The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

PETER WHEELER.
J.W. Evans, Pinrt P. H. Reason, Sc.

THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES

OF

PETER WHEELER.

CHAINS AND FREEDOM:
OR,
THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES
OF
PETER WHEELER,
A COLORED MAN YET LIVING.

A SLAVE IN CHAINS,

A SAILOR ON THE DEEP,

AND

A SINNER AT THE CROSS.

THREE VOLUMES IN ONE.

BY

THE AUTHOR OF THE ‘MOUNTAIN WILD FLOWER.’

“Mind not high things; but condescend to men of low estate.”

Paul.

New York:

PUBLISHED BY E. S. ARNOLD & CO.

1839.

Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1839, in the Clerk’s Office of the Southern District of New York.

PREFACE.

The following Narrative was taken entirely from the lips of Peter Wheeler. I have in all instances given his own language, and faithfully recorded his story as he told it, without any change whatever. There are many astonishing facts related in this book, and before the reader finishes it, he will at least feel that

“Truth is stranger than fiction.”

But the truth of every thing here stated can be relied on. The subject of this story is well known to the author, who for a long time brake unto him “the bread of life,” as a brother in Christ, and beloved for the Redeemer’s sake. There are, likewise, hundreds of living witnesses, who have for many years been acquain’ted with the man, and aware of the incidents here recorded, who cherish perfect confidence in his veracity.

He has many times, for many years, related the same facts, to many persons, in the same language verbatim; and individuals to whom the author has read some of the following incidents, have recognized the story and language, as they heard them from the hero’s lips long before the author ever heard his name. There are also persons yet living, whom I have seen and known, who witnessed many of Peter’s most awful sufferings.

Of course, the book lays no claim to the merit of literature, and will not be reviewed as such; but it does claim the merit of strict verity, which is no mean characteristic in a book, in these days.

The subject, and the author, have but one object in view in bringing the book before the public:—a mutual desire to contribute as far as they can, to the freedom of enchained millions for whom Christ died. And if any heart may be made to feel one emotion of benevolence, and lift up a more earnest cry to God for the suffering slave; if one generous impulse may be awakened in a slaveholder’s bosom towards his fellow traveller to God’s bar, whose crime is, in being “born with a skin not coloured like his own;” and if it may inspire in the youthful mind, the spirit of that sweet verse, consecrated by the hallowed associations of a New-England home—

“I was not born a little slave

To labour in the sun,

And wish I were but in my grave,

And all my labor done.”

it will not be in vain.

That it may hasten that glorious consummation which we know is fast approaching, when slavery shall be known only in the story of past time, is the earnest prayer of the

AUTHOR.

Certificate of the Citizens of Spencertown.

This is to certify, that we, the undersigned, are, and have been well acquain’ted with Peter Wheeler, for a number of years, and that we place full confidence in all his statements:—

ERASTUS PRATT, Justice of the Peace.

CHARLES B. DUTCHER, Justice of the Peace.

ABIAH W. MAYHEW, Deacon of the Presbyterian Church.

CHARLES H. SKIFF, M.D.

WILLIAM. A. DEAN.

JOHN GROFF.

DANIEL BALDWIN.

ELISHA BABCOCK.

PHILIP STRONG.

PATRICK M. KNAPP.

WILLIAM TRAVER.

EPHRAIM BERNUS.

SAMUEL HIGGINS.

WILLIAM PARSONS.

JAMES BALDWIN.

FRANCIS CHAREVOY.

[It may be proper to state that many of these gentlemen have known Peter more than thirteen years; likewise, that they are men of the first respectability.

Author.]

CONTENTS.

BOOK THE FIRST.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

BOOK THE SECOND.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

BOOK THE THIRD.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

BOOK THE FIRST.

PETER WHEELER IN CHAINS.

DEDICATED TO

Every body who hates oppression, and don’t believe that it is right, under any circumstances, to buy and sell the image of the Great God Almighty; and to all who love Human Liberty well enough to help to break every yoke, that the oppressed may go free——God bless all such!

“I own I am shocked at the purchase of slaves,

And fear those that buy them and sell them are knaves;

What I hear of their hardships, their tortures and groans,

Is almost enough to draw pity from stones.”

Cowper.

CHAPTER I.

Author’s first interview with Peter—Peter calls on the Author, and begins his story—his birth and residence—is adopted by Mrs. Mather and lives in Mr. Mather’s house—his “red scarlet coat“—fishing expedition on Sunday with Hagar when he sees the Devil—a feat of horsemanship—saves the life of master’s oldest son, and is bit in the operation by a wild hog—an encounter with an “old-fashioned cat owl” in the Cedar Swamp—a man killed by wild cats—a short “sarmint” at a Quaker Meeting—“I and John makes a pincushion of a calf’s nose, and got tuned for it, I tell ye”—holyday’s amusements—the marble egg—“I and John great cronies”—Mistress sick—Peter hears something in the night which he thinks a forerunner of her death—she dies a Christian—her dying words—Peter’s feelings on her death.

Author. “Peter, your history is so remarkable, that I have thought it would make quite an interesting book; and I have a proposal to make you.”

Peter. “Well, Sir, I’m always glad to hear the Domine talk; what’s your proposal? I guess you’re contrivin’ to put a spoke in the Abolition wheel, ain’t ye?”

A. “Peter you know I’m a friend to the black man, and try to do him good.”

P. “Yis, I know that, I tell ye.”

A. “Well, I was going to say that this question of Slavery is all the talk every where, and as facts are so necessary to help men in coming to correct conclusions in regard to it, I have thought it would be a good thing to write a story of your life and adventures—for you know that every body likes to read such books, and they do a great deal of good in the cause of Freedom.”

P. “I s’pose then you’ve got an idee of makin’ out some sich a book as Charles Ball, and that has done a sight of good. But it seems to me I’ve suffered as much as Charles Ball, and I’ve sartinly travelled ten times as fur as he ever did. But I should look funny enough in print, shouldn’t I? The Life and Adventers of Peter Wheeler—!! ha! ha!! ha!!! And then you see every feller here in town, would be a stickin’ up his nose at the very idee, jist because I’m a “nigger” as they say—or “snow-ball,” or somethin’ else; but never mind, if it’s a goin’ to du any good, why I say let split, and we’ll go it nose or no nose—snow-ball or no snow-ball.”

A. “Well, I’m engaged this morning Peter, but if you will call down to my study this afternoon at two o’clock, I’ll be at home, and ready to begin. I want you to put on your “thinking cap,” and be prepared to begin your story, and I’ll write while you talk, and in this way we’ll do a good business—good bye Peter, give my love to your family, and be down in season.”

P. “Good bye Domine, and jist give my love to your folks; and I’ll be down afore two, if nothin’ happens more’n I know on.”

A. “Walk in—Ah! Peter you’re come have you? you are punctual too, for the clock is just striking. I’m glad to see you; take a seat on the settee.”

P. “I thought I couldn’t be fur out of the way: and I’m right glad to see you tu, and you pretty well? and how does your lady du?”

A. “All well, Peter.”

P. “You seem to be all ready to weigh anchor.”

A. “Yes, and we’ll be soon under way.—And now, Peter, I have perfect confidence in your veracity, but I want you to watch every word you utter, for ’twill all be read by ten thousand folks, and I wouldn’t send out any exaggerated statement, or coloured story, for all the books in Christendom. You know it’s hard to tell ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth;’ and now you will have plenty of time to think, for I can’t write as fast as you will talk, and I want you to think carefully, and speak accurately, and we’ll have a true story, and I think a good one.”

P. “I’ll take good care of that, Mr. L—— and we’ll have a true story if we don’t have a big one; but I’m a thinkin’ that afore we git through we’ll have a pretty good yarn spun, as the sailors say. I always thought ’twas bad enough to tell one lie, but a man must be pretty bad to tell one in a book, for if he has ten thousand books printed, he will print ten thousand lies, and that’s lying on tu big a scale.”

A. “Well, Peter, in what age, and quarter of the world were you born?”

P. “As near as I can find out, I was born the 1st of January 1789, at Little Egg Harbour, a parish of Tuckertown, New Jersey. I was born a slave ☜—and many a time, like old Job, I’ve cussed the day I was born. My mother has often told me, that my great grandfather was born in Africa, and one day he and his little sister was by the seaside pickin’ up shells, and there come a small boat along shore with white sailors, and ketches ’em both, and they cried to go back and see mother, but they didn’t let ’em go, and they took ’em off to a big black ship that was crowded with negroes they’d stole; and there they kept ’em in a dark hole, and almost starved and choked for some weeks, they should guess, and finally landed ’em in Baltimore, and there they was sold. Grandfather used to set and tell these ’ere stories all over to mother, and set and cry and cry jist like a child, arter he’d got to be an old man, and tell how he wanted to see mother on board that ship, and how happy he and his sister was, a playing in the sand afore the ship come; and jist so mother used to set and trot me on her knee, and tell me these ’ere stories as soon as I could understand ’em—”

“Well, as I was sayin’, I was born in Tuckertown, and my master’s name was Job Mather. He was a man of family and property, and had a wife and two sons, and a large plantation. He was a Quaker by profession, and used to go to the Quaker meetin’s; but afore I git through with him, I’ll show you he warn’t overstocked with Religion. He was the first and last Quaker I ever heard on, that owned a slave,[^[1]] and he warn’t a full-blooded Quaker, for if he had been, he wouldn’t owned me; for a full-blooded Quaker won’t own a slave. I was the only slave he owned, and he didn’t own me ☜ but this, is the way he come by me.[^[2]] Mistress happened to have a child the same time I was born, and the little feller died. So she sent to Dinah my mother, and got me to nuss her, when I was only eight days old.”

[1]. Would to God, it could be said of any other denomination of Christians in Christendom!!

[2]. A grand distinction for some big Doctors to learn!

“Well, arter I’d got weaned, and was about a year old, mother comes to mistress, and says she, ‘Mistress, have you got through with my baby?’ ‘No,’ says Mistress, ‘no Dinah, I mean to bring him up myself.’ And so she kept me, and called me Peter Wheeler, for that was my father’s name, and so I lived in master’s family almost jist like his own children.”

“The first thing I recollect was this:——Master and Mistress, went off up country on a journey, and left I and John, (John was her little boy almost my age,) with me at home, and says she as she goes away, ‘now boys if you’ll be good, when I come back, I’ll bring you some handsome presents.’”

“Well, we was good, and when she comes back, she gives us both a suit of clothes, and mine was red scarlet, and it had a little coat buttoned on to a pair of trousers, and a good many buttons on ’em, all up and down be-for’ard and behind, and I had a little cap, with a good long tostle on it; and oh! when I first got ’em on, if I didn’t feel big, I won’t guess.”

“I used to do ’bout as I was a mind tu, until I was eight or nine year old, though Master and Mistress used to make I and John keep Sunday ’mazin strict; yet, I remember one Sunday, when they was gone to Quaker meetin’, I and Hagar, (she was my sister, and lived with my mother, and mother was free,) well, I and Hagar went down to the creek jist by the house, a fishin’. She stood on the bridge, and I waded out up to my middle, and had big luck, and in an hour I had a fine basket full. But jist then I see a flouncin’ in the water, and a great monstrous big thing got hold of my hook, and yauked it arter him, pole, line, nigger and all, I’d enemost said, and if he didn’t make a squashin’ then I’m a white man. Well, Hagar see it, and she was scart almost to pieces, and off she put for the house, and left me there alone. Well, I thought sure ’nough ’twas the Devil, I’d hearn tell so much ’bout the old feller; and I took my basket and put out for the house like a white-head, and I thought I should die, I was so scart. We got to the house and hid under the bed, all a tremblin’ jist like a leaf, afeard to stir one inch. Pretty soon the old folks comes home, and so out we crawled, and they axed us the matter, and so we up and telled ’em all about it, and Master, says he ‘why sure ’nough ’twas the Devil, and all cause you went a fishin’ on a Sunday, and if you go down there a fishin’ agin Sunday he’ll catch you both, and that’ll be the end of you two snow-balls.”

A. “Didn’t he whip you, Peter, to pay for it?”

P. “Whip us? No, Sir; I tell ye what ’tis, what he telled us ’bout the Devil, paid us more’n all the whippens in creation.”

A. “What was the big thing in the creek?”

P. “Why, I s’pose ’twas a shark; they used to come up the creek from the ocean.”

A. “Did you have much Religious Instruction?”

P. “Why, the old folks used to tell us we musn’t lie and steal and play sabba’day, for if we did, the old boy would come and carry us off; and that was ’bout all the Religion I got from them, and all I knowed ’bout it, as long as I lived there.”

A. “What did you used to do when you got old enough to work?”

P. “Why, I lived in the house, and almost jist like a gal I knew when washin’-day come, and I’d out with the poundin’-barrel, and on with the big kittle, and besides I used to do all the heavy cookin’ in the kitchen, and carry the dinner out to the field hands, and scrub, and scour knives, and all sich work.”

A. “Did you always used to have plenty to eat?”

P. “Oh? yis, Sir, I had the handlin’ of the victuals, and I had my fill, I tell ye.”

A. “Did you ever go to school, Peter?”

P. “Yis, Sir, I went one day when John was sick in his place, and that was the only day I ever went, in all my life, and I larned my A, B, C’s through, both ways, and never forgot ’em arter that.”

A. “Well, did you ever meet with any accidents?”

P. “Why, it’s a wonder I’m alive, I’ve had so many wonderful escapes. When I was ’bout ten year old, Master had a beautiful horse, only he was as wild as a pain’ter, and so one day when he was gone away, I and John gits him out, and he puts me on, and ties my legs under his belly, so I shouldn’t git flung off, and he run, and snorted, and broke the string, and pitched me off, and enemost broke my head, and if my skull hadn’t a been pretty thick, I guess he would; and I didn’t get well in almost six weeks.” Another thing I think on, Master had some of these ’ere old-fashioned long-eared and long-legged hogs, and he used to turn ’em out, like other folks, in a big wood nearby, and when they was growed up, fetch ’em and pen ’em up, and fat ’em; and so Master fetched home two that was dreadful wild, and they had tushes so long, and put ’em in a pen to fat. Well, his oldest son gits over in the pen one day to clean out the trough, and one on ’em put arter him, and oh! how he bawled, and run to git out; I heard him, and run and reached over the pen, and catched hold on him, and tried to lift him out; but the old feller had got hold of his leg, and took out a whole mouthful, and then let go; and I pulled like a good feller, and got him most over, but the old sarpent got hold of my hand, and bit it through and through, and there’s the scar yit.”

A. “Did you let go, Peter?”

P. “Let go? No! I tell ye I didn’t; the hog got hold of his heel, and bit the ball right off; but when he let go that time, I fetched a dreadful lift, and I got him over the pen, safe and sound, only he was badly bit.

“And while I think of it, one day Mistress took me to go with her through the Cedar Swamp to see some Satan, only she took me as she said to keep the snakes off. It was two miles through the woods, and we went on a road of cedar-rails, and when we got into the swamp, I see a big old-fashioned cat owl a settin’ on a limb up ’bout fifteen foot from the ground I guess; and as I’d heard an owl couldn’t see in the day time, I thought I’d creep up slily, and catch him, and I says ‘Mistress,’ says I, ‘will you wait?’ and she says, ‘yis, if you’ll be quick.’ And so up I got, and jist as I was agoin to grab him, he jumped down, and lit on my head, and planted his big claws in my wool and begun to peck, and I hollered like a loon, and swung off, and down I come, and he stuck tight and pecked worse than ever. I hollows for Mistress, and by this time she comes up with a club, and she pounded the old feller, but he wouldn’t git off, and she pounded him till he was dead; and his claws stuck so tight in my wool, Mistress had to cut ’em out with my jack-knife, and up I got, glad ’nough to git off as I did; and I crawled out of the mud, and the blood come a runnin’ down my head, and I was clawed and pecked like a good feller, but I didn’t go owlin’ agin very soon, I tell ye.”

“Well, we got there, and this was Saturday, and we stayed till the next arternoon. Sunday mornin’ I see a man go by, towards our house, with an axe on his shoulder; and we started in the arternoon, and when we’d got into the middle of the swamp there lay that man dead, with two big wild cats by him that he’d killed: he’d split one on ’em open in the head, and the axe lay buried in the neck of t’other; and there they all lay dead together, all covered with blood, and sich a pitiful sight I hain’t seen. But oh! how thick the wild cats was in that swamp, and you could hear ’em squall in the night, as thick as frogs in the spring; but ginerally they kept pretty still in the day time, and so we didn’t think there was any danger till now; and we had to leave the dead man there alone, only the dead wild cats was with him, and make tracks as fast as we cleverly could, for home.”

A. “Did you ever go to meetings?”

P. “Sometimes I used to go to Quaker meetin’s with mistress, and there we’d set and look first at one and then at t’other; and bi’m’by somebody would up and say a word or two, and down he’d set, and then another, and down he’d set. Sometimes they was the stillest, and sometimes the noisiest meetin’s I ever see. One time, I remember, we went to hear a new Quaker preacher, and there was a mighty sight of folks there; and I guess we set still an hour, without hearin’ a word from anybody: and that ’ere feller was a waitin’ for his spirit, I s’pose; and, finally at last, an old woman gits up and squarks through her nose, and says she, “Oh! all you young gentlemen beware of them ’ere young ladies—Ahem!—Oh! all you young ladies beware of them ’ere young gentlemen—Ahem—Peneroyal tea is good for a cold!” ☜ and down she sat, and I roared right out, and I never was so tickled in all my life; and the rest on ’em looked as sober as setten’ hens:—but I couldn’t hold in, and I snorted out straight; and so mistress wouldn’t let me go agin. And now you are a Domine, and I wants to ask you if the Lord inspired her to git up, whether or no He didn’t forsake her soon arter she got up?”

A. “Why, Peter, you’ve made the same remark about her, that a famous historian makes about Charles Second, a wicked king of England. Some of the king’s friends said, the Grace of God brought him to the throne—this historian said, “if it brought him to the throne it forsook him very soon after he got there.”

A. “Did you have any fun holydays, Peter.”

P. “Oh! yis, I and John used to be ‘mazing thick, and always together, and always in mischief——One time, I recollect, when master was gone away, we cut up a curious dido; master had a calf that was dreadful gentle, and I and John takes him, and puts a rope round his neck, and pulls his nose through the fence, and drove it full of pins, and he blatted and blatted like murder, and finally mistress see us, and out she come, and makes us pull all the pins out, one by one, and let him go; she didn’t say much, but goes and cuts a parcel of sprouts, and I concluded she was a goin’ to tune us. But it come night, we went into the house, and she was mighty good, and says she, ‘come boys, I guess it’s about bed time;’ and so she hands us a couple of basins of samp and milk, and we eat it, and off to bed, a chucklin’, to think we’d got off as well as we had. But we’d no sooner got well to bed, and nicely kivered up, when I see a light comin’ up stairs, and mistress was a holdin’ the candle in one hand, and a bunch of sprouts in t’other; and she comes up to the bed, and says she, ‘boys do you sleep warm? I guess I’ll tuck you up a little warmer, and, at that, she off with every rag of bed clothes, and if she didn’t tune us, I miss my guess: and ‘now,’ says she, ‘John see that you be in better business next time, when your dad’s gone; and you nigger, you good for nothin little rascal, you make a pincushion of a calf’s nose agin, will ye?’ And I tell ye they set close, them ’ere sprouts.”

A. “Well, Peter, you were going to talk about holydays, and I shouldn’t think it much of a holyday to be ‘tuned with them sprouts.’”

P. “Oh! yis, Sir, we had great times every Christmas and New-Years; but we thought the most of Sain’t Valentine’s Day. The boys and gals of the whole neighborhood, used to git together, and carry on, and make fun, and sich like. We used to play pin a good deal, and I and John used to go snacks, and cheat like Sancho Panza; and there’s where we got the pins to stick in the calf’s nose, I was tellin’ you on. We used to have a good deal of fun sometimes in bilein eggs. Mistress would send us out to hunt eggs, and we’d find a nest of a dozen, likely, and only carry in three or four, and lay the rest by for holydays. Well, we used to bile eggs, as I was sayin’, and the boys would strike biled eggs together, and the one that didn’t get his egg broke should have t’other’s, for his’n was the best egg. Well, we got a contrivance, I and John did, that brought us a fine bunch of eggs. John’s uncle was down the country once, and he gin John a smooth marble egg: oh! ’twas a dreadful funny thing, and I guess he’s got it yit, if he’s a livin’—well, we kept this egg, year in, and year out, and we’d take it to the holydays, and break all the eggs there, and carry home a nice parcel, and have a good bunch to give away, and I guess as how the boys never found it out.”

A. “Why, you had as good times as you could ask for, it seems to me.”

P. “Oh! yis, Sir, I see many bright days, and, when I was a boy, I guess no feller had more fun than I did. And I mean, Domine, all through the book, to tell things jist as they was, and when I was frolicsome and happy I’ll say so, and when I was in distress, I’ll say so; for it seems to me, a book ought to tell things jist as they be. Well, I had got about to the end of my happy fun, for mistress, who was the best friend I had, was took sick, and I expected her to die—and sure ’nough she did die; and as I was kind ‘a superstitious, one night afore she died, I heard some strange noises, that scart me, and made me think ’em forerunners of mistress’ death; and for years and years them noises used to trouble me distressedly. Well, mistress had been a good woman, and died like a christian. When she thought she was a dyin’, she called up her husband to her bed-side, and took him by the hand, and says, ‘I am now goin’ to my God, and your God, and I want you to prepare to follow me to heaven,’ and says ‘farewell;’ she puts her arms round his neck and kisses him. Then she calls up her children, and says pretty much the same thing to them; and then me, and she puts her arms round all our necks, and kisses us all, and says ‘good bye dear children,’ and she fell back into the bed and died, without a struggle or a groan.

“Oh! how I cried when mistress died. She had been kind to me, and loved me, and it seemed I hadn’t any thing left in the world worth livin’ for; put it all together, I guess I cried more’n a week ’bout it, and nothin’ would pacify me. I loved mistress, and when I see her laid in the grave it broke my heart. I have never in all my life with all my sufferin’s had any affliction that broke me down as that did. I thought I should die: the world looked gloomy ‘round me, and I knew I had nothin’ to expect from master after she was gone, and I was left in the world friendless and alone. I had seen some, yis many, good days, and I don’t believe on arth there was a happier boy than Peter Wheeler; but when mistress closed her eyes in death, my sorrows begun; and oh! the tale of ’em will make your heart ache, afore I finish, for all my hopes, and all my fun, and all my happiness, was buried in mistress’ grave.”

A. “Well, Peter, I’m tired of writing, and suppose we adjourn till to-morrow.”

P. “Well, Sir, that’ll do I guess—oh! afore I go, have you got any more Friend of Man?”

A. “Oh! yes, and something better yet—here’s Thomson and Breckenridge’s Debate.”

P. “Is that the same Thomson that the slavery folks drove out of the country, and the gentleman of property and standing in Boston tried to tar and feather?”

A. ☞“YES.” ☜

P. “Well, I reckon he must have rowed Breckenridge up Salt River.” ☜

A. “You’re right, Peter, and he left him on Dry Dock!!!”

P. “Good bye, Domine.”

A. “Good bye, Peter.”

CHAPTER II.

Peter emancipated by his old Master’s Will—but is stolen and sold at auction, and bid off by GIDEON MOREHOUSE ☜—Hagar tries to buy her brother back—parting scene—his reception at his new Master’s—sudden change in fortune—Master’s cruelty—the Muskrat skins—prepare to go into “the new countries”—start on the journey—“incidents of travel” on the road—Mr. Sterling, who is a sterling-good man, tries to buy Peter—gives him a pocket full of “Bungtown coppers”—abuse—story of the Blue Mountain—Oswego—Mr. Cooper, an Abolitionist—journey’s end—Cayuga county, New York.

Author. “Well, Peter, I’ve come up to your house this morning, to write another chapter in the book; and you can go on with your boots while I write, and so we’ll kill two birds with one stone.”

Peter. “Well, I felt distressedly when mistress died, and I cried, and mourned, and wept, night and day. I was now in my eleventh year. While she lived I worked in the house, but, as soon as she died, I was put into the field; and so, on her death, I entered into what I call the field of trouble; and now my story will show ye what stuff men and women is made of.

“My master didn’t own me, for I was made free by my old master’s will, who died when I was little; and, in his will, he liberated my mother, who had always been a slave and all her posterity; so that as soon as old master died, I was free by law—but pity me if slavery folks regard law that ever I see: ☜ for slavery is a tramplin’ on all laws. Well, arter mother was free, she got a comfortable livin’ till her death. In that will I was set free, but I lived with master till after mistress’ death, and then I was stole, and in this way. Master got uneasy and thought he could do better than to stay in that country, and so he advertised his plantation for sale. It run somethin’ like this, on the notice he writ:

‘FOR SALE,

‘A plantation well stocked with oxen, horses, sheep, hogs, fowls, &c.—and ☞ one young, smart nigger, sound every way. ☜’

“You see they put me on the stock-list!! Well, when the day came that I was to be sold, oh! how I felt! I knew it warn’t right, but what could I do? I was a black boy. They sold one thing, and then another, and bim’bye they made me mount a table, and then the auctioneer cries out:—

‘Here’s a smart, active, sound, well trained, young nigger—he’s a first rate body servant, good cook, and all that; now give us a bid:’ and one man bid $50, and another $60; and so they went on. Sister Hagar, she was four years older than me, come up and got on to the table with me, (they dassent sell her,) and she began to cry, and sob, and pity me, and says she, ‘oh Peter, you ain’t agoin’ way off, be ye, ‘mong the wild Ingens at the west, be ye?’ You see there was some talk, that a man would buy me, who was a goin’ out into York State, and you know there was a sight of Ingens here then, and folks was as ‘fraid to go to York State then, as they be now to go to Texas—and so Hagar put her arms round my neck, and oh! how she cried; $95 cries out one man; $100 cries another, and so they kept a bidden’ while Hagar and I kept a cryin’ and finally, ☞ GIDEON MOREHOUSE ☜ (oh! it fairly makes my blood run cold, to speak that name, to this day,) well, he bid $110, and took me—master made him promise to school me three quarters, or he’d not give him a bill of sale; so he promised to do it, and I was his ☞ Property. ☜ And that’s all a slaveholder’s word is good for, for he never sent me to school a day in his life. Now, how could that man get any right to me, when he bought me as stolen property; or how could any body have even a legal right to me? why no more as I see than you would have to my cow, if you should buy her of a man that stole her out of my barn. And yit that’s the way that every slaveholder gits his right to every slave, for a body must know that a feller owns himself. But I gin up long ago all idee of slavery folks thinkin’ any thing ’bout law. ☜

“Well, I should think I stood on that table two hours, for I know when I come down, my eyes ached with cryin’ and my legs with standin’ and tears run down my feet, and fairly made a puddle there. Sister Hagar, she was a very lovin’ sister, and she felt distressedly to think her brother was a goin’ to be sold; and so she went round and borrowed and begged all the money she could, and that, with what she had afore, made 110 Mexican dollars, jist what I sold for, and she comes to my new master, and says she, ‘Sir, I’ve got $110 to buy my brother back agin, and I don’t want him to go off to the west, and wont you please Sir, be so kind, as sell me back my brother?’ ‘Away with ye,’ he hollered, ‘I’ll not take short of 150 silver dollars, and bring me that or nothin’;’ and so Hagar tried hard to raise so much, but she couldn’t, and oh! how she cried, and come to me and sobbed, and hung round my neck, and took on dreadfully, and wouldn’t be pacified; and besides, mother stood by, and see it all, and felt distressedly, as you know a mother must; but, what could she do? she was a black woman. ☞ Now, how would your mother feel to see you sold into bondage? Why, arter mistress died, it did seem to me that master become a very devil—he ‘bused me and other folks most all-killin’ly. He married a fine gal as soon arter mistress’ death as she would have him; and she had 400 silver dollars, and a good many other things, and he took her money and went off to Philadelphia, and sold some of his property, and the rest at this auction I tell on; and then told her she must leave the premises, and another man come on to ’em, and she had to go; and she and Hagar lived together a good many year, and got their livin’ by spinnin’ and weavin’, and she was almost broken-hearted all the time; and when I got way off into the new countries, I hears from Hagar, that she died clear broken-hearted. Well, I was sold a Friday, and master was to take me to Morehouse’s a Sunday; Sunday come, and I was obliged to go. I parted from mother, and never see her agin, till I heard she was dead; but you must know how I felt, so I won’t describe it. She felt distressedly, and gin me a good deal of good advice, but oh! ’twas a sorrowful day for our little family, I tell ye, Mr. L——.

“Well, I got to my new master’s, and all was mighty good, and the children says, “Oh! dis black boy fader bought, and he shall sleep with me;” and the children most worshipped me, and mistress gin me a great hunk of gingerbread, and I thought I had the nicest place in the world. But my joy was soon turned into sorrow. I slept that night on a straw bed, and nothin’ but an old ragged coverlid over me; and next morning I didn’t go down to make a fire, for old master always used to do that himself; and so when I comes down, master scolds at me, and boxes my ears pretty hard, and says, ‘I didn’t buy you to play the gentleman, you black son of a bitch—I got ye to work.’

“Well, I began to grow home-sick; and when he was cross and abusive, I used to think of mistress.

“Master was a cabinet-maker; and so next day, says he, ‘I’m agoin’ to make you larn the trade,’ and he sets me to planin’ rough cherry boards; and when it come night, my arms was so lame I couldn’t lift ’em to my head, pushin’ the jack-plane; and he kept me at this cabinet work till the first day of May, when I got so I could make a pretty decent bedstead. I come to live with him the first of March, and now he begins to fix and git ready for to move out to the new countries. Well, when we was a packin’ up the tools, I happened to hit a chisel agin’ a hammer, and dull it a little, and he gets mad, and cuffs me, and thrashes me ’bout the shop, and swears like a pirate. I says, ‘Master, I sartinly didn’t mean to do it.’ ‘You lie, you black devil, you did,’ he says; ‘and if you say another word, I’ll split your head open with the broad-axe.’ Well, I felt bad ’nough, but said nothin’. He advertised all his property pretty much, and sold it at vendue; and now we was nearly ready for a start. Master had promised to let me go and see sister Hagar, and mother, a few days afore we started; and as he was gone, mistress told me I might go. So I had liberty, and I detarmined to use it. I had catched six large muskrats, and had the skins, and thinks I to myself, what’s mine is my own; and so I went up stairs, and wraps a paper round ’em, and flings ’em out the window, and puts out with them for town, and sold ’em for a quarter of a dollar a piece. I went Friday; but I didn’t see mother, for she was gone away, and Sunday I spent visiting Hagar, and that night I got home. While I was gone they had found out the skins was a missin’; and soon as I’d got home, I see somethin’ was to pay; for master looked dreadful wrothy when I come in, and none of the family said a word, ‘how de,’ nor nothing, only Lecta, one of the gals, asked me how the folks did, and if I had a good visit; and she kept a talkin’, and finally, the old lady kind a scowled at her, (you see the muskrat skins set hard on her stomach,) and finally, master looked at me cross enough to turn milk sour, and says he, ‘Nigger, do you know anything ’bout them skins?’ Says I, ‘No, Sir;’ and I lied, it’s true, but I was scart. And says he, ‘you lie, you black devil.’ So I stuck to it, and kept a stickin’ to it, and he kept a growing madder, and says he, ‘If you don’t own it, I’ll whip your guts out.’ So he goes and gits a long whip and bed-cord, and that scart me worser yit, and I had to own it, and I confessed I had the money I got for ’em, all but a sixpence I had spent for gingerbread; and he searched my pocket, and took it all away, and half a dollar besides, that Mary Brown gin me to remember her by!! ☜—and then he gin me five or six cuts over the head, and says he, ‘Now, you dam nigger, if I catch you in another such lie, I’ll cut your dam hide off on ye;’ and then he drives me off to bed, without any supper; and he says, ‘If you ain’t down airly to make a fire, I’ll be up arter ye with a raw hide.’

“Well, next day we went to fixin’ two kivered wagons for the journey; and, arter we’d got all fixed to start, he sends me over to his mother’s to shell some seed corn, upstairs, in a tub. Well, I hadn’t slept ’nough long back, and so, in spite of my teeth, I got to sleep in the tub. He comes over there, and finds me asleep in the tub, and he takes up a flail staff and hits me over the head, and cussed and swore, and telled his mother to see I didn’t git to sleep, nor have anything to eat in all day. Well, arter he’d gone, the old lady called me down, and gin me a good fat meal, and telled me to go up and shell corn as fast as I could. Well, I did, and it come night—I got a good supper, and put out for home; and I’ve always found the women cleverer than the men—they’re kind’a tender-hearted, ye know.

“Well, we got ready, and off we started, and I guess ’twas the 9th of May; and I drove a team of four horses, and it had the chist of tools and family; and he drove another team, full of other things, and his brother-in-law, Mr. Abers, who was agoin’ out to larn the trade; and Abers was mighty good to me.

“Well, we started for York State, and one night we stayed in Newark, and I thought ’twas a dreadful handsome place; for you could see New York and Brooklyn from there, and the waters round New York, that’s the handsomest waters I ever see, and I have seen hundreds of harbors.

“Next day we got to a place called Long Cummin, and put up at a Mr. Starling’s, and he kept a store and tavern, and they was fine folks. In the evenin’ Mr. Starling comes into the kitchen where I was a sittin’ by the fire, holdin’ one of the children in my lap, and he slaps me on the shoulder, and master comes in too, and says he, ‘Morehouse, what will you take for that boy, cash down? I want him for the store and tavern, and run arrants, &c.’ Master says, ‘I don’t want to sell him.’—’Well,’ says Starling, ‘I’ll give you $200 cash in hand.’ Master says, ‘I wouldn’t take 500 silver dollars for that boy, for I mean to have the workin’ of that nigger myself.’ ‘Well,’ says Starling, ‘you’d better take that, or you won’t git anything, for he’ll be running off bi’m’bye.’ And I tell ye, I begun to think ’bout it myself, about that time. Well, I went to bed, and thought about it, and wanted to stay with Starling; and next mornin’ Mrs. Starling comes to master, and says she, ‘I guess you’d better sell that boy to my husband, for he’s jist the boy we want to git:’ and says I, ‘Master, I wants to stay here, and I wish you’d sell me to these ’ere folks;’—and with that he up and kicked me, and says he, ‘If I hear any more of that from you, I’ll tie ye up, and tan your black hide; and now go, and up with the teams.’ Well, when we got all ready to start, I wanted to stay, and I boohooed and boohooed; and Mr. Starling says to master, ‘I want your boy to come in the store a minute;’ and I went in, and he out with a bag of Bungtown coppers, and gin me a hull pocket full, and says he, ‘Peter, I wish you could live with me, but you can’t; and you must be a good boy, and when you git to be a man you’ll see better times, I hope;’ and I cried, and took on dreadfully, and bellowed jist like a bull; for you know, when a body’s grieved, it makes a body feel a good deal worse to have a body pity ’em. I see there was no hope, and I mounted the box, and took the lines, and driv off; but I felt as bad as though I had been goin’ to my funeral. Oh! it seemed to me they was all happy there, and they was so kind to me, and they seemed to be so good, it almost broke my heart: I had every thing to eat—broiled shad, cake, apple pie, (I used to be a great hand for apple pie,) rice pudden’ and raisins in it, beefsteak, and all that; and the children kept a runnin’ round the table, and sayin’, ‘Peter must have this, and Peter must have that;’ and I kept a thinkin’ as I drove on, how they all kept flocking round me when we come away, and I cried ’bout it two or three days, and every time master come up, he’d give me a lick over my ears, ‘cause I was a cryin’. If I should die I couldn’t think of the next place where we stayed all night. We travelled thirty miles, and the tavern keeper’s name was Henry Williams. Well, the day arter, we had a very steep hill to go down, and the leaders run on fast, and I couldn’t hold ’em, and when we got to the bottom, master hollered, ‘Stop!’ and up he come, and whipped me dreadfully, and kicked me with a pair of heavy boots so hard in my back, I was so lame I couldn’t hardly walk for three or four days, and everybody asked me what was the matter. The next place we stopped at, the tavern keeper’s folks was old, and real clever; and master telled ’em not to let me have any supper but buttermilk, and that set me to cryin’, and I boohooed a considerable; and the darter says, ‘Come, mother, let’s give Peter a good supper, and his master will pay for it, tu;’ and so they did; and as I was a settin’ by the fire, she axed me, and I telled her all ’bout how I was treated, and says she, ‘Why don’t you run away, Peter? I wouldn’t stay with sich a man: I’d run, if I had to stay in the woods.’ Next mornin’ the old man was mad ’nough when he see the bill for my buttermilk, and swore a good deal ’bout it. Next day we come to the ‘Beach Woods,’ and ’twas the roughest road you ever see, and the wheels would go down in the mud up to the hubs, then up on a log; and he’d make me lift the wheels as hard as I any way could, and he wouldn’t lift a pound, and stood over me with his whip, and sung out, ‘lift, you black devil, lift.’ And I did lift, till I could fairly see stars, and go back and forth from one wagon to t’other, he to whip, and I to lift; and so we kept a tuggin’ through the day till night. That night we stayed to a black man’s tavern; and when we come up, and see ’twas a black man’s house, master was mad ’nough; but he couldn’t git any furder that night, and so he had to be an abolitionist once in his life, any how!!! Well, he didn’t drive that nigger round, I tell ye, he was on tu good footin’: he owned a farm, and fine house, and we had as good fare there as any where on the road.

“The next day the goin’ was so bad we couldn’t git out of the woods, and we had to stay there all night; and oh! what times we did see; I lifted and strained till I was dead: and that night we slept in the wagons—the women took possession of one, and we of t’other; and the woods was alive with wolves and panthers; and such a howlin’ and screamin’ you never heard; but we builds up a large fire, and that kept ’em off. We lay on our faces in the wagon, with our rifles loaded, cocked and primed; and when them ’ere varmints howled, the horses trembled so the harnesses fairly shook on ’em: but there warn’t any more sleep there that night, than there would be in that fire.

“Next day we worried through, and stopped at a house, and got some breakfast of bears’ meat and hasty pudden’; and it come night, we made the ‘Blue Mountain;’ and on the top of it was some good folks; we stayed there one night, and Mr. Cooper, the landlord, come out to the barn, and axed me if I was hired out to that man, or belonged to him? ‘Well,’ said he, ‘if you did but know it, you are free now, for you are in a free state, and it’s agin’ the law to bring a slave from another state into this; and where be you goin’?’ ‘To Cayuga County,’ says I. ‘Well, when you git there, du you show him your backsides, and tell him to help himself.’

The next night we stayed in Owego; but I’m afore my story, for goin’ down the Blue Mountain next day, the leaders run, and I couldn’t hold ’em if I should be shot, and they broke one arm off of the block tongue. Well, I stopped, and master comes runnin’ up, and he fell on, and struck me, and mauled me most awfully; and jist then a man come up on horseback, and says he to master, ‘If you want to kill that boy, why don’t ye beat his brains out with an axe and done with it—but don’t maul him so; for you know, and I know, for I see it all myself, that that boy ain’t able to hold that team, and I shouldn’t a thought it strange if they had dashed every thing to pieces.’ Well, master was mad ’nough, for that was a dreadful rebuke; and says he, ‘You’d better make off with yourself, and mind your own business.’ The man says, ‘I don’t mean to quarrel with you, and I won’t; but I think ye act more like a devil than a man! ☜ So off he went; and I love that man yit!

Next night we stayed in Owego; and the tavern keeper, a fine man, had a talk with me arter bed-time; and says he, ‘Peter, your master can’t touch a hair of your head, and if you want to be free you can, for we’ve tried that experiment here lately; and we’ve got a good many slaves free in this way, and they’re doing well. But if you want to run away, why run; but wait awhile, for you are a boy yit, and there are folks in York State, mean ’nough to catch you and send you back to your master!’ ☜ [^[3]]

[3]. Yes, and there are folks, yes judges and dough faced politicians enough in the state now who would blast all the hopes that led a poor slave on from his chains; and when he was just stepping across the threshold of the temple of freedom, dash him to degradation and slavery, and pollute that threshold with his blood. Until a fugitive from tyranny shall be safe in the asylum of the oppressed and the home of liberty, let us not be told to go to the south. And who are the men who would, who have done this? Certainly not philanthropists; for the philanthropist loves to make his brother man happy, and will always strike for his freedom. Certainly not Christians; for it was one of the most explicit enactments of God, when he established his theocracy upon earth, and incorporated into the code of his government, that “Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant that is escaped from his master unto thee.” (Deut. xxii. 15.) And can a man, who respects and regards the laws of heaven, turn traitor to God, and prostrate, at one fell swoop, all the claims of benevolence the fugitive slave imposes, when he lifts his fetter-galled arms to his brother, and cries, “Oh! help me to freedom—to liberty—to heaven?”

“Well, I parted from that man, and I resolved that I would run away, but take his advice, and not run till I could clear the coop for good. Well, we finally got to the end of our journey, and put up at Henry Ludlow’s house, in Milton township, and county of Cayuga, and State of New York.”

A. “Well, Peter, I think we can afford to stop writing now, for I’m fairly tired out. Good bye, Peter.”

P. “Good bye, Domine.”

As I came away from the lowly cottage of Peter Wheeler, and thought of the toils and barbarities of a life of slavery, and returned to the sweet and endearing charities of my own quiet home, tenderness subdued my spirit; and I could not but repeat, with emotions of the deepest gratitude, those sweet lines of my childhood:

‘I was not born a little slave,

To labor in the sun;

And wish I were but in my grave,

And all my labor done.’

Oh! I exclaimed as I entered my study, and sat down before a bright, cheerful fireside, and was greeted with the kind look of an affectionate wife, as the storm howled over the mountains, Oh! God made man to be free, and he must be a wretch, and not a man, who can quench all this social light forever. I hate not slavery so much for its fetters, and whips, and starvation, as for the blight and mildew it casts upon the social and moral condition of man. Oh! enslave not a soul—a deathless spirit—trample not upon a mind, ’tis an immortal thing. Man perchance may light anew the torch he quenches, but the soul! Oh! tremble and beware—lay not rude hands upon God’s image there—I thought of the vast territory that stretches from the Atlantic to the foot of the Rocky Mountains, and from our Southern border to the heart of our Capitol, as one mighty altar of Mammon—where so much social light is sacrificed and blotted from the universe; where so many deathless spirits, that God made free as the mountain wild bird, are chained down forever, and I kneeled around my family altar, and I could not help uttering a prayer from the depths of my soul, for the millions of God’s creatures, and my brethren, who pass lives of loneliness and sorrow in a world which has been lighted up with the Redeemer’s salvation. What a scene for man to look at when he prays: A God who loves to make all his creatures happy! A world which groans because man is a sinner! A man who loves to make his brother wretched! Oh! thought I, if prayer can reach a father’s ear to-night, one yoke shall be broken, and one oppressed slave shall go free.

CHAPTER III.

They get into a wild country, “full of all kinds of varmints,” and begin to build—Peter knocked off of a barn by his master—story of a rattlesnake charming a child—Peter hews the timber for a new house, and gets paid in lashes—Tom Ludlow an abolitionist—Peter’s friends all advise him to run off—the fox-tail company, their expeditions on Oneida Lake—deer stories—Rotterdam folks—story of a pain’ter—master pockets Peter’s share of the booty and bounty—the girls of the family befriend him—a sail on the Lake—Peter is captain, and saves the life of a young lady who falls overboard, and nearly loses his own—kindly and generously treated by the young lady’s father, who gives Peter a splendid suit of clothes worth seventy dollars, and “a good many other notions”—his master ☞ steals his clothes ☜ and wears them out himself—Mr. Tucker’s opinion of his character, and Peter’s of his fate.

Author. “Well, Peter, you found yourself in a wild country, out there in Cayuga, I reckon.”

Peter. “You’re right, there’s no mistake ’bout that; most every body lived in loghouses, and the woods was full of wild varmints as they could hold; well, as soon as we’d got there, we went to buildin’ a log house; for see master owned a large farm out there, and as soon as we gits there we goes right on to work; we finally got the house up, and gits into it, and durin’ the time I suffered most unaccountably. There we went to buildin’ a log barn tu, and we had to notch the logs at both ends to fay into each other; well, as I was workin’ on ’em, I got one notched, and we lifted it up breast high to put it on, and he sees ’twas a leetle tu short, and nobody was to blame, and if any body ’twas him, for he measured it off; but he no sooner sees it, than he drops his end, and doubles up his fist, and knockes me on the temples, while I was yit a holdin’ on, and down I went, and the log on me, and oh! how he swore! well, it struck my foot, and smashed it as flat as a pancake, and in five minutes it swelled up as big as a puffball, and I couldn’t hardly walk for a week, and yit I had to be on the move all the time, and he cussed cause I didn’t go faster. When I gits up I couldn’t only stand on one leg, but he made me stand on it, and lift up that log breast high, but he didn’t lift a pound, but cried out ‘lift, lift, you black cuss.’ Well, we got the logs up, and when we was a puttin’ the rafters on, I happened to make a mistake in not gittin’ one on ’em into the right place, and he knocked me off of the plate, where I was a standin’ and I and the rafter went a tumblin’ together, down to the ground. It hurt me distressedly, and I cried, but gits up, and says, ‘master, I thinks you treat me rather.’ ‘Stop your mouth, you black devil, or I’ll throw these ’ere adz at your head;’ and I had to shet my mouth, pretty sudden, tu, and keep it shet, and he made me lift up that rafter when I couldn’t hardly stand, and keep on to work; and there I set on the evesplate a tremblin’ jist like a leaf, and every move he made, I ’spected he’d hurl me off agin’, and his voice seemed like a tempest—oh! how savage! But he didn’t knock me off agin’—I had to thatch that barn in the coldest kind of weather, with nothin’ but ragged thin clothes on; and I used to git some bloody floggin’s, cause I didn’t thatch fast enough.

“But I’ve talked long ’nough ’bout him, and jist for amusement, I’m a goin’ to tell ye a story ’bout a rattlesnake, and you may put it in the book, or not, jist as ye like.

“We lived, as I was a tellin’, in a dreadful wild country, and ’twas full of all kinds of wild varmints—wolves, and panthers, and bears, was ’mazin plenty, and rattlesnakes mighty thick; and so one day, as we comes into dinner, mistress seemed to be rather out of humor, and she sets the baby down on the floor in a pet, and he crawls under the bed, and begins to be very full of play. He’d laugh, and stick his little hands out, and draw ’em back, and, as my place in summer was generally on the outside door, on the sill, I happened to look under the bed, and there I see a bouncin’ big rattlesnake, stickin’ his head up through a big crack, and as the child draws his hands back, the snake sticks his head up agin’. I sings out, with a loud voice, and says I, ‘master, there’s a rattlesnake under the bed.’ ‘You lie,’ says he; and says I, ‘why master, only jist look for yourself,’ and, at that, mistress runs to the bed, and snatches up the baby, and it screamed and cried, and there was no way of pacifyin’ on it in the world. Well, master begins to think I speaks the truth, and we out with the bed, and up with a board, and there lay five bouncin’ rattlesnakes, and one on ’em had twenty-three rattles on him; and so we killed all on ’em. Now that rattlesnake had charmed that child, and for days and days that child would cry till you put it down on the floor, and then ‘twould crawl under the bed to that place, and then ‘twould be still agin’; and it did seem as though it would never forget that spot, nor snake, and it didn’t till we got into the new house.

“Well, this winter we went to scorein’ and hewin’ timber for the new house, and I followed three scores with a broad-axe, and the timber had to be hewed tu; and I was so tired many a time, that I wished him and his broad-axe 5000 miles beyond time. Well, I was a hewin’ one of the plates, and as ’twas very long, I got one on ’em a leetle windin’ and master see it, and he comes along and hits me a lick with the sharp edge of a square right atwixt my eyes, and cut a considerable piece of a skin so it lopped down on my nose, and on a hewin’ I had to go when the blood was a runnin’ down my face in streams; and, finally, one of the men took a winter-green leaf, and stuck it on over the wound, and it stopped bleedin’ and it healed up in a few days. This warn’t much, but I tell it to show the natur’ of the man; for any body will abuse power, if they have it to do just as they please.

“Young Tom Ludlow, one of the scorers, comes up to me, arter master was gone, and says he, ‘Peter, why in the name of God don’t you show Morehouse the bottoms of your feet? I’d be hung afore I’d stand it.’ ‘Well, Tom,’ says I, ‘I wants to wait till I knows a little more of the world, and then I’ll show him the bottoms of my feet with a greasein’. Well, Tom laughed a good deal, and says he, ‘that’s right Pete.’

“Tom was a great friend of mine, and he tried to get me to run off for a good while, and Hen, his brother, he was a good feller, and he tried tu; and Miss Sara, their sister, she was a good soul, and every chance she got, she’d tell me to run; and Mrs. Ludlow always told me I was a fool for stayin’ with sich a brute; and every time I went there, I used to git a piece of somethin’ good to eat, that I didn’t get at home; and Mr. Humphrey’s folks was all the time a tryin’ to git me to run off. ‘Why,’ they say, ‘do you stay there to be beat, and whipt, and starved, and banged to death? why don’t you run?’ The reply I used to make was, wait till I git a leetle older, and I’ll clear the coop for arnest.

“Squire Whittlesey, that lived off, ’bout six miles, where I used to go on arrants, says to me one day, ‘Peter, where did you come from?’ So I ups and tells him all ’bout my history. Then says he, ‘Peter, can I put any confidence in you?’ ‘Yis, Sir,’ says I; ‘you needn’t be afeared of me.’ ‘Well,’ says he, ‘you’re free by law, and I advise you to run; but, wait a while, and don’t run till you can make sure work; and now mind you don’t go away and tell any body.’

“And, finally, enemost every body says ‘run Pete, why don’t you run?’ But thinks I to myself, if I run and don’t make out, ‘twould be better for me not to run at all, and so I’ll wait, and when I run I’ll run for sartin.

“There wasn’t many slaves in that region, but a good many colored folks lived there, and some on ’em was pretty decent folks tu. Well, we used to have some ‘musements as well as many sad things; for arter all Mr. L——, a’most any situation will let a body have some good things, for its a pretty hard thing to put out all a body’s joys in God’s world; and then you see a slave enjoys a good many little kinda comforts that free people don’t think on; and if a time come when he can git away from his master, and forgit his troubles, why, he’s a good deal happier than common folks. Well, we used to have some very bright times. We had a Fox Tail Company out there of forty-seven men, and Hen Ludlow was captain, and old boss was lefttenant, and I was private, and when we catched a fox, then ’twas hurrah boys. Sometimes we used to have a good deal of ‘musements over there on Oneida Lake, and we used to have fine sport. We used to start on a kind of a fishin’ scrape, and come out on a kind of a hunt.

“Round that lake used to be a master place for deer. Oh! how thick they was! We used to go over and fish in the arternoon and night; and goin’ cross the lake we’d use these ’ere trolein’ lines; and then we’d fish by pine torches in the night, and they looked fine in the night over the smooth water, all a glissenin’; and arter we’d done, we’d sleep on a big island in the lake, near the outlet—they called it the “Frenchman’s Island” then, and I guess there was nigh upon fifty acres on it. We’d start the dogs airly next mornin’ on the north shore, out back of Rotterdam, and they’d run the deer down into the lake, and then we’d have hands placed along the shore with skiffs, to put arter ’em into the water; and we’d have a sight of fun in catchin’ em, arter we’d got ’em nicely a swimmin’.

“There was a lawless set of fellows round that ’ere Rotterdam, that’s a fact; and when they heard our dogs a comin’ to the shore, they’d put out arter ’em, and if they could git our deer first, they wouldn’t make any bones on it: but they never got but one, for we used to have young fellers in the skiff that understood their business, and they’d lift ’em along some, I reckon.

“But we used to have the finest sport catchin’ fish there you ever see—eels, shiners, white fish, pikes, and cat-fish, whappers I tell ye, and salmon, trout, big fellers, and oceans of pumkin-seed, and pickerel, and bass; and, while I think on it, I must tell ye one leetle scrape there that warn’t slow.

“We put up a creek—I guess ’twas Chitining, but I ain’t sartin’—a spearin’ these ’ere black suckers, and of course we had rifle, powder and ball along. Well, we had mazin’ luck, and I guess we got three peck basketfuls; and at last Tom Ludlow says, ‘I swear, Pete, don’t catch any more.’

“‘Twas now ’bout midnight, and we went back to the fire we’d built under a big shelvin’ rock, and pitched our camp there for the night; and this was Saturday night, and we begins to cook our fish for supper. Arter supper, while we was a settin’ there, some laughin’, some tellin’ stories, some singin’, and some asleep, the gravel begins to fall off of the ledge over us, and rattle on the leaves.

“Well, we out and looked up, and see a couple of lights about three inches apart, like green candles, a rollin’ round; and Hen Ludlow says, ‘That’s a pain’ter, by Judas;’ and I says, ‘If that’s a pain’ter, I’ve got the death weapon here, for if I pinted it at any thing it must come.’

“Bill, a leetle feller about a dozen year old, says he, ‘If I’d a known this, I wouldn’t a come;’ and so he sets up the dreadfullest bawlin’ you ever see.

“Hen says, ‘Peter, can you kill that pain’ter?’ ‘Yis,’ says I, ‘I can; but you must let me rest my piece ‘cross your shoulder, so I shan’t goggle, for it’s kind’a stirred my blood to see that feller’s glisseners;’ and he did: so I took sight, as near as I could, right atwixt them ’ere two candles, as I calls ’em, and fired, and the candles was dispersed ’mazin quick. Then we harks, and hears a dreadful rustlin’ up there on the rock, and bim’bye a most dolefullest dyin’ kind of a groan; but we hears nothin’ more, and so we goes under the rock to sleep, glad ’nough to let all kinds of varmints alone, if they’d only keep their proper distance; but mind you, we didn’t sleep any that night. Come daylight, we ventured out, and up we goes on to the rock, and there lay a mortal big pain’ter, as stiff as a poker. I’d hit him right atwixt his candles, and doused his glims for him, in a hurry. Hen, says he, ‘Now, Pete, you’ll have money ’nough to buy gingerbread with for a good while.’ You see there was a big bounty on pain’ters. And I says, ‘Hen, if my master was as clever to me as your dad is to you, I should have money ’nough always.’ Hen says, ‘I shall have my part of the bounty money, and Morehouse ought to let you have your’n.’

“Arter this, he takes his hide off, and stuffs it with leaves and moss; and we gathers up our fish, tackle, and pain’ter, and starts for home, Sunday mornin’.

“Well, when we got home, master and mistress was glad ’nough of the fish, for they had company. Master’s rule was to give me half the fish I got, (I’ll give the devil his due,) but this time I didn’t git any, and I felt rather hard ’bout it, tu. Hen and Tom says, ‘Pete, you call up at our house to-night, and we’ll settle with you for your share of the bounty for the pain’ter.’

“So I goes to master, with my hat under my arm, and asks him, ‘If he’d please to let me go up to Mr. Ludlow’s?’ ‘What do you want to go up to Mr. Ludlow’s for?’ ‘To git my bounty money,’ says I. ‘No, you main’t go up to Ludlow’s; but you may go and bring up my brown mare, and saddle her; and du you du it quick, tu.’

“Well, I goes and does what he says; and he goes up to Mr. Ludlow’s, and gits my part of the bounty money, and pockets it up; and that’s all I got for dousin’ his glims! ☜

“While he was gone, Lecta, my friend, comes, and says, ‘Peter, where’s father gone?’

“‘To git more pain’ter money,’ says I, ‘that I arns for him nights.’

“‘I think dad’s got money ’nough,’ says she, ‘without stealin’ your’n, that you arn nights off on that Oneida Lake.’

“I says, with tears in my eyes, ‘I know it’s hard, Lecta; but as long as master lives, I shan’t git anything but a striped back; and what I arns nights, he puts in his own pockets.’

“‘I know it’s hard, Peter,’ says Lecta; ‘but there’s an end comin’ to all this; and dad won’t live always, perhaps.’ And I’d often heard her say, arter master had been abusin’ on me, ‘I declare, I shouldn’t be a bit astonished at all, to see the devil come, and take dad off, bodily—so there.’

“Well, while I stood there a cryin’, out comes Julia, and asks me what I was a cryin’ at? ‘What’s the matter?’ says she.

“‘Matter ’nough,’ says I, ‘for master takes all I can arn days and nights, tu.’

“‘What?’ says Julia, ‘dad han’t gone up to Ludlow’s arter your pain’ter money?’

“‘Yes he has,’ I says.

“‘Well,’ says she, ‘it’s no mor’n you can expect from a dumb old hog.’ ☜

Now, that speech come from a darter, and a pretty smart darter tu, and it was jist coarse ’nough language to use ’bout master, tu; but Miss Julia never was in the habit of makin’ coarse speeches. ‘But never mind, Peter,’ says she, ‘’twill be time to take wheat down to Albany, pretty soon, and then you’ll git pay for your pain’ter.’

“‘Yis,’ says I, ‘and I’ll git pay for a good many other things, tu.’

☞ “Now, Mr. L——, I wants to ax you what reason, or right, there is, in the first place, of stealin’ a man’s body and soul, to make a slave on him? ☜ and then for stealin’ his money he gits for killin’ pain’ters, nights?

☞ But the slave ain’t a man, and can’t be, a slave is a thing; he’s jist what the slave laws calls him, ☞ a chattel, property, jist like a horse, and like a horse he can’t own the very straw he sleeps on. But, never mind, ☞ there’s a judgment day a comin’ bim’by. ☜ ‘And when he maketh inquisition for blood, he remembereth them.’ You recollect you preached from that text a Sunday or two ago, and said, if my memory sarves me right, that, at the judgment day, God would require of every slaveholder in the universe, the blood of every soul he bought, and sold, and owned, as property; for ’twas trafficin’ in the image of the great God Almighty. Ah! that’s true, and I felt so when you said it.”

A. “Why, Peter, it appears that your master was not only cruel, but mean.”

P. “Mean? I guess he was, why, I’ll tell you a story, and when I git to the end on it, you’ll see what mean, means:—

“We lived near the Lake, and master had a fine sail boat that cost a good deal of money, and the young folks round there, that felt pretty smart, used to sail out in it now and then, and I was captain. One day there comes four couples, and they wanted to sail out on the Lake with our gals, and so out we went. Susan Tucker, one of the gals, was a high-lived thing, and the calkalation was, to go down about three miles, and the wind was quarterin’ on the larboard side. Well, as I sat on the starn of the boat, she comes, and sets down on the gunnel, and I says, ‘Susan, that ain’t a very fit place for you to set;’ for the wind was kind a bafflin’. She replies, ‘I guess there ain’t any danger,’ and she’d no sooner got the words out of her mouth, than there come a sudden flaw in the wind, and that made the main boom jibe, and it struck her overboard, and on we went, for we had a considerable headway,—well, I let up into the wind, and hollered out, ‘ain’t any body a goin’ to help?’ and there set her suitor scart to death, and all the rest on ’em. Well, I off with all my rags but my pantaloons, and I kept them on out of modesty till the last thing, and then I slipped out on ’em, like a black snake out of his skin, and put out. I swam, I guess, ten rods, and come to where the blubbers come up, and lay on my face, and looked down into the water to see when she come up; and pretty soon I see her a comin’, and she come up within a foot I guess of the top, some distance from me, and sallied away agin. I keep on the look out, and pretty soon she comes up agin, and as soon as I see, I dove for her, and went down I guess six feet; and my plan was to catch her round the neck, and when I did, she seized her left arm round my right shoulder, and hung tight. I fetched a sudden twist, and brought her across my back, and riz up to the top of the water, and started for the shore, and I had one arm and two legs to work with, and she grew heavier and heavier, and I looked to the shore with watery eyes, I tell you. Finally I got all beat out, and my stomach was filled with water, and I thought I must give up. Well, while I stood there a treadin’ water a minute, I thinks I’d better save myself and let her go, and so not both be drowned. I hated to, but I shook her off my back, and she hung tight to my shoulder, and that brought me on my side; and I kept one arm a goin’ to keep us up, and cast my eyes ashore, and gin up that we must go down, and jist that minute a young man come swimmin’ along, and sings out, ‘Pete, where is she?’ and I answers, as well as I could, for I was now a sinkin’, and she was out of sight of him, and says, ‘under me,’ and he dove, and catched her under his arm, and with such force, it broke her loose from me, and off he put for the shore; and I gin up that I must sink, and so down I begins to go, and I recollect I felt kind a happy that Susan was safe, if I was a goin’ to die, for I loved her, and jist then another man come along, and hollers out, ‘Pete, give me hold of your hand.’ I couldn’t speak, but I hears him, and I knew ’nough to reach out my hand, and he took hold on it, and by some means, or other, foucht me on to his back out of the water, and finally got me safe ashore: and sure ’nough, there we all was, and the first thing I knew, he run his finger down my throat, and that made me fling up Jonah, and when I had hove up ’bout a gallon of water, I begins to feel like Peter agin, and I sees I was as naked as an eel, and I set still in the sand. Well, I looked out on the Lake, and there was the boat, and this feller, Susan’s suitor, was a rale goslin’, and so scart, that he couldn’t even jump into the water arter his lady love; and there she was a rockin’ in the troughs, (i.e. the boat,) and one of these same young men that came out arter us, swum out for her, and catched hold of her bow chain, and towed her ashore; and I gits my clothes out, for up to this time I felt egregious streaked, all stark naked there, and I on with my clothes, and goes to Susan, and she was a comin’ tu, and as soon as she could speak, she says, ‘where’s Peter?’ I says, ‘I’m here, Miss Susan;’ and she says, ‘and so am I, and if it hadn’t a been for you, I should have been in the bottom of that Lake.” And while we was a talkin’ there, who should come up but her father, and he says, ‘my dear child how happened all this?’

“‘Pa,’ says she, ‘it all happened through my carelessness; Peter warned me of my danger, but I didn’t mind him, and I fell off.’

“‘Who saved you out of the water?’ says Mr. Tucker; ‘that poor black boy there, that’s whipped and starved and abused so,’ says Susan; then she turns round to me, still cryin,’ and says ‘Peter, have you hurt you much, my dear fellow?”

“‘No, not much, I guess, Miss Susan,’ says I. Mr. Tucker then says, ‘come darter, can you walk as fur as the carriage?’

“‘Yes, Sir,’ says she, ‘and Peter must go along with us, tu—come Peter, come along up to our house.’ ‘Yes, Peter, come along,’ says Mr. Tucker, a cryin’. ‘Yes, Sir,’ says I, as soon ever as I’ve locked the boat;’ and he says, ‘if you’ll run, I’ll wait for you.’ Well, I did run, and lock the boat, and put the key in my pocket, and come back to the carriage, and says he, ‘Git in, Peter.’

“‘No, Sir,’ says I, ‘I’ll walk.’

“‘Oh! Pa,’ says Susan, ‘have Peter git in, I want him with us;’ and, finally, I got in, and then Mr. Tucker drives on up to his house. When we got opposite master’s, Mr. Tucker calls out to him, and says, ‘I want to take your boy up to my house a leetle while;’ and he hollered out ‘what’s the matter?’ So Mr. Tucker tells him all ’bout it; and says he,

“‘Nigger, where’s the boat?’

“‘Locked, Sir.’

“‘Where’s the key?’

“‘In my pocket, Sir.’

“‘Let’s have it!’

“So I handed it out, and when all on us felt so kind’a tender, and his speakin’ so cross, and not carein’ anything for it, oh! it did seem that he was worse than ever. ☜

“‘Go,’ says he, ‘but be back in season.’ Oh! how stern! Well, we comes to Mr. Tucker’s house, and Mrs. Tucker cried and wrung her hands in agony; and Rebecca, her sister, cried and screamed, and Edwin, her brother, made a dreadful adoo; and Susan says, ‘why, don’t be frightened so, for I ain’t hurt any;’ and so we sat down and told all about it, and talked a good while, and Susan said, ‘but I shall always remember that I owe my life to Peter, and he’s my noble friend.’ Well, pretty soon supper was ready; we all sot down, I ‘mong the rest, although I was a poor black outcast—and Susan, she sat down and drinked a cup of tea, and they wanted her to go to bed, but she wouldn’t, and she axed me if I wouldn’t have this, and if I wouldn’t have that; and, in fact, the whole family seemed to feel grateful, and I think I never enjoyed myself better than I did at that table. I didn’t think so much of the victuals as I did of the folks.

“Well, arter supper Mrs. Tucker says, ‘well, Susan, what you goin’ to give Peter?’

“‘Why, Ma, anything that Pa will let me.’ ‘Pa says anything, my dear, that Peter wants out of the store, you may give him.’

“So Pa hands Susan the key and says, ‘go into the store and give him a good handkerchief, and I’ll be in by that time.’ So we went in, and she gin me the handkercher, and then Mr. Tucker come in, and took down two pieces of handsome English broad-cloths,—oh! how they shone! one piece was green, and t’other was blue, and says he, ‘Peter, you may have a suit off of either of them pieces you like best, from head to foot.’

“I says, ‘I can’t pay for ’em, and master would thrash me, if he knew I bought ’em.’

“Mr. Tucker says, ‘you’ve paid for ’em already, and as much agin more;’ and I recollect he said some Bible varse, ‘as ye did it unto one of the least of mine, ye did it unto me.’ And so he measured off two and a half yards of blue for a coat, and one and a quarter green for pantaloons, and picks me out a handsome vest pattern, and three and a half yards of fine Holland linen for a shirt, and threw in the trimmin’s—and then picks me out a beaver hat, marked $7 50—then a pair of shoes, with buckles, and turns round and says, ‘now, Susan, you take these things up to the house;’ and then he gin me a new handsome French crown, and filled all my pockets with raisins, and so we went into the house, and Mrs. Tucker measures me; and Mr. Tucker, says he, ‘now, Peter, you’d better run home, and say nothin’ to master and mistress, but come up here next Sunday morning, airly.’

“And so I puts out for home, and next day Susan sends for ‘Lecta and Polly, our gals, and they stayed there three days, and had what I calls an abolition meetin’; and, arter the old folks was gone to bed one night, ‘Lecta comes to me and says, ‘Peter, you’ve got a dreadful handsome suit made:’ and Polly says, ‘yis, that’s what we’ve been up to Mr. Tucker’s so long about,—we’ve got ’em all done, and a fine Holland shirt for you, all ruffled off for you round the bosom and wristbands, and we want to go up to Ingen Fields to meetin’, next Sunday, and I’ll ask father to let you drive the iron grays for us.

“Well, Sunday comes, and I goes and tackles up the grays and carriage, and ’twas a genteel establishment, and drove up to the door, and ‘Lecta tells me to drive up to Mr. Tucker’s, and change my clothes, and leave my old ones up there; and so I drove up to Mr. Tucker’s in a hurry, and went in, and Mrs. Tucker, says she, ‘now Peter, wash your hands and feet, and face clean;’ and I did. And Mr. Tucker says, ‘now, Peter, comb your hair;’ and I did. Well, he gin me a comb, and so I combed it as well as I could, for ’twas all knots; and then Mrs. Tucker opened the bedroom door, and says she ‘Peter, now go in there and dress yourself;” and I did; and out I come, and she made me put on a pair of clock-stockin’s, and she put a white cravat round my neck; and Mr. Tucker says, ‘now, Peter, stand afore the glass;’ and I did; and then I got my beaver on, and there I stood afore the glass, and strutted like a crow in a gutter, and turned one way and then t’other, and twisted one way and then t’other, and I tell you I felt fine; and Susan says, ‘Pa, there’s one thing we’ve forgot.’ So she runs into the store and bring out a pair of black silk gloves, and hands ’em to me, and says, ‘be careful on ’em, won’t you, Peter.’ Then I was fixed out, and ’twas the finest suit I ever had. It cost above seventy dollars.

“Well, I took the gals in; and drove over, and took our gals in, and off we started for Ingen Fields. The old folks had gone on afore us in the gig, and we come up and passed ’em, and if master didn’t stare at me, I’ll give up.

“Arter we got there, I hitches my horses, and starts, and walks along to the ‘black pew,’ ☜ as straight as a candle; and I out with my white handkercher, and wipes the seat off, and down I sot; and I tell you, there warn’t any crook in my back that day.

“And master set, and viewed me from head to foot, all day; and I don’t b’lieve he heard one single bit of the sarmint all day—he seemed to be thunderstruck. Well, arter meetin’ we drove home, and I shifts my clothes, and puts the team out, and comes into the house; and master gives me a dreadful cross look, and says, ‘Nigger, where did you git them clothes?’

“‘Mr. Tucker gin ’em to me, Sir,’ I says.

“‘What did Mr. Tucker give ’em to you for?’ he says, in rage.

“‘For savin’ Susan’s life, Sir,’ I answers.

“‘Susan’s life? you devil! What right has Mr. Tucker got to give you such a suit of clothes, without my liberty? Hand me that coat.’ And I did, but I felt bad.

“Well, he took it, and held it out, and says he, ‘Why, nigger, that’s a better coat than I ever had on my back, you cuss—you;’ and at that he took it, and flung it on the floor in rage. I picks it up, and hands it to ‘Lecta, and she puts it in her chist. I had the pleasure of wearing that coat one Sunday more, and then ☞ he took it, and wore it out himself! ☜

“The gals says, ‘Why, father, how can you take away that coat?’

“‘Shet your heads, or you’ll git a tunin’.’

“‘Well, father, but how ’twill look—and what will Mr. Tucker’s folks think of you?’

“‘Shet your dam heads, or I’ll take away the rest of his clothes; for he’s a struttin’ about here as big as a meetin’ house. I’ll do as I please with my nigger’s things! ☞ He’s my property!! ☜ It’s a dam pity if my nigger’s things don’t belong to me!’[^[4]] ☜

[4]. And with the same propriety, might he say, that his nigger’s soul belonged to him; or, if he possessed salvation by Christ, that his title to heaven belonged to him. With such premises, he could logically prove that he could kill his slave, and do no wrong, as he would innocently kill his ox, or other property. Here we see the legitimate and necessary inference of this barbarous, inhuman and wicked position, that it is right, under certain circumstances, to own property in man. A man is not safe, as long as he acknowledges this right; for if he believes it ever can exist, he will exercise it as soon as circumstances are favorable, and become one of the most barbarous and abandoned of slaveholders in an hour.]

“Now, Mr. L——, he robbed me of myself, then of my money, and then of my clothes, that a good man gin me for savin’ his darter’s life. Now you see what mean, means.

“One day, arter this, I met Mr. Tucker in the road, and says he, ‘Well, Peter, how do you git along?’ ‘Oh! Sir, well ’nough; only master has took my clothes away you gin me, and is a wearin’ them out himself.’

“‘What!’ says he, ‘not them clothes I gin you?’

“‘Oh! yis, Sir; and I thinks it’s cruel to me, and insultin’ you most distressedly.’

“‘Well,’ said Mr. Tucker, ‘he ought to be hung up by the tongue atwixt the heavens and ’arth, till he is dead, DEAD, DEAD, without any mercy from the Lord or the devil.’” ☜

A. “Well, Peter, I’ve seen cruel and mean things, but that is without exception the meanest thing I ever heard of in my life. Where do you suppose the wretch has gone to, Peter?”

P. “He has gone unto the presence of a God, who hates oppression and oppressors with all his heart; and God will take care of him, I tell you, and he’ll do it right tu.”

A. “Yes, Peter, such men are rebels against Jehovah’s government, and it’s absolutely necessary for God to punish them, unless they reform; it’s as necessary for God to send such men to hell in the world to come, as it is for us to bang a murderer, or put him in prison. And, Peter, which had you rather be, the slaveholder or the slave?”

P. “Domine, I’d rather be the most miserablest slave in the univarse, here and herearter, than to be the best slaveholder in creation; for I wouldn’t, under any circumstances, own a human bein’. The sin lies more in the ownin’ property in a human bein’, than in the ‘busin’ on ’em, ‘cordin’ to my way of thinkin’.”

A. “You’re right, Peter; and there will be no progress made in the destruction of slavery, until you destroy the right of property in man!!”

CHAPTER IV.

An affray in digging a cellar—Peter sick of a typhus fever nine months—the kindness of “the gals”—physician’s bill—a methodist preacher, and a leg of tain’ted mutton—“master shoots arter him” with a rifle!!—a bear story—where the skin went to—a glance at religious operations in that region—“a camp meeting”—Peter tied up in the woods in the night, and “expects to be eat up by all kinds of wild varmints”—master a drunkard—owns a still—abuses his family—a story of blood, and stripes, and groans, and cries—Peter finds ‘Lecta a friend in need—expects to be killed—Abers intercedes for him, and “makes it his business”—Mrs. Abers pours oil into Peter’s wounds—Peter goes back, and is better treated a little while—master tries to stab him with a pitchfork, and Peter nearly kills him in self-defence—tries the rifle and swears he will end Peter’s existence now—but the ball don’t hit—the crisis comes, and that night Peter swears to be free or die in the cause.

Author. “I’ve come up again, Peter, to go on with our story, and you can drive the peg while I drive the quill.”

Peter. “I had as many friends in that region as about any other man, I reckon, and if it hadn’t been for one man, I should have got along very well; but oh! how cruel master was. As I was a tellin’ on you, we went on buildin’ the frame house, and in diggin’ the cellar. I was a holdin’ the scraper and master was drivin’, and a root catched the scraper and jerked me over under the horse’s heels, and he took the but end of his whip, and mauled me over the head; and says I, ‘master, I hold the scraper as well as I can, and I wish you’d git somebody that’s stronger than me, to do it.’

“‘Come up here,’ says he, as he jumps up out of the cellar, with a halter in his hand, ‘and I’ll give you somebody that’s strong ’nough for you.’ Well, I got up, and he makes me strip, and hug an apple tree, and then ties me round it, and whips me with his ox-goad, while I was stark naked, till he’d cut a good many gashes in my flesh, and the blood run down my heels in streams; and then he unties me, and kicks me down into the cellar to hold scraper agin. ☜

“At that, one of his hired men, who was a shovelin’, says, ‘Morehouse, you are too savage, to use your boy so, I swear!!’ Well, one word brought on another, till master orders him off of his premises. ‘Out of the cellar,’ says he, in a rage, for jist so soon as he reproved him, he biled like a pot, for you know if a body’s doin’ wrong, it makes ’em mad to be told on it. Well, out he got, and says he, as he jumps out on the bank, ‘now, Morehouse, if you are a man, come out here tu.’ But master darn’t do that, for he was a small man. ‘Then pay me!’ and master says, ‘I’ll be dam’d if I do.’ ‘Well,’ says the man, ‘I’ll put you in a way to pay me afore night.’ So it comes night, master rides up and pays him, and tries to hire him agin; but says he, ‘I wouldn’t work for sich a barbarous wretch, if you’d give me fifty dollars a day.’[^[5]]

[5]. There are certain principles, developed in these facts, which the reader ought to notice. Abolitionists meet with opposition from the slaveholder, and his abettors, for the same reason that this man was cursed by the tyrant who had just lashed Peter! He was angry with the man, because he told him the truth. It excited all the malignity of a demon in his breast to be rebuked. He knew he was doing wrong, and conscience made the reproof a barbed arrow to his soul, and he raved because his pride was mortified, and he felt disturbed.—So is it now! The Abolitionists are opposed for the same reason.—They are the first body of men in America, who have depicted slavery—they have dissected the fiendish monster, and brought down the contempt of the world, who love freedom, upon the head of the southern slaveholder. They have poured light, like a stream of fire, upon the whole South, and disturbed the consciences of the buyers and sellers of souls. And we see the malignity of hell itself boiling out of the southern mouth, and southern press; and politicians and religious (?) editors, and ministers of the gospel, are all pressed into the vile and low-lived business of bolstering up tyrants upon their unholy thrones, and propping up the darkest, and blackest system of oppression that ever existed on earth. These men have not been needed before, their help was not called for;—for nothing was being done to break down slavery. The Colonization Society, met with a different fate at the South, and for this reason it was sustained by all slaveholders who knew the policy. It was the best friend the slaveholder ever had—it kept the consciences of the tyrants quiet—it was a healing plaster just large enough for the sore.—And some of the most distinguished slaveholders in the United States, some of them officers of the American Colonization Society, and the most liberal donors of its funds, told the author of this note, that, they considered the Society the firmest support slavery had in the world, for ‘twould keep the North and the South quiet about their peculiar institutions. “The Society,” said one of them, who was at the time a member of the United States Senate, “has carried away about three thousand or four thousand niggers in twenty years, and the increase has been over half a million. Now, Sir, I can afford, on selfish principles, to give ten thousand dollars a year to that Society, rather than have it go down; for when it goes down, slavery will go with it, and it will go down just as soon as it loses the confidence of the people of the North!!!!!!! ☜ Very good reason why slaveholders should support Colonization!!!!!! There is not the fain’test doubt in creation, that the great mass of the South wish slavery, under the circumstances, to continue; and they make war against the Abolitionists because they want it to stop, and are doing all they can to put it down; (for this is the definition of an Abolitionist;) just as the drunkard makes war upon the Temperance Reformation, because it strikes a blow at his idol; just as infidels oppose revivals, because they disturb their consciences, and make infidelity contemptible. Now, I hesitate not to say, that no system of principles, or measures, will ever do away with slavery, except that system which meets with the determined, and combined opposition of slaveholders, and those who are interested in sustaining the system. For the system that destroys slavery, must aim a deadly blow at selfishness, and this will excite malignity, and this will show itself out in the gall that is poured upon Abolitionists, from the cowardly and sophistical apologies of Pro-Slavery Princeton Divines, down to the hard, but not convincing arguments of brick-bats.

The truth is, that the South oppose Abolition, not because “it has put back emancipation,” as the New York Observer says,—for, in that case, its champions would be found south of “Mason’s and Dixon’s line,”—but, because Abolition has a direct, and decided, and tremendous influence in hurling the system of heathenish, and cruel oppression to the ground. But there are some, a noble, an immortal few, hearts in the South who are waiting for the consolation of Africa, who bless God for every prayer we offer, and for every convert we gain. And the prayers of every man, and woman, in the slaveholding states, who longs for the freedom of the slave, follow the Abolitionists, and contribute to the spread and triumph of our principles.

“By being exposed, and abused, and whipped, and almost starved and frozen to death, through the winter, in the spring I was took down with the typhus fever, and lay on a bed of straw, behind the back kitchen door, six months, almost dead; and the doctor come to see me every day, and finally says he to master, ‘if you want that boy to git well, you must give him a decenter place to lay than all that comes tu, for ’tain’t fit for a sick dog.’

“So the gals moved me up stairs, in their arms, and there I lay. They was kind to me durin’ my sickness, but master was very indifferent, and didn’t seem to care whether I lived or died. Well, the gals, one pleasant day in the fall, took me in their arms, and carried me down stairs, and put me in a little baby wagon, and drew me ’bout twenty rods and back, and then took me up stairs agin’, oh! how tired I was, and they did that every day, till I got so I could walk about, and I shall always remember it in ’em, tu.

“Well, in ’bout two months arter this, I got so I could work a leetle, and one day Doctor Walker comes in with his bill of seventy odd dollars; and master says he, ‘I wish the dam nigger had died, and then I shouldn’t had this money to pay.’ Master payed him off arter some jawing; but oh! how savage master was to me arter this![^[6]]

[6]. One would think that so long a time for reflection, would have softened the poor tyrant’s heart—but it is no easy matter to eradicate the tyranny which is fostered in the bosom of the possessor of irresponsible power.

“Well, next Sunday a Methodist preacher comes along, and was agoin’ to preach at Ingen Fields. And so he and his wife come down to dine with us, and we cooked a leg of mutton we had on hand, for dinner, and got it on the table, and all sets down, and master begins to cut it, and come tu, ’twas distressedly tain’ted round the bone, and smelled bad.