 | Incidents in the life of a slave girl |  |
XL.
THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.
My brother, being disappointed in his project, concluded
to go to California; and it was agreed that
Benjamin should go with him. Ellen liked her school,
and was a great favorite there. They did not know
her history, and she did not tell it, because she had no
desire to make capital out of their sympathy. But
when it was accidentally discovered that her mother
was a fugitive slave, every method was used to increase
her advantages and diminish her expenses.
I was alone again. It was necessary for me to be
earning money, and I preferred that it should be among
those who knew me. On my return from Rochester,
I called at the house of Mr. Bruce, to see Mary, the
darling little babe that had thawed my heart, when it
was freezing into a cheerless distrust of all my fellow-beings.
She was growing a tall girl now, but I loved
her always. Mr. Bruce had married again, and it was
proposed that I should become nurse to a new infant.
I had but one hesitation, and that was my feeling of
insecurity in New York, now greatly increased by the
passage of the Fugitive Slave Law. However, I resolved
to try the experiment. I was again fortunate
in my employer. The new Mrs. Bruce was an American,
brought up under aristocratic influences, and still
living in the midst of them; but if she had any prejudice
against color, I was never made aware of it;
dislike of it. No sophistry of Southerners could blind
her to its enormity. She was a person of excellent
principles and a noble heart. To me, from that hour
to the present, she has been a true and sympathizing
friend. Blessings be with her and hers!
About the time that I reëntered the Bruce family,
an event occurred of disastrous import to the colored
people. The slave Hamlin, the first fugitive that came
under the new law, was given up by the bloodhounds
of the north to the bloodhounds of the south. It was
the beginning of a reign of terror to the colored population.
The great city rushed on in its whirl of excitement,
taking no note of the “short and simple
annals of the poor.” But while fashionables were
listening to the thrilling voice of Jenny Lind in Metropolitan
Hall, the thrilling voices of poor hunted
colored people went up, in an agony of supplication, to
the Lord, from Zion's church. Many families, who had
lived in the city for twenty years, fled from it now.
Many a poor washerwoman, who, by hard labor, had
made herself a comfortable home, was obliged to sacrifice
her furniture, bid a hurried farewell to friends,
and seek her fortune among strangers in Canada.
Many a wife discovered a secret she had never known
before — that her husband was a fugitive, and must
leave her to insure his own safety. Worse still, many
a husband discovered that his wife had fled from slavery
years ago, and as “the child follows the condition
of its mother,” the children of his love were liable to
be seized and carried into slavery. Every where, in
those humble homes, there was consternation and
race” for the blood they were crushing out of
trampled hearts?
When my brother William spent his last evening
with me, before he went to California, we talked nearly
all the time of the distress brought on our oppressed
people by the passage of this iniquitous law; and never
had I seen him manifest such bitterness of spirit,
such stern hostility to our oppressors. He was himself
free from the operation of the law; for he did not
run from any Slaveholding State, being brought into
the Free States by his master. But I was subject to it;
and so were hundreds of intelligent and industrious
people all around us. I seldom ventured into the
streets; and when it was necessary to do an errand for
Mrs. Bruce, or any of the family, I went as much as
possible through back streets and by-ways. What a
disgrace to a city calling itself free, that inhabitants,
guiltless of offence, and seeking to perform their duties
conscientiously, should be condemned to live in such
incessant fear, and have nowhere to turn for protection!
This state of things, of course, gave rise to many impromptu
vigilance committees. Every colored person,
and every friend of their persecuted race, kept their
eyes wide open. Every evening I examined the newspapers
carefully, to see what Southerners had put up
at the hotels. I did this for my own sake, thinking
my young mistress and her husband might be among
the list; I wished also to give information to others,
if necessary; for if many were “running to and fro,”
I resolved that “knowledge should be increased.”
This brings up one of my Southern reminiscences,
with a slave named Luke, who belonged to a
wealthy man in our vicinity. His master died, leaving
a son and daughter heirs to his large fortune. In the
division of the slaves, Luke was included in the son's
portion. This young man became a prey to the vices
growing out of the “patriarchal institution,” and when
he went to the north, to complete his education, he
carried his vices with him. He was brought home, deprived
of the use of his limbs, by excessive dissipation.
Luke was appointed to wait upon his bed-ridden master,
whose despotic habits were greatly increased by
exasperation at his own helplessness. He kept a cowhide
beside him, and, for the most trivial occurrence,
he would order his attendant to bare his back, and
kneel beside the couch, while he whipped him till his
strength was exhausted. Some days he was not allowed
to wear any thing but his shirt, in order to be
in readiness to be flogged. A day seldom passed without
his receiving more or less blows. If the slightest
resistance was offered, the town constable was sent for
to execute the punishment, and Luke learned from
experience how much more the constable's strong arm
was to be dreaded than the comparatively feeble one
of his master. The arm of his tyrant grew weaker,
and was finally palsied; and then the constable's services
were in constant requisition. The fact that he
was entirely dependent on Luke's care, and was obliged
to be tended like an infant, instead of inspiring any
gratitude or compassion towards his poor slave, seemed
only to increase his irritability and cruelty. As he
lay there on his bed, a mere degraded wreck of manhood,
and if Luke hesitated to submit to his orders,
the constable was immediately sent for. Some of these
freaks were of a nature too filthy to be repeated.
When I fled from the house of bondage, I left poor
Luke still chained to the bedside of this cruel and disgusting
wretch.
One day, when I had been requested to do an errand
for Mrs. Bruce, I was hurrying through back streets,
as usual, when I saw a young man approaching, whose
face was familiar to me. As he came nearer, I recognized
Luke. I always rejoiced to see or hear of any
one who had escaped from the black pit; but, remembering
this poor fellow's extreme hardships, I was
peculiarly glad to see him on Northern soil, though I
no longer called it free soil. I well remembered what
a desolate feeling it was to be alone among strangers,
and I went up to him and greeted him cordially. At
first, he did not know me; but when I mentioned my
name, he remembered all about me. I told him of
the Fugitive Slave Law, and asked him if he did not
know that New York was a city of kidnappers.
He replied, “De risk ain't so bad for me, as 'tis fur
you. 'Cause I runned away from de speculator, and
you runned away from de massa. Dem speculators
vont spen dar money to come here fur a runaway, if
dey ain't sartin sure to put dar hans right on him. An.
I tell you I's tuk good car 'bout dat. I had too hard
times down dar, to let 'em ketch dis nigger.”
He then told me of the advice he had received, and
the plans he had laid. I asked if he had money
enough to take him to Canada. “'Pend upon it, I
all my days fur dem cussed whites, an got no pay but
kicks and cuffs. So I tought dis nigger had a right to
money nuff to bring him to de Free States. Massa
Henry he lib till ebery body vish him dead; an ven
he did die, I knowed de debbil would hab him, an
vouldn't vant him to bring his money 'long too. So
I tuk some of his bills, and put 'em in de pocket of
his ole trousers. An ven he was buried, dis nigger
ask fur dem ole trousers, an dey gub 'em to me.”
With a low, chuckling laugh, he added, “You see I
didn't steal it; dey gub it to me. I tell you, I had
mighty hard time to keep de speculator from findin
it; but he didn't git it.”
This is a fair specimen of how the moral sense is
educated by slavery. When a man has his wages
stolen from him, year after year, and the laws sanction
and enforce the theft, how can he be expected to have
more regard to honesty than has the man who robs
him? I have become somewhat enlightened, but I
confess that I agree with poor, ignorant, much-abused
Luke, in thinking he had a right to that money, as a
portion of his unpaid wages. He went to Canada forth-with,
and, I have not since heard from him.
All that winter I lived in a state of anxiety. When
I took the children out to breathe the air, I closely
observed the countenances of all I met. I dreaded
the approach of summer, when snakes and slaveholders
make their appearance. I was, in fact, a slave in
New York, as subject to slave laws as I had been in a
Slave State. Strange incongruity in a State called free!
Spring returned, and I received warning from the
place, and was making preparations to have me caught.
I learned afterwards that my dress, and that of Mrs.
Bruce's children, had been described to him by some
of the Northern tools, which slaveholders employ for
their base purposes, and then indulge in sneers at their
cupidity and mean servility.
I immediately informed Mrs. Bruce of my danger,
and she took prompt measures for my safety. My
place as nurse could not be supplied immediately, and
this generous, sympathizing lady proposed that I should
carry her baby away. It was a comfort to me to have
the child with me; for the heart is reluctant to be
torn away from every object it loves. But how few
mothers would have consented to have one of their
own babes become a fugitive, for the sake of a poor,
hunted nurse, on whom the legislators of the country
had let loose the bloodhounds! When I spoke of the
sacrifice she was making, in depriving herself of her
dear baby, she replied, “It is better for you to have
baby with you, Linda; for if they get on your track,
they will be obliged to bring the child to me; and then,
if there is a possibility of saving you, you shall be
saved.”
This lady had a very wealthy relative, a benevolent
gentleman in many respects, but aristocratic and pro-slavery.
He remonstrated with her for harboring a
fugitive slave; told her she was violating the laws of
her country; and asked her if she was aware of the
penalty. She replied, “I am very well aware of it.
It is imprisonment and one thousand dollars fine.
Shame on my country that it is so! I am ready to
rather than have any poor victim torn from my house,
to be carried back to slavery.”
The noble heart! The brave heart! The tears are
in my eyes while I write of her. May the God of the
helpless reward her for her sympathy with my persecuted
people!
I was sent into New England, where I was sheltered
by the wife of a senator, whom I shall always hold in
grateful remembrance. This honorable gentleman
would not have voted for the Fugitive Slave Law, as
did the senator in “Uncle Tom's Cabin;” on the
contrary, he was strongly opposed to it; but he was
enough under its influence to be afraid of having me
remain in his house many hours. So I was sent into
the country, where I remained a month with the baby.
When it was supposed that Dr. Flint's emissaries had
lost track of me, and given up the pursuit for the
present, I returned to New York.
| Incidents in the life of a slave girl | |