Chapter XI: Part 11

The sequel to my story is sad, but most instructive. It will show how demoralizing, dehumanizing it has been and must be to hold human beings, fellow-men, as property, chattels; that, as Cowper wrote long ago, “it were better to be a slave and wear the chains, than to fasten them on another.”

How to compass the purpose which had thus been so forcibly fixed in my heart required some device. It would not have done for Sanford himself to have gone for his mother. That would have been like going into the den of an angry tiger. No sin that a slave could commit was so unpardonable then, in the estimation of a slaveholder, as running away.

I did not, until five years afterwards, become acquainted with that remarkable woman, _Harriet Tubman_, or I might have engaged her services in the assurance that she would have brought off the old woman without _paying_ for what belonged to her by an inalienable right,--_her liberty_.

I therefore soon determined to intrust the undertaking to John Needles, of Baltimore, a most excellent man and member of the Society of Friends. Accordingly, I wrote to him, giving all the particulars of the case,--the name of the town in Virginia where the slave-woman was supposed to be still living, usually called Aunt Bess or Old Bess, and the name of the planter who held her as his chattel. I promised to send him the three hundred dollars which Sanford had put at my disposal, and more, if more would be needed, so soon as he should inform me that he had gotten or could get possession of the woman.

After six or eight weeks I received a letter, informing me that he had secured the ready assistance of a very suitable man,--a Quaker, residing in the town of W----, not far from the plantation on which was still living the mother of Sanford, an old woman in pretty good health. But alas! his endeavor to purchase her had been utterly unavailing. He had approached the business as warily as he knew how to. Yet almost instantly the truth had been seen by the jealous eyes of the planter, through the disguise the Quaker had attempted to throw around it. “You don’t want that old black wench for yourself,” said the master. “She would be of no use to you. You want to get her for Sanford. And, damn him, he can’t have her, unless he comes for her himself. And then, I reckon, I shall let Old Bess have him, and not let him have her. He may stay here where he belongs, the damned runaway!” No entreaty or argument the Quaker used seemed to move the master. Even the offer of two hundred dollars and two hundred and fifty dollars--much more than the market value of the old woman--was spurned. It was better to him than money to punish the runaway slave through his disappointed affections, now that he could not do it by lacerating his back or putting him in irons.

I need not attempt to describe the sorrow and vexation of the son thus wantonly denied the satisfaction of contributing to the comfort of his mother through the few last days of her life, in which her services could have been of little or no worth to the tyrant. Nor need I measure for my readers the vast _moral superiority_ of the poor black man, who had been the slave, to the rich white man, who had been the master.

DISTINGUISHED COLORED MEN.

I have given above some instances of exalted _moral_ excellence which greatly increased my regard for colored men,--instances of self-sacrificing benevolence, of rigid adherence to a promise under the strongest temptation to break it, and of their inestimable value of liberty. I wish now to tell of several colored men who have given us abundant evidences of their mental power and executive ability.

DAVID RUGGLES, LEWIS HAYDEN, AND WILLIAM C. NELL.

David Ruggles first became known to me as a most active, adventurous, and daring conductor on the underground railroad. He helped six hundred slaves to escape from one and another of the Southern States into Canada, or to places of security this side of the St. Lawrence. So great were the dangers to which he was often exposed, so severe the labors and hardships he often incurred, and so intense the excitement into which he was sometimes thrown, that his eyes became seriously diseased, and he lost entirely the sight of them. For a while he was obliged to depend for his livelihood upon the contributions of his antislavery friends, which they gave much more cheerfully than he received them. Dependence was irksome to his enterprising spirit. So soon, therefore, as his health, in other respects, was sufficiently restored, he eagerly inquired for some employment by which, notwithstanding his blindness, he could be useful to others and gain a support for himself and family. Having a strong inclination to, and not a little tact and experience in the curative art, he determined to attempt the management of a Water-cure Hospital. He was assisted to obtain the lease of suitable accommodations in or near Northampton, and conducted his establishment with great skill and good success, I believe, until his death.

Lewis Hayden and William C. Nell were active, devoted young colored men, who, in the early days of our antislavery enterprise, rendered us valuable services in various ways. The latter--Mr. Nell--especially assisted in making arrangements for our meetings, gathering important and pertinent information, and sometimes addressing our meetings very acceptably. He was always careful in preserving valuable facts and documents, and grew to be esteemed so highly for his fidelity and carefulness, that, when the Hon. J. G. Palfrey came to be the Postmaster of Boston, he appointed W. C. Nell one of his clerks; and, if I mistake not, he retains that situation to this day.

JAMES FORTEN.

While at the Convention in Philadelphia, in 1833, I became acquainted with two colored gentlemen who interested me deeply,--Mr. James Forten and Mr. Robert Purvis. The former, then nearly sixty years of age, was evidently a man of commanding mind, and well informed. He had for many years carried on the largest private sail-making establishment in that city, having at times forty men in his employ, most, if not all of them, white men. He was much respected by them, and by all with whom he had any business transactions, among whom were many of the prominent merchants of Philadelphia. He had acquired wealth, and he lived in as handsome a style as any one should wish to live. I dined at his table with several members of the Convention, and two English gentlemen who had recently come to our country on some philanthropic mission. We were entertained with as much ease and elegance as I could desire to see. Of course, the conversation was, for the most part, on topics relating to our antislavery conflict. The Colonization scheme came up for consideration, and I shall never forget Mr. Forten’s scathing satire. Among other things he said: “My great-grandfather was brought to this country a slave from Africa. My grandfather obtained his own freedom. My father never wore the yoke. He rendered valuable services to his country in the war of our Revolution; and I, though then a boy, was a drummer in that war. I was taken prisoner, and was made to suffer not a little on board the Jersey prison-ship. I have since lived and labored in a useful employment, have acquired property, and have paid taxes in this city. Here I have dwelt until I am nearly sixty years of age, and have brought up and educated a family, as you see, thus far. Yet some ingenious gentlemen have recently discovered that I am still an African; that a continent, three thousand miles, and more, from the place where I was born, is my native country. And I am advised to go home. Well, it may be so. Perhaps, if I should only be set on the shore of that distant land, I should recognize all I might see there, and run at once to the old hut where my forefathers lived a hundred years ago.” His tone of voice, his whole manner, sharpened the edge of his sarcasm. It was irresistible. And the laugh which it at first awakened soon gave way to an expression, on every countenance, of that ineffable contempt which he evidently felt for the pretence of the Colonization Society. At the table sat his excellent, motherly wife, and his lovely, accomplished daughters,--all with himself somewhat under the ban of that accursed American prejudice, which is the offspring of slavery. I learnt from him that their education, evidently of a superior kind, had cost him very much more than it would have done, if they had not been denied admission into the best schools of the city.

Soon after dinner we all left the house to attend a meeting of the Philadelphia Female Antislavery Society. It was my privilege to escort one of the Misses Forten to the place of meeting. What was my surprise, when, on my return to Boston, I learnt that this action of mine had been noticed and reported at home. “Is it true, Mr. May,” said a lady to me, “that you walked in the streets of Philadelphia with a colored girl?” “I did,” was my reply, “and should be happy to do it again. And I wish that all the white young ladies of my acquaintance were as sensible, well educated, refined, and handsome withal as Miss Forten.” This was too bad, and I was set down as one of the incorrigibles.

MR. ROBERT PURVIS

was then an elegant, a brilliant young gentleman, well educated and wealthy. He was so nearly white that he was generally taken to be so. I first saw and heard him in our Antislavery Convention in Philadelphia. I was attracted to him by his fervid eloquence, and was surprised at the intimation, which fell from his lips, that he belonged to the proscribed, disfranchised class. Away from the neighborhood of his birth he might easily have passed as a white man. Indeed, I was told he had travelled much in stage-coaches, and stopped days and weeks at Saratoga and other fashionable summer resorts, and mingled, without question, among the beaux and belles, regarded by the latter as one of the most attractive of his sex. Robert Purvis, therefore, might have removed to any part of our country, far distant from Philadelphia, and have lived as one of the self-styled superior race. But, rather than forsake his kindred, or try to conceal the secret of his birth, he magnanimously chose to bear the unjust reproach, the cruel wrongs of the colored people, although he has been more annoyed, chafed, exasperated by them than any other one I have ever met with. Indeed, he seems to have grown more impatient and irascible as the heavy burden of his people has been lightened. Because all their rights have not been accorded to them, he sometimes seems to deny that any of their rights have been recognized. Because the _elective franchise_ is still meanly withheld from them in some of the States, he will hardly acknowledge that _slavery_ has been abolished throughout the land,--a glorious triumph in the cause of humanity, which his own eloquence and pecuniary contributions have helped to achieve. But we must make the largest allowance for Mr. Purvis. No man of conscious power and high spirit, who has not felt the gnawing, rasping, burning of a cruel stigma, can conceive how hard it is to bear.

WILLIAM WELLS BROWN

has distinguished himself as a diligent agent and able antislavery lecturer in this country and throughout Great Britain and Ireland. He has also published books that have been highly creditable to him as an author.

CHARLES LENOX REMOND,

when quite a young man, became a frequent and effective speaker in our meetings. In 1838 or 1839 he was appointed an agent of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society, in which capacity he rendered abundant and very valuable services. He spent the greater part of the year 1841 in Great Britain and Ireland. He lectured in many of the most important places throughout the United Kingdom. Everywhere he drew large audiences, and was much commended and admired for the pertinence of his facts, the cogency of his arguments, and the fire of his eloquence. In _The Liberator_ for November 19, 1841, there was copied from a Dublin paper a speech which Mr. Remond had then recently made to a large and most respectable audience in that city. Mr. Garrison commended it to his readers as “a very eloquent production, worthy of careful perusal and high commendation. Let those,” he added, “who are ever disposed to deny the possession of genius, talent, and eloquence by the colored man read that speech, and acknowledge their meanness and injustice.”

REV. J. W. LOGUEN.

Soon after I removed to Syracuse, in 1845, I became acquainted with the Rev. J. W. Loguen, then a school-teacher, and for several years since minister of the African Methodist Church here. His personal history is a remarkable one, revealing at times no little force of character. He was born in Tennessee, the slave of an ignorant, intemperate, and brutal slaveholder. He witnessed the sale of several of his mother’s children, her frantic but unavailing resistance, the horrible scourging she endured without releasing them from her embrace, and her agonizing grief when they were at last violently torn from her. Twice he was himself beaten nearly to death,--left bleeding and senseless, to be comforted and brought back to life by the care of his fond mother. At last he saw his sister (after a terrible fight with the ruffian slave-traders to whom she had been sold) subdued, manacled, and forced away, screaming for her children, imploring at least that she might have her infant. He could endure his bondage no longer. He resolved to escape to the land of the free, and there earn the means and find the way to bring his mother to partake with him of the blessings of liberty. He took his master’s best horse,--one that he had trained to do great feats, if required,--and, in company with another young slave of kindred spirit, also well mounted, he started, on the night before Christmas, 1834, from the interior of Tennessee, near Nashville, to go to Canada,--a distance of six hundred miles, half the way through a slaveholding country. They encountered, as they expected to do, fearful perils and exhausting hardships. At last they reached a place of safety, but it was in the dead of a Canadian winter. Their stock of provisions had long since been exhausted; their money was all spent; their clothing utterly insufficient; and thus they had come into a most inhospitable climate, unknowing and unknown, at a season of the year when little employment was to be had. Undaunted by this array of appalling circumstances, Mr. Loguen persevered, made friends, got work, and in the spring of 1837, only three years after his escape from slavery, had so commended himself to the confidence of an employer that he was intrusted with a farm of two hundred acres, near Hamilton, which he was to work on shares. Here, and afterwards by labor in St. Catharine, he laid up several hundred dollars, and then removed to Rochester, N. Y. In that city he obtained a situation as waiter in the best hotel, where, by his aptness and readiness to serve, he so ingratiated himself with all the boarders and transient visitors that his perquisites amounted to more than enough to support him, and being totally abstinent from the use of intoxicating liquors and tobacco, he was able to lay up all his wages,--thirty dollars a month. At the expiration of two years he found that, together with what he had brought from Canada, he was possessed of about nine hundred dollars. As much of this as might be necessary, he resolved to expend in the acquisition of knowledge. Ever since his arrival at the North he had availed himself of all the assistance he could get to learn to read, and had attained to some proficiency in the art. By plying this, whenever opportunity offered him the use of books and newspapers, he had added much to his information. But he longed for more education,--at least sufficient to enable him to be useful as a minister of religion, or as a teacher of the children of his people. So he left his lucrative situation in Rochester, and entered the Oneida Institute, a manual labor school, then under the excellent management of Rev. Beriah Green.

In 1841 Mr. Loguen came to reside in Syracuse, and undertook the duties of pastor of the “African Methodist Church,” and of school-teacher to the children of his people. In both these offices he was successful. And not in these alone. With the help of one of the best of wives, he has brought up a family of children, and educated them well. He has established a good, commodious, hospitable home. In it was fitted up an apartment for fugitive slaves, and, for years before the Emancipation Act, scarcely a week passed without some one, in his flight from slavedom to Canada, enjoyed shelter and repose at Elder Loguen’s. By industry, frugality, and the skilful investment of his property, he has gained a good estate. He is respected by his fellow-citizens, and has so risen in the esteem of his Methodist brethren, that within the last year he has been made a bishop of their order.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

I need give but one more example of a colored man of my acquaintance who has exhibited great intellectual ability as well as moral worth. And he is one extensively known and admired throughout our country, Great Britain, and Ireland. Of course I mean Frederick Douglass. His well-written, intensely interesting autobiography, entitled “My Bondage and My Freedom,” has probably been read so generally that I need not attempt any sketch of his life. Suffice it to say he was born a slave in Maryland. He experienced all the indignities, and suffered most of the hardships and cruelties, that passionate slaveholders could inflict upon their bondmen. When about twenty-one years of age he resolved that he would endure them no longer, and in 1838 he found his way from Baltimore to New Bedford, the best place, on the whole, to which he could have gone. There, with his young wife, he commenced the life of a freeman. The severest toil now seemed light. He worked with a will, because the avails of his labor were to be his own. Being, as most colored persons are, religiously inclined, he soon became a member of a Methodist church, and erelong was appointed a class-leader and a local preacher.

While in slavery Mr. Douglass had contrived, in various ingenious ways, to learn to read and write. So soon, therefore, as he came to live in Massachusetts, he diligently improved his enlarged opportunities to acquire knowledge. Erelong he became a subscriber for _The Liberator_, and week after week made himself master of its contents, in which he never found a silly or a worthless line. Of course its doctrines and its purpose were altogether such as his own bitter experience justified. And the exalted spirit of religious faith and hope, at all times inspiring the writings and speeches of Mr. Garrison, awakened in the bosom of Mr. Douglass the assurance that he was “the man,--the Moses raised up by God to deliver his Israel in America from a worse than Egyptian bondage.”

In the summer of 1841 there was a large antislavery convention held in Nantucket. Mr. Douglass attended it. In the midst of the meeting, to his great confusion, he was called upon and urged to address the convention. A number were present from New Bedford who had heard his exhortations in the Methodist church, and they would not allow his plea of inability to speak. After much hesitation he rose, and, notwithstanding his embarrassment, he gave evidence of such intellectual power--wisdom as well as wit--that all present were astonished. Mr. Garrison followed him in one of his sublimest speeches. “Here was a living witness of the justice of the severest condemnation he had ever uttered of slavery. Here was one ‘every inch a man,’ ay, a man of no common power, who yet had been held at the South as a piece of property, a chattel, and had been treated as if he were a domesticated brute,” &c.

At the close of the meeting, Mr. John A. Collins, then the general agent of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society, urgently invited Mr. Douglass to become a lecturing agent. He begged to be excused. He was sure that he was not competent to such an undertaking. But Mr. Garrison and others, who had heard him that day, joined Mr. Collins in pressing him to accept the appointment. He yielded to the pressure. And, in less than three years from the day of his escape from slavery, he was introduced to the people of New England as a suitable person to lecture them upon the subject that was of more moment than any other to which the attention of our Republic had ever been called.

Mr. Douglass henceforth improved rapidly. He applied himself diligently to reading and study. The number and range of his topics in lecturing increased and widened continually. He soon became one of the favorite antislavery speakers. The notoriety which he thus acquired could not be confined to New England or the Northern States. A murmur of inquiry came up from Maryland who this man could be. A pamphlet which he felt called upon to publish in 1845, in answer to the current assertions that he was an impostor, that he had never been a slave, made it no longer possible to conceal his personality. The danger of his being captured and taken back to Maryland was so great that it was thought advisable he should go to England. Accordingly, he went thither that year in company with James N. Buffum, one of the truest of antislavery men, and with the Hutchinson family, the sweetest of singers.

Although not permitted to go as a cabin passenger, many of the cabin passengers sought to make his acquaintance and visited him in the steerage, and invited him to visit them on the saloon-deck. At length they requested him to give them an antislavery lecture. This he consented and was about to do, when some passengers who were slaveholders chose to consider it an insult to them, and were proceeding to punish him for his insolence; they threatened even to throw him overboard, and would have done so had not the captain of the steamer interposed his absolute authority: called his men, and ordered them to put those disturbers of the peace _in irons_ if they did not instantly desist. Of course they at once obeyed, and shrank back in the consciousness that they were under the dominion of a power that had broken the staff of such oppressors as themselves.

This incident of the voyage was reported in the newspapers immediately on the arrival of the vessel at Liverpool, and introduced Mr. Douglass at once to the British public. He was treated with great attention by the Abolitionists of the United Kingdom; was invited to lecture everywhere, and rendered most valuable services to the cause of his oppressed countrymen. So deeply did he interest the philanthropists of that country that they paid seven hundred and fifty dollars to procure from his master a formal, legal certificate of manumission, so that, on his return to these United States, he would be no longer liable to be sent back into slavery. They also presented him with the sum of twenty-five hundred dollars for his own benefit, to be appropriated, if he should see fit, to the establishment of a weekly paper edited by himself, which was then his favorite project.

Soon after his return in 1847 he did establish such a paper at Rochester and conducted it with ability for several years. He has since become one of the popular lecturers of our country, and every season has as many invitations as he cares to accept. He is extensively known and much respected. Many there are who wish to see him a member of Congress; and we confidently predict that, if he shall ever be sent to Washington as a Representative or a Senator, he will soon become a prominent man in either House.

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD.

Everybody has heard of the Underground Railroad. Many have read of its operations who have been puzzled to know where it was laid, who were the conductors of it, who kept the stations, and how large were the profits. As the company is dissolved, the rails taken up, the business at an end, I propose now to tell my readers about it.

There have always been scattered throughout the slaveholding States individuals who have abhorred slavery, and have pitied the victims of our American despotism. These persons have known, or have taken pains to find out, others at convenient distances northward from their abodes who sympathized with them in commiserating the slaves. These sympathizers have known or heard of others of like mind still farther North, who again have had acquaintances in the free States that they knew would help the fugitive on his way to liberty. Thus, lines of friends at longer or shorter distances were formed from many parts of the South to the very borders of Canada,--not very straight lines generally, but such as the fleeing bondmen might pass over safely, if they could escape their pursuers until they had come beyond the second or third stage from their starting-point. Furnished at first with written “passes,” as from their masters, and afterwards with letters of introduction from one friend to another, we had reason to believe that a large proportion of those who, in this way, attempted to escape from slavery were successful. Twenty thousand at least found homes in Canada, and hundreds ventured to remain this side of the Lakes.

So long ago as 1834, when I was living in the eastern part of Connecticut, I had fugitives addressed to my care. I helped them on to that excellent man, Effingham L. Capron, in Uxbridge, afterwards in Worcester, and he forwarded them to secure retreats.

Ever after I came to reside in Syracuse I had much to do as a station-keeper or conductor on the Underground Railroad, until slavery was abolished by the Proclamation of President Lincoln, and subsequently by the according Acts of Congress. Fugitives came to me from Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Louisiana. They came, too, at all hours of day and night, sometimes comfortably,--yes, and even handsomely clad, but generally in clothes every way unfit to be worn, and in some instances too unclean and loathsome to be admitted into my house. Once in particular, a most squalid mortal came to my back-door with a note that he had been a passenger on the Underground Railroad. “O Massa,” said he, “I’m not fit to come into your house.” “No,” I replied, “you are not now, but soon shall be.” So I stepped in and got a tub of warm water, with towels and soap. He helped me with them into the barn. “There,” said I, “give yourself a thorough washing, and throw every bit of your clothing out upon the dung-hill.” He set about his task with a hearty good-will. I ran back to the house and brought out to him a complete suit of clean clothes from a deposit which my kind parishioners kept pretty well supplied. He received each article with unspeakable thankfulness. But the clean white shirt, with a collar and stock, delighted him above measure. He tarried with me a couple of days. I found him to be a man of much natural intelligence, but utterly ignorant of letters. He had had a hard master, and he went on his way to Canada exulting in his escape from tyranny.

In contrast with this specimen, my eldest son, late one Saturday night, came up from the city, and as he opened the parlor-door, said, “Here, father, is another living epistle to you from the South,” and ushered in a fine-looking, well-dressed young man. I took his hand to make him sure of a welcome. “But this,” said I, “is not the hand of one who has been used to doing hard work. It is softer than mine.” “No, sir,” he replied, “I have not been allowed to do work that would harden my hands. I have been the slave of a very wealthy planter in Kentucky, who kept me only to drive the carriage for mistress and her daughters, to wait upon them at table, and accompany them on their journeys. I was not allowed even to groom the horses, and was required to wear gloves when I drove them.” Perceiving that he used good language and pronounced it properly, I said, “You must have received some instruction. I thought the laws of the slave States sternly prohibited the teaching of slaves.” “They do, sir,” he replied, “but my master was an easy man in that respect. My young mistresses taught me to read, and got me books and papers from their father’s library. I have had much leisure time, and I have improved it.” In further conversation with him I found that he was quite familiar with a considerable number of the best American and English authors, both in poetry and prose. “If you had such an easy time, and were so much favored, why,” I asked, “did you run away?” “O, sir,” he replied, “slavery at best is a bitter draught. Under the most favored circumstances it is bondage and degradation still. I often writhed in my chains, though they sat so lightly on me compared with most others. I was often on the point of taking wings for the North, but then the words of Hamlet would come to me, ‘Better to bear those ills we have, than fly to others that we know not of,’ and I should have remained with my master had it not been that I learned, a few weeks ago, that he was about to sell me to a particular friend of his, then visiting him from New Orleans. I suspected this evil was impending over me from the notice the gentleman took of me and the kind of questions he asked me.

“At length, one of my young mistresses, who knew my dread of being sold, came to me and, bursting into tears, said, ‘Harry, father is going to sell you.’ She put five dollars into my hand and went weeping away. With that, and with much more money that I had received from time to time, and saved for the hour of need, I started that night and reached the Ohio River before morning. I immediately crossed to Cincinnati and hurried on board a steamer, the steward of which was a black man of my acquaintance. He concealed me until the boat had returned to Pittsburg. There he introduced me to a gentleman that he knew to be a friend of us colored folks. That gentleman sent me to a friend in Meadville, and he directed me to come to you.” “Well,” said I, “Harry, if you are a good coachman and waiter withal, I can get you an excellent situation in this city, which will enable you to live comfortably until you shall have become acquainted with our Northern manners and customs, and have found some better business.” “O,” he hastily replied, “thank you, sir, but I should not dare to stop this side of Canada. My master, though he was kind to me, is a proud and very passionate man. He will never forgive me for running away. He has already advertised me, offering a large reward for my apprehension and return to him. I should not be beyond his reach here. I must go to Canada.” He tarried with us until Monday afternoon, when I sent him to Oswego with a letter of introduction to a gentleman in Kingston, and a few days afterwards heard of his safe arrival there.

Not long after, I one day saw a young lady, of fine person and handsomely dressed, coming up our front steps. She inquired for me, and was ushered into my study. A blue veil partly concealed her face and a pair of white gloves covered her hands. On being assured that I was Mr. S. J. May she said, “I have come to you, sir, as a friend of colored people and of slaves.” “Is it possible,” I replied, “that you are one of that class of my fellow-beings?” She removed her veil, and a slight tinge in her complexion revealed the fact that she belonged to the proscribed race,--a beautiful octoroon. “But where were you ever a slave?” I asked. “In New Orleans, sir. My master, who, I believe, was also my father, is concerned in a line of packet steamers that ply between New Orleans and Galveston. He has, for several years past, kept me on board one of his boats as the chamber-maid. This was rather an easy and not a disagreeable situation. I was with the lady passengers most of the time, and by my close attentions to them, especially when they were sea-sick, I conciliated many. They often made me presents of money, clothes, and trinkets. And, what was better than all, they taught me to read. At each end of the route I had hours and days of leisure, which I improved as best I could. The thought that I was a slave often tormented me. But, as in other respects I was comfortable, I might have continued in bondage, had I not found out that my master was about to sell me to a dissolute young man for the vilest of purposes. I at once looked about for a way of escape. Being so much of the time among the shipping at New Orleans, I had learnt to distinguish the vessels of different nations. So I went to one that I saw was an English ship, on board of which I espied a lady,--the captain’s wife. I asked if I might come on board. ‘Certainly,’ she replied. Encouraged by her kind manner, I soon revealed to her my secret and my wish to escape. She could hardly be persuaded that I was a slave. But when all doubt on that point was removed, she readily consented to take me with her to New York. To my unspeakable relief we sailed the next day. The captain was equally kind. I was able to pay as much as he would take for my passage, for I had succeeded in getting all the money I had saved, with much of my clothing, on board the ship the night before she left New Orleans. On our arrival at New York the captain took pains to inquire for the Abolitionists. He was directed to Mr. Lewis Tappan, and took me with him to that good gentleman. Mr. Tappan at once provided for my safety in that city, and the next day sent me to Mr. Myers, at Albany, on my way to you.”

I offered to find a place for her in some one of the best families in Syracuse; but she was afraid to remain here. She had seen in New York her master’s advertisement, offering five hundred dollars for her restoration to him. She was sure there were pursuers on her track. Two men in the car between Albany and Syracuse had annoyed and alarmed her by their close observation of her. One had seated himself by her side and tried to engage her in conversation and look through her veil. At length he asked her to take off the glove on her left hand. By this she knew he must have seen the advertisement, that stated, among other marks by which she might be identified, that one finger on her left hand was minus a joint. She at once called to the conductor and asked him to protect her from the impertinent liberties the man was taking with her. So he gave her another seat by a lady, and she reached our city without any further molestation, but in great alarm.

We secreted her several days, until we supposed her pursuers must have gone on. She occupied herself most of the time by reading, and we observed that she often was poring over a French book, and on inquiring learnt that she could read that language about as well as English. So soon as her fears were sufficiently allayed, I committed her to the care of one of my good antislavery parishioners who happened to be going to Oswego. He escorted her thither, saw her safely on board the steamboat for Kingston, and a few days afterwards I received a well-written letter from her informing me of her safe arrival, and that she had obtained a good situation in a pleasant family as children’s maid.

I need give my readers but one more specimen of the many passengers I have conducted on the Underground Railroad. At eleven o’clock one Saturday night, in the fall of the year, three stalwart negroes came to my door with “a pass” from a friend in Albany. They were miserably clad for that season of the year and almost famished with hunger. We gave them a good, hearty supper, but could not accommodate them through the night. So at twelve o’clock I sallied forth with them to find a place or places where they could be safely and comfortably kept, until we could forward them to Canada. This was not so easily done as it might have been at an earlier hour. I did not get back to my home until after two in the morning. The next forenoon, after sermon I made known to my congregation their destitute condition, and asked for clothes and money. Before night I received enough of each for the three, and some to spare for other comers. I need only add, that in due time they were safely committed to the protection of the British Queen.

Other friends of the slave in Syracuse were often called upon in like manner, and sometimes put to as great inconvenience as I was in the last instance named above. So we formed an association to raise the means to carry on our operations at this station. And we made an arrangement with Rev. J. W. Loguen to fit up suitably an apartment in his house for the accommodation of all the fugitives, that might come here addressed to either one of us. The charge thus committed to them Mr. Loguen and his excellent wife faithfully and kindly cared for to the last. And I more than suspect that the fugitives they harbored, and helped on their way, often cost them much more than they called upon us to pay.

It was natural that I should feel not a little curious, and sometimes quite anxious, to know how those whom I had helped into Canada were faring there. So I went twice to see; the first time to Toronto and its neighborhood, the second time to that part of Canada which lies between Lake Erie and Lake Huron. I visited Windsor, Sandwich, Chatham, and Buxton. In each of these towns I found many colored people, most of whom had escaped thither from slavery in one or another of the United States. With very few exceptions, I found them living comfortably, and, without an exception, all of them were rejoicing in their liberty.

I was particularly interested in the Buxton settlement, called so in honor of that distinguished English philanthropist, Hon. Fowell Buxton. It was established by the benevolent enterprise and managed by the excellent good sense of Rev. William King. This gentleman was a well-educated Scotch Presbyterian minister. He had come to America and settled in Mississippi. There he married a lady whose parents soon after died, leaving him, with his wife, in possession of a considerable property in slaves. He was ill at ease in such a possession, but, as he held it in the right of his wife, he did not feel at liberty to do with it as he would otherwise have done. A few years afterwards she died. By this dispensation he was made the sole proprietor of the persons of fifteen of his fellow-beings, and he was brought to feel that the great purpose of his life should be to deliver them from slavery, and place them in circumstances under which they might become what God had made them capable of being. With this purpose at heart he went to Canada. He purchased nine thousand acres of government land of good quality and well located, though covered with a dense forest. To this place he transported, from Mississippi, his fifteen slaves, and gave to each of them fifty acres. He then offered to sell farms for two dollars and a half an acre to colored men, who should bring satisfactory testimonials of good moral character and strictly temperate habits. When I was there in 1852, about four years after the beginning of his undertaking, there were ninety families settled in Buxton. Mr. King told me there had not been a single instance of intoxication or of any disorderly conduct, and most of them had nearly paid for their farms.

I spent the whole day with this wise man, this practical philanthropist, in visiting the settlers at their homes in the woods. I found them all contented, happy, enterprising. Several of them confessed to me that they had never suffered such hardships as they had experienced since they came to live in Canada. The severity of the cold had sometimes tried them to the utmost, and clearing up their heavy-timbered lands had been hard work indeed, especially for those who had been house-servants in Southern cities. But not one of them looked back with desiring eyes to the leeks and onions of the Egypt from which they had escaped. They seemed to be sustained and animated by one of the noblest sentiments that can take possession of the human soul,--the love of liberty, the determination to be free. They had cheerfully made sacrifices in this behalf. Like the Pilgrim Fathers of New England, many of them had fled from the abodes of ease, elegance, luxury, and sought homes in a wilderness that they might be free. Like them they counted it all joy to suffer,--perils by land and by water, travels by night, a flight in the winter, and a life in the wilds in an inhospitable climate, if by so suffering they might secure to themselves and their posterity the inestimable boon of liberty.

GEORGE LATIMER.

It must be obvious to my readers that I have not been guided in my narrative by the order of time, so much as by the relation of events and actors to one another. My last article had to do in part with occurrences that happened in 1852. I shall now return to 1842.

Much to my surprise, in 1842, I was nominated by Hon. Horace Mann, and appointed by the Massachusetts Board of Education, to succeed Rev. Cyrus Peirce as Principal of the Normal School then at Lexington.

At once was heard from various quarters murmurs of displeasure, because an _Abolitionist_ had been intrusted with the preparation of teachers for our common schools. Mr. Mann was not a little annoyed. He earnestly admonished me to beware of giving occasion to those unfriendly to the school to allege that I was taking advantage of my position to disseminate my antislavery opinions and spirit. I assured him that I should not conceal my sentiments and feelings on a subject of such transcendent importance. But he might depend upon me that I should not give any time that belonged to the school to any other institution or enterprise; that I should conscientiously endeavor to discharge faithfully every one of my duties; but that, as I should not be able to attend antislavery meetings, or co-operate personally with the Abolitionists, except perhaps in vacations, I should contribute to their treasury more money than I had hitherto been able to afford.

Accordingly, I consecrated every day and every evening of every week of term time to my duties, so long as I was principal of that school, excepting only the afternoon and evening of every Saturday. Those hours I always gave up to some kind of recreation. So much as this about myself, the readers will soon perceive, is pertinent to the tale now to be unfolded.

Some time in the month of October, 1842, an interesting young man, calling himself George Latimer, made his appearance in Boston. He was so nearly white that few suspected he belonged to the proscribed class. But soon afterwards a Mr. Gray, of Norfolk, Virginia, arrived in the city, and claimed the young man as his slave. At his instigation a constable arrested Latimer, and the keeper of Leverett Street Jail took him into confinement. Their only warrant for this assault upon the liberty of Latimer was a written order from the said Gray. It was as follows:--

“TO THE JAILER OF THE COUNTY OF SUFFOLK.

“SIR,--George Latimer, a negro slave belonging to me, and a
fugitive from my service in Norfolk, in the State of Virginia,
who is now committed to your custody by John Wilson, my agent and
attorney, I request and DIRECT you to hold on my account, at my
costs, until removed by me according to law.

“JAMES B. GRAY.

“BOSTON, October 21, 1842.”

To this high-handed assumption of authority was added an indorsement, by a young lawyer of Boston, of which the following is a copy:--

“BOSTON, October 21, 1842.

“I hereby promise to pay to the keeper of the jail any sum due him
for keeping the body of said Latimer, on demand.

“E. G. AUSTIN.”

With reason were the good people of Boston and the old Commonwealth aroused, excited, almost maddened with indignation and alarm at this insolent, daring assault upon the palladium of their liberty. If such a proceeding should be allowed, no one would be safe, black or white. Here comes a man from a distant part of our country, an utter stranger in our city, and arrests another man about as light-complexioned as himself, claims him as his negro slave, and, without offering any proof that he had ever held the man in that condition, hands him over to a common jailer for safe-keeping. This surely could not be borne with. Some of the colored people to whom Latimer was known first bestirred themselves. They attempted to get him out of prison by a writ of _habeas corpus_. Hon. Samuel E. Sewall, the long-tried friend of the oppressed, always ready to endure obloquy and encounter danger in their service, assisted by his friend, C. M. Ellis, Esq., earnestly endeavored to get that writ allowed. They petitioned for it in the Court at which Chief Justice Shaw was then presiding, and, strange to say, their petition was denied. That eminent jurist, on the authority of the United States Court, in the famous Prigg case, gave it as his opinion, that, by the supreme law of the land, so expounded, the man Gray had permission to come to Boston and seize the man Latimer (as he had done), put him into jail or some other place of confinement, and keep him there until he could have time to bring on proof that he was his property, and then take him off by the assistance of any persons he could get to help him. Accordingly, Judge Shaw refused the writ of _habeas corpus_, and left Latimer in Leverett Street prison. This action of the chief justice aggravated the public excitement.

Mr. Gray, alarmed probably by the outcries of indignation that came to him from so many quarters, brought charges against Latimer of thefts committed upon his property, both in Norfolk and in Boston, as the reason for his arrest. If this were true, it was said, he surely should have proceeded against the criminal, in the ordinary course at common law, and not under the decision in the Prigg case. But by this step he got himself into another and graver difficulty. George Latimer, instructed by his legal advisers, at once commenced the prosecution of Gray for slander and libel. So the biter, finding he was about to be bitten, let go this hold upon poor Latimer, and determined to rely wholly upon the decision of Judge Story of the United States Court, who was soon to hold a session in Boston.

But the excitement of the public had spread far and wide, and the tones of indignation were deeper and louder. An immense meeting was held in Faneuil Hall. Mr. Sewall presided, and made a full, clear statement of the case, exhibiting all its odious features. Mr. Edmund Quincy addressed the meeting with great force; and Mr. Phillips spoke most effectively. Public meetings on the subject were held in Lynn, Salem, New Bedford, Worcester, Abington, and in many other large towns. And petitions were prepared and extensively signed and sent to Congress, praying that we of the free States might be relieved from such outrages upon the feelings of the people, and such violations of common law, as could be perpetrated under the exposition of United States law, given by the court in the “Prigg case.” Petitions were also prepared and extensively signed to the Massachusetts Legislature, praying that the prisons and jails of the Commonwealth might not be used by slaveholders or their agents for the safe-keeping of their fugitive bondmen when retaken; and that all sheriffs, constables, police officers of every grade might be peremptorily forbidden, in any way, to assist in the capture or return of slaves.

The sheriff and the deputy sheriff of Suffolk County and the keeper of Leverett Street Jail were severely censured for the part they had taken in Mr. Gray’s service. And the sheriff was about to order the release of Latimer, when negotiations were entered into with Mr. Gray for the purchase of his victim’s emancipation. Fearing that he might lose all, he concluded to take a part, and sold him for four hundred dollars, although he had declared he would not let him go for three times that sum.

Wholly engrossed as I was by my duties in the Normal School, I could not help hearing of the great excitement, and sympathizing with those who were determined Massachusetts should not be made a hunting-ground for slaves. At length it was reported that there was to be “_a Latimer meeting_” at Waltham, five or six miles from Lexington. And lo! a few days afterwards there came letters from Rev. Samuel Ripley, then the prominent minister of Waltham, and from his son-in-law, the Rev. George F. Simmons, who a few years before had been compelled to resign his pastorate of the Unitarian Church of Mobile, and hastily leave the city, because he had dared to speak from his pulpit of the evils of slavery and the duties of those who held their fellow-beings in that condition.

Each of those gentlemen cordially invited me, urgently requested me, to attend the meeting in behalf of George Latimer that was to be held in their meeting-house, adding that it was appointed on the next Saturday evening, so as to accommodate the operatives in the factories, who were not required to work on that evening.

As I have already said, Saturday evening was my _leisure_ time. Always on closing school at noon of Saturday, I endeavored to lay aside my cares with my textbooks, and if possible think no more of school until Sunday evening, when I never failed to examine the lessons I intended to teach the next day. It seemed to me that nothing would refresh and recreate me so much as attending an antislavery meeting, and giving vent to my pent-up feelings. Then I was the more eager to go to Waltham, because Mr. Ripley was one of those who had been particularly severe and satirical in their remarks upon _my_ appointment to the charge of the Normal School. I really wished to see how he would look, and act, and speak, under the inspiration of his new-born zeal in the cause of freedom. So I informed my two devoted assistants, who needed recreation not less than myself, and who I knew were zealous Abolitionists, of my intention, and invited them to accompany me. Almost immediately I received the names of twenty of my pupils who wished to attend the meeting. Accordingly, I procured two double sleighs, and we started for Waltham, as I supposed in good season. But we did not reach the meeting-house until just as the exercises were to begin. We naturally walked in together without the slightest thought of making a parade. But on opening the door, we found all the pews filled excepting the conspicuous ones, on either side of the pulpit. To these, therefore, we went as quietly as possible, but not without attracting the notice of the audience, and calling out the remark from more than one, “There comes Mr. May with his Normal School!”