At this time two or three negroes had escaped, and I heard so much about the free States of the north that I was determined to be free. So I began to study what we call the north star, or astronomy, to guide me to the free States. I was in the habit of driving the master; and on one occasion I had to drive him to Baltimore where two of his sons were studying law; and while there, I stole some sweet potatoes to roast when I got home; and how master got to know I had them I never knew; but when I got home he gave me a note to Mr. Cobb, the overseer, and told me to tell Dick, (another slave on the plantation) to come to Baltimore to him on the following evening, and as soon as I took the note in my hand I was certain there was a flogging in it for me, though he said nothing to me. I held the note that night and following day, afraid to give it to Mr. Cobb, so confident was I of what would be the result. Towards evening I began to reason thus— If I give Cobb the note I shall be whipped; if I withhold the note from him I shall be whipped, so a whipping appears plain in either case. Now Dick having arranged to meet his sweetheart this night assumed sickness, so that he could have an excuse for not meeting master at Baltimore, and he wanted me to go instead of him. I agreed to go, providing he would take the note I had to Mr. Cobb, as I had forgot to give it him, to which he consented, and off I went; and I heard that when he delivered the note to Mr. Cobb, he ordered him to go to the whipping-post, and when he asked what he had done he was knocked down, and afterwards put to the post and thirty-nine lashes were administered, and failed seeing his sweetheart as well. When I arrived at Baltimore my master and young master took their seats and I drove away without any question until we had gone three miles, when he asked what I was doing there that night. I very politely said Dick was not well, and I had come in his place. He then asked me if Mr. Cobb got his note, I answered, yes, sir. He then asked me how I felt, and I said first rate, sir. “The d——l you do,” said he. I said, yes sir. He said “nigger, did Mr. Cobb flog you?” No sir. I have done nothing wrong. “You never do,” he answered; and said no more until he got home. Being a man who could not bear to have any order of his disobeyed or unfulfilled, he immediately called for Mr. Cobb, and was told he was in bed; and when he appeared, the master asked if he got the note sent by the nigger. Mr. Cobb said “Yes.” “Then why,” said master, “did you not perform my orders in the note?” “I did, sir,” replied Cobb; when the master said, “I told you to give that nigger thirty-nine lashes,” Mr. Cobb says, “So I did, sir;” when master replied, “He says you never licked him at all.” Upon which Cobb said, “He is a liar;” when my master called for me (who had been hearing the whole dialogue at the door), I turned on my toes and went a short distance, and I shouted with a loud voice that I was coming, (to prevent them knowing that I had been listening) and appeared before them and said “here I am master, do you want me?” He said “Yes. Did you not tell me that Mr. Cobb had not flogged you,” and I said “yes I did; he has not flogged me to-day, sir.” Mr. Cobb answered, “I did not flog him. You did not tell me to flog him. You told me to flog that other nigger.” “What other nigger,” enquired Master. Cobb said, “Dick.” Master then said, “I did not. I told you to flog this nigger here.” Cobb then produced the letter, and read it as follows:
“Mr. Cobb will give the bearer 39 lashes on delivery.”
R. T. EARLE.
I then left the room and explanations took place. When I was again called in. “How came Dick to have had the letter,” and I then said I had forgot to deliver it until Dick wanted me to go to Baltimore in his place, and I agreed providing he would take the letter. Master then said “you lie, you infernal villain,” and laid hold of a pair of tongs and said he would dash my brains out if I did not tell him the truth. I then said I thought there was something in the note that boded no good to me, and I did not intend to give it to him. He said, “you black vagabond, stay on this plantation three months longer, and you will be master and I the slave; no wonder you said you felt first rate when I asked you, but I will sell you to go to Georgia the first chance I get.” Then laying the tongs down he opened the door and ordered me out. I knew he had on heavy cow-hide boots, and I knew he would try to assist me in my outward progress, and though expecting it and went as quick as I could, I was materially assisted by a heavy kick from my master’s foot. This did not end the matter, for when Dick found out I had caused his being flogged, we had continual fightings for several months.
When I was fourteen years old my master gave me a flogging, the marks of which will go with me to my grave, and this was for a crime of which I was completely innocent. My master’s son had taken one of his pistols out, and by some accident it burst. When enquiry was made about the damaged pistol William told his father that he had seen me have it; this, of course, I denied, when master tied me up by my thumbs and gave me 60 lashes, and also made me confess the crime before he would release me. From this flogging my back was raw and sore for three months; the shirt that I wore was made of rough tow linen, and when at work in the fields it would so chafe the sores that they would break and run, and the hot sun over me would bake the shirt fast to my back, and for four weeks I wore that shirt, unable to pull it off, and when I did pull it off it brought with it much of my flesh, leaving my back perfectly raw. Some time after this my master found out the truth about the pistol, and when I saw that he did not offer me any apology for the beating he had given me, and the lie he had made me confess, I went to him and said—now, master, you see that you beat me unjustly about that pistol, and made me confess to a lie—but all the consolation I got was—clear out, you black rascal; I never struck a blow amiss in my life, except when I struck at you and happened to miss you; there are plenty of other crimes you have committed and did not let me catch you at them, so that flogging will do for the lot.
Master had an old negro in the family called Uncle Reuben. This good old man and his wife were very good friends of my mother’s, and before she was sold they often met and sung and prayed, and talked about religion together. Uncle Reuben fell sick in the middle of the harvest, and his sickness was very severe; but master having a grudge against uncle Reuben, and his old wife aunt Dinah, respecting a complaint that aunt Dinah had made to mistress about his having outraged and violated her youngest daughter, his spite was carried out by Mr. Cobb, the overseer, who forced Uncle Reuben into the field amongst the rest of us, and I was ordered to cradle behind him to make him keep up with the rest of the gang. The poor old man worked until he fell, just ahead of me, upon the cradle. Mr. Cobb came over and told him to get up, and that he was only playing the old soldier, and when the old man did not move to get up Mr. Cobb gave him a few kicks with his heavy boots and told Reuben, sick as he was, that he would cure him. He ordered us to take off his shirt, and the poor old man was stripped, when Mr. Cobb, with his hickory cane, laid on him till his back bled freely; but still the old man seemed to take no notice of what Mr. Cobb was doing. Mr. Cobb then told us to put on his shirt and carry him in, for he appeared convinced that Reuben could not walk. The next morning I went to see him but he did not seem to know anybody. Master came in along with the Doctor, and master swore at Reuben, telling him that as soon as he was well enough he should have a good flogging for having, by his own folly, caught his sickness. The doctor here checked his master’s rage by telling him, as he felt at Reuben by the wrist, he could not live many minutes longer; at this master was silent, and a few minutes Reuben was dead. Poor Aunt Dinah came in out of the kitchen and wept fit to break her poor heart. She had four sons and three daughters, and they all joined in mournful lamentation.
When I was sixteen I was very fond of dancing, and was invited privately to a negro shindy or dance, about twelve miles from home, and for this purpose I got Aunt Dinah to starch the collars for my two linen shirts, which were the first standing collars I had ever worn in my life; I had a good pair of trousers, and a jacket, but no necktie, nor no pocket handkerchief, so I stole aunt Dinah’s checked apron, and tore it in two—one part for a necktie, the other
for a pocket handkerchief. I had twenty-four cents, or pennies which I divided equally with fifty large brass buttons in my right and left pockets. Now, thought I to myself, when I get on the floor and begin to dance—oh! how the niggers will stare to hear the money jingle. I was combing my hair to get the knots out of it: I then went and looked in an old piece of broken looking-glass, and I thought, without joking, that I was the best looking negro that I had ever seen in my life. About ten o’clock I stole out to the stable when all was still; and while I was getting on one of my master’s horses I said to myself— Master was in here at six o’clock and saw all these horses clean, so I must look out and be back time enough to have you clean when he gets up in the morning. I thought what a dash I should cut among the pretty yellow and Sambo gals, and I felt quite confident, of course, that I should have my pick among the best looking ones, for my good clothes, and my abundance of money, and my own good looks—in fact, I thought no mean things of my self.
When I arrived at the place where the dance was, it was at an old house in the woods, which had many years before been a negro meeting-house; there was a large crowd there, and about one hundred horses tied round the fence—for some of them were far from home, and, like myself, they were all runaways, and their horses, like mine, had to be home and cleaned before their masters were up in the morning. In getting my horse close up to the fence a nail caught my trousers at the thigh, and split them clean up to the seat; of course my shirt tail fell out behind, like a woman’s apron before. This dreadful misfortune almost unmanned me, and curtailed both my pride and pleasure for the night. I cried until I could cry no more. However, I was determined I would not be done out of my sport after being at the expense of coming, so I went round and borrowed some pins, and pinned up my shirt tail as well as I could. I then went into the dance, and told the fiddler to play me a jig. Che, che, che, went the fiddle, when the banjo responded with a thrum, thrum, thrum, with the loud cracking of the bone player. I seized a little Sambo gal, and round and round the room we went, my money and my buttons going jingle, jingle, jingle, seemed to take a lively part with the music, and to my great satisfaction every eye seemed to be upon me, and I could not help thinking about what an impression I should leave behind upon those pretty yellow and Sambo gals, who were gazing at me, thinking I was the richest and handsomest nigger they had ever seen: but unfortunately the pins in my breeches gave way, and to my great confusion my shirt tail fell out; and what made my situation still more disgraceful was the mischievous conduct of my partner, the gal that I was dancing with, who instead of trying to conceal my shame caught my shirt tail behind and held it up. The roar of laughter that came from both men and gals almost deafened me, and I would at this moment have sunk through the floor, so I endeavoured to creep out as slily as I could; but even this I was not permitted to do until I had undergone a hauling around the room by my unfortunate shirt tail: and this part of the programme was performed by the gals, set on by the boys—every nigger who could not stand up and laugh, because laughing made them weak, fell down on the floor and rolled round and round. When the gals saw their own turn they let me go and I hurried outside and stood behind the house, beneath a beautiful bright moon, which saw me that night the most wretched of all negroes in the land of Dixie; and what made me feel, in my own opinion, that my humiliation was just as complete as the triumph of the negroes inside was glorious, was that the gals had turned my pockets out, and found that the hundreds of dollars they had thought my pockets contained, consisted of 24 cents or pennies, and 50 brass buttons. Everything was alive and happy inside the room, but no one knew or cared how miserable I was—the joy and life of the dance that night seemed entirely at my expense, all through my unfortunate shirt tail. The first thing I thought of now was revenge. Take your comfort, niggers now, said I to myself, for sorrow shall be yours in the morning, so I took out my knife and went round the fence and cut every horse loose, and they all ran away. I then got on my horse and set off home. As I rode on I thought to myself—I only wish I could be somewhere close enough to see how those negroes will act when they come out and find all their horses gone. And then I laughed right out when I thought of the sport they had had out of my misfortune, and that some were ten to twelve, and some fifteen miles away from home. Well, thought I, your masters will have to reckon with you to-morrow; you have had glad hearts to-night at my expense, but you will have sore backs to-morrow at your own. Now, when I got home, the stable was in a very bad situation, and I was afraid to bring my horse in until I could strike a light. When this was done, I took the saddle and bridle off outside. No sooner had I done this than my horse reared over the bars and ran away into the meadow. I chased him till daylight, and for my life I could not catch him. My feelings now may be better imagined than described. When the reader remembers that this horse, with all the rest, master had seen clean at six o’clock the night before, and all safe in the stable, and now to see him in the meadow, with all the marks of having been driven somewhere and by somebody, what excuse could I make, or what story could I invent in order to save my poor back from that awful flogging which I knew must be the result of the revelation of the truth. I studied and tried, but could think of no lie that would stand muster. At last I went into the stable and turned all the rest out, and left the stable door open, and creeping into the house, took off my fine clothes and put on those which I had been wearing all the week, and laid myself down on my straw. I had not lain long before I heard master shouting for me, for all those horses, eight in number, were under my care; and although he shouted for me at the top of his voice, I lay still and pretended not to hear him; but soon after I heard a light step coming up stairs, and a rap at my door—then I commenced to snore as loud as possible, still the knocking continued. At last I pretended to awake, and called out, who’s there—that you, Lizzy? oh my! what’s up, what time is it, and so on. Lizzy said master wanted me immediately; yes, Lizzy, said I, tell master I’m coming. I bothered about the room long enough to give colour to the impression that I had just finished dressing myself; I then came and said, here I am, master, when he demanded of me, what were my horses doing in the meadow? Here I put on an expression of such wonder and surprise—looking first into the meadow and then at the stable door, and to master’s satisfaction, I seemed so completely confounded that my deception took upon him the desired effect. Then I affected to roar right out, crying, now master, you saw my horses all clean last night before I went to bed, and now some of those negroes have turned them out so that I should have them to clean over again: well, I declare! it’s too bad, and I roared and cried as I went towards the meadow to drive them up; but master believing what I said, called me back and told me to call Mr. Cobb, and when Mr. Cobb came master told him to blow the horn; when the horn was blown, the negroes were to be seen coming from all parts of the plantation, and forming around in front of the balcony. Master then came out and said, now I saw this boy’s horses clean last night and in the stable, so now tell me which of you turned them out? Of course they all denied it, then master ordered them all to go down into the meadow and drive up the horses and clean them, me excepted; so they went and drove them up and set to work and cleaned them. On Monday morning we all turned out to work until breakfast, when the horn was blown, and we all repaired to the house. Here master again demanded to know who turned the horses loose, and when they all denied it, he tied them all up and gave them each 39 lashes. Not yet satisfied, but determined to have a confession, as was always his custom on such occasions, he came to me and asked me which one I had reason to suspect. My poor guilty heart already bleeding for the suffering I had caused my fellow slaves, was now almost driven to confession. What must I do, select another victim for further punishment, or confess the truth and bear the consequence? My conscience now rebuked me, like an armed man; but I happened to be one of those boys who, among all even of my mother’s children loved myself best, and therefore had no disposition to satisfy my conscience at the expense of a very sore back, so
I very soon thought of Dick, a negro who, like Ishmael, had his hand out against every man, and all our hands were out against him; this negro was a lickspittle or tell-tale, as little boys call them—we could not steal a bit of tea or sugar, or any other kind of nourishment for our sick, or do anything else we did not want to be known, but if he got to know it he would run and tell master or mistress, or the overseer, so we all wanted him dead; and now I thought of him—he was just the proper sacrifice for me to lay upon the altar of confession, so I told master I believed that it was Dick: moreover, I told him that I had seen him in and out of the stable on Saturday night, so master tied Dick up and gave him 39 lashes more, and washed his back down with salt and water, and told him that at night if he did not confess, he would give him as much more; so at night, when master went out to Dick again, he asked if he had made up his mind to tell him the truth, Dick said, yes, master;—well, said master, let me hear it. Well master, said Dick, I did turn the horses out; but will never do so again. So master, satisfied with this confession, struck Dick no more, and ordered him to be untied; but Dick had a sore back for many weeks. And now to return to the negroes I had left at the dance, when they discovered that their horses were gone there was the greatest consternation amongst them, the forebodings of the awful consequences if they dared to go home induced many that night to seek salvation in the direction and guidance of the north star. Several who started off on that memorable night I have since shook hands with in Canada. They told me there were sixteen of them went off together, four of them were shot or killed by the bloodhounds, and one was captured while asleep in a barn; the rest of those who were at the dance either went home and took their floggings, or strayed into the woods until starved out, and then surrendered. One of those I saw in Toronto, is Dan Patterson; he has a house of his own, with a fine horse and cart, and he has a beautiful Sambo woman for his wife, and four fine healthy-looking children. But, like myself, he had left a wife and six children in slavery. When I was about seventeen, I was deeply smitten in love with a yellow girl belonging to Doctor Tillotson. This girl’s name was Mary, of whose lovliness I dreamt every night. I certainly thought she was the prettiest girl I had ever seen in my life. Her colour was very fair, approaching almost to white; her countenance was frank and open, and very inviting; her voice was as sweet as the dulcimer, her smiles to me were like the May morning sunbeams in the spring, one glance of her large dark eyes broke my heart in pieces, with a stroke like that of an earthquake. O, I thought, this girl would make me a paradise, and to enjoy her love I thought would be heaven. In spite of either patrols or dogs, who stood in my way, every night nearly I was in Mary’s company. I learned from her that she had already had a child to her master in Mobile, and that her mistress had sold her down here for revenge; and she told me also of the sufferings that she had undergone from her mistress on account of jealousy—her baby she said her mistress sold out of her arms, only eleven months old, to a lady in Marysville, Kentucky. Having never before felt a passion like this, or of the gentle power, so peculiar to women, that, hard as I worked all day, I could not sleep at night for thinking of this almost angel in human shape. We kept company about six weeks, during which time I was at sometimes as wretched as I was happy at others. Much to my annoyance Mary was adored by every negro in the neighbourhood, and this excited my jealousy and made me miserable. I was almost crazy when I saw another negro talking to her. Again and again I tried my best to get her to give up speaking to them, but she refused to comply. There was one negro who was in the habit of calling on Mary whom I dreaded more than all the rest of them put together, this negro was Dan, he belonged to Rogers; and notwithstanding I believed myself to be the best looking negro to be found anywhere in the neighbourhood, still I was aware that I was not the best of talkers. Dan was a sweet and easy talker, and a good bone and banjo player. I was led to fear that he would displace me in Mary’s affections, and in this I was not mistaken. One night I went over to see Mary, and in looking through the window, saw Mary—my sweet and beloved Mary—sitting upon Dan’s knee; and here it is impossible to describe the feeling that came over me at this unwelcome sight. My teeth clenched and bit my tongue—my head grew dizzy, and began to swim round and round, and at last I found myself getting up from the ground, having stumbled from the effects of what I had seen. I wandered towards home, and arriving there threw myself on the straw and cried all night. My first determination was to kill Dan; but then I thought they would hang me and the devil would have us both, and some other negro will get Mary, then the thought of killing Dan passed away. Next morning, when the horn blew for breakfast, I continued my work, my appetite having left me; at dinner time it was the same. At sun-down I went to the barn and got a rope and put it under my jacket, and started off to see Mary, whom I found sitting in the kitchen, smoking her pipe, for smoking was as common among the girls as among the men. Mary, said I, I was over here last night and saw you through the window sitting on Dan’s knee. Now, Mary, I want you to tell me at once whose you mean to be—mine or Dan’s? Dan’s, she replied, with an important toss of her head, which went through my very soul, like the shock from a galvanic battery. I rested for a minute or so on an old oak table that stood by. Mary’s answer had unstrung every nerve in me, and left me so weak that I could scarcely keep from falling. Now I was not at that time, and dont think I ever shall be one of those fools who would cut off his nose to spite his face, much less kill myself because a girl refused to love me. Life to me was always preferable, under any circumstances; but in this case I played the most dexterous card I had. Mary, said I sternly, if you dont give Dan up and sware to be mine, I will hang myself this night. To this she replied, hang on if you are fool enough, and continued smoking her pipe as though not the least alarmed. I took out the rope from under my jacket, and got upon a three-legged stool, and putting the rope first over the beam in the ceiling, then made a slip-knot, and brought it down round my neck, taking good care to have it short enough that it would not choke me, and in this way I stood upon the stool for some considerable time, groaning and struggling, and making every kind of noise that might make her believe that I was choking or strangling; but still Mary sat deliberately smoking her pipe with the utmost coolness, and seemed to take no notice of me or what I was doing. I thought my situation worse now than if I had not commenced this job at all. My object in pretending to hang myself was to frighten Mary into compliance with my demand, and her conduct turned out to be everything but what I had expected. I had thought that the moment I ascended the stool she would have clung to me and tried to dissuade me from committing suicide, and in this case my plan was to persist in carrying it out, unless she would consent to give Dan up; but instead of this she sat smoking her pipe apparently at ease and unmoved. Now I found I had been mistaken—what was I to do, to hang or kill myself was the last thing I meant to do—in fact I had not the courage to do it for five hundred Marys. But now, after mounting the stool and adjusting the rope round my neck, I was positively ashamed to come down without hanging myself, and then I stood like a fool. At this moment in came the dog carlow, racing after the cat, right across the kitchen floor, and the dog coming in contact with the stool, knocked it right away from under my feet, and brought my neck suddenly to the full length of the rope, which barely allowed my toes to touch the floor. Here I seized the rope with both hands to keep the weight of my whole body off my neck, and in this situation I soon found I must hang, and that dead enough, unless I had some assistance, for the stool had rolled entirely out of the reach of my feet, and the knot I had tied behind the beam I could not reach for my life. My arms began to tremble with holding on to the rope, and still my mortification and pride for some time refused to let me call on Mary for assistance. Such a moment of terror and suspense! heaven forbid that I should ever see or experience again. Thoughts rushed into my mind of every bad deed that I had done in my life; and I thought that old cloven foot, as we called the devil, was waiting to nab me. The stretch upon my arms exhauste
d me, with holding on by the rope, nothing was left me but despair; my pride and courage gave up the ghost, and I roared out, Mary! for God’s sake cut the rope! No, answered Mary, you went up there to hang yourself, so now hang on. Oh! Mary, Mary! I did not mean to hang! I was only doing so to see what you would say. Well, then, said Mary; you hear what I have to say—hang on. Oh, Mary! for heaven’s sake cut this rope, or I shall strangle to death!—oh, dear, good Mary, save me this time: and I roared out like a jackass, and must too have fainted, for when I came round Doctor Tillotson and his wife and Mary stood over me as I lay on the floor. How I got upon the floor, or who cut the rope I never knew. Doctor Tillotson had hold of my wrist, feeling my pulse; while mistress held a camphor bottle in one hand and a bottle of hartshorn in the other. The doctor helped me up from the floor and set me in a chair, when I discovered that I was bleeding very freely from the nose and mouth. He called for a basin and bled me in my left arm, and then sent me over home by two of his men. Next day my neck was dreadfully swollen, and my throat was so sore that it was with difficulty that I could swallow meat for more than a week. At the end of a fortnight, master having learnt all the particulars respecting my sickness, called me to account, and gave me seventy-eight lashes, and this was the end of my crazy love and courtship with Mary.
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