CHAPTER I

I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from

Easton, in Talbot county, Maryland. I have no accurate knowledge of my

age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the

larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know

of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to

keep their slaves thus ignorant. I do not remember to have ever met a

slave who could tell of his birthday. They seldom come nearer to it

than planting-time, harvest-time, cherry-time, spring-time, or

fall-time. A want of information concerning my own was a source of

unhappiness to me even during childhood. The white children could tell

their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same

privilege. I was not allowed to make any inquiries of my master

concerning it. He deemed all such inquiries on the part of a slave

improper and impertinent, and evidence of a restless spirit. The

nearest estimate I can give makes me now between twenty-seven and

twenty-eight years of age. I come to this, from hearing my master say,

some time during 1835, I was about seventeen years old.

My mother was named Harriet Bailey. She was the daughter of Isaac and

Betsey Bailey, both colored, and quite dark. My mother was of a darker

complexion than either my grandmother or grandfather.

My father was a white man. He was admitted to be such by all I ever

heard speak of my parentage. The opinion was also whispered that my

master was my father; but of the correctness of this opinion, I know

nothing; the means of knowing was withheld from me. My mother and I

were separated when I was but an infant—before I knew her as my mother.

It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away,

to part children from their mothers at a very early age. Frequently,

before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken

from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off, and

the child is placed under the care of an old woman, too old for field

labor. For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to

hinder the development of the child’s affection toward its mother, and

to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child.

This is the inevitable result.

I never saw my mother, to know her as such, more than four or five

times in my life; and each of these times was very short in duration,

and at night. She was hired by a Mr. Stewart, who lived about twelve

miles from my home. She made her journeys to see me in the night,

travelling the whole distance on foot, after the performance of her

day’s work. She was a field hand, and a whipping is the penalty of not

being in the field at sunrise, unless a slave has special permission

from his or her master to the contrary—a permission which they seldom

get, and one that gives to him that gives it the proud name of being a

kind master. I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light

of day. She was with me in the night. She would lie down with me, and

get me to sleep, but long before I waked she was gone. Very little

communication ever took place between us. Death soon ended what little

we could have while she lived, and with it her hardships and suffering.

She died when I was about seven years old, on one of my master’s farms,

near Lee’s Mill. I was not allowed to be present during her illness, at

her death, or burial. She was gone long before I knew any thing about

it. Never having enjoyed, to any considerable extent, her soothing

presence, her tender and watchful care, I received the tidings of her

death with much the same emotions I should have probably felt at the

death of a stranger.

Called thus suddenly away, she left me without the slightest intimation

of who my father was. The whisper that my master was my father, may or

may not be true; and, true or false, it is of but little consequence to

my purpose whilst the fact remains, in all its glaring odiousness, that

slaveholders have ordained, and by law established, that the children

of slave women shall in all cases follow the condition of their

mothers; and this is done too obviously to administer to their own

lusts, and make a gratification of their wicked desires profitable as

well as pleasurable; for by this cunning arrangement, the slaveholder,

in cases not a few, sustains to his slaves the double relation of

master and father.

I know of such cases; and it is worthy of remark that such slaves

invariably suffer greater hardships, and have more to contend with,

than others. They are, in the first place, a constant offence to their

mistress. She is ever disposed to find fault with them; they can seldom

do any thing to please her; she is never better pleased than when she

sees them under the lash, especially when she suspects her husband of

showing to his mulatto children favors which he withholds from his

black slaves. The master is frequently compelled to sell this class of

his slaves, out of deference to the feelings of his white wife; and,

cruel as the deed may strike any one to be, for a man to sell his own

children to human flesh-mongers, it is often the dictate of humanity

for him to do so; for, unless he does this, he must not only whip them

himself, but must stand by and see one white son tie up his brother, of

but few shades darker complexion than himself, and ply the gory lash to

his naked back; and if he lisp one word of disapproval, it is set down

to his parental partiality, and only makes a bad matter worse, both for

himself and the slave whom he would protect and defend.

Every year brings with it multitudes of this class of slaves. It was

doubtless in consequence of a knowledge of this fact, that one great

statesman of the south predicted the downfall of slavery by the

inevitable laws of population. Whether this prophecy is ever fulfilled

or not, it is nevertheless plain that a very different-looking class of

people are springing up at the south, and are now held in slavery, from

those originally brought to this country from Africa; and if their

increase do no other good, it will do away the force of the argument,

that God cursed Ham, and therefore American slavery is right. If the

lineal descendants of Ham are alone to be scripturally enslaved, it is

certain that slavery at the south must soon become unscriptural; for

thousands are ushered into the world, annually, who, like myself, owe

their existence to white fathers, and those fathers most frequently

their own masters.

I have had two masters. My first master’s name was Anthony. I do not

remember his first name. He was generally called Captain Anthony—a

title which, I presume, he acquired by sailing a craft on the

Chesapeake Bay. He was not considered a rich slaveholder. He owned two

or three farms, and about thirty slaves. His farms and slaves were

under the care of an overseer. The overseer’s name was Plummer. Mr.

Plummer was a miserable drunkard, a profane swearer, and a savage

monster. He always went armed with a cowskin and a heavy cudgel. I have

known him to cut and slash the women’s heads so horribly, that even

master would be enraged at his cruelty, and would threaten to whip him

if he did not mind himself. Master, however, was not a humane

slaveholder. It required extraordinary barbarity on the part of an

overseer to affect him. He was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of

slaveholding. He would at times seem to take great pleasure in whipping

a slave. I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most

heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to

a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered

with blood. No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim,

seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she

screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there

he whipped longest. He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her

to make her hush; and not until overcome by fatigue, would he cease to

swing the blood-clotted cowskin. I remember the first time I ever

witnessed this horrible exhibition. I was quite a child, but I well

remember it. I never shall forget it whilst I remember any thing. It

was the first of a long series of such outrages, of which I was doomed

to be a witness and a participant. It struck me with awful force. It

was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery,

through which I was about to pass. It was a most terrible spectacle. I

wish I could commit to paper the feelings with which I beheld it.

This occurrence took place very soon after I went to live with my old

master, and under the following circumstances. Aunt Hester went out one

night,—where or for what I do not know,—and happened to be absent when

my master desired her presence. He had ordered her not to go out

evenings, and warned her that she must never let him catch her in

company with a young man, who was paying attention to her belonging to

Colonel Lloyd. The young man’s name was Ned Roberts, generally called

Lloyd’s Ned. Why master was so careful of her, may be safely left to

conjecture. She was a woman of noble form, and of graceful proportions,

having very few equals, and fewer superiors, in personal appearance,

among the colored or white women of our neighborhood.

Aunt Hester had not only disobeyed his orders in going out, but had

been found in company with Lloyd’s Ned; which circumstance, I found,

from what he said while whipping her, was the chief offence. Had he

been a man of pure morals himself, he might have been thought

interested in protecting the innocence of my aunt; but those who knew

him will not suspect him of any such virtue. Before he commenced

whipping Aunt Hester, he took her into the kitchen, and stripped her

from neck to waist, leaving her neck, shoulders, and back, entirely

naked. He then told her to cross her hands, calling her at the same

time a d——d b—-h. After crossing her hands, he tied them with a strong

rope, and led her to a stool under a large hook in the joist, put in

for the purpose. He made her get upon the stool, and tied her hands to

the hook. She now stood fair for his infernal purpose. Her arms were

stretched up at their full length, so that she stood upon the ends of

her toes. He then said to her, “Now, you d——d b—-h, I’ll learn you how

to disobey my orders!” and after rolling up his sleeves, he commenced

to lay on the heavy cowskin, and soon the warm, red blood (amid

heart-rending shrieks from her, and horrid oaths from him) came

dripping to the floor. I was so terrified and horror-stricken at the

sight, that I hid myself in a closet, and dared not venture out till

long after the bloody transaction was over. I expected it would be my

turn next. It was all new to me. I had never seen any thing like it

before. I had always lived with my grandmother on the outskirts of the

plantation, where she was put to raise the children of the younger

women. I had therefore been, until now, out of the way of the bloody

scenes that often occurred on the plantation.