I indulged on that Sabbath day!
The Scripture says, “Oppression makes even a wise man mad;” and I was
not wise.
I had been told that Mr. Dodge said his wife had never signed away her
right to my children, and if he could not get me, he would take them. This it
was, more than any thing else, that roused such a tempest in my soul.
Benjamin was with his uncle William in California, but my innocent young
daughter had come to spend a vacation with me. I thought of what I had
suffered in slavery at her age, and my heart was like a tiger’s when a hunter
tries to seize her young.
Dear Mrs. Bruce! I seem to see the expression of her face, as she turned
away discouraged by my obstinate mood. Finding her expostulations
unavailing, she sent Ellen to entreat me. When ten o’clock in the evening
arrived and Ellen had not returned, this watchful and unwearied friend
became anxious. She came to us in a carriage, bringing a well-filled trunk
for my journey—trusting that by this time I would listen to reason. I yielded
to her, as I ought to have done before.
The next day, baby and I set out in a heavy snow storm, bound for New
England again. I received letters from the City of Iniquity, addressed to me
under an assumed name. In a few days one came from Mrs. Bruce,
informing me that my new master was still searching for me, and that she
intended to put an end to this persecution by buying my freedom. I felt
grateful for the kindness that prompted this offer, but the idea was not so
pleasant to me as might have been expected. The more my mind had
become enlightened, the more difficult it was for me to consider myself an
article of property; and to pay money to those who had so grievously
oppressed me seemed like taking from my sufferings the glory of triumph. I
wrote to Mrs. Bruce, thanking her, but saying that being sold from one
owner to another seemed too much like slavery; that such a great obligation
could not be easily cancelled; and that I preferred to go to my brother in
California.
Without my knowledge, Mrs. Bruce employed a gentleman in New York
to enter into negotiations with Mr. Dodge. He proposed to pay three
hundred dollars down, if Mr. Dodge would sell me, and enter into

obligations to relinquish all claim to me or my children forever after. He
who called himself my master said he scorned so small an offer for such a
valuable servant. The gentleman replied, “You can do as you choose, sir. If
you reject this offer you will never get any thing; for the woman has friends
who will convey her and her children out of the country.”
Mr. Dodge concluded that “half a loaf was better than no bread,” and he
agreed to the proffered terms. By the next mail I received this brief letter
from Mrs. Bruce: “I am rejoiced to tell you that the money for your freedom
has been paid to Mr. Dodge. Come home to-morrow. I long to see you and
my sweet babe.”
My brain reeled as I read these lines. A gentleman near me said, “It’s
true; I have seen the bill of sale.” “The bill of sale!” Those words struck me
like a blow. So I was sold at last! A human being sold in the free city of
New York! The bill of sale is on record, and future generations will learn
from it that women were articles of traffic in New York, late in the
nineteenth century of the Christian religion. It may hereafter prove a useful
document to antiquaries, who are seeking to measure the progress of
civilization in the United States. I well know the value of that bit of paper;
but much as I love freedom, I do not like to look upon it. I am deeply
grateful to the generous friend who procured it, but I despise the miscreant
who demanded payment for what never rightfully belonged to him or his.
I had objected to having my freedom bought, yet I must confess that
when it was done I felt as if a heavy load had been lifted from my weary
shoulders. When I rode home in the cars I was no longer afraid to unveil my
face and look at people as they passed. I should have been glad to have met
Daniel Dodge himself; to have had him seen me and known me, that he
might have mourned over the untoward circumstances which compelled
him to sell me for three hundred dollars.
When I reached home, the arms of my benefactress were thrown round
me, and our tears mingled. As soon as she could speak, she said, “O Linda,
I’m so glad it’s all over! You wrote to me as if you thought you were going
to be transferred from one owner to another. But I did not buy you for your
services. I should have done just the same, if you had been going to sail for

California to-morrow. I should, at least, have the satisfaction of knowing
that you left me a free woman.”
My heart was exceedingly full. I remembered how my poor father had
tried to buy me, when I was a small child, and how he had been
disappointed. I hoped his spirit was rejoicing over me now. I remembered
how my good old grandmother had laid up her earnings to purchase me in
later years, and how often her plans had been frustrated. How that faithful,
loving old heart would leap for joy, if she could look on me and my
children now that we were free! My relatives had been foiled in all their
efforts, but God had raised me up a friend among strangers, who had
bestowed on me the precious, long-desired boon. Friend! It is a common
word, often lightly used. Like other good and beautiful things, it may be
tarnished by careless handling; but when I speak of Mrs. Bruce as my
friend, the word is sacred.
My grandmother lived to rejoice in my freedom; but not long after, a
letter came with a black seal. She had gone “where the wicked cease from
troubling, and the weary are at rest.”
Time passed on, and a paper came to me from the south, containing an
obituary notice of my uncle Phillip. It was the only case I ever knew of such
an honor conferred upon a colored person. It was written by one of his
friends, and contained these words: “Now that death has laid him low, they
call him a good man and a useful citizen; but what are eulogies to the black
man, when the world has faded from his vision? It does not require man’s
praise to obtain rest in God’s kingdom.” So they called a colored man a
citizen! Strange words to be uttered in that region!
Reader, my story ends with freedom; not in the usual way, with marriage.
I and my children are now free! We are as free from the power of
slaveholders as are the white people of the north; and though that, according
to my ideas, is not saying a great deal, it is a vast improvement in my
condition. The dream of my life is not yet realized. I do not sit with my
children in a home of my own. I still long for a hearthstone of my own,
however humble. I wish it for my children’s sake far more than for my own.
But God so orders circumstances as to keep me with my friend Mrs. Bruce.
Love, duty, gratitude, also bind me to her side. It is a privilege to serve her

who pities my oppressed people, and who has bestowed the inestimable
boon of freedom on me and my children.
It has been painful to me, in many ways, to recall the dreary years I
passed in bondage. I would gladly forget them if I could. Yet the
retrospection is not altogether without solace; for with those gloomy
recollections come tender memories of my good old grandmother, like light,
fleecy clouds floating over a dark and troubled sea.

APPENDIX.
The following statement is from Amy Post, a member of the Society of
Friends in the State of New York, well known and highly respected by
friends of the poor and the oppressed. As has been already stated, in the
preceding pages, the author of this volume spent some time under her
hospitable roof.
L.M.C.
“The author of this book is my highly-esteemed friend. If its readers knew her as I know
her, they could not fail to be deeply interested in her story. She was a beloved inmate of our
family nearly the whole of the year 1849. She was introduced to us by her affectionate and
conscientious brother, who had previously related to us some of the almost incredible
events in his sister’s life. I immediately became much interested in Linda; for her
appearance was prepossessing, and her deportment indicated remarkable delicacy of
feeling and purity of thought.
“As we became acquainted, she related to me, from time to time some of the incidents in
her bitter experiences as a slave-woman. Though impelled by a natural craving for human
sympathy, she passed through a baptism of suffering, even in recounting her trials to me, in
private confidential conversations. The burden of these memories lay heavily upon her
spirit—naturally virtuous and refined. I repeatedly urged her to consent to the publication
of her narrative; for I felt that it would arouse people to a more earnest work for the
disinthralment of millions still remaining in that soul-crushing condition, which was so
unendurable to her. But her sensitive spirit shrank from publicity. She said, “You know a
woman can whisper her cruel wrongs in the ear of a dear friend much easier than she can
record them for the world to read.” Even in talking with me, she wept so much, and
seemed to suffer such mental agony, that I felt her story was too sacred to be drawn from
her by inquisitive questions, and I left her free to tell as much, or as little, as she chose.
Still, I urged upon her the duty of publishing her experience, for the sake of the good it
might do; and, at last, she undertook the task.
“Having been a slave so large a portion of her life, she is unlearned; she is obliged to
earn her living by her own labor, and she has worked untiringly to procure education for
her children; several times she has been obliged to leave her employments, in order to fly
from the man-hunters and woman-hunters of our land; but she pressed through all these
obstacles and overcame them. After the labors of the day were over, she traced secretly and
wearily, by the midnight lamp, a truthful record of her eventful life.
“This Empire State is a shabby place of refuge for the oppressed; but here, through
anxiety, turmoil, and despair, the freedom of Linda and her children was finally secured, by
the exertions of a generous friend. She was grateful for the boon; but the idea of having
been bought was always galling to a spirit that could never acknowledge itself to be a
chattel. She wrote to us thus, soon after the event: ‘I thank you for your kind expressions in
regard to my freedom; but the freedom I had before the money was paid was dearer to me.

God gave me that freedom; but man put God’s image in the scales with the paltry sum of
three hundred dollars. I served for my liberty as faithfully as Jacob served for Rachel. At
the end, he had large possessions; but I was robbed of my victory; I was obliged to resign
my crown, to rid myself of a tyrant.’
“Her story, as written by herself, cannot fail to interest the reader. It is a sad illustration
of the condition of this country, which boasts of its civilization, while it sanctions laws and
customs which make the experiences of the present more strange than any fictions of the
past.
Amy Post.
“Rochester, N.Y., Oct. 30th, 1859.”

The following testimonial is from a man who is now a highly respectable
colored citizen of Boston.
L.M.C.
“This narrative contains some incidents so extraordinary, that, doubtless, many persons,
under whose eyes it may chance to fall, will be ready to believe that it is colored highly, to
serve a special purpose. But, however it may be regarded by the incredulous, I know that it
is full of living truths. I have been well acquainted with the author from my boyhood. The
circumstances recounted in her history are perfectly familiar to me. I knew of her treatment
from her master; of the imprisonment of her children; of their sale and redemption; of her
seven years’ concealment; and of her subsequent escape to the North. I am now a resident
of Boston, and am a living witness to the truth of this interesting narrative.
George W. Lowther.”

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