The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers

by Various

  What will infidelity say to this? It surely will not attempt to charge a sincere and godly Christian on her death-bed with hypocrisy; nor can it be consistently attributed to fanaticism. The antagonizing conflicts of Christian faith, and its triumphs through the aids of the Holy Spirit over the powers of darkness, as exemplified on such occasions, are very remote from the whimsical vagaries of an over-heated and incoherent imagination; such experience, under certain circumstances, is the natural cause and effect of exercise of Christian faith, in collision with forces asserted by the gospel to be engaged in hostile action to it; and it is a fact worthy of extensive observation, that the vast variety of mental exercises and religious experiences of all true and lively Christians, in every grade of society, in all ages, and in all denominations and sections of the Christian Church, are of too uniform and definite a character to be ascribed to the wild and fluctuating uncertainties of fanaticism: so widely spread an uniformity as that which exists in the genuine pilgrim’s progress of Christian experience, can never be philosophically shewn to be an attribute of fanaticism; an uniformity, like that of the human constitution, admitting of the greatest variety of individual features, yet all governed by the same laws; and it may be retorted also, that stubborn facts continually prove, in other countries as well as in modern Gaul, that no fanaticism is more luxuriant, bewitching, and arrogant, than that which inscribes on its ensign—“The Age of Reason,” and roots itself in the soil of infidelity.

  After my dear sister had laid in a swoon for some time, she revived, and said, among other things which I could not remember, “I have overcome the world by the kingdom of heaven”; she then began singing, and appeared to sing several verses; but the language in which she sung was too wonderful for me, and I could not understand it. We all sat or stood around her with great astonishment, for her voice was as clear, musical, and strong, as if nothing had ailed her; and when she had finished her song of praise, (for it was indeed a song of praise, and the place was full of glory,) she addressed herself to me, and informed me, that she had seen Jesus, and had been in the society of angels; and that an angel came to her, and bade her tell Zilpha that she must preach the gospel; and also, that I must go to a lady named Fisher, a Quakeress, and she would tell me further what I should do. It was then betwixt one and two o’clock in the morning, and she wished me to go directly to visit this lady, and also to commence my ministry of preaching, by delivering an address to the people then in the house. I cannot describe my feelings at this juncture; I knew not what to do, nor where to go: and my dear sister was pressingly urgent for me to begin and preach directly; and then to go and see the above-named lady. I was utterly at a loss what to say, or how to move; dear heart, she waited in silence for my commencing, and I stood in silence quite overwhelmed by my feelings. At length, she raised her head up, and said, “Oh, Zilpha! why do you not begin?” I then tried to say something as I stood occupied in mental prayer; but she said, “Oh! do not pray, you must preach.” I then addressed a few words to those around me, and she was very much pleased with the attempt: two of the sisters then took me by the arm, and led me into another room; they there informed me they expected to see me sink down upon the floor, and that they thought my sister was perhaps a little delirious. The next day when I was alone with her, she asked me if that hymn which she had sung on the previous night was not beautiful; adding, “Ah, Zilpha! angels gave it me to sing; and I was told that you must be a preacher; and oh! how you hurt me last night by not going where I told you; but as soon as you moved, I was released.” She continued in this happy frame of mind until her soul fell asleep in Jesus. The whole of this sick-bed scene, until its termination in death, was as surpassingly wonderful to me, as a Christian, for its depths of religious experience and power, as it was afflictively interesting to me as a relative. I have, however, since learnt that some other Christians have occasionally been known, when in the very arms of death, to break forth and sing with a melodious and heavenly voice, several verses in a language unknown to mortals. A pure language, unalloyed by the fulsome compliment, the hyperbole, the tautology and circumlocution, the insinuation, double meaning and vagueness, the weakness and poverty, the impurity, bombast, and other defects, with which all human languages are clogged, seems to be essential for the associations of glorified spirits and the elevated devotions of heaven, are, doubtless, in use among the holy angels, and seems to be a matter of gracious promise on the part of Jehovah, on behalf of his redeemed people. Zephaniah iii. 9.

  I have been very careful, and the more minute in narrating the experience of my dear sister during her illness and death, in hope that it may possibly meet the cases of others tempted in a similar manner; that they may take encouragement from her happy and triumphant end. She had evidently grieved the Holy Spirit in some way or other, and He had withdrawn from her His comforting presence for a time; but He returned to her again with abundant mercy and comforting grace. After receiving a little refreshment, the last words she spoke were, “Now I want a good prayer”; her husband then commenced prayer; and during the exercise, her happy spirit bade adieu to the frailties and sorrows of this mortal life, prepared for, and assured of, her title to a jointure in the ever-blooming glories of the inheritance of the saints in light.

  Notwithstanding the plain and pointed declaration of my sister, and though the Scriptures assert that not many wise, rich, and noble are called; but God hath chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wise, and the weak things of the world to confound the mighty, I could not at the time imagine it possible that God should select and appoint so poor and ignorant a creature as myself to be his messenger, to bear the good tidings of the gospel to the children of men. Soon after this, I received a visit from a female who was employed in the work of the ministry, who asked me if I did not think that I was called by the Lord to that work? to which I replied in the negative; she then said, “I think you are; now tell me, do not passages of Scripture often open to thy mind as subjects for public speaking and exposition? Weigh well this matter and see; for I believe that God has provided a great work for thy employment.”

  24

  LUCY DELANEY

  (ca. 1830–after 1891)

  Lucy Ann Delaney (born Polly Crockett and also known as Polly Wash) was born into slavery to a woman named Polly Berry, who had been born free but was kidnapped and enslaved. Delaney’s father’s name is unknown. New information uncovered by scholars, notably Eric Gardner and Robert Moore, Jr., have filled out the details known previously only from her 1891 memoir, From Darkness Cometh the Light, or, Struggles for Freedom, one of the few slave narratives published after the Civil War and one of the few first-person accounts of a slave suing for freedom.

  In these excerpts describing her long imprisonment during her freedom suit, Delaney writes as a participant-historian, expressing her outrage even while offering helpful biographical and professional details about her jailors, her lawyers, and the presiding judge. Psychologically astute, she describes her terror as an out-of-body experience, feeling sorry for the young girl she was, awaiting her fate. After winning her suit, she acknowledges the kindnesses shown her in prison, the gesture of an individual who ought not to have been imprisoned, which is her point.

  Selections from From Darkness Cometh the Light (1891)

  SOURCE: Lucy Delaney, From Darkness Cometh the Light, or, Struggles for Freedom (St. Louis, MO: J. T. Smith, 1891).

  CHAPTER IV.

  On the morning of the 8th of September, 1842, my mother sued Mr. D. D. Mitchell for the possession of her child, Lucy Ann Berry. My mother, accompanied by the sheriff, took me from my hiding-place and conveyed me to the jail, which was located on Sixth Street, between Chestnut and Market, where the Laclede Hotel now stands, and there met Mr. Mitchell, with Mr. H. S. Cox, his brother in-law.

  Judge Bryant Mullanphy read the law to Mr. Mitchell, which stated that if Mr. Mitchell took me back to his house, he must give bond and security to t
he amount of two thousand dollars, and furthermore, I should not be taken out of the State of Missouri until I had a chance to prove my freedom. Mr. H. S. Cox became his security and Mr. Mitchell gave bond accordingly, and then demanded that I should be put in jail.

  “Why do you want to put that poor young girl in jail?” demanded my lawyer. “Because,” he retorted, “her mother or some of her crew might run her off, just to make me pay the two thousand dollars; and I would like to see her lawyer, or any other man, in jail, that would take up a d— nigger case like that.”

  “You need not think, Mr. Mitchell,” calmly replied Mr. Murdock, “because my client is colored that she has no rights, and can be cheated out of her freedom. She is just as free as you are, and the Court will so decide it, as you will see.”

  However, I was put in a cell, under lock and key, and there remained for seventeen long and dreary months, listening to the

  “—foreign echoes from the street,

  Faint sounds of revel, traffic, conflict keen—

  And, thinking that man’s reiterated feet

  Have gone such ways since e’er the world has been,

  I wondered how each oft-used tone and glance

  Retains its might and old significance.”

  My only crime was seeking for that freedom which was my birthright! I heard Mr. Mitchell tell his wife that he did not believe in slavery, yet, through his instrumentality, I was shut away from the sunlight, because he was determined to prove me a slave, and thus keep me in bondage. Consistency, thou art a jewel!

  At the time my mother entered suit for her freedom, she was not instructed to mention her two children, Nancy and Lucy, so the white people took advantage of this flaw, and showed a determination to use every means in their power to prove that I was not her child.

  This gave my mother an immense amount of trouble, but she had girded up her loins for the fight, and, knowing that she was right, was resolved, by the help of God and a good lawyer, to win my case against all opposition.

  After advice by competent persons, mother went to Judge Edward Bates and begged him to plead the case, and, after fully considering the proofs and learning that my mother was a poor woman, he consented to undertake the case and make his charges only sufficient to cover his expenses. It would be well here to give a brief sketch of Judge Bates, as many people wondered that such a distinguished statesman would take up the case of an obscure negro girl.

  Edward Bates was born in Belmont, Goochland county, Va., September, 1793. He was of Quaker descent, and inherited all the virtues of that peace-loving people. In 1812, he received a midshipman’s warrant, and was only prevented from following the sea by the influence of his mother, to whom he was greatly attached. Edward emigrated to Missouri in 1814, and entered upon the practice of law, and, in 1816, was appointed prosecuting lawyer for the St. Louis Circuit. Toward the close of the same year, he was appointed Attorney General for the new State of Missouri, and in 1826, while yet a young man, was elected representative to congress as an anti-Democrat, and served one term. For the following twenty-five years, he devoted himself to his profession, in which he was a shining light. His probity and uprightness attracted to him a class of people who were in the right and only sought justice, while he repelled, by his virtues, those who traffic in the miseries or mistakes of unfortunate people, for they dared not come to him and seek counsel to aid them in their villainy.

  In 1847, Mr. Bates was delegate to the Convention for Internal Improvement, held in Chicago, and by his action he came prominently before the whole country. In 1850, President Fillmore offered him the portfolio of Secretary of War, which he declined. Three years later, he accepted the office of Judge of St. Louis Land Court.

  When the question of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was agitated, he earnestly opposed it, and thus became identified with the “free labor” party in Missouri, and united with it, in opposition to the admission of Kansas under the Lecompton Constitution. He afterwards became a prominent antislavery man, and in 1859 was mentioned as a candidate for the presidency. He was warmly supported by his own State, and for a time it seemed that the opposition to Governor Seward might concentrate on him. In the National Republican Convention, 1860, he received forty-eight votes on the first ballot, but when it became apparent that Abraham Lincoln was the favorite, Mr. Bates withdrew his name. Mr. Lincoln appointed Judge Bates Attorney General, and while in the Cabinet he acted a dignified, safe and faithful part. In 1864, he resigned his office and returned to his home in St. Louis, where he died in 1869, surrounded by his weeping family.

  “—loved at home, revered abroad.

  Princes and lords are but the breath of kings;

  ‘An honest man’s the noblest work of God.’”

  On the 7th of February, 1844, the suit for my freedom began. A bright, sunny day, a day which the happy and care-free would drink in with a keen sense of enjoyment. But my heart was full of bitterness; I could see only gloom which seemed to deepen and gather closer to me as I neared the courtroom. The jailer’s sister-in-law, Mrs. Lacy, spoke to me of submission and patience; but I could not feel anything but rebellion against my lot. I could not see one gleam of brightness in my future, as I was hurried on to hear my fate decided.

  Among the most important witnesses were Judge Robert Wash and Mr. Harry Douglas, who had been an overseer on Judge Wash’s farm, and also Mr. MacKeon, who bought my mother from H. S. Cox, just previous to her running away.

  Judge Wash testified that “the defendant, Lucy A. Berry, was a mere infant when he came in possession of Mrs. Fannie Berry’s estate, and that he often saw the child in the care of its reputed mother, Polly, and to his best knowledge and belief, he thought Lucy A. Berry was Polly’s own child.”

  Mr. Douglas and Mr. MacKeon corroborated Judge Wash’s statement. After the evidence from both sides was all in, Mr. Mitchell’s lawyer, Thomas Hutchinson, commenced to plead. For one hour, he talked so bitterly against me and against my being in possession of my liberty that I was trembling, as if with ague, for I certainly thought everybody must believe him; indeed I almost believed the dreadful things he said, myself, and as I listened I closed my eyes with sickening dread, for I could just see myself floating down the river, and my heart-throbs seemed to be the throbs of the mighty engine which propelled me from my mother and freedom forever!

  Oh! what a relief it was to me when he finally finished his harangue and resumed his seat! As I never heard anyone plead before, I was very much alarmed, although I knew in my heart that every word he uttered was a lie! Yet, how was I to make people believe? It seemed a puzzling question!

  Judge Bates arose, and his soulful eloquence and earnest pleading made such an impression on my sore heart, I listened with renewed hope. I felt the black storm clouds of doubt and despair were fading away, and that I was drifting into the safe harbor of the realms of truth. I felt as if everybody must believe him, for he clung to the truth, and I wondered how Mr. Hutchinson could so lie about a poor defenseless girl like me.

  Judge Bates chained his hearers with the graphic history of my mother’s life, from the time she played on Illinois banks, through her trials in slavery, her separation from her husband, her efforts to become free, her voluntary return to slavery for the sake of her child, Lucy, and her subsequent efforts in securing her own freedom. All these incidents he lingered over step by step, and concluding, he said:

  “Gentlemen of the jury, I am a slave-holder myself, but, thanks to the Almighty God. I am above the base principle of holding any a slave that has as good right to her freedom as this girl has been proven to have; she was free before she was born; her mother was free, but kidnapped in her youth, and sacrificed to the greed of negro traders, and no free woman can give birth to a slave child, as it is in direct violation of the laws of God and man!”

  At this juncture he read the affidavit of Mr. A. Posey, with whom my mother lived at the
time of her abduction; also affidavits of Mr. and Mrs. Woods, in corroboration of the previous facts duly set forth. Judge Bates then said: