Etext of From Slavery To a Bishopric,  or, 
The Life of Bishop Walter Hawkins
of the British Methodist Episcopal Church Canada
by S. J. Celestine Edwards

From Slavery to a Bishopric or
The Life of Bishop Walter Hawkins
Of the British Methodist Episcopal Church Canada
By S. J. Celestine Edwards
Associate of King's College, London; Lecturer on Christian
Evidences; Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature;
Medical Student at the London Hospital
London
John Kensit, Publisher
18 Paternoster, E.c.
1891
[All Rights Reserved] 

TO
WILFRED T. GRENFELL, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., Superintendent of
the Deep Sea Mission, 
This Work is Dedicated, 
AS A TOKEN OF MANY KINDNESSES RECEIVED DURING
THE LAST FIVE YEARS,BY
THE AUTHOR.

LIST OF WORKS CONSULTED DURING THE
PREPARATION OF THIS BIOGRAPHY.
A Visit to the United States. Sturge.
Anti-Slavery days. Clark.
American System of Government.
Bancroft's History of the United States. 3 vols.
Buckingham's America. 3 vols.
Black America. W. Laird Clowes.
Constitution of the United States. Paschal.
English Nonconformity. Vaughan.
Gesta Christe. Brace.
Hosack's Law of Nations.
History of European Morals. Lecky, 2 vols.
History of the English People. Green.
History of England. Macaulay.
International Law. Gallandet.
Irving's Life of Columbus.
Life and Time of Fred. Douglas.
Men and Manners in America. 2 vols
Power and Progress of the United States. Poussin.
Popular History of America. Mrs. Cooper.
Prescott's History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.
Robertson's America. 2 vols.
The United States. 3 vols.
The American Union. Spence.
Travels in the United States. Lady Wortley.
Willard's United States.
White, Red, and Black. 3 vols.

CONTENTS.
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I. Historical Sketch of Slavery in the New World
CHAPTER II. Early Life
CHAPTER III. Life as a Slave
CHAPTER IV. Escape from Slavery
CHAPTER V. Found at Last
CHAPTER VI. Philadelphia
CHAPTER VII. On the Road
CHAPTER VIII. Buffalo
CHAPTER IX. New Bedford
CHAPTER X. Life as a Farmer
CHAPTER XI. Canada--"Where coloured men are free"
CHAPTER XII. The First Circuit
CHAPTER XIII. St. Catharines
CHAPTER XIV. Made Bishop
CHAPTER XV. In England

PREFACE

I UNDERTAKE this work, because I think it will probably act as a
stimulus to the young men of my race, who, though physically
free, have not yet realised the duty they owe to themselves, and to
humanity at large, and especially to the British public, to whom I
feel we owe a great debt of gratitude for leading the way for our
emancipation in the New World. My experience in England has
led me to think that many are somewhat disappointed that the
Negro, from whom they expected so much fifty or sixty years ago,
has not come up to their expectations, i.e., he has not improved his
position quite as quickly as they feel he ought to have done. In this
book I hope to set forth what Europeans well know: viz., that there
is not a single nation in Europe who could have done more for
itself, in the same time and under similar circumstances, than our
race: they have expected too much of us, with far less
opportunities. Besides, it is all very well to tell people what they
ought to do, but it is quite another thing to give them the
opportunity of doing.

1st. We cannot expect much from a people who had to start an
existence upon nothing, like the West Indian Negroes.

2nd. Neither can we hope for much progress from any nation who
are treated as our race have been, and are being treated, since the
American Civil War. And

3rd. No nation can be expected to advance in so-called civilisation
whose faults are continually being paraded before them, as ours
are in the literature of the superior race. It is well known, and most
keenly felt, in every country where the Negro has been sent as an
exile, that his superior brethren have used every means and
meanness, not only to make him feel his position, but to prolong
his degradation, and even to discourage any and every attempt on
the part of the Negro to approach the social equality of the most
abandoned white man. Our own conviction is that until the Negro
knows and is convinced in head and heart that God has not sent
him into the world as a mere toy to be kicked about by every and
any one--until he learns that fate has not made him to be a mere
spectator and serf-- we can never hope for better things to befall
our people. Our aim in this book is not merely to give an account
of one of our own kind, or to turn the light of this closing century
upon slavery, but to put into the hands of the rising generation the
history of one who has, by sheer force of character, raised himself
above the degrading condition of the life in which he was born.

By following Walter Hawkins from a slave farm to a Bishopric, we
shall see how Providence has provided every man with the
means--if he will use them--to improve his position in the world;
the young Negro will see that while he may not become a bishop,
doctor, or lawyer, he may so utilise his opportunities that he shall
command respect from those who have hitherto regarded all
Negroes as vagrants, destined to wander on the face of the earth.
The race will feel that, with patience, perseverance, and hard
work, what Bishop Hawkins has done in one direction, millions
may do in other ways. Ah! we trust that his life will urge the race
not to look to others so much as to themselves. I confess my
inability to do justice to the subject, as I have had no experience in
this kind of work; and, secondly, I have had little time to give to its
preparation, as I have to work for my living while prosecuting my
studies. I have tried to give an historical sketch of slavery from its
introduction in the New World down to the time of Bishop
Hawkins. I have also tried to give an historical sketch of several
places where he stopped before he finally settled in Canada, as I
thought it would add to the interest of the life of one who has
served his race--and through them humanity--in a way I should like
to serve them.

I must thank my many friends for their advice and suggestions. I
do hope, most sincerely, that no one will blame Bishop Hawkins
for any statement which they might think ought to have been left
out. Perhaps a little more polish would have made me choose
better words to express myself; still I will trust to the generosity of
the impartial reader to exonerate me from any wilful desire to
wound the susceptibility of the race who are, for the most part,
responsible for our shortcomings.

S. J. CELESTINE EDWARDS.
SOUTH HACKNEY, LONDON, N.E., 1891.

INTRODUCTION.

NO race under heaven (except, perhaps, the Jewish nation) have
suffered so many wrongs, endured more insults, and survived so
many centuries of private and public vicissitudes as the African
race. Many of the nations who afflicted the African are no more;
yet, at this day, the nations who glory in the knowledge of their
being members of the Aryan family, or some other real or
imaginary race, take a pride in perpetually reminding the Negro of
the inferiority of his kind: that he is a savage, or at least a child,
who does not improve in intelligence, though he develops in body.
Every nation of antiquity have had something to say in praise or
blame of the Negro, and most, if not all, have had something to do
with him. By all, ancient and modern, he has been robbed,
murdered and enslaved; his daughter has been robbed of her virtue
before his eyes; his home broken, and his country pillaged and laid
waste. It is as yesterday that the nations of the West began to think
seriously either of his country or the Negro, or both; but none of
the ancients ever afflicted the man as the moderns have done. Not
content with setting tribe against tribe in Africa, they tore him
away from the bosom of his country; packed him in ships, chained
as though he were a murderer, and sold him. They were not
content with these methods of degrading him, but every moral,
mental and religious influence was kept from him--for
centuries--save such as would tend to make him more docile to his
master. Everything was done to completely crush the moral sense
out of the man, and, as if all this loathsome treatment would not
serve their purpose, historians and travellers, until late years,
misrepresented him. Some even went as far as to say that his skull
was too thick for culture-- rather a sad reflection on the Being or
Power that called him into being. Believers in the Bible held that
he was born to serve his brethren. Evolutionists maintained that
there was only a step between him and the ape. Men of every
profession have found fault with the Negro for his indolence, while
priding themselves on superior virtues; nothing was too bad to say
of him, even when the Negro rose above the condition in which
might and superior craft had placed him. The Negro even now is
only known as a "nigger". He is shouted at in the most enlightened
cities in the world as a "darkey," "nigger," "Sambo, etc. If he
appears respectable, every effort is made in the United States to
keep him down. The whites do not hesitate to say that "quashey" is
only fit to be a hewer of wood and drawer of water; no matter how
well he is educated or how clean his body, he must not sit next to
the most degraded white man. Sometimes in a tram; at other times
in a train; if he goes to the theatre, he must sit where all blacks are
sitting. They will neither shave him nor serve him in a dram shop.
In the church, where people are supposed to worship one God, the
Negro cannot find a seat. When he was a slave he could cook the
food and serve at the table; but now he is free he must not eat in
the same room as the white man. The poor innocent child cannot
be comfortable in the school where the white children are, no
matter how much tax his father pays to the State; hence he must
have his own church and chapel--except Roman Catholic--his own
shaving and drinking saloon. In many of the States even the right
of citizenship is denied him. Whatever crime he commits is too
often magnified an hundred fold; and, when he is wronged, justice
is withheld from him in courts of law for no other reason than that
he is a Negro. Very often his greatest oppressors are men who have
been forced to flee their own country by want or crime. There is a
saying in the Southern States: "When the nigger is down keep him
down, for when the nigger rises, hell rises"; and the whites seem to
act very much on that principle. In the old days, though some
acknowledged that "many of the Negroes possess a natural
goodness of heart and warmth of affection," yet they used to fix
their prices not merely according to their bodily powers, but in
proportion to the docility and good disposition of their commodity;
so at this very time, while they are patronising the Negro and
professing friendliness towards him, every artifice is being used to
stop his growth in the United States. Under the pretext of kindly
feeling he is told to go out of the country. If the Negro should ask:
"Where?" he is told: "Go back to your fatherland, or anywhere, so
long as you go". The Negro might well reply: "1st. I did not come
here by choice: you stole me from my country; you made money
out of my degradation, blood and bones. 2nd. The country out of
which you are sending me is no more yours than mine: white men
came here because they were driven from Europe by tyranny and
poverty; and you no sooner landed than you began to murder (in
cold blood) the Indians, and plundered Africa to enrich yourselves,
and built an empire; so that if you think that might is right I don't.
3rd. Moreover, your race have divided Africa among themselves,
and call it theirs. Don't you think that they ought to clear out in
order that we might go in? And do you suppose that we can go out
of your (so-called) country without your paying us our due? You
have got a large indemnity to pay for the Negroes whom you threw
overboard to lighten the cargo of your slave ships; for those whom
you killed under the lash, chased to death by bloodhounds, and
caused to perish in the slave-gang. What about the pay for nigh
three hundred years of free labour? What about our property? And
surely if all my race were willing to go, and you had removed
every barrier in Africa, you will certainly have to find us a free and
comfortable passage back, for we would not think of going as you
brought us." We know it will be argued that the Negro has
improved by being a slave. A few may have improved their
condition--which was due, not to the generosity of slave-holders,
but in spite of them--and the majority have paid enormously for it.
Just think what it must mean to a nation who were instructed into
the vices of a foreign power, and not many, or very little, of its
virtues. To keep a man a slave, means a sacrifice of all his moral
qualities. Courage, singleness of affection, gentleness and parental
attachment were all offered up on the auction-block and the lash.
The common decency which the Negro in his savage condition
regarded was abused by slavery. Men, women and children were
thrown together. Marriage was unknown. We wonder a race did
tolerate such iniquities from men viler than themselves. Still the
Negro has outlived the ravages on his oppression, barbarity of his
master, and will outlive the prejudices of to-day. In spite of his
forcible removal from the land of his nativity, and in spite of all
the difficulties of his forced condition, he increases and multiplies
in every country whither he has been taken. And now the Negro
has come through many vicissitudes to be a real political force in
the world. At first he was pitied; now the Yankee begins to fear his
number. We do not think any one of us need be alarmed about
what Mr. Froude has had to say. We have outlived his master's
hatred of our race; and we sincerely trust that in time the Negro
will show the world that he is "worthier of regard and stronger,
than the colour of his kind". Whatever other races may think about
our future destiny, the Negro himself is very hopeful; we shall plod
on and wait. The opening up of Africa, from whatever motives, is
doing us and the nations good. The growing increase of the Negro
population of the United States, Canada, the West Indies and
South America are forces which are acting upon the minds of our
late masters with a certain amount of alarm. The spread of
education among our race is enabling us to know what the white
people have thought of us, and what they are now thinking. All
these things will work wonders in our minds, and will tend to help
us to shape our future course. We contemplate neither war nor
bloodshed to gain our end: ours shall be a victory of peace, for
"Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war". It is a long
process; but it is a sure and sound policy. All other races have had,
or are having, their day: ours is coming, when those who despised,
degraded and abused us in our childish innocence shall know, that
the Negro is a rational individual, composed of mind and body, of
outward and inward being, of necessity and freedom like
themselves--though to himself a mystery, to the ignorant a
laughing-stock, and to philosophers the subject of speculation; yet
to the world of spirits he is an object of deepest thought, of God's
Almightiness, wisdom and love, a living witness veiled round by a
black skin. He sees God at a distance, yet he is as certain of His
existence and justice as the One Eternal Righteous Spirit as he is
of his own. The Negro feels that he is a child of revelation--weak
yet strong, poor, but rich in the faith; that, by patience and works,
justice cannot long be withheld from his race.

CHAPTER I. HISTORICAL SKETCH--SLAVERY.

"BANISHMENT is but the change of place," said Seneca, "and this
blessing we owe to the Almighty Power-- call it what you
will--either God or an incorporeal Reason--a Divine Spirit or Fate,
and the unchangeable course of causes and effects. It is, however,
so ordered that nothing can be taken from us but what we can
spare, and that which is most magnificent and valuable continues
with us. Wherever we go, we have the heavens over our heads, and
no farther from us than they were before; and so long as we can
entertain our eyes and thoughts with these glories, what matters it
what ground we tread?" This might be aptly applied to our race,
who had no choice in their banishment from the Fatherland. The
discovery of the West Indies by Columbus, and America by Cabot
and Vespucci, drew the attention of Europe from domestic
slumber to the New World, concerning the existence of which
Europeans were, for the most part, sceptical. Not only a New
World; but there was on the virgin soil a race of people who
appeared to the Spaniards as an idle and improvident race,
indifferent to most of the objects of human anxiety and comfort.
Amid the region of the Vega the encircling seasons brought them
its stores of fruit, when some were ripening on their boughs, crops
were being gathered in their full maturity from the fields--some
trees budding into new life, while others blossomed into bloom,
giving promise of still succeeding abundance.

What need, then, were there for the childlike natives to garner up
and anxiously provide for, coming days, when nature lavished their
lands so abundantly? Theirs was a perpetual harvest. To men who
lived in such abundance, what need of toiling, spinning, or
labouring throughout the year, when neither nature nor custom
prescribed the necessity of better clothing than the former herself
supplied? Wherever the European went among these--children of
the wood--it was a continual scene of festivities, and a constant
stream of rejoicing; while the natives hastened from all parts to lay
the treasures of their groves, streams, and mountains at the feet of
beings whom they ignorantly thought had fallen from the skies to
bring blessings to their country. We would that it were so; but the
strangers betrayed their confidence, and proved themselves rather
to have ascended from the abyss, bringing curses not blessings. As
long as Isabella lived, the Indians found an efficient friend and
protector; but "her death," says the Venerable Las Casas, "was the
signal for their destruction". "Immediately on that event. . .
Columbus, who seems to have had no doubt, from the first, of the
Crown's absolute right of property over the natives, carried it to its
full extent in the colonies. Every Spaniard, however humble, had
his proportion of slaves; and men, many of them not only
incapable of estimating the awful responsibility of the situation,
but without the least touch of humanity in their natures, were
individually entrusted with unlimited power, of the disposal of the
lives and destinies of their fellow-creatures. They abused this trust
in the grossest manner; tasking the unfortunate Indian far beyond
his strength, inflicting the most refined punishments on the
indolent and hunting down those who resisted or escaped like so
many beasts of chase, with ferocious bloodhounds.

"Every step of the white man's progress in the New World may be
said to have been on the corpse of a native. Faith is staggered by
the recital of the number of victims immolated in these fair regions
within a very few years after the discovery; and the heart sickens at
the loathsome details of barbarities, recorded by one who, if his
sympathies have led him sometimes to overcolour, can never be
suspected of wilfully misstating facts of which he was an
eye-witness.* On the northern coast of South America --Terra
Firma, as it was called in contrast with the islands--when it had
been explored, and before its virgin soil had been polluted by the
touch of selfish and self-seeking plunderers, it occurred to the
ardent imaginative mind of Las Casas that a colony might be
founded, in which Spaniards might exercise a sort of paternal rule
over the gentle natives, whose


* Prescott's History of Ferdinand and Isabella.
 hospitality was evinced towards Columbus and his followers, in a
marked manner, and to prove to the other settlers--whose avarice,
pride, and sordid care had been made manifest in the paradise of
the Indians --that the two races could live together and mingle with
mutual profit. With this notion Las Casas undertook to select fifty
men of upright character, who would advance the principle of
equity in dealing with the natives, and make it their serious
purpose to draw them by lawful means to the belief in the Gospel.
To distinguish his men from the other Spaniards, they were to
wear a white dress, with a coloured cross upon it, and to proclaim
as widely as possible that their mission was one of peace. Within
the limits of the proposed colony, slavery was to be forbidden.

In his anxiety to lighten the expense of the colony and to procure
revenue to the Crown, Columbus had recommended that the
natives of the West Indies-- being cannibal and ferocious invaders
of their peaceful neighbours--should be captured and sold as
slaves, or exchanged with merchants for live stock, and other
necessary supplies. This was in the year 1493.

According to Las Casas, the Indians were to be won by presents to
friendly relation with the colonists, and then hired to cultivate the
soil for wages as free men. For himself, he asked for nothing
except the right of selecting the men with whom he should try his
experiment, liberty to advise freely and to exercise a regulating
power over the colony along with the civil officers to be appointed
by the Crown. Though prompted by the best motives, Las Casas
knew from experience that no royal sanction could be secured for
any scheme of colonisation which did not promise some return to
the revenue. Therefore, to satisfy this demand, and to save the
lives of the natives, whom he passionately loved, he, in a moment
of weakness, proposed that every one of his fifty settlers--whom he
thought were as unselfish as himself--should have licence to buy
three Negroes, with permission to increase the number to ten by
the consent of the Protector.

Evidently Las Casas thought that these Negroes were a stronger
and hardier race than the Indians, and would share the toil and bear
some of the heavier burdens of the natives in tilling the ground,
etc. But the plan of this illustrious man never came to maturity;
and not a single Negro was bought or sold under this clause in the
charter. Moreover, he afterwards saw the folly of the scheme, and
confessed it, saying: "I forgot for the moment that the sellers were
men-stealers". Las Casas was not the first to introduce Negro
slavery in the New World, as they must have been on the spot for
him to suggest their purchase; in any case, we have no authentic
date until 1503, when the first ship-load of Negroes was landed in
the island of St. Domingo. The impossibility of effecting any
improvement in the New World, unless the Spanish planters could
command the labour of the natives, was an insuperable objection
to Las Casas's plan. In order to overcome this difficulty, the
Spaniards purchased a number of Negroes from the Portuguese
settlement on the coast of Africa. In 1503 only a few Negroes were
brought into the West Indies; but, in 1511, we find that Ferdinand
permitted the importation of a greater number.

1st. Because they were proved to be more robust and hardier than
the natives. 2nd. They were more capable of enduring fatigue, and
more patient under servitude. 3rd. And that the labour of one
Negro was thought to be equal to that of four Indians.

In vain did Cardinal Ximenes protest "against the iniquity of
reducing one race of men to slavery, while endeavouring to save
the lives and restoring the liberty of another". Charles V. granted a
patent to one of his Flemish favourites, by which he had the
exclusive right to import four thousand Negroes to the New World.
This man sold his patent to some Genoese merchants for 25,000
ducats, who degraded commerce by bringing a larger number of
slaves than ever had been introduced before in the West Indies.
From that time the traffic extended with alarming rapidity to the
continent of America. The Africans, who were carried to the
western world were, as a general rule, of the weakest of the people
in their own country: people who did not fairly represent the best
qualities and endowments of the race--even the traditions of their
country were carried away in the most distorted form. They were
for the most part people from the alluvial districts of Africa, who
had been preyed upon by local diseases, and captives taken in
those tribal wars which devastated large towns and villages in the
heart of the country, and is until this day. The more powerful tribes
pushed the weaker ones from the abundant supplies of food--from
the high lands to the sea coast--whither the white man either stole,
bribed, or made war against them. They did not even scruple to
call in the aid of the rum bottle, and every other unrighteous
means, in order to entrap them to supply the slave market.
Nevertheless, some of the better class and stalwart sons of Africa
found themselves as slaves among the rabble. Hundreds of tribes
were mixed together in the slave markets of the New World. The
nefarious traffic in human flesh, which began in the midst of
pestilence, war, and famine, soon pushed these Negroes beneath
the physical standard of the hardier tribes of Africa; and the
common moral standard of the human species, with which they
were surrounded in their new home --the galling bond of
slavery--bound their bodies, and fettered their intellectual
faculties, impaired their social affection, and reduced them to
move like common machines. The atrocious debasement of
slavery paralysed their reflective faculty, suspended their
judgment, so that their power of choice was nil; while reason and
conscience had little influence over their conduct. Being governed
by fear, the Negro became a mere automaton in the hands of his
master.

About one hundred and sixteen years after the Portuguese took the
first few Negroes to the West Indies we find a slaver landing some
slaves in Virginia (i.e., 1619) in exchange for food to relieve the
hunger of some famishing sailors. Better for those Negroes had
they been eaten, rather than to have been enslaved, that others
might eat. But the African was not alone; as it was a common
thing at this time to send white men into servitude--being sent out
as convicts from England, some of whom afterwards became
masters, others slave-drivers. Thus the reader will readily
understand how it was that they inflicted such dreadful punishment
upon the Negro, as we shall hereafter mention.

"Virginia was the mother of slavery in America, as well as 'the
mother of Presidents,' unfortunate for her, unfortunate for the other
colonies, and thrice unfortunate for the poor, weak, and friendless
Negroes who, from 1619 to 1863, were made to yield their liberty,
their toil, their bodies, and their intellects to a system which
ground them to powder. While it thus affected the Africans, the
white man and institutions felt the direful influence of slavery, for
it touched the brightest features of social life, and they faded under
the contact of its poisonous breath. It affected legislation, local and
national; it made and destroyed statesmen; it prostrated and bullied
honest public sentiment; it strangled the voice of the press, while it
awed the pulpit into silent acquiescence; it organised the judiciary
of the States, and wrote decisions of judges; it gave States their
political being, and afterwards dragged them by the forehair
through the stormy sea of a civil war; laid the parricidal fingers of
treason against the fair throat of liberty: and through all time to
come no event will be more sincerely deplored than the
introduction of slavery into the colony of Virginia.* In degrading
the Negro, the Virginian colonists did not fail to degrade
themselves. How could it be otherwise? Can a man use pitch
without smearing himself? Alas! for Virginia--better far had thy
virgin soil remained untouched than that thou shouldst have
witnessed the loud sad wails of agony sent up from the broken
hearts of the sons of Africa, into whose mouths Burns put the
following lines:-- 




 It was in sweet Senegal that my foes did me enthral



 For the lands of Virginia--ginia, O;



 Torn from that lovely shore, and never to see it more,



 And, alas! I am weary, weary, O.




 All on that charming coast is no bitter snow and frost



 Like the lands of Virginia--ginia, O;



 There streams for ever flow, and there flowers for ever blow,



 And, alas! I am weary, weary, O.




 The burden I must bear, while the cruel scourge I fear



 In the lands of Virginia--ginia, O;



 And I think on my friends most dear, with the bitter, bitter tear,



 And, alas! I am weary, weary, O.

It appears, however, that Virginia began to repent of her iniquity in
1776, for William Gordon of Roxburgh, Mass., wrote: "The
Virginians begin their declaration of rights by saying that 'all men
are born equally free and independent; and have certain interests,
and


* Williams' History of the Negro Race in America.
 natural rights, of which they cannot by any compact deprive
themselves or their posterity, among which are their enjoyments of
life and liberty'. The Congress declare that they 'hold these truths
to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain INALIENABLE
RIGHTS--that among these are life, liberty,and pursuit of
happiness'."

Maryland, the State in which the Bishop was born, constituted a
part, and was for a long time within the limits, of the colony of
Virginia, consequently the slave traffic of the latter extended
throughout the entire territory. Here the colonists found the soil
rich; and the cultivation of tobacco would be a profitable
enterprise. The country was new, and, the physical obstacles in the
way of the advancement of civilisation being numerous and
formidable, the demand for robust labourers became an absolute
necessity; and, as Negroes were at hand and cheap, there was
nothing to do but import them. Thus, in 1671, the legislature
passed "an act encouraging the importation of Negroes and
slaves," i.e., Negroes and white convicts. The former were "used to
till the soil, fell trees, assist mechanics, and to man light crafts
along the water-ways ". Steadily Africans found their way into
houses of opulence and refinement, either on account of novelty or
cheapness, or both. This gave rise to an import tax being imposed
upon slaves imported into the colony, which did not destroy the
vile traffic, but supplied grist to the government's mill. In 1696 an
act was passed laying "an imposition on the slaves and white
persons imported into the colony". Mr. Williams explains that "the
word 'imported' means persons who could not pay their passage,
and were therefore indentured to the master of the vessel. When
they arrived their time was hired out, if they were free, for a term
of years at so much per year; but, if they were slaves, the buyer had
to pay all claims against this species of property before he could
acquire a fee-simple in the slave."*

In 1704 the legislature passed another act "imposing threepence
per gallon on rum, wine, brandy, and spirits; twenty shillings per
poll for Negroes, for raising a supply to defray the public charge in
this province; and twenty shillings per poll on Irish servants, to
prevent the importation of too great a number of Irish papists into
this province": which act was passed for only "three years"; but the
hell-conceived child, avarice, kept it alive with all its hideousness
for twenty-one years. Rum, slavery, and bigotry were the forces
which prompted the colonial economists of that day to stain the
statute-book with such a vile law--depraved sentiments made law,
and law fashioned slaves and servants into chattelled goods. Poor
wooden-headed law-makers! knew ye not that the very law which
ye made to keep your nests well-feathered would dehumanise and
make you cruel tyrants? Ill-got fortune can never make villains
respectable.


 *History of the Negro Race in America,p. 242.
 The dignity of labour was dishonoured by your ill-conceived
enactments; while a remorseless greed for wealth created,
perpetuated, and deluged the country with a thirst for the blood of
the innocent for gain. Few people at this day can picture to
themselves the horrors of the slave traffic at that time, and long
after. Masters were men who believed that the wretched slaves
were indispensable to the property of the country--convicts, whose
moral sense was already deadened by the crimes which caused
them to be transported; men, whose religion was a mere name,
whose moral sensibilities were numbed by their frequent acts of
vice, and whose god was their passions, could not be expected to
be humane. In fact, they were mostly members of the criminal
class-- "people whose blood might have been traced through many
generations of stupid, sluggish, and vicious ancestors, with no
claim to merit but the names they bore". Indeed, such was the
character of these "scoundrels" that the best colonists dreaded their
continual increase, and well they might, when the "age revolted at
the idea of going back to such as these for the roots of a
genealogical tree". Here is a letter from one of these refuse of
Europe, or his representative, taken from the Maryland Gazette of
July 30, 1767: "I confess I am one who think a young country
cannot be settled, cultivated, and improved without people of some
sort; and that it is much better for the country to receive convicts
than slaves. The wicked and bad amongst them that come into this
province mostly run away to the northward, mix with their people,
and pass for honest men; while those more innocent, and who
came for very small offences, serve their time out here, behave
well, and become useful people." This convict, or otherwise, even
estimated "that, for these last thirty years-- communibus annis--
there have been at least 600 convicts per year imported into this
province, and these have probably gone into 400 families". Alas!
for Maryland and for the poor African slave. Was it likely that
people of the criminal class, so far removed from social and moral
influence, and from all restraint, at a time when it was necessary
for detectives to dog their every step in Europe--when there were
no steamships crossing the Atlantic in seven days--when there was
no electric telegraph, and the quickest passage took months--that
these convicts would be transformed into angelic masters?

"Who but a man swayed with the most sordid selfishness would
endeavour," cried one of the colonists, "to disarm the people of the
colony of all caution against imminent danger, lest their just
apprehensions should interfere with his little scheme of profit?
And who but such a man would appear publicly as an advocate for
the importation of felons, the scouring of jails, and the abandoned
outcasts of the British nation, as a mode in any sort eligible for
peopling a young country?"

These were the creatures who undoubtedly became, for the most
part, masters and slave-drivers in the terrible days which followed:
felons and convicts, with hearts like flint, hardened in the furnace
of crimes, let loose unrestrained, and given over to unbridled
passions and lusts. It is this convict element which, through its
numerous and ever-increasing popularity, created and inflamed
popular sentiment in favour of an indiscriminate and cruel code of
laws for the brutal government of Negro slavery. The pride of the
revolting convict stunted every humane instinct in his nature, so
that the African's helpless and dying appeal for mercy and
kindness never moved him, except in the direction of making him
feel his burden the more. These masters and Negro-drivers were
considered by their contemporaries as "guilty of the most shameful
misrepresentation and the grossest calumny upon the whole
province, and the most abandoned profligates in the universe".
Who, then, can wonder at their harsh treatment of the
Negro?--whom these convicts hated, not because of his condition
or circumstance, but on account of his barbaric nationality and
colour. Thus, to make him feel more keenly his master's contempt
and hatred, convicts no longer called the African a Negro, but
"nigger"--so using the Negro to divert the attention of the virtuous
colonists, who despised their pedigree, from their hateful selves.
The convict class of Maryland had the honour to make a slave
code, which, for barbarity and general inhumanity, has no
equal--except in South Carolina --in the annals of American
slavery.

1st. In 1723 they made "an act to prevent tumultuous meetings and
other irregularities of Negroes and other slaves," no matter for
what purpose these meetings were held. They were to have their
ears "cropt, on order of justice". What known and untold wrongs
have been committed in the name, and under the pretext of doing
"justice"! What sense of justice had these transported convicts ?

2nd. The Negro was denied the right of possessing property--not
even an ass--like one of those who voted for such a law.

3rd. The act gave authority to any white man to kill a Negro who
resisted an attempt to arrest him. If such authority had been given
to the constables of England before these convicts were
transported, there would not have been sufficient voting convicts
left to carry such a clause.

In 1751 the act of 1723 was supplemented in the master's favour,
so that, if he were killed in taking the Negro, the legislature
handed a sum of money to his relations. To crown their
abominable enactments, and rob the Negro of the last vestige of
the rights of manhood, an act was passed by which it was made
legal, "not to hang a Negro" by the neck, but "his body was
quartered and exposed to public view". Having augmented the
fortune of his master, a respectable man sometimes thought fit to
reward his old slave by giving him his freedom in his old age, or
make provision in his will, that at his death his slave or slaves
should be emancipated. Again the Negro-hating convicts stepped
in and forbade manumission by the last will and testament. From
the introduction of slavery until 1780 Maryland, as we now know
it, was stricken with silence in the face of the monstrous and
stubborn slave traffic--the press was gagged, the men of God were
struck with dumbness, and statesmen like dead fishes went with
the stream. It was not until men like Jefferson exclaimed: "That
throughout the whole commerce, master and slave, is a perpetual
exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unrelenting
despotism on the one part and degrading submission on the other,"
that a ray of hope began to shine through the dark horizon of
"Black America ". "Our children see this," said Jefferson, "and
learn to imitate it--for man is an imitative animal. This quality is
the germ of all education to him. From his cradle to his grave he is
learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no
motive, either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining
the intemperance of passion towards his slave, it should always be
a sufficient one that his child is present. But it is not generally
sufficient. The parent storms; the child looks on, catches the
lineaments of wrath, puts on some airs in the circle of smaller
slaves, gives a loose tongue to the worst of passions, and, thus
nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be
stamped with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who
can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such
circumstances. And with what execration should the statesman be
loaded who, permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the
rights of the other, transforms those into despots and these into
enemies, destroys the morals of the one part and the amor
patriaeof the other?" In 1706 a society was formed at Trenton,
New Jersey, for "the Abolition of Slavery". The Quakers set the
example to Christian America by emancipating their slaves.
Anti-slavery societies sprang up in almost every State; in vain did
loud-mouthed pulpit orators of the ex-convict type try to prop up
the traffic as a divine institution, when such men as Dr. Franklin
threw in his lot with the abolitionists and charged the enemies of
liberty. In 1789 he wrote: "Slavery is such an atrocious debasement
of human nature that its very extirpation, if not performed with
solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils".
Ever year, from the first formation of an anti-slavery society down
to Garrison, was crowned with success; his efforts were untiring,
and his method of attacking the traffic was unique. "I determined,"
said he, "at every hazard to lift up the standard of emancipation in
the eyes of the nation, within sight of Bunker's Hill and in the
birthplace of liberty. That standard is now unfurled, and long may
it float unhurt by the spoilations of time or the missiles of a
desperate foe; yea, till every chain is broken and every bondman
set free! Let southern oppression tremble; let their secret abettors
tremble; let all the enemies of the persecuted black tremble. . . .On
this question my influence, humble as it is, is felt at this moment
to a considerable extent; and it shall be felt in coming years--not
perniciously, but beneficially, not as a curse, but as a blessing--and
posterity will bear testimony that I was right. I desire to thank God
that He enables me to disregard the fear of man, which bringeth a
snare, and speak truth in its simplicity and power; and I here close
with this dedication:-- 




 Oppression! I have seen thee face to face,



 And met thy cruel eye and cloudy brow



 By the soul-withering glance. I fear not now,



 For dread to prouder feelings doth give place,



 Of deep abhorrence, scorning the disgrace



 Of slavish knees that at thy footstool bow;



 I also kneel--but with far other vow



 Do hail thee and thy herd of hirelings base;



 I swear, while life-blood warms my throbbing veins,



 Still to oppose and thwart, with heart and hand,



 Thy brutalising sway--till Afric's chains



 Are burst, and freedom rules the rescued land,



 Trampling oppression and his iron rod;



 Such is the vow I take--so help me, God!

"Well done, thou prophet of the living God! Millions of Negroes
bless thee and thine for all the energy which thou in thy glorious
day did put forth!" Time would fail us to name the illustrious men
and women who helped, both in England and America, to bring
about the abolition of Negro slavery. Yet it must not be thought
that these illustrious men were the first to express anti-slavery
sentiments; for the Mosaic law pronounced death upon the
manstealer. Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, laid down the principle
that "all men are equal, and that virtue alone establishes a
difference between them". Anti-slavery sentiment was eloquent in
the days of Christ, who Himself laid it down as a fundamental
principle of the new religion that "whatsoever ye would that men
should do unto you, do ye even so to them". Seneca taught the
slave-holders of his time to "let your slaves laugh, or talk, or keep
silence in your presence, as in that of the father of the family.
Remember that he whom you call your slave belongs to the same
race as yourself. Will you despise a man for circumstances which
may become your own? We all have one common origin, and no
other is nobler than another unless he is more ready for good
deeds." That God-given mandate quoted above carried the gospel
of humanity into the palaces of the C‘sars and Antonies. In 312
A.D. a law was passed under Constantine the Great condemning
the poisoning of a slave, or tearing his body with the nails of a
wild beast, or branding him to be homicide. In 314 A.D. liberty
was declared a right which could not be taken away. Sixty years of
captivity could not take from the free-born the right of demanding
liberty. In 316 Constantine wrote to an archbishop: "It has pleased
me for a long time to establish that, in the Christian Church,
masters can give liberty to their slaves, provided they do it in the
presence of all the assembled people and with the assistance of
Christian priests, and that, in order to preserve the memory of the
fact, some written document should inform where they sign as
parties or as witnesses"; and in 321 A.D. Constantine directed that
"he who under a religious feeling has given a just liberty to his
slaves in the bosom of the Christian Church will be thought to
have made a gift of a right similar to Roman citizenship, which
privilege was only granted to those who emancipate under the eyes
of the priest".*

Chrysostom, the golden-mouth, who advised Vespasian to restore
the republic, exhorted Trajan to devote himself to the welfare of
his subjects, and imitate God in philanthropy, as well as those in
which he proclaimed to the common people, who were his
favourite auditors, the dignity of labour, the sin of slavery and the
folly of training hermits. St. Theodore of Constantinople ventured
to put forth the command: "Thou shalt possess no slave, neither for
domestic purposes nor for the labour of the fields, for man is made
in the image of God ". (Vide Gesta Christi.)

The opposition of slavery shook the thrones of Europe during
medieval times. In 441 A.D. a church council (Orange) enacted
that a slave once emancipated in Church could not be made either
slave or serf again without incurring ecclesiastical censures. The
Justiman Code bristles with enactments against slavery. From
Emperor Leo, 717 A.D., we find an unbroken stream of sentiments
shaping law both for the amelioration of slaves and the
suppression thereof. Thirty-seven


*Vide Lecky, History of European Morals, vol. ii. p. 62.
 church councils are reported to have passed acts favourable to
slaves. One council called in London by Anselm forbade
absolutely the nefarious business of selling human beings like
brute beasts. Sir Thomas Smith, who was a statesman in the time
of Elizabeth, 1570, said: "That already in his time slaves were
unknown in England, and of serfs only a few survived, but that
both conditions were recognised in English law. I think both in
France and England the change of religion to the more gentle and
more equal sort (as the Christian religion is in respect to the
Gentiles) caused this whole kind of servile servitude and slavery to
be brought into that moderation, so that they almost extinguished
the whole." Austria and France led the way, and finally slavery was
driven out of Europe, never to appear again.

Then it found a home in the New World, but not even there could
the wretch find rest for the sole of its feet, for in 1688 the
"Friends" of Pennsylvania publicly protested against it, while the
Roman Catholics hunted down the monster in the West Indies, as
we have elsewhere shown; the work steadily went on until England
could not endure the united efforts of Wilberforce and his stalwart
co-workers, but yielded up the iniquitous system on the 29th of
July, 1833, leaving America and the Americans to struggle on,
though Jefferson had told his countrymen: "Indeed, I tremble for
my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot
sleep for ever". At last this prophetic declaration was fulfilled, and
the down-trodden Negro took up arms and stood side by side with
those heroic white men who were prepared to fight for the absolute
emancipation of the people, God be thanked! We only regret that
statesmen with the spirit of Franklin, Rush, Hamilton, and Jay; that
divines like Hopkins, Edwards, Channing, and Stiles;
philanthropists like Lundy, Woolman, and Garrison are not now
moving among the Americans to crown the labours of those
illustrious dead, by removing those obstacles which are second to
slavery in importance. Alas! for the proud republic whose
constitution is supposed to be founded upon "Liberty". Let
America, in the fulness of her pride, wave on high in her banner
fraternity and liberty, if not equality, to each of her subjects. Let
America learn from most of the European powers that virtue, not
colour, makes the man.




 Then let us pray that come it may,



 As come it will for a' that;



 That man to man the World o'er



 Shall brothers be for a' that.

As sure as the day star of human liberty has arisen above the dark
horizon of slavery, so assuredly will the sun of righteousness
penetrate the black cloud of prejudice against the Negro, and shine
in majestic splendour to the glory of God, and the peaceful
dwelling together of the races which have made the United States
what she is. Let Americans remember that the Negro helped to
fight for her independence under the slave-holder Washington, and
fought gloriously in the Civil War. Remember, too, that they
helped to augment the wealth of your boasted republic. We do not
ask that her government should create right, but to protect them, as
we are not now ignorant that governments are instituted to
maintain order, secure peace, administer justice, and protect the
rights of all people, and not to destroy or diminish them. We do
not ask the United States' Government to enlarge the rights of the
Negro by contracting the rights of the white man in order to
equalise either property, social position, or political power. We
know that such an act would involve the infringement and
contraction of their rights. We know too that-- 




 Order is heaven's first law, and thus confess'd,



 Some are, and must be, greater than the rest;



 More rich, more wise; but who infers from hence



 That such are happier shocks common-sense.
--POPE.

Thus, we only demand justice for our race, a right which the
constitution affirms in the following terms: "All citizens of each
State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of
citizens in the several States," and as long as she withholds a little
of the rights which this and other sections of the constitution
allow, so long we will persist in making our demand. Why should
our race contribute to the maintenance of the government in the
shape of taxes when black children are kicked out of State
schools? Why should a Negro be punished if he breaks the law,
and a white man go free when he does the same? Is not a
government impotent when it cannot protect the weak and promote
the welfare of all citizens? If a government is based upon popular
and democratic principles as that of the United States, is it not its
duty to protect the weak elector, and punish those who use force to
prevent some citizens from using their electoral rights? In Great
Britain and Ireland the most ignorant and unlettered farm labourer
who is a lodger or householder can vote, but in the United States
the Negro, because he has been a slave, too often cannot do so.
Which then is the freest country, and in which have the subjects
the most liberty? Where is the protection for the respectable Negro
citizen in a tram, train, or 'bus in the U.S.A.? The Negro does not
beg for pity or favour; he merely asks for more of justice, and less
of either. Let the United or any other State withhold justice as long
as it likes from the weaker members of the community, the day
will come when those very people will rise either by craft or force,
or both, and have it. What people could have been more oppressed
than the Frenchmen of the preceding two centuries? From the most
servile deference to monarchy, men passed at once to a democracy
of a bolder character than either the Greek or the United States'
republics. They sprang from a gradation of ranks which rose tier
upon tier, assigning to the upper class special privileges, and
heaping on the lower orders penalties and fiscal burdens. The
nation dropped into a level on which all citizens were equal. God
forbid that the Negro problem should bring such a calamity upon
America as the French Revolution! But the more a people suffer
the more revengeful will they become, when they get the
opportunity. Let America remember that the marvellous revolution
of opinion which produced such an upheaval was not the growth of
a few years, but a power that was long brewing. The Negroes may
yet have their Voltaires and Rosseaus to kindle the explosive. Even
in our time tyranny had to give way in Germany, Italy, Greece, and
poor down-trodden Egypt. Russia cannot hold out for ever against
Nihilism; and the Negro in the United States will not continue to
endure the wrongs which are being inflicted upon his race until the
end of time, any more than other nations. Let experience speak,
and the awful dread of irreparable consequences have weight with
the Yankees. Every day the pressure grows, the friction between
the two races gets more severe, and the rising tide of education is
making the Negro more sensitive to his wrongs and the mockery of
the words of the constitution. If the government does not fall back
upon the law and maintain its dignity, if the majority does not
blend order with freedom and safety with progress, the tide which
is steadily rising will crumble piecemeal the old cliffs of the
constitution; and woe to them who live in a fool's paradise! May
heaven forgive the folly of the strong and defend the weak is the
sincere wish of every Negro.

CHAPTER II. EARLY LIFE.

Life is like the transition from class to class in a school. The
schoolboy who has not learnt arithmetic in the early classes cannot
secure it when he comes to mechanics in the higher: each section
has its own sufficient work. He may be a good philosopher or a
good historian, but a bad arithmetician he remains for life, for he
cannot lay a foundation at the moment when he must be building
the superstructure. The regiment which has not perfected itself in
its manoeuvres on the parade ground cannot learn them before the
guns of the enemy. And just in the same way a young person who
has slept his youth away, and become idle and selfish and hard,
cannot make up for that afterwards. He may do something: he may
be religious--yes; but he cannot be what he might have been. There
is a part of his heart which will remain uncultivated to the end.
The Apostles could share their Master's suffering -- they could not
save Him. Youth has its irreparable past. --F. W. ROBERTSON.

YES, "Youth has its irreparable past," but the misfortunes of youth
were not self-imposed; it was the tyranny of slavery which loaded
Walter Hawkins, as soon as he was born, with calamities, most of
which he has never been able to overcome. While some only know
misery by comparison with their own happiness, this man was
made to experience it before he could understand what it meant.
From his birth he was made to go under a dark, bleak rock--on a
sunless shore--in company with those who could not explain why
he was born to such a cruel fate. They could not even pity him,
since they themselves were martyrs to the same heartless destiny.
Himself and they might have felt that there was a thing called
happiness by people whom they had seen laughing, or singing
those sacred songs which he would one day learn: that was the
only cup of consolation they had to drink from. But as years rolled
on, and the slave-driver compelled him to speak in subdued tones,
it was then the child began to comprehend the mystery of the
sunless path--which afterwards made him incapable of being in
love with his fate. What he would have been if he had not been
born, nursed, and spent his early days in bondage we cannot tell;
this we will venture to say from what we shall learn from his life
--there was the making of a man worthy of any race in the slave
child.

Bishop Walter Hawkins was born at Georgetown, Maryland, in the
district of Columbia, in or about the year 1809, at a time when the
United States no less than Great Britain were beginning to be
stirred from centre to circumference with the anti-slavery
agitation. His father and mother were both pure-blooded Negroes,
whose ancestors were among the millions that were stolen from
the bosom of their fatherland to supply the labour market of
America. They were both slaves at the time of the birth of their son
Walter. At the age of forty his father was encouraged by the
Quakers --whom we have said were the first to free their slaves in
the United States--to work overtime after he had fulfilled his long
day's work for his master. In this way the poor man managed to
save the sum of 365 dollars (£73 4s. 2d.), with which he
purchased his liberty. Heaven only knows what the slaves would
have had to go through, but for the humanity and practical
sympathy of those unostentatious Christians. Bishop Hawkins does
not seem to remember much about his mother, for she died when
he was quite young. Although the children lost much by her death,
it certainly was great gain to this mother, who dared not call the
children of her anguish her own. What a glorious emancipation
was hers! Better far is thy lot to be numbered with the dead than to
have lived to be hunted down by bloodhounds or whipped by
ex-convicts. What a glorious transformation is thine! Thy death
was a far better thing than the insults of bullies more degraded
than thyself. Was thy death not preferred, than to live to see thy
loved ones torn one by one from thy heart, and sent off in the
chain-gang never to see them in the flesh any more, or, what is
worse, to see and not to know that they were verily part and parcel
of thyself?

Out of a large family, the Bishop can only remember two brothers
and two sisters. Who knows but that before Walter was born the
others were carried into the south, from whence it was believed
that neither the living nor dead ever returned to relate the horrors
of the life of a slave in yonder region? The eldest of the two sisters
died, while the eldest brother, determined no longer to serve his
master, ran away; we hope he was never recaptured. The Bishop,
one sister, and a younger brother--who fell down a flight of stairs,
in consequence of which he became a cripple for the rest of his
life--was all the family left to Hawkins the elder. The cripple was
given as a present to the old man, but he did not enjoy the present
of his own son for long, for he followed his mother into the eternal
world. Listen to the heartless language of this descendant of a
convict: "Old man, you can have him; he is of no use to me".
Nevertheless the man was glad to have one free child, though he
be a cripple. At the death of the master the remaining two children
became the property of widow Jane Robinson, the sister of one
Robert Beverly, a rich squire, who always supplied her with all the
necessaries of life, as she was what they called very poor. And a
most eccentric creature was this Jane Robinson. Following the
custom and spirit of the age, she professed the popular religion.
She used to teach young Hawkins to lie on her behalf, but would
have him whipped if he did so on his own responsibility, or
threaten him with being "cast into a lake of fire and brimstone";
not her religious belief, but the effect of slavery on the
slave-holder made them so inconsistent as to say to the slave boy:
"If there is a knock, put on a clean white apron, and go to the door,
open it, and if it is Mrs. Thomas Bell or Mrs. Frank Keys tell her I
am gone out". Evidently old Jane believed that there must have
been some virtue in a "clean white apron"; perhaps it served to
cover a multitude of sins. Not content with putting this lie into the
boy's mouth, she would stand off where she could hear him tell the
lie, and having satisfied herself that the lad had done his duty well,
i.e.,according to her moral standard, she would laugh with delight,
like a daughter of an ex-convict, at the exploits of her illustrious
father's dashing acts of villainy. Having done this, old Jane would
say: "Go to your work (not with a clean white apron) in ten
minutes". When she thought that he was there she would go and
look around and say, pushing the soil with her foot: "Are you
cutting the weeds all right, John?" If he replied in the affirmative,
when he was not strictly accurate, old Jane Robinson would say,
by way of exhortation: "John, you must not lie. Don't you know
that all liars are cast into the lake that burns for ever?" How was he
to know? and if there were such a place ought not old Jane to have
the warmest corner? Who is to be blamed if this boy grew up to be
a hardened liar? If it were just for him to lie for his mistress
without fear of being "cast into the lake that burns for ever," why
not do it for himself? Slavery was a bad--not to say a
hard--schoolmaster for the Negro; moreover it was fruitful in
respect of raising a race of men who were at once semi-barbarous,
immoral and degraded physically as well as mentally. The Bishop
says: "Jane Robinson always had her prayers in her private room
three times a-day"; and he could often hear her say: "O Lord, have
mercy upon the poor Africans!" and groaned as if her soul was
really troubled about them. But what avails prayers and groans
when she, like so many other slave-holders, persisted in degrading
the African? Yet these prayers and groans constituted the religion
of the pious Christians of Negro-driving America. Their ministers
were their paid puppets, who taught the slaves from the pulpit that
they must obey their masters and mistresses in all things. These
men of God did not think or feel that it was beneath the dignity of
their vocation to tell the Negroes "that some He made masters and
mistresses for taking care of their children and others belonging to
them. . . others He hath made slaves and servants to assist and
work for their masters and mistresses that provide for them, and
some others He hath made ministers and teachers to instruct the
rest, to show them what they ought to do, and put them in mind of
their several duties". God called them, but the devil shook the bag.

The Right Rev. Bishop Meade of Virginia, in an address to slaves,
said: "Almighty God hath been pleased to make you slaves here,
and to give you nothing but labour and poverty in this world,
which you are obliged to submit to, as it is His will that it should
be so. Your bodies, you know, are not your own: they are at the
disposal of those you belong to." And others of these paid "liars for
God" published a catechism for slaves, in which they had the
impudence to ask and answer the following questions: "Is it right
for a servant to run away, and is it right to harbour a
runaway?--No. What did the Apostle Paul do to Onesimus, who
was a runaway? Did he harbour him or send him back to his
master? Answer--He sent him back to his master with a letter."
Yes, and this minister ought to have added: "Receive him not as a
servant but above a servant, a brother in Christ". Of course the
puppet was paid to keep the last clause out--nay, more, the slave
was even taught that "to disobey his master was to yield to the
temptation of the devil". Bishop Hawkins tells us of one Parson
Baulch, who was accustomed to preach once a month in the
Presbyterian Church, in the neighbourhood in which he lived, to
the slaves. This venerable old man used to take the same text, and
preached the same sermon for twenty years, as testified by his
father and grandfather, to which they were bound to listen, under
pains of being whipped. The text was: "Servants, obey your
masters," and the substance of the sermon was: "Sam and Sukey,
you must mind all you are told to do by your masters, and obey.
You must not steal from them. Should they lose a pin, and you find
it, you must give it to them. You must not lie, and you must not
run away from them." While thus speaking, he would put his finger
on the supposed text in the open Bible, and, looking in the gallery
where all the slaves were allowed to sit, would continue his
apology for a sermon by saying: "The Lord says (I suppose the lord
of mammon), if you are good to your masters and mistresses, He
has got a kitchen in heaven, and you all will go there by-and-by".
What if Parson Baulch is in that kitchen now? A more hateful
caricature of a sermon cannot be conceived than this wretched
mutilation of the righteous character of God. In every
denomination were found men of Parson Baulch's stamp, except
the Quakers and a few laymen who protested against this libel on
the Deity. But many of the slave-holders would carry it away and
repeat it (parrot-like) to the poor slaves. Poor Jane Robinson had
been pretty well off during some portion of her husband's life, but,
unfortunately for her and her slaves, he ran through his money by
drinking and gambling, two offsprings of slavery, and at last he
died from the effects of his riotous living, leaving old Jane, a son
and a daughter in possession of five slaves as their fortune, which
was considered very little to live upon; consequently she became
very stingy in her fare. If she put herself upon a smaller fare, it was
certainly a bad look-out for the stomachs of her five Negroes, who
were soon after made to feel as if their throats were cut. Inasmuch
as her rich brother Beverly came to her assistance and relieved her
wants, she continued to buy the cheapest meal and bread she could
find for her slaves. It was a part of the policy of many of the
slave-holders not to feed the Negro too highly, and with that fear
they gave him too little. Just as they maintained that "if the slave
were not allowed to read the Bible" he would remain an
intellectual infant, whom they could bend at will, but if they were
allowed to read it the game was up, so they feared that by the
perusal of such a book the slave "would be converted not into a
Christian, but a demon," i.e.,he could no longer be kept in
subjection. Old Jane Robinson did with the food exactly what a
thousand masters and mistresses did with both food and religion,
viz., diluted and adulterated them in quantity and quality to suit the
peculiar institution in which millions of human beings were kept
as chattels. The pinch of hunger made the young man yearn for
liberty.

Ye clouds! that far above me float and pause,
Whose pathless march no mortal can control!
Ye ocean waxes! that, wheresoe'er ye roll,
Yield homage only to eternal laws!
Ye woods! that listen to the night-bird's singing,
Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined,
Save when your own imperious branches, swinging,
Have made a solemn music of the wind!
Where, like a man beloved of God,
Through glooms which never woodman trod,
How oft, pursuing fancies holy,
My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound,
Inspired, beyond the guess of folly,

By each rude shape and wild, unconquerable sound!
Oh, ye loud waves! and oh, ye forests high!
And oh, ye clouds that far above me soared!
Thou rising sun! thou blue, rejoicing sky!
Yea, everything that is and will be free!--
Bear witness for me, wheresoe'er ye be,
With what deep virtue I have still adored
The spirit of divinest liberty!
--COLERIDGE.

CHAPTER III. LIFE AS A SLAVE.

The results of the institution of slavery was to encourage a
tyrannical and ferocious spirit in the masters--cast a stigma upon
free labour and at once degraded and dehumanised the Negro. It is
true that there were instances of sympathy between some masters
and slaves, but, unfortunately, it was more than outweighed by a
long series of the most atrocious acts of cruelty, which were
practised in their capture in Africa, on the voyages to America, and
on the plantations. --S. J. CELESTINE EDWARDS.

On him alone was doom of pain
From the morning of his birth,
On him alone the curse of Cain
Fell like a flail on the garnered grain,
And struck him to the earth.--ANON.

ALTHOUGH Spence deplored slavery as a lamentable evil and
regarded it as a great human wrong, and said that it was a
degradation to the blacks, an injury to the master, and a detriment
to society at large, yet he tried to justify the system by saying that
"the Negroes had at all times abundant food; the sufferings of
fireless winter were unknown to them; medical attendance was
always at command; in old age there was no fear of workhouse;
their children were never a burden or care; and their labour,
though long, was neither difficult nor unhealthy". Given that this is
absolutely true, we maintain that the system was iniquitous,
inasmuch as "it ignored the essential characteristic of the man--the
existence". In the words of Sallust: "Of two natures, the one is
common to us with the gods, the other with the beasts".
Undoubtedly, slavery sought to obliterate the more vital, and verily
denied the nobler, of these two natures. What is the use of an
abundance of everything when one is deprived of his liberty? Nor
is the crime of keeping a man a slave minimised by talking about
"the amount of degradation resulting from any cause must be
limited by the height from whence there was room to fall," for
surely it is a come down for any man, however ignorant--though
free--to be torn from his home by force and fraud, and transported
like a convict into servitude for an indefinite period: a condition
where every precaution was adopted to prevent intellectual
improvement. Granted that the intellectual condition of the slave
had not fallen from a height equal to that of the race in the home to
which he was transported, was slavery calculated to raise him
above the condition of his savage life? Mr. Spence answers: "Yes,
a positive gain"; we say: "Prove your assertion". He answers:
"Their conversation and domestic habits are cheerful, they are fond
of singing and dancing of a very energetic description; visitors to
the Southern States constantly express their surprise at the drollery
and gaiety they meet with". A slave had no domestic life; singing
and dancing were the opiates with which the poor wretches
drowned their sorrows. It is a characteristic of the Negro to be--or
rather to profess to be--as happy as he can under the condition he
is in, which you, Mr. Spence, and too many others, mistook for
real contentment. In the happiest moment of their life, there arose
in some an irrepressible desire for freedom which no danger or
power could restrain, no hardship deterred, and no bloodhound
could alarm. This desire haunted them night and day; they talked
about it to each other in confidence; they knew that the system
which bound them was as unjust as it was cruel, and that they
ought to strive, as a duty to themselves and their children, to
escape from it, as the slaves in Jamaica tried to do in 1732,
unknown to them, and later as their neighbours in St. Domingo
succeeded in doing: and such was the state of mind beneath all
their singing and dancing that, had they means as they had desire,
there would have been no slave-holder to talk about the happiness
of his slaves. To enslave men successfully and safely it was
necessary to keep their minds occupied with thoughts and
aspirations short of the liberty of which they were deprived. Thus
masters gave the slaves some holidays, which served the purpose
of keeping their minds occupied with prospective pleasures within
the limits of slavery. It was during these holidays that the young
man could go wooing; the married man went to see his wife; the
father and mother to see their children; the industrious and
money-making could earn a few dollars: it was then that the strong
tried their strength at wrestling or boxing; then the drinker drank
plenty of whisky, and the religious spent their time in praying,
preaching, singing and exhorting. Before these holidays their
pleasures were in prospect, after they were pleasures of reflection;
but for these holidays, which acted as safety-valves, the rigours of
bondage would have been carried off by the explosive elements
produced in the minds of the slaves by the injustice and fraud of
slavery. In his savage state the Negro was at liberty to eat what he
liked and could get by his own activity, but as a slave he was
forced to have "Johnny cakes" and black treacle, with rare
variation. This cake was made out of corn-meal, salt, and water,
and baked on a piece of barrel-head. At dinner-time old Jane
Robinson would call her slaves and give each of them a piece and
a little molasses, which she would pour into a large plate so as to
make it look much more than it really was; of course there was no
blessing asked on this meal. The necessary preliminary having
been gone through, Walter would receive his allowance with all
the humility of one who had received a knighthood from his
Queen. It is needless to say that he soon polished off the "Johnny
cake," licked the treacle and bowed ready for more, to which Mrs.
Robinson would gravely reply: "You young rascal, do you mean to
breed a famine? Go to your work!" Can anyone wonder at slaves
singing:-- 


 "We raise the wheat,

 They eat the corn;

 We bake the bread,


 They give us the crust;

 We sift the meal,

 They give us the husk"? 
Of course, if the Negro asked for bread, the slave-holder was
bound to give him a stone. Besides baking the corn-meal dough
upon a piece of barrel-head, the slaves were accustomed to wash
their hoes, put the dough upon it, and bake their cake before the
fire; hence the name "hoe-cake". If the slave had not a variety of
dishes he certainly had a variety of means of producing the same
cake; thus, instead of cooking them on hoes and barrel-heads, they
would roll the dough into a round lump and cover it with cabbage
leaves, sweep away the ashes from the hearth, lay the dough upon
the ground and cover it over with ashes and fire. Honourable
exceptions there were, but they were few and hard to find, who did
not try to get as much work as possible, at very little cost for food
and clothing. Some masters and mistresses would send their slaves
to the market to beg food, of whom Dame Robinson was one; and,
when the slaves returned laden with provisions, they would take
the food from them as if the provision was theirs and not the
property of the slaves: a job Walter did not like, as the poor slaves
often got more kicks than cabbages; so he used to turn round the
first corner after he left his mistress's house and loaf about until he
thought it was time to go home again, pulling a long face because
people would not part with their sweet potatoes, etc., without
money, which would force the old lady to go marketing herself,
when Walter would follow her as light porter; but he seldom got
any of the good things which he brought home for his mistress.
The time came, however, when this young slave began to get tired
of his way of spending an existence which seemed to have no end.
Something whispered to him: "Muzzle not the ox that treadeth out
the corn"; from whence the words came he knew not. As he could
not read, he must have heard them from someone who could.
However they came, he thought himself to be the ox, and that he
was muzzled by slavery; so he made up his mind to take off his
muzzle and go in for a good feed the first chance he got. But he
remembered that the old parson had told them not to steal, lest
they would be cast into a "lake which burned for ever," besides the
lashing he would get. Hunger is a sharp thorn. If he ate anything
which was not given to him, he would have been accused of theft.
Supposing he risked the lash and the "burning lake," how was he to
get at the old dame's store in which the food was kept? "Surely,"
thought he, "I work for what I get"; and, after all, what was the use
of working and not getting enough food to satisfy his hunger? "It
cannot therefore be wrong to take what I have worked for." Walter
quieted his conscience by deciding to steal some food; so, whether
it were stealing or not, he'd chance hell, the whip, and everything,
and have a good round meal the first chance he had. They say
everything comes to those that wait: so Walter waited for his
opportunity; and one day, when Dame Robinson and her daughter
went out, and knowing that she would leave the keys at home,
Walter set his sister to watch while he hunted everywhere he could
think to find them; at last it occurred to his mind to look under her
pillow, and there to his great joy he found them -- a happy thought
for his hungry stomach. Having found them he made for the store,
where he took flour, lard, butter, sugar, and as much of other good
things as he could find. With the flour and lard he made short
cakes, which he baked in a Dutch oven. When cooked, he called
his sister, and set himself to get "a good square meal" for once in
his life; and, having had enough, he put away what he could not
eat for another time. Soon after they had finished, the old lady
came home; and, after having had her tea, she gave her slaves their
share; but Walter had had more than enough, consequently he hid
the biscuits which she had given him away. But the worst was to
come. Thinking that old Jane was taking her usual nap, one day,
after this event, Walter sat down in the garden munching away at
the sugar he had stolen; but the old dame, who was evidently
aware that she had been robbed, only professed to have been
asleep, and had slyly got up and looked out of the window only to
find the young man eating her sugar. So she stealthily walked out
and sneaked beside him, as he sat by the side of a large gooseberry
tree eating gooseberries and sugar. She exclaimed: "You young
rascal, I have caught you at last". You can imagine the young
man's surprise; he was like the boy who, being sent with his
father's dinner, sat down by the roadside, and was in the act of
eating it when his mother came upon him, exclaiming: "Richard!"
to which the boy coolly answered: "Why, I did not expect you so
soon". But for his near-sightedness he would have seen his mother
coming. So also on account of Walter's absent-mindedness he did
not take precaution to eat his sugar at night or when his mistress
had gone out again. But fate decreed otherwise. What could the
poor half-starved boy say? Yonder on the side of a small hill stood
some willow-trees; thither the old lady proceeded, and reached up
to break, from one of them, a piece stout enough to wreak her old
vengeance on the thieving slave-boy. But good nature interposed,
and ere she attempted to break off the stick there came a breeze
which took her off her feet, by lifting the limb of the willow as the
branch ascended. She let it go, and poor Jane Robinson fell and
rolled down the hillside. Poor Jane! what if she were killed? That
young Negro would have been lynched in four quarters for a crime
he had never committed. Seeing the old dame did not make any
attempt to get up, Walter looked down to see what had become of
his mistress. What thoughts must have rushed into Walter's mind!
Suppose she say he pushed her down or was directly the cause of
her falling? he dared not deny it; whether he did or not, she would
have been believed if only she had made a charge, as there was no
court of appeal against the ipse dixit of a slave-holder. What must
he do? To run away and be recaptured would make it appear as
though he were guilty. But fear, reason, compassion for the old
dame moved the heart of the Negro to go to her assistance and
help the fallen. While helping her up he thought: "I am doing this,
but I know she will hire a man who whips slaves to whip me,"
feeling that she could not do it herself, as he was bigger and
stronger than he used to be. But Jane Robinson was hurt, and the
moment she got on her feet she made for the house as quickly as
possible, to have the rest which she had disturbed to catch the
thief. Walter escaped his thrashing then only to think it had to
come, but night came and nothing was said, and no Negro-whipper
came; so the day's doings, and the dread and horrors of the whip,
were forgotten in sleep.

Morning came, and the day passed without anything being said;
finally, the culprit escaped his thrashing altogether. Why? Eternity
alone will reveal, for Walter has never been able to solve the
problem. All other attempts at whipping were held in reserve, until
he attended a midnight meeting and did not get back in time to get
his rest, so that he could not do his work the next day with alacrity.

Thinking he had been carousing all night, she began to pound him
with the first thing she got hold of. Poor fellow! he could do better
with sleep than with the stick; but what has that to do with the
slave-holder, who wanted work out of her slave?

The system under which he laboured forbade consideration and
gave little practical sympathy to a weary slave, and when it was
time to rest, what had the slave to sleep upon? The sleeping
apartments, if they could have been called such, had little regard
for decency. Old and young, male and female, married and single,
were glad to drop down like so many brute beasts upon the
common clay floor, each covered with his or her own blanket,
their only protection from cold and exposure. How much of rest
had a slave? The night, however short, was cut off at both ends:
slaves worked late and rose early. Then part of the night was spent
in mending their scanty clothing for decency's sake, and in cooking
their food for the morrow--in fact, they were whipped for
over-sleep more than for drunkenness, a sin which the masters
rarely reproved; while neither age nor sex found favour for
sleeping too much. If they slept too long the overseer stood at the
quarter door, armed like a hedgehog, with stick and whip, ready to
deal merciless blows upon those who were a little behind time.
Thus, when the horn blew, there was a general rush for the door,
each trying to be first, as the last one was sure to get a blow from
the brute. He was accounted a good master who allowed his slaves
to leave the field to eat their hoe-cake and salt pork or herrings;
those who had their meals in the field had it thrown in a row in the
corner of the fences or hedge, so as not to lose time to and from
the field.* Consequently loss of sleep was a great privation to the
one whose religious zeal had carried him to a camp meeting at
night, for which he had to pay very dearly the


* Life of Fred. Douglas.
 next day. Anyhow old Jane got square with Walter, for she paid
him for his past offences. But hunger and thrashing had silently
been doing their work in his mind. They served to create and
intensify his desire to be free, which was brought to a climax one
Sunday evening when old Jane began on his poor bones, which he
could bear no longer, and he turned upon the old lady, looking
fiercely at her. Being pressed with blows he raised his hand to
strike her-- what a damnable system that would prompt a man to
strike a woman, however strong and wicked, much less old Jane
Robinson!--but to his honour he did not let his hand come down
upon her. The fierce look and raised hand cured her, for she never
tried to whip him again, we hope, nor any of her other slaves.

It was nonsense for those who were free and lived by slavery to
talk about the comfort of the Negro as a slave, when his monthly
fare was eight pounds of pickled pork or its equivalent in fish; the
pork was often tainted and the fish was of an inferior kind. With
his pork or fish he had given him one bushel of Indian meal,
unbolted, of which fifteen per cent. was fitter for hogs than man;
with this one pint of salt was given. The yearly allowance of
clothing was not more ample than the supply of food. It consisted
of two tow-linen shirts, one pair of trousers of the same coarse
material for summer, and a pair of woollen trousers and a woollen
jacket for winter, with one pair of yarn stockings of the coarsest
description. Children under ten years of age had neither stockings,
shoes, jackets nor trousers. They had two coarse tow-linen shirts
a-year, and when these were worn out they went naked until the
next allowance day. Without the least regard to whether they were
boys or girls, men or women, beds they had none; one coarse
blanket was given them, i.e., men and women; the poor children
had to huddle themselves where they could in the corners of the
huge chimneys, with their feet in the ashes to keep them warm.*

Besides saying that the Negro was better off than pitmen and
sailors, Mr. Spence observed: "The mind of the Negro avoids
reflection on the past, and abstains from investigating the future";
if they did not, they ought to have been kept as slaves "for ever and
ever". But slave-holders lived in a fools' paradise; what brute,
living in a climate such as Maryland, would not feel the pinch of
cold and hunger with the miserable fare they were allowed? What
man would not try and kill, steal, lie, or do anything to satisfy
these cravings? Nay, how did these poor wretches survive under
that cruel curse? Why did they not rise and mercilessly butcher the
fiends who thus maltreated them? Did they not know that "who
would be free, themselves must strike the blow"? Alas! Alas!
Starvation, cold and hunger conspired, and verily took away what
courage was left in them, when they left the shore of their native
land. Yet not all, for there were slaves whose spirit no lash could
ever


*Vide Life and Time of Fred. Douglas, p. 29.
 conquer, whom labour, cold, hunger, and starvation could not
make docile; these stole, escaped, killed bloodhounds, fought their
overseers, and even died rather than be conquered--died martyrs
for the liberty from which either they or their ancestors were
stolen. Walter Hawkins shared this love of freedom and spirit of
resistance to injustice. The close fist which only partly fed him on
hoe-cakes and black treacle, the scanty clothing through which the
fierce, cutting north-wester pierced and chilled his blood, the hard
earth on which he slept, and the deprivation of calling himself his
own, were the forces which made him reflect and haunted him like
a nightmare, and made him think and lay his plans to be his own
master.

What did the slave-holder know of the inmost workings of the
mind of the Negro? Aboriginal barbarity and slavery were the only
circumstances under which they had an opportunity of
contemplating him. What use did they make of these opportunities
to study them? None; and to this day the same ignorance
influences the strong prejudices which abound in the United States
against the Negro. He has characteristics of his own, as his white
brethren have. There lies in him a simple-mindedness which is
mistaken for a love of personal slavery. Indeed, he has little in his
intellect that is separable from his warm affection; while men have
deduced the absurd notion that the Negro is fit for nothing but
subservience to the superior race, they forget that it took their race
thousands of years to evolve a Darwin from the ape condition.
Cicero thought that a Briton was unfit to serve the accomplished
Atticus.

While smarting under this sense of the injustice of the institution
of slavery, the son of Mr. Robinson, who had followed his father's
footsteps in drinking and gambling, came home one day hard up
for cash, and, not knowing any better way to raise money to satisfy
his passions, resolved on selling Walter, whom he called, saying:
"Do you want a master?" Of course, he had no other choice but to
answer: "Yes, sir". So he took the young man to a slave-dealer who
bought and sold slaves to owners in the South. The dealer and
southern plantations brought to his mind all the terrible things he
had heard about those parts, and well he might, for the law by
which slaves were governed in the Carolinas was a provincial law
as old as 1740, but was made perpetual in 1783. By this law every
Negro was presumed a slave unless the contrary appeared. In the
ninth clause, two justices of the peace and three freeholders had
power to put slaves to any manner of death. The evidence against
them might have been without oath. No slave was to traffic on his
own account. Any person who murdered a slave was to pay
£100, or £14 if he cut out the tongue of a slave.
Any white man meeting seven slaves together on a high road could
give them twenty lashes each, and no man could teach a slave to
write under a penalty of £100 currency. The terrors of the
South had nothing to do with young Robinson, who wanted
money, which he valued much more than a Negro. Walter stood by
while the bargain was being made, and heard the dealer offer nine
hundred dollars for his body. Speaking to Walter, he said: "Can
you plough and grub? Can you do general work on the farm?" The
poor fellow could do no more than please his master by answering
"yes" to all his questions, which pleased both the dealer and young
Robinson, for whose benefit all the lies were told. The bargain
being struck, an arrangement was made for Walter to re-appear the
next morning at seven o'clock; at the same time, he was to bid
good-bye to his friends; but be sure, said he, that you are on the
spot at seven. Knowing that he did not mean to go, though his
master had had the price of his body in his pocket, the young man,
who might have been weeping, put his thumbs under what ought to
have been a vest, whistling "Hail, Columba". Being tired of
whistling, he began to think:" You will never see me again, old
man; what a fool you were to part with your money before you got
your goods". But Walter had not yet realised the difficulty of the
situation. So complete were the ramifications of the slave system
that a slave could not get away as easily as he imagined. Still
resolved to flee, he went straight to his old father and told him that
he was sold. "Sold!" exclaimed the old man; "to whom?" "Why, to
old Cidley, the Negro-dealer." After a pause the old man said:
"They will sell my last child," and burst into tears, weeping like a
child. He talked and wept with his son until he bathed the floor at
his feet. At last he said: "Boy, run away". "I will," responded
Walter. But now his troubles began, for he did not know, and the
old man could not tell him, where to go any distance beyond ten
miles in either direction from where they stood, as it was a part of
the policy of slavery to keep them in ignorance as to distance. But
if resolution could not break rocks, it could climb mountains. As
night came on, the old man lay down to find consolation in sleep.
Then it was that Walter crept out of the house into the open field,
looking up to the stars, begging them to befriend a poor Negro in
his endeavour to make good his escape from slavery. But, alas!
there was no answer. Suddenly a thought struck him to go and see
a young man whom he had met at a midnight meeting, and who
was a Christian. He ran and walked until he arrived at the
boarding-house in which he was employed as a waiter. He rapped
at the door, and, as fate would have it, there was no one in but
himself. Looking out of the window, he called out : "Who is
there?" "It is I, Robert!" The young man opened the door and told
Walter to come in. Then Walter told him all his troubles and his
resolve. "Stop here," replied the sympathising fellow. But woe to
Robert if they had caught him in his room! There Walter remained
undisturbed for nearly four weeks.

Certainly when the next morning came there was no Walter to be
found, and we can well imagine the kind of advertisements,
placards, and bloodhounds that would be set on his track, besides
the pressure that would be brought to bear on the old man, his
father, to tell where his son was. Of course he could not tell, as he
did not see him go away. And what were the thoughts of the
runaway? Uppermost in his mind would be the fact that his father
and sister would be wondering whether he was recaptured,
famishing in the woods, dead, or being driven in a slave-gang, such
as they had seen with dread passing through the town. We will
give here an account of one of these gangs as witnessed in Virginia
by an Englishman about seventy-five years ago. "I took the boat
this morning and crossed the ferry over to Portsmouth, the small
town which I told you is opposite to this place. It was a court day,
and a large crowd of people were gathered about the door of the
court-house. I had hardly got upon the steps to look in when my
ears were assailed by the voice of singing, and, turning round to
discover from what direction it came, I saw a group of about thirty
Negroes of different sizes and ages following a rough-looking
white man who sat carelessly lolling in his sulky. They had just
turned round the corner, and were coming up the main street to
pass by the spot where I stood, on their way out of town. As they
came nearer, I saw some of them loaded with chains to prevent
their escape, while others had hold of each other's hands, strongly
grasped, as if to support themselves in their affliction. I
particularly noticed a poor mother with an infant sucking at her
breast as she walked along, while two small children had hold of
her apron on either side, almost running to keep up with the rest.
They came along singing a little wild hymn of sweet and mournful
melody, flying, by a divine instinct of the heart, to the consolation
of religion-- the last refuge of the unhappy--to support them in
their distress. The sulky now stopped before a tavern, a little
distance from the court-house, and the driver got out. . . then he,
having supplied himself with brandy, and his horse with water (the
poor Negroes, of course, wanted nothing), stepped into his chair
again, cracked his whip, and drove on, while the miserable exiles
followed in funeral procession behind him."

Over the spirits there came
A feeling of wonder and sadness--
Strange forebodings of ill,
Unseen, and that cannot be compassed.
As at the tramps of a horse's
Hoof on the turf of the prairies,
Far in advance are closed
The leaves of the shrinking mimosa;
So at the hoof-beats of fate,
With sad forebodings of evil,
Shrinks and closes the heart,
Ere the stroke of doom has attained it.

CHAPTER IV. ESCAPE FROM SLAVERY.

The desires of a people are seldom prejudicial to liberty, because
they commonly spring from actual oppression or an apprehension
of it. --MACHIAVELLI.

Pursuing these ideas, I sat down close by my table, and, leaning my
head upon my hand, I began to figure to myself the miseries of
confinement. I was in a right frame for it, and so I gave full scope
to my imagination. --STERNE.


No wonder that Sydney Smith said: "No virtuous man ought to
trust his character, or the character of his children, to the
demoralising effects produced by commanding slaves. Justice,
gentleness, pity and humanity soon give way before them;
conscience suspends its functions. The love of command, the
maintenance of restraints, get the better of every other feeling, and
cruelty has no other limit than fear." Think what the feelings of
this young Negro must have been in his hiding-place, as all the
horrors of a slave-gang stared him in the face. Trembling, but
never dreading his danger, he crept out one night, and hastened to
tell his poor father and sister that he was still on the best side of
the chain-gang. The moment he opened the door, his step-mother
told him to go out, for the hunters had been there several times
a-day with the bloodhounds to hunt him down. The poor fellow
begged to see his father, but the woman, knowing and fearing the
penalty of his being seen there, insisted on his leaving the house,
and that right away; so he obeyed and stepped out of the door. Just
as he did so, one of the two-legged bloodhounds who were looking
for him entered the gate. While he hesitated to see whether Walter
was his prize, the lad bolted like a shot out of a cannon. Kind fate
had interposed, for the constable had not his dogs with him that
time, or he would have captured his man. It was little use the
fellow giving chase to a young man running for his life and liberty,
for Walter soon left him out of sight and sound, and back he went
to his hiding-place at his friend Robert's, where he arrived with the
perspiration dripping from his face, while his whole body was
trembling with fear. Robert not being in on his arrival, Walter sat
down to recover himself, and he no sooner gathered himself
together than Robert walked in, and wanted to know what was the
matter. "Why," said Walter, "I had a narrow escape of being caught
by the constable." "Then," replied Robert, "you must go from here
now; you can't stay any longer"; for he knew that if the two-legged
bloodhound had kept up the chase he would be sure to make
enquiry there, and, if found, he would be severely punished for
harbouring a runaway. "I can't," said Walter, "as I don't know
where to go, and I have no money to get food with." The good
friend put his hand in his pocket and took out a five-dollar note,
saying: "This will take you to a free country". Then arose another
difficulty, viz., the passport, in the shape of free papers, that he
might show when he went for his railway ticket. So Walter said: "I
have no free papers, and I don't know any way to get them. I have
not even any white to be my friend to say I am free." To be sure,
no white man in that part of the country would tell a lie or disgrace
himself by helping a Negro to make good his escape. So why
dream about it? "Now is your chance to make the best of a bad
job," said Robert. While they were thus discussing, another freed
man came in, not knowing that Walter had taken refuge there: so
that Walter had to tell him his troubles, and how he had escaped
the constable. "Why," said the fellow, "the hounds have just gone
by; 'tis a wonder they did not stop here and ask or search for you.
Here is five dollars; it will take you where you want to go." Yet
neither he nor Robert could tell the runaway the exact route he was
to take. "Anyhow," said they, "go, and we will pray for you if you
will pray for yourself." Blessed encouragement! Well might
Tennyson make Edith say:-- 


 "God help me! I know nothing--can but pray,

 For Harold pray--pray, pray, no help but prayer,

 A breath that fleets beyond this iron world

 And touches Him that made it."

Why should not these two Negroes pray for their Friend who was
suffocating in bondage, and now seeks to breathe fresh air? "What
an asylum hath the troubled soul in prayer." In the awful solitude
of night, in the yearnings of the soul for freedom from physical or
moral bondage, and in the thrill of sacred emotions which stirs our
inmost soul, there is consolation in prayer. Now, if the
slave-holder prays to God, why should not the slave pray? Surely if
the Deity loves justice and abounds in compassion He might help
the poor Negro.

Robert discussed the route to the free country with both his
friends, and gave Walter what hints he could, and bade the
runaway "Godspeed".

Having taken leave of Robert, Walter and his other freed friend
started and arrived at the house of the latter in perfect safety. Here
he stayed from Friday night until Monday morning. When the day
dawned, and ere the monarch of the day began to scale the
horizon, Walter was up and made for the dep“t (railway-station),
where he found crowds of people, both white and black, taking
their tickets for Baltimore-- the whites were being served first. Our
runaway stood aside until everyone had been served, and then he
stepped boldly to the wicket door to get his, when he was saluted
by the ticket-seller with "Good-morning," quite a coincidence, as
blacks were always expected to salute first. Having returned the
compliment, he asked for a ticket. "Where are you going?" was the
next query, asked in a short, sharp tone (as if to throw him off his
guard), although very good-naturedly. "Baltimore," was the ready
reply, with the complimentary, "sir". According to custom he
ought to have asked Hawkins for his papers, but the quick reply,
spoken in a confidential tone, brought the ticket, and Walter
handed him the money. The booking-clerk went on writing, and
the other made his way to the railway carriage, took his seat in a
dirty one, in which only Negroes were made to travel. Not many
minutes after the train started off, having in the same compartment
a few Negroes, but fearing lest they should speak to him, and
therefore the more readily recognise that he was a runaway, or
cross-question him in a manner that might lead him to betray
himself, Hawkins played the fool by whittling some pieces of
wood which he had picked up about the station, and, taking some
strings out of his pockets, and a piece of paper, made and unmade
a parcel until he arrived at Baltimore. Here he got out.

Being hungry, he asked a boy to show him a place where he could
get some food, who directed him to a basement which was used as
an eating-house. While going down the steps a fine-looking man
met him face to face. "Good-morning," said he to Walter, with a
knowing sort of look, which aroused the suspicion of the runaway.
Keeping his wits about him, he continued down and asked the
price of a meal, when he was told it would be twenty-five cents. In
this place he happened to see his own likeness on a bill which he
thought contained a reward for his capture. At once he thought that
the man who had spoken to him was not his friend, but one who
was looking out for runaways. So he put on a bold front, gave the
man twenty-five cents, and asked him to keep the food warm for
him. If the man is still keeping that eating-house, he may be
keeping the food warm yet, for, instead of returning, he took to his
heels, leaving both the food and the man behind him. When he got
out of sight he asked another boy--he was afraid to address an
adult--to tell him the name of the nearest free State, and where he
could get a car that could take him there. "Look!" said the little
fellow, "there they are, and they will be going soon!" We ought to
tell the reader that Baltimore was one of the centres of the
anti-slavery movement, and it was in that city that Benjamin
Lundy, the John the Baptist of the new era, established an
anti-slavery journal, The Genius of Universal Emancipation,in
1821, and laboured until 1831, at which time he wrote: "I have,
within the period above-named (ten years), sacrificed thousands of
dollars of my own earnings. I have travelled upwards of five
thousand miles on foot, and more than twenty thousand miles in
other ways; have visited nineteen States of this union, and held
more than two hundred public meetings; have performed two
voyages to the West Indies, by which means the emancipation of a
considerable number of slaves has been effected, and the way
paved for the enfranchisement of many more." It was in this same
city that Dr. Buchanan delivered an oration in 1731 upon the
"Moral and Political Evil of Slavery". What would Walter
Hawkins have given if he had only known that there were such
men at Baltimore as Quaker Lundy? It was not to be, so he made
his way to the dep“t; when he got there he found a crowd similar
to what he met at the first railway station. Instead of waiting, as he
had done before, he pressed forward, only to be cursed and sworn
at by the booking-clerk, to stand by while the white people got
served; but there was danger in that, as he might have been seen by
the man, who would certainly not lose sight of him again. So with
all the cheek imaginable he pushed his way within the barrier.
When the fellow demanded to see his free papers, without any
hesitation he pulled out the bundles which he had made of whittled
wood, etc., in the train on his way from Haverdegrass to Baltimore.
But by another happy coincidence for him the ticket-seller did not
ask him to open it, but simply gave him a ticket. Without further
ceremony he made his way to the proverbial black people's car,
and soon the train steamed out. No sooner had he made himself
comfortable than they crossed a river which made him think that
he was being taken back to Washington, but it was a false alarm,
because he was only crossing into the State of Delaware, famous
for being one of the first States where the Quakers began to
emancipate their slaves, and about this time Delaware had only
about three thousand slaves. There they stopped, but Walter did
not get out, and happily no one came to look for him while the
train was in the station. Off she started again, but it was a long
time before the train stopped again; whatever station this was he
did not know nor did he ask, for he was as much afraid to trust a
Negro as a white man, nor would he get out to procure some food,
as he had had enough experience at Baltimore, the shock of which
he had not yet quite recovered from; indeed, quietude and hunger
were preferred to a full stomach and slavery, therefore he kept his
seat, and made himself as happy as possible under the
circumstances. At last the train ran into Wilmington: he did not
offer to move for the next three-quarters of an hour, a terrible long
time for him (minutes were as long as days to him): it was as
though someone was waiting to lay hold of him. "Oh, what must I
do? Shall I enquire of someone when the train is going to start and
where she is going?" Neither the grandeur of the city nor the
beautiful scenery around had any charm for the runaway; everyone
who passed the railway carriage appeared to him like a ghost.
While he was thus agitated a man entered the carriage in which he
sat and began making signs and all sorts of unintelligible sounds,
but neither the one nor the other could draw the badger. "You may
shout, old fellow," thought he, "but you will have to talk before I
get out of this car"; but the poor man was deaf and dumb, and what
he wanted Walter does not know until this day. In the meantime
the engine came up and hitched on to the carriage, but, just before
starting, two Negresses stepped into the compartment in which he
was sitting, for although they were well-dressed and nearly white
they had to take their seat in the same filthy carriage in which the
other black people travelled, whether slaves or freed men. The
whistle blew and the train started; it was no sooner out of the
station than they sat one on either side of Walter, the runaway, and
addressed him with a "good-afternoon," to which he replied:
"Good-afternoon, ladies, are you travelling any distance?" "Yes,"
was the reply. My word, what a change had come over him! How
soon he broke the seal from his lips! What a contrast between
these and the other people who had bidden him the time of day!
"Are you running away?" was the next poser they put to him. "I
have sold myself at last," thought he. If he had kept up his
reticence all might have been well, but an answer was expected.
"What shall I say? Shall I tell a lie? Can I play the same trick as I
played upon the two booking-clerks I left behind me?" These were
the thoughts which rushed uppermost in his mind. "If I tell a lie
and escape, it will be better than to tell the truth and be
recaptured." So he answered: "No, I am not". Of course, hesitation
to answer made the damsels ask more questions. "Have you ever
travelled any before?" which produced further embarrassment. As
he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, he answered:
"Yes". Still these ladies were not satisfied, so they had to further
cross-examine him. "Were are you going?" Having overcome his
difficulty, as he thought, he most readily replied: "To
Philadelphia". Still they pressed him with another query: "Have
you ever been there?" Although he had not, he found no difficulty
in saying "Yes". But the ladies, who professed they were seeking
for information, demanded of him to tell them what sort of a place
the city of William Penn was. To which our friend confidentially
replied: "Well, ladies, it is a fine place, filled with great big brick
houses," at which they laughed heartily, for they belonged to the
place. Knowing he was the man for whom they were looking, they
replied: "We live in Philadelphia, and have seen the bills
advertising for you, and we are sent by friends to find you before
they take you back to the South. Are you hungry?" Hunger was not
the name to express his condition, for he could have eaten a
donkey and given chase to the rider. The news sounded too good to
be true; nevertheless he answered: "Yes". Then they opened one of
their baskets which contained all sorts of dainties, and told him to
help himself, which he most assuredly did, for he ate and ate until
he felt uncomfortable about the buttons. After a chat poor Walter
Hawkins fell asleep, a thing he would not have done if he had had
no confidence in the integrity of the ladies. He slept the rest of the
journey, and never woke until one of them said: "We are in
Philadelphia". The poor fellow awoke to find that he had been
resting his weary head upon the lap of one of these angels of
peace. On opening his eyes he caught sight of the lovely black eyes
of the damsel looking at him with so much sweetness and
compassion that, to use his own words: "I did not want to get up";
moreover, it was the most comfortable pillow he ever had in his
life. When he got up she said: "You are free now"--a statement
which he could not believe though he had undergone so much
trouble to obtain it, but his friends reassured him that he was really
free; and, having given him some instructions about his
movements in the city, they got out of the carriage while he stood
overwhelmed with astonishment. At last the ladies bade him
farewell.

Philadelphia has the honour of being the city in which the
convention to frame the Federal Constitution met on the 25th of
May, 1787, when the illustrious George Washington was chosen
president, and it was there, on the 8th of August of the same year,
that Governor Morris of Pennsylvania made his famous speech,
which ran as follows: "I never would concur in upholding domestic
slavery. It was a nefarious institution. It was the curse of heaven on
the States where it prevailed. Compare the free regions of the
middle States, where a rich and noble cultivation marks the
prosperity and happiness of the people, with the misery and
poverty which overspreads the barren wastes of Virginia,
Maryland, and the other slave States. Travel through the whole
continent and you will see the prospect continually varying with
the appearance and disappearance of slavery. The moment you
leave the Eastern States and enter New York the effects of the
institution become visible. Passing to the Jerseys and entering
Pennsylvania every criterion of superior improvement witnesses
the change. Proceed southwardly, and every step you take through
the great regions of slavery present a desert, increasing with the
increasing proportion of this wretchedness. Upon what principle is
it that the slaves shall be computed in the representation? Are they
men? Then make them citizens and let them vote. Are they
property? Why, there is no other property included! It comes to
this, that the inhabitants of Georgia and South Carolina who go to
the coast of Africa, in defiance of the most sacred laws of
humanity, tear away their fellow creatures from their dearest
connections and damn them to the most cruel bondage." This
powerful speech was followed by others, but we have not room to
quote them. In 1794 we find that an anti-slavery convention was
held in Philadelphia, in which nearly all the Abolition Societies of
the States were represented, and at which a memorial was drawn
up and addressed to Congress, praying it to do what it could to
suppress the slave traffic. In 1795 another meeting was held in the
city, when the Act of Congress was read: "An act to prohibit the
carrying out of the slave trade from the United States to any
foreign place or country". And, finally, it was in the city of
Philadelphia that certain Negro citizens met in 1800 and drew up
and presented a memorial to Congress calling attention to the slave
trade between the United States and the coast of Guinea.

CHAPTER V. "FOUND AT LAST."

Disguise thyself as thou wilt, slavery! Still thou art a bitter
draught; and though thousands, in all ages, have been made to
drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. Is it thou,
liberty? Thrice sweet and gracious goddess! whom all, in public or
in private, worship; whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so, till
nature herself can change. --STERNE.

AT the time when Walter Hawkins arrived in Philadelphia it was
called a free city and county; yet the young ladies, who gave him
the information that he was free, dared not be seen with him after
they had left the train, so that he had to do the best he could. He
was told that there were always kidnappers hanging about on the
look-out for runaway slaves, through whom he might be taken
back to the dark South. While groping about the city, he met a lad
whom he thought he could trust, and asked him if he knew the
whereabouts of one Walter Proctor. "Yes!" said the lad. "Show me
where he lives," said the runaway, "and I'll pay you"--not that he
had more money than wit. With that offer the little fellow willingly
led him quite a distance from where he was standing towards the
abode of Uncle Proctor. At last his guide said: "Look down there in
that cellar!" But the man whom he had been seeking heard them
talking, and, looking up, threw down his work, he being a
shoemaker, and ran up the steps, singing: "God will answer prayer,
God will answer prayer!" With that hymn in his mouth he seized
Walter, the runaway, by the arms, and took him down into the
cellar, saying: "I knew that God would answer prayer". To his
unutterable joy, the old man said: "Boy, where have you come
from?" "Home, sir," he replied. "Well, well; your eldest brother
lives here, in this city, and has been here for years, and both of us
have been praying for you." This old Negro was a Methodist
minister to his race in the city, and was highly esteemed by all who
knew him. The Bishop says: "He was a good man, one who
exhibited in his daily life and conversation a sanctity which
showed he lived in a city whose builder and maker is God".
Blessed saint! the Eternal, not ourselves, will reward thee for thy
goodness and humanity to many of thy oppressed race, above and
beyond all thy expectation. We have not seen thee, nor have had
the privilege of being blessed by thy hospitality, but thou hast
given to one of our down-trodden race such of thy bounty as thou
couldst. God blessed thee and thine. Farewell! The dear old man
took Walter to his brother's house. When he arrived there, he was
disappointed to find that he was not at home; but his good wife
took him in, though she had never seen him before. There he sat in
another room alone until his brother returned from his work, at a
boarding-house where he was employed. When he came and
entered the room in which his younger brother was sitting, they
were both speechless, as they looked at each other. Hawkins the
elder walked out, went upstairs whistling and came down again,
into the yard and back again to the room. Why this strange conduct
? Surely he must know his brother! But he did not; until the
younger brother laughed and stood up. The poor fellow stepped up
to him, and they both embraced each other, and remained silent for
about ten minutes, being lost in rapturous ecstasy, neither knowing
what the other had said.

At last Hawkins the elder broke the spell with: "I have been
praying for you to be free. Where did you come from, and how?"

Of course, Walter had to tell his whole story through. His
hairbreadth escape from the slave-gang, how he dodged the
constable at his father's gate, after nigh a month's hiding in his
friend Robert's room; how the latter and his friend gave him ten
dollars, with which he got his railway ticket; how he played the
fool in the train on his journey to Baltimore, and the narrow escape
he had while going down a basement to get some food, and all
about the pretty young ladies who befriended him in the train from
Wilmington to Philadelphia.

But how did the runaway know there was ever such a man in
Philadelphia as Walter Proctor the good? When he was a slave at
old Jane Robinson's--beside Parson Baulch, who used to preach
roaring sermons to the slaves--once a month special preachers
visited the neighbourhood to conduct services such as Moody and
Sankey did in England. These special preachers very frequently
were black freed men, who had permission from the local mayor to
hold forth for nine days only; so it happened that old Proctor had
visited his town a few times. Hawkins took these opportunities to
have some personal interviews with the old man, by which means
he got to know that, once he reached Philadelphia, he would be in
a free city. Now, these itinerant Negro preachers were not
permitted to remain in a slave district any longer than the specified
nine days, and if they stayed longer they were at once put under
arrest, as rogues and vagabonds, and lodged in gaol. After a time
they were sold (if no one came to pay their fine) to the highest
bidder, for the gaol fees, etc. The buyer would then hold them in
bondage as long as he desired, for the money he had paid; or--if he
saw a chance of turning over an almighty dollar--sell them to
another, worse or better than himself.

These preachers knew what it was to confront night, storms,
hunger, accident, ridicule, and all manner of rebuffs, in order to
carry some consolation to the poor slaves. It was this cup of
consolation which gave the slave, who was not a drunkard,
strength to bear his bondage with so much patience and toleration.

Although slaves were religious, the religion was neither deep nor
sound. The religious instruction which they received did not
represent the best view of Christianity. How could it, when the
influence of the church was exerted continually to repress and to
produce absolute outward submission?

Such influence, even if it had been wholesome, could and did not
penetrate deep or mould with much force the inner workings of the
soul. It served to produce an outward conformity to the views of
the master, while it left the heart of the slave untouched. Thus
their religion as a whole was emotionalism, which found an outlet
in those songs which rent the hills and filled the valleys at camp
meetings with gladsome joy, and which made their taskmasters
think that they had no longings for freedom.

How, then, could these people improve morally under conditions
which violated every principle of the moral law? It is said that
paganism has no rule of right and wrong, no supreme and
immutable judge, no intelligible revelation, and no fixed dogma;
yet the paganism from whence the slaves were stolen was a better
condition than the miserable caricature of Christianity in the midst
of which they lived. The being of God, the facts of revelation, the
universal brotherhood of man--whether he be evolved from apes or
descended from the gods--the obligation of the moral law and
immortality, were doctrines which masters believed concerned
themselves; but they lacked charity to include the Negroes, for
whom religion only served as an opiate to their cruel torture.
Nevertheless, amid all the disadvantages of the iniquitous
institution of slavery, and in spite of every prohibition to keep the
light from the Negro slaves, a ray of light shone, thrown from the
cross of Christ, into the souls of some few, through the preaching
of fragments of the Gospel, which opened up a new world to them,
whence they saw that through suffering and affliction there was a
path which no slavery could block--a light which brightened the
darkness of the present and reflected a halo of glory over the
future, and gave their rude songs a ring of heartiness and certainty
which electrified Jefferson and his countrymen so that they
"trembled for their country". Their rude conception of religion
gave the slaves a new language, which found expression in
rapturous music: often labouring and suffering all day and singing
all night sacred songs which in rude but impressive utterance set
forth their sad fortunes and their hopes for the future. Where, in
the whole annals of history, has there been found such a mighty
chorus of music from bondsmen? The Jews wept by the rivers of
Babylon, and the American Indians died under their yoke, but not
so the Negro, who mocked his woes and chased his weary hours
with some of the most thrilling music that ever fell on the ears of
mortals. That such people should be kept in bondage for ever--or,
now they are free, to re-enslave them--is impossible. While
slave-owners thought that nothing would prevent them from
keeping their slaves as such, the slaves realised an affinity--a
mysterious relationship--between their spirit and the Spirit of the
Universe, who would deliver them. It was in the profound belief in
a Moral Governor of the Universe that the Negro centred all his
hopes, all his latent perfections, and all his ideals of the future. In
spite of all appearances to the contrary, they believed that the
Supreme Will was good to each one of the beings whom it
summoned and drew to itself.

In spite of all his errors, his failures, his corruptions, his miseries
and environments, the Negro was never wrong in following the
sacred impulse that impelled him to trust the invisible incentive,
which ultimately raised him from the mire of social, mental, moral
and religious degradation, in which slavery had placed him, to
have confidence in God. "There are two ways," says Dr. Wescott,
"by which we can attain the highest spiritual truth: the way of
feeling and the way of thought." The Negro only knew the way of
feeling, and this he used with all his might. Better it is to have all
feeling and no thought than to have thought without feeling.

Law, whether written or unwritten, regulated the conduct of slaves.
Masters knew that slavery was an institution inflicted upon an
unwilling people. Thus, if they were out after prohibited hours,
they were pursued by a posse of watchmen, and, if caught (or any
one out of a number), they were lodged in gaol or the watch-house
until the following morning, when they were taken out and
whipped--the same principle was applied to both freed men and
slaves. Nevertheless, if the slave had an indulgent master he would
not let his slave be whipped at the public whipping-post, but the
poor freed man could not escape. It must not, however, be
supposed that the slaves always took the whipping quietly, and
endured every insult without a murmur, for there were men like
Frederick Douglas, who dared to tackle a monster like Covey,
while he fairly sickened Hughes with a blow, and Knowls's Jim,
who became obdurate to the ill-treatment of slavery until he was
feared by constables, night watchmen, and even his master. This
Knowls's Jim was the slave of a carriage-builder whose name was
Knowls; a Negro worthy of his race. He stood six feet two inches,
well built and as black as night. The fellow had been ill-treated
once too often, and became indifferent, and finally only worked
when he got good and ready. He was a good workman, but when
he would not work his master was put to great inconvenience. He
managed to compel respect by sheer force of character; yes, and he
loved his master! but one day a gang of slaves passed through the
town (similar to the one above described) where they lived, and his
master, who had the absolute right of disposing his property at
will, sold Jim's sister, who was also a slave, in his absence, not
thinking that anyone would dare to question his right. However, on
his return, Jim for some reason or other asked for his sister--not
dreaming that she had been sold--when he was informed that
Master Knowls had sold her that day. "Where is he?" cried mad
Jim-- for mad he was, the very thought of the poor girl being
loaded with chains, without bidding her good-bye, with all the
horrors of the gang and the dismal South, were quite enough to
transform a lamb into a lion, much less the obdurate Jim. "Where
is he?" "I don't know," was his mistress's reply. "By heavens!" said
Knowls's Jim, " my sister shall come back, or I'll have his life."
The fellow rushed into the house, armed himself with his
pistol--for he owned one long before this--and out he came. "The
moment he comes I'll shoot him, if I die the next moment." Well
done, brave fellow! "blood is thicker than water, and love is
stronger than death". A million resolute Negroes like Knowls's Jim
would have settled the slave question in America long before the
Civil War. Nothing that they could say to the big black Negro
would satisfy him: either his sister's deliverance from the brutal
gang, or two would die-- the master by the hand of his slave, and
Knowls's Jim by the slave laws, which forbade a Negro to touch a
white man. Slave-holder Knowls was neither without good sense
nor feeling, therefore he sent post haste after the captive maid, and
bought her for more than he had received for her. Brave son of
Ham! "If a man shall and must be valiant, he must march and quit
himself like a man, trusting imperturbably in the Upper Powers,
and, on the whole, not fear at all. Now and always the
completeness of his victory over fear will determine how much of
a man he is." Thee, Knowls's Jim, we did not know personally, but
have learnt from thy love and courage to undeceive men, that they
might know that the love of kin and country which has
immortalised Greeks and Romans will yet prove the saviour of our
race. May thy children's children inherit thy unconquerable valour!
Those who never held men as slaves, but had sympathy with the
system, will regard such an act as Jim's with disfavour, and will
probably censure his conduct as having been wicked on his part!
But we who are descendants of slaves, or have been such, can offer
no apology, because we know only too well that it was in the
interest of the institution that we and our ancestors were watched
and cowed. The masters had to deal with thinking animals like
themselves, and not with wood, earth, and stone, and for their own
safety and prosperity they had need to study, not so much the
comfort of those animals, but the workings of the mind. They
knew that slaves had little respect for a coward, and they felt the
same contempt for a snarling slave. The operation of their minds
they watched with practised skill: they learnt to read with trained
eyes the state of their slave's heart and mind through their sable
faces. Unusual sobriety, apparent abstraction, sullenness or
indifference often afforded ground for suspicion and enquiry; not
unfrequently an innocent man or woman was punished into
confession of guilt they had never dreamt. Like the Inquisition, it
was under such suspicion that a master would say: "You have got
the devil in you, and I'll whip him out of you". When it would have
been more accurate to say that he, not the slave, was possessed by
his Satanic Majesty. Suspicion and torture, being the instruments
which they used to get at the truth, had the useful effect of either
forcing them to run away like Walter Hawkins, or becoming
callous like Knowls's Jim; but more often it made these poor
wretches appear joyous and content when they were suffering most
intensely. In fact, these worse than wretched taskmasters had the
saying: "When the nigger is down keep him down, for when the
nigger rises hell rises"; and yet another of their inhuman sayings:
"Give the nigger an inch, he'll take an ell; if you give the nigger a
horse he'll drive it to hell ". No men, not even Spanish
Inquisition-mongers, could have been more suspicious than
slave-holders; and had Knowls's Jim killed his master, and himself
lynched, we would have canonised him as a blessed martyr ere
this. In these days, when we hear so much about the Negro
problem in America and in the West Indies, we would tell
alarmists that they need not worry themselves. The Negro requires
neither pity nor patronage, but justice; and justice he will have, in
spite of the hateful prejudices which withhold it from him, for the
fate which determined his emancipation is determining his destiny
in the near future.

 CHAPTER VI. IN PHILADELPHIA. 

A man who can give up dreaming and go to his daily realities; who
can smother down his heart, its love or woe, and take to hard work
of his hand; who defies fate, and, if he must die, dies fighting to
the last,--that man is life's best hero.  -- ANON.

THE ground on which the magnificent city is built was purchased
by William Penn, in January, 1683, from some Swedish settlers.
The site was chosen because it stands on a neck of land between
the Schuylkill and Delaware rivers. Such is the natural beauty of
t