 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Preface to narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave, written by Frederick Douglass. In the month of August 1841, I attended an anti-slavery convention and then took it, at which it was my happiness to become acquainted with Frederick Douglass, the writer of the following narrative. He was a stranger to nearly every member of that body, but having recently made his escape from the southern prison house of Bondage, and feeling his curiosity excited to ascertain the principles and measures of the abolitionists of whom he had heard a somewhat vague description while he was a slave, he was induced to give his attendance on the occasion alluded to, though at that time a resident in New Bedford. Fortunate, most fortunate occurrence. Fortunate for the millions of his manacled brethren, yet panting for deliverance from their awful thralldom. Fortunate for the cause of Negro emancipation, and of universal liberty. Fortunate for the land of his birth, which he has already done so much to save and bless. Fortunate for a large circle of friends and acquaintances, whose sympathy and affection he has strongly secured by the many sufferings he has endured, by his virtuous traits of the character, by his ever-abiding remembrance of those who are in bonds, as being bound with them. Fortunate for the multitudes, in various parts of our republic, whose minds he has enlightened on the subject of slavery, and who have been melted to tears by his pathos, or roused to virtuous indignation by his stirring eloquence against the enslavers of men. Fortunate for himself, as it at once brought him into the field of public usefulness, gave the world assurance of a man, quickened the slumbering energies of his soul, and consecrated him to the great work of breaking the rod of the oppressor, and letting the oppressor go free. I shall never forget his first speech at the convention, the extraordinary emotion it excited in my own mind, the powerful impression it created upon a crowded auditory, completely taken by surprise, the applause which followed from the beginning to the end of his felicitous remarks. I think I never hated slavery so intensely as at that moment. Certainly my perception of the enormous outrage which is inflicted by it on the godlike nature of its victims was rendered far more clear than ever. There stood one, in physical proportion and stature commanding an exact, in intellect richly endowed, in natural eloquence a prodigy, in soul manifestly created but a little lower than the angels, yet a slave, I a fugitive slave, trembling for his safety, hardly daring to believe that on the American soil a single white person could be found, who would befriend him at all hazards, for the love of God and humanity. Capable of high attainments was an intellectual and moral being, needing nothing but a comparatively small amount of cultivation to make him an ornament to society and a blessing to his race. By the law of the land, by the voice of the people, by the terms of the slave code, he was only a piece of property, a beast of burden, a chattel personal, nevertheless. A beloved friend from New Bedford prevailed on Mr. Douglas to address the convention. He came forward to the platform with a hesitancy and embarrassment, necessarily the attendance of a sensitive mind in such a novel position. After apologizing for his ignorance and reminding the audience that slavery was a poor school for the human intellect and heart, he proceeded to narrate some of the facts in his own history as a slave, and in the course of his speech gave utterance to many noble thoughts and thrilling reflections. As soon as he had taken his seat, filled with hope and admiration, I rose and declared that Patrick Henry, of revolutionary fame, never made a speech more eloquent in the cause of liberty than the one we had just listened to from the lips of that hunted fugitive. So I believed at that time, such is my belief now. I reminded the audience of the peril which surrounded the self-immensipated young man at the north, even in Massachusetts, on the soil of the Pilgrim Fathers, among the descendants of revolutionary sires, and I appealed to them whether they would ever allow him to be carried back into slavery, law or no law, constitution or no constitution. The response was unanimous and in thunder tones, no. Will you sucker and protect him as a brother man, a resident of the Bay State? Yes, shouted the whole mass, with an energy so startling that the ruthless tyrant south of Mason and Dixon's line might almost have heard the mighty burst of feeling, and recognized it as the pledge of an invincible determination on the part of those who gave it, never to betray him that wandered, but to hide the outcast and firmly to abide the consequences. It was at once deeply impressed upon my mind that if Mr. Douglas could be persuaded to consecrate his time and talents to the promotion of the anti-slavery enterprise, a powerful impetus would be given to it, and a stunning blow at the same time inflicted on northern prejudice against a colored complexion. I therefore endeavored to instill hope and courage into his mind in order that he might dare to engage in a vocation so anomalous and responsible for a person in his situation, and I was seconded in this effort by warm-hearted friends, especially by the late general agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Mr. John A. Collins, whose judgment in this instance entirely coincided with my own. At first he could give no encouragement. With unfame diffidence, he expressed his conviction that he was not adequate to the performance of so great a task. The path marked out was wholly an untrodden one. He was sincerely apprehensive that he should do more harm than good. After much deliberation, however, he consented to make a trial, and ever since that period he has acted as a lecturing agent under the auspices either of the American or the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. In labors he has been most abundant, and his success in combating prejudice, in gaining proselytes, in agitating the public mind has far suppressed the sanguine expectations that were raised at the commencement of his brilliant career. He has borne himself with gentleness and meekness, yet with true manliness of character. As a public speaker he excels in pathos, wit, comparison, imitation, strength of reasoning, and fluency of language. There is in him that union of head and heart, which is indispensable to an enlightenment of the heads and a winning of the hearts of others. May his strength continue to be equal to his day. May he continue to grow in grace and in the knowledge of God, that he may be increasingly serviceable in the cause of bleeding humanity, whether at home or abroad. It is certainly a very remarkable fact that one of the most efficient advocates of the slave population, now before the public, is a fugitive slave, in the person of Frederick Douglass. And that the free-colored population of the United States are as ably represented by one of their own number, in the person of Charles Lennox Riemond, whose eloquent appeals have extorted the highest applause of multitudes on both sides of the Atlantic. Let the calumniators of the colored race despise themselves for their baseness and illiberality of spirit, and henceforth cease to talk of natural inferiority of those who require nothing but time and opportunity to attain to the highest point of human excellence. It may, perhaps, be fairly questioned, whether any other portion of the population of the earth could have endured the privations, sufferings, and horrors of slavery, without having become more degraded in the scale of humanity than the slaves of African descent. Nothing has been left undone to cripple their intellects, darken their minds, debase their moral nature, obliterate all traces of their relationship to mankind, and yet how wonderfully they have sustained the mighty load of a most frightful bondage under which they have been groaning for centuries. To illustrate the effect of slavery on the white man, to show that he has no powers of endurance in such a condition superior to those of his black brother, Daniel O'Connell, the distinguished advocate of universal emancipation, and the mightiest champion of prostrate, but not conquered, Ireland, relates the following anecdote on a speech delivered by him in the conciliation hall, Dublin, before the Loyal National Repeal Association, March 31st, 1845. No matter, said Mr. O'Connell, under what specious term it may disguise itself, slavery is still hideous. It has a natural and inevitable tendency to brutalize every noble faculty of man. An American sailor, who was cast away on the shore of Africa, where he was kept in slavery for three years, was at the expiration of that period found to be embruded and stultified. He had lost all reasoning power, and having forgotten his native language could only utter some savage gibberish between Arabic and English, which nobody could understand, and which even he himself found difficulty in pronouncing, so much for the humanizing influence of the domestic institution. Admitting this to have been an extraordinary case of mental deterioration, it proves that at least while the white slave can sink as low in scale of humanity as the black one. Mr. Douglas is very properly chosen to write his own narrative in his own style, and according to the best of his ability, rather than to employ someone else. It is therefore entirely his own production, and considering how long and dark was the career he had to run as a slave, how few have been his opportunities to improve his mind since he broke his iron fetters, it is, in my judgment, highly creditable to his head and heart. He who can peruse it without a tearful eye, a heaving breast, an afflicted spirit, without being filled with an unutterable abhorrence of slavery and all its abetters, and animated with a determination to seek the immediate overthrow of that excreable system, without trembling for the fate of this country in the hands of a righteous God, who is ever on the side of the oppressed, and whose arm is not shortened that it cannot save, must have a flinty heart, and be qualified to act as the part of a trafficker in slaves and the souls of men. I am confident that it is essentially true in all of its statements, that nothing has been set down in malice, nothing exaggerated, nothing drawn from the imagination, that it comes short of the reality rather than overstates a single fact in regard to slavery as it is. The experience of Frederick Douglass as a slave was not a peculiar one, his lot was not especially a hard one, his case may be regarded as a very fair specimen of the treatment of slaves in Maryland, in which stated is conceded that they are a better fed and less cruelly treated than in Georgia, Alabama, or Louisiana. Many have suffered incomparably more, while very few on the plantations have suffered less than himself. Yet how deplorable was his situation, what terrible chastisements were inflicted upon his person, what still more shocking outrages were perpetrated upon his mind, with all his noble powers and sublime aspirations, how like a brute he was treated, even by those professing to have the same mind in them that was in Christ Jesus. To what dreadful liabilities was he continually subjected, how destitute a friendly council in aid, even in his greatest extremities, how heavy was the midnight of woe, which shrouded in blackness the last ray of hope, and filled the future with terror and gloom, what longings after freedom took possession of his breast, and how his misery augmented in proportion as he grew reflective and intelligent, thus demonstrating that a happy slave is an extinct man, how he thought, reasoned, felt under the lash of the driver, with the chains upon his limbs, what perils he encountered in his endeavors to escape from his horrible doom, and how signal have been his deliverance and preservation in the midst of a nation of pitiless enemies. This narrative contains many affecting incidents, many passages of great eloquence and power, but I think the most thrilling one of them all is the description Douglas gives of his feelings as he stood soliloquizing, respecting his fate, and the chances of his one day being a free man on the banks of the Chesapeake Bay, viewing the receding vessels as they flew with their white wings before the breeze, and apostrophizing them as animated by the living spirit of freedom. Who can read that passage and be insensible to its pathos and sublimity? Compressed into it is a whole, Alexandrian library of thought, feeling, sentiment, all that can, all that need be, urge, in the form of expostulation, entreaty, rebuke, against that crime of crimes, making man the property of his fellow man. Oh, how a curse is that system, which entombs the godlike mind of man, defaces the divine image, reduces those who by creation were crowned with the glory and honor to a level with four-footed beasts, and exalts the dealer in human flesh above all that is called God. Why should its existence be prolonged one hour? Is it not evil, only evil, and that continually? What does its presence imply but the absence of all fear of God, all regard for man, on the part of the people of the United States? Heaven's speed its eternal overthrow. So profoundly ignorant of the nature of slavery are many persons, that they are stubbornly incredulous whenever they read or listen to any recital of the cruelties which are daily inflicted on its victims. They do not deny that the slaves are held as property, but that terrible fact seems to convey to their minds no idea of injustice, exposure to outrage, or savage barbarity. Tell them of cruel scourgings, of mutilations and brandings, of scenes of pollution and blood, of the banishments of all light and knowledge, and they effect to be greatly indignant at such enormous exaggerations, such wholesale misstatements, such abominable libles on the characters of southern planters, as if all these direful outrages were not the natural results of slavery, as if it were less cruel to reduce a human being to the condition of a thing than to give him a severe flagellation or to deprive him of necessary food and clothing, as if whips, chains, thumbscrews, paddles, bloodhounds, overseers, drivers, patrols were not all indispensable to keep the slaves down and to give protection to their ruthless oppressors, as if when the marriage institution is abolished, concubinage, adultery, and incest must not necessarily abound. When all the rites of humanity are annihilated, any barrier remains to protect the victim from the fury of the spoiler. When absolute power is assumed over life and liberty, it will not be wielded with destructive sway. Skeptics of this character abound in society, in some few instances, their incredulity, arises from a want of reflection, but generally it indicates a hatred of the light, a desire to shield slavery from the assaults of its foes, and a contempt of the colored race, whether bond or free. Such will try to discredit the shocking tales of slaveholding cruelty, which are recorded in the truthful narrative, but they will labor in vain. Mr. Douglas has frankly disclosed the place of his birth, the names of those who claimed ownership in his body and soul, and the names also of those who committed the crimes which he has alleged against them. His statements, therefore, may easily be disproved if they are untrue. In the course of his narrative, he relates two instances of murderous cruelty, in one of which a planter deliberately shot a slave belonging to a neighboring plantation, who had unintentionally gotten within his lordly domain in West of Fish, and in the other, an overseer blew out the brains of a slave who had fled to a stream of water to escape a bloody scourging. Mr. Douglas states that in neither of these instances was anything done by way of legal arrest or judicial investigation. Baltimore American of March 17, 1845 relates a similar case of atrocity perpetrated with similar impunity as follows, shooting a slave. We learn, upon the authority of letter from Charles County, Maryland, received by a gentleman of the city, that a young man named Matthews, a nephew of General Matthews, and whose father, it is believed, holds an office at Washington, killed one of the slaves upon his father's farm by shooting him. The letter states that young Matthews had been left in charge of the farm, that he gave an order to the servant which was disobeyed, when he proceeded to the house, obtained a gun, and returning, shot the servant. He immediately, the letter continues, fled to his father's residence where he still remains unmolested. Let it never be forgotten that no slave holder or overseer can be convicted of any outrage perpetrated on the person of a slave, however diabolical it may be, on the testimony of colored witness, whether bond or free. By the slave code, they are judged to be as incompetent to testify against a white man as though they were indeed a part of the brute creation. Hence, there is no legal protection in fact, whatever there may be in form, for the slave population, and any amount of cruelty may be inflicted on them with impunity. Is it possible for the human mind to conceive of a more horrible state of society? The effect of a religious profession on the conduct of southern masters is vividly described in the following narrative and shown to be anything but salutary. In the nature of the case, it must be in the highest decree pernicious. The testimony of Mr. Douglas, on this point, is sustained by a cloud of witnesses, whose veracity is unimpeachable. A slave holder's profession of Christianity is a palpable imposture. He is a felon of the highest grade. He is a man-stealer. It is of no importance what you put in any other scale. Reader, are you with the man-stealers in sympathy and purpose or on the side of the downtrodden victims? If with a former, then are you the foe of God and man? If with a latter, what are you prepared to do and dare in their behalf? Be faithful, be vigilant, be untiring in your efforts to break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free. Come what may, cost what it may, and scribe on the banner which you unfurl to the breeze as your religious and political motto. No compromise with slavery, no union with slaveholders. W. N. Lord Garrison. Boston, May 1st, 1845. End of Preface. This recording by Jeanette Ferguson. On May 17th, 2007. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave. Written by Frederick Douglass. Letter from Wendell Phillips Esquire. Boston, April 22nd, 1845. My dear friend, you remember the old fable of the man in the lion, where the lion complained that he should not be so misrepresented when the lions wrote history. I am glad the time has come when the lions write history. We have been left long enough to gather the character of slavery from the involuntary evidence of the masters. One might, indeed, rest sufficiently satisfied with what, it is evident, must be, in general, the results of such a relation, without seeking farther to find whether they have followed in every instance. Indeed, those who stare at the half-peck of corn a week, and love to count the lashes on the slave's back, are seldom the stuff out of which reformers and abolitionists are to be made. I remember that, in 1838, many were waiting for the results of the West India experiment before they could come into our ranks. Those results have come long ago, but alas, few of that number have come with them, as converts. A man must be disposed to judge of emancipation by other tests than whether it has increased the produce of sugar, and to hate slavery for other reasons than because it starves men and whips women, before he is ready to lay the first stone of his anti-slavery life. I was glad to learn, in your story, how early the most neglected of God's children wake into a sense of their rights, and of the injustice done them. Experience is a keen teacher, and long before you have mastered your ABC, or knew where the white sails of the Chesapeake were bound, you began, I see, to gauge the wretchedness of the slave, not by his hunger and want, not by his lashes and toil, but by the cruel and blighting death which gathers over his soul. In connection with this, there is one circumstance which makes your recollections peculiarly valuable, and renders your early insight the more remarkable. You come from that part of the country where we are told slavery appears with its fairest features. Let us hear, then, what it is at its best state, gaze on its bright side, if it has one, and then imagination may task her powers to add dark lines to the picture, as she travels southward to that, for the colored man, valley of the shadow of death, where the Mississippi sweeps along. Again, we have known you long, and can put the most entire confidence in your truth, candor and sincerity. Everyone who has heard you speak has felt, and I am confident, everyone who reads your book will feel persuaded that you give them a fair specimen of the whole truth. No one-sided portrait, no wholesale complaints, but strict justice done, whenever individual kindness has neutralized, for a moment, the deadly system with which it was strangely allied. You have been with us, too, some years, and can fairly compare the twilight of rights which your race and joy at the North, with that noon of night under which they labor south of Mason and Dixon's line. Tell us whether, after all, the half-free colored man of Massachusetts is worse off than the pampered slave of the rice swamps. In reading your life, no one can say that we have unfairly picked out some rare specimens of cruelty. We know that the bitter drops, which even you have drained from the cup, are no incidental aggravations, no individual ills, but such as must mingle always and necessarily in the lot of every slave. They are the essential ingredients, not the occasional results of the system. After all, I shall read your book with trembling for you. Some years ago, when you were beginning to tell me your real name and birthplace, you may remember I stopped you and preferred to remain ignorant of all, with the exception of a vague description so I continued till the other day when you read me your memoirs. I hardly knew at the time whether to thank you or not for the sight of them, when I reflected that it was still dangerous in Massachusetts for honest men to tell their names. They say the Fathers, in 1776, sign the Declaration of Independence with the halter about their necks. You too publish your Declaration of Freedom with danger compassing you around. In all the broad lands which the Constitution of the United States overshadows, there is no single spot, however narrow or desolate, where a fugitive slave can plant himself and say, I am safe. The whole armory of Northern law has no shield for you. I am free to say that in your place I should throw the MS into the fire. You, perhaps, may tell your story in safety, endeared as you are to so many warm hearts by rare gifts, and a still rarer devotion of them to the service of others. But it will be owing only to your labors, and the fearless efforts of those who, trampling the laws and Constitution of the country under their feet, are determined that they will hide the outcasts, and that their hearts shall be, spite of the law, an asylum for the oppressed, if, some time or other, the humblest may stand in our streets and bear witness and safety against the cruelties of which he has been the victim. Yet it is sad to think that the very throbbing hearts which welcome your story, and form your best safeguard in telling it, are all beating contrary to the statute in such case made and provided. Go on, my dear friend, till you and those who like you, have been saved, so as by fire, from the dark prison house, shall stereotype those free, illegal pulses into statutes, and New England, cutting loose from a bloodstained union, shall glory in being the house of refuge for the oppressed, till we no longer merely hide the outcast, or make a merit of standing idly by while he is hunted in our midst. But, consecrating anew the soil of the pilgrims as an asylum for the oppressed, proclaim our welcome to the slaves so loudly, that the tone shall reach every hut in the Carolinas, and make the broken-hearted bondmen leap up at the thought of old Massachusetts. Godspeed the day, till then and ever, yours truly, Wendell Phillips. Frederick Douglass. I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot County, Maryland. I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages, as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant. I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday. They seldom come nearer to it than planting time, harvest time, cherry time, spring time, or fall time. A want of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood. The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege. I was not allowed to make any inquiries of my master concerning it. He deemed all such inquiries on the part of a slave improper and impertinent, an evidence of a restless spirit. The nearest estimate I can give makes me now between twenty-seven and twenty-eight years of age. I come to this from hearing my master say, sometime during 1835, I was about seventeen years old. My mother was named Harriet Bailey. She was the daughter of Isaac and Betsy Bailey, both colored, and quite dark. My mother was of a darker complexion than either my grandmother or grandfather. My father was a white man. He was admitted to be such by all I ever heard speak of my parentage. The opinion was also whispered that my master was my father, but of the correctness of this opinion I know nothing. The means of knowing was withheld from me. My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant, before I knew her as my mother. It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their mothers at a very early age, frequently before the child has reached its twelfth month. The mother is taken from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off, and the child is placed under the care of an old woman, too old for field labor. For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child's affection towards its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child. This is the inevitable result. I never saw my mother, to know her as such, more than four or five times in my life, and each of these times was very short in duration and at night. She was hired by a Mr. Stewart, who lived about twelve miles from my home. She made her journeys to see me in the night, travelling the whole distance on foot after the performance of her day's work. She was a field hand, and a whipping is the penalty of not being in the field at sunrise, unless a slave has special permission from his or her master to the contrary, a permission which they seldom get, and one that gives to him that gives it the proud name of being a kind master. I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day. She was with me in the night. She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep, but long before I waked, she was gone. Very little communication ever took place between us. Death soon ended what little we could have while she lived, and with it her hardships and suffering. She died when I was about seven years old, on one of my master's farms, near Lee's Mill. I was not allowed to be present during her illness at her death or burial. She was gone long before I knew anything about it. Never having enjoyed, to any considerable extent, her soothing presence, her tender and watchful care, I received the tidings of her death with much the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger. Called thus suddenly away, she left me without the slightest intimation of who my father was. The whisper that my master was my father may or may not be true, and true or false it is but little consequence to my purpose whilst the fact remains in all its glaring odiousness that slaveholders have ordained and by law established that the children of slave women shall in all cases follow the condition of their mothers. And this is done too obviously to administer to their own lusts, and make a gratification of their wicked desires profitable as well as pleasurable. For by this cunning arrangement, the slaveholder, in cases not a few, sustains to his slaves the double relation of master and father. I know of such cases, and it is worthy of remark that such slaves invariably suffer greater hardships, and have more to contend with than others. They are, in the first place, a constant offense to their mistress. She is ever disposed to find fault with them. They can seldom do anything to please her. She is never better pleased than when she sees them under a lash, especially when she suspects her husband of showing to his mulatto children favors which he withholds from his black slaves. The master is frequently compelled to sell this class of his slaves out of deference to the feelings of his white wife, and, cruel as the deed may strike anyone to be, for a man to sell his own children to human fleshmongers, it is often the dictate of humanity for him to do so. For, unless he does this, he must not only whip them himself, but must stand by and see one white son tie up his brother, of but few shades darker complexion than himself, and ply the gory lash to his naked back. And if he lisp one word of disapproval, it is set down to his parental partiality, and only makes a bad matter worse, both for himself and the slave whom he would protect and defend. Every year brings with it multitudes of this class of slaves. It was doubtless in consequence of a knowledge of this fact that one great statesman of the south predicted the downfall of slavery by the inevitable laws of population. Whether this prophecy is ever fulfilled or not, it is nevertheless plain that a very different looking class of people are springing up at the south and are now held in slavery from those originally brought to this country from Africa. And if their increase will do no other good, it will do away the force of the argument that God cursed Ham, and therefore American slavery is right. If the lineal descendants of Ham are alone to be scripturally enslaved, it is certain that slavery at the south must soon become unscriptural, for thousands are ushered into the world annually, who, like myself, owe their existence to white fathers, and those fathers most frequently their own masters. I have had two masters. My first master's name was Anthony. I do not remember his first name. He was generally called Captain Anthony, a title which, I presume, he acquired by sailing a craft on the Chesapeake Bay. He was not considered a rich slaveholder. He owned two or three farms, and about thirty slaves. His farms and slaves were under the care of an overseer. The overseer's name was Plummer. Mr. Plummer was a miserable drunkard, a profane swearer, and a savage monster. He always went armed with a cowskin and a heavy cudgel. I have known him to cut and slash the women's head so horribly that even master would be enraged at his cruelty, and would threaten to whip him if he did not mind himself. It required extraordinary barbarity on the part of an overseer to affect him. He was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slaveholding. He would at times seem to take great pleasure in whipping a slave. I have often been awakened at the dawn of day, by the most heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood. No words, no tears, no prayers from this gory victim seemed to have moved his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped, and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest. He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush, and not until overcome by fatigue would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cowskin. I remember the first time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition. I was quite a child, but I well remember it. I never shall forget it whilst I remember anything. It was the first of a long series of such outrages, of which I was doomed to be a witness and a participant. It struck me with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass. It was a most terrible spectacle. I wish I could commit to paper the feelings with which I beheld it. This occurrence took place very soon after I went to live with my old master, and under the following circumstances. Aunt Hester went out one night, where or for what I do not know, and happened to be absent when my master desired her presence. He had ordered her not to go out evenings, and warned her that she must never let him catch her in company with a young man, who was paying attention to her, belonging to Colonel Lloyd. The young man's name was Ned Roberts, generally called Lloyd's Ned. Why master was so careful of her may be safely left to conjecture. She was a woman of noble form and of graceful proportions, having very few equals and fewer superiors, in personal appearance among the colored or white women of our neighborhood. Aunt Hester had not only disobeyed his orders in going out, but had been found in company with Lloyd's Ned, which circumstance I found from what he said while whipping her was a chief offence. Had he been a man of pure morals himself, he might have been thought interested in protecting the innocence of my aunt, but those who knew him will not suspect him of any such virtue. Before he commenced whipping Aunt Hester, he took her into the kitchen, and stripped her from neck to waist, leaving her neck, shoulders, and back entirely naked. He then told her to cross her hands, calling at the same time a damned bitch. After crossing her hands, he tied them with a strong rope, and led her to a stool under a large hook in the joist, put in for the purpose. He made her get up on the stool, and tied her hands to the hook. She now stood fair for his infernal purpose. Her arms were stretched up at their full length, so that she stood up on the ends of her toes. He then said to her, now you damned bitch, I'll learn you how to disobey my orders. And after rolling up his sleeves, he commenced to lay on the heavy cowskin, and soon the warm red blood, amid heart-rending streaks from her and horrid oaths from him, came dripping to the floor. I was so terrified and horror-stricken at the sight that I hid myself in a closet, and dared not venture out till long after the bloody transaction was over. I expected it would be my turn next. It was all new to me. I had never seen anything like it before. I had always lived with my grandmother on the outskirts of the plantation, where she was put to raise the children of the younger women. I had therefore been, until now, out of the way of the bloody scenes that often occurred on the plantation. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and American Slave. Written by Frederick Douglass. Chapter 2 My master's family consisted of two sons, Andrew and Richard, one daughter, Lucretia, and her husband, Captain Thomas Alde. They lived in one house upon the home plantation of Colonel Edward Lloyd. My master was Colonel Lloyd's clerk and superintendent. He was what might be called the overseer of overseers. I spent two years of childhood on this plantation in my old master's family. It was here that I witnessed the bloody transaction recorded in the first chapter, and as I received my first impressions of slavery on this plantation, I will give some description of it, and of the slavery as it there existed. The plantation is about 12 miles north of Easton in Talbot County, and is situated on the border of Miles River. The principal products raised upon it were tobacco, corn, and wheat. These were raised in great abundance, so that with the products of these and other farms belonging to him, he was able to keep in almost constant employment a large sloop, and carrying them to market at Baltimore. This sloop was named Sally Lloyd in honor of one of the Colonel's daughters. My master's son-in-law, Captain Alde, was master of the vessel. She was otherwise manned by the Colonel's own slaves. Their names were Peter, Isaac, Rich, and Jake. These were esteemed very highly by the other slaves and looked upon as the privileged ones of the plantation, for it was no small affair in the eyes of the slaves to be allowed to see Baltimore. Colonel Lloyd kept from three to four hundred slaves on his home plantation, and owned a large number more on the neighboring farms belonging to him. The names of the farms nearest to the home plantation were Y Town and New Design. Y Town was under the overseership of a man named Noah Willis. New Design was under the overseership of a Mr. Townsend. The overseers of these, and all the rest of the farms, numbering over twenty, received advice and direction from the managers of the home plantation. This was the great business place. It was the seat of government for the whole twenty farms. All disputes among the overseers were settled here. If a slave was convicted of any high misdemeanor, became unmanageable, or invents a determination to run away, he was brought immediately here, severely whipped, put on board the sloop, carried to Baltimore, and sold to Austin Woolfolk, or some other slave trader, as a warning to the slaves remaining. Here, too, the slaves of all the other farms received their monthly allowance of food and their yearly clothing. The men and women slaves received, as their monthly allowance of food, eight pounds of pork, or its equivalent in fish, and one bushel of cornmeal. Their yearly clothing consisted of two coarse linen shirts, one pair of linen trousers like the shirts, one jacket, one pair of trousers for winter, made of coarse newer cloth, one pair of stockings, and one pair of shoes, the whole of which could not have cost more than seven dollars. The allowance of the slave children was given to their mothers, or the old women having the care of them. The children unable to work in the field had neither shoes, stockings, jackets, nor trousers given to them. Their clothing consisted of two coarse linen shirts per year. When these failed them, they went naked until the next allowance day. Children from seven to ten years old of both sexes almost naked might be seen at all seasons of the year. There were no beds given the slaves unless one coarse blanket be considered such, and none but the men and women had these. This, however, is not considered a very great privation. They find less difficulty from the want of beds than from the want of time to sleep. For when their day's work in the field is done, the most of them having their washing, mending, and cooking to do, and having fewer or none of the ordinary facilities for doing either of these, very many of their sleeping hours are consumed in preparing for the field the coming day. And when this is done, old and young, male and female, married and single, drop down side by side on one common bed, the cold, damp floor, each covering himself or herself with their miserable blankets, and here they sleep till they are summoned to the field by the driver's horn. At the sound of this all must rise and be off to the field. There must be no halting. Everyone must be at his or her post, and woe betides them who hear not this morning summons to the field, for if they are not awakened by the sense of hearing, they are by the sense of feeling. No age nor sex finds any favor. Mr. Severe, the overseer, used to stand by the door of the quarter, armed with a large hickory stick and heavy cow skin, ready to whip anyone who is so unfortunate as not to hear, or from any other cause, was prevented from being ready to start for the field at the sound of the horn. Mr. Severe was rightly named. He was a cruel man. I have seen him whip a woman, causing the blood to run half an hour at the time, and this too in the midst of her crying children pleading for their mother's release. He seemed to take pleasure in manifesting his fiendish barbarity. Added to his cruelty, he was a profane swearer. It was enough to chill the blood and stiffen the hair of an ordinary man to hear him talk. Scarce's sentence escaped him, but that was commenced or concluded by some horrid oath. The field was a place to witness his cruelty and profanity. His presence made it both the field of blood and blasphemy. From the rising till the going down of the sun, he was cursing, raving, cutting, and slashing among the slaves of the field in the most frightful manner. His career was short. He died very soon after I went to Colonel Lloyd's, and he died as he lived, uddering with his dying groans, bitter curses, and horrid oaths. His death was regarded by the slaves as the result of a merciful providence. Mr. Severe's place was filled by a Mr. Hopkins. He was a very different man. He was less cruel, less profane, and made less noise than Mr. Severe. His course was characterized by no extraordinary demonstrations of cruelty. He whipped, but seemed to take no pleasure in it. He was called by the slaves a good overseer. The home plantation of Colonel Lloyd wore their appearance of a country village. All the mechanical operations for all the forms were performed here. The shoemaking and mending, the blacksmithing, cart riding, coopering, weaving, and grain grinding were all performed by the slaves on the home plantation. The whole place wore a business-like aspect very unlike the neighboring farms. The number of houses, too, conspired to give it advantage over the neighboring farms. It was called by the slaves the Great House Farm. Few privileges were esteemed higher by the slaves of the outfarms, than that of being selected to do errands at the Great House Farm. It was associated in their minds with greatness. A representative could not be prouder of his election to a seat in the American Congress, than a slave on one of the outfarms would be of his election to do errands at the Great House Farm. They regarded it as evidence of a great confidence repose in them by their overseers. And it was on this account, as well as a constant desire to be out of the field from under the driver's lash, that they esteemed it a high privilege, one worth careful living for. He who was called the smartest and most trusty fellow, who had this honor conferred upon him the most frequently. The competitors for this office sought as diligently to please their overseers, as the office seekers in the political parties seek to please and deceive the people. The same traits of character might be seen in Colonel Lloyd's slaves, as are seen in the slaves of the political parties. The slaves selected to go to the Great House Farm, for the monthly allowance for themselves and their fellow slaves, were peculiarly enthusiastic. While on their way they would make the dense old woods for miles around, reverberate with their wild songs, receiving it once the highest joy and the deepest sadness. They would compose and sing as they went along, consulting neither time nor tune. The thought that came up came out, if not in the word, in the sound, and as frequently in one is in the other. They would sometimes sing the most pathetic sentiment in the most rapturous tone, and the most rapturous sentiment in the most pathetic tones. Into all of their songs they would manage to weave something of the Great House Farm. Especially would they do this when leaving home. They would then sing most exultingly the following words. I am going away to the Great House Farm. Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh. Then they would sing, as a chorus, to words which to many would seem unmeaning jargon, but which, nevertheless, were full of meaning to themselves. I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress some minds with the horrible character of slavery than the reading of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject could do. I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle, so that I neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told a tale of woe, which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension. They were tones loud, long, and deep. They breathed the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains. The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit and filled me with ineffable sadness. I have frequently found myself in tears while hearing them. The more recurrence to those songs, even now, afflicts me, and while I am writing these lines, an expression of feeling has already found its way down my cheek. To those songs I trace my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing's character of slavery. I can never get rid of that conception. Those songs still follow me to deepen my hatred of slavery and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds. If anyone wishes to be impressed with the soul-killing effects of slavery, let him go to Colonel Lloyd's plantation, and, on allowance day, place himself in the deep pine woods, and there let him, in silence, analyze the sounds that shall pass through the chambers of his soul. And if he is not thus impressed, it will only be because there is no flesh in his obdurate heart. I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the North, to find persons who could speak of the singing among slaves as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart, and he is relieved by them only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. At least such is my experience. I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness. Crying for joy and singing for joy were alike uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery. The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as a singing of a slave. The songs of one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion. End of Chapter 2 This recording by Jeanette Ferguson on June 7th, 2007 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Written by Frederick Douglass Chapter 3 Colonel Lloyd kept a large and finely cultivated garden which afforded almost constant employment for four men besides the chief gardener, Mr. McDermond. This garden was probably the greatest attraction of the place. During the summer months people came from far and near. From Baltimore, Easton, and Annapolis to see it. It abounded in fruits for almost every description, from the hardy apple of the north to the delicate orange of the south. This garden was not the least source of trouble on the plantation. Its excellent fruit was quite a temptation to the hungry swarms of boys as well as the older slaves belonging to the Colonel, few of whom had the virtue or the vice to resist it. Scarcely a day passed during the summer, but that some slave had to take out the lash for sealing fruit. The Colonel had to resort to all kinds of stratagems to keep his slaves out of the garden. The last and most successful one was that of tarring his fence all around, after which, if a slave was caught with any tar upon his person, it was deemed sufficient proof that he had either been into the garden or had tried to get in. In either case he was severely whipped by the chief gardener. This plan worked well. The slaves became as fearful of tar as of the lash. They seemed to realize the impossibility of touching tar without being defiled. The Colonel also kept a splendid riding equipmage. His stable and carriage house presented the appearance of some of our large city library establishments. His horses were of the finest form and noblest blood. His carriage house contained three splendid coaches, three or four gigs besides dearborns and bearish shoes of the most fashionable style. This establishment was under the care of two slaves, old Barney and young Barney, father and son. To attend to this establishment was their sole work, but it was by no means an easy employment, for nothing was Colonel Lloyd more particular than in the management of his horses. The slightest inattention to these was unpardonable and was visited upon those under whose care they were placed with the severest punishment. No excuse could shield them if the Colonel only suspected any want of attention to the horses, a supposition which he frequently indulged, and one which of course made the office of old and young Barney a very trying one. They never knew when they were saved from punishment. They were frequently whipped when the least deserving and escaped whipping when most deserving it. Everything depended upon the looks of the horses and the state of Colonel Lloyd's own mind when his horses were brought to him for use. If a horse did not move fast enough, or hold his head high enough, it was owing to some fault of his keepers. It was painful to stand near the stable door and hear the various complaints against the keepers when a horse was taken out for use. This horse has not had proper attention. He has not been sufficiently rubbed and curried, or he has not been properly fed. His food was too wet or too dry. He got it too soon or too late. He was too hot or too cold. He had had too much hay and not enough of grain, or he had too much grain and not enough of hay. Instead of old Barney's attending to the horse, he had very improperly left it to his son. To all these complaints, no matter how unjust, the slave must answer never a word. Colonel Lloyd could not brook any contradiction from a slave. When he spoke, a slave must stand, listen, and tremble, and such was literally the case. I have seen Colonel Lloyd make old Barney, a man between 50 and 60 years of age, uncover his bald head, kneel down upon the cold damp ground, and receive upon his naked and toil-worn shoulders more than 30 lashes at the time. Colonel Lloyd had three sons, Edward, Murray, and Daniel, and three sons-in-law, Mr. Winder, Mr. Nicholson, and Mr. Lones. All of these lived at the Great House Farm, and enjoyed the luxury of whipping the servants when they pleased, from old Barney down to William Welks, the coach driver. I have seen Winder make one of the house servants stand off from him a suitable distance to be touched with the end of his whip, and every stroke raised great ridges upon his back. To describe the wealth of Colonel Lloyd would be almost equal to describing the riches of Job. He kept from ten to fifteen house servants. He was said to own a thousand slaves, and I think this estimate quite within the truth. Colonel Lloyd owned so many that he did not know them when he saw them, nor did all the slaves of the out farms know him. It is reported of him that, while riding along the road one day, he met a colored man, and addressed him in the usual manner of speaking to a colored people on the public highways of the south. Well, boy, whom do you belong to? Colonel Lloyd replied the slave. Well, does the Colonel treat well? No, sir, was a ready reply. What, does he work you too hard? Yes, sir. Well, don't he give you enough to eat? Yes, sir, he gives me enough, such as it is. The Colonel, after ascertaining where the slave belonged, wrote on. The man also went on about his business, not dreaming that he had been conversing with his master. He thought, said, and heard nothing more of the matter until two or three weeks afterwards. The poor man was then informed by his overseer that, for having found fault with his master, he was now to be sold to a Georgia trader. He was immediately chained and handcuffed, and thus, without a moment's warning, he was snatched away and forever sundered from his family and friends by a hand more unrelenting than death. This is the penalty of telling the truth, of telling the simple truth, in answer to a series of plain questions. It is partly in consequence of such facts that slaves, when inquired of as to their condition and the character of their masters, almost universally say they are contented, and that their masters are kind. The slaveholders have been known to send in spies among their slaves, to ascertain their views and feelings in regard to their condition. Their frequency of this has had the effect to establish among the slaves the maxim, that a still tongue makes a wise head. They suppress the truth rather than take the consequences of telling it, and in so doing prove themselves a part of the human family. If they have anything to say of their masters, it is generally in their masters favor, especially when speaking to an untried man. I have been frequently asked when a slave, if I had a kind master, and do not remember ever to have given a negative answer. Nor did I, in pursuing this course, consider myself as uttering what was absolutely false, for I always measured the kindness of my master by the standard of kindness set up among slaveholders around us. Moreover, slaves are like other people, and imbibe prejudice is quite common to others. They think their own better than that of others. Many, under the influence of this prejudice, think their own masters are better than the masters of other slaves, and this too, in some cases, when the very reverse is true. Indeed, it is not uncommon for slaves even to fall out in quarrel among themselves about the relative goodness of their masters, each contending for the superior goodness of his own over that of the others. At the very same time, they mutually execrate their masters when viewed separately. It was so on our plantation. When Colonel Lloyd slaves met the slaves of Jacob Jepsen, they seldom parted without a quarrel about their masters. Colonel Lloyd slaves contending that he was the richest, and Mr. Jepsen slaves that he was the smartest, and most of a man. Colonel Lloyd slaves would boast his ability to buy and sell Jacob Jepsen. Mr. Jepsen slave would boast his ability to whip Colonel Lloyd. These quarrels would almost always end in a fight between the parties, and those that whipped were supposed to have gained the point at issue. They seemed to think that the greatness of their masters was transferable to themselves. It was considered as being bad enough to be a slave, but to be a poor man's slave was deemed disgrace indeed. End of Chapter 3 This recording by Jeanette Ferguson On June 7, 2007 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Written by Frederick Douglass Chapter 4 Mr. Hopkins remained but a short time in the office of overseer. Why his career was so short, I do not know, but I suppose he lacked the necessary severity to suit Colonel Lloyd. Mr. Hopkins was succeeded by Mr. Austin Gore, a man possessing, in an imminent degree, all those traits of character indispensable to what is called a first-rate overseer. Mr. Gore had served Colonel Lloyd in the capacity of overseer upon one of the outfarms, and had shown himself worthy of the highest station of overseer upon the home or great house farm. Mr. Gore was proud, ambitious, and persevering. He was artful, cruel, and obdurate. He was just the man for such a place, and it was just the place for such a man. It afforded scope for the full exercise of all his powers, and he seemed to be perfectly at home in it. He was one of those who could torture the slightest look, word, or gesture on the part of the slave into impudence, and would treat it accordingly. There must be no answering back to him. No explanation was allowed a slave showing himself to have been wrongfully accused. Mr. Gore acted fully up to the maxim laid down by slaveholders. It is better that a dozen slaves suffer under the lash than that the overseer should be convicted, in the presence of the slaves, of having been at fault. No matter how innocent a slave might be, it availed him nothing, when accused by Mr. Gore of any misdemeanor. To be accused was to be convicted, and to be convicted was to be punished, the one always following the other with immutable certainty. To escape punishment was to escape accusation, and few slaves had the fortune to do either under the overseership of Mr. Gore. He was just proud enough to demand the most debasing homage of the slaves, and quite servile enough to crouch himself at the feet of the master. He was ambitious enough to be contented with nothing short of the highest rank of overseers, and persevering enough to reach the height of his ambition. He was cruel enough to inflict the severest punishment, artful enough to descend to the lowest trickery, and obdurate enough to be insensible to the voice of a reproving conscience. He was, of all the overseers, the most dreaded by the slaves. His presence was painful, his eye flashed confusion, and seldom was his sharp, shrill voice heard without producing horror in trembling in their ranks. Mr. Gore was a grave man, and, though a young man, he indulged in no jokes and no funny words, seldom smiled. His words were in perfect keeping with his looks, and his looks were in perfect keeping with his words. Overseers will sometimes indulge in a witty word, even with the slaves, not so with Mr. Gore. He spoke but to command, and commanded but to be obeyed. He dealt sparingly with his words, and bountifully with his whip, never using the former where the latter would answer as well. When he whipped, he seemed to do so from a sense of duty, and feared no consequences. He did nothing reluctantly, no matter how disagreeable, always at his post, never inconsistent. He never promised but to fulfill. He was in a word, a man of the most inflexible firmness and stone-like coolness. His savage barbarity was equaled only by the consummate coolness with which he committed the grossest and most savage deeds upon the slaves under his charge. Mr. Gore once undertook to whip one of Colonel Lloyd's slaves by the name of Denby. He had given Denby but few stripes. When to get rid of the scourging, he ran and plunged himself into a creek, and stood there at the depth of his shoulders refusing to come out. Mr. Gore told him that he would give him three calls, and that if he did not come out at the third call, he would shoot him. The first call was given. Denby made no response, but stood his ground. The second and third calls were given with the same result. Mr. Gore then, without consultation or deliberation with anyone, not even giving Denby an additional call, raised his musket to his face, taking deadly aim at his standing victim, and in an instant poor Denby was no more. His mangled body sank out of sight, and blood and brains marked the waterwork he had stood. A thrill of horror flashed through every soul upon the plantation, accepting Mr. Gore. He alone seemed cool and collected. He was asked by Colonel Lloyd and my old master why he resorted to this extraordinary expedite. His reply was, as well as I can remember, that Denby had become unmanageable. He was setting a dangerous example to the other slaves, one which, if suffered to pass without some demonstration on his part, would finally lead to the total subversion of all rule in order upon the plantation. He argued that if one slave refused to be corrected, and escaped with his life, the other slaves would soon copy the example, the result of which would be the freedom of the slaves and the enslavement of the whites. Mr. Gore's deference was satisfactory. He was continued in his station as overseer upon the home plantation. His fame as an overseer went abroad. His horrid crime was not even submitted to judicial investigation. It was committed in the presence of slaves, and they, of course, could neither institute a suit nor testify against him, and thus the guilty perpetrator of one of the bloodiest and most foul murders goes unwipped of justice, and uncentered by the community in which he lives. Mr. Gore lived in St. Michael's, Talbot County, Maryland, when I left there, and if he is still alive, he very probably lives there now. And if so, he is now, as he was then, as highly esteemed and as much respected as though his guilty soul had not been stained with his brother's blood. I speak advisedly when I say this, that killing a slave or any colored person in Talbot County, Maryland is not treated as a crime either by the courts or the community. Mr. Thomas Landman of St. Michael's killed two slaves, one of whom he killed with a hatchet, by knocking his brains out. He used to boast of the commission of the awful and bloody deed. I have heard him do so laughingly, saying, among other things, that he was the only benefactor of his country in the company, and that when others would do as much as he had done, we should be relieved of the damn niggers. The wife of Mr. Giles Hicks, living by a short distance from where I used to live, murdered my wife's cousin, a young girl between fifteen and sixteen years of age, mangling her person in the most horrible manner, breaking her nose and breastbone with a stick, so that the poor girl expired in a few hours afterward. She was immediately buried, but had not been in her untimely grave, but a few hours before she was taken up and examined by the coroner, who decided she had come to her death by severe beating. The offense for which this girl was thus murdered was this. She had been sent that night to mine Mrs. Hicks' baby, and during the night she fell asleep, and the baby cried. She, having lost her rest for several nights previous, did not hear the crying. They were both in the room with Mrs. Hicks. Finding the girl slow to move, jumped from her bed, seized an oak stick of wood by the fireplace, and with it broke the girl's nose and breastbone, and thus ended her life. I will not say that this most horrid murder produced no sensation in the community. It did produce sensation, but not enough to bring the murderers to punishment. There was a warrant issued for her arrest, but it was never served. Thus she escaped not only punishment, but even the pain of being arraigned before court for her horrid crime. Whilst I am detailing bloody deeds which took place during my stay on Colonel Lloyd's plantation, I will briefly narrate another, which occurred about the same time as the murder of Denby by Mr. Gore. Colonel Lloyd's slaves were in the habit of spending a part of their nights and Sundays in fishing for oysters, and in this way made up the deficiency of their scanty allowance. The old man belonging to Colonel Lloyd, while thus engaged, happened to get beyond the limits of Colonel Lloyd's and on the premises of Mr. Beale Bondley. At this trespass, Mr. Bondley took offence, and with his musket came down to the shore and blew its deadly contents into the poor old man. Mr. Bondley came over to see Colonel Lloyd the next day, whether to pay him for his property or to justify himself in what he had done, I know not. At any rate, this whole fiendish transaction was soon hushed up. Very little said about it in all, and nothing done. It was a common saying, even among little white boys, that it was worth a half cent to kill a nigger, and a half cent to bury one. End of Chapter 4 This recording by Jeanette Ferguson on June 7, 2007 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Written by Frederick Douglass Chapter 5 As to my own treatment while I lived on Colonel Lloyd's plantation, it was very similar to that of the other slave children. I was not old enough to work in the field, and there being little else than field work to do, I had a great deal of leisure time. The most I had to do was to drive up the cows at evening, keep the fowls out of the garden, keep the front yard clean, and run of errands for my old master's daughter, Mrs. Lucretia Alde. The most of my leisure time I spent in helping Master Daniel Lloyd in finding his birds after he had shot them. My connection with Master Daniel was of some advantage to me. He became quite attached to me, and was a sort of protector of me. He would not allow the older boys to impose upon me, and would divide his cakes with me. I was seldom whipped by my old master, and suffered little from anything else than hunger and cold. I suffered much from hunger, but much more from cold. In hottest summer and coldest winter, I was kept almost naked. No shoes, no stockings, no jacket, no trousers, nothing on but a coarse towel and a shirt, reaching only to my knees. I had no bed. I must have perished with cold, but that the coldest nights I used to steal a bag which was used for carrying corn to the mill. I would crawl into this bag, and there sleep on the cold, damp clay floor with my head in and feet out. My feet have been so cracked with the frost that the pen with which I am writing might be laid in the gashes. We were not regularly allowance. Our food was coarse corn meal boiled. This was called mush. It was put into a large wooden tray or trowel and set down upon the ground. The children were then called like so many pigs, and like so many pigs they would come and devour the mush. Some with oyster shells, others with pieces of shingle, some with naked hands, and none with spoons. He that ate fastest got most. He that was strongest secured the best place, and few left the trowel satisfied. I was probably between seven and eight years old when I left Colonel Lloyd's plantation. I left it with joy. I shall never forget the ecstasy with which I received the intelligence that my old master, Anthony, had determined to let me go to Baltimore to live with Mr. Hugh Alde, brother to my old master's son-in-law, Captain Thomas Alde. I received this information about three days before my departure. They were three of the happiest days I ever enjoyed. I spent the most part of all these three days in the creek, washing off the plantation's girth, and preparing myself for my departure. The pride of a parent which this would indicate was not my own. I spent the time in washing not so much because I wished to, but because Mrs. Lucretia had told me I must get all of the dead skin off of my feet and knees before I could go to Baltimore. For the people in Baltimore were very cleanly, and would laugh at me if I looked dirty. Besides, she was going to give me a pair of trousers, which I should not put on unless I got all the dirt off me. The thought of owning a pair of trousers was great indeed. It was almost a sufficient motive, not only to make me take off what would be called by pig drovers the mange, but the skin itself. I went at it in good earnest, working for the first time with the hope of reward. The ties that ordinarily bind children to their homes were all suspended in my case. I found no severe trial in my departure. My home was charmless. It was not home to me. On departing from it I could not feel that I was leaving anything which I could have enjoyed by staying. My mother was dead. My grandmother lived far off, so that I seldom saw her. I had two sisters and one brother that lived in the same house with me, but the early separation of us from our mother had well nigh blotted the fact of our relationship from our memories. I looked for home elsewhere, and was confident of finding none which I should relish less than the one which I was leaving. If, however, I made in my new home hardship, hunger, whipping, and nakedness, I had the consolation that I should not have escaped any one of them by staying. Having already had more than a taste of them in the house of my old master, and having endured them there, I very naturally inferred my ability to endure them elsewhere, and especially at Baltimore, for I had something of the feeling about Baltimore that is expressed in the proverb that being hanged in England is preferable to dying a natural death in Ireland. I had the strongest desire to see Baltimore. Cousin Tom, though not fluent in speech, had inspired me with that desire by his eloquent description of the place. I could never point out anything at the Great House, no matter how beautiful or powerful, but that he had seen something at Baltimore far exceeding both in beauty and strength, the object which I pointed out to him. Even the Great House itself, with all its pictures, was far inferior to many buildings in Baltimore. So strong was my desire that I thought a gratification of it would fully compensate for whatever loss of comforts I should sustain by the exchange. I left without a regret, and with the highest hopes of future happiness. We sailed out of Miles River for Baltimore 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 the months of the year. On setting sail I walked off, and gave to Colonel Lloyd's plantation what I hoped would be the last look. I then placed myself in the bowels of the sloop, and there splint the remainder of the day in looking ahead, interesting myself in what was in the distance rather than in the things nearby or behind. In the afternoon of that day we reached Annapolis, the capital of the state. We stopped but a few moments, so that I had no time to go on shore. It was the first large town that I had ever seen, and though it would look small compared with some of our New England factory villages, I thought it was a wonderful place for its size, more imposing even in the Great House Farm. We arrived at Baltimore early on Sunday morning, landing at Smith's Wharf, not far from Bowley's Wharf. We had on board the sloop a large flock of sheep, and after aiding and driving them to the slaughterhouse of Mr. Curtis on Ludon Slater's Hill, I was conducted by Rich, one of the hands belonging on board of the sloop, to my new home in Alice Anna Street, near Mr. Garden's shipyard on Fells Point. Mr. and Mrs. Alde were both at home, and met me at the door with their little son Thomas, to take care of whom I had been given. And here I saw what I had never seen before. It was a white face beaming with the most connolly emotions. It was a face of my new mistress, Sophia Alde. I wish I could describe the rapture that flashed through my soul as I beheld it. It was a new and strange sight to me, brightening up my pathway with the light of happiness. Little Thomas was told, there was his Freddie. I was told to take care of little Thomas, and thus I entered upon the duties of my new home, with the most cheering prospect ahead. I looked upon my departure from Colonel Lloyd's plantation as one of the most interesting events of my life. It is possible, and even quite probable, that but through the mere circumstance of being removed from that plantation to Baltimore, I should have today, instead of being here seated by my own table in the enjoyment of freedom in the happiness of home, writing this narrative, being confined in the growling chains of slavery. Going to live at Baltimore laid the foundation and opened the gateway to all my subsequent prosperity. I have ever regarded it as the first plain manifestation of that kind of providence which has ever since attended me and marked my life with so many favors. I regarded the selection of myself as being somewhat remarkable. There were a number of slave children that might have been sent from the plantation to Baltimore. There were those younger, those older, and those of the same age. I was chosen from among them all, and was the first, last, and only choice. I may be deemed superstitious and even eotistical in regarding this event as a special interposition of divine providence in my favor, but I should be false to the earliest sentiments of my soul if I suppress the opinion. I'd prefer to be true to myself even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others rather than to be false and incur my own abhorrence. For my earliest recollection, I date the entertainment of a deep conviction that slavery would not always be able to hold me within its foul embrace, and in the darkest hours of my career in slavery, this living word of faith and spirit of hope departed not from me, but remained like ministering angels to cheer me through the gloom. This good spirit was from God, and to him I offer thanksgiving and praise. End of chapter 5 This recording by Jeanette Ferguson on June 7, 2007 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Written by Frederick Douglass Chapter 6 My new mistress proved to be all she appeared when I first met her at the door, a woman of the kindest heart and finest feelings. She had never had a slave under her control previously to myself, and prior to her marriage she had been dependent upon her own dentistry for a living. She was by trade a weaver, and by constant application to her business, she had been in a good degree preserved from the blighting and dehumanizing effects of slavery. I was utterly astonished at her goodness. I scarcely knew how to behave towards her. She was entirely unlike any other white woman I had ever seen. I could not approach her as I was accustomed to approach other white ladies. My early instruction was all out of place. The crouching servility, usually so acceptable a quality in a slave, did not answer when manifested towards her. Her favor was not gained by it. She seemed to be disturbed by it. She did not deem it impudent or unmanorly for a slave to look her in the face. The meanest slave was put fully at ease in her presence, and none left without feeling better for having seen her. Her face was made of heavenly smiles and her voice of tranquil music. But alas! this kind heart had but a short time to remain such. The fatal poison of irresponsible power was already in her hands, and soon commenced since infernal work. That cheerful eye under the influence of slavery soon became red with rage. That voice made all of sweet accord changed to one of harsh and horrid discord, and that angelic face gave place to that of a demon. Very soon after I went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Alde, she very kindly commenced to teach me the ABC. After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters. Just at this point in my progress, Mr. Alde found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Alde to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe to teach a slave to read. To use his own words further, he said, if you give a nigger an inch, he will take an L. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master, to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now, said he, if you teach that nigger, speaking of myself, how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy. These words sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering, and called into existence an entirely new train of thought. It was a new and special revelation, explaining dark and mysterious things, with which my youthful understanding had struggled, but struggled in vain. I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty, to wit the white man's power to enslave the black man. It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. It was just what I wanted, and I got it at a time when I least expected it. Whilst I was saddened by the thought of losing the aid of my kind mistress, I was gladdened by the invaluable instruction which, by the nearest accident, I had gained from my master. Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble to learn how to read. The very decided manner with which he spoke, and strove to impress his wife with the evil consequences of giving me instruction, served to convince me that he was deeply sensible of the truths he was uttering. It gave me the best assurance that I might rely with the utmost confidence on the results which, he said, would flow from teaching me to read. What he most dreaded that I most desired, what he most loved that I most hated, that which to him was a great evil, to be carefully shunned, was to me a great good, to be diligently sought, and the argument which he so warmly urged against my learning to read, only served to inspire me with a desire and a determination to learn. In learning to read, I owe almost as much to the bitter opposition of my master as to the kindly aid of my mistress. I acknowledged the benefit of both. I had resided by a short time in Baltimore before I observed a marked difference in the treatment of slaves from that which I had witnessed in the country. A city slave is almost a freeman compared with a slave on the plantation. He is much better fed in clothes, and enjoys privileges altogether unknown to the slave on the plantation. There is a vestige of decency, a sense of shame, that does much to curb and check those outbreaks of atrocious cruelty so commonly enacted upon the plantation. He is a desperate slave-holder who will shock the humanity of his non-slave-holding neighbors with the cries of his lacerated slave. Few are willing to incur the odium attaching to the reputation of being a cruel master, and above all things they would not be known as not giving a slave enough to eat. Every city slave-holder is anxious to have it known of him, that he feeds his slaves well, and it is due to them to say that most of them do give their slaves enough to eat. There are, however, some painful exceptions to this rule. Directly opposite to us, on Phil Pot Street, lived Mr. Thomas Hamilton. He owned two slaves. Their names were Henrietta and Mary. Henrietta was about twenty-two years of age, Mary was about fourteen, and of all the mangled and emaciated creatures I ever looked upon, these two were the most so. His heart must be harder than stone, that could look upon these unmoved. The head, neck, and shoulders of Mary were literally cut to pieces. I have frequently felt her head, and found it nearly covered with festering sores, caused by the lash of her cruel mistress. I do not know that her master ever whipped her, but I have been an eyewitness to the cruelty of Mrs. Hamilton. I used to be in Mr. Hamilton's house nearly every day. Mrs. Hamilton used to sit in a large chair in the middle of the room, with a heavy cow skin always by her side, and scarce an hour passed during the day, but was marked by the blood of one of these slaves. The girl seldom passed her without her saying, Move faster, you black gip! At the same time giving them a blow with the cow skin over the head or shoulders, often drawing the blood, she would then say, Take that, you black gip! Continuing, If you don't move faster, I'll move you! Added to the cruel lashings to which these slaves were subjected, they were kept nearly half-starved. They seldom knew what it was to eat a full meal. I have seen Mary contending with the pigs for the awful throne into the street. So much was Mary kicked and cut to pieces that she was often recalled pecked then by her name. End of Chapter 6 This recording by Jeanette Ferguson on June 7th, 2007 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave Written by Frederick Douglass Chapter 7 I lived in Master Q's family about seven years. During this time, I succeeded in learning to read and write. In accomplishing this, I was compelled to resort to various stratagems. I had no regular teacher. My mistress, who had kindly commenced to instruct me, had, in compliance with the advice and direction of her husband, not only ceased to instruct, but had set her face against my being instructed by anyone else. It is due, however, to my mistress to say of her that she did not adopt this course of treatment immediately. She at first lacked the depravity indispensable to shutting me up in mental darkness. It was at least necessary for her to have some training in the exercise of her responsible power, to make her equal to the task of treating me as though I were a brute. My mistress was, as I have said, a kind and tender-hearted woman, and in the simplicity of her soul she commenced when I first went to live with her to treat me as she supposed one human being ought to treat another. In entering upon the duties of a slaveholder, she did not seem to perceive that I sustained to her the relation of a mere chattel, and that for her to treat me as a human being was not only wrong, but dangerously so. Slavery proved as injurious to her as it did to me. When I went there, she was a pious, warm, and tender-hearted woman. There was no sorrow or suffering for which she had not a tear. 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 heavenly qualities. Under its influence, the tender heart became stone, and the lamb-like disposition gave way to one of tiger-like fierceness. The first step in her downward course was in her ceasing to instruct me. She now commenced to practice her husband's precepts. She finally became even more violent in her opposition than her husband himself. She was not satisfied with simply doing as well as he had commanded. She seemed anxious to do better. Nothing seemed to make her more angry than to see me with a newspaper. She seemed to think that here lay the danger. I have had her rush at me with a face made all up of fury, and snatched from me a newspaper in a manner that fully revealed her apprehension. She was an apt woman, and a little experience soon demonstrated to her satisfaction that education and slavery were incompatible with each other. From this time I was most narrowly watched. If I was in a separate room any considerable length of time, I was sure to be suspected of having a book, and was at once called to give an account of myself. All this, however, was too late. The first step had been taken. Mistress in teaching me the alphabet had given me the inch, and no precaution could prevent me from taking the L. The plan which I adopted, and the one by which I was most successful, was that of making friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the street. As many of these as I could, I converted into teachers. With their kindly aid, obtained at different times, and in different places, I finally succeeded in learning to read. When I was sent of errands, I always took my book with me, and by going one part of my errand quickly I found time to get a lesson before my return. I used also to carry bread with me, enough of which was always in the house, and to which I was always welcome, for I was much better off in this regard than in many of the poor white children in our neighborhood. This bread I used to bestow upon the hungry little urchins, who, in return, would give me that more valuable bread of knowledge. I am strongly tempted to give the names of two or three of those little boys as a testimonial of the gratitude and affection I bear them, but prudence forbids. Not that it would injure me, but it might embarrass them, for it is almost an unpardonable offense to teach slaves to read in this Christian country. It is enough to say of the dear little fellows that they lived on Philpot Street, very near Durgan and Bailey's shipyard. I used to talk this matter of slavery over with them. I would sometimes say to them, I wish I could be as free as they could be when they got to be men. You will be free as soon as you are twenty-one, but I am a slave for life. Have not I as good a right to be free as you have? These words used to trouble them. They would express for me the liveliest sympathy, and console me with the hope that something would occur by which I might be free. I was now about twelve years old, and the thought of being a slave for life began to bear heavily upon my heart. Just about this time I got hold of a book entitled The Colombian Orator. Every opportunity I got I used to read this book. Among much of the other interesting matter I found in it a dialogue between a master and his slave. The slave was represented as having run away from his master three times. The dialogue represented the conversation which took place between them when the slave was retaken a third time. In this dialogue the whole argument in behalf of slavery was brought forward by the master, all of which was disposed of by the slave. The slave was made to say some very smart as well as impressive things in reply to the master. Things which had the desired though unexpected effect for the conversation resulted in the voluntary emancipation of the slave on the part of the master. In the same book I met with one of Sheridan's mighty speeches on and in behalf of Catholic emancipation. These were choice documents to me. I read them over and over again with unabated interest. They gave tongue to interesting thoughts of my own soul which had frequently flashed through my mind and died away for want of utterance. The moral which I gained from the dialogue was a power of truth over the conscience of even a slave holder. What I got from Sheridan was a bold denunciation of slavery and a powerful vindication of human rights. The reading of these documents enabled me to utter my thoughts and to meet the arguments brought forward to sustain slavery. But while they relieved me of one difficulty they brought on another even more painful than the one of which I was relieved. The more I read the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers who had left their homes and gone to Africa and stolen us from our homes and in a strange land reduced us to slavery. I loathed them as being the meanest as well as the most wicked of men. As I read and contemplated the subject behold that very discontentment which Master Hugh had predicted would follow my learning to read had already come to torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish. As I writhed under it I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit but to no latter upon which to get out. In moments of agony I envied my fellow slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own. Anything, no matter what, to get rid of thinking. It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me. There was no getting rid of it. It was pressed upon me by every object within sight or hearing, animate or inanimate. The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal wakefulness. Freedom now appeared to disappear no more forever. It was heard in every sound and seen in everything. It was ever-present to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition. I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling it. It looked from every star, it smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind, and moved in every storm. I often found myself regretting my own existence and wishing myself dead, but for the hope of being free I have no doubt but that I should have killed myself or done something for which I should have been killed. While in the state of mind I was eager to hear anyone speak of slavery. I was a ready listener. Every little while I could hear something about the abolitionists. It was some time before I found what the word meant. It was always used in some connections to make it an interesting word to me. If a slave ran away and succeeded in getting clear, or if a slave killed his master set fire to a barn, or did anything very wrong in the mind of a slaveholder, it was spoken of as the fruit of abolition. Hearing the word in this connection very often I said about learning what it meant. The dictionary afforded me little or no help. I found it was the act of abolishing, but then I did not know what was to be abolished. Here I was perplexed. I did not dare to ask anyone about its meaning, for I was satisfied that it was something they wanted me to know very little about. After a patient waiting I got one of our city papers containing an account of the number of petitions from the north, praying for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and of the slave trade between the states. From this time I understood the words abolition and abolitionists, and always junear when that word was spoken, expecting to hear something of importance to myself and fellow slaves. The light broke in upon me by degrees. I went one day down on the wharf of Mr. Waters, and seeing two Irishmen unloading a scow of stone, I went unasked and helped them. When we had finished one of them came to me and asked me if I were a slave. I told him I was. He asked, are ye a slave for life? I told him that I was. The good Irishman seemed to be deeply affected by the statement. He said to the other that it was a pity so find a little fellow as myself should be a slave for life. He said it was a shame to hold me. They both advised me to run away to the north, that I should find friends there, and that I should be free. I pretended not to be interested in what they said, and treated them as if I did not understand them, for I feared they might be treacherous. White men have been known to encourage slaves to escape, and then, to get the reward, catch them and return them to their masters. I was afraid that these seemingly good men might use me so, but I nevertheless remembered their advice, and from that time I resolved to run away. I looked forward to a time at which it would be safe for me to escape. I was too young to think of doing so immediately. Besides, I wished to learn how to write, as I might have occasion to write my own path. I consoled myself with the hope that I should one day find a good chance. Meanwhile, I would learn to write. The idea as to how I might learn to write was suggested to me by being in Durgin and Bailey shipyard, and frequently seeing the ship carpenters after hewing and getting a piece of timber ready for use, right on the timber of the name of that part of the ship for which it was intended. When a piece of timber was intended for the larbord side, it would be marked thus, L. When a piece was for the starboard side, it would be marked thus, S. A piece for the larbord side forward would be marked thus, L, F. When a piece was for the starboard side forward, it would be marked thus, S, F. For larbord aft, it would be marked thus, L, A. For starboard aft, it would be marked thus, S, A. I soon learned the names of these letters, and for what they were intended when placed upon a piece of timber in the shipyard, I immediately commenced copying them, and in a short time was able to make the four letters named. After that, when I met with any boy who I knew could write, I would tell them I could write as well as he. The next word would be, I don't believe you, let me see you try it. I would then make the letters which I had been so fortunate as to learn, and ask him to beat that. In this way I got a good many lessons in writing, which it is quite possible I should never have gotten in any other way. During this time my copy book was the board fence, brick wall, and pavement. My pen and ink was a lump of chalk. With these I learned mainly how to write. I then commenced and continued 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 Thomas had gone to school and learned how to write, and had written over a number of copy books. These had been brought home and shown to some of our near neighbors, and then laid aside. My mistress used to go to class meeting at the Wilkes Street meeting house every Monday morning, and leave me to take care of the house. When left thus I used to spend the time and writing in the space left in master Thomas's copy book. Being what he had written, I continued to do this until I could write a hand very similar to that of master Thomas. Thus after a long tedious effort for years I finally succeeded in learning how to write. End of Chapter 7. This recording by Jeanette Ferguson on June 11, 2007. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Written by Frederick Douglass. Chapter 8. In a very short time after I went to live at Baltimore, my old master's youngest son Richard died, and in about three years and six months after his death my old master Captain Anthony died, leaving only his son Andrew and daughter Lucretia to share his estate. He died while on a visit to see his daughter at Hillsborough, cut off thus unexpectedly. He left no will as to the disposal of his property. It was therefore necessary to have a valuation of the property, that it might be equally divided between Mrs. Lucretia and Master Andrew. I was immediately sent for to be valued with the other property. Here again my feelings rose up in detestation of slavery. I had now a new conception of my degraded condition. Prior to this, I had become, if not insensible to my lot, at least partly so. I left Baltimore with a young heart overborn with sadness, and a soul full of apprehension. I took passage with Captain Rowe in the schooner Wildcat, and after a sale of about twenty four hours I found myself near the place of my birth. I had now been absent from it almost, if not quite, five years. I, however, remembered the place very well. I was only about five years old when I left it, to go and live with my old master on Colonel Lloyd's plantation, so that I was now between ten and eleven years old. We were all ranked together at the valuation. Men and women young and old, married and single, were ranked with horses, sheep, and swine. There were horses and men, cattle and women, pigs and children, all holding the same rank in the scale of being, and were all subjected to the same narrow examination. Silvery-headed age and sprightly youth, maids and matrons, had to undergo the same indelicate inspection. At this moment I saw more clearly than ever the brutalizing effects of slavery upon both slave and slaveholder. After the valuation, then came the division. I have no language to express the high excitement and deep anxiety which were felt among us poor slaves during this time. Our fate for life was now to be decided. We had no more voice in that decision than the boots among whom we were ranked. A single word from the white men was enough, against all our wishes, prayers, and duties, to sender forever the dearest friends, dearest kindred, and strongest ties known to human beings. In addition to the pain of separation there was the horrid dread of falling into the hands of Master Andrew. He was known to us all as being a most cruel wretch, a common drunkard who had, by his reckless mismanagement and profligate dissipation, already wasted a large portion of his father's property. We all felt that we might as well be sold at once to the Georgia traitors as to pass into his hands, for we knew that would be our inevitable condition, a condition held by us all in the utmost horror and dread. I suffered more anxiety than most of my fellow slaves. I had known what it was to be kindly treated. They had known nothing of the kind. They had seen little or nothing of the world. They were in varied deed men and women of sorrow and acquainted with grief. Their backs had been made familiar with the bloody lash, so that they had become callous. Mine was yet tender. For while at Baltimore I got few whippings, and few slaves could boast of a kinder master and mistress than myself. And the thought of passing out of their hands into those of Master Andrew, a man who, but a few days before, to give me a sample of his bloody disposition, took my little brother by the throat, threw him on the ground, and with the heel of his boots stamped upon his head till the blood gushed from his nose and ears, was well calculated to make me anxious as to my fate. After he had committed this savage outrage upon my brother, he turned to me and said that was the way he meant to serve me one of these days, meaning I suppose when I came into his possession. Thanks to a kind providence I fell to the portion of Mrs. Lucretia, and was sent immediately back to Baltimore to live again in the family of Master Hugh. Their joy at my return equalled their sorrow at my departure. It was a glad day to me. I had escaped a fate worse than Lyon's jaws. I was absent from Baltimore for the purpose of valuation and division just about one month, and it seemed to have been six. Very soon after my return to Baltimore, my mistress Lucretia died, leaving her husband in one child, Amanda, and in a very short time after her death, Master Andrew died. Now all the property of my old master, slaves included, was in the hands of strangers, strangers who had had nothing to do with accumulating it. Not a slave was left free. All remained slaves from the youngest to the oldest. If any one thing in my experience, more than another, served to deepen my conviction of the infernal character of slavery, and to fill me with unutterable loathing of slaveholders, 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 peopled his plantation with slaves. She had become a great grandmother in his service. She had rocked him in infancy, attended him in childhood, served him through life, and at his death wiped from his icy brow the cold death sweat, and closed his eyes forever. She was nevertheless left of slave, a slave for a life, a slave in the hands of strangers, and in their hands she saw her children, her grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren divided like so many sheep without being gratified with the small privilege of a single word, as to their 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 wracked with the pains of old age, and complete helplessness fast stealing over her once active limbs, they took her to the woods, built her a little hut, put up a little mud chimney, and then made her welcome to the privilege of supporting herself there in perfect loneliness, thus virtually turning her out to die. If my poor old grandmother now lives, she lives to suffer an 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 slave's poet Whittier, gone, gone, sold, and gone, to the rice swamp, dank, and lone, where the slave whip ceaseless swings, where the noisome insect stings, where the fever demons trues poison with the following 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 waterers, woe is me, my soul and daughters. The hearth is desolate, the children, the unconscious children, who once sang and danced in her presence, 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 she screams of the hideous owl. All is gloom. The grave is at the door, and now, when weighed down by the pains and aches of old age, when the head inclines to the feet, when the beginning and ending of human existence meet, and helpless infancy and painful age combine together at this time this most needful time, the time for the exercise of that tenderness and affection which children only can exercise towards a declining parent. My poor old grandmother, the devoted mother of twelve children, is left all alone in yonder little hut before a few dim embers. She stands, she sits, she staggers, she falls, she groans, she dies, and there are none of her children or grandchildren present to wipe from her wrinkled brow the cold sweat of death, or to place beneath the sod her fallen remains. Will not a righteous God visit for these things? In about two years after the death of Mrs. Lucretia, Master Thomas married his second wife. Her name was Rowena Hamilton. She was the eldest daughter of Mr. William Hamilton. Master now lived in St. Michael's. Not long after his marriage, a misunderstanding took place between himself and Master Hugh, and as a means of punishing his brother, he took me from him to live with himself at St. Michael's. Here I underwent another most painful separation. It, however, was not so severe as the one I dreaded at the division of property. For during this interval a great change had taken place in Master Hugh and his once-kind and affectionate wife. The influence of Brandy upon him and of slavery upon her had affected a disastrous change in the characters of both, so that, as far as they were concerned, I thought I had little to lose by the change. But it was not to them that I was attached. It was to those little Baltimore boys that I felt the strongest attachment. I had received many good lessons from them, and was still receiving them, and the thought of leaving them was painful indeed. I was leaving too without the hope of ever being allowed to return. Master Thomas had said he would never let me return again. The barrier between himself and brother he considered impassable. I then had to regret that I did not at least make the attempt to carry out my resolution to run away, for the chances of success are tenfold greater from the city than from the country. I sailed from Baltimore for St. Michael's in the Salute Amanda, Captain Edward Dodson. On my passage, I paid particular attention to the direction which the seamboats took to go to Philadelphia. I found, instead of going down on reaching North Point, they went up the bay in a northeasterly direction. I deemed this knowledge of the utmost importance. My determination to run away was again revived. I resolved to wait only so long as the offering of a favorable opportunity. When that came, I was determined to be off.