FootNote
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While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
The brief narrative I here introduce to the
public, consists of outline notes originally thrown together
to guide my memory when lecturing on this part of the
subject of slavery. This will account for its style, and
will also show that the work is not full.
The question may be asked, Why I have published anything so
long after my escape from slavery? I answer I have been
induced to do so on account of the increasing disposition to
overlook the fact, that THE SIN of slavery lies in the
chattel principle, or relation. Especially have I felt
anxious to save professing Christians, and my brethren in
the ministry, from falling into a great mistake. My feelings
are always outraged when I hear them speak of "kind masters,
"Christian masters," the mildest form of slavery, "well fed
and clothed slaves," as extenuations of slavery; I am
satisfied they either mean to pervert the truth, or they do
not know what they say. The being of slavery, its soul and
body, lives and moves in the chattel principle, the property
principle, the bill of sale principle; the cart whip,
starvation, and nakedness, are its inevitable consequences
to a greater or less extent, warring with the dispositions
of men.
There lies a skein of silk upon a lady's work table. How
smooth and handsome are the threads. But while that lady
goes out to make a call, a party of children enter the
apartment, and in amusing themselves, tangle the skein of
silk, and now who can untangle it? The relation between
master and slave is even as delicate as a skein of silk: it
is liable to be entangled at any moment.
The mildest form of slavery, if there be such a form,
looking at the chattel principle as the definition of
slavery, is comparatively the worst form. For it not only
keeps the slave in the most unpleasant apprehension, like a
prisoner in chains awaiting his trial; but it actually, in a
great majority of cases, where kind masters do exist, trains
him under the most favorable circumstances the system admits
of, and then plunges him into the worst of which it is
capable.
It is under the mildest form of slavery, as it exists in
Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky, that the finest specimens
of colored females are reared. There are no mothers who
rear, and educate in the natural graces, finer daughters
than the Ethiopian women, who have the least chance to give
scope to their maternal affections. But what is generally
the fate of such female slaves? When they are not raised for
the express purpose of supplying the market of a class of
economical Louisiana and Mississippi gentlemen, who do not
wish to incur the expense of rearing legitimate families,
they are, nevertheless, on account of their attractions,
exposed to the most shameful degradation, by the young
masters in the families where it is claimed they are so well
off. My master once owned a beautiful girl about
twenty-four. She had been raised in a family where her
mother was a great favorite. She was her mother's darling
child. Her master was a lawyer of eminent abilities and
great fame, but owing to habits of intemperance, he failed
in business, and my master purchased this girl for a nurse.
After he had owned her about a year, one of his sons became
attached to her, for no honorable purposes; a fact which was
not only well-known among all of the slaves, but which
became a source of unhappiness to his mother and sisters.
The result was, that poor Rachel had to be sold to
"Georgia." Never shall I forget the heart rending scene,
when one day one of the men was ordered to get "the one
horse cart ready to go into town;" Rachel, with her few
articles of clothing, was placed in it, and taken into the
very town where her parents lived, and there sold to the
traders before their weeping eyes. That same son who had
degraded her, and who was the cause of her being sold, acted
as salesman, and bill of salesman. While this cruel business
was being transacted, my master stood aside, and the girl's
father, a pious member and exhorter in the Methodist Church,
a venerable grey headed man, with his hat off, besought that
he might be allowed to get some one in the place to purchase
his child. But no; my master was invincible. His reply was,
"She has offended in my family, and I can only restore
confidence by sending her out of hearing." After lying in
prison a short time, her new owner took her with others to
the far South, where her parents heard no more of her.
Here was a girl born and reared under the mildest form of
slavery. Her original master was reputed to be even
indulgent. He lived in a town, and was a high bred
gentleman, and a lawyer. He had but a few slaves, and had no
occasion for an overseer, those negro leeches, to watch and
drive them; but when he became embarrassed by his own folly,
the chattel principle doomed this girl to be sold at the
same sale with his books, house, and horses. With my master
she found herself under far more stringent discipline than
she had been accustomed to, and finally degraded, and sold
where her condition could not be worse, and where she had
not the least hope of ever bettering it.
This case presents the legitimate working of the great
chattel principle. It is no accidental result it is the
fruit of the tree. You cannot constitute slavery without the
chattel principle and with the chattel principle you cannot
save it from these results. Talk not then about kind and
Christian masters. They are not masters of the system. The
system is master of them; and the slaves are their vassals.
These storms rise on the bosom of the calmed waters of the
system. You are a slave, a being in whom another owns
property. Then you may rise with his pride, but remember the
day is at hand when you must also fall with his folly. Today
you may be pampered by his meekness; but tomorrow you will
suffer in the storm of his passions.
In the month of September, 1848, there appeared in my study,
one morning, in New York City, an aged colored man of tall
and slender form. I saw depicted on his countenance anxiety
bordering on despair, still I was confident that he was a
man whose mind was accustomed to faith. When I learned that
he was a native of my own state, Maryland, having been born
in the county of Montgomery, I at once became much
interested in him. He had been sent to me by my friend,
William Harned, Esq., of the Anti Slavery Office, 61, John
Street. He put into my hand the following bill of distress:
Alexander, Virginia, September 5th, 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 a 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 dollars be raised and paid 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 raising the other thousand and fifty
dollars, otherwise we shall be compelled to send them along
with our other servants.
(Signed) "BRUIN AND HILL."
The old man also showed me letters from other individuals,
and one from the Rev. Matthew A. Turner, pastor of Asbury
Chapel, where himself and his daughters were members. He was
himself free, but his wife was a slave. Those two daughters
were two out of fifteen children he had raised for the owner
of his wife. These two girls had been sold, along with four
brothers, to the traders, for an attempt to escape to the
North, and gain their freedom.
On the next Sabbath evening, I threw the case before my
people, and the first fifty dollars of the sum was raised to
restore the old man his daughters. Subsequently the case was
taken up under the management of a committee of ministers of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, consisting of the Rev. Gr.
Peck, D. D., Rev. E. E. Griswold, and Rev. D. Curry, and the
entire sum of 2,250 dollars, (£450.) was raised for two
girls, fourteen and sixteen years of age!
But why this enormous sum for two mere children? Ah, reader,
they were reared under the mildest form of slavery known to
the laws of Maryland! The mother is an invalid, and allowed
to live with her free husband; but she is a woman of
excellent mind, and has bestowed great pains upon her
daughters. If you would know, then, why these girls were
held at such a price, even to their own father, read the
following extract of a letter from one who was actively
engaged in behalf of them, and who had several interviews
with the traders to induce them to reduce the price, but
without success. Writing from Washington, D.C., September
12th, 1848, this gentleman says to William Harned, "The
truth is, and is confessed to be, that their destination is
prostitution; of this you would be satisfied on seeing them:
they are of elegant form, and fine faces."
And such, dear reader, is the sad fate of hundreds of my
young countrywomen, natives of my native state. Such is the
fate of many who are not only reared under the mildest form
of slavery, but of those who have been made acquainted with
the milder system of the Prince of Peace.
When Christians, and Christian ministers, then, talk about
the "mildest form of slavery, "Christian masters," &c., I
say my feelings are outraged. It is a great mistake to offer
these as an extenuation of the system. It is calculated to
mislead the public mind. The opinion seems to prevail, that
the negro, after having toiled as a slave for centuries to
enrich his white brother, to lay the foundation of his proud
institutions, after having been sunk as low as slavery can
sink him, needs now only a second-rate civilization, a lower
standard of civil and religious privileges than the whites
claim for themselves.
During the last year or two, we have heard of nothing but
revolutions, and the enlargements of the eras of freedom, on
both sides of the Atlantic. Our white brethren everywhere
are reaching out their hands to grasp more freedom. In the
place of absolute monarchies they have limited monarchies,
and in the place of limited monarchies they have republics:
so tenacious are they of their own liberties.
But when we speak of slavery, and complain of the wrong it
is doing us, and ask to have the yoke removed, we are told,
"O, you must not be impatient, you must not create undue
excitement. You are not so badly off, for many of your
masters are kind Christian masters." Yes, sirs, many of our
masters are professed Christians; and what advantage is that
to us? The grey heads of our fathers are brought down by
scores to the grave in sorrow, on account of their young and
tender sons, who are sold to the far South, where they have
to toil without requite to supply the world's market with
cotton, sugar, rice, tobacco, &c. Our venerable mothers are
borne down with poignant grief at the fate of their
children. Our sisters, if not by the law, are by common
consent made the prey of vile men, who can bid the highest.
In all the bright achievements we have obtained in the great
work of emancipation, if we have not settled the fact that
the chattel principle is wrong, and cannot be maintained
upon Christian ground, then we have wrought and triumphed to
little purpose, and we shall have to do our first work over
again.
It is this that has done all the mischief connected with
slavery; it is this that threatens still further mischief.
Whatever may be the ill or favored condition of the slave in
the matter of mere personal treatment, it is the chattel
relation that robs him of his manhood, and transfers his
ownership in himself to another. It is this that transfers
the proprietorship of his wife and children to another. It
is this that throws his family history into utter confusion,
and leaves him without a single record to which he may
appeal in vindication of his character, or honor. And has a
man no sense of honor because he was born a slave? Has he no
need of character?
Suppose insult, reproach, or slander, should render it
necessary for him to appeal to the history of his family in
vindication of his character, where will he find that
history? He goes to his native state, to his native county,
to his native town; but no where does he find any record of
himself as a man. On looking at the family record of his
old, kind, Christian, master, there he finds his name on a
catalogue with the horses, cows, hogs and dogs. However
humiliating and degrading it may be to his feelings to find
his name written down among the beasts of the field, that is
just the place, and the only place assigned to it by the
chattel relation. I beg our Anglo-Saxon brethren to accustom
themselves to think that we need something more than mere
kindness. We ask for justice, truth and honor as other men
do.
My colored brethren are now widely awake to the degradation
which they suffer in having property vested in their
persons, and they are also conscious of the deep and
corrupting disgrace of having our wives and children owned
by other men, who have shown to the world that their own
virtue is not infallible, and who have given us no
flattering encouragement to entrust that of our wives and
daughters to them.
I have great pleasure in stating that my dear friend W.W.,
spoken of in this narrative, to whom I am so deeply
indebted, is still living. I have been twice to see him
within four years, and have regular correspondence with him.
In one of the last letters I had from him, he authorizes me
to use his name in connection with this narrative in these
words, "As for using my name, by reference or otherwise, in
thy narrative, it is at thy service. I know thee so well
James, that I am not afraid of thy making a bad use of it,
nor am I afraid or ashamed to have it known that I took thee
in and gave thee aid, when I found thee traveling alone and
in want. W.W."
On the second page of the same sheet I have a few lines from
his excellent lady, in which she says, "James, I hope thee
will not attribute my long silence in writing to
indifference. No such feeling can ever exist towards thee in
our family. Thy name is mentioned almost every day. Each of
the children claims the next letter from thee. It will be
for thee to decide which shall have it. P. W."
In a postscript following this, W.W. says again:—"Understand
me, James, that thee is at full liberty to use my name in
any way thee wishes in thy narrative. We have a man here
from the eastern shore of thy state. He is trying to learn
as fast as thee did when here. W.W."
I hope the reader will pardon me for introducing these
extracts. My only apology is, the high gratification I feel
in knowing that this family has not only been greatly
prospered in health and happiness, but that I am upon the
most intimate and pleasant terms with all its members, and
that they all still feel a deep and cordial interest in my
welfare.
There is another distinguished individual whose sympathy has
proved very gratifying to me in my situation, I mean that
true friend of the negro, Gerrit Smith, Esq. I was well
acquainted with the family in which Mr. Smith married in
Maryland. My attention has been fixed upon him for the last
ten years, for I have felt confident that God had set him
apart for some great good to the negro. In a letter dated
Peterborough, November 7th, 1848, he says:
"J. W. C. PENNINGTON,
"Slight as is my personal acquaintance with you, I
nevertheless am well acquainted with you. I am familiar with
many passages in your history all that part of your history
extending from the time when, a sturdy blacksmith, you were
running away from Maryland oppression, down to the present,
when you are the successor of my lamented friend, Theodore
S. Wright. Let me add that my acquaintance with you has
inspired me with a high regard for your wisdom and
integrity."
Give us a few more such men in America, and slavery will
soon be numbered among the things that were. A few men who
will not only have the moral courage to aim the severing
blow at the chattel relation between master and slave,
without parley, palliation or compromise; but who have also
the Christian fidelity to brave public scorn and contumely,
to seize a colored man by the hand, and elevate him to the
position from whence the avarice and oppression of the
whites have degraded him. These men have the right view of
the subject. They see that in every case where the relation
between master and slave is broken, slavery is weakened, and
that every colored man elevated, becomes a step in the
ladder upon which his whole people are to ascend. They would
not have us accept of some modified form of liberty, while
the old mischief working chattel relation remains unbroken,
untouched and unabrogated.
The Fugitive
Blacksmith; or Events in the History of
James W. C. Pennington, 1849
