 Chapter 9 of My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Personal treatment of the author. Miss Lucretia, her kindness, how it was manifested. Ike, a battle with him, the consequences thereof. Miss Lucretia's balsam, bread, how I obtained it. Beams of sunlight amidst the general darkness. Suffering from cold. How we took our meals. Orders to prepare for Baltimore. Overjoyed at the thought of quitting the plantation. Extraordinary cleansing. Cousin Tom's version of Baltimore. Arrival there. Kind reception giving me by Miss Sophia Ald. Little Tommy, my new position. My new duties, a turning point in my history. I'm nothing cruel or shocking to relate of my own personal experience while I remained on Colonel Lloyd's plantation at the home of my old master. An occasional cuff from Aunt Katie and a regular whipping from old master such as any heedless and mischievous boy might give from his father is all that I can mention of this sort. I was not old enough to work in the field and there being little else than field work to perform. I had much leisure. The most I had to do was to drive up the cows in the evening to keep the front yard clean and to perform small errands for my young mistress, Lucretia Ald. I have reasons for thinking this lady was very kindly disposed toward me and although I was not often the object of her attention, I constantly regarded her as my friend and was always glad when it was my privilege to do her a service in a family where there was so much that was harsh, cold, and indifferent. The slightest word or look of kindness passed with me for its full value. Miss Lucretia, as we all continue to call her long after her marriage, had bestowed upon me such words and looks as taught me that she pitied me if she did not love me. In addition to words and looks, she sometimes gave me a piece of bread and butter, a thing not set down in the bill of fare and which must have been an extra ration planned aside from either Aunt Katie or old master, solely out of the tender regard and friendship she had for me. Then too I one day got into the wars with Uncle Abel's son, Ike, and had got sadly worsted. In fact, the little rascal had struck me directly in the forehead with a sharp piece of cinder fused with iron from the old blacksmith's forge which made a cross in my forehead very plainly to be seen now. The gash bled very freely and I roared very loudly and betook myself home. The cold-hearted Aunt Katie paid no attention either to my wound or my roaring, except to tell me it served me right. I had no business with Ike. It was good for me. I would now keep away from them Lloyd niggers. Miss Lucretia in this state of the case came forward and in quite a different spirit from that manifested by Aunt Katie she called me into the parlor an extra privilege of itself and without using toward me any of the hard-hearted and reproachful epithets of my kitchen tormentor she quietly acted the good Samaritan. With her own soft hands she washed the blood from my head and face, fetched her own balsam bottle and with the balsam wedded a nice piece of white linen and bound up my head. The balsam was not more healing to the wound in my head than her kindness was healing to the wounds in my spirit made by the unfeeling words of Aunt Katie. After this Miss Lucretia was my friend. I felt her to be such and I have no doubt that the simple act of binding up my head did much to awaken in her mind an interest in my welfare. It is quite true that this interest was never very marked and its seldom showed itself in anything more than in giving me a piece of bread when I was very hungry but this was a great favor on a slave plantation and I was the only one of the children to whom such attention was paid. When very hungry I would go into the backyard and play under Miss Lucretia's window. When pretty severely pinched by hunger I had a habit of singing which the good lady very soon came to understand as a petition for a piece of bread. When I sung under Miss Lucretia's window I was very apt to get well paid for my music. The reader will see that I now had two friends both at important points, Miss Daniel at the great house and Miss Lucretia at home. From Miss Daniel I got protection from the bigger boys and from Miss Lucretia I got bread by singing when I was hungry and sympathy when I was abused by that termigut who had the reins of government in the kitchen. For such friendship I felt deeply grateful and bitter as are my recollections of slavery I love to recall any instances of kindness any sunbeams of humane treatment which found way to my soul through the iron grating of my house of bondage. Such beams seem all the brighter from the general darkness into which they penetrate and the impression they make is vividly distinct and beautiful. As I have before intimated I was seldom whipped and never severely by my old master I suffered little from the treatment I received except from hunger and cold these were my two great physical troubles I could neither get a sufficiency of food nor of clothing but I suffered less from hunger than from cold. In hottest summer and coldest winter I was kept almost in a state of nudity no shoes, no stockings, no jacket no trousers, nothing but corsets that cloth were told linen, made into a sort of shirt reaching down to my knees. This I wore night and day, changing it once a week in the daytime I could protect myself pretty well by keeping on the sunny side of the house and in bad weather in the corner of the kitchen chimney. The great difficulty was to keep warm during the night I had no bed, the pigs in the pen had leaves and the horses in the stable had straw the children had no beds they lodged anywhere in the ample kitchen I slept generally in that little closet without even a blanket to cover me in very cold weather I sometimes got down the bag in which cornmeal was usually carried to the mill and crawled into that sleeping there with my head in and feet out I was partly protected though not comfortable my feet have been so cracked with the frost the pen with which I'm writing might be laid in the gashes the manner of taking our meals at old masters indicated by little refinement our cornmeal mush when sufficiently cooled was placed in a large wooden tray or trough like those used in making maple sugar here in the north this tray was set down either on the floor of the kitchen or out of doors on the ground and the children were called like so many pigs and like so many pigs they would come and literally devour the mush some with oysters show some with pieces of shingles and none with spoons he that eat fastest got most and he that was strongest got the best place and few left the trough really satisfied I was the most unlucky of any for Aunt Katie had no good feeling for me and if I pushed any of the other children or if they told her anything unfavorable of me she always believed the worst and was sure to whip me as I grew older and more thoughtful I was more and more filled with a sense of my wretchedness the cruelty of Aunt Katie the hunger and cold I suffered and the terrible reports of wrong and outrage which came to my ear together with what I almost daily witnessed led me when yet but eight or nine years old to wish I'd never been born I used to contrast my condition with the blackbirds in whose wild and sweet songs I fancied them so happy there apparent joy only deepened the shades of my sorrow there are thoughtful days in the lives of children at least there were in mine when they grapple with all the great primary subjects of knowledge and reach in a moment conclusions no subsequent experience can shape I was just as well aware of the unjust unnatural and murderous character of slavery when nine years old as I am now without any appeal to books to laws or to authorities of any kind it was enough to accept God as a father to regard slavery as a crime I was not ten years old when I left Colonel Lloyd's Plantation to Baltimore I left that plantation with inexpressible joy I never shall forget the ecstasy with which I received the intelligence from my friend Miss Lucretia that my old master had determined to let me go to Baltimore to live with Mr. Hugh Alde a brother to Mr. Thomas Alde my old master's son-in-law I received this information about three days before my departure they were three of the happiest days of my childhood I spent the largest part of these three days in the creek washing off the plantation's skirt and preparing for my new home Mrs. Lucretia took a lively interest in getting me ready she told me I must get all the dead skin off my feet and knees before I could go to Baltimore for the people there were very cleanly and would laugh at me if I looked dirty and besides she was intending to give me a pair of trousers which I should not put on unless I got all the dirt off this was a warning to which I was bound to take heed for the thought of owning a pair of trousers was great indeed it was almost a sufficient motive not only to induce me to scrub off the mange as pig drovers would call it but the skin as well so I went at it in good earnest working for the first time in the hope of reward I was greatly excited and could hardly consent to sleep lest I should be left the ties that ordinarily buying children to their homes were all severed or they never had any existence in my case at least so far as the home plantation of Colonel L was concerned I therefore found no severe trial at the moment of my departure such as I had experienced when I separated from my home in Takahoe my home at my old masters was charmless to me it was not home but a prison to me on parting from it I could not feel that I was leaving anything which I could have enjoyed by staying my mother was now long dead my grandmother was far away so that I seldom saw her Aunt Katie was my unrelenting tormentor and my two sisters and brothers owing to our early separation in life and the family destroying power of slavery were comparatively strangers to me the fact of our relationship was almost blotted out I looked for home elsewhere and was confident of finding none which I should relish less than the one I was leaving if however I found in my new home to which I was going was such blissful anticipations hardship, whipping and nakedness I had the questionable consolation that I should not have escaped any one of these evils by remaining under the management of Aunt Katie then too I thought since I had endured much in this line on Lloyd's plantation I could endure as much elsewhere and especially at Baltimore for I have something of the feeling about that city which is expressed in the saying that being hanged in England is better than dying a natural death in Ireland I had the strongest desire to see Baltimore my cousin Tom, a boy two or three years older than I had been there and though not fluent he stuttered immoderately in speech he had inspired me with that desire by his eloquent description of the place Tom was sometimes Captain Ald's cabin boy and when he came from Baltimore he was always a sort of hero amongst us at least till his Baltimore trip was forgotten I could never tell him of anything or point out anything that struck me as beautiful or powerful but that he had seen something in Baltimore far surpassing it even the great house itself with all its pictures within and pillars without he had the hardy hood to say was nothing to Baltimore he bought a trumpet with six pence and brought it home told what he had seen in the windows of stores that he had heard shooting crackers and seen soldiers that he had seen a steamboat that there were ships in Baltimore that could carry four such sloops as the Sally Lloyd he said a great deal about the market house he spoke of the bells ringing and of many other things which roused my curiosity very much and indeed which heightened my hopes of happiness in my new home we sailed out of Miles River for Baltimore early on a Saturday morning I remember only the day of the week for at that time I had no knowledge of the days of the month nor indeed of the months of the year on setting sail I walked aft and gave to Colonel Lloyd's plantation what I hoped would be the last look I should ever give to it or to any place like it a strong aversion to the great house farm was not owing to my own personal suffering but the daily suffering of others and to the certainty that I must sooner or later be placed into the barber's rule of an overseer such as the accomplished gore or the brutal and drunken plumber after taking this last view I quitted the quarter deck made my way to the bow of the sloop and spent the remainder of the day in looking ahead I was very interested in what was in the distance rather than what was nearby or behind the vessels sweeping along the bay were very interesting objects the broad bay opened like a shoreless ocean on my voyage vision filling me with wonder and admiration late in the afternoon we reached Denapolis the capital of the state stopping there not long enough to admit of my going ashore was the first large town I had ever seen and though it was inferior to many a factory village in New England my feelings on seeing it were excited to a pitch very little below that reached by travelers at the first view of Rome the dome of the state house was especially imposing and surpassed in grandeur the appearance of the great house the great world was opening upon me very rapidly and I was eagerly acquainting myself with its multifarious lessons we arrived in Baltimore on Sunday morning and landed at Smith's Wharf not far from Bowley's Wharf we had on board the sloop a large flock of sheep for the Baltimore market and after assisting and driving them to the slaughterhouse of Mr. Curtis on Loudoun Slater's Hill I was beatily conducted by Rich one of the hands belonging to the sloop to my new home in Ala Gianna Street near Gardner's Shipyard on Fells Point Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Ald my new mistress and master were both at home and met me at the door with their rosy cheek little son Thomas to take care of whom was to constitute my future occupation in fact it was to little Tommy rather than to his parents that old master made a present of me and though there was no legal form or arrangement entered into I have no doubt that Mr. and Mrs. Ald felt that in due time I should be the legal property of their bright-eyed and beloved boy Tommy I was struck with the appearance especially of my new mistress her face was lighted with the kindliest emotions and the reflex influence of her countenance as well as the tenderness with which she seemed to regard me while asking me some little questions greatly delighted me and lit up to my fancy the pathway of my future Miss Lucretia was kind but my new mistress Miss Sophie surpassed her in kindness of manner little Thomas was affectionately told by his mother that there was his Freddie and that Freddie would take care of him but I was told to be kind to little Tommy and in junction I scarcely needed for I had already fallen in love with the dear boy and with these little ceremonies I was initiated into my new home and entered upon my peculiar duties with not a cloud above the horizon I may say here that I regard my removal from Colonel Lloyd's plantation as one of the most interesting unfortunate events of my life viewing it in the light of human likelihoods it is quite probable that but for the mere circumstance of being thus removed before the rigors of slavery had fastened upon me before my young spirit had been crushed under the iron control of the slave driver instead of being to day a free man I might have been wearing the galling chains of slavery I've sometimes felt however that there was something more intelligent than chance and something more certain than luck to be seen in the circumstance if I have made any progress in knowledge if I have cherished any honorable aspirations or have in any manner worthily discharged the duties of a member of an oppressed people this little circumstance must be allowed its due weight in giving my life that direction I've ever regarded it as the first plain manifestation of that divinity that shapes our ends rough few them as we will I was not the only boy on the plantation that might have been sent to live in Baltimore there was a wide margin from which to select there were boys younger, boys older and boys of the same age belonging to my old master some at his own house and some at his farm but the high privilege fell to my lot I may be deemed superstitious and egotistical in regarding this event as a special interposition of divine providence in my favor but the thought is a part of my history and I should be forced to the earliest and most cherished sentiments of my soul if I suppressed or hesitated to avow that opinion although it may be characterized as irrational by the wise and ridiculous by the scoffer from my earliest recollections of serious matters I date the entertainment of something like an ineffacable conviction that slavery would not always be able to hold me within its foul embrace and this conviction like a word of living faith strengthened me through the darkest trials of my lot this good spirit was from God and to him I offer thanksgiving and praise End of Chapter 9 Chapter 10 of my bondage and my freedom by Frederick Douglass this the Brevox recording is in the public domain Life in Baltimore City annoyances, plantation regrets my mistress, Miss Sophia her history, her kindness to me my master, you ald, is sourness my increased sensitiveness my comforts, my occupation the baneful effects of slaveholding on my dear and good mistress how she commenced teaching me to read why she ceased teaching me clouds gathering over my bright prospects master ald's exposition of the true philosophy of slavery city slaves, plantation slaves the contrast, exceptions Mr. Hamilton's two slaves Henrietta and Mary Mrs. Hamilton's cruel treatment of them the piteous aspect they presented no power must come between the slave and the slaveholder once in Baltimore with hard brick pavements under my feet which almost raised blisters by their very heat where it was in the height of summer walled in on all sides by towering brick buildings with troops of hostile boys ready to pounce upon me at every street corner with new and strange objects glaring upon me at every step and with startling sounds reaching my ears from all directions I for a time thought that after all the home plantation was a more desirable place of residence than my home on Ala Siana Street in Baltimore my country eyes and ears were confused and bewildered here but the boys were my chief trouble they chased me and called me eastern shore man to really I almost wished myself back on the eastern shore I had to undergo a sort of moral acclamation and when that was over I did much better my new mistress happily proved to be all she seemed to be when with her husband she met me at the door with the most beaming, benignant countenance she was naturally of an excellent disposition kind, gentle and cheerful the super silliest contempt for the rights and feelings of the slave that humor which generally characterized slaveholding ladies were all quite absent from kind miss Sophia's manner and bearing toward me she had in truth never been a slaveholder but had a thing quite unusual in the south depended almost entirely upon her own industry for a living to this fact the dear lady no doubt owed an appreciation of her natural goodness of heart for slavery can change a saint into a sinner and an angel into a demon I hardly knew how to behave toward miss Sophia as I used to call Mrs. Hugh Alt I had been treated as a pig on the plantation I was treated as a child now I could not even approach her as I had formally approached Mrs. Thomas Alt how could I hang down my head and speak with bated breath when there was no pride to scorn me, no coldness to repel me and no hatred to inspire me with fear I therefore soon learned to regard her as something more akin to a mother than a slaveholding mistress the crouching civility of a slave usually so acceptable a quality to the haughty slaveholder or desired by this gentle woman so far from deeming it impudent in a slave to look her straight in the face as some slaveholding ladies do she seemed ever to say look up child don't be afraid, see I'm full of kindness and goodwill toward you the hands belonging to Colonel Lloyd Sloup esteemed it a great privilege to be the bearers of parcels or messages to my new mistress for whenever they came they were sure of a most kind and pleasant reception if little Thomas was her son and her most dearly beloved child she for a time at least made me something like his half-brother in her affections if dear Tommy was exalted to a place on his mother's knee Fetty was honored by a place at his mother's side nor did he lack the caressing strokes of her gentle hand to convince him that though motherless he was not friendless Mrs. Ald was not only a kind hearted woman but she was remarkably pious frequent in her attendance of public worship much given to reading the Bible and to chanting hymns of praise when alone Mr. Hugh Ald was altogether a different character he was very little about religion knew more of the world and was more of the world than his wife he set out doubtless to be as the world goes a respectable man and to get on by becoming a successful shipbuilder in that city of shipbuilding this was his ambition and it fully occupied him I was of course a very little consequence to him compared with what I was to good Mrs. Ald Tommy as he sometimes did the smile was borrowed from his lovely wife and like all borrowed light was transient and vanished with the source once it was derived well I must characterize Mr. Hugh as being a very sour man and a forbidding appearance it is due to him to acknowledge that he was never very cruel to me according to the notion of cruelty in Maryland the first year or two which I spent in his house he left me almost exclusively to the management of his wife she was my law giver in hands so tender as hers and in the absence of the cruelties of the plantation I became both physically and mentally much more sensitive to good and ill treatment and perhaps suffered more from up frown from my mistress than I formally did from a cuff hands of Aunt Katie instead of the cold damp floor of my old master's kitchen I found myself on carpets for the corn bag in winter I now had a good straw bed well furnished with covers for the coarse cornmeal in the morning I now had good bread and mush occasionally for my poor toe linen shirt reaching to my knees I had good clean clothes I was really well off my employment was to run of errands and to take care of Tommy to prevent his getting in the way of carriages and to keep him out of harm's way generally Tommy and I and his mother got on swimmingly together for a time I say for a time because the fatal poison of irresponsible power and the natural influence of slavery customs were not long in making a suitable impression on the gentle and loving disposition of my excellent mistress at first Mrs. Old evidently regarded me simply as a child like any other child she had not come to regard me as property this letter thought was a thing of conventional growth the first was natural and spontaneous a noble nature like hers could not instantly be wholly perverted and it took several years to change the natural sweetness of her temper into fretful bitterness in her worst estate however there were during the first seven years I lived with her occasional returns of her former kindly disposition the frequent hearing of my mistress reading the Bible for she often read aloud when her husband was absent soon awakened my curiosity in respect to this mystery of reading and roused in me the desire to learn having no fear of my kind mistress before my eyes she had then given me no reason to fear I frankly asked her to teach me to read and without hesitation the dear woman began the task and very soon by her assistance I was master of the alphabet and could spell words of three or four letters my mistress seemed almost as proud of my progress as if I had been her own child and supposing that her husband would be as well pleased she made no secret of what she was doing for me indeed she exultingly told him of the aptness of her pupil of her intention to persevere in teaching me and of the duty which she felt it to teach me at least to read the Bible here rose the first cloud over my Baltimore prospects the precursor of drenching rains and chilling blasts Master Hugh was amazed at the simplicity of his spouse and probably for the first time he unfolded to her the true philosophy of slavery and the peculiar rules necessary to be observed by masters and mistresses in the management of their human chattels Mr. All promptly forbade the continuance of her instruction telling her in the first place that the thing itself was unlawful but it was also unsafe and could only lead to mischief to use his own words further he said if you give a nigger an inch he will take an L he should know nothing but the will of his master and learn to obey it learning would spoil the best nigger in the world if you teach that nigger speaking of myself how to read the Bible there would be no keeping him it would forever unfit him for the duties of a slave to himself learning would do him no good but probably a great deal of harm making him disconsolate and unhappy if you learn him now to read he'll want to know how to write and this accomplished he'll be running away with himself such was the tenor of Master Hugh's irracular exposition of the true philosophy of training a human chattel and it must be confessed that he very clearly comprehended the nature and the requirements of the relation of master and slave his discourse was the first decidedly anti-slavery lecture to which it had been my lot to listen Mrs. Aude evidently felt the force of his remarks and like an obedient wife began to shape her course in the direction indicated by her husband the effect of his words on me was neither slight nor transitory his iron sentences cold and harsh sunk deep into my heart and stirred up not only my feelings into a sort of rebellion but awakened within me a slumbering train of vital thought it was a new and special revelation dispelling a painful mystery against which my youthful understanding had struggled and struggled in vain to wit the white man's power to perpetuate the enslavement of the black man very well thought I knowledge unfits a child to be a slave I instinctively assented to the proposition and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom this was just what I needed and I got it at a time and from a source once I least expected it I was saddened at the thought of losing the assistance of my kind mistress but the information so instantly derived to some extent compensated me for the loss I had sustained in this direction wise as Mr. Ald was he evidently underrated my comprehension and had little idea of the use to which I was capable of putting the impressive lesson he was giving to his wife he wanted me to be a slave I had already voted against that on the home plantation of Colonel Lloyd that which he most loved I most hated and the very determination which he expressed to keep me in ignorance only rendered me the more resolute in seeking intelligence in learning to read therefore I'm not sure that I do not owe quite as much to the opposition of my master as to the kindly assistance of my amiable mistress I acknowledged the benefit of me by the one and by the other believing that but for my mistress I might have grown up in ignorance I had resided but a short time in Baltimore before I observed a marked difference in the manner of treating slaves generally from that which I had witnessed in that isolated and out of the way part of the country where I began life a city slave is almost a free citizen Baltimore compared with a slave on Colonel Lloyd's plantation is much better fed and clothed is less dejected in his appearance and enjoys privileges altogether unknown to the whip driven slave on the plantation slavery dislikes a dense population in which there is a majority of non-slave holders the general sense of decency that must pervade such a population as much to check and prevent those outbreaks of atrocious cruelty and those dark crimes without a name almost openly perpetrated on the plantation is a desperate slave holder who will shock the humanity of his non-slave holding neighbors by the cries of the lacerated slaves and very few in the city are willing to incur the odium of being cruel masters I found in Baltimore that no man was more odious to the white as well as to the colored people than he who had the reputation of starving his slaves work them, blog them, if need be but don't starve them there are however some painful exceptions to this rule while it is quite true that most of the slave holders in Baltimore feed and clothe their slaves well there are others who keep up their country cruelties in the city an instance of this sort is furnished in the case of a family who live directly opposite to our house and were named Hamilton Mrs. Hamilton owned two slaves their names were Henrietta and Mary they had always been house slaves one was aged about 22 and the other about 14 they were a fragile couple by nature and the treatment they received was enough to break down the constitution of a horse of all the dejected, emaciated, mangled and excoriated creatures I ever saw those two girls in the refined church going and Christian city of Baltimore were the most deplorable of stone must that heart be made that could look upon Henrietta and Mary without being sickened to the core with sadness especially was Mary a heart-sickening object her head, neck and shoulders were literally cut to pieces I frequently felt her head and found it nearly covered over with festering sores caused by the lash of her cruel mistress I do not know that her master ever whipped her but I have often been an eyewitness of the revolting and brutal inflections by Mrs. Hamilton in what lends a deeper shade to this woman's conduct is the fact that almost in the very moments of her shocking outrageous of humanity and decency she would charm you by the sweetness of her voice and her seeming piety she used to sit in a large rocking chair near the middle of the room with a heavy cow skin such as I have elsewhere described and I speak within the truth when I say that those girls seldom pass that chair during the day without a blow from that cow skin either upon their bare arms or upon their shoulders as they passed her she would draw her cow skin and give them a blow saying move faster you black jib and again take that you black jib continuing if you don't move faster I will give you more than the lady would go on singing her sweet hymns as though her righteous soul were signed for the holy realms of paradise added to the cruel lashings to which these ports their girls were subjected enough in themselves to crush the spirit of men they were really kept nearly half-starred they seldom knew what it was to eat a full meal except when they got it in the kitchens of neighbors less mean and stingy than the psalm singing Mrs. Hamilton I've seen Port Mary contending for the awful with the pigs in the street so much was the poor girl pinched, kicked, cut and packed to pieces that the boys in the street knew her only by the name of pecked a name derived from the scars and blotches on her neck, head and shoulders it is some relief to this picture of slavery in Baltimore to say what is but the simple truth that Mrs. Hamilton's treatment of her slaves was generally condemned as disgraceful and shocking but while I say this it must also be remembered that the very parties who censured the cruelty of Mrs. Hamilton would have condemned and promptly punished any attempt to interfere with Mrs. Hamilton's right to cut and slash her slaves to pieces there must be no force between the slave and the slave holder to restrain the power of the one and protect the weakness of the other and the cruelty of Mrs. Hamilton is as justly chargeable to the upholders of the slave system as drunkenness is chargeable on those who by precept an example or by indifference uphold the drinking system End of Chapter 10 Chapter 11 of My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass This LibriVox recording is in the public domain A change came or the spirit of my dream of the author learned to read my mistress her slave holding duties their deplorable effects upon her originally noble nature the conflict in her mind her final opposition to my learning to read too late she had given me the inch I was resolved to take the L how I pursued my education my tutors how I compensated them what progress I made slavery what I heard said about it 13 years old the Colombian orator a rich scene a dialogue speeches of Chatham Sheridan Pitt and Fox knowledge ever increasing my eyes open liberty how I pine for it my sadness the dissatisfaction of my poor mistress my hatred of slavery one up this tree over shattered us both I lived in the family of master Hugh at Baltimore at seven years during which time as the almanac makers say of the weather my condition was variable the most interesting feature of my history here was my learning to read and write under somewhat marked disadvantages in attaining this knowledge I was compelled to resort to indirections by no means congenial to my nature in which we're really humiliating to me my mistress who as the reader has already seen had begun to teach me was suddenly checked in her benevolent design by the strong advice of her husband in faithful compliance with this advice the good lady had not only ceased to instruct me herself but had set her face as a flint against my learning to read by any means it is due however to my mistress to say that she did not adopt this course in all its stringency at the first she either thought it unnecessary or she lacked the depravity indispensable to shutting me up in mental darkness it was at least necessary for her to have some training and some hardening in the exercise of the slaveholders prerogative to make her equal to forgetting my human nature and character and to treating me as a thing destitute of a moral or an intellectual nature Mrs. All my mistress was as I have said a most kind and tender-hearted woman and in the humanity of her heart and the simplicity of her mind she set out when I first went to live with her to treat me as she supposed one human being ought to treat another it is easy to see that in entering upon the duties of a slaveholder some little experience is needed nature has done almost nothing to prepare men and women to be either slaves or slaveholders nothing but rigid training long persisted in can perfect the character of the one or the other one cannot easily forget to love freedom and it is as hard to cease to respect that natural love in our fellow creatures on entering upon the career of a slaveholding mistress Mrs. All was singularly deficient nature which fits nobody for such an office had done less for her than any lady I had known it was no easy matter to induce her to think and to feel that the curly-headed boy who stood by her side and even leaned on her lap who was loved by little Tommy and who loved little Tommy in turn sustained to her only the relation of a chattel I was more than that and she felt me to be more than that I could talk and sing I could laugh and weep I could reason and remember I could love and hate I was human and she dear lady knew and felt me to be so how could she then treat me as a brute without a mighty struggle with all the noble powers of her own soul that struggle came and the will and power of the husband was victorious her noble soul was overthrown but he that overthrew it did not himself escape the consequences he not less than the other parties was injured in his domestic peace by the fall when I went into their family it was the abode of happiness and contentment the mistress of the house was a model of affection and tenderness her fervent piety and watchful uprightness made it impossible to see her without thinking and feeling that woman is a Christian there was no sorrow nor suffering for which she had not a tear and there was no innocent joy for which she had not a smile she had bread for the hungry clothes for the naked and comfort for every mourner that came within her reach slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these excellent qualities in the home of its early happiness conscience cannot stand much violence once thoroughly broken down who is he that can repair the damage it may be broken toward the slave on Sunday and toward the master on Monday it cannot endure such shocks it must stand entire or it does not stand at all if my condition waxed bad that of the family waxed not better the first step in the wrong direction was the violence done to nature and to conscience in arresting the benevolence that would have enlightened my young mind in ceasing to instruct me she must begin to justify herself to herself and once consenting to take sides in such a debate she was riveted to her position one needs very little knowledge of moral philosophy to see where my mistress now landed she became even more violent in her opposition to my learning to read than was her husband himself she was not satisfied with simply doing as well as her husband had commanded her but seemed resolved to better his instruction nothing appeared to make my poor mistress after her turning toward the downward path more angry than seeing me seated in some nook or corner quietly reading a book or a newspaper that had her rush at me with the utmost fury and snatched from my hands such newspaper or book with something of the wrath and consternation which a traitor might be supposed to feel on being discovered in a plot by some dangerous spy Mrs. Ald was an apt woman and the advice of her husband and her own experience soon demonstrated to her entire satisfaction that education and slavery are incompatible with each other when this conviction was thoroughly established I was most narrowly watched in all my movements if I remained in a separate room from the family for any considerable length of time I was sure to be suspected of having a book and was at once called upon to give an account of myself all this however was entirely too late the first and never to be retraced depth had been taken in teaching me the alphabet in the days of her simplicity and kindness my mistress had given me the inch and now no ordinary precaution could prevent me from taking the L seized with a determination to learn to read at any cost I hit upon many expedients to accomplish the desired end the plea which I mainly adopted and the one by which I was most successful was that of using my young white playmates with whom I met in the street as teachers I used to carry almost constantly a copy of Webster's spelling book in my pocket and when sent of errands over when playtime was allowed me I would step with my young friends aside and take a lesson in spelling I generally paid my tuition fee to the boys with bread which I also carried in my pocket for a single biscuit any of my hungry little comrades would give me a lesson more valuable to me than bread not everyone however demanded this consideration for there were those who took pleasure in teaching me whenever I had a chance to be taught by them I am strongly tempted to give the names of two or three of those little boys as a slight testimonial of the gratitude and affection I bear them brought prudence for bids not that it would injure me but it might possibly embarrass them for it is almost an unpardonable offense to do anything directly or indirectly to promote a slave's freedom in a slave state it is enough to say of my warm hearted little playfellows that they lived on Phil Pot Street very near Durgan and Bailey's shipyard although slavery was a delicate subject and very cautious they talked about among grown-up people in Maryland I frequently talked about it and that very freely with the white boys I would sometimes say to them while seated on a curb stone or a cellar door I wish I could be free as you will be when you get to be men you will be free you know as soon as you are 21 and can go where you like but I am a slave for life am I not as good a right to be free as you have words like these I observed always troubled them and I had no small satisfaction in ringing from the boys occasionally that fresh and bitter condemnation of slavery that springs from nature unseared and unperverted of all consciences let me have those to deal with which have not been bewildered by the cares of life I do not remember ever to have met with a boy while I was in slavery who defended the slave system but I have often had boys to console me with the hope that something would yet occur by which I might be made free over and over again they have told me that they believed I had as good a right to be free as they had and that they did not believe God ever made anyone to be a slave the reader will easily see that such little conversations with my play fellows had no tendency to weaken my love of liberty nor to render me contented with my condition as a slave when I was about 13 years old and had succeeded in learning to read every increase of knowledge especially respecting the free states added something to the almost intolerable burden of the thought I am a slave for life to my bondage I saw no end it was a terrible reality and I shall never be able to tell how sadly that thought chafed my young spirit fortunately or unfortunately about this time in my life I had made enough money to buy what was then a very popular school book these the Colombian orator I bought this addition to my library of Mr. Knight on Tim Street Fells Point Baltimore and paid him 50 cents for it I was first led to buy this book by hearing some little boys say that they were going to learn some little pieces out of it for the exhibition this volume was indeed a rich treasure and every opportunity afforded me for a time was spent indiligently perusing it among much other interesting matter that which I had perused with unflagging satisfaction was a short dialogue between a master and his slave the slave is represented as having been recaptured in a second attempt to run away and the master opens the dialogue with an upgrading speech charging the slave with ingratitude and demanding to know what he has to say in his own defense thus that braided and thus called upon to reply the slave rejoins that he knows how little anything that he can say will avail seeing that he is completely in the hands of his owner and with noble resolution calmly says I submit to my fate touched by the slave's answer the master insists upon his further speaking and recapitulates the many acts of kindness which he has performed toward the slave and tells him he is permitted to speak for himself thus invited to the debate the quantum slave made a spirited defense of himself and thereafter the whole argument for and against slavery was brought out the master was vanquished at every turn in the argument and seeing himself to be thus vanquished he generously and meekly emancipates the slave with his best wishes for his prosperity it is scarcely necessary to say that a dialogue with such an origin and such an ending read when the fact of my being a slave was a constant burden of grief has powerfully affected me and I could not help feeling that the day might come when the well-directed answers made by the slave to the master in this instance would find their counterpart in myself this however was not all the fanaticism which I found in this Columbian orator I met there one of Sheridan's mighty speeches on the subject of Catholic emancipation Lord Chatham's speech on the American war these were all choice documents to me and I read them over and over again with an interest that was ever increasing because it was ever gaining in intelligence for the more I read them the better I understood them the reading of these speeches added much to my limited stock of language and enabled me to give tongue to many interesting thoughts which had frequently flashed through my soul and died away for want of utterance the mighty power and heart searching directness of truth penetrating even the heart of a slave holder compelling him to yield up his earthly interests to the claims of eternal justice were finally illustrated in the dialogue just referred to and from the speeches of Sheridan I got a bold and powerful denunciation of oppression and a most brilliant vindication of the rights of man it was indeed a noble acquisition if I ever wavered under the consideration of the almighty in some way ordained slavery and willed my enslavement for his own glory I wavered no longer I had now penetrated the secret of all slavery and oppression and had ascertained their true foundation to be in the pride, the power and the avarice of man the dialogue and the speeches were all redolent of the principles of liberty and poured floods of light on the nature and character of slavery with a book of this kind in my hand my own human nature and the facts of my experience to help me I was equal to a contest with the religious advocates of slavery whether among the whites or among the colored people for blindness in this matter is not confined to the former I've met many religious colored people at the south who are under the delusion that God requires them to submit to slavery and to wear their chains with meekness and humility I could entertain no such nonsense as this and I almost lost my patience when I found any colored man weak enough to believe such stuff nevertheless the increase of knowledge was attended with bitter as well as sweet results the more I read the more I was led to abhor and detest slavery and my enslavers slaveholders thought I are only a band of successful robbers who left their homes and went into Africa for the purpose of stealing and reducing my people to slavery I loathed them as the meanest and the most wicked of men as I read behold the very discontent so graphically predicted by Master Hugh had already come upon me I was no longer the lighthearted, glissom boy full of mirth and play as when I landed first at Baltimore knowledge had come light had penetrated the moral dungeon where I dwelt and behold there lay the bloody whip for my back and here was the arm chain and my good kind master he was the author of my situation the revelation haunted me, stung me and made me gloomy and miserable as I writhed under the sting and torment of this knowledge I almost envied my fellow slaves their stupid contentment this knowledge opened my eyes to the horrible pit and revealed the teeth of their frightful dragon that was ready to pounce upon me but it opened no way for my escape I've often wished myself a beast or a bird anything rather than a slave I was wretched and gloomy beyond my ability to describe I was too thoughtful to be happy it was this everlasting thinking which distressed and tormented me and yet there was no getting rid of the subject of my thoughts all nature was redolent of it once awakened by the silver trump of knowledge my spirit was roused to eternal wakefulness liberty, the inestimable birthright of every man had for me converted every object into an assertor of this great right it was heard in every sound and beheld in every object it was ever present to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition the more beautiful and charming were the smiles of nature the more horrible and desolate was my condition I saw nothing without seeing it and I heard nothing without hearing it I do not exaggerate when I say that it looked from every star smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind and moved in every storm I have no doubt that my state of mind had something to do with the change in the treatment adopted by my once kind mistress toward me I can easily believe that my leavened, downcast and discontented look was very offensive to her poor lady, she did not know my trouble and I dared not tell her could I have freely made her acquainted with the real state of my mind and given her the reasons therefore it might have been well for both of us her abuse of me fell upon me like the blows of the false prophet upon his ass she did not know that an angel stood in the way and such is the relation of master and slave I could not tell her nature had made us friends, slavery made us enemies my interests were in a direction opposite to hers we both had our private thoughts and plans she aimed to keep me ignorant and I resolved to know although knowledge only increased my discontent my feelings were not the result of any marked cruelty in the treatment I received they sprung from the consideration of my being a slave at all it was slavery, not its mere incidents that I hated I had been cheated, I saw through the attempt to keep me in ignorance I saw that slaveholders would have gladly made me believe that they were merely acting under the authority of God in making a slave of me and in making slaves of others and I treated them as robbers and deceivers the feeding and clothing me well could not atone for taking my liberty from me the smiles of my mistress could not remove the deep sorrow that dwelt in my young bosom indeed these in time came only to deepen my sorrow she had changed and the reader will see that I had changed too we were both victims to the same overshadowing evil she as mistress I as slave I will not censure her harshly she cannot censure me for she knows I speak but the truth and have acted in my opposition to slavery just as she herself would have acted in a reverse of circumstances End of Chapter 11 Chapter 12 of My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass this LibriVox recording is in the public domain Religious nature awakened abolitionists spoken up my eagerness to know what this word meant my consultation of the dictionary incendiary information how and where derived the enigma solved Nathaniel Turner's insurrection the cholera religion first awakened by a Methodist minister named Hanson my dear and good old colored friend Lawson his character and occupation his influence over me our mutual attachment the comfort I derived from his teaching new hopes and aspirations heavenly light amidst earthly darkness the two Irishmen on the wharf their conversation how I learned to write what were my aims last in the painful state of mind described in the foregoing chapter almost regretting my very existence because doomed to a life of bondage so goaded and so wretched at times that I was even tempted to destroy my own light I was yet keenly sensitive and eager to know any and everything that transpired having any relation to the subject of slavery I was all ears all eyes whenever the word slave slavery dropped from the lips of any white person and the occasions were not unfrequent when these words became leading ones in high social debate at our house every little while I could over here master Hugh or some of his company speaking with much warmth and excitement about abolitionists of who or what these were I was totally ignorant I found however that whatever they might be they were most cordially hated and soundly abused by slaveholders of every grade I very soon discovered to that slavery was in some sort under consideration whenever the abolitionists were alluded to this made the term a very interesting one to me if a slave for instance had made good his escape from slavery it was generally alleged that he had been persuaded and assisted by the abolitionists if also a slave killed his master as was sometimes the case or struck down his overseer or set fire to his master's dwelling or committed any violence or crime out of the common way it was certain to be said that such a crime was the legitimate fruits of the abolition movement hearing such charges often repeated I naturally enough received the impression that abolition whatever else it might be could not be unfriendly to the slave nor very friendly to the slaveholder I therefore said about finding out if possible who and what the abolitionists were and why they were so obnoxious to the slaveholders the dictionary afforded me very little help it taught me that abolition was the act of abolishing but it left me in ignorance at the very point where I most wanted information and that was as to the thing to be abolished a city newspaper the Baltimore American gave me the incendiary information denied me by the dictionary in its columns I found that on a certain day a vast number of petitions and memorials have been presented to Congress praying for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and for the abolition of the slave trade between the states of the Union this was enough the vindictive bitterness the marked caution the studied reserve and the cumbersome ambiguity practiced by our white folks when alluding to this subject was now fully explained ever after that when I heard the words abolition or abolition movement mentioned I felt the matter one of a personal concern and I drew near to listen when I could do so without seeming to solicitous and prime there was hope in those words ever on an on to I could see some terrible denunciation of slavery in our papers copied from abolition papers at the north and the injustice of such denunciation commented on these I read with avidity I had a deep satisfaction in the thought that the rascality of slaveholders was not concealed from the eyes of the world and that I was not alone in abhorring the cruelty and brutality of slavery a still deeper train of thought was stirred I saw that there was fear as well as rage in the manner of speaking of the abolitionists the latter therefore I was compelled to regard as having some power in the country and I felt that they might possibly succeed in their designs when I met with a slave to whom I deemed it safe to talk on the subject I would impart to him so much of the mystery as I had been able to penetrate thus the light of this grand movement broke in upon my mind by degrees and I must say that ignorant as I then was of the philosophy of that movement I believed in it from the first and I believed in it partly because I saw that it alarmed the consciences of slaveholders the insurrection of Nathaniel Turner had been quelled but the alarm and terror had not subsided the cholera was on its way and the thought was present that God was angry with the white people because of their slaveholding wickedness and therefore his judgments were abroad in the land it was impossible for me not to hope much from the abolition movement when I saw it supported by the Almighty and armed with death previous to my contemplation of the anti-slavery movement and its probable results my mind had been seriously awakened to the subject of religion I was not more than 13 years old when I felt the need of God as a father and protector my religious nature was awakened by the preaching of a white Methodist minister named Hanson he thought that all men great and small bond and free were sinners in the sight of God that they were by nature rebels against his government and that they must repent of their sins and be reconciled to God through Christ I cannot say that I had a very distinct notion of what was required of me but one thing I knew very well I was wretched and had no means of making myself otherwise moreover I knew that I could pray for light I consulted a good colored man named Charles Johnson and in tones of holy affection he told me to pray and what to pray for I was for weeks a poor broken hearted mourner traveling through the darkness and misery of doubts and fears I finally found that change of heart comes by casting all one's care upon God and by having faith in Jesus Christ as the Redeemer friend and savior of those who diligently seek Him after this I saw the world in a new light I seemed to live in a new world surrounded by new objects and to be animated by new hopes and desires I loved all mankind slaveholders not accepted though I poured slavery more than ever my great concern was now to have the world converted the desire for knowledge increased and especially did I want a thorough acquaintance with the contents of the Bible I've gathered scattered pages from this holy book from the filthy street gutters of Baltimore and washed and dried them that in the moments of my leisure I might get a word or two of wisdom from them while thus religiously seeking knowledge I became acquainted with a good old colored man named Lawson a more devout man than he I never saw he drove a drape for Mr. James Ramsey the owner of a rope walk on Phel's Point Baltimore this man not only prayed three times a day but he prayed as he walked through the streets at his work on his drape everywhere his life was a life of prayer and his words when he spoke to his friends were about a better world Uncle Lawson lived near Master Hughes house and becoming deeply attached to the old man I went often with him to prayer meeting and spent much of my leisure time with him on Sunday the old man could read a little and I was a great help to him in making out the hard words for I was a better reader than he I could teach him the letter but he could teach me the spirit and high refreshing times we had together in singing, praying and glorifying God those meetings with Uncle Lawson went on for a long time without the knowledge of Master Hughes or my mistress both knew however that I had become religious and they seemed to respect my conscientious piety my mistress was still a professor of religion and belonged to class her leader was no lesser person than the Reverend Beverly Wall the presiding elder and now one of the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church Mr. Wall was then stationed over Wilkes Street Church I am careful to state these facts that the reader may be able to form an idea of the precise influences which had to do with shaping and directing my mind in view of the cares and anxieties incident to the life she was then leading and especially in view of the separation from religious associations to which she was subjected my mistress had as I have before stated become lukewarm and needed to be looked up by her leader this brought Mr. Wall to our house and gave me an opportunity to hear him exhort and pray but my chief instructor in matters of religion was Uncle Lawson he was my spiritual father and I loved him intensely and was at his house every chance I got this pleasure was not long allowed me Master Hughes became averse to my going to Father Lawson's and to whip me if I ever went there again I now felt myself persecuted by a wicked man and I would go to Father Lawson's notwithstanding the threat the good old man had told me that the Lord had a great work for me to do and I must prepare to do it and that he had been shown that I must preach the gospel his words made a deep impression on my mind and I barely felt that some such work was before me though I could not see how I should ever engage in its performance the good Lord he said would bring it to pass in his own good time and that I must go on reading and studying the scriptures the advice and the suggestions of Uncle Lawson were not without their influence upon my character and destiny he threw my thoughts into a channel from which they had never entirely diverged and my already intense love of knowledge into a flame by assuring me that I was to be a useful man in the world when I would say to him how can these things be and what can I do his simple reply was trust in the Lord when I told him that I was a slave and a slave for life he said the Lord can make you free my dear all things are possible with him have faith in God ask and it shall be given if you want liberty said the good old man ask the Lord for it in faith and he will give it to you thus assured and cheered on under the inspiration of hope I worked and prayed with a light heart believing that my life was under the guidance of a wisdom higher than my own with all other blessings sought at the mercy seat I always prayed that God would have his great mercy and in his own good time deliver me from my bondage I went one day on the wharf of Mr. Waters and seeing two Irishmen unloading a large scowl of stone or ballast I went on board and asked and helped them when we had finished the work one of the men came to me aside and asked me a number of questions and among them if I were a slave I told him I was a slave and a slave for life the good Irishman gave his shoulders a shrug and seemed deeply affected by the statement he said it was a pity so find out little fellow as myself should be a slave for life they both had much to say about the matter and expressed the deepest sympathy with me and the most decided hatred of slavery they went so far as to tell me that I ought to run away and go to the north that I should find friends there and that I would be as free as anybody I however pretended not to be interested in what they said for I feared they might be treacherous white men have been known to encourage slaves to escape and then to get the reward they have kidnapped them and return them to their masters and while I mainly inclined to the notion that these men were honest and meant me no ill I feared it might be otherwise I nevertheless remembered their words and their advice and looked forward to an escape to the north as a possible means of gaining the liberty for which my heart's panted it was not my enslavement at the then present time that most affected me the being slave for life was the saddest thought too young to think of running away immediately besides I wished to learn how to write before going as I might have occasion to write my own paths I now not only had the hope of freedom but a foreshadowing of the means by which I might someday gain that inestimable boon meanwhile I resolved to add to my educational attainments the art of writing after this manner I began to learn to write I was much in the shipyard master Hughes and that of Durgan and Bailey and I observed that the carpenters after hewing and getting a piece of timber ready for use wrote on it the initials of the name of that part of the ship for which it was intended when for instance a piece of timber was ready for the starboard side it was marked with a capital S a piece for the larbored side was marked L larbored forward LF larbored aft was marked LA starboard aft SA and starboard forward SF I soon learned these letters and for what they were placed on the timbers my work was now to keep fire under the steam box and to watch the shipyard while the carpenters had gone to dinner this interval gave me a fine opportunity for copying the letters named I soon astonished myself with the ease with which I made the letters and the thought was soon present if I can make four I can make more but having made these easily when I met boys about Bethel church or any of our playgrounds I entered the lists with them and the art of writing it would make the letters which I had been so fortunate as to learn and ask them to beat that if they could with playmates for my teachers fences and pavements for my copy books and chalk for my pen and ink I learned the art of writing I however afterward adopted various methods of improving my hand the most successful was copying the italics in Webster's spelling book until I could make them all without looking on the book by this time my little master Tommy had grown to be a big boy and had written over a number of copy books and brought them home they had been shown to the neighbors had elicited due praise and were now laid carefully away spending my time between the shipyard and house I was as often the lone keeper of the latter as of the former when my mistress left me in charge of the house I had a grand time I got master Tommy's copy books and a pen and ink and in the ample spaces between the lines I wrote other lines as nearly like his as possible the process was a tedious one and I ran the risk of getting a flogging for marring the highly prized copy books of the oldest son in addition to these opportunities sleeping as I did in the kitchen loft a room seldom visited by any of the family I got a flower barrel up there and a chair and upon the head of that barrel I have written or endeavored to write copying from the Bible and the Methodist hymn book and other books which had accumulated on my hands till late at night and when all the family were in bed and asleep I was supported in my endeavors by renewed advice and by holy promises from the good Father Lawson with whom I continued to meet and pray and read the scriptures although Master Hugh was aware of my going there I must say for his credit he never executed his threat to whip me for having thus innocently employed my leisure time End of Chapter 12 Chapter 13 of My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass This LibriVox recording is in the public domain The vicissitudes of slave life Both of old masters son Richard speedily followed by that of old master valuation and division of all the property including the slaves My presence required at Hillsborough to be appraised and allotted to a new owner My sad prospects and grief parting the utter powerlessness of the slaves to decide their own destiny A general dread of Master Andrew His wickedness and cruelty Miss Lucretia, my new owner My return to Baltimore Joy under the roof of Master Hugh Death of Mrs. Lucretia My poor old grandmother Her sad fate alone caught in the woods Master Thomas Ald's second marriage again removed from Master Hugh's reasons for regretting the change a plan of escape entertained I must now ask the reader to go with me a little back in point of time in my humble story and to notice another circumstance that entered into my slavery experience in which Douglass has had a share in deepening my horror of slavery and increasing my hostility toward those men and measures that practically uphold the slave system It has already been observed that though I was, after my removal from Colonel Lloyd's plantation informed the slave of Master Hugh I was, in fact, and in law the slave of my old master Captain Anthony very well In a very short time after I went to Baltimore my old master's youngest son Richard died and in three years and six months after his death my old master himself died leaving only his son Andrew and his daughter Lucretia to share his estate The old man died while on a visit to his daughter in Hillsborough where Captain Ald and Mrs. Lucretia now lived The former, having given up the command of Colonel Lloyd's sloop was now keeping a store in that town Cut off thus unexpectedly Captain Anthony died in test state and his property must now be equally divided between his two children Andrew and Lucretia The valuation and the division of slaves among contending heirs is an important incident in slave life The character and tendencies of the heirs are generally well understood among the slaves who are to be divided and all have their aversions and preferences but neither their aversions nor their preferences avail them anything On the death of old master I was immediately sent for to be valued and divided with the other property Personally, my concern was mainly about my possible removal from the home of Master Hugh which after that of my grandmother was the most endeared to me That the whole thing as a feature of slavery shocked me It furnished me a new insight into the unnatural power to which I was subjected My detestation of slavery already great rose with this new conception of its enormity That was a sad day for me a sad day for little Tommy and a sad day for my dear Baltimore mistress and teacher when I left for the eastern shore to be valued and divided We all three wept bitterly that day for we might be parting and we feared we were parting forever No one could tell among which pile of chattels I should be flung Thus early I got a foretaste of that painful uncertainty which slavery brings to the ordinary lot of mortals Sickness, adversity, and death may interfere with the plans and purposes of all but the slave has the added danger of changing homes changing hands and of having separations unknown to other men Then too there was the intensified degradation of the spectacle what an assemblage men and women, young and old married and single, moral, and intellectual beings in open contempt of their humanity level at a blow with horses sheep, horned cattle, and swine horses and men, cattle and women pigs and children all holding the same rank in the scale of social existence and all subjected to the same narrow inspection to ascertain their value in gold and silver the only standard of worth applied by slaveholders to slaves How vividly at that moment did the brutalizing power of slavery flash before me personalities swallowed up in the sordid idea of property manhood lost in chattelhood after the valuation then came the division this was an hour of high excitement and distressing anxiety our destiny was now to be fixed for life and we had no more voice in the decision of the question and cows that stood chewing at the haymow one word from the appraisers against all preferences or prayers was enough to sunder all the ties of friendship and affection and even to separate husbands and wives, parents and children we were all appalled before that power which to human seeming could bless or blast us in a moment added to the dread of separation most painful to the majority of the slaves we all had a decided horror of the thought of falling into the hands of master andrew he was distinguished for cruelty and in temperance slaves generally dread to fall into the hands of drunken owners master andrew was almost to confirmed sought and had already by his reckless mismanagement and profligate and wasted a large portion of all masters property to fall into his hands was therefore considered merely as the first step toward being sold away to the far south he would spend his fortune in a few years and his farms and slaves would be sold we thought at public outcry and we should be hurried away to the cotton fields and rice swamps of the sunny south this was the cause of deep consternation the people of the north and free people generally I think have less attachment to the places where they are born and brought up than have the slaves their freedom to go and come to be here and there as they list prevents any extravagant attachment to any one particular place in their case on the other hand the slave is a fixture he has no choice no goal no destination but is pegged down to a single spot and must take root here or nowhere the idea of removal elsewhere comes generally in the shape of a threat and in punishment of crime it is therefore attended with fear and dread a slave seldom thinks of bettering his condition by being sold and hence he looks upon separation from his native place with none of the enthusiasm which animates the bosoms of young free men when they contemplate a life in the far west or in some distant country where they intend to rise to wealth and distinction nor can those from whom they separate give them up with that cheerfulness with which friends and relations yield each other up when they feel that it is for the good of the departing one that he is removed from his native place then to there is correspondence and there is at least the hope of reunion because reunion is possible but with the slave all these mitigating circumstances are wanting there is no improvement in his condition probable no correspondence possible no reunion attainable is going out into the world is like a living man going into the tomb who with open eyes sees himself buried out of sight and hearing of wife and friends of kindred tie in contemplating the likelihoods and possibilities of our circumstances I probably suffered more than most of my fellow servants I had known what it was to experience kind and even tender treatment they had known nothing of the sort life to them had been rough and thorny as well as dark they had most of them lived on my old master's farm in Takahoe and had felt the rain of Mr. Plummer's rule the overseer had written his character on the living parchment of most of their backs and left them callous my back thanks to my early removal from the plantation to Baltimore was yet tender I had left a kind mistress at Baltimore who was almost a mother to me she was in tears when we parted and the probabilities of ever seeing her again trembling in the balance as they did could not be viewed without alarm and agony the thought of leaving that kind mistress forever and were still of being the slave of Andrew Anthony a man who but a few days before the division of the property had in my presence seized my brother Perry by the throat dashed him on the ground and with the heel of his boot stamped him on the head until the blood gushed from his nose and ears was terrible this fiendish proceeding had no better apology than the fact that Perry had gone to play the master Andrew wanted him for some trifling service this cruelty too was of a piece with his general character after inflicting his heavy blows on my brother on observing me looking at him with intense astonishment he said that is the way I will serve you one of these days meaning no doubt when I should come into this possession this threat the reader may well suppose was not very tranquilizing to my feelings I could see that he really thirsted to get hold of me but I was there only for a few days I had not received any orders and had violated none and there was therefore no excuse for flogging me at last the anxiety and suspense were ended and they ended thanks to a kind providence in accordance with my wishes I fell at the portion of Mrs. Lucretia the dear lady who bound up my head when the savage Aunt Katie was adding to my sufferings her bitterest maladdictions Captain Thomas Ault and Mrs. Lucretia at once decided on my return to Baltimore they knew how sincerely and warmly Mrs. Hugh Ault was attached to me and how delighted Mr. Hugh's son would be to have me back and with all having no immediate use for one so young he willingly let me off to Baltimore I need not stop here to narrate my joy on returning to Baltimore nor that of little Tommy nor the tearful joy of his mother nor the evident satisfaction of master Hugh I was just one month absent from Baltimore before the matter was decided and the time really seemed full six months one trouble over and on comes another the slaves life is full of uncertainty I had returned to Baltimore but a short time when the tidings reached me that my kind friend Mrs. Lucretia who was only second in my regard to Mrs. Hugh Ault was dead leaving her husband and only one child a daughter named Amanda shortly after the death of Mrs. Lucretia strange to say master Andrew died leaving his wife and one child thus the whole family of Anthony's remained all this happened within five years of my leaving Colonel Lloyd's no alteration took place in the condition of the slaves in consequence of these deaths yet I could not help feeling less secure after the death of my friend Mrs. Lucretia than I had done during her life while she lived I felt that I had a strong friend to plead for me in any emergency ten years ago while speaking of the state of things in our family after the events just named I use this language now all the property of my old master slaves included was in the hands of strangers strangers who had nothing to do in accumulating it not a slave was left free all remain 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 character of slavery and to fill me with an utterable loathing of slave it was their base in gratitude 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 people with his plantation was 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 never the last left to 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 grand children 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 in gratitude 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 dealing 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 supporting 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 children the loss of grandchildren and the loss of great grandchildren they are in the language of the slaves 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 unconscious children who once sang and danced and her presents are gone she gropes her way in the darkness 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 as 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 combined together at this time this most needful time the time for the exercise of that and affection which children only can exercise toward 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 two years after the death of Mrs. Lucretia master Thomas married his second wife her name was Rowena Hamilton the eldest daughter of Mr. William Hamilton a rich slaveholder on the eastern shore of Maryland who lived about five miles from St. Michael's the then place of my master's residence not long after his marriage master Thomas had a misunderstanding with master Hugh and as a means of punishing his brother he ordered him to send me home as the ground of misunderstanding will serve to illustrate the character of southern chivalry and humanity I will relate it among the children of my aunt Millie was a daughter named Henney when quite a child Henney had fallen into the fire and had burnt her hands so bad that they were very little used to her her fingers were drawn almost into the palms of her hands she could make out to do something but she was considered hardly worth the having a little more value than a horse with a broken leg this unprofitable piece of human property ill shaping and disfigured captain all sent off to Baltimore making his brother Hugh welcome to her services after giving poor Henney a fair trial master Hugh and his wife came to the conclusion that they had no use for the crippled servant and they sent her back to master Thomas this the letter took as an act of ingratitude on the part of his brother and as a mark of his displeasure he required him to send me immediately to St. Michael saying if he cannot keep him he shall not have Fred here was another shot to my nerves another breaking up of my plans and another severance of my religious and social alliances I was now a big boy I had become quite useful to several young colored men who had made me their teacher I had taught some of them to read and was accustomed to spend many of my leisure hours with them our attachment was strong and I greatly dreaded the separation but regrets especially in a slave are unavailing I was only a slave my wishes were nothing and my happiness was the sport of my masters my regrets at now leaving Baltimore were not for the same reasons as when I before left that city to be valued and handed over to my proper owner my home was not now the pleasant place it had formally been a change had taken place both in master Hugh and in his once pious and affectionate wife the influence of brandy and bad company on him and the influence of slavery and social isolation upon her had wrought disastrously upon the characters of both Thomas was no longer little Tommy but was a boy and had learned to assume the heirs of his class toward me my condition therefore in the house master Hugh was not by any means so comfortable as in former years my attachments were now outside of our family they were felt to those to whom I imparted instruction and to those little white boys from whom I received instruction there too was my dear old father the pious Lawson who was in Christian grace is the very uncle Tom the resemblance is so perfect that he might have been the original of Mrs. Stowe's Christian hero the thought of leaving these dear friends greatly troubled me for I was going without the hope of ever returning to Baltimore again the feud between master Hugh and his brother being bitter and irreconcilable or at least supposed to be so in addition to thoughts of friends from whom I was parting as I supposed forever I had the grief of neglected chances of escape to brood over I had put off running away until now I was to be placed where the opportunities for escaping were much fewer than in a large city like Baltimore on my way from Baltimore to St. Michael's down the Chesapeake Bay our salute the Amanda was passed by the steamers flying between that city and Philadelphia and I watched the course of those steamers and while going to St. Michael's I formed a plan to escape from slavery of which plan and matters connected there with the kind reader shall learn more hereafter. End of Chapter 13