University of Virginia Library

Introduction by the Editor.

The author of the following autobiography is personally
known to me, and her conversation and manners
inspire me with confidence. During the last
seventeen years, she has lived the greater part of
the time with a distinguished family in New York,
and has so deported herself as to be highly esteemed
by them. This fact is sufficient, without further credentials
of her character. I believe those who know
her will not be disposed to doubt her veracity,
though some incidents in her story are more romantic
than fiction.

At her request, I have revised her manuscript; but
such changes as I have made have been mainly for
purposes of condensation and orderly arrangement. I
have not added any thing to the incidents, or changed
the import of her very pertinent remarks. With
trifling exceptions, both the ideas and the language
are her own. I pruned excrescences a little, but
otherwise I had no reason for changing her lively
and dramatic way of telling her own story. The
names of both persons and places are known to me;
but for good reasons I suppress them.

It will naturally excite surprise that a woman reared
in Slavery should be able to write so well. But circumstances

will explain this. In the first place, nature
endowed her with quick perceptions. Secondly,
the mistress, with whom she lived till she was twelve
years old, was a kind, considerate friend, who taught
her to read and spell. Thirdly, she was placed in favorable
circumstances after she came to the North;
having frequent intercourse with intelligent persons,
who felt a friendly interest in her welfare, and were
disposed to give her opportunities for self-improvement.

I am well aware that many will accuse me of indecorum
for presenting these pages to the public; for
the experiences of this intelligent and much-injured
woman belong to a class which some call delicate
subjects, and others indelicate. This peculiar phase of
Slavery has generally been kept veiled; but the public
ought to be made acquainted with its monstrous
features, and I willingly take the responsibility of presenting
them with the veil withdrawn. I do this for
the sake of my sisters in bondage, who are suffering
wrongs so foul, that our ears are too delicate to listen
to them. I do it with the hope of arousing conscientious
and reflecting women at the North to a
sense of their duty in the exertion of moral influence
on the question of Slavery, on all possible occasions.
I do it with the hope that every man who
reads this narrative will swear solemnly before God
that, so far as he has power to prevent it, no fugitive
from Slavery shall ever be sent back to suffer in
that loathsome den of corruption and cruelty.