10. CHAPTER X.
LIFE IN BALTIMORE.
CITY ANNOYANCES—PLANTATION REGRETS—MY MISTRESS, MISS SOPHA—HER
HISTORY—HER KINDNESS TO ME—MY MASTER, HUGH AULD—HIS SOURNESS—MY INCREASED SENSITIVENESS—MY COMFORTS—MY OCCUPATION—THE BANEFUL EFFECTS OF SLAVEHOLDING ON MY DEAR AND GOOD MISTRESS—HOW SHE
COMMENCED TEACHING ME TO READ—WHY SHE CEASED TEACHING ME—CLOUDS
GATHERING OVER MY BRIGHT PROSPECTS—MASTER AULD'S EXPOSITION OF
THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF SLAVERY—CITY SLAVES—PLANTATION SLAVES—THE CONTRAST—EXCEPTIONS—MR. HAMILTON'S TWO SLAVES, HENRIETTA
AND MARY—MRS. HAMILTON'S CRUEL TREATMENT OF THEM—THE PITEOUS
ASPECT THEY PRESENTED—NO POWER MUST COME BETWEEN THE SLAVE AND
THE SLAVEHOLDER.
Once in Baltimore, with hard brick pavements under my
feet, which almost raised blisters, by their very heat, for it
was in the height of summer; walled in on all sides by towering
brick buildings; with troops of hostile boys ready to pounce upon
me at every street corner; with new and strange objects glaring
upon me at every step, and with startling sounds reaching my ears
from all directions, I for a time thought that, after all, the
home plantation was a more desirable place of residence than my
home on Alliciana street, in Baltimore. My country eyes and ears
were confused and bewildered here; but the boys were my chief
trouble. They chased me, and called me "Eastern Shore
man," till really I almost wished myself back on the Eastern
Shore. I had to undergo a sort
of moral acclimation, and when
that was over, I did much better. My new mistress happily proved
to be all she
seemed to be, when, with her husband, she
met me at the door, with a most
beaming, benignant countenance. She was, naturally, of an
excellent disposition, kind, gentle and cheerful. The
supercilious contempt for the rights and feelings of the slave,
and the petulance and bad humor which generally characterize
slaveholding ladies, were all quite absent from kind "Miss"
Sophia's manner and bearing toward me. She had, in truth, never
been a slaveholder, but had—a thing quite unusual in the south—depended almost entirely upon her own industry for a living. To
this fact the dear lady, no doubt, owed the excellent preservation of her natural goodness of heart, for slavery can change a
saint into a sinner, and an angel into a demon. I hardly knew
how to behave toward "Miss Sopha," as I used to call Mrs. Hugh
Auld. I had been treated as a
pig on the plantation; I
was treated as a
child now. I could not even approach her
as I had formerly approached Mrs. Thomas Auld. How could I hang
down my head, and speak with bated breath, when there was no
pride to scorn me, no coldness to repel me, and no hatred to
inspire me with fear? I therefore soon learned to regard her as
something more akin to a mother, than a slaveholding mistress.
The crouching servility of a slave, usually so acceptable a
quality to the haughty slaveholder, was not understood nor
desired by this gentle woman. So far from deeming it impudent in
a slave to look her straight in the face, as some slaveholding
ladies do, she seemed ever to say, "look up,
child; don't be
afraid; see, I am full of kindness and good will toward you."
The hands belonging to Col. Lloyd's sloop, esteemed it a great
privilege to be the bearers of parcels or messages to my new
mistress; for whenever they came, they were sure of a most kind
and pleasant reception. If little Thomas was her son, and her
most dearly beloved child, she, for a time, at least, made me
something like his half-brother in her affections. If dear Tommy
was exalted to a place on his mother's knee, "Feddy" was honored
by a place at his mother's side. Nor did he lack the caressing
strokes of her gentle hand, to convince him that, though
motherless, he was not
friendless. Mrs. Auld
was not only a kind-hearted woman, but she was remarkably
pious; frequent in her attendance of public worship, much given
to reading the bible, and to chanting hymns of praise, when
alone. Mr. Hugh Auld was altogether a different character. He
cared very little about religion, knew more of the world, and was
more of the world, than his wife. He set out, doubtless to be—as the world goes—a respectable man, and to get on by becoming a
successful ship builder, in that city of ship building. This was
his ambition, and it fully occupied him. I was, of course, of
very little consequence to him, compared with what I was to good
Mrs. Auld; and, when he smiled upon me, as he sometimes did, the
smile was borrowed from his lovely wife, and, like all borrowed
light, was transient, and vanished with the source whence it was
derived. While I must characterize Master Hugh as being a very
sour man, and of forbidding appearance, it is due to him to
acknowledge, that he was never
very cruel to me, according to the
notion of cruelty in Maryland. The first year or two which I
spent in his house, he left me almost exclusively to the management of his wife. She was my law-giver. In hands so tender as
hers, and in the absence of the cruelties of the plantation, I
became, both physically and mentally, much more sensitive to good
and ill treatment; and, perhaps, suffered more from a frown from
my mistress, than I formerly did from a cuff at the hands of Aunt
Katy. Instead of the cold, damp floor of my old master's
kitchen, I found myself on carpets; for the corn bag in winter, I
now had a good straw bed, well furnished with covers; for the
coarse corn-meal in the morning, I now had good bread, and mush
occasionally; for my poor tow-lien shirt, reaching to my knees, I
had good, clean clothes. I was really well off. My employment
was to run errands, and to take care of Tommy; to prevent his
getting in the way of carriages, and to keep him out of harm's
way generally. Tommy, and I, and his mother, got on swimmingly
together, for a time. I say
for a time, because the fatal
poison of irresponsible power, and the natural influence
of slavery customs, were not long in making a
suitable impression on the gentle and loving disposition of my
excellent mistress. At first, Mrs. Auld evidently regarded me
simply as a child, like any other child; she had not come to
regard me as
property. This latter thought was a thing of
conventional growth. The first was natural and spontaneous. A
noble nature, like hers, could not, instantly, be wholly
perverted; and it took several years to change the natural
sweetness of her
temper into fretful bitterness. In her worst
estate, however, there were, during the first seven years I lived
with her, occasional returns of her former kindly disposition.
The frequent hearing of my mistress reading the bible for
she often read aloud when her husband was absent soon awakened my
curiosity in respect to this mystery of reading, and
roused in me the desire to learn. Having no fear of my kind
mistress before my eyes, (she had then given me no reason to
fear,) I frankly asked her to teach me to read; and, without
hesitation, the dear woman began the task, and very soon, by her
assistance, I was master of the alphabet, and could spell words
of three or four letters. My mistress seemed almost as proud of
my progress, as if I had been her own child; and, supposing that
her husband would be as well pleased, she made no secret of what
she was doing for me. Indeed, she exultingly told him of the
aptness of her pupil, of her intention to persevere in teaching
me, and of the duty which she felt it to teach me, at least to
read the bible. Here arose the first cloud over my
Baltimore prospects, the precursor of drenching rains and
chilling blasts.
Master Hugh was amazed at the simplicity of his spouse,
and, probably for the first time, he unfolded to her the true
philosophy of slavery, and the peculiar rules necessary to be
observed by masters and mistresses, in the management of their
human chattels. Mr. Auld promptly forbade continuance of her
instruction; telling her, in the first place, that the thing
itself was unlawful; that it was also unsafe, and could only lead
to mischief. To use his own words,
further, he said, "if
you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell;" "he should know
nothing but the will of his master, and learn to obey it." "if
you teach that nigger—speaking of myself—how to read the bible,
there will be no keeping him;" "it would forever unfit him for
the duties of a slave;" and "as to himself, learning would do him
no good, but probably, a great deal of harm—making him
disconsolate and unhappy." "If you learn him now to read, he'll
want to know how to write; and, this accomplished, he'll be
running away with himself." Such was the tenor of Master Hugh's
oracular exposition of the true philosophy of training a human
chattel; and it must be confessed that he very clearly
comprehended the nature and the requirements of the relation of
master and slave. His discourse was the first decidedly anti-slavery lecture to which it had been my lot to listen. Mrs. Auld
evidently felt the force of his remarks; and, like an obedient
wife, began to shape her course in the direction indicated by her
husband. The effect of his words,
on me, was neither
slight nor transitory. His iron sentences—cold and harsh—sunk
deep into my heart, and stirred up not only my feelings into a
sort of rebellion, but awakened within me a slumbering train of
vital thought. It was a new and special revelation, dispelling a
painful mystery, against which my youthful understanding had
struggled, and struggled in vain, to wit: the
white man's
power to perpetuate the enslavement of the
black man.
"Very well," thought I; "knowledge unfits a child to be a slave."
I instinctively assented to the proposition;
and from that moment
I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom. This
was just what I needed; and I got it at a time, and from a
source, whence I least expected it. I was saddened at the
thought of losing the assistance of my kind mistress; but the
information, so instantly derived, to some extent compensated me
for the loss I had sustained in this direction. Wise as Mr. Auld
was, he evidently underrated my comprehension, and had little
idea of the use to which I was capable of putting
the impressive lesson he was giving to
his wife.
He wanted me to be
a slave; I had
already voted against that on the home plantation of Col. Lloyd.
That which he most loved I most hated; and the very determination
which he expressed to keep me in ignorance, only rendered me the
more resolute in seeking intelligence. In learning to read,
therefore, I am not sure that I do not owe quite as much to the
opposition of my master, as to the kindly assistance of my
amiable mistress. I acknowledge the benefit rendered me by the
one, and by the other; believing, that but for my mistress, I
might have grown up in ignorance.
I had resided but a short time in Baltimore, before I
observed a marked difference in the manner of treating slaves,
generally, from which I had witnessed in that isolated and out-of-the-way part of the country where I began life. A city slave
is almost a free citizen, in Baltimore, compared with a slave on
Col. Lloyd's plantation. He is much better fed and clothed, is
less dejected in his appearance, and enjoys privileges altogether
unknown to the whip-driven slave on the plantation. Slavery
dislikes a dense population,
in which there is a majority of non-slaveholders. The general sense of decency that must pervade
such a population, does much to check and prevent those outbreaks
of atrocious cruelty, and those dark crimes without a name,
almost openly perpetrated on the plantation. He is a desperate
slaveholder who will shock the humanity of his non-slaveholding
neighbors, by the cries of the lacerated slaves; and very few in
the city are willing to incur the odium of being cruel masters.
I found, in Baltimore, that no man was more odious to the white,
as well as to the colored people, than he, who had the reputation
of starving his slaves. Work them, flog them, if need be, but
don't starve them. These are, however, some painful exceptions
to this rule. While it is quite true that most of the
slaveholders in Baltimore feed and clothe their slaves well,
there are others who keep up their country cruelties in the city.
An instance of this sort is furnished in the case of a
family who lived directly opposite to our house, and were
named Hamilton. Mrs. Hamilton owned two slaves. Their names
were Henrietta and Mary. They had always been house slaves. One
was aged about twenty-two, and the other about fourteen. They
were a fragile couple by nature, and the treatment they received
was enough to break down the constitution of a horse. Of all the
dejected, emaciated, mangled and excoriated creatures I ever saw,
those two girls—in the refined, church going and Christian city
of Baltimore were the most deplorable. Of stone must that heart
be made, that could look upon Henrietta and Mary, without being
sickened
to the core with sadness. Especially was Mary a heart-sickening object. Her head, neck and shoulders, were literally
cut to pieces. I have frequently felt her head, and found it
nearly covered over with festering sores, caused by the lash of
her cruel mistress. I do not know that her master ever whipped
her, but I have often been an eye witness of the revolting and
brutal inflictions by Mrs. Hamilton; and what lends a deeper
shade to this woman's conduct, is the fact, that, almost in the
very moments of her shocking outrages of humanity and decency,
she would charm you by the sweetness of her voice and her seeming
piety. She used to sit in a large rocking chair, near the middle
of the room, with a heavy cowskin, such as I have elsewhere
described; and I speak within the truth when I say, that these
girls seldom passed that chair, during the day, without a blow
from that cowskin, either upon their bare arms, or upon their
shoulders. As they passed her, she would draw her cowskin and
give them a blow, saying,
"move faster, you black jip!"
and, again,
"take that, you black jip!" continuing,
"if
you don't move faster, I will give you more." Then the lady
would go on, singing her sweet hymns, as though her
righteous soul were sighing for the holy realms of
paradise.
Added to the cruel lashings to which these poor slave-girls were subjected—enough in themselves to crush the spirit of
men—they were, really, kept nearly half starved; they seldom
knew what it was to
eat a full meal, except when they got it in the kitchens of
neighbors, less mean and stingy than the
psalm-singing Mrs.
Hamilton. I have seen poor Mary contending for the offal, with
the pigs in the street. So much was the poor girl pinched,
kicked, cut and pecked to pieces, that the boys in the street
knew her only by the name of
"pecked," a name derived from
the scars and blotches on her neck, head and shoulders.
It is some relief to this picture of slavery in Baltimore,
to say—what is but the simple truth—that Mrs. Hamilton's
treatment of her slaves was generally condemned, as disgraceful
and shocking; but while I say this, it must also be remembered,
that the very parties who censured the cruelty of Mrs. Hamilton,
would have condemned and promptly punished any attempt to
interfere with Mrs. Hamilton's right to cut and slash her
slaves to pieces. There must be no force between the slave and
the slaveholder, to restrain the power of the one, and protect
the weakness of the other; and the cruelty of Mrs. Hamilton is as
justly chargeable to the upholders of the slave system, as
drunkenness is chargeable on those who, by precept and example,
or by indifference, uphold the drinking system.