Chapter 8

In a very short time after I went to live at Balti-

more, my old master's youngest son Richard died;

and in about three years and six months after his

death, my old master, Captain Anthony, died, leav-

only his son, Andrew, and daughter, Lucretia, to

share his estate. He died while on a visit to see his

daughter at Hillsborough. Cut off thus unexpectedly,

he left no will as to the disposal of his property. It

was therefore necessary to have a valuation of the

property, that it might be equally divided between

Mrs. Lucretia and Master Andrew. I was immedi-

ately sent for, to be valued with the other property.

Here again my feelings rose up in detestation of

slavery. I had now a new conception of my degraded

condition. Prior to this, I had become, if not in-

sensible to my lot, at least partly so. I left Baltimore

with a young heart overborne with sadness, and a

soul full of apprehension. I took passage with Cap-

tain Rowe, in the schooner Wild Cat, and, after a

sail of about twenty-four hours, I found myself near

the place of my birth. I had now been absent from

it almost, if not quite, five years. I, however, re-

membered the place very well. I was only about

five years old when I left it, to go and live with my

old master on Colonel Lloyd's plantation; so that

I was now between ten and eleven years old.

We were all ranked together at the valuation. Men

and women, old and young, married and single, were

ranked with horses, sheep, and swine. There were

horses and men, cattle and women, pigs and chil-

dren, all holding the same rank in the scale of being,

and were all subjected to the same narrow examina-

tion. Silvery-headed age and sprightly youth, maids

and matrons, had to undergo the same indelicate

inspection. At this moment, I saw more clearly than

ever the brutalizing effects of slavery upon both

slave and slaveholder.

After the valuation, then came the division. I have

no language to express the high excitement and deep

anxiety which were felt among us poor slaves during

this time. Our fate for life was now to be decided.

we had no more voice in that decision than the

brutes among whom we were ranked. A single word

from the white men was enough—against all our

wishes, prayers, and entreaties—to sunder forever the

dearest friends, dearest kindred, and strongest ties

known to human beings. In addition to the pain of

separation, there was the horrid dread of falling into

the hands of Master Andrew. He was known to us

all as being a most cruel wretch,—a common drunk-

ard, who had, by his reckless mismanagement and

profligate dissipation, already wasted a large por-

tion of his father's property. We all felt that we

might as well be sold at once to the Georgia traders,

as to pass into his hands; for we knew that that

would be our inevitable condition,—a condition held

by us all in the utmost horror and dread.

I suffered more anxiety than most of my fellow-

slaves. I had known what it was to be kindly treated;

they had known nothing of the kind. They had seen

little or nothing of the world. They were in very

deed men and women of sorrow, and acquainted with

grief. Their backs had been made familiar with the

bloody lash, so that they had become callous; mine

was yet tender; for while at Baltimore I got few whip-

pings, and few slaves could boast of a kinder master

and mistress than myself; and the thought of pass-

ing out of their hands into those of Master Andrew—

a man who, but a few days before, to give me a

sample of his bloody disposition, took my little

brother by the throat, threw him on the ground, and

with the heel of his boot stamped upon his head

till the blood gushed from his nose and ears—was

well calculated to make me anxious as to my fate.

After he had committed this savage outrage upon

my brother, he turned to me, and said that was the

way he meant to serve me one of these days,—mean-

ing, I suppose, when I came into his possession.

Thanks to a kind Providence, I fell to the portion

of Mrs. Lucretia, and was sent immediately back

to Baltimore, to live again in the family of Master

Hugh. Their joy at my return equalled their sorrow

at my departure. It was a glad day to me. I had

escaped a worse than lion's jaws. I was absent from

Baltimore, for the purpose of valuation and division,

just about one month, and it seemed to have been

six.

Very soon after my return to Baltimore, my mis-

tress, Lucretia, died, leaving her husband and one

child, Amanda; and in a very short time after her

death, Master Andrew died. Now all the property

of my old master, slaves included, was in the hands

of strangers,—strangers who had had nothing to do

with accumulating it. Not a slave was left free. All

remained slaves, from the youngest to the oldest. If

any one thing in my experience, more than another,

served to deepen my conviction of the infernal char-

acter of slavery, and to fill me with unutterable

loathing of slaveholders, it was their base ingrati-

tude to my poor old grandmother. She had served

my old master faithfully from youth to old age. She

had been the source of all his wealth; she had peo-

pled his plantation with slaves; she had become a

great grandmother in his service. She had rocked

him in infancy, attended him in childhood, served

him through life, and at his death wiped from his

icy brow the cold death-sweat, and closed his eyes

forever. She was nevertheless left a slave—a slave for

life—a slave in the hands of strangers; and in their

hands she saw her children, her grandchildren, and

her great-grandchildren, divided, like so many sheep,

without being gratified with the small privilege of a

single word, as to their or her own destiny. And, to

cap the climax of their base ingratitude and fiendish

barbarity, my grandmother, who was now very old,

having outlived my old master and all his children,

having seen the beginning and end of all of them,

and her present owners finding she was of but little

value, her frame already racked with the pains of old

age, and complete helplessness fast stealing over her

once active limbs, they took her to the woods, built

her a little hut, put up a little mud-chimney, and

then made her welcome to the privilege of support-

ing herself there in perfect loneliness; thus virtually

turning her out to die! If my poor old grandmother

now lives, she lives to suffer in utter loneliness; she

lives to remember and mourn over the loss of chil-

dren, the loss of grandchildren, and the loss of great-

grandchildren. They are, in the language of the

slave's poet, Whittier,—

"Gone, gone, sold and gone

To the rice swamp dank and lone,

Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings,

Where the noisome insect stings,

Where the fever-demon strews

Poison with the falling dews,

Where the sickly sunbeams glare

Through the hot and misty air:—

Gone, gone, sold and gone

To the rice swamp dank and lone,

From Virginia hills and waters—

Woe is me, my stolen daughters!"

The hearth is desolate. The children, the uncon-

scious children, who once sang and danced in her

presence, are gone. She gropes her way, in the dark-

ness of age, for a drink of water. Instead of the voices

of her children, she hears by day the moans of the

dove, and by night the screams of the hideous owl.

All is gloom. The grave is at the door. And now,

when weighed down by the pains and aches of old

age, when the head inclines to the feet, when the

beginning and ending of human existence meet, and

helpless infancy and painful old age combine to-

gether—at this time, this most needful time, the time

for the exercise of that tenderness and affection

which children only can exercise towards a declining

parent—my poor old grandmother, the devoted

mother of twelve children, is left all alone, in yonder

little hut, before a few dim embers. She stands—

she sits—she staggers—she falls—she groans—she dies

—and there are none of her children or grandchildren

present, to wipe from her wrinkled brow the cold

sweat of death, or to place beneath the sod her

fallen remains. Will not a righteous God visit for

these things?

In about two years after the death of Mrs. Lu-

cretia, Master Thomas married his second wife. Her

name was Rowena Hamilton. She was the eldest

daughter of Mr. William Hamilton. Master now

lived in St. Michael's. Not long after his marriage,

a misunderstanding took place between himself and

Master Hugh; and as a means of punishing his

brother, he took me from him to live with himself

at St. Michael's. Here I underwent another most

painful separation. It, however, was not so severe

as the one I dreaded at the division of property; for,

during this interval, a great change had taken place

in Master Hugh and his once kind and affectionate

wife. The influence of brandy upon him, and of

slavery upon her, had effected a disastrous change

in the characters of both; so that, as far as they

were concerned, I thought I had little to lose by the

change. But it was not to them that I was attached.

It was to those little Baltimore boys that I felt the

strongest attachment. I had received many good

lessons from them, and was still receiving them, and

the thought of leaving them was painful indeed. I

was leaving, too, without the hope of ever being

allowed to return. Master Thomas had said he would

never let me return again. The barrier betwixt him-

self and brother he considered impassable.

I then had to regret that I did not at least make

the attempt to carry out my resolution to run away;

for the chances of success are tenfold greater from

the city than from the country.

I sailed from Baltimore for St. Michael's in the

sloop Amanda, Captain Edward Dodson. On my

passage, I paid particular attention to the direction

which the steamboats took to go to Philadelphia. I

found, instead of going down, on reaching North

Point they went up the bay, in a north-easterly direc-

tion. I deemed this knowledge of the utmost im-

portance. My determination to run away was again

revived. I resolved to wait only so long as the offering

of a favorable opportunity. When that came, I was

determined to be off.