Chapter 1

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 con-

cerning 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 col-

ored, and quite dark. My mother was of a darker

complexion than either my grandmother or grand-

father.

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 con-

siderable 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 con-

trary—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 al-

lowed 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 watch-

ful 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 con-

sequence 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 condi-

tion of their mothers; and this is done too obviously

to administer to their own lusts, and make a grati-

fication 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 fre-

quently 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 com-

plexion 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 knowl-

edge of this fact, that one great statesman of the

south predicted the downfall of slavery by the in-

evitable 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 scriptur-

ally 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 fa-

thers 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 bar-

barity on the part of an overseer to affect him. He

was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slave-

holding. He would at times seem to take great pleas-

ure 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 hor-

rible exhibition. I was quite a child, but I well re-

member it. I never shall forget it whilst I remember

any thing. It was the first of a long series of such out-

rages, 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 com-

pany 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 neighbor-

hood.

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 of-

fence. 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 com-

menced 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 there-

fore been, until now, out of the way of the bloody

scenes that often occurred on the plantation.