Part 23

Thus challenged, we of course sought an interview with the slave, and informed her that, having been brought by her master into the free States, she was, by the laws of the land, set at liberty. “No, I am not, gentlemen,” was her prompt reply. We adduced cases and quoted authorities to establish our assertion that she was free. But she significantly shook her head, and still insisted that the examples and the legal decisions did not reach her case. “For,” said she, “I promised mistress that I would go back with her and the children.” Mr. Abdy undertook to argue with her that such a promise was not binding. He had been drilled in the moral philosophy of Dr. Paley, and in that debate seemed to be possessed of its spirit. But he failed to make any visible impression upon the woman. She had _bound_ herself by a promise to her mistress that she would not leave her, and that promise had fastened upon her conscience an obligation from which she could not be persuaded that even her natural right to liberty could exonerate her. Mr. Abdy at last was impatient with her, and said in his haste: “Is it possible that you do not wish to be free?” She replied with solemn earnestness: “Was there ever a slave that did not wish to be free? I long for liberty. I will get out of slavery if I can the day after I have returned, but go back I must because I _promised_ that I would.” At this we desisted from our endeavor to induce her to take the boon that was apparently within her reach. We could not but feel a profound respect for that moral sensibility, which would not allow her to embrace even her freedom at the expense of violating a promise.

The next morning at an early hour the slaveholder, with his wife and children, drove off, leaving the slave-woman and their heaviest trunk to be brought on after them in the stage-coach. We could not refrain from again trying to persuade her to remain and be free. We told her that her master had given us leave to persuade her, if we could. She pointed to the trunk and to a very valuable gold watch and chain, which her mistress had committed to her care, and insisted that fidelity to a trust was of more consequence to her soul even than the attainment of liberty. Mr. Abdy offered to take the trunk and watch into his charge, follow her master, and deliver them into his hands. But she could not be made to see that in this there would be no violation of her duty; and then her own person, that too she had promised should be returned to the home of her master. And much as she longed for liberty, she longed for a clear conscience more.

Mr. Abdy was astonished, delighted, at this instance of heroic virtue in a poor, ignorant slave. He packed his trunk, gave me a hearty adieu, and when the coach drove up he took his seat on the outside with the trunk and the slave-chattel of a Mississippi slaveholder, that he might study for a few hours more the morality of that strong-hearted woman who could not be bribed to violate her promise, even by the gift of liberty. It was the last time I saw Mr. Abdy, and it was a sight to be remembered,--he, an accomplished English gentleman, a Fellow of Oxford or Cambridge University, riding on the driver’s box of a stage-coach side by side with an American slave-woman, that he might learn more of her history and character.

“Full many a gem, of purest ray serene, The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”

In this connection I must be allowed to narrate an incident (though not an antislavery one), because it may interest my readers generally, and, should it come to the notice of any of my English friends, may lead to the return of a valuable manuscript which I wish very much to recover.

I had been for several years in possession of a letter of seven pages in the handwriting of General Washington, given me by a lady who obtained it in Richmond, Va. It was a letter addressed to Mr. Custis in 1794, while Washington was detained in Philadelphia in attendance upon his duties as President. He had left Mr. Custis in charge of his estates at Mount Vernon. The letter was one of particular instructions as to the management of “the people” and the disposition of the crops. It showed how exact were the business habits of that great man, and his anxiety that his slaves should be properly cared for.

Mr. Abdy read it and reread it with the deepest interest, and seemed to me to covet the possession of it. Just as he was about to take his departure I longed to give him something that he would value as a memento of his visit to me. There was nothing I could think of at the moment but the letter, so I put it into his hand, saying, “Keep it as my parting token of regard for you.” “What!” said he, seizing it with surprise as well as delight, “will you give me this invaluable relic?” “Yes,” I replied; “there are a great many of General Washington’s letters in our country, but not many in England. Take it, and show your countrymen that he was a man of method as well as of might.”

Some time after he had gone, and the fervor of feeling which impelled me to the gift had subsided, I began to regret that I had parted with the letter. There were in it, incidentally given, some traits of the character of Washington that might not be found elsewhere. It came to me that such a letter should not have been held or disposed of as my private property. It belonged rather to the nation.

A few years afterwards Mr. Abdy died. I learned from an English paper the fact of his demise and the name of the executor of his estate. To that gentleman I wrote, described the letter of Washington, the circumstances under which I had given it to Mr. Abdy, and requested that, as he had departed this life, the letter might be returned to me, with my reasons for wishing to possess it again. In due time I received a very courteous reply from that gentleman, assuring me that he sympathized with my feelings, and appreciated the propriety of my reclaiming the letter. But he added that he had searched for it in vain among Mr. Abdy’s papers, and presumed he had deposited it in the library of some literary or historical institution, but had left no intimation as to the disposal of it.

When in England, in 1859, I inquired for it of the librarian of the British Museum, and of Dr. William’s Library in Red-cross Street, but without success. If these lines should meet the eye of any friend in England who may know, or be able to find, where the valuable autograph is, I shall be very grateful for the information.[P]

A NEGRO’S LOVE OF LIBERTY.

A year or two after my removal to Syracuse a colored man accosted me in the street, and asked for a private interview with me on a matter of great importance. I had repeatedly met him about the city, and supposed from his appearance that he was a smart, enterprising, free negro.

At the time appointed he came to my house, and after looking carefully about to be sure we were alone, he informed me that he was a fugitive from slavery; that he had resided in our city several years, but nobody here except his wife knew whence he came, and he was very desirous that his secret should be kept.

“I have come,” he continued, “to ask your assistance to enable me to get my mother out of slavery. I have been industrious, have lived economically, and have saved three hundred dollars. With this I hope to purchase my mother, and bring her here to finish her days with me.” “You say,” I replied, “that you are a fugitive slave; from what place in the South did you escape?” “From W----, in Virginia,” he answered. I opened my atlas, and found a town so named in that State. “What towns are there adjoining or near W----?” I asked. He named several, enough to satisfy me that he was acquainted with that part of Virginia. “Well,” said I, “how did you get here?” “By the light of the north-star,” was his prompt reply. “How did you know anything about the north-star, and that it would guide you to freedom?” I doubtingly inquired. “I have _heard_ of a great many Southern slaves who have made their way into the free States and to Canada by the light of that star, but I have never before seen one who had done so. I am very desirous to hear particularly about your escape.” “Well, sir,” said he, “a good man in W----, a member of the Society of Friends, knowing how much I longed to be free, pointed out to me the north-star, and showed me how I might always find it. And he assured me, if I would travel towards it, that I should at length reach a part of the country where slavery was not allowed. I need not tell you, sir, how impatient I became to set off. After a while my master left home to be absent several days, and the next Saturday night I started with a bundle on my back, containing a part of the very few clothes I had, and all the food I could get with my mother’s help, and a little money in my pocket--not three dollars--that I had been gathering for a long time. The first and the second nights were pleasant, the stars shone bright, and there was no moon, so I travelled from the moment it was dark enough to venture out until the light of day began to appear. Then I found some place to hide, and there I lay all day until darkness came again. Thus I travelled night after night, always looking towards the north-star. Sometimes I lost sight of it in the woods through which I was obliged to pass, and oh! how glad I was to see it again. Sometimes I had to go a great ways round to avoid houses and grounds that were guarded by dogs, or that I feared it would not be safe for me to cross, but still I kept looking for the star, and turned and travelled towards it when I could. At other times (thank God, not often) the nights were so cloudy I could not see, and so was obliged to stay where I had been through the previous days. O sir, how long those nights did seem!

“When the food I had brought away in my bundle was all eaten up, I was forced to call at some houses and beg for something to relieve my hunger. I was generally treated kindly, for, as I learnt, I had gotten out of Virginia and Maryland. Still, I did not dare to stop so soon, but kept on until I reached this place, where I saw many colored people, evidently as free as the white folks. So I thought it would be safe to look about for employment here and a home. Here I have been living seven or eight years; have married a wife, and we have two children. As I told you at first, I have saved money enough, I believe, to buy my mother, and I want you, sir, to help me get her here.”

It cannot be necessary for me to assure my readers that I was deeply interested in this narrative, which I have repeated so often that I have kept its essential parts fresh in my memory. But, wishing to test its truth still further, I asked him what towns he had passed through in coming from W---- to Syracuse. “O,” said he, “as I travelled at night and avoided people all I could, and asked few questions of those I did meet, I learned the names of only a few places through which I came. I remember M---- and D---- and B----,” and so on, giving the names of six or eight towns in all. “Ah,” said I, “how did you get to B----, if you travelled only towards the north-star?”

“O,” he replied, “I got scared there. I thought the slave-catchers were after me. I ran for luck. I travelled two nights in the road that was easiest for me, without caring for anything but to escape. Then, supposing I had got away from those who were after me, I took to the north-star again, and that brought me here.”

The few towns which he named as having passed through after his last starting-point, I found on the map lying almost directly in the line running thence due north to this city.

Being thus assured of the correctness of his story, I began to question the expediency of his attempting to bring his mother away from her old home, even if I should be able to get possession of her for him. “She must be an aged woman by this time,” said I. “You look as if you were forty years old; she probably is sixty, perhaps nearly or quite seventy.”

“It may be so,” he replied; “but she used to be mighty smart and healthy, and may live a good many years yet, and I want to do what I can for my mother. I am her only child I believe, and I know she would be mighty glad to see me again before she dies.”

“Very true,” I rejoined; “but you have been so long separated she must have got used to living without you. Like other old slave-women in our Southern States (_mammies_ or _aunties_, as they are called), I presume she is pretty kindly treated, and such a change as you propose at her time of life might make her much less comfortable than she would be to continue to the last in her accustomed place and condition.”

“O sir!” he said, with great earnestness, “she is a slave. Every one in slavery longs to be free. I am sure she would rather suffer a great deal as a free woman than to live any longer, however comfortably, as a slave.”

“Yes,” I replied, with all apparent want of sympathy, “but it will cost you all the money you have saved, and I fear much more, to buy her and get her brought on to you here, so that you may then be too poor to make her comfortable. But your three hundred dollars will enable you to increase in many ways the comfort of your wife and children. That sum will go far towards the purchase of a nice little home for them. Now, do you not owe them quite as much as you do your mother?” “My wife,” he exclaimed, “is just as anxious as I am to get mother out of slavery. She is willing to work as hard as I will to make mother comfortable after we get her here. I am sure we shall not let mother suffer for anything she may need in her old age. Do, sir, help us get her here, and you shall see what we will do for her.” Repressing my feelings as much as possible, I said once more: “But, my good fellow, your mother is so old she can live but a little while after you have spent your all and more to get her here. Very likely the excitement and the fatigue of the journey and the change of the climate will kill her very soon.” With the deepest emotion and in a most subdued manner, he replied, “No matter if it does,--buy her, bring her here, and _let her die free_.” This was irresistible. I seized his hand. “Sanford, you must not think me as unsympathizing and cold as I have appeared. I have been trying you, proving you. I am satisfied that you know the value of liberty, that you hold it above all price. Be assured I will do all in my power to help you to accomplish your generous, your pious purpose. Nothing will give me more heartfelt satisfaction than to be instrumental in procuring the release of your mother and presenting her to you a free woman.”

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.