The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers

by Various

  “God be thanked,” ejaculated Mag, as she saw its breathing cease; “no one can taunt HER with my ruin.”

  Blessed release! may we all respond. How many pure, innocent children not only inherit a wicked heart of their own, claiming life-long scrutiny and restraint, but are heirs also of parental disgrace and calumny, from which only long years of patient endurance in paths of rectitude can disencumber them.

  Mag’s new home was soon contaminated by the publicity of her fall; she had a feeling of degradation oppressing her; but she resolved to be circumspect, and try to regain in a measure what she had lost. Then some foul tongue would jest of her shame, and averted looks and cold greetings disheartened her. She saw she could not bury in forgetfulness her misdeed, so she resolved to leave her home and seek another in the place she at first fled from.

  Alas, how fearful are we to be first in extending a helping hand to those who stagger in the mires of infamy; to speak the first words of hope and warning to those emerging into the sunlight of morality! Who can tell what numbers, advancing just far enough to hear a cold welcome and join in the reserved converse of professed reformers, disappointed, disheartened, have chosen to dwell in unclean places, rather than encounter these “holier-than-thou” of the great brotherhood of man!

  Such was Mag’s experience; and disdaining to ask favor or friendship from a sneering world, she resolved to shut herself up in a hovel she had often passed in better days, and which she knew to be untenanted. She vowed to ask no favors of familiar faces; to die neglected and forgotten before she would be dependent on any. Removed from the village, she was seldom seen except as upon your introduction, gentle reader, with downcast visage, returning her work to her employer, and thus providing herself with the means of subsistence. In two years many hands craved the same avocation; foreigners who cheapened toil and clamored for a livelihood, competed with her, and she could not thus sustain herself. She was now above no drudgery. Occasionally old acquaintances called to be favored with help of some kind, which she was glad to bestow for the sake of the money it would bring her; but the association with them was such a painful reminder of by-gones, she returned to her hut morose and revengeful, refusing all offers of a better home than she possessed. Thus she lived for years, hugging her wrongs, but making no effort to escape. She had never known plenty, scarcely competency; but the present was beyond comparison with those innocent years when the coronet of virtue was hers.

  Every year her melancholy increased, her means diminished. At last no one seemed to notice her, save a kind-hearted African, who often called to inquire after her health and to see if she needed any fuel, he having the responsibility of furnishing that article, and she in return mending or making garments.

  “How much you earn dis week, Mag?” asked he one Saturday evening.

  “Little enough, Jim. Two or three days without any dinner. I washed for the Reeds, and did a small job for Mrs. Bellmont; that’s all. I shall starve soon, unless I can get more to do. Folks seem as afraid to come here as if they expected to get some awful disease. I don’t believe there is a person in the world but would be glad to have me dead and out of the way.”

  “No, no, Mag! don’t talk so. You shan’t starve so long as I have barrels to hoop. Peter Greene boards me cheap. I’ll help you, if nobody else will.”

  A tear stood in Mag’s faded eye. “I’m glad,” she said, with a softer tone than before, “if there is ONE who isn’t glad to see me suffer. I b’lieve all Singleton wants to see me punished, and feel as if they could tell when I’ve been punished long enough. It’s a long day ahead they’ll set it, I reckon.”

  After the usual supply of fuel was prepared, Jim returned home. Full of pity for Mag, he set about devising measures for her relief. “By golly!” said he to himself one day—for he had become so absorbed in Mag’s interest that he had fallen into a habit of musing aloud—“By golly! I wish she’d MARRY me.”

  “Who?” shouted Pete Greene, suddenly starting from an unobserved corner of the rude shop.

  “Where you come from, you sly nigger!” exclaimed Jim.

  “Come, tell me, who is’t?” said Pete; “Mag Smith, you want to marry?”

  “Git out, Pete! and when you come in dis shop again, let a nigger know it. Don’t steal in like a thief.”

  Pity and love know little severance. One attends the other. Jim acknowledged the presence of the former, and his efforts in Mag’s behalf told also of a finer principle.

  This sudden expedient which he had unintentionally disclosed, roused his thinking and inventive powers to study upon the best method of introducing the subject to Mag.

  He belted his barrels, with many a scheme revolving in his mind, none of which quite satisfied him, or seemed, on the whole, expedient. He thought of the pleasing contrast between her fair face and his own dark skin; the smooth, straight hair, which he had once, in expression of pity, kindly stroked on her now wrinkled but once fair brow. There was a tempest gathering in his heart, and at last, to ease his pent-up passion, he exclaimed aloud, “By golly!” Recollecting his former exposure, he glanced around to see if Pete was in hearing again. Satisfied on this point, he continued: “She’d be as much of a prize to me as she’d fall short of coming up to the mark with white folks. I don’t care for past things. I’ve done things ’fore now I’s ’shamed of. She’s good enough for me, any how.”

  One more glance about the premises to be sure Pete was away.

  The next Saturday night brought Jim to the hovel again. The cold was fast coming to tarry its apportioned time. Mag was nearly despairing of meeting its rigor.

  “How’s the wood, Mag?” asked Jim.

  “All gone; and no more to cut, any how,” was the reply.

  “Too bad!” Jim said. His truthful reply would have been, I’m glad.

  “Anything to eat in the house?” continued he.

  “No,” replied Mag.

  “Too bad!” again, orally, with the same INWARD gratulation as before.

  “Well, Mag,” said Jim, after a short pause, “you’s down low enough. I don’t see but I’ve got to take care of ye. ’Sposin’ we marry!”

  Mag raised her eyes, full of amazement, and uttered a sonorous “What?”

  Jim felt abashed for a moment. He knew well what were her objections.

  “You’s had trial of white folks any how. They run off and left ye, and now none of ’em come near ye to see if you’s dead or alive. I’s black outside, I know, but I’s got a white heart inside. Which you rather have, a black heart in a white skin, or a white heart in a black one?”

  “Oh, dear!” sighed Mag; “Nobody on earth cares for ME—”

  “I do,” interrupted Jim.

  “I can do but two things,” said she, “beg my living, or get it from you.”

  “Take me, Mag. I can give you a better home than this, and not let you suffer so.”

  He prevailed; they married. You can philosophize, gentle reader, upon the impropriety of such unions, and preach dozens of sermons on the evils of amalgamation. Want is a more powerful philosopher and preacher. Poor Mag. She has sundered another bond which held her to her fellows. She has descended another step down the ladder of infamy.

  CHAPTER XII.

  The Winding Up of the Matter.

  Nothing new under the sun.

  SOLOMON.

  A few years ago, within the compass of my narrative, there appeared often in some of our New England villages, professed fugitives from slavery, who recounted their personal experience in homely phrase, and awakened the indignation of non-slaveholders against brother Pro. Such a one appeared in the new home of Frado; and as people of color were rare there, was it strange she should attract her dark brother; that he should inquire her out; succeed in seeing her; feel a strange sensation in his heart towards her; that he should toy with her shining curls, feel proud to provoke her to smile and exp
ose the ivory concealed by thin, ruby lips; that her sparkling eyes should fascinate; that he should propose; that they should marry? A short acquaintance was indeed an objection, but she saw him often, and thought she knew him. He never spoke of his enslavement to her when alone, but she felt that, like her own oppression, it was painful to disturb oftener than was needful.

  He was a fine, straight negro, whose back showed no marks of the lash, erect as if it never crouched beneath a burden. There was a silent sympathy which Frado felt attracted her, and she opened her heart to the presence of love—that arbitrary and inexorable tyrant.

  She removed to Singleton, her former residence, and there was married. Here were Frado’s first feelings of trust and repose on human arm. She realized, for the first time, the relief of looking to another for comfortable support. Occasionally he would leave her to “lecture.”

  Those tours were prolonged often to weeks. Of course he had little spare money. Frado was again feeling her self-dependence, and was at last compelled to resort alone to that. Samuel was kind to her when at home, but made no provision for his absence, which was at last unprecedented.

  He left her to her fate—embarked at sea, with the disclosure that he had never seen the South, and that his illiterate harangues were humbugs for hungry abolitionists. Once more alone! Yet not alone. A still newer companionship would soon force itself upon her. No one wanted her with such prospects. Herself was burden enough; who would have an additional one?

  The horrors of her condition nearly prostrated her, and she was again thrown upon the public for sustenance. Then followed the birth of her child. The long absent Samuel unexpectedly returned, and rescued her from charity. Recovering from her expected illness, she once more commenced toil for herself and child, in a room obtained of a poor woman, but with better fortune. One so well known would not be wholly neglected. Kind friends watched her when Samuel was from home, prevented her from suffering, and when the cold weather pinched the warmly clad, a kind friend took them in, and thus preserved them. At last Samuel’s business became very engrossing, and after long desertion, news reached his family that he had become a victim of yellow fever, in New Orleans.

  So much toil as was necessary to sustain Frado, was more than she could endure. As soon as her babe could be nourished without his mother, she left him in charge of a Mrs. Capon, and procured an agency, hoping to recruit her health, and gain an easier livelihood for herself and child. This afforded her better maintenance than she had yet found. She passed into the various towns of the State she lived in, then into Massachusetts. Strange were some of her adventures. Watched by kidnappers, maltreated by professed abolitionists, who didn’t want slaves at the South, nor niggers in their own houses, North. Faugh! to lodge one; to eat with one; to admit one through the front door; to sit next one; awful!

  Traps slyly laid by the vicious to ensnare her, she resolutely avoided. In one of her tours, Providence favored her with a friend who, pitying her cheerless lot, kindly provided her with a valuable recipe, from which she might herself manufacture a useful article for her maintenance. This proved a more agreeable, and an easier way of sustenance.

  And thus, to the present time, may you see her busily employed in preparing her merchandise; then sallying forth to encounter many frowns, but some kind friends and purchasers. Nothing turns her from her steadfast purpose of elevating herself. Reposing on God, she has thus far journeyed securely. Still an invalid, she asks your sympathy, gentle reader. Refuse not, because some part of her history is unknown, save by the Omniscient God. Enough has been unrolled to demand your sympathy and aid.

  Do you ask the destiny of those connected with her EARLY history? A few years only have elapsed since Mr. and Mrs. B. passed into another world. As age increased, Mrs. B. became more irritable, so that no one, even her own children, could remain with her; and she was accompanied by her husband to the home of Lewis, where, after an agony in death unspeakable, she passed away. Only a few months since, Aunt Abby entered heaven. Jack and his wife rest in heaven, disturbed by no intruders; and Susan and her child are yet with the living. Jane has silver locks in place of auburn tresses, but she has the early love of Henry still, and has never regretted her exchange of lovers. Frado has passed from their memories, as Joseph from the butler’s, but she will never cease to track them till beyond mortal vision.

  11

  HANNAH CRAFTS/BOND

  (1826–after 1859)

  New discoveries by Gregg Hecimovich have identified Hannah Bond as the author of The Bondwoman’s Narrative, a fictionalized account of enslavement and escape found and republished by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., in 2002. Bond was born in 1826 on the plantation of Lewis and Catherine Pugh Bond in Bertie County, North Carolina. Bond, like the light-skinned protagonist of her story, was an enslaved house servant. In her twenties, Bond moved to the household of Esther Bond, Lewis and Catherine’s daughter; in 1853, she became a maidservant to Esther’s sister, Lucinda Bond Wheeler, wife of Samuel Jordan Wheeler of Murfreesboro, North Carolina. In the summer of 1856, because of various debts, Hannah became the slave of Ellen Sully Wheeler, identified as “Mrs. Wheeler” in The Bondwoman’s Narrative.

  In 1857, Hannah Bond escaped, disguised as a man, from the Wheeler plantation near Murfreesboro and made her way north. She was hidden and protected by a farmer, Horace Craft, in western New York. In return, Bond chose Crafts as her pen name. Settling in New Jersey, in a community of freed and escaped slaves, she finished her novel in 1858. After its completion, she married and became a school teacher. What she did with her manuscript, whether she ever tried to find a publisher for it, and when she died, remain unknown.

  Selections from The Bondwoman’s Narrative (ca. 1858)

  SOURCE: The Bondwoman’s Narrative. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (New York: Warner Books 2003).

  CHAPTER 1

  In Childhood

  It may be that I assume to[o] much responsibility in attempting to write these pages. The world will probably say so, and I am aware of my deficiencies. I am neither clever, nor learned, nor talented. When a child they used to scold and find fault with me because they said I was dull and stupid. Perhaps under other circumstances and with more encouragement I might have appeared better; for I was shy and reserved and scarce dared open my lips to any one I had none of that quickness and animation which are so much admired in children, but rather a silent unobtrusive way of observing things and events, and wishing to understand them better than I could.

  I was not brought up by any body in particular that I know of. I had no training, no cultivation. The birds of the air, or beasts of the field are not freer from moral culture than I was. No one seemed to care for me till I was able to work, and then it was Hannah do this and Hannah do that, but I never complained as I found a sort of pleasure and something to divert my thoughts in employment. Of my relatives I knew nothing. No one ever spoke of my father or mother, but I soon learned what a curse was attached to my race, soon learned that the African blood in my veins would forever exclude me from the higher walks of life. That toil unremitted unpaid toil must be my lot and portion, without even the hope or expectation of any thing better. This seemed the harder to be borne, because my complexion was almost white, and the obnoxious descent could not be readily traced, though it gave a rotundity to my person, a wave and curl to my hair, and perhaps led me to fancy pictorial illustrations and flaming colors.

  The busiest life has its leisure moments; it was so with mine. I had from the first an instinctive desire for knowledge and the means of mental improvement. Though neglected and a slave, I felt the immortal longings in me. In the absence of books and teachers and schools I determined to learn if not in a regular, approved, and scientific way. I was aware that this plan would meet with opposition, perhaps with punishment. My master never permitted his slaves to be taught. Education in his view tended to enlarge and expand their ideas; made them less subservient to their superiors, and besi
des that its blessings were destined to be conferred exclusively on the higher and nobler race. Indeed though he was generally easy and good-tempered, there was nothing liberal or democratic in his nature. Slaves were slaves to him, and nothing more. Practically he regarded them not as men and women, but in the same light as horses or other domestic animals. He furnished supplied their necessities of food and clothing from the same motives of policy, but [di]scounted the ideas of equality and fraternity as preposterous and absurd. Of course I had nothing to expect from him, yet “where there’s a will there’s a way.”

  I was employed about the house, consequently my labors were much easier than those of the field servants, and I enjoyed intervals of repose and rest unknown to them. Then, too, I was a mere child and some hours of each day were allotted to play. On such occasions, and while the other children of the house were amusing themselves I would quietly steal away from their company to ponder over the pages of some old book or newspaper that chance had thrown in [my] way. Though I knew not the meaning of a single letter, and had not the means of finding out I loved to look at them and think that some day I should probably understand them all.