Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  In the morning came again the wearisome routine of the slave-prison. Old Paul walked quietly into the yard, and sat down to see the poor slaves marched around. He had never seen his daughters in such circumstances before, and his feelings quite overcame him. The yard was narrow, and the girls, as they walked by him, almost brushing him with their clothes, could just hear him groaning within himself, “O my children! my children!”

  After the breakfast, which none of them were able to eat, they parted with sad hearts, the father begging the keeper to send them to New Orleans, if the money could not be raised, as perhaps their brothers there might secure for them kind masters.

  Two or three weeks afterwards Bruin and Hill visited the prison, dissolved partnership with the trader, settled accounts, and took the Edmondsons again in their own possession.

  The girls were roused about eleven o’clock at night, after they had fallen asleep, and told to get up directly, and prepare for going home. They had learned that the word of a slaveholder is not to be trusted, and feared they were going to be sent to Richmond, Virginia, as there had been talk of it. They were soon on their way in the cars with Bruin, and arrived at Washington at a little past midnight.

  Their hearts throbbed high when, after these long months of weary captivity, they found themselves once more in the city where were their brothers, sisters, and parents. But they were permitted to see none of them, and were put into a carriage and driven immediately to the slave-prison at Alexandria, where, about two o’clock at night, they found themselves in the same forlorn old room in which they had begun their term of captivity!

  This was the latter part of August. Again they were employed in washing, ironing, and sewing by day, and always locked up by night. Sometimes they were allowed to sew in Bruin’s house, and even to eat there. After they had been in Alexandria two or three weeks, their eldest married sister, not having heard from them for some time, came to see Bruin, to learn, if possible, something of their fate; and her surprise and joy were great to see them once more, even there. After a few weeks their old father came again to see them. Hopeless as the idea of their emancipation seemed, he still clung to it. He had had some encouragement of assistance in Washington, and he purposed to go North to see if anything could be done there; and he was anxious to obtain from Bruin what were the very lowest possible terms for which he would sell the girls. Bruin drew up his terms in the following document, which we subjoin: —

  Alexandria, Va., Sept. 5, 1848.

  The bearer, Paul Edmondson, is the father of two girls, Mary Jane and Emily Catherine Edmondson. These girls have been purchased by us, and once sent to the South; and, upon the positive assurance that the money for them would be raised if they were brought back, they were returned. Nothing, it appears, has as yet been done in this respect by those who promised, and we are on the very eve of sending them South the second time; and we are candid in saying that, if they go again, we will not regard any promises made in relation to them. The father wishes to raise money to pay for them; and intends to appeal to the liberality of the humane and the good to aid him, and has requested us to state in writing the conditions upon which we will sell his daughters.

  We expect to start our servants to the South in a few days; if the sum of twelve hundred (1200) dollars be raised and paid to us in fifteen days, or we be assured of that sum, then we will retain them for twenty-five days more, to give an opportunity for the raising of the other thousand and fifty (1050) dollars; otherwise we shall be compelled to send them along with our other servants.

  BRUIN AND HILL.

  Paul took his papers, and parted from his daughters sorrowfully. After this, the time to the girls dragged on in heavy suspense. Constantly they looked for letter or message, and prayed to God to raise them up a deliverer from some quarter. But day after day and week after week passed, and the dreaded time drew near. The preliminaries for fitting up the gang for South Carolina commenced. Gay calico was bought for them to make up into “show dresses,” in which they were to be exhibited on sale. They made them up with far sadder feelings than they would have sewed on their own shrouds. Hope had almost died out of their bosoms. A few days before the gang were to be sent off, their sister made them a sad farewell visit. They mingled their prayers and tears, and the girls made up little tokens of remembrance to send by her as parting gifts to their brothers and sisters, and aged father and mother; and with a farewell sadder than that of a death-bed, the sisters parted.

  The evening before the coffle was to start drew on. Mary and Emily went to the house to bid Bruin’s family good-bye. Bruin had a little daughter who had been a pet and favourite with the girls. She clung round them, cried, and begged them not to go. Emily told her that if she wished to have them stay, she must go and ask her father. Away ran the little pleader, full of her errand; and was so very earnest in her importunities, that he, to pacify her, said he would consent to their remaining, if his partner, Captain Hill, would do so. At this time Bruin, hearing Mary crying aloud in the prison, went up to see her. With all the earnestness of despair, she made her last appeal to his feelings. She begged him to make the case his own, to think of his own dear little daughter — what if she were exposed to be torn away from every friend on earth, and cut off from all hope of redemption, at the very moment, too, when deliverance was expected! Bruin was not absolutely a man of stone, and this agonising appeal brought tears to his eyes. He gave some encouragement that, if Hill would consent, they need not be sent off with the gang. A sleepless night followed, spent in weeping, groaning, and prayer. Morning at last dawned; and, according to orders received the day before, they prepared themselves to go, and even put on their bonnets and shawls, and stood ready for the word to be given. When the very last tear of hope was shed, and they were going out to join the gang, Bruin’s heart relented. He called them to him, and told them they might remain! Oh, how glad were their hearts made by this, as they might now hope on a little longer! Either the entreaties of little Martha or Mary’s plea with Bruin had prevailed.

  Soon the gang was started on foot — men, women, and children, two and two, the men all handcuffed together, the right wrist of one to the left wrist of the other, and a chain passing through the middle from the handcuffs of one couple to those of the next. The women and children walked in the same manner throughout, handcuffed or chained. Drivers went before and at the side, to take up those who were sick or lame. They were obliged to set off singing! accompanied with fiddles and banjoes!—” For they that carried us away captive required of us a song, and they that wasted us required of us mirth.” And this is a scene of daily occurrence in a Christian country! and Christian ministers say that the right to do these things is given by God himself!!

  Meanwhile poor old Paul Edmondson went northward to supplicate aid. Any one who should have travelled in the cars at that time might have seen a venerable-looking black man, all whose air and attitude indicated a patient humility, and who seemed to carry a weight of overwhelming sorrow, like one who had long been acquainted with grief. That man was Paul Edmondson.

  Alone, friendless, unknown, and, worst of all, black, he came into the great bustling city of New York, to see if there was any one there who could give him twenty-five hundred dollars to buy his daughters with. Can anybody realise what a poor man’s feelings are, who visits a great, bustling, rich city, alone and unknown, for such an object? The writer has now, in a letter from a slave father and husband who was visiting Portland on a similar errand, a touching expression of it:

  I walked all day, till I was tired and discouraged. O! Mrs. S —— , when I see so many people who seem to have so many more things than they want or know what to do with, and then think that I have worked hard, till I am past forty, all my life, and don’t own even my own wife and children, it makes me feel sick and discouraged!

  So sick at heart and discouraged felt Paul Edmondson. He went to the Anti-Slavery Office, and made his case known. The sum was such a large one, and seemed to many so exo
rbitant, that though they pitied the poor father, they were disheartened about raising it. They wrote to Washington to authenticate the particulars of the story, and wrote to Bruin and Hill to see if there could be any reduction of price. Meanwhile the poor old man looked sadly from one adviser to another. He was recommended to go to the Rev. H. W. Beecher, and tell his story. He inquired his way to his door — ascended the steps to ring the door-bell, but his heart failed him: he sat down on the steps, weeping!

  There Mr. Beecher found him. He took him in, and inquired his story. There was to be a public meeting that night to raise money. The hapless father begged him to go and plead for his children. He did go, and spoke as if he were pleading for his own father and sisters. Other clergymen followed in the same strain, the meeting became enthusiastic, and the money was raised on the spot, and poor old Paul laid his head that night on a grateful pillow — not to sleep, but to give thanks!

  Meanwhile the girls had been dragging on anxious days in the slave-prison. They were employed in sewing for Bruin’s family, staying sometimes in the prison, and sometimes in the house.

  It is to be stated here that Mr. Bruin is a man of very different character from many in his trade. He is such a man as never would have been found in the profession of a slave-trader, had not the most respectable and religious part of the community defended the right to buy and sell, as being conferred by God himself. It is a fact, with regard to this man, that he was one of the earliest subscribers to the National Era, in the District of Columbia; and when a certain individual there brought himself into great peril by assisting fugitive slaves, and there was no one found to go bail for him, Mr. Bruin came forward and performed this kindness.

  While we abhor the horrible system and the horrible trade with our whole soul, there is no harm, we suppose, in wishing that such a man had a better occupation. Yet we cannot forbear reminding all such that, when we come to give our account at the judgment-seat of Christ, every man must speak for himself alone; and that Christ will not accept as an apology for sin the word of all the ministers and all the synods in the country. He has given fair warning, “Beware of false prophets;” and if people will not beware of them, their blood is upon their own heads.

  The girls, while under Mr. Bruin’s care, were treated with as much kindness and consideration as could possibly consist with the design of selling them. There is no doubt that Bruin was personally friendly to them, and really wished most earnestly that they might be ransomed; but then he did not see how he was to lose two thousand five hundred dollars. He had just the same difficulty on this subject that some New York members of churches have had, when they have had slaves brought into their hands as security for Southern debts. He was sorry for them, and wished them well, and hoped Providence would provide for them when they were sold, but still he could not afford to lose his money; and while such men remain elders and communicants in churches in New York, we must not be surprised that there remain slave-traders in Alexandria.

  It is one great art of the enemy of souls to lead men to compound for their participation in one branch of sin by their righteous horror of another. The slave-trader has been the general scape-goat on whom all parties have vented their indignation, while buying of him and selling to him.

  There is an awful warning given in the fiftieth Psalm to those who in word have professed religion and in deed consented to iniquity, where from the judgment-seat Christ is represented as thus addressing them:—”What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldst take my covenant into thy mouth, seeing thou hatest instruction, and castest my words behind thee? When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him, and hast been partaker with adulterers.”

  One thing is certain, that all who do these things, openly or secretly, must, at last, make up their account with a Judge who is no respecter of persons, and who will just as soon condemn an elder in the church for slave-trading as a professed trader; nay, He may make it more tolerable for the Sodom and Gomorrah of the trade than for them — for it may be, if the trader had the means of grace that they have had, that he would have repented long ago.

  But to return to our history. — The girls were sitting sewing near the open window of their cage, when Emily said to Mary, “There, Mary, is that white man we have seen from the North.” They both looked, and in a moment more saw their own dear father. They sprang and ran through the house and the office, and into the street, shouting as they ran, followed by Bruin, who said he thought the girls were crazy. In a moment they were in their father’s arms, but observed that he trembled exceedingly, and that his voice was unsteady. They eagerly inquired if the money was raised for their ransom. Afraid of exciting their hopes too soon, before their free papers were signed, he said he would talk with them soon, and went into the office with Mr. Bruin and Mr. Chaplin. Mr. Bruin professed himself sincerely glad, as undoubtedly he was, that they had brought the money; but seemed much hurt by the manner in which he had been spoken of by the Rev. H. W. Beecher at the liberation meeting in New York, thinking it hard that no difference should be made between him and other traders, when he had shown himself so much more considerate and humane than the great body of them. He, however, counted over the money and signed the papers with great good will, taking out a five-dollar gold piece for each of the girls, as a parting present.

  The affair took longer than they supposed, and the time seemed an age to the poor girls, who were anxiously walking up and down outside the room, in ignorance of their fate. Could their father have brought the money? Why did he tremble so? Could he have failed of the money, at last? Or could it be that their dear mother was dead, for they had heard that she was very ill!

  At length a messenger came shouting to them, “You are free, you are free!” Emily thinks she sprang nearly to the ceiling overhead. They jumped, clapped their hands, laughed and shouted aloud. Soon their father came to them, embraced them tenderly, and attempted to quiet them, and told them to prepare themselves to go and see their mother. This they did they know not how, but with considerable help from the family, who all seemed to rejoice in their joy. Their father procured a carriage to take them to the wharf, and, with joy overflowing all bounds, they bade a most affectionate farewell to each member of the family, not even omitting Bruin himself. The “good that there is in human nature” for once had the upper hand, and all were moved to tears of sympathetic joy. Their father, with subdued tenderness, made great efforts to soothe their tumultuous feelings, and at length partially succeeded. When they arrived at Washington, a carriage was ready to take them to their sister’s house. People of every rank and description came running together to get a sight of them. Their brothers caught them up in their arms, and ran about with them, almost frantic with joy. Their aged and venerated mother, raised up from a sick-bed by the stimulus of the glad news, was there, weeping and giving thanks to God. Refreshments were prepared in their sister’s house for all who called, and amid greetings and rejoicings, tears and gladness, prayers and thanksgivings, but without sleep, the night passed away, and the morning of November 4, 1848, dawned upon them free and happy.

  This last spring, during the month of May, as the writer has already intimated, the aged mother of the Edmondson family came on to New York, and the reason of her coming may be thus briefly explained. She had still one other daughter, the guide and support of her feeble age, or, as she calls her, in her own expressive language, “the last drop of blood in her heart.” She had also a son, twenty-one years of age, still a slave on a neighbouring plantation. The infirm woman in whose name the estate was held was supposed to be drawing near to death, and the poor parents were distressed with the fear that, in case of this event, their two remaining children would be sold for the purpose of dividing the estate, and thus thrown into the dreaded Southern market. No one can realise what a constant horror the slave-prisons and the slave-traders are to all the unfortunate families in the vicinity. Everything for which other parents look on their children with pleasure and pride
is to these poor souls a source of anxiety and dismay, because it renders the child so much more a merchantable article.

  It is no wonder, therefore, that the light in Paul and Milly’s cottage was overshadowed by this terrible idea.

  The guardians of these children had given their father a written promise to sell them to him for a certain sum, and by hard begging he had acquired a hundred dollars towards the twelve hundred which were necessary. But he was now confined to his bed with sickness. After pouring out earnest prayer to the Helper of the helpless, Milly says, one day she said to Paul, “I tell ye, Paul, I’m going up to New York myself, to see if I can’t get that money.”

  “Paul says to me, ‘Why, Milly dear, how can you? Ye an’t fit to be off the bed, and ye’s never in the cars in your life.’

  “‘Never you fear, Paul,’ says I; ‘I shall go trusting in the Lord; and the Lord, He’ll take me, and He’ll bring me, that I know.’

  “So I went to the cars and got a white man to put me aboard; and, sure enough, there I found two Bethel ministers; and one set one side o’ me, and one set the other, all the way; and they got me my tickets, and looked after my things, and did everything for me. There didn’t anything happen to me all the way. Sometimes, when I went to set down in the sitting-rooms, people looked at me and moved off so scornful! Well, I thought, I wish the Lord would give you a better mind.”

  Emily and Mary, who had been at school in New York State, came to the city to meet their mother, and they brought her directly to the Rev. Henry W. Beecher’s house, where the writer then was.

  The writer remembers now the scene when she first met this mother and daughters. It must be recollected that they had not seen each other before for four years. One was sitting each side the mother, holding her hand; and the air of pride and filial affection with which they presented her was touching to behold. After being presented to the writer, she again sat down between them, took a hand of each, and looked very earnestly first on one and then on the other; and then looking up, said, with a smile, “Oh, these children! how they do lie round our hearts!”