Chapter 9
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|  I have now reached a period of my life when I | |
| | can give dates. I left Baltimore, and went to live | |
| | with Master Thomas Auld, at St. Michael's, in | |
| | March, 1832. It was now more than seven years | |
| | since I lived with him in the family of my old mas- | |
| | ter, on Colonel Lloyd's plantation. We of course | |
| | were now almost entire strangers to each other. He | |
| | was to me a new master, and I to him a new slave. | |
| | I was ignorant of his temper and disposition; he | |
| | was equally so of mine. A very short time, however, | |
| | brought us into full acquaintance with each other. | |
| | I was made acquainted with his wife not less than | |
| | with himself. They were well matched, being equally | |
| | mean and cruel. I was now, for the first time during | |
| | a space of more than seven years, made to feel the | |
| | painful gnawings of hunger—a something which I | |
| | had not experienced before since I left Colonel | |
| | Lloyd's plantation. It went hard enough with me | |
| | then, when I could look back to no period at which | |
| | I had enjoyed a sufficiency. It was tenfold harder | |
| | after living in Master Hugh's family, where I had | |
| | always had enough to eat, and of that which was | |
| | good. I have said Master Thomas was a mean man. | |
| | He was so. Not to give a slave enough to eat, is | |
| | regarded as the most aggravated development of | |
| | meanness even among slaveholders. The rule is, no | |
| | matter how coarse the food, only let there be enough | |
| | of it. This is the theory; and in the part of Maryland | |
| | from which I came, it is the general practice,—though | |
| | there are many exceptions. Master Thomas gave us | |
| | enough of neither coarse nor fine food. There were | |
| | four slaves of us in the kitchen—my sister Eliza, my | |
| | aunt Priscilla, Henny, and myself; and we were al- | |
| | lowed less than a half of a bushel of corn-meal per | |
| | week, and very little else, either in the shape of | |
| | meat or vegetables. It was not enough for us to | |
| | subsist upon. We were therefore reduced to the | |
| | wretched necessity of living at the expense of our | |
| | neighbors. This we did by begging and stealing, | |
| | whichever came handy in the time of need, the one | |
| | being considered as legitimate as the other. A great | |
| | many times have we poor creatures been nearly | |
| | perishing with hunger, when food in abundance lay | |
| | mouldering in the safe and smoke-house, and our | |
| | pious mistress was aware of the fact; and yet that | |
| | mistress and her husband would kneel every morn- | |
| | ing, and pray that God would bless them in basket | |
| | and store! | |
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| | Bad as all slaveholders are, we seldom meet one | |
| | destitute of every element of character commanding | |
| | respect. My master was one of this rare sort. I do | |
| | not know of one single noble act ever performed by | |
| | him. The leading trait in his character was mean- | |
| | ness; and if there were any other element in his | |
| | nature, it was made subject to this. He was mean; | |
| | and, like most other mean men, he lacked the ability | |
| | to conceal his meanness. Captain Auld was not born | |
| | a slaveholder. He had been a poor man, master only | |
| | of a Bay craft. He came into possession of all his | |
| | slaves by marriage; and of all men, adopted slave- | |
| | holders are the worst. He was cruel, but cowardly. | |
| | He commanded without firmness. In the enforce- | |
| | ment of his rules, he was at times rigid, and at times | |
| | lax. At times, he spoke to his slaves with the firmness | |
| | of Napoleon and the fury of a demon; at other times, | |
| | he might well be mistaken for an inquirer who had | |
| | lost his way. He did nothing of himself. He might | |
| | have passed for a lion, but for his ears. In all things | |
| | noble which he attempted, his own meanness shone | |
| | most conspicuous. His airs, words, and actions, | |
| | were the airs, words, and actions of born slave- | |
| | holders, and, being assumed, were awkward enough. | |
| | He was not even a good imitator. He possessed all | |
| | the disposition to deceive, but wanted the power. | |
| | Having no resources within himself, he was com- | |
| | pelled to be the copyist of many, and being such, he | |
| | was forever the victim of inconsistency; and of con- | |
| | sequence he was an object of contempt, and was held | |
| | as such even by his slaves. The luxury of having | |
| | slaves of his own to wait upon him was something | |
| | new and unprepared for. He was a slaveholder with- | |
| | out the ability to hold slaves. He found himself in- | |
| | capable of managing his slaves either by force, fear, | |
| | or fraud. We seldom called him "master;" we gen- | |
| | erally called him "Captain Auld," and were hardly | |
| | disposed to title him at all. I doubt not that our | |
| | conduct had much to do with making him appear | |
| | awkward, and of consequence fretful. Our want of | |
| | reverence for him must have perplexed him greatly. | |
| | He wished to have us call him master, but lacked | |
| | the firmness necessary to command us to do so. His | |
| | wife used to insist upon our calling him so, but to | |
| | no purpose. In August, 1832, my master attended a | |
| | Methodist camp-meeting held in the Bay-side, Tal- | |
| | bot county, and there experienced religion. I in- | |
| | dulged a faint hope that his conversion would lead | |
| | him to emancipate his slaves, and that, if he did not | |
| | do this, it would, at any rate, make him more kind | |
| | and humane. I was disappointed in both these re- | |
| | spects. It neither made him to be humane to his | |
| | slaves, nor to emancipate them. If it had any effect | |
| | on his character, it made him more cruel and hateful | |
| | in all his ways; for I believe him to have been a much | |
| | worse man after his conversion than before. Prior | |
| | to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity | |
| | to shield and sustain him in his savage barbarity; | |
| | but after his conversion, he found religious sanction | |
| | and support for his slaveholding cruelty. He made | |
| | the greatest pretensions to piety. His house was the | |
| | house of prayer. He prayed morning, noon, and | |
| | night. He very soon distinguished himself among | |
| | his brethren, and was soon made a class-leader and | |
| | exhorter. His activity in revivals was great, and he | |
| | proved himself an instrument in the hands of the | |
| | church in converting many souls. His house was the | |
| | preachers' home. They used to take great pleasure | |
| | in coming there to put up; for while he starved us, he | |
| | stuffed them. We have had three or four preachers | |
| | there at a time. The names of those who used to | |
| | come most frequently while I lived there, were Mr. | |
| | Storks, Mr. Ewery, Mr. Humphry, and Mr. Hickey. | |
| | I have also seen Mr. George Cookman at our house. | |
| | We slaves loved Mr. Cookman. We believed him to | |
| | be a good man. We thought him instrumental in get- | |
| | ting Mr. Samuel Harrison, a very rich slaveholder, to | |
| | emancipate his slaves; and by some means got the | |
| | impression that he was laboring to effect the emanci- | |
| | pation of all the slaves. When he was at our house, | |
| | we were sure to be called in to prayers. When the | |
| | others were there, we were sometimes called in and | |
| | sometimes not. Mr. Cookman took more notice of | |
| | us than either of the other ministers. He could not | |
| | come among us without betraying his sympathy for | |
| | us, and, stupid as we were, we had the sagacity to | |
| | see it. | |
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| | While I lived with my master in St. Michael's, | |
| | there was a white young man, a Mr. Wilson, who | |
| | proposed to keep a Sabbath school for the instruction | |
| | of such slaves as might be disposed to learn to read | |
| | the New Testament. We met but three times, when | |
| | Mr. West and Mr. Fairbanks, both class-leaders, | |
| | with many others, came upon us with sticks and | |
| | other missiles, drove us off, and forbade us to meet | |
| | again. Thus ended our little Sabbath school in the | |
| | pious town of St. Michael's. | |
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| | I have said my master found religious sanction | |
| | for his cruelty. As an example, I will state one of | |
| | many facts going to prove the charge. I have seen | |
| | him tie up a lame young woman, and whip her with | |
| | a heavy cowskin upon her naked shoulders, causing | |
| | the warm red blood to drip; and, in justification | |
| | of the bloody deed, he would quote this passage of | |
| | Scripture—"He that knoweth his master's will, and | |
| | doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes." | |
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| | Master would keep this lacerated young woman | |
| | tied up in this horrid situation four or five hours at | |
| | a time. I have known him to tie her up early in the | |
| | morning, and whip her before breakfast; leave her, | |
| | go to his store, return at dinner, and whip her again, | |
| | cutting her in the places already made raw with his | |
| | cruel lash. The secret of master's cruelty toward | |
| | "Henny" is found in the fact of her being almost | |
| | helpless. When quite a child, she fell into the fire, | |
| | and burned herself horribly. Her hands were so | |
| | burnt that she never got the use of them. She could | |
| | do very little but bear heavy burdens. She was to | |
| | master a bill of expense; and as he was a mean man, | |
| | she was a constant offence to him. He seemed | |
| | desirous of getting the poor girl out of existence. | |
| | He gave her away once to his sister; but, being a | |
| | poor gift, she was not disposed to keep her. Finally, | |
| | my benevolent master, to use his own words, "set | |
| | her adrift to take care of herself." Here was a re- | |
| | cently-converted man, holding on upon the mother, | |
| | and at the same time turning out her helpless child, | |
| | to starve and die! Master Thomas was one of the | |
| | many pious slaveholders who hold slaves for the | |
| | very charitable purpose of taking care of them. | |
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| | My master and myself had quite a number of | |
| | differences. He found me unsuitable to his purpose. | |
| | My city life, he said, had had a very pernicious effect | |
| | upon me. It had almost ruined me for every good | |
| | purpose, and fitted me for every thing which was | |
| | bad. One of my greatest faults was that of letting | |
| | his horse run away, and go down to his father-in- | |
| | law's farm, which was about five miles from St. | |
| | Michael's. I would then have to go after it. My | |
| | reason for this kind of carelessness, or carefulness, | |
| | was, that I could always get something to eat when | |
| | I went there. Master William Hamilton, my master's | |
| | father-in-law, always gave his slaves enough to eat. | |
| | I never left there hungry, no matter how great the | |
| | need of my speedy return. Master Thomas at length | |
| | said he would stand it no longer. I had lived with | |
| | him nine months, during which time he had given | |
| | me a number of severe whippings, all to no good | |
| | purpose. He resolved to put me out, as he said, to | |
| | be broken; and, for this purpose, he let me for one | |
| | year to a man named Edward Covey. Mr. Covey | |
| | was a poor man, a farm-renter. He rented the place | |
| | upon which he lived, as also the hands with which | |
| | he tilled it. Mr. Covey had acquired a very high | |
| | reputation for breaking young slaves, and this repu- | |
| | tation was of immense value to him. It enabled him | |
| | to get his farm tilled with much less expense to | |
| | himself than he could have had it done without | |
| | such a reputation. Some slaveholders thought it not | |
| | much loss to allow Mr. Covey to have their slaves | |
| | one year, for the sake of the training to which they | |
| | were subjected, without any other compensation. | |
| | He could hire young help with great ease, in con- | |
| | sequence of this reputation. Added to the natural | |
| | good qualities of Mr. Covey, he was a professor of | |
| | religion—a pious soul—a member and a class-leader in | |
| | the Methodist church. All of this added weight to | |
| | his reputation as a "nigger-breaker." I was aware of | |
| | all the facts, having been made acquainted with | |
| | them by a young man who had lived there. I never- | |
| | theless made the change gladly; for I was sure of | |
| | getting enough to eat, which is not the smallest | |
| | consideration to a hungry man. | |
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