Retrospect of Western Travel Volume I Part 16

The stories on this side of the question are as various as the characters and fortunes of the heroes of them. Many facts of this nature became known to me during my travels, most of which cannot be published, for fear of involving in difficulty either the escaped heroes or those who a.s.sisted them in regaining their liberty. But a few may be safely related, which will show, as well as any greater number, the kind of restlessness which is the torment of the lives of "persons held to labour," the const.i.tutional description of the slave-cla.s.s of the const.i.tuents of government.

Slavery is nowhere more hopeless and helpless than in Alabama. The richness of the soil and the paucity of inhabitants make the labourer a most valuable possession; while his distance from any free state--the extent of country overspread with enemies which the fugitive has to traverse--makes the attempt to escape desperate. All coloured persons travelling in the slave states without a pa.s.s--a certificate of freedom or of leave--are liable to be arrested and advertised, and, if unclaimed at the end of a certain time, sold in the market. Yet slaves do continue to escape from the farthest corners of Alabama or Mississippi.

Two slaves in Alabama, who had from their early manhood cherished the idea of freedom, planned their escape in concert, and laboured for many years at their scheme. They were allowed the profits of their labour at over-hours; and, by strenuous toil and self-denial, saved and hid a large sum of money. Last year they found they had enough, and that the time was come for the execution of their purpose. They engaged the services of "a mean white;" one of the extremely degraded cla.s.s who are driven by loss of character to labour in the slave states, where, labour by whites being disgraceful, they are looked down upon by the slaves no less than the slaves are by the superior whites. These two slaves hired a "mean white man" to personate a gentleman; bought him a suit of good clothes, a portmanteau, a carriage and horses, and proper costume for themselves. One night the three set off in style, as master, coachman, and footman, and travelled rapidly through the whole country, without the slightest hinderance, to Buffalo. There the slaves sold their carriage, horses, and finery, paid off their white man, and escaped into Canada, where they now are in safety.

They found in Canada a society of their own colour prepared to welcome and aid them. In Upper Canada there are upward of ten thousand people of colour, chiefly fugitive slaves, who prosper in the country which they have chosen for a refuge. Scarcely an instance is known of any of them having received alms, and they are as respectable for their intelligence as for their morals. One peculiarity in them is the extravagance of their loyalty. They exert themselves vehemently in defence of all the acts of the executive, whatever they may be. The reason for this is obvious: they exceedingly dread the barest mention of the annexation of Canada to the United States.

It is astonishing that, in the face of facts of daily occurrence like that of the escape of these men, it can be pleaded in behalf of slavery that negroes cannot take care of themselves, and that they prefer being held as property. A lady of New-York favoured me with some of her recollections of slavery in that state. She told me of a favourite servant who had been her father's property for five-and-twenty years. I believe the woman was the family nurse. She was treated with all possible indulgence, and was the object of the attachment of the whole household. The woman was never happy. During all these dreary years she was haunted with the longing for freedom, and at last fell ill, apparently from anxiety of mind. From her sickbed she implored her master so movingly to make her free, and her medical attendant was so convinced that her life depended on her request being granted, that her master made the desired promise, but very unwillingly, as he thought freedom would be more of a care than a blessing to her. She immediately recovered, and in spite of all entreaty, pecuniary inducement, and appeals to her grat.i.tude, left the family. She shed many tears, mourned over parting with the children, and thanked the family for all the favour with which she had been treated, but declared that she could not remain. Everything savoured too strongly of the bondage she had been unable to endure. She took a service not far off, deposited her earnings with her old master, and frequently visited the family, but, to the last, shrank from all mention of returning to them.

While I was in the United States, a New-York friend of mine was counsel for a native African who sued his mistress for his earnings of many years. This man had been landed in the South after the year 1808, the date fixed by the Const.i.tution for the cessation of the importation of negroes. He was purchased by a lady to whom he proved very profitable, his services being of a superior kind. She let him out, and he paid over to her all the money he earned. After many years she visited New-York, bringing this man with her, not antic.i.p.ating that, in that free city, he would gain new lights as to his relation to her. He refused to return, and brought his mistress into court to answer his demand for the repayment of all the money he had earned abroad, with interest, and compensation for his services at home during his illegal bondage. As a knowledge of the law was necessarily supposed on both sides, the counsel for the slave made compulsion his plea. This was not allowed. The slave's maintenance was decided to be a sufficient compensation for his services at home, and he was decreed to receive only the earnings of his hired labour, without interest. His counsel had, however, the pleasure of seeing him, in the strength of his manhood, free, and in possession of a large sum of money to begin life with on his own account.

A woman once lived in Ma.s.sachusetts whose name ought to be preserved in all histories of the State as one of its honours, though she was a slave. Some anecdotes of her were related in a Lyceum lecture delivered at Stockbridge in 1831. Others were told me by the Sedgwicks, who had the honour of knowing her best, by means of rendering her the greatest services. Mum Bett, whose real name was Elizabeth Freeman, was born, it is supposed, about 1742. Her parents were native Africans, and she was a slave for about thirty years. At an early age she was purchased, with her sister, from the family into which she was born, in the State of New-York, by Colonel Ashley, of Sheffield, Ma.s.sachusetts. The lady of the mansion, in a fit of pa.s.sion, one day struck at Mum Bett's sister with a heated kitchen shovel. Mum Bett interposed her arm and received the blow, the scar of which she bore to the day of her death. "She resented the insult and outrage as a white person would have done," leaving the house, and refusing to return. Colonel Ashley appealed to the law for the recovery of his slave. Mum Bett called on Mr. Sedgwick, and asked him if she could not claim her liberty under the law. He inquired what could put such an idea into her head. She replied that the "Bill o'

Rights" said that all were born free and equal, and that, as she was not a dumb beast, she was certainly one of the nation. When afterward asked how she learned the doctrine and facts on which she proceeded, she replied, "By keepin' still and mindin' things." It was a favourite doctrine of hers, that people might learn by keeping still and minding things. But what did she mean, she was asked, by keeping still and minding things? Why, for instance, when she was waiting at table, she heard gentlemen talking over the Bill of Rights and the new const.i.tution of Ma.s.sachusetts; and in all they said she never heard but that all people were born free and equal, and she thought long about it, and resolved she would try whether she did not come in among them.

Mr. Sedgwick undertook her cause, which was tried at Great Barrington.

Mum Bett obtained her freedom, and compensation for her services from twenty-one years of age. "What shall I do with all this money of yours?"

said Mr. Sedgwick. "Fee the lawyers handsomely; pay 'em well," said she, "and keep the rest till I want it." She was offered every inducement to return to Colonel Ashley's, but she recoiled from all that reminded her of slavery. She begged the Sedgwicks to take her into their family, which they did; and with them she spent twenty years of great comfort.

Her example was followed by many slaves; and from the day of her emanc.i.p.ation in 1772, more and more claimants were decreed free under the Bill of Rights, till slavery was abolished in Ma.s.sachusetts.

Her services to the Sedgwick family are gratefully remembered by them.

She is believed to have saved her master's life by following her own judgment in his treatment when she was nursing him in a dangerous fever.

When her master was in Boston, and the rural districts were liable to nightly visitations from marauders after Shay's war (as an insurrection in Ma.s.sachusetts was called), the village of Stockbridge, in the absence of the gentlemen, depended on Mum Bett for its safety, so general was the confidence in her wisdom and courage. The practice of the marauders was to enter and plunder gentlemen's houses in the night, on pretence of searching for ammunition and prisoners. Mum Bett declared that she could have no cowards in the village; as many as were afraid had better go up the hills to sleep. Several children and a few women went up the hills in the evening to farmhouses which were safe from intrusion. All brought their valuables of small bulk to Mum Bett for security. Everybody's watches, gold chains, rings, and other trinkets were deposited in an iron chest in the garret where Mum Bett slept.

The marauders arrived one night when Mrs. Sedgwick was very ill, and Mum Bett was unwilling to admit them. She quietly told her mistress that her pistols were loaded, and that a few shots from the windows would probably send the wretches away, as they could not be sure but that there were gentlemen in the house. Her mistress, however, positively ordered her to let the people in without delay. Mum Bett obeyed the order with much unwillingness. She appeared at the door with a large kitchen shovel in one hand and a light in the other, and a.s.sured the strangers that they would find nothing of what they asked for; neither Judge Sedgwick, nor ammunition and prisoners. They chose to search the house, however, as she had expected. Her great fear was that they would drink themselves intoxicated in the cellar, and become unmanageable; and she had prepared for this by putting rows of porter bottles in front of the wine and spirits, having drawn the corks to let the porter get flat, and put them in again. The intruders offered to take the light from her hand, but she held it back, saying that no one should carry the light but herself. Here was the way to the cellars, and there was the way to the chambers: she would light the gentlemen wherever they chose to go, but she would not let the house be set on fire over her sick mistress's head. "The gentlemen" went down to the cellar first. One of the party broke the neck of a bottle of porter, for which she rebuked him, saying, that if they wished to drink, she would fetch the corkscrew, and draw the cork, and they might drink like gentlemen; but that, if any one broke the neck of another bottle, she would lay him low with her shovel.

The flat porter was not to the taste of the visiters, who made wry faces, and said, if gentlemen liked such cursed bitter stuff, they might keep it, and praised spirits in comparison; upon which Mum Bett coolly observed that they were "sort o' gentlemen that lived here that did not drink spirits."

At the foot of the cellar stairs stood a barrel of pickled pork, out of which the intruders began helping themselves. In a tone of utter scorn Mum Bett exclaimed, "Ammunition and prisoners, indeed! You come for ammunition and prisoners, and take up with pickled pork!" They were fairly ashamed, and threw back the pork into the barrel. They went through all the chambers, poking with their bayonets under the beds, lest Judge Sedgwick should be there. At last, to Mum Bett's sorrow, they decided to search the garrets. In hers the iron chest came into view.

She hoped in vain that they would pa.s.s it over. One of the party observed that it looked as if it held something. Mum Bett put down the light, kneeled on the chest, and brandished her weapon, saying, "This is my chist, and let any man touch it at his peril." The men considered the matter not worth contesting, and went down stairs. They were actually departing without having met with a single article of value enough to carry away, when a young lady, a niece of Judge Sedgwick's, wishing to be civil to the wretches, asked them, at the hall door, whether they would like to see the stables. They were glad of the hint, and stole one horse (if I remember right), and ruined another with hard riding. Mum Bett's expression of wrath was, "If I had thought the pesky fools would have done such a thing, I would have turned the horses loose over night in the meadow; they would have come back at my call in the morning."

She was considered as connected with Judge Sedgwick's family after she had left their house for a home of her own. By her great industry and frugality she supported a large family of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. There was nothing remarkable about her husband, and her descendants do not appear to have inherited her genius. Mum Bett lies in the Stockbridge graveyard, in the corner where the people of colour _lie apart_. Her epitaph, written by a son of Judge Sedgwick, is as follows:--

ELIZABETH FREEMAN, Known by the name of MUM BETT, Died December 28, 1829. Her supposed age was 85 years.

She was born a slave, and remained a slave for nearly thirty years: she could neither read nor write, yet in her own sphere she had no superior nor equal: she neither wasted time nor property: she never violated a trust, nor failed to perform a duty. In every situation of domestic trial, she was the most efficient helper and the tenderest friend.

GOOD MOTHER FAREWELL.

As far as energy and talent are concerned, I should not hesitate to say that in her own sphere Mum Bett "had no superior nor equal;" and the same may be said about the quality of fidelity. I know of a slave in Louisiana who picked up a parcel containing 10,000 dollars, and returned it, with much trouble, to its owner. I know of a slave in South Carolina, belonging to a physician, who drives his master's gig, and has made a wonderful use of what he sees in the course of his morning's duty. While waiting for his master at the doors of patients, this slave occupied himself with copying in the sandy soil the letters he saw on signs. When he believed he had caught the method, he begged a slate, or paper and pencil, and brought home his copies, coaxing the boys of the family to tell him the names of the letters. He then put them together, and thus learned to read and write, without any further help whatever.

Having once discovered his own power of doing and learning, he went on in the only direction which seemed open to him. He turned his attention to mechanism, and makes miniature violins and pianos of surprising completeness, but no use. Here he will most likely stop; for there is no probability of his ever ceasing to be a slave, or having opportunity to turn to practical account a degree of energy, patience, and skill which, in happier circ.u.mstances, might have been the instruments of great deeds.

The energies of slaves sometimes take a direction which their masters contrive to render profitable, when they take to religion as a pursuit.

The universal, unquenchable reverence for religion in the human mind is taken advantage of when the imagination of the slave has been turned into the channel of superst.i.tion. It is a fact, that in the newspapers of New-Orleans may be seen an advertis.e.m.e.nt now and then of a lot of "pious negroes." Such "pious negroes" are convenient on a plantation where the treatment is not particularly mild; as they consider nonresistance a Christian duty, and are able to inspire a wonderful degree of patience into their fellow-sufferers.

The vigour which negroes show when their destiny is fairly placed in their own hands, is an answer to all arguments about their helplessness drawn from their dulness in a state of bondage. A highly satisfactory experiment upon the will, judgment, and talents of a large body of slaves was made a few years ago by a relative of Chief-justice Marshall.

This gentleman and his family had attached their negroes to them by a long course of judicious kindness. At length an estate at some distance was left to the gentleman, and he saw, with much regret, that it was his duty to leave the plantation on which he was living. He could not bear the idea of turning over his people to the tender mercies or unproved judgment of a stranger overseer. He called his negroes together, told them the case, and asked whether they thought they could manage the estate themselves. If they were willing to undertake the task, they must choose an overseer from among themselves, provide comfortably for their own wants, and remit him the surplus of the profits. The negroes were full of grief at losing the family, but willing to try what they could do. They had an election for overseer, and chose the man their master would have pointed out; decidedly the strongest head on the estate. All being arranged, the master left them, with a parting charge to keep their festivals, and take their appointed holydays as if he were present. After some time he rode over to see how all went on, choosing a festival day, that he might meet them in their holyday gayety. He was surprised, on approaching, to hear no merriment; and, on entering his fields, he found his "force" all hard at work. As they flocked round him, he inquired why they were not making holyday. They told him that the crop would suffer in its present state by the loss of a day, and that they had therefore put off their holyday, which, however, they meant to take by-and-by. Not many days after an express arrived to inform the proprietor that there was an insurrection on his estate. He would not believe it; declared it impossible, as there was n.o.body to rise against; but the messenger, who had been sent by the neighbouring gentlemen, was so confident of the facts, that the master galloped, with the utmost speed, to his plantation, arriving as night was coming on. As he rode in a cry of joy arose from his negroes, who pressed round to shake hands with him. They were in their holyday clothes, and had been singing and dancing. They were only enjoying the deferred festival. The neighbours, hearing the noise on a quiet working day, had jumped to the conclusion that it was an insurrection.

There is no catastrophe yet to this story. When the proprietor related it, he said that no trouble had arisen; and that for some seasons, ever since this estate had been wholly in the hands of his negroes, it had been more productive than it ever was while he managed it himself.

The finest harvest-field of romance perhaps in the world is the frontier between the United States and Canada. The vowed student of human nature could not do better than take up his abode there, and hear what fugitives and their friends have to tell. There have been no exhibitions of the forces of human character in any political revolution or religious reformation more wonderful and more interesting than may almost daily be seen there. The impression on even careless minds on the spot is very strong. I remember observing to a friend in the ferryboat, when we were crossing the Niagara from Lewistown to Queenstown, that it seemed very absurd, on looking at the opposite banks of the river, to think that, while the one belonged to the people who lived on it, the other was called the property of a nation three thousand miles off, the sh.o.r.es looking so much alike as they do. My friend replied with a smile, "Runaway slaves see a great difference." "That they do!" cried the ferryman, in a tone of the deepest earnestness. He said that the leap ash.o.r.e of an escaped slave is a sight unlike any other that can be seen.

On other parts of the frontier I heard tales which I grieve that it is not in my power to tell, so honourable are they to individuals of both races, friends of the slaves. The time may come when no one will be injured by their being made public. Meantime, I will give one which happened many years ago, and which relates to a different part of the country.

A., now an elderly man, was accustomed in his youth to go up and down the Mississippi on trading expeditions; and both in these and in subsequent wanderings of many years--to Hayti among other places--he has had opportunity to study the character of the negro race; and he is decidedly of opinion that there is in them only a superinduced inferiority to the whites. In relating his experiences among the coloured people, he told the following story:--

When he was a young man, he was going down the Mississippi in a boat with a cargo of salt, when he stopped at a small place on the Kentucky sh.o.r.e called Unity, opposite to a part of Arkansas. While he was there a slavetrader came up with his company of upward of two hundred slaves, whom he was conveying to the New-Orleans market. Among these A. remarked a gigantic mulatto--handsome in countenance and proud in bearing--who was nearly naked, and fettered. He had an iron band round his waist and round each wrist, and these bands were connected by chains. The trader observed to A. that this man was the most valuable slave he had ever had on sale. I think he said that he would not take two thousand dollars for him; he added that he was obliged to chain him, as he was bent on getting away. When the trader's back was turned, the mulatto looked at A. as if wishing to talk with him.

"Why are you chained in this way?" asked A.

"Because my master is afraid of losing me. He knows that I am the most valuable slave he has, and that I mean to get away."

"Have you told him so?"

"Yes."

"And how do you mean to get away?"

"I don't know; but I mean it."

After a pause, he said in a low voice to A.,

"Could not you give me a file?"

"No," said A., decidedly. "Do you think I don't know the law? Do you think I am going to help you away, and get punished for it? No; I can't give you a file."

As A. went back to his boat he saw the slave looking wistfully after him, and his heart smote him for what he had said. He bethought himself that if he could manage to put an instrument of deliverance in the man's way without touching it, he might keep within the letter of the law, and he acted upon this notion. He looked about his boat, and found a strong three-sided file, which he put between his coat and waistcoat, so that it would be sure to drop out when the coat was unb.u.t.toned. He sauntered back on sh.o.r.e, and the mulatto, who watched all his movements, came up to him, eagerly whispering,

"Have you got a file? Are you going to give me a file?"

"No," said A. "I told you that I knew better than to give you a file."

The slave's countenance fell.

"However," continued A., "I should not wonder if I can tell you where to get one. If you look about by yonder woodpile, I think, perhaps, you may find a file. No, not now. Go back to your company now, and don't look at me; and, when I am gone on board my boat, you can wander off to the woodpile."

A. unb.u.t.toned his coat as he appeared to be picking up the scattered wood round the pile, and presently returned to his boat, whence he saw the mulatto presently walk to the woodpile, and stoop down just at the right spot. A. watched all day and late into the night, but he saw and heard nothing more.

In the morning the slavetrader came on board the boat, exclaiming angrily that A. had a slave of his concealed there. A. desired him to search the boat, which he did, looking behind every bag of salt. He was confident that A. must have helped the man away; chained as he was, he could not have got off without help. As for himself, he had rather have lost thousands of dollars than this man; but he always knew it would be so; the fellow always said he would get away.

Thus grumbling, the trader departed to make search in another direction.

In an hour he returned, saying that the slave must either be drowned or have got over into Arkansas. His irons and a strong file were lying on a point of land projecting into the river about a mile off, and the marks were visible where the fugitive had taken the water. A. went, and long did he stay, questioning and meditating; and during all the years that have since elapsed, it has been his frequent daily and nightly speculation whether the mulatto escaped or perished. Sometimes, when he remembers the gigantic frame of the man, and the force of the impulse which urged him, A. hopes that it may have been possible for him to reach the opposite sh.o.r.e. At other times, when he thinks of the width of the Mississippi at that part, and of the tremendous force of the current, which would warrant the a.s.sertion that it is impossible for a swimmer to cross, he believes himself convinced that the fugitive has perished. Yet still the hope returns that the strong man may be living in wild freedom in some place where the sense of safety and peace may have taught him to forgive and pity his oppressors.

NEW-ORLEANS.

"Though everybody cried 'Shame!' and 'Shocking!' yet everybody visited them."--MISS EDGEWORTH.

When arrived at the extreme southwest point of our journey, it was amusing to refer to the warnings of our kind friends about its inconveniences and dangers. We had brought away tokens of the hospitality of Charleston in the shape of a large basket of provision which had been prepared, on the supposition that we should find little that we could eat on the road. There was wine, tea, and cocoa; cases of French preserved meat, crackers (biscuits), and gingerbread. All these good things, except the wine and crackers, we found it expedient to leave behind, from place to place. There was no use in determining beforehand to eat them at any particular meal; when it came to the point, we always found hunger or disgust so much more bearable than the shame of being ungracious to entertainers who were doing their best for us, that we could never bring ourselves to produce our stores. We took what was set before us, and found ourselves, at length, alive and well at New-Orleans.